I Read Books: Quantum Diaper Punks by Stuart Buck

Quantum Diaper Punks 

(Not to be confused with the short story of the same name this novella is based on)

I’m quite boringly sane. I confront the wild implications of atomic theory, the empty void that makes up almost all of solid (and fluid) objects with a calm imperturbability, the vast deserts of time and space with a mild curiosity, and the revelatory explanations of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics with a sigh of acquiescence. My drug of choice is caffeine, four or five cups of tea or coffee a day.

The precarity and inhumanly incomprehensible true nature of the world does not drive me to seek a guru. It doesn’t lead me to try to expand my consciousness. I don’t question why I go to a private room and undo my trousers to go to the toilet, or at least, it doesn’t make me question it any more than I do on an everyday basis.

Still. I’m familiar with the moment something clicks and the implications drive you relentlessly into realms of thought you’d never conceived of, of doing mathematics that explore mind-spaces you’d never consider. Of stripping back the layers of civilisation to experience nature raw and unmediated.

Not so much as to get high at a punk rock show, put on a diaper and join a murder-death cult. But I understand the attraction.

Quantum Diaper Punks dives directly into that, embracing complete lack of control and conscience as an answer to the madness that is life and reality and the dull grey miasma of modern life. In particular modern life in St Louis. But also generally. It’s about taking too many drugs, having sex, finding belonging, murder, theft, living in an abandoned factory, creating beliefs around misunderstandings of science. Reading drastic personal meaning into impersonal facts.

It's kind of a trip is what I’m saying.

Read This: A brutal exploration of finding meaning in despair
Don’t Read This: That meaning is blood and filth and betrayal and horror
Available: At Gumroad as a ebook for pay-what-you-want
Full disclosure: In another role as Editor of Bear Creek Gazette, Stuart has published some of my work, also has sent me a picture of his dog