Cerne Zoo Guidelines - ongoing notes

APOCRYPHAL NOTES FROM THE WEIRD²

Received from a Nemo Writer on the day the 'Cern Zoo' Guidelines were first issued (29 Sep 08):

 I'm delighted to see Nemo still going strong!  As to submitting for "Cerne Zoo," your cute anagram for vol. 9, I find myself restricted to submitting a specific kind of SF story involving subatomic particles in some way, and although I have what I think are some good old Nemo-type stories to send, I have nothing Cern-related by any stretch.  I'm conCERNed that most writers will feel similarly restricted, and especially that prospective readers will be expecting an SF-oriented antho.  If that's what you intend, fine.  But it seems uncharacteristic of you to appear so limiting--especially for the sake of a dubious anagram on #8.  You encourage submitters to interpret the title as they please, but can one really, legitimately, skew the meaning very far from involving some very specific SF subject matter?  Any suggestions for strict-constructionists like me?

My reply was to say that one should free-wheel one's story to one's own proclivity towards Horror, Fantasy, SF or Literary, because CERN ZOO will be all these things.

==============

On 1 October received this from another Writer about above:

 Saw your post about what the Nemo writer emailed you, concerned about feeling limited with Cerne Zoo. Not me! I take it as an extra level to the challenge, and am already deeply involved with my CZ story, with no worries about it having anything whatsoever to do with subatomic particles. After all, wasn't Cone Zero an almost-anagram of Zencore! anyway? This is yet another chance to stretch our imaginations in vastly different ways! The writers who do will obviously get your attention; the 200 who write subatomic-particle stories might wonder what they missed.

==================

I say: You should gear your own story appropriately and not be too hidebound by the overall CERN ZOO title but, equally, keeping it creatively in mind.  Any further on-going notes placed here should not strictly guide the nature of your submission but merely spark off undercurrents that may help you.

==================

29.9.08: http://lokilokust.livejournal.com/191082.html

the guidelines have been posted for 'nemonymous' number nine.
i have to say, that this is simply my favourite anthology series and consistently offers some of the best short fiction each year.

This is a Zoo extract from DF Lewis' novel 'The Hawler' (2005): 

"In a part of the city, there was a zoo. And it was known by the Authorities that any dream sickness affecting the rest of the city did not affect the zoo. There seemed to be individuals in charge of the city that the ordinary citizens failed to recognise – or ever knew they existed at all. These Authorisers, so-called, had some mandate to keep parts of the city as reservations of clear sense – where dream was clearly recognised as dream and real life as real life, and never the twain should overlap. Strangely, perhaps, the zoo grounds were one such reservation and those citizens suffering from the dream sickness often resorted there – on their holidays – just to be certain about themselves and about reality and, indeed, about the dreams that they still dreamed when at the zoo but they actually knew they were dreams, knew them for what they were. How they knew this fact was similar to going abroad to sunny climes for one’s holiday – away from the cold, dank, often dark city – and believing it was for the sake of enjoyment and recreation, not the chore a holiday surely always was.

Here, at the zoo, the citizens knew similarly that they were free of deceiving dreams and what they saw – as they toured from cage to cage, enclosure to enclosure – were real animals and creatures. Only when the citizens were asleep, at the zoo hotel, did they know they would be in danger of dreaming – unlike in the surrounding city itself, where waking was no safeguard against surreptitious dreams taking over the minds: not day-dreams, but full-blooded dreams which one thought were real life when experiencing them. In the zoo grounds, however, such dreams were dreams, whilst waking was waking.

The entrance to the zoo was not at all imposing and it could have served as the gates of a small factory, where people came and went after spending the rest of their time in terraced back-to-back two-up-two-downs in the less desirable parts of the city. And to be less desirable in this city would not be putting too strong a description on it. There was a turnstile – just a cover to indicate that this was a place for which you needed admission, as most zoos in other cities would need. No money changed hands and when people had time off from work they came here – all jolly and familified – and entered the place that was hidden by tall grey walls which made them feel they were indeed going to work all over again on their holiday! The turnstile was unimpeded and they emerged into an area around the first enclosure. In the distance could be seen the starts of corridors between lines of cages, the contents of which could not yet be seen but their hubbub of loud meat could certainly be heard from this auditory vantage point just inside the turnstile. The first enclosure was empty, unlike the other enclosures beyond the cages, as visitors who had been here before could attest were full of living exhibits yet to meet the gaze of greenhorn visitors. Why an empty enclosure was the first exhibit often mystified initial visitors, but this was soon explained as the various themes panned out in interlocking concertinas of myth and logic and as the total exhibition of the zoo revealed itself to the unpaying customers filing past."

 ==================

Notes to be continued ... perhaps covering Credit Munch's Scream in Vigeland Park, Bird Flurking, Angel Alligators, Cerne Abbas Giants and Atoms... and why Zencore, Cone Zero and Cern Zoo are all near anagrams.

==================

Today (6th Oct 2008), DFL has written some new BAFFLES specifically for 'Cern(e) Zoo' and linked from here: http://weirdmonger.blogdrive.com/archive/189.html

==================

The 'Cool Sunlight' Syndrome (11 Oct 2008): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/cool_sunlight.htm

=======================

28.10.08: http://erastes.livejournal.com/298748.html shows this link

And THIS has to be the MOST baffling and daft submission call ever?

========================

Stand to attention all Cern Zooists!

Above photograph taken by DF Lewis - 1970

²To the power of ∞