What to expect with what you’re reading here
Essential information about your humble author: between 1989 and 2002, I was a professional writer working for a slew of magazines, zines, weekly newspapers, and Web sites, most of which have disappeared without trace. Finally in 2002, after hitting burnout over delayed payments, publications shutting down without notice, and editors demanding work for free, I quit writing entirely in the spring of 2002, swearing that I wouldn’t return. (Sadly, I did, but with two or three exceptions, each relapse was so painful and humiliating that it just reinforced the original reasons for quitting.) Should you ignore all warnings about sanity and self-respect, most of these articles were reprinted in 2009 in two volumes, Greasing the Pan: the “Best” of Paul T. Riddell and The Savage Pen of Onan: The “Best” of the Hell’s Half-Acre Herald. Buy them at your risk.
So what happened since then? Carnivorous plants intruded. A job interview and subsequent move to Tallahassee, Florida, introduced me to the wide range of carnivorous plants living in and around Tallahassee, and carnivores took up most time and bandwidth for the next 21 years. This culminated with starting and operating a carnivorous plant gallery in Richardson, Texas that ran for 7 1/2 years until its final shutdown in 2023. The main focus of the Texas Triffid Ranch was in creating and displaying unique carnivorous plant displays, with unique custom backdrops behind each one. Repeatedly, at gallery open houses and at touring events, I was asked over and over “So what’s the backstory?”
And that, Your Honor, is where the trouble started. “What’s the backstory?” What else does someone gazing upon a carnivorous plant enclosure want besides the story? What if there isn’t a story? Maybe the whole enclosure was nothing but an aesthetically pleasing, but more often aesthetically disturbing, attempt to highlight a particular species or hybrid. Maybe a cigar is just a cigar. But what if…
As you may have noticed by now, the two words “what if” tend to get me in trouble.
For those unfamiliar, the late author Harlan Ellison famously wrote stories inspired by artworks he’d received, all on the idea of “what’’s the backstory?” I knew there were backstories in these enclosures, possibly strong enough to become the bones for an Ellison short story, and my goal for about half of the gallery’s existence was to put together enclosures worthy of that treatment. (Harlan and I knew each other during my writing days: among other things, I actually gently one-upped him and his tale of being fired by Disney for joking about an animated Disney porno film at a lecture at Texas A&M by relating exactly how I got an FBI record for allegedly selling government secrets to the Daleks.) It finally got to the point where I was putting together a portfolio of enclosure photos to send, just to let him know I was thinking of him, when I got word of his death in 2018. I mourned for a while, and then figured, in the sort of hubris that leads to even more trouble, especially when even inadvertently comparing oneself to someone on a par with Harlan Ellison, “If I want backstories, I’m going to have to write them myself.”
For four years, through boom, bust, and pandemic, each enclosure coming through the gallery had a unique backstory. Some commissioned enclosures were requested specifically as much for the backstory as for the plant therein. As you go through the St. Remedius archives, you may see some ideas, locales, characters, and scenarios echoed, but most are completely unique and will stay that way. Others give an idea of the thought processes that ultimately led to the St. Remedius annals. And so it goes.
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
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