Interview with A.K. Otterness

with Eric Stepman
AK Explains all!

N.Y.C.,
NY, Nov. 1996

Editors
note: I met A.K. Otterness for this interview in the lobby of the New
York Public Library, where he spends the vast majority of his time
reading. Even though the main reading room was closed for renovation,
we managed to find a private sofa, where I conducted the interview.
E.S.)

ERIC
STEPMAN:

You
know, I started this magazine, Horrortech, with some freinds
of mine in 1993, to kind of group together some of the new writings
and speculative fiction coming out in the early 90’s. But one of the
writers kept submitting these very strange stories, some of them
quite long. At first, they just seemed to be very poorly crafted
attempts at writing in the pulp horror genre. But the more he sent
in, the more we realized how there was a real kind of demented
cultural analysis going on here. Plus, he had a whole theory about
the kind of writing he was doing, and what he wanted to achieve with
it. He kept calling it the “PPP” thing, which we all
thought was some kind of internet technology, but it turned out to be
“Post Pop Pulp”. And, that person was you.

A.K.
OTTERNESS

That’s
right. And that’s when you stole my term.

(editors
note: while its true the term “Post Pop Pulp” was initially used to start the
magazine post pop pulp without the overt permission of a.k.
otterness, having been used by him first, the editors and A.K. are
now on speaking terms again.)

E.S.

So,
A.K., when did this phrase post pop pulp first come to your mind? You have till now been mostly known for your short story Resistives in the Fiction from Cultures Edge anthology of a couple years ago, MnemoniComix, in which you posited the theory that the virtual world wont happen on computer screens but will surround us in physical space…

A.K.

Yes, that anthology was put together by Tom Wolfinger and it was pretty excellent. My Mothers Bride by Janet Skotle was my favorite. Resistives was about the miniaturization and ubiquitousness of technology, and what happens if some diy type of disgruntled hackers or kids tried to install somewhat human personalities into every type of device. The anthology was mostly stories about robots though and

E.S.

Right, but the term post pop pulp… Why did you feel it was neccessary to describe the writing style you share with so many other contemporary authors as if it was a new thing? Arent you just coining a cheap term or is there something about the term that is different for you?

A.K.

No doubt it is a cheap term. In fact its just three cheap terms shoved together. But ive always mostly been interested in cheap writing. Theres something so formulaic about it that it really highlights the tension between those aspects of the human and the machine.. The pop pulp writers are pure machine, but they generate, through trickery and sleight of hand, an illusion of the human.. so its post pop pulp. A lot of these books written based onmarketiung campaigns and edited by editors with market share in mind brings demographics, numbers, analysis, and formula into narrative manipulation… so I try to make my writing style as low key and bland as possible. Sometimes, nothing at all will happen, outside of characters constructing empty abstractions… but the term actually came to me in a very graphic and non-bland way

E.S.

I hope you arent saying our magazine is full of bland writing?

A.K.

If only it was. Theres far too much human, perhaps through error, in some of your mags stories… But the term came to me seven, eight
years ago, when I was a camera man for a video documentary outside of
Quito, Ecuador, filming a documentary about… well, I can’t tell you
that. Yet. Anyway, while we were filming up in the mountains, there
was a coke delivery truck.. it must have been from the 1950’s,
straight out of a time warp.. came around the corner real fast,
could’nt see our warning signs in time. He swerved, trying to get out
of the way of the caterers, and smashed straight into a big old
eucalyptus. And right nearly in front of my eyes, he flew out of the
cab, smashed his head right into the tree. It was like bloody pulp
flew everywhere, the sound was disgusting, like ripe fruit on a tin
roof. And just standing there, looking at the unrecognizable head,
framed by this big old weathered coke sign, I thought… how perfect.
How onomatapoetic. How post-pop-pulp.

E.S.

The
guy died?

A.K.

That
was the amazing thing about it. We took him in to the Canadian
hospital, that’s the good one in Quito, and about a month later, the
guy was set up in this retirement resort, living off of his
settlement. Turns out there’s a big problem amongst shit workers for
big internationalist corporations who get into self mutilation for
fun and profit; especially in places like ecuador, where there can be
riots and the local coke plants are controlled by military contracts.

E.S.

So
there’s a big military presence in Ecuador?

A.K.

Oh,
absolutely. The military is like a big family. They have their own
schools, their own stores, their own companies…so it’s like,
they’re basically mining the jungle to supply the oil, which they
basically buy from themselves. They’re completely self-supportive.
(laughs).

E.S.

Quito,
huh? You know, a lot of my freinds went there.. to study birds…

A.K.

Oh,
yeah, Quito is a great place. The best thing about it is the
graffitti. It’s like the white walls are just itching to be covered
with words like “Strike!” or “Down with the military!”
or “Santana rules!”

E.S.

Is
that the philosopher?

A.K.

No.
You mean Santayana? I mean the musician. But this one time, it’s
about 4 in the morning, and I’m walking home from papayon, this bar
named after the guy who was stranded in a leper colony. Papallion,
you know? It’s right below the house of Guayasamin, the famous
Ecaudorian artist, and I’m kinda drunk, had a few pilsner’s in me,
and I turn this corner. And there’s this kid there, and he stops in
mid-brush stroke. He was obviously doing some kind of illegal
graffiti. And Istop, and he stops, and Istare at him, and he stares
at me, and we’re both, like, caught in this moment. And then we look
at each other, and realize, you know, he’s doing what he’s doing, and
I’m doing what I’m doing, and its fine. And Istart walking, and he
puts his brush to the wall.

E.S.

What
was he writing?

A.K.

Vampiritos
Psychoticos.

E.S.

Psychotic
Vampires?

A.K.

Little
Psychotic Vampires. The diminutive.

E.S.

So,
in your writing, do you use a lot of stories from your experiences?

A.K.

Actually,
I only use things Ilearn from other books. Its important, I feel,
living in the post pop world, to retain a kind of purity, not to let
things become corrupted by other things. Books and fictions are where
most people choose to live nowadays, and thats why writing has to
reflect that fact more and more. I’ve always wanted to write a novel
based on the New York Times, for instance. I love reading it.
The stories are nice, and condensed, each one has some little human
lesson or conundrum in it. It’s like reading ancient zen parables. Of
course, the New York Times has very little to do with the real
world. Thats what I read the Wall Street Journal for.

E.S.

What
was the highest eductaion you attained?

A.K.

Aside
from veterinary school, which I dropped out of,

E.S.

Too
much blood?

A.K.

No,
I read The Deadly Feast, by Richard Rhodes. That book really
opened my eyes, I tell you. He writes about nuclear explosions and
eating human brains. It’s like Oppenhiemer, it’s like, where did they
drop the bomb? Was that White Sands? Or Trinity Fields?

E.S.

Trinity.

A.K.

So
it’s like, Oppenhiemer said, “Now we are unto Death”, that
ancient Hindu saying, or whatever it is. And he’s watching this bomb
go off, and he’s seeing with his eyes, and on the the other side of
his eyes, on the other side of his face, is his brain! A mirror image
to the bomb!

E.S.

Oppenhiemers
brain is the image of Oppenheimers bomb?

A.K.

All
our brains! All our brains are mirror images of the nuclear bomb.
It’s just that nuclear explosions occur outside our heads, and our
brains occur inside our heads, see? You see?

E.S.

Um.
So what did you do after you dropped out of vet school?

A.K.

I
took a lot of history courses. I got into the History of Conciousness
program at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and got summer
credit for working at a cannery in Alaska. But, actually, I’d prefer
not to talk about my life anymore at this point.

E.S.

Perhaps
later?

A.K.

Perhaps.
Ask me about something to do with writing. Isn’t this for a writing
mag, anyway?

E.S.

Before,
you had only only written a few obscure philosophical tracts for
little university journals.

A.K.

Well,
not that obscure. The one out of the University of Tuscaloosa is
actually quite respected.

E.S.

What
started you writing in the sci fi and horror genres?

A.K.

A
really good freind of mine, Hawthorne Abendsen,

E.S.

Isn’t
that the name of the main character from a Phillip K. Dick story?

A.K.

Yeah,
the Man in the High Castle. My friend, Brokk Steingass,
legally changed his name to Hawthorne Abendsen, because he’s been
trying to write “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy”, the book
within the book written by Hawthorne Abendsen, I mean, the book in
the book written by Phillip K. Dick. And in that book, no, in the
real world that we are in, Phil K. Dick wrote a book where the axis
won the war. And in that book, there’s a man, Hawthorne Abendsen,who
wrote a book wherein the allies won the war, about our world, see? So
in our world, what my freind, Hawthorne Abendsen, the Hawthorne in
our world, is trying to do, is write, in our world, the book that, in
Phillip K. Dick’s book world, is the book about our world.

E.S.

But…
isn’t that just like any book you pick up, then? About our world, I
mean.

A.K.

No,
not even close. Well, actually I guess you’re right. But he’s using
the I Ching to do it! Which is what Phil Dick used to write the book
about the book by Hawthorne Abendson, which was written by using the
I Ching. Plus, Brokk changed his name to Hawthorne Abendsen. But, it,
it’s all about folding space, too…

POST-POP-PULP
“INTERVIEWS “are part of a continuing series
exploring the origins of writing trends. They are presented serially,
in snippets, and in continuing snippets from past interviews.