Who? | Petronius Jablonski

Happy are they, in my opinion, to whom it is given either to do something worth writing about, or to write something worth reading; most happy, of course, are those who do both. Pliny

Preserving thoughts for the enjoyment and edification of strangers, renouncing revelry, friendship, and love for the unlikely esteem of men unknown, is this not madness incarnate, or the closest one can come to rule over day and night, divide them, and see that it is good? Petronius Jablonski

Petronius Jablonski studied Philosophy, Psychology, Mathematics, Philology, Classics, and Physics at UW Parkside. Some Call It Trypophobia is a collection of published stories and an existential analysis of the condition. Schrödinger’s Dachshund is his first novel. Mount Silenus began as therapy for Post-Traumatic Mountaineering Disorder and never looked back. Jablonski writes extensively about music, though there is only one song he reviews.

See his magnum opus, The Annals of Petronius Jablonski, for a thoroughgoing critique of Western Civilization [sic]. Included are the paradigm-shattering contributions of Petronius’ Shovel©, Petronius’ Blender©, the Mushroom of Consciousness©, Schadenfreude Before-the-Fact©, Quietude©, and Petronius’ Garage©, each exceeding in momentousness Occam’s dull Razor, Plato’s much-ballyhooed Cave, Aristotle’s overrated Golden Mean, and Russel’s leaky Teapot.

Jablonski received the GIWWPN Genius Fellowship Grant “not for previous art but as an investment in his future.” He was instrumental in the Pythagorean-Euclidean Reformation.

He is working on a book titled The Sweetness of Honey: A Novel of Vengeance, Honor, and Bobbleheads. If he abandons this project he would be a man without dreams, and he doesn’t want to live like that. He’ll live his life or he’ll end his life with this project (Herzog). He has written commercial fiction under other names. The shame will follow him into the next world.

Ecstatic Raving from Publishers Weekly

Petronius grew up in Cudahy, where he began chronicling versions of the Mary Weatherworth meme. This urban legend about a blind, mirror-infesting apparition endures and mutates like some Campbellian myth. Bizarre and horrifying accounts uncoil across Schrodinger’s Dachshund, winding toward their origin. He went undercover with the Sentinels of the Chandelier to study the mysterious connection between their Gnostic teachings and the Weatherworth meme. Lawsuits pend. Less abstract threats loom.

Most Beloved Goodreads Author 2016, 2019

If Jablonski had been consulted when HaShem set the earth’s foundation it would consist of nothing but New World cichlids. The fish pictured are his Oscar, Jack Dempsey, and Firemouth. He’s also kept many Goldfish, innumerable snails that crept upon rainbow dunes like Volkswagens in low gear, African Dwarf Frogs, a Pink Convict named Blue, a Blue Acara named Pink, Silver Dollars, Filament Barbs, and a mighty Piranha that ate a girlfriend and grew strong from her spirit. The Oscar above was 17″ and ruled his 100 gallon tank with an iron fin. The Firemouth below is eight years old.

Of all the books in the Library of Babel Jablonski could read, the one where Proust dumps Albertine and adopts a Basset Hound is his top pick.

The Jack Dempsey above is over 10″. He appeared on Scott Steele’s morning show but his name is not really Shamu. Jablonski’s favorite fish is the Escondito cichlid. Some day he will breed them in a 720 gallon aquarium.

Legendary and Inspiring Quotes

This is the cardinal virtue of an Objective narrative. Given its timeless nature, there is no need to assemble it with rackets and ruses. With the envy of eunuchs and ingenuity fanned by resentment, men incapable of profound insights deny the Objective nature of the written word in the despairing hope of dissuading those who know the Truth and have the courage to write it.

I, Petronius Jablonski, hereby forbid any and all Freudian, structural, post-structural, post-post-structural, post-colonial, post-anything analysis or deconstruction of my Annals and condemn any and all such enterprises. All theorizing based on class, gender, and ethnicity is strictly prohibited.

An Objective narrative is not a Rorschach blot for one to project his pathologies and sundry whines. If the Reader insists on “reading into” the narrative, he should fill the margins with sketches of penises, vaginas, and stick-figures engaged in coitus. The Annals of Petronius Jablonski: An Odyssey of Historic Proportions and Priceless Treasure of Philosophy

Crisp leaves enshroud Cudahy, never as beautiful in life as they are in death. All rejoice in the tomb of summer, frolicking in the burial ground of a time that is no more. This remorseless decomposition, land of nostalgia and déjà vu, idyllic for football and hunting and lakefront bonfires at night, it calls from a place beyond instinct, one primal or mystical and ineptly mapped by our concepts. If Nature speaks through her patterns, what are we to make of this delirious paean to necrophilia, this hypnotic Ode to Mortality?

The stars, are they not confetti? There is a direct relation between the number of them and the triviality of you. Squint your eyes. The constellation of a long slender hound appears, marking the heavens more objectively than dippers or crabs or bowmen. Trace it with your finger. The dog glares as if perturbed by your discovery. Heaven is not a Rorschach after all.

Perhaps the ancients didn’t name him for a reason, or only spoke the name during ceremonies where his guidance was sought, his wrath placated. They looked to the stars and the stars looked back. What became of them? Survival was not among the blessings from this deity. His ferocity makes him more human-like than one of love. Close your eyes and seize the earth. So solid. So flat and stationary. Your senses are liars and fools.

“What about those other universes, the Multiverse?” you whisper, assuming the fetal position. It worked once. “Screw it. All politics is local. As long as they aren’t connected they don’t dilute the significance of this one.”

The hound in the sky continues to scowl, as he did before you were born, before all men were born. Schrodinger’s Dachshund: A Novel of Espionage, Astounding Science, and Wiener Dogs

Under the anesthesia of routine we slumber, impervious to life’s true nature. The constant yearning for what we lack, the urge to be free of what we loathe, chasing pleasures that vanish like dust. Are these life’s limitations or essence? Men go to absurd lengths explaining the problem of evil. In the process they sound like half-wit attorneys defending a mass-murderer. They say happenstance is a robber, free will a mixed blessing, joy more abundant than pain. Look deeper. There is a mighty force opposing our every plan, a cruel gravity smothering us, the heel of a boot grinding out the embers of our souls, a sadist cloaked in the dark fabric of existence. It is the implacable colossus of Fate. We scarcely have time to stumble onto the battlefield, much less comprehend our plight and mount a counterattack. In a few twinklings of the sun, on a day no different than all that came before, the cosmic ogre squashes us. Those convulsive growls that rend the sky, they are not thunder. They are laughter.

Some say Fate cannot be fought, that it is entrapping as quicksand, omnipresent as the ether. Notice how the cleverest excuses and slipperiest arguments are used in defense of cowardice. Through capitulation to routine man dies an ignoble death long before his mortal coil makes it official. He forgets he is living. Combat is the supreme reminder. What is that putrid stench? Is it not the rot of man’s spirit, the smell of lies told to assuage the failure of those too craven to fight, smoke wafting from the languid den of routine addicts? To wage war against Fate one must locate the most auspicious outpost and launch an attack. That fortress is Mount Silenus. A battle calls. Warrior, arise.

Towering over you, a geological Rorschach absorbing the frustrations and dreams of a new species of ant chasing the wind up its sides, the 50,000,000-year-old distention of rock recently nicknamed Mount Silenus endures, aroused from the sleep of nothing by the same Source that concocted man, remaining at the orgy of existence on the same invitation. And when man is gone, regardless of how many crept across its sides, it will endure just the same, until it doesn’t. Mount Silenus: A Vertical Odyssey of Extraordinary Peril