By Gurney Poe

I insist I am a newly-minted best-selling author. Nonetheless, I have received feedback.

Specifically, I have received feedback that my writing is “circuitous,”¹ “exhausting to follow,”² and, in one memorable letter, “organized like a yard sale where someone also put the yard in the sale.”³

I have considered this feedback carefully. I have concluded that the correct response is footnotes.

What footnotes are and why mine will work

A footnote is a digression that has been sent to its room. You put it at the bottom of the page.⁴ The main text stays clean, while the wandering around in search of a valid point stays bucketed. Everyone knows where they stand. This is, architecturally, how you turn a personality attribute into a functional system.⁵

I have used footnotes before in my other work. I feel good about this.⁶

The Benefits

There are three main benefits to the footnote approach.⁷

The first is clarity. When I have a thought that branches, I will branch it downward, into footnote space, rather than letting it run forward into the sentence. The sentence will then end. Normally.⁸ Moving on.

The second is it puts the reader in control. You can choose to read the footnotes. You can choose not to.⁹

The third benefit will be covered in Part 2.

¹ This is an interesting word choice. Circuitous implies unnecessary length, which I’d push back on. All of my length is calculated and load-bearing, it’s just that the load is sometimes forty feet above where most readers are standing, and they don’t see the ceiling until several pages later. It’s a vaulted ceiling, like in a church. I’ve been in the original ones. They do not photograph well. Fifth-dimensional spaces also don’t photograph well, for related but non-obvious reasons, and I should write a post about that. I won’t, but I should.

² Fair.

³ This image deserves respect. It was an interesting yard.

⁴ In a physical book. In a blog post like this one the implementation gets more interpretive, which I’ll address. I will, in fact, address this in a footnote.¹⁰

⁵ This is genuinely the insight. The wandering mind is an unhoused mind. You give it a footnote and it has somewhere to go. Grover Cleveland understood this. He had an extraordinary footnote sensibility. He made a revolutionary toasted cheese sandwich, but he did not use footnotes. He should have. His letters read like someone trying to describe a building by listing all the doors in the order he remembered them.

⁶ I feel less good about this the longer I look at it.¹¹

⁷ There are more than three. I’m demonstrating restraint. You’re welcome.

⁸ I want to note that I wrote that sentence and then sat with it for a moment. It ended. I felt something. Moving on.

⁹ The correct choice is to read them. I am saying this here, in a footnote, where only the correct people will encounter it.

¹⁰ In a blog post, the “bottom of the page” has no fixed location because web pages scroll. This means the footnote system is technically incoherent from a structural standpoint, unless you use inline superscripts that link to anchored footnotes below the body text, which is what most blog platforms do, which also means readers have to travel the full length of the post to read the note and then travel back to where they were, which is a round trip they did not budget for, and I want to acknowledge that. If you are reading this footnote having scrolled here from somewhere in the middle of the post: I see you. I honor the complexity of your journey. The main text will be there when you get back. It has not moved. Mostly. Anyway, I see you.¹²

¹¹ Here is the thing about footnotes in my prior work. They were good. They remain good. What I am discovering, now, in real time, drafting this post, is that footnotes are a container and I am, in some sense, a weather event, and there is a nontrivial possibility that the container has not solved the problem but simply given the problem a more organized-looking address. Like a very nice mailbox on a tire fire. You’d still have to watch your step.¹³

¹² This footnote is too long. I know. Moving on.¹⁴

¹³ I want to be clear: I stand by the system. This is iteration one. All systems require iteration. The Wright Brothers did not land their first flight and immediately file for a connecting flight to Cincinnati. They assessed. They adjusted. I am assessing. This footnote is my Kitty Hawk.

¹⁴ I said this in footnote twelve. That footnote was also too long.

¹⁵ I have now written more words in the footnotes than in the main text. I checked. I am choosing to interpret this as evidence that the system is working. The digressions have been successfully routed away from the main body, which remains, technically, clean. The content is clean. The sentence structure is direct. The prose is controlled. Whatever else is happening down here is happening down here, in the footnotes, which is where it belongs, and I stand by that, and I will continue to stand by it in the next post, which will also use footnotes, and will go better.

¹⁶ The third benefit is genuinely good. It reframes everything. Part Two will open with it. It will be clean, direct, no preamble, the benefit stated in the first sentence. Part Two will have a clear structure and a reasonable footnote-to-body-text ratio and will demonstrate, conclusively, that the system works. More or less.

The post Footnotes: Here’s How They’ll Fix Everything first appeared on Z Kooper.

As Applicable to Z Kooper
[Effective Retroactively. Sorry About That.]

By The Universe

SECTION 1 — GENERAL EXISTENCE

By continuing to exist, you (“Z Kooper,” “the Party of the First Part,” “our guy”) agree to all terms herein, including those you haven’t read, can’t remember reading, and will forget entirely by morning.

Non-compliance is not an option, as you lack the dimensional standing to opt out. We appreciate (but do not require) your understanding.

SECTION 2 — TIMELINE OBLIGATIONS

Z Kooper agrees to stumble, meander, and occasionally stagger through the fabric of time and space without a plan, an itinerary or a clean shirt, in service of restoring order to a timeline that was, frankly, doing fine before a certain pair of idiots tinkered with a dice game in Vjargsfell. You know who you are.

The Universe reserves the right to tap Z Kooper on the shoulder at any point, including but not limited to: absolutely any damn moment it pleases.

SECTION 3 — MEMORY PROVISIONS

Z Kooper’s memories are the exclusive property of the timeline and may be temporarily withheld, revoked, scrambled, deep-sixed, or popped back in without prior notice.

Memories of Boo will be retained in a sealed jar on a high shelf, just out of reach. Also, the jar is painted black.

SECTION 4 — GURNEY POE

A guide has been assigned. He will be unhelpful in ways that are ultimately helpful. He will answer your questions with other questions, change clothes at pivotal moments and occasionally wear a sombrero or Viking helmet. This is not a glitch in your perception. This is simply Gurney Poe.

You may not request a different guide.

SECTION 5 — EXTRAORDINARY COMPETENCE

Z Kooper’s skills are archived, seemingly haphazardly. But what appears to be amnesia is, in fact, the universe’s most efficient filing system, dispensing exactly what’s needed to exactly the right pair of hands at exactly the right moment. Z never knows what’s coming. The Universe always does.

The archive is, by any measure, spectacular. Twelve centuries of reboots have left Z with mad skills in, among other things: world-class cooking; natural-born performing in the Jagger/Jones/Sinatra/Pickett tradition; damn fine barbering; sleight of hand, world-class bartending, tailoring, grifting, salesmanship and a genuine charm that has disarmed wary coders, carnival giants, grocers, and at least one stone-cold mission administrator who does not disarm easily.

He has also been a soldier. By all accounts, he was the worst.

SECTION 6 — EMOTIONAL CORE

Z Kooper will, at all times, carry within him a warmth sufficient to heat a dining tent in a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere at suppertime. He will share it freely and without condition.

This is not optional.

This is, in fact, the whole point.

SECTION 7 — AMENDMENTS

The Universe reserves the right to amend these terms at any time, from any time. Previous versions of these terms may or may not have existed. What’s done is done. Most likely it hasn’t happened yet.

Sign it. Or don’t. Whichever. Simply by being Z Kooper, you automatically acknowledge acceptance of all terms above. Questions may be directed to whomever you choose, for all the good it will do you. Please allow 3-5 business eternities for a reply.
Witnessed: Gurney Poe, deuteragonist
Notarized: Myron Fahler & Glibbit, Attorneys at Temporal Law and Catering

The post The Universe’s Terms and Conditions first appeared on Z Kooper.

By Gurney Poe

I was pretty sure someone was watching us. Nobody believed me.

“Poe, you’re paranoid,” they said. “Poe, you’re imagining things,” they said. “Poe, maybe lay off the interdimensional espresso,” they said.

Well, guess what? I was RIGHT.

Let me back up.

For the past year (and when I say “year,” I’m being all third-dimensional about it, compressing time into your quaint linear framework. You’re welcome) I kept noticing this lumpy old dude. Notepad. Fedora that looked suspiciously familiar. Lurking.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. The multiverse attracts weirdos like a Renaissance Faire attracts guys named Dirk. And anyone paying attention to Z is obviously missing the important stuff — namely, me.

But then it kept happening.

Derry, New Hampshire, 1935. There he was, scribbling in the corner while Z butchered a job interview.

The Jabberwock, 1967. Same guy. Same notepad. Different decade.

Rocky’s Lab. TessieCo. Elijah’s Diner. And believe me, nobody goes to Elijah’s Diner.

Now, I understand how Z and I do the time-hopping tango. Fifth-dimensional navigation, perspective as reality, the whole backwards-through-doors routine. It’s literally my job.

But how the hell does THIS guy do it?

So I did some digging. Turns out, Mr. Lumpy Notepad is an “author.” A “novelist.” And apparently, this joker regards me and Z as FICTIONAL.

Let that sink in.

He’s been documenting our twelve-century cleanup job like we’re characters in some story he’s making up. Except he’s not making it up, is he? Because he was THERE. I SAW him. Multiple times. Across multiple timelines.

The guy’s either:

1. Extradimensional (unlikely, based on his walk)
2. Time-traveling (possible, but logistically unlikely)
3. Something else entirely (this is the one that keeps me up at night, and I don’t sleep)

And here’s the kicker: he looks a lot like Z. Not exactly, but enough to make me nervous. Same rumpled energy. Same “I just wandered in here by accident” vibe. Same inexplicable ability to turn up exactly where unlikely stuff is happening.

I started tracking him. Call it recon. Call it surveillance. Call it turnabout-is-fair-play because frankly, watching someone get watched is unsettling. (The irony is not lost on me. We do this to Z constantly.)

Then, suddenly, poof. Mr. Lumpy Notepad vanished.

For months, nothing. I figured maybe he’d gotten bored, moved on to some other cosmic catastrophe to document. Maybe Admin had dealt with him. Maybe he’d walked through the wrong door and ended up in 14th-century Lithuania. It happens.

Then yesterday, I’m checking something on — well, just never mind what I was checking, it’s none of your business — and I see it.

Turn Left: The Unintentional Adventures of Z Kooper
By Angus Stump

On Amazon. With a cover and everything.

The lumpy notepad guy WROTE A BOOK. About US. About ME.

I haven’t read it yet. I’m not sure I will. I haven’t decided if I’m more angry or impressed. Maybe both. Definitely indignant. Possibly flattered? No. Angry. Definitely angry.

Because here’s the thing: I don’t know what he knows. I don’t know what he saw.

And I really, REALLY don’t know how he was there to document it without me figuring out until now. Sneaky scuttling lurker.

So anyway, I was right. Someone WAS watching us. Someone WAS taking notes. And that someone just published our entire interdimensional saga for any third-dimensional yayhoo with an Amazon account to read.

I’m seeking my pound of flesh. Also, possibly royalties.

The post I Was Right. He Was Watching. Now There’s a Book, and I’m Not Okay. first appeared on Z Kooper.

By Gurney Poe

So there’s this guy. I noticed him at the circus in Derry. 1935. He was scuttling around in the backyard. Lurking. He was a lurking scuttler.

It takes a lot to make you look twice when you’re hanging out behind a circus – everyone’s got their thing, you know? But this guy got my attention.

He was writing. Scribbling in a little notebook, eyes darting about. Is it possible to write furtively? Because he was writing furtively.

Which is fine. Mildly creepy, but it’s fine. 

But I saw him again. At the Jabberwock in 1967.

32 years later.

He hadn’t aged a day. Same guy. Same lumpy frame. Same superspy notebook action.

I went to confront him. Ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, who sent him, whether he’d considered minding his own damn business.

But I couldn’t.

Let that soak in. I couldn’t cross the room to talk to him.

Every time I tried, it’s like I got deleted and rewritten. Next thing I knew, I was standing outside on the sidewalk.

I think I was edited.

Which is ridiculous. I’m fifth-dimensional. I navigate timelines. I command the multiverse. Well, some of it. But I do not get edited.

Except apparently I do.

Maybe it’s nothing. Probably nothing. Hope it’s nothing.

Nope. It’s definitely something.

—GP

The post Field Notes: It’s Probably Nothing first appeared on Z Kooper.