Lost in the Funhouse

AUTHOR’S NOTE (1968)

This book differs in two ways from most volumes of short fiction. First, it’s neither a collection nor a selection, but a series; though several of its items have appeared separately in periodicals, the series will be seen to have been meant to be received “all at once” and as here arranged. Most of its members, consequently, are “new”—written for this book, in which they appear for the first time.

Second, while some of these pieces were composed expressly for print, others were not. “Ambrose His Mark” and “Water-Message,” the earliest-written, take the print medium for granted but lose or gain nothing in oral recitation. “Petition,” “Lost in the Funhouse,” “Life-Story,” and “Anonymiad,” on the other hand, would lose part of their point in any except printed form; “Night-Sea Journey” was meant for either print or recorded authorial voice, but not for live or non-authorial voice; “Glossolalia” will make no sense unless heard in live or recorded voices, male and female, or read as if so heard; “Echo” is intended for monophonic authorial recording, either disc or tape; “Autobiography,” for monophonic tape and visible but silent author. “Menelaiad,” though suggestive of a recorded authorial monologue, depends for clarity on the reader’s eye and may be said to have been composed for “printed voice.” “Title” makes somewhat separate but equally valid senses in several media: print, monophonic recorded authorial voice, stereophonic ditto in dialogue with itself, live authorial voice, live ditto in dialogue with monophonic ditto aforementioned, and live ditto interlocutory with stereophonic et cetera, my own preference; it’s been “done” in all six. “Frame-Tale” is one-, two-, or three-dimensional, whichever one regards a Möbius strip as being. On with the story. On with the story.