004: It's All About the Vibes
We know what we want and it’s idiosyncratic dislocation
One thing readers have always said about STP is that we have a ‘distinct vibe’. The vibe we’ve coalesced around isn’t one I consciously set out to find, but I have developed an eye for it over the past few years. Unfortunately, having such a specific vibe means I’m really fucking picky about the stories I accept for the magazine and I can often go a loooong time without accepting anything. I recently came to the end of one such drought (look out for “The Power Company Detective” by Joe Koch in the next issue, alongside "Kay Vaindal’s “The Void Bites”) and it got me thinking — what makes a story an STP story?
I’m gonna go right back to Issue #1 to start answering this, and another Joe Koch story — “Eating Bees From the Ass of God”. A surreal, nightmarish fever dream with an immediate sense of dislocation that never rights itself. That latter quality, what I often refer to as ‘off-kilter’, is perhaps one of the defining attributes of most STP stories. It can manifest in infinite ways, limited only by the imagination and artistry of the writer, but I never want to feel fully tethered while I’m reading one of our stories, never quite comfortable with the setting I’m inhabiting or quite sure how reliable is the information I’m receiving. I want to feel like I’m balanced on top of a jenga tower that could collapse at any moment, though it never quite does.
One thing that’s become clear to me over the years is that what a story is about is the least important thing about it. You could give me the most imaginative batshit intriguing premise, it could even be competently written, but if it’s not executed in that particularly unhinged way, if it’s not suffused with that sense of unease, dread, narrative or moral ambiguity, then it’s likely not going to be for us.
Of course this is all nebulous bullshit, and I’m cringeing at how close I’m coming to “send us your most intimate desires, your salty bewitchings, your falling stars, your most exquisite and prepossessing inner worlds”. The problem is it is all nebulous bullshit and what it basically comes down to is my idiosyncrasies as a reader — I’m just a reader who also happens to be some guy who edits a magazine and decides what goes in it, for good or ill.
I don’t think newsletters are designed to be overlong, so I’m gonna leave it there for now as an introductory dive into my thoughts, and come back to it later in a Part 2: Seize The Boogaloo.
There are lots of lamposts in the world
Speaking of vibes, the vibes coming out of the US now are fucked. While it does feel like the desperate flailings of an empire in decline, that decline can be protracted and dangerous. So first off I want to offer my solidarity to all of you living in the US who are afraid or uncertain of the future; I don’t know what it is yet, but we’re gonna organise something to help affected communities in whatever way we can. We’re a transatlantic team; Karlo has boots on the ground and me and Rebecca have our — I dunno — wily British charm, but more seriously compassion for our fellow humans, and we’ll channel that in whatever way we can.
That said, we’ve decided the time has come to get the fuck off Twitter. Musk’s fascist salute at Trump’s inauguration was the last straw; there’s the ruling class who own the things we use and then there’s outright fascists, and we can’t in good conscience remain on a platform owned by someone like Elon Musk. So if you want to stay connected with us in other ways, we’re on:
Bluesky: seizethepress.bsky.social
Patreon: patreon.com/seizethepress
Discord: https://discord.gg/Eu4n8Uq2gU
See you there!
As is becoming tradition, we’ve got another short story recommendation for you to round things out. This time Rebecca is in the hot seat to tell you about “The Kwak Race” by Manuela Draeger, translated by Brian Evenson and published in The Baffler #76.
In this curious city, people are disappearing. Those who are left are losing their memory. It all happened after the last rain of shooting stars. Bobby Potemkin has been tasked with investigating the case of Alfons Tchopp, if only he can remember to do it.
This is my first foray into Draeger’s work; I am a fan of the short stories of Brian Evenson and was curious to read something he had translated. Manuela Draeger is a fictional author, one of many heteronyms created by the French-Russian author Antoine Volodine, which is itself a pseudonym. Masks behind masks then, the story seemed like a mystery even before I had read it.
The Kwak Race, originally published as La Course au Kwak, is a surreal and magical story full of fantastical creatures such as the Intermiteiary, who are beautiful golden feathered creatures. The mushrooms are not only sentient, but they are getting ideas above their station. They keep everyone up at night with their whistling.
Despite its deep strangeness, there’s something curiously earnest about this story - in France, Draeger’s works were published by École des Loisirs - a children’s publisher. It makes me think about how, up until a certain age, as children we are much more willing to accept deviations from normality without questioning. This story captures that magic of that phase where we don’t ask why. The rules of make believe games are fluid.
Only the kwak can win the kwak race; those are the rules. Last year, though, it wasn’t the kwak who won the race but someone named Alfons Tchop. It isn’t spoken about on television or elsewhere because it doesn’t interest anybody. But a police file was opened.
Manuela Draeger herself is a character in the story, we are told only that she is a “strange jazz harpist”. There is a meta quality to the work; I am under the impression that the body of Volodine’s work all ties together and I have only scratched the surface.
That’s all for now, solidarity and stay safe.
Jonny, Karlo, & Rebecca