Described simply as “A Novel” in its subtitle, Puck is really something quite more than that. A fictional story, yes, but also a tour of some of the “weirder” aspects of Gene’s universe — and mine.

Pick, pock, puck!

I won’t try to describe much that goes on, save to say that the story takes places in two parallel(?) universes, and sometimes in the spaces between them. You got your swords ‘n’ wizards fantasy adventure, you got your romance, you got your mystery and intrigue, you got your modern psychological drama, you got your science fiction — everything, indeed, that one could ask for in a modern novel.

But there’s more…

Puck is a book on several different levels. It’s loaded with references to mythology, anarchism, religious traditions, history, the odder bits of physics and a whole bunch of classical literature to boot. I consider myself a fairly learned guy, but Mr. Gene has been treading this planet a bit longer than I have, and his learning shines through brilliantly. To paraphrase another great novelist: this book is like a mirror; if a monkey looks in, no Korzybski looks out.

From page 105:

[Doc and Sophia] shared several passion-filled years, but by the time Doc was finishing graduate school — when the loudest political voices in the Village were proclaiming that AIDS was a government plot against the gay and minority communities, and were fighting pitched battles with the police over control of Tompkin’s Square Park — he had grown disillusioned with what he had come to regard as the posturing of bored, rich kids. It wasn’t that he had no sympathy for their grievances, but rather that he now perceived their activism as more a palliative for their own boredom and frustration than as a real attempt to address the injustices that were their purported motivation. He suspected that their protests were a contemporary manifestation of the same impulse that had motivated Uncle Franz’s Cabala studies. The radicals he knew seemed to believe that if only they could arrange their political slogans in accord with some occult formula, then the ruling elite peacefully would release the reins of power, liberate the masses, dismantle the military-industrial complex, and sow flower gardens over the obsolete missile silos.

Read with caution, ready to remember just how flimsy your paradigms are, and just how liable they are to slip, like flimsy masks, off the face of reality.

Puck you! Puck me! Puck everyone!

YES WE CAN!

And we can do it.

Just do it!

Do it now. Do it because your country wants you to. Do it for… do it for love! Do it for… do it for God and CHILDREN and justice in your neighborhood. Do IT for consistency! Do it for philosophy. DO IT FOR AMERICA!

We can do it! Together! We can do it for fun. We can do it for PEACE. We can smash the state (and avoid collapse, mass starvation, conquest by hostile aliens, etc.*) before next Tuesday! We can create a voluntary society based on love and compassion. And we can do it for MASSIVE PROFITS!

Would you like an action plan to improve your life? Do you want to guarantee your retirement and your children’s future? Do you want to know just how EASY all this is? How you can make it all happen by accident? And all for the very special introductory price of $19.95?***

INSTANT SUCCESS — or triple your money back!

I would like to invite you, right now, to get out of your chair. Please: put down your laptop. Please leave your iPhone on the table. Please turn the volume WAY UP LOUD! Please start the music. And, please, get into your body — and go out of your mind!

Turn on, tune in, drop in. Drop in any time!

Shut up and dance!** Get off your ass and get on the path. The path to TRIUMPHANT FALLIBLE FRENZY!**** Arise!

ACCESS ALL AREAS.

DJ Misjah & DJ Tim, “Access”, X-Trax, 1994

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o4joooH5tg

Whatever you do, DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND WATCH THIS FILM (isohunt.com, search for “arise subgenius”). You have been warned.

Collaborators will be shot. Prosecutors will be transgressicuted. Deviation and counter-revolutionary talk will not be tolerated.

That is all. Return to your assigned work allocations and dwelling units.

* By reading this sentence you agree that neither nostate.com, Rabbi Guano Infusion PhD. (deceased) nor Michael Jude Gogulski shall be held responsible for damages caused by reading this sentence.

** Seeing this footnote indicates your legally binding consent that should you lack the appropriate number of functioning limbs necessary for dance in your jurisdiction that neither nostate.com, Rabbi Guano Infusion PhD. (deceased), nor Michael Jude Gogulski shall be liable for loss of life, liberty, productive capacity or future potential profit brought about by seeing this footnote or other means.

*** If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

**** Do not over-meditate.