Adam Blatner

Chapter 1, in which our hero is introduced. (Pronounced multi- per-spect-ai’-vuhl (with the accent on the ai syllable):

This postmodernist, sort-of hero’s main superpower is that of bending reality to his will—at least in his own imagination. In ordinary life, he remains disguised as mediocre-man, an unassuming drone in the great hive of humanity. But, when faced with the affronts of lower consciousness, slips into a phone booth—no, wait, we can’t use that device—it’s too old-fashioned, too mid-20th century. They don’t have phone booths anymore; so, okay, where can a guy change into his costume nowadays? Aha, try the public library restrooms, disabled toilet—there’s often enough room in one of those to change clothes. The ordinary toilet stall nowadays is too cramped! (Have you noticed how they’re a lot narrower than they used to be in some places?—and as for the johns on airplanes? Forget it!)     (Sorry, I got distracted. This is remarkably easy, nowadays.)

Back-Story: The Emergence of Multi-Perspectival Man

This will seem autobiographical, because it’s about me. What they say about autobiographical writings is that it’s fiction done by a not-too-good writer. Anyway, way back in the olden days, I was born into a normal middle-class family in Los Angeles, a town with hardly any history. A culture that was mid-20th century and proud of it, a time when Americans were right and they were victorious! Oh, we let our allies have some of the limelight, but then a couple of our allies became our enemies, so that was a little confusing. And then it turned out they’d always been bad guys, which I hadn’t learned about till later. All this was perceived and internalized by the mind of a child, so I’m just reconstructing it as best I can, knowing that it’s not very accurate. Anyway, it was great at that time in history thinking that we were morally superior, feeling that we were in the right and being part of a world where science was making progress and there were no unintended consequences.

But then things started getting complicated. I realize know that things have always been complicated but it seemed back then from an immature mind that things were fairly simple: Men were men, women were women, we knew right from wrong, good guys were heroic, villains were un-redeemably bad, and life was understandable.

There were mysteries of two sorts. Earthly mysteries were associated with science. There were some religious mysteries that really were mysterious: Something about wine being actually blood if the magic words were said, and though it was really bad to drink blood—vampires were all bad guys back then—it was good if the right magic words were said, and anyway we shouldn’t think about it. Just take it on faith that it was okay then. Ditto for eating bodies—but really really bad if the right words weren’t said. And there were some science mysteries but it was just a matter of time, like a big ol’ detective mystery. No question but that smart guys would figure it all out. Ah, those were the days.  More later.