cover image The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales

The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales

Alex Rose, . . Akashic/Hotel St. George, $14.95 (143pp) ISBN 978-0-9789103-1-0

Filmmaker Rose ranges widely in his fiction debut, drawing in everything from non-Euclidian geometry to “dyasnimagnosis” (a paranoid condition in which “the subject will begin to believe that the world itself is a construction, that her surroundings are false, the buildings and trees merely set pieces”—The Matrix , anyone?). Thus proceeds the Borgesian enterprise Rose calls the Library of Tangents, the short tales and mini-theories being what one supposedly finds there, with the title section being one of seven “Special Exhibitions.” In one piece, the inhabitants of the fifth island of Japan develop a musical language akin to Morse code; other entries feature an architect who designs a city without shadows, bioluminescent bacteria that create multicolored fog, and another rare psychological condition that causes its subjects to become deaf solely to the waltzes of Chopin. Other musical musings find Christian Doppler's studies in the physics of frequency driving “kinetic symphonies,” in which music arises from hidden and improbable sources. Rose's matter and manner recall Lawrence Weschler's Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder , but Rose has a distinct voice and take on arcana, fictitious and otherwise. (Oct.)