Nick Perzacki > Recent Status Updates

I know this whole book is Burroughs’ heroin fueled ramblings, but this chapter (ordinary men and women) truly felt like he was slipping in and out of consciousness the entire time - the peak of the chapter was definitely the story about the man who taught his asshole to talk, leading his asshole to demand equal rights.

My favorite part of the market chapter is when Burroughs seems to take a break from the story to just talk about how he’s actively high on ayahuasca while writing, then his high ramblings seem to suddenly meld back into the story. This chapter also has a great & funny extended religious rant from (presumably) a drug addict. It almost took till the end of the chapter to get to necrophilia this time; progress!

Pretty straightforward chapter - mainly about the importance of recognizing our own position in society in relation to those positioned outside our orbit/consideration rather than prioritizing the issues faced in our subjective position in society, the limitations of deference politics, and the need for a constructive politics.

TW: Never seen “Wheeeee!” screamed during sex as much as here. Burroughs proves in AJ’s Annual Party that he can write sex in a pleasantly evocative manner when he wants to, right before it devolves into cumming blood, necrophilia, and rape. The next chapter with the doctor presenting a “deanxietized man” and the patient just turns into a giant centipede to the horror of everyone observing was pretty funny.

His description of how capitalism game-ifies incentives and activity in society sounds even more like reification - curious if he would agree with this characterization, or if he views it as a fundamentally different process.

I feel like every update on this book needs a TW: I’m a little confused by the Mugwumps, because earlier I was told their dicks are basically fountains of youth, but I literally just read about one raping a boy to death (I think? It’s hard to tell sometimes with this book). This was just the pre-amble to a crazy gay orgy, attacked by a horde of women who were then chopped down by a pirate. Idk what that was about

He uses the emperor’s new clothes story to demonstrate how the citizens act outside their beliefs in the face of power structures. However, I take a slightly different interpretation - when the “spell” (as he puts it) is cast everyone, including the emperor, is trapped in it. The emperor may have cushier position in the spell, but he can’t really escape/change it without destroying it. Idk im just yapping

When the character descends into a drug trip, I too have absolutely no fucking idea what is happening usually. Dr. Benway made another appearance, this time in a nightmare - to revive a woman who OD’d he used a toilet plunger on an open chest cavity… it didn’t work. Another nightmare included a woman singing the national anthem so loud it literally incinerated a man and made another’s brain hemorrhage.

Always fun to get name drops of other authors I’ve read recently - Franz Fanon & Angela Davis both get a couple mentions in this chapter. Otherwise, honestly I didn’t get a whole lot from this chapter - it’s basically just saying elite capture is endemic to capitalism, as discussed by both those authors and several others he mentions.

Dr. Benway is a fucking menace. I know this is an absurdist world, but to keep a “perfected society” bro is planting Vaseline in suspected-gay men’s assholes and torturing subjects by electric shocking them into a pool of freezing water when they get a boner in their sleep. The riot that breaks out in this society is also absolutely horrific, I should’ve saved this book for Halloween season.

Next time I have a bad high I’m going to leap out of my seat and scream “I’ve got the fear!”
Other banger quotes include:“Like pregnant women lose their teeth feeding a stranger, junkies lose their yellow fangs feeding the monkey”; “Everything indicates that you have, in some unspeakable manner uh… assimilated the District Supervisor. Unfortunately there is no proof.”

Elite capture sounds an awful lot like reification in capitalism but simply in a more sociological sense.

After having read Junky by Burroughs, I can immediately feel the similarities, but also can tell this will be a far more surreal and disturbing book. The language is so evocative, and has already been full of some pretty disturbing/disgusting imagery just in the first two chapters (especially “The Vigilante”)

Jesus, Nick sucks but Amy is next-level batshit insane. I’m proud that one of my guesses was half right, in that her death was staged by her, I just never would have guessed just how far back this plan went. Lowkey was expecting Andie’s corpse in the garden shed or something after we learn just how mental Amy actually is.

At this point I see two primary possibilities, both involving Nick telling Amy about Andie: either she freaked out and he killed her in response (whether an accident or not), or she freaked out and actually did stage everything including her blood. Either way, Nick looks worse and worse with every chapter.

Man, I don’t like Nick or Amy that much, but their parents are the fucking WORST (minus Nick’s mom).

Nick is doing an awfully bad job at not looking completely guilty at every single step, he is so incredibly self-destructive.

Nick actively counting up how many times he’s lied to the police is pretty funny, he’s having way too much fun with it. Amy being so infatuated with Nick at the start is sad to see knowing where they’re going to end up. Really enjoy the split perspectives of their different memories.

Wowza both Nick and Amy lowkey suck right away - they both seem really self-centered in their own special ways and it seems that as a result their relationship at the time of Amy disappearing is anything but healthy. Margo seems also kinda lowkey shitty, but she’s funny so it’s okay.

With the judge dead and the cast narrowed down to 4, my new guesses are: the doctor (most plausible); Vera (least suspicious on paper, makes me suspicious); it’s ghosts of/the guests are being possessed by the people they’ve all killed (most wacky).

2 deaths down, and not much in the way of answers. My best guesses right now are the boatman or the judge - not really any good reason, just initial hunches. Didn’t see the prudish grandma being lowkey woke coming. The General immediately just falling apart and giving up is pretty funny.

We’ve got 10 characters: the detective, the old judge, the young secretary, the sketchy soldier, the military General, the grifter doctor, the conservative grandma, the rich kid, and the butler & his wife. Very funny that their immediate reaction to being accused of murder by a mystery speaker in the wall is to quickly have several drinks. Got an early half-answer to the identity of the host: U. N. Owen = Unknown.

It appears Odrade’s big character climax is her doing maximum rage bait and roasting of the Honored Matres and it’s kind of hysterical - at one point in her inner monologue she lowkey rips into one for having a weak chin. Teg directing the attack on Junction while sitting on Streggi’s shoulders is awesome, I love him. But where’ tf is Duncan? Has he literally just been chilling in the no-ship on Chapterhouse?

The way Murbella talks about Duncan pre- vs post-Agony is heartbreaking, though it seems like maybe it could be only temporary. Murbella describing her consciousness as a sausage, and child-Teg being paraded on Streggi’s shoulders in the war meeting were very silly. I truly don’t know why Herbert added the Jews in space storyline, I’m waiting for any big payoff from that.

Truly the most horrific scene in the series is a room full of adults watching a child be seduced because they think it’s a better way of awakening his ghola memories - that was not fun to read at all, fuck you Duncan and the BG for suggesting that. Unfortunately, I’m also really pumped for Miles to have his memories back, he’s just such a cool ass character.

Now that a worm’s been born, Scytale is so cooked. The Dune-ification of Chapterhouse is truly beginning in earnest.

I like that Teg’s latent powers are just rumors at this point, that’s a fun bit of lore. Also, I was not expecting this at all, but the Duncan & Murbella romance is a huge highlight in this book - the scene where she wakes him up just to talk her through a nightmare caused by her fears of the Bene Gesserit oath was so pure and wholesome, I loved it.

Two pretty interesting revelations/theories came out of Duncan’s talk with Bell - maybe the Honored Matres aren’t as strong as they project and are actually on the run; what if Duncan isn’t a ghola, but a super Face Dancer?

Pretty funny that some poor Reverend Mother has the mundane job of constantly monitoring Duncan and Murbella’s sex life.

Tensions are rising, Duncan and Murbella stay fuckin, and Odrade keeps making me laugh with inner dialogue like “No more truffles?”. It’s also always funny when one of the characters gets really passionate about a person from our history (Odrade with Van Gogh) because they just ramble about some guy who died like 25000 years ago and the other person’s usually just like “….okay?”

Not a single main POV character actually wants to do things the way the Bene Gesserit want them done, so it’s a constant balancing act of rage baiting and diplomacy (deception); it’s very fun to read as they all plot internally and we witness it progressively unfold. Curious how Duncan is gonna swing his apparent declaration of seeking the end of the Bene Gesserit straight into their cameras and microphones