My name is Monk and I’m a storyteller from Philadelphia the 215.
DESIRE HOPE DESPAIR
is a phrase from my response to r. cutlass's Is Sci-fi Political? prompt in METROPOLARITY's 2013 debut zine, which goes:
"OUR SCI-FI DOESN’T OPERATE ON LEFT/RIGHT BEING/NOT BEING AGGRESSIVE/PASSIVE DOMINANT/SUBMISSIVE BINARIES. IT OPERATES ON DESIRE, HOPE, DESPAIR."
When I talk about sci-fi I speak about a magic that shapes worlds. That magic can be called fantasy, dreaming, shaping change, liberation technologies, and so on. That magic must be practiced to prevent it from turning destructive. The magic spans generations.
I also talk about the ‘sci-fi’ that is a propaganda tool for state and empire, power holders, abusers, land owners, war mongers. Speculation is both wondering about possibility and constricted planning around resources. Much state and imperial sci-fi comes from unwitting places, such as authors who write about the near future as a place where capital manages to further deepen its assimilation of our very existence, passed off as cutting edge social commentary.
Sci-fi is fantasy and fiction is sci-fi inherently. Writing is an act of freezing a moment in time. Written language is a tool just as speaking is, yet writing and recording technologies extend our human-animal capabilities for storage and transmission beyond the confines of our flesh body. I speak to you, mediated here, from the tender interior of my fleshy brain, from a place and time apart from your own, hoping to communicate with you and influence you to remember me. Thus is all transmission of historical fact and political fiction.
ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴍᴇ
A storyteller and sloganeer, co-founder of METROPOLARITY collective and author of the ALL THAT’S LEFT series.
Born and raised by a post-colonial post-industrial brokeass city currently called Philadelphia, once Lenapehoking.
A mixed white Mexican Irish Italian jawn from a big blended working class family, one of two to go to college and the only one for a liberal arts degree. Unable to be groomed for ‘success’ in time.
Characterized in disposition as the Piccolo type according to DBZ contexts.
Nonbinary meaning experiencing both/all/more than the false masculine/feminine gender binary, and tactically aligned trans within the imperialist trans/cis binary.
A survivor of feminized violence and generational psychological strife.
Cyborg, hybrid, serpent and crossroads.
Searching for a way out from Disn*y kingdoms, mythic empires, and romanticized colonies. Struggling through depression to dream deeply for the end of politicians, nation-states, technocrats, cops, soldiers, border patrol, scarcity, and the beginning of something glimmering far away, effervescing of joy.
ꜱᴜʙꜱᴄʀɪʙᴇ
I’ll send you a missive just about every moon cycle, and hopefully it will lift your spirits or give you something to chew on.
Visit CYBORGMEMOIRS.COM to find my current offering of short stories, spells, essays, audio tales, and book reviews.
