Batworth knows how to confuse, rip apart, reassemble, and leave the adrenaline still running in your system even though the accident is a long time over. You get the crashing metal of cars, with words like: "God is lice-infested," "The sun does in fact/ shine out of his asshole," and conclusions that scream: "Swinging like a fine hearse/ squeeling like a flock of reeds." I don't know, maybe I got some kind of disorder, but this high speed energetic swinging word play catches me off guard, and makes me want to hear more so I can re-establish my equilibrium. When he screams "Soups for creeps, soups for creeps..." in "Information Feeds On Me" I want to sit down, stand up, touch my toes, count to ten, then pick up this chap again. There is the schizophrenic wordplay, combined with quick jerks to reality, and I want to stop that crazy fucker on the street and say, yeah, I understand, but you got to make more sense! You got to make more sense! These are either the words of a madman, or a person so gone that the occasional glimpse into reality is quickly lost and they don't even realize they were on the right road for once. When Batworth tells me: "Everybody in the real world was in what/ I would call a weird mood. People trued/ patty-cake with feet. Others walked side/ ways for fun. Still others thought ord-/inary life was tv but they didn't know/ how to live it. Some wrote books in what/ they thought was their free time, but we/ know better than that." I get scared. He knows more than I do about the things that scare me. He knows something that I don't, and I don't feel comfortable letting a madman have the advantage.--oberc
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #3,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1993, 1995.