Y’all, I may have Discordianed a wee bit too close to the sun.
Late yesterday afternoon, I learned that my book The Chaos Apple (which you can purchase here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here) was in the running to be Timeless Occult Literature‘s 2025 Book of the Year. At first, I was like, “Neat! It’s an honor just to be nominated.” But then I started thinking about how my friends always yell at me for sucking at self-promotion, so I posted a link to the ballot on my various social media platforms along with a meager “Vote For Me!”
Immediately, Chester texted all, “No TikTok?” And I was like, “Oh, right, touché,” and recorded a quick video to let my truly unreasonable number of followers know what was going on. And then I went to bed, comfortable in the knowledge that I would maybe eke into the Top Fifty or something.
This morning, after a bizarrely realistic dream in which I bought some pre-packaged kittens at a hardware store before infiltrating a Unitarian Universalist church disguised as a Lutheran, I hopped out of bed and checked Timeless Occult Literature’s Facebook page to see if the winner (“And tied for 51st…”) had been announced. But what I found instead was a decidedly un-celebratory dispatch.
Apparently, as of about 6 pm. CST last night, only 40 or so votes had been recorded. An hour later — coincidentally around the time I posted that video — close to 400 votes had come in, a big chunk of them for a single book. The organizers suspected the poll had been hacked, and they were reaching out to technical support to launch an investigation.
My thoughts on the situation were conflicted. Part of me was like, “Okay, but nobody complained when the same thing happened to Little Inez at the end of Hairspray,” while another, less charitable part of me was like, “Please stand by for a demonstration of relevancy.” But more than anything, the whole thing felt like an auspicious portent of things to come.
Considering the state of the world today, it is both easy and understandable to feel powerless. But even the least powerful among us, when working together, can fling the most glorious of monkey wrenches into the gears of established systems. If a couple hundred of us can vote the same way and sink an online poll into madness, imagine what a million of us could do to Congress. Creative disorder has the wherewithal to bulldoze through any blockade, and whether we realize it or not, we are every one of us in the driver’s seat.
Anyway, happy first day of the Season of Chaos, my Loyal Clutterbuckaroos. Eris says we’ve got a remarkable year ahead of us.
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