I'm kind of on a roll, trying to start three discussions on books, but I'm hoping at least one of them pans out.

has anyone read:
kiss me, judas
penny dreadful
hell's half acre

?
all by wil christopher baer.
it's all a triology, about Phineas Poe, and jude and awesomeness.
obviously, it's where I got my name from.
it's so good.
soooo good.
read them all.
in order.

maybe read the first chapter of kiss me judas? http://books.google.com/books?id=iy3-8XhFdoMC&dq=kiss+me+judas&pg=PP1&ots=lI0GIkzTZc&source=bn&sig=d29AK-Ulhkg8qWX_xYfv3nweQ5o&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#PPA3,M1

or
The beginning of Penny Dreadful by Will Christopher Baer:

I am not who or what I appear to be and I wanted to make that clear from the first, from the beginning. But I failed, I know.

I blink and tell myself that nothing has vanished, nothing has changed. I am near the end now and this notebook is falling apart in my hands. Damp, becoming pulp. The pages are swollen together and the ink bleeds. The ink disappears before me.

The thing is that my conciousness drifts and I have forgotten what I look like. I pass my reflection in a blackened window and I may not recognize myself. My reflection is percieved as a threat, an ugly twim. My reflection is a dark nonperson, a stranger on the street and this is not an identity crisis as I understand tha phrase.

Decay is ordinary and dull, isn't it? The mutation of self is normal. But this is not a suicide note and I should mention that the drifting really down't disturb me at all .The mutation is nothing to worry about and I don't want you to feel sorry for me .There's no point in that. But you should know that I am an alien, a stranger. I may ask you for a  cigarette, for the time, for spare change. I may suddenly push you down an alley and steal your wallet, cut our your tongue. I may stop you from choking to death on a fishbone and I may have more than one name.

Dear Jude,

I dont' know if you realize this, but your eyes tend to change colors. They are green one minute, gray or blue the next. And the change is quite irrelevant to the mood, to disposition .The names are something like that. Phineas Poe. Ray Fine. Fred.

I wasn't thinking so clearly when I came back to Denver. I followed myself back to Eve's place because I believed I would be safe there. I was equipped with the small brain of a bird, the heart and bone structure of a carrier pigeon. I was stupid, a stupid chicken. I was looking for a nest, for a place where I might sleep without fear. And I couldn't. I wasn't safe.

Eve never wanted to hurt me, I'm sure. She wanted to spare me, to keep me from drifting into the game. The others, though. They would have gobbled me up like a worm. I was softa nd pink. I was not quite self-aware. Besides. It has always been in my nature to stare at the sun, to step out into traffic. I am an unlikely suicide but I would like to get a good look at death, to touch his matted hair and pass him by.

The strangers in me are easily distracted. They are daydreamers, romantics. And therefore unreliable. They are often drunk and they don't always look out for each other. They pretend not to notice things. It always comes back to this business of drifting and I don't mean the way clouds drift. The way shadows drift behind the sun. It's a geological thing, a tectonic shift. The drift is not so easily noticed, but the impact tends to be profound.

Open your eyes, boy. Your eyes. Open your eyes and no more turn aside and brood.







now let's talk about it.