I do not really ever want to talk about my writing but as this story comes to a close I feel a compulsion as I fear not many will have taken the time to come down to my level in terms of attempting to understand – which is a central theme of this story.
Hyperbole & Hyperviolence materialized after some impactful trauma in my life. The global pandemic of 2020 completely destroyed me. I felt alienated, depressed, and alone. Maybe I was wondering what would happen when I died a little bit too much for my own liking during reflection. All things under consideration and all of that.
I cannot read the first two stories without crying most of the time. It is hard to describe the ocean I was swimming in because I never wish to wade into those waters ever again. When I talk about the narrator in this story I have to refer to myself in the third person because I cannot think about it anymore. Hyperbole is most commonly defined as “exaggeration for effect and not meant to be taken literally.” It was always up to the reader to decide how far they wanted to believe what I was saying. Left with nothing, I was bound to catch my audience up on the narrator's life. Noted for its irony, the work is also filled with enough cynicism to make a prostitute-refusing Diogenes blush with his cum covered hands.
Hyperbole & Hyperviolence was originally written and initially intended to be three parts: Meat Crayons, Heat Death, and Latocha’s Lavender. The first story was “about the pandemic” the second part was about “living alone” and the third part was about “building my garden paradise and finding peace” but it was to be written literally as a “garden manual.” The story expanded rapidly after I dropped out of pharmacy college in 2023.
Although I probably thought I invented it at one point, to my knowledge, and despite first glance, hyperviolence is a French word that was popularized when describing excessive brutality seen in terrorist attacks and acts of violence in their country. Without this knowledge, its definition should go without needing explanation upon first glance. Hyperviolence is already exaggeration but not hyperbole. It was required. Not enough French language existing to describe excessive brutality that they needed to coin more? When the creators of the guillotine run out of ideas and are required to think outside of the box, we should all worry.
My selection of this word was as much for its alliterative value as it was for its dichotomy by
definition. Such are writers. Hopefully in my
usage, it is never undersold. Trigger warnings and offensive language have always been hot
button issues for me. I once wrote a story about a gay
professor whose father beat his first love to death with a wrench outside their family's autobody
shop after a summer of secret romance in the
underground punk scene before he was to leave for university. No one published it and it has been
lost to time and the hearth of my family home.
The Queercore Trigger Warnings. 2015. I have to admit – this was a potboiler because I was
trying to meet popular culture at what I had believed
to be the axis and critique it through an example of “hyperviolence” during the time which it
was written. As someone who never went to university,
watching people complain about learning at some of the most prestigious and once respected
institutions in the world always made me extremely upset.
I simply asked my reader: how would one consider being asked to warn people of offensive language
after having themselves seen such examples of
grotesque violence in their own life?
Imagine being a victim of Rwandan genocide and being asked to spare the details. This
may be a Colby thing, but I have always maintained it is
unfair. Other people may call it by another name. I will not, as I think people are just simply
stupid at the current climate. But I believe things
may turn around.
I guess I cannot be surprised no one would publish “his teeth scattered like pennies on the bottom of
a fountain.” while describing gay teenage love
gone awry. Maybe it was expanded and I have it somewhere. Maybe it will all come out in the
wash.
The point that I am raising is that I have always viewed writing as an art form. I understand
that communication is very special, and linguistics
are just below music in terms of holy divinity, but for most people reading, writing, and speaking
are simply how they do just that. There is a difference
between fiction and literature. I am not saying that to be pedantic. There is a reason why they are
classified differently from other books on the shelves
of your local library.
If you read anything I have written in the manner which you read anything you have probably
ever read, barring you are an English professor or the
like, you will think I am a pompous asshole. You may even think so regardless – but I was
intentionally trying to make the reader feel a contempt for me
as the narrator. I felt a contempt for myself. I always tell people I wish for them to view my
writing in the manner which they would view a painting.
At face value that seems antithetical to what writing is, simply because reading requires a certain
level of engagement (as in the individual must spend
time with the work – they may not deduce what it is at first, or perhaps second glance) whereas if
you stand in front of a beautiful painting done by a
master you will feel something. People often describe bursting into tears when
standing before a beautiful painting – inextricably. Under simple
consideration: the work is eliciting a response. If you ever felt any feelings about
me or towards me, then it should be understood it was
intentional and it was always aimed at myself. This must not be confused as a literary trope
of “teenagers get cancer and die after finding the only person
in the world who actually understands them” – this is lowbrow garbage and what I was criticizing in
equal measure in The Queercore Trigger Warnings – if you want
sadness, well, the hot topic is gay, therefore.. tragedy pornography. A man who had great
influence on my life (completely unaware of my
writings) once questioned why people made artwork about terrible or violent things. Ironically, I
had never really thought about it. Everything I made tended to
devolve into such mess. I had a lot of time to think about it as my job does not require much
from me and there is no reason to do drugs when they can be prescribed.
I was mainlining Cormac McCarthy wondering why my writing was so all of a sudden violent and
badly punctuated. Truth be told, and without respect to influence; I
like living in the readers head rent free. I like knowing I made someone wince when reading.
But why violence? Can I not make my point without the language? This is my favourite question (criticism) of all time. I always without fail want to ask them to go fuck themselves but I err on the side of respectfulness in knowing it comes from a place of true ignorance. True ignorance should never be met with disrespect. A lesson is to be learned, and I will not be offensive, but I am answering the question with a refutation in the terms of question posed by myself in return: Would you ask a painter to change the colours on their palette? Where would you get the nerve? How much of my work did you actually read? Do you think I am being unintentional? I need to emphasize as I did in Meat Crayons to everyone reading this that this writing could be the last work I ever do. It must be good.
Before any armchair psychologists go on diagnosing poor little Colby here, let me stop you right there and say you probably do not have a medical degree and therefore cannot diagnose anyone and should refrain from doing so, and have fallen upon another central theme. The language I am employing is excessively offensive, and the work is filled with idiosyncrasies and blatant inaccuracies. Why? Because I wrote it. Due to the fact that I was required to self publish, I wanted to play with the medium a little bit. It would be lying to not admit that every writer at some point dreams of being published, but for myself I have long accepted that the current “social climate” would not accept someone so centrist as myself. I grew up in a household as the youngest of eight people. I learned I needed to be loud when I wanted to be heard. Nothing is louder than wrongness. Maybe violence. If I am to self publish, then it is my central prerogative to prove that most of everything on the internet is a lie.
When books were published by publishers who respected their work, there was a barrier to entry. Obviously, as “a child of the internet age” I was raised in a time where anyone could do anything – much to my joy and chagrin. It is harder to be heard when being the loudest is no longer easy without having a heavy wallet. A lesson I learned through humiliation and ignorant brutality by design in previous creative endeavours.
What Pro Tools did to music, COVID did to our society’s collective intelligence. Naturally, I had to start a conspiracy. I suppose this is ruining the surprise, but I cannot discuss this work in totality without acknowledging it. If you wish to look for Hidden Letter, I suggest you stop reading this here and do so now. There are excessive hints in Pitmad that allude to such things if you wish to challenge yourself. I suggest using a computer while browsing.
I must point out that at the time of writing Hyperbole & Hyperviolence (October 2020 to February 2024) I was not a student at Queen’s University. I attended KLC College in 2023, who broke the law, causing me to dropout from the program I was taking. They have refused to return my money and I have reported them to the OCP (useless), CCAPP (I would allege fraudulent – based on my experience given the proof I presented to them, and am willing to share publicly should they feel froggy), and other organizations I will not name currently because I still want their help. Meat Crayons sets the tone. Again, dear reader, I already warned you in the title. I cannot go to school because my funds are tied up in a diploma mill school (again, this is literal – I have all of the proof. No one involved with these organizations cares – they would rather remove another health care worker from the pool). Pretty sure I could be held liable for what I am writing here, so I must be confident. None of the law students here have gumption. Big true. No winners here, just corporate sock puppets. I had big hopes for Generation Zed but I feel like they are too far up the asses of megacorporations to do anything fun. Shame. Before anyone gets upset at me for me being mean to lawyers – I begged them for help without ego, money, nor dignity. Shame. What point is there upholding laws in a society if they are only for one side? Maybe that is why you became a lawyer, after all.
During this time, I fell into a bout of melancholy. I should do my best in trying to avoid describing sadness as depression because sadness is natural and will pass, but not with medical intervention on a university campus (I digress and am not a doctor therefore you should not listen to me even when I am correct). There is a lot of construction going on around campus, and there will be an obvious attempt to meet budget deficits through specialized international students at absorbent tuition fees (like all schools are trying to do instead of realizing education should not be business – which is arguably a grievous sin). I stared at the construction of the JDUC almost every day for a year in my exile. I did not want to work, it was like visiting an abuser – and my mind wandered as it always has. Being on campus however, I felt a weight lift off of me in a strange way. Maybe it was a realization I was where I needed to be. I was not – outside looking in and all of that – but I was at Queen’s University. How exciting. I know it sounds silly, but when I attempted online school the first time this was always my goal. When your dog is violently seizing in your arms every day suddenly learning about the anti-epileptics you are shoving down her throat against her will QID, & PRN in pharmacology while wearing a Queen’s hoodie is not as fun during a global pandemic at two in the morning. Dispensing levetiracetam makes me want to cry every time I see it on the counting tray but these kids need them and their parents have bigger problems than I do. I try to avoid the prescriptions but I would never tell anyone why. Suddenly, things are not so fun. How can I show people what is going on? During complete collapse, what is to happen?
What conspiracy then? Pitmad contains Hidden Letter: Part 1 in the source code of the website. For the uninitiated: from your favourite browser, right click on the page and navigate to “view page source” or some effect. Working on campus, having never went away to school and now being exposed to campus – initially through my lovely girlfriend (whom I choose not to name out of respect to her professionally, given the contentious nature of my writing – but my appreciation to her cannot be understated), I now had a unique perspective – I was wrong about almost everything I had thought. Hyperbole & Hyperviolence holds a perspective regarding post-secondary education that the narrator held in 2015. During the political climate of the time, this was for a multitude of reasons. I failed grade twelve, and ultimately would not graduate high school until 2011. In 2015, most of my contemporaries would have been graduating from bachelor degree programs, college, or perhaps looking at graduate school or a major career choice. I was concerned with what was going on at university campuses despite being almost one-hundred kilometres from the nearest institution and not even eligible to attend. I did not hold the perspectives of my contemporaries regarding university campuses. This should be obvious as perspective cannot be derived without clue. Do not think that the irony of me complaining about certain issues is not lost on everyone when considering the perspective of an unreliable narrator.
The ARC is a central community building on campus. As a student, you could see thousands of people every single day. Every single person new, and unique. Being older, and honestly not much interested in socializing, I started thinking of conspiracies that could exist within the building when I was taking the garbage underground one day. The construction from the JDUC had created an underground tunnel that was supposed to have been sealed by tarp or plywood, but for some strange reason had been left open. Nothing beyond a hard hat sign was stopping me from entering. Where would I go? I suppose I had not much considered such things before that moment. When talking about immigration people will automatically call you racist not realizing that immigration is most commonly defined as “coming into a new country, region, or environment” – a definition void of colour. Colour, as pointed out by Melville, is an incredibly powerful literary device. Immigration has been conflated with colour. Why? Under the context of questioning how people would define the word now, and realizing any real rational discussions around any such topic are purposefully misdirected with such erroneous definition – I had hatched a plan.
Because I had to code my website myself, and was deeply embarrassed with how the html looked, I had thought it would be funny to create a “story-within-a-story” regarding the inception of my website – simply because I had no other publishing options so I may as well have fun with it. Credence was given to such ideas when my father and I had a discussion where we both agreed that when we see websites written in straight html, we always inspect the source code. What is in a word or definition? I found it highly amusing that should I incorrectly refer to Raskolnikov as “Rashi” – people would likely draw their own biases about how the character would look. How is that for irony? I should not need to point out why it is amusing that a failed and morally ambiguous student as borrowed from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment would be coding websites after dropping out of university in today’s financial climate.
Obviously, immigration comes in many forms. The choice of a Russian antagonist was not chosen out of spite. During the time of the writing of Hyperbole & Hyperviolence when I lived alone (2022), I was deeply influenced by the Ukraine-Russia war. I learned as much as I could (though admittedly limited). I reflected upon a summer's night when I spent time with an old friend and her Russian boyfriend when he described hardships of the Russian people. “People here just do not understand.” No, we do not. In conflating immigration with colour by my own design, I was purposefully misdirecting my readers because of their biases. It never feels good to have something thrown back in your face. Regardless of this aspect, the perspective is what I sought. Despite all of the hardships I have outlined in my story, it is still a drop in the human experience. Each individual has their own experience and hardships, and we often fail to realize that in our interactions with one another. Society is falling apart as we fail to realize we are often more similar to our neighbour than we are often led to believe.
However, it is my belief that not all immigration is equal. I believe people must be questioned on whether or not they believe in Canadian values. Our country has basically become a place that people “hustle” in for “10 to 15 years” and then leave. Is that your plan? Then you should have more concern. With this in mind, it was fun to consider the fact that Colby would become involved in a conspiracy with governments while trying to find secret libraries because he liked to read and was writing a “literary criticism manifesto” at a time when people had actual problems.
Whether you believe in free speech or not (you should), it is my perspective that a university campus
should be this location in our society. People often wrongly believe that Canada has
protected free speech.
This is resoundingly incorrect. It is for this reason that I believe university campuses ought to
fill this vacuum. Though I necessarily do not hold all of the perspectives I chose to point
out, I have a hard time
saying that the narrator was wrong – in either case. Universities are a beautiful place – if you
hold the perspective of the group. This is a human thing and not a university thing
but I had always hoped that maybe
there was some sort of elevation of the type when dealing with this sort of metal. Do you
believe I could read any of Hyperbole & Hyperviolence out loud on the corner of University
and Union? Does it matter if
I have achieved my goals?
Coming from a small town, I have limited perspective. The line of work I have done
professionally almost always without fail has me working with someone who was born in a different
country than myself. I now ask questions.
I now listen. I do my best to learn. I would like to think this is maturity, but who knows.
Amongst all other considerations, I honestly thought it would be funny to see if someone would ever ask Queen’s about the conspiracy under the JDUC. When I started writing for my own amusement, which happened at some point during the writing of Hyperbole & Hyperviolence, I finally felt for the first time that I was headed in the direction that I have always longed to be.
Hyperbole & Hyperviolence was designed to be as if a town-crier was warning of a doomsday to come – who would listen? What if a personal Armageddon was coming and I was begging for help? What if it had already occurred? How long must Atra-Hasis warn of the flooding of the Earth before Gilgamesh and the Jews take it seriously? What about the rest of you? Does it matter? I have already drown.
But why would I want to engage with something like this? This actually is a great question. And one that I cannot answer for you. I have already done my best to explain why I believe that is (the reason you engage with any art – understanding, entertainment, perspective, growth, whatever reason you choose) and I hope that people will take the time to do so. It was intentional to be inflammatory in my rantings – there is great anger in these writings. There are a great deal of many things. I maintain that Hyperbole & Hyperviolence actually will be studied simply because it is an excessive example of pandemic art. I was a healthcare worker pushing a decade of experience when COVID-19 happened and I have already said the rest. If you ever want to show someone what it did to the culture. It is me, I am it. As are you, as is my neighbour. I am one thread in the fabric that participates in this society. I do not speak for anyone other than myself – but in sharing my story I was looking for many things, but I also aimed to inspire hope in showing people where I had strayed and where I looked during this tumultuous time in my life. I am only human. I do not have answers that plague myself nor other men, but I must write. I need to tell people what it was like when I was here. I have taken from the well. I am here dancing for rain alone as I know it must be replenished. The choice to become political is also apparent from first read, by my measure.
I know the work was efficacious in my attempts due to the limited engagement I received during its run. I am not naive. I understand this work is a taxing read. I wrote it. It was taxing to write. It was harder to live. But this is all it was: perspective. That is all you will ever receive from your time on earth: perspective. Death and taxes, sure, but perspective. The rationale behind the narrator to tell this story should be apparent by reading it alone so I will not discuss such things, but I do understand that it is a tough sell. People do not want to be challenged anymore. So what of it then? Why are your writings so offensive and violent? Why are you so cocky and mean? That is for you to decide, but I would always state that art is derived from the environment in which its artist was incubated.
Things do mature, things do get better with time for those who are willing to wait. It is my belief that people are too quick to engage with anything anymore and are robbed of enjoyment. I deeply care about books and literature, and wish I had time to read more. I wish everyone could enjoy reading and learn as much as I have been able to do in my lifetime. I am truly lucky, and thankful for this gift.
There are numerous references, and things that also exist in these writings, but that is the
point. I was always told I needed to “write in a way that people would understand” or to
“simplify” things. I will never change the colour on my brushes
ever again. Voice is everything when the tragedy of life is universally shared amongst humanity. If
experience is not unique, then its effects on you are. As an artist, should we not ask more
from our audience? Or are we entitled for perfecting our
craft and asking for respect when sharing it? I do not have answers to most questions, nor those,
but I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my writing here today.◆
- Colby Latocha (2024)