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Sortmind |
Synopsis | Background | MS. Info | Sample Chapters | Contents | Trilogy Images
Writing InventoryThe trilogy, Sortmind, and all writing on this page copyright 2008 by Michael D. Smith
1. The World is an Art Supply
Albert Snuck’s Mindwipe through the forest preserve incidentA newly-hired librarian Mindwipes on his first day on the job. When he assaults a coworker and screams that he’s an alien from planet Cnzaar, Library director Peter Traumfoster begins to fear a dangerous glitch in the Telepathic Database’s millions of lines of computer code.
Anna, a young businesswoman, intimidates director Peter not only with her complex Bolivian bank question but also with her direct access to the Justice Information System.
High school art students Oliver Perrine, traumatized by the terrorist bombing of the First International FTTF Convention, and Sam Emerson, coolly pragmatic and politically aware, struggle to define themselves against their fascist fathers, the founders of the reviled Citizens Against Triangles.
Barbie Malroux, a Drulgoorijk Art Institute cheerleader, shames architect Mitchell Emerson for his stale, doctrinaire architectural work. Drained by his abuse of the Justice Information System, the hot tempered Emerson accesses a racy personal ad on the Telepathic Database.
Peter discovers he’s apparently stolen the mysterious Anna Winstead from the FTTF’s top terrorist, Robert Plill.
Sam’s sister Teresa wanders drunk in the woods in search of Oliver, discovering that she’s a link in generation upon generation of power people, and that she and Oliver belong to the secret society of Tree Leopards.
2. Awaken the Sleep Within
The telepathic tablets party through the disastrous NOT ANNA commandMitchell Emerson telepathically reviews his girlfriend Shelley’s files after she proclaims that she too is an alien from Cnzaar. Distraught, he deepens his drunk at a party, using the Telepathic Database to sample everyone’s sexual history.
A sudden desire for Emerson’s ex-wife Barbara prompts FTTF leader Edward Duce to drive to the Junior League of Drulgoorijk, punch out women, expose himself, and get arrested.
A library clerk invents hallucinogenic Concentrated Telepathic Tablets and spreads them to the Drulgoorijk Art Institute. Sam writes the story of how he and Oliver tripped on CTT and how Oliver lost his grip on his sanity. Oliver leads Sam to the barn where he half-heartedly tried to kill himself months ago.
Using the AnimalChoice program to become a computerized rhinoceros, Peter follows his lover Anna to a bleak ghetto to witness her affair with Telepathic Database programmer Manfred Pierce.
Oliver relates what happened after Sam passed out on the CTT trip. Still unsure whether it was a dream, he writes about how he and Sam were kidnapped by Shelley, Sam’s father’s girlfriend, aboard a flying saucer, how she demanded his help as a Tree Leopard in the Cnzaarian quest to prevent the Earth’s destruction, and how the cat K’han, a fellow Tree Leopard, rescued the boys.
At her father’s fortress for a weekend visit, Randall Perrine’s young daughter Elise reviews her double agent spy work, but knows she has no one to confide in about her near-rape by an FTTF agent. Instead she must participate in the farcical legal dissolution of Citizens Against Triangles. Her father nears Mindwipe as he reveals years of hidden passion for Emerson’s ex-wife Barbara.
The shock of falling in love with the powerful mayor of Drulgoorijk enables Assistant Library Director Donald Roseparker to read her Cnzaarian code. The librarians begin to understand the strange static their Telepathic Database has been accumulating for months.
Suzanne Ramsey, the girl who survived the terrorist bombing with Oliver but disdains his love, unexpectedly asks him on a date, but Peter wrecks it when he intervenes to plead for Oliver’s Tree Leopard Society to help the Group of Librarians fight the Cnzaarians.
Hoping to stop himself from telepathically snooping on Anna, Peter instead cripples his telepathic searching capabilities with a NOT ANNA command which hastens the destruction of the Group.
3. A Tour of Raw Architectural Space
Suzanne’s kidnapping through Sam’s journey to CuxlacjsSuzanne refuses a degrading summer job at the library and seeks refuge at the homeless shelter. Drugged, she wakes up in a Mindwiped street person’s apartment as his personal librarian hostage.
Mitchell Emerson, having broken with Citizens Against Triangles, is set to make a creative comeback, but the For the Triangles Foundation and its insufferable Deputy Director of Operations, Robert Plill, step in to plunder his work.
Oliver and his friend Godwin escape a kidnapping attempt by seductive Cnzaarian high school girls. In despair, Teresa Emerson offers herself to Oliver at his one-man art show. She’s followed by two young men from the University of Drulgoorijk who want to teach Oliver how to pilot flying saucers.
Anna drives into the rural north to embark on a quest for self-knowledge, but is sideswiped by FTTF rapist Garbid Morgensnerl and stuffed into his trunk.
Thalia Solisteal, the charismatic mayor of Drulgoorijk, is unable to hold the city together as fanatic CAT and FTTF factions go into overdrive at the Pledge of Resistance Rally. Sam sees his mother Barbara dancing on stage, clad in only three triangles. Anna Winstead is paraded in a garbage bag, slated to be hacked to death on stage. Thalia calls in a Cnzaarian flying saucer to break up the riot.
Trapped in the burning library with Oliver and the mayor, Sam tries to reconstruct his personality after being Mindwiped.
Four thousand FTTF troops overwhelm Randall Perrine’s rural fortress. He uses the Telepathic Database to learn how to escape in a helicopter, but sees he’s been mortally wounded. After he crashes the helicopter in a neighboring town, Tree Leopards Freda Cameron and K’han the Siamese cat try to explain his destiny to him. Borrowing Freda’s car, Perrine drives into a field where he meets and destroys robot alien Mrr-plic. Mitchell Emerson, reconciled with his Cnzaarian girlfriend Shelley, comforts Perrine as he dies.
Robert Plill holds several main characters hostage on a freeway overpass, seeking to create a new FTTF empire from the ruins of Drulgoorijk.
Oliver escapes to the dark Art Institute, talking to Sam in his head. Edward Duce seeks asylum at Oliver’s garage apartment. In thrall to him, Oliver feebly tries to articulate his theory of art and life, “Shackism,” against Duce’s Mindwiped paeans to the all-encompassing SORTMIND program that runs the Telepathic Database. But once he realizes that Sam is truly dead, Oliver burns down his own apartment to execute Duce for the murder of his father and his friends.
Oliver sees that fellow Tree Leopard Teresa is real, that Suzanne has always been a fantasy.
Sam has scary new duties in a city far to the south. Barbie Malroux, the cheerleader he's refused to admit he loves, proves to be an emissary from the Other World.
The Sortmind trilogy covers a period of six weeks in the development of three sets of characters: Oliver’s group of artist teenagers, the dogmatic architectural and political leaders, and the well-meaning but ultimately sinister librarians. The story is told through third person narratives, diaries, newspaper and magazine articles, transcripts of meetings, and documents created by the Telepathic Database. The trilogy’s characters struggle with art, friendship, love, and family relationships--and telepathic database addiction, secret societies, alien invasion, urban politics, and domestic terrorism.
I employ a mixture of literary, science-fiction, and humorous techniques. I structured Sortmind so that it could be published as either three parts of a long novel or as a trilogy. Each of the books - The World is an Art Supply, Awaken the Sleep Within, and A Tour of Raw Architectural Space - begins and ends like a completed novel, with a fresh introductory perspective and an emotional conclusion showing how the main characters have progressed.
The 1988 painting Sortmind depicts several of the characters. A 2007 triptych of paintings corresponds to the three books of the trilogy, and I'm adding new drawings, pastels, and paintings to the Sortmind Trilogy Images page.
Written
1987-2008 Chapters
Book 1: 22 chapters, 58,000 words
Book 2: 25 chapters, 64,000 words
Book 3: 18 chapters, 54,000 wordsMS.
709 pages for all three books (Times New Roman 12, double-spaced) Words
176,000 for all three books Currently input in
Word 2000 Previously published
No parts yet published
1. The World is an Art Supply
1. A Blank Theater Set
On his first day on the job, librarian Albert Snuck harangues director Peter Traumfoster with his passionate political beliefs.
2. Snuck’s First Reference Interview Snuck blows his first question from library patron Spermhead. 3. Geniushead and Snuck Snuck Mindwipes using the Telepathic Database to respond to patron Geniushead, then screams that he’s an alien from planet Cnzaar. Peter is horrified that his Database is polluting itself with random data. 4. Librarian and Database A young businesswoman intimidates Peter not only with her complex Bolivian bank question but also with her direct access to the Justice Information System. 8. Oliver and Suzanne Oliver, traumatized by the terrorist bombing of the First International FTTF Convention, is contrasted with his pragmatic friend Sam. Both boys must endure the shame of being the sons of the leaders of the fascist Citizens Against Triangles. 20. First Meeting of the Tree Leopard Society Drunk, Oliver makes out with Sam’s sister in the woods. 2. Awaken the Sleep Within
1. Emerson Minus Shelley
Architect Mitchell Emerson telepathically reviews his girlfriend’s files after Shelley proclaims that she too is an alien from Cnzaar.
2. The Blue Ovals Distraught, Emerson deepens his drunk at the Library Staff/Volunteer Appreciation Party, using the Telepathic Database to sample everyone’s sexual attitudes. 3. A Severe Piece of Karma Albert Snuck crashes the party but, Mindwiped, needs the Telepathic Database to remind him of his own name. 4. The Telepathic Tablets Peter consoles Shelley, agreeing that distributing experimental Telepathic Tablets at the party was a bad idea. But Peter’s own girlfriend may have found a new interest in Database Programmer Manfred Pierce. 3. A Tour of Raw Architectural Space
1. Let Me Shatter Your False Assumptions and Replace Them With Some of My Own Suzanne, the journalism student who disdains Oliver’s love, refuses a degrading summer job at the library and seeks refuge at the homeless shelter. 2. Let Me Shatter Continued From Page 4A Suzanne wakes up in the Mindwiped Geniushead’s apartment as his personal librarian hostage, but she saves herself by making him doubt the veracity of his connection to the Telepathic Database. 3. Showing Up is 90% of Being There Mitch Emerson, having broken with Citizens Against Triangles, is scheduled to make a creative comeback with a new commission, but the For the Triangles Foundation and its insufferable Deputy Director of Operations step in to plunder his work. 4. The Art Show
Oliver and his friend Godwin hitch a ride to Oliver’s solo art show, but must escape a kidnapping attempt by seductive Cnzaarian high school girls.
10. Pledge of Resistance Trapped in the burning library with Oliver and the mayor, Sam tries to reconstruct his personality after being Mindwiped.
Book 1: The World is an Art Supply
1. A Blank Theater Set
2. Snuck’s First Reference Interview
3. Geniushead and Snuck
4. Librarian and Database
5. Viva la FTTF6. Bleedthrough
7. Emerson and Shelley
8. Oliver and Suzanne
9. The Disturbance
10. Escape to Teresa11. Escape to Goethe
12. The Council Meeting Begins
13. The Council Meeting Ends
14. We are Afraid to Kill Ourselves all at Once, So We Do it Little by Little, Over the Years
15. Peter and Anna16. Liberation at Grafton: Argument!
17. Liberation at Grafton: Danger!
18. Revelations
19. The Anesthetizing Effects of Damage
20. First Meeting of the Tree Leopard Society21. Battle in the Forest
22. Pat and SuzanneBook 2: Awaken the Sleep Within
1. Emerson Minus Shelley
2. The Blue Ovals
3. A Severe Piece of Karma
4. The Telepathic Tablets
5. Roseparker in Control6. A Box of Old Songs
7. A Strange New Dread
8. Servant: The Drop
9. Servant: The Cat
10. Servant: The Barn11. Manfred and Anna
12. Follow-up to Servant: My Reasons for This Story
13. Follow-up to Servant: Sam’s Father’s Girlfriend
14. Follow-up to Servant: K’han
15. Elise on the Beach16. Perrine and Emerson
17. Nightmare Mode
18. Crisis!
19. I Have a Right to Dodge a Book, Don’t I?
20. Librarian and Mayor21. Oliver and Sam
22. Suzanne Sunset Universe
23. Leopard and Librarian
24. Interlocking Dreams and Delusions
25. NOT ANNABook 3: A Tour of Raw Architectural Space
1. Let Me Shatter Your False Assumptions and Replace Them With Some of My Own
2. Let Me Shatter Continued From Page 4A
3. Showing Up is 90% of Being There
4. The Art Show
5. Young Oliver6. First Reviews
7. Life and Death Squadron
8. The University of Drulgoorijk Automobile Fanciers Association
9. Anna
10. Pledge of Resistance11. Praetoriodämmerung
12. The Warehouse
13. So You Want To Be a Librarian
14. We Lose Much of the Original Crowd
15. Shackism v. SORTMIND16. So This is What the Lives of Non-Artists Are Like
17. The Glorious Train Horn in the Night Through the Thin Garage Door
18. The Way Station
Writing Inventory
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10/06/08