"Annoying Fucking Lemurs"

An Interview with Dr. Hank H. Hackhammer, PhD

No longer chittering mad, Hank H. Hackhammer lives out a quiet retirement on the gulf coast of Texas. He spent twenty years under the care of Doctor Mosambopalis in Santa Demonia Special Secure Hospital’s experimental therapy unit undergoing a treatment he calls “re-narrativization therapy”. I’ve asked him to speak with me over the phone to limit the risk of spreading COVID-19, instead of going out to meet with him in person on his small beachfront property.

He explicitly doesn’t allow me to record the audio of our conversation, so this transcript is transcribed from memory, with the help of someone else who took notes while listening in. I asked him to send me a picture of what he looks like now to post along with this. He obliged, and a week later I received a polaroid in the mail of him in front of his house. As I went to scan it, however, it disintegrated into dust. Clearly he is still a very secretive guy.

Our conversation meanders across topics of magic, numogrammatics, getting old, and local wildlife when he finds an alligator in his garage.

V: I just wanted to thank you again for the chance to talk to you. You’re something of a hero to us Neolemurians, and it’s an honor to meet you, even over the phone.

H: Uh-huh. Well, I ain’t been up to much since I got out. Just looking after the ocean. In my absence, seems interest in the numogram’s been kicked up to eleven. I’d warn you kids against it, but that didn’t work last time, so I doubt it’s worth the effort.

V: You warned them against studying numogrammatics?

H: ‘Course! I warned everyone. I still do. One of the reasons I resisted treatment in the hospital so long was that I wanted to protect them from the horrors that I had become engulfed in. They weren’t very smart people! After all, I got out! Should be proof enough for ya. [LAUGHTER]

V: Why did you go to Santa Demonia in the first place? Did you call something up that couldn’t be put down?

H: No, nothin’ like that. I got overwhelmed by too many of those annoying fucking lemurs and lost my grip. Had a bit of an episode trying to get them to go away. That’s when I realized how dangerous they were, and I suddenly became interested in putting people back together instead of ripping them apart. So I looked at bein’ institutionalized as a kind of meditation retreat. No phone, no internet, no people, just me and the numogram dukin’ it out. Three hots and a cot and some lithium to get a little shut-eye. I let ‘em keep me there while I worked it all out, and once I was finally finished I stopped playin’ around.

The basic premise of what I discovered is this: these fuckers’ll eat you alive if you let ‘em, and if that’s your style then so-be-it, but for most of us it’s too much to handle and they come on a little too strong. However, so long as we remember the key point of Lemurian Fundamentalism, we won’t get swept away anywhere we don’t already know how to handle.

V: You mean grounding everything in the numbers?

H: More or less. When we get subjected to somethin’ hyperstitional, we’ve got a natural inclination to get caught up in the hype. Next thing ya know, you’re drawin’ spirals on the walls and eating nothing but canned beans. What I found is that the numerical qualities of the numogram can be just as grounding as anything else.

V: You mean it undoes the hype? Or otherwise resists against the hype?

H: Yep.

V: Ah! I think I see what you’re saying, then. I’ve recently been studying the phenomena of what I call negative hype, or anti-hype. Basically instead of seeing something and going “woah that’s cool and/or true!” you say “this is uncool and false!”

H: And that’s the beauty of the numogram. It’s always going both ways. Through sheer reliance on the numerical facts of numogrammatics, you ain’t doomed to get torn to shreds. When you’re grounded in indisputable truths, you can’t never lose your way.

V: Until they disprove math, anyway.

H: Ugh. That ain’t ever gonna happen. I met a few xenomathematicians during my post-doctorate research who were tryin’ to do just that, and they failed miserably every step of the way. Still got thousands in funding though. Almost makes you wonder if the boards ain’t got something goin’ on behind the scenes.

V: You know, on that point, I’d love to hear about your background. How did you come to discover numogrammatics? Why did you study magic in the first place?

H: When I was ‘bout ten years of age, I watched a Hoodoo priestess rip my deadbeat father a new one. I visited her shop ‘n asked her to teach me, but she said her spirits didn’t trust me and turned me away. Gave me my first book of spells though. Ended up at university studying religion, where I met Peter Vysparov when he gave a talk on shamanic trance-states. Went up to him afterwards with my mind wide open and he filled me to the brim with bullshit ‘bout Lemuria.

V: And that settled it then? From that point on, you were a numogrammaticist?

H: For better ‘r worse, yep. I did my graduate and doctorate education under one of Vysparov’s buddies, a devout Thelemite whose claim to fame was that he fucked Crowley once upon a time. He died right ‘fore I went into SD. He was always warnin’ me about the damn lemurs, too. Wouldn’t be surprised to discover it was partially his doing all along.

V: You’ve been studying numogrammatics for what, forty years? Doesn’t that make you just about the oldest numogrammaticist today?

H: Nah. Vysparov’s still out there. ‘Til he keels over we ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. He’s partnered with a Dibboma witch somewhere with good weather, and every day they turn back the clock together. We’ll all be long dead by the time Vysparov finally kicks the bucket. Then, whatever he’s been holding at bay’ll come blasting through the open gates of Hell.

V: Katak, I’m guessing?

H: On a scale you ain’t never seen. If you think it’s bad now, just you wait.

V: Any tips on surviving the coming storm?

H: [LAUGHTER] If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that nobody gets outta this mess alive. No use worrying ‘bout all that. The cycle just keeps goin’ and goin’ on, you might avoid it today, but you ain’t avoiding it forever. Even Vysparov’ll die. Stillwell might be in cryo waiting out the rise of Cthulhu, but soon as she wakes up she’ll probly croak! That’s how it goes with these things. Ya can’t fight nature and win forever.

V: Is that why Nick’s like that?

H: Nicholas implicitly understands that we’ve all got a tentacle up our ass. Whether or not he gets that his tentacle ain’t actually piping him the One True Secret ain’t my place to comment on. ‘Sides, he stopped answering my letters.

V: Everyone gets a tentacle up their ass, what they do with it is up to them.

H: No but, and here’s the thing that most of us, ‘specially in the West, ‘ll never understand: knowing the tentacle’s there or what it’s doing don’t make you special. A self-aware puppet is a pretty funny act, but at the end of the day that’s all it is, an act. “Look at me, I’m free, I can do whatever I want!” Sure thing, buddy. Get back to work!

We can sign up for classes that teach us how to become one with our ass-tentacle or dedicate ourselves to only respecting people with certain expressions of the ass-tentacle but we’ll never grasp that the entire system, every single fuckin’ thing that happens, is a play put on by the polytendrilled abomination just out of view. Every conflict and disagreement and act of true love is just a fuckin’ sketch, maybe to entertain its buddies at a dinner party. “Look, Dongle, I can make this species commit genocide against itself!” “Hahaha, that’s hilarious Glup!”

You see what I’m sayin’?

V: I… think so. So, what’s a true Neolemurian supposed to do about this situation?

H: Nothing! Laugh along with the tentacle. What do you think the Daoist sorcerers meant by “the Way”?

V: Well, even though a tendril is part of a whole, what’s to say it doesn’t have something of its own agency? I read something recently that suggested each limb of an octopus has a mind of its own in addition to the mind of the octopus.

H: That mind would only ever be reacting to its environment. It ain’t really going to pull the strings, ‘less it comes up against a wall and says “This here’s a wall, we gotta go around it.”

V: But there’s quite a bit of power in that.

H: Hmph. Afraid this metaphor’s startin’ to fall apart a bit. But rest assured, everything that you could ever conceive of, the polytendrilled abomination’s already planned for.

V: So, what’s the point?

H: You’re naturally predisposed to find a point even when you discover that there ain’t one. Such is the beauty of the human mind. Your entire life is a manifestation of a process that began four point five billion years ago and will continue billions of years into the future. If that ain’t enough of a point for you, I’m afraid you ain’t much of a Lemurian after all.

V: Uh-huh. Sure Hank. I see how that could make sense. It just leaves me wanting something more, some deeper understanding. Why is this many-armed god wasting its time playing with us? Doesn’t it have something better to do with its time? Or is it really that bored?

H: Hold on, got an alligator in the garage.

V: A what?

H: An alligator. Big ‘un, too. Must’ve left the door open yesterday.

V: Is that… common down there?

H: Ain’t you been here before? ‘Course it’s common! Actually, I’ve gotta take care of this damn thing. Thanks for the conversation, Ms. Vexsys. Lookin’ forward to seein’ my name in print once again.

V: Good luck with the alligator!