ARCADE KID (6)
By:
November 9, 2023
We are pleased to present ARCADE KID, a ’90s “drivethru” written, illustrated, and soundtracked by HILOBROW friend Nikhil Singh. Our readers are urged to check out Nikhil’s dystopian psychedelic-noir novel Club Ded (Luna Press, 2020).
In 1989, I was in London. Trawling for gems, I chanced across the seed of an entire universe. I had my first David Lynch experience when I was 9. I was allowed to choose the video for a 7-year old’s birthday. I had just read Dune. So, naturally, I chose the new movie version. All the kids started screaming when the Baron pulled out his aide’s heart-plug. Parents ran in, drawn by the shrieking. I got in trouble for corrupting the youth (despite being one, myself). In 1989, when I discovered the (later rare) European VHS version of the Twin Peaks pilot, I had already pirated everything else Lynch had made. Wheels were aligning. I was at a close age to the characters. Entering a high school, in a similarly wooded area. Logging trucks and pine vistas would soon become familiar. I already owned a Dictaphone. The influence of Twin Peaks on the early Witchhouse scene was incalculable. Dream logic. Doppelgangers. Later. Again. Twin Peaks aligned with the zeitgeist. The initial impact on the Witchhouse scene was glossed over after the third season aired. Musically, the franchise had aligned itself with many acts outside the purview of the movement. Though, the presence of a ‘dragged’ track in the pilot did suggest a subtle nod to the Witchhouse fan-base. Nevertheless, nostalgic views shifted — current commercial expansions. But, in the hazy heyday of Witchhouse, almost everything was ‘Twin Peaks’. Rumours of Lynch himself, wafting about online. In 2007, a friend told me that he and her girlfriend had become close friends. That he only checked messages at the Myspace account for his recently released coffee brand. The owl egg cracked in 1989. I was a London shadow for many years. Migrating back and forth. Drifting northern dreams. Hovering for the duration of each visa. Exploring a library of burning streets. Illustrative work. Coasting loose. Returning always to the sub-tropics. States of frantic disassociation. This scraping away of northern calcification. After-burner trips. More visa preparation. Cruel for Africans. Couch-haunted homelessness. Sporadic, freelance magazine work. Tattoo work. Art commissions. Limbo periods. Nebulous drowning pools. What had I left behind? Where was I going? Loose ends of a still-forming tapestry. Life took on a distinctly parasitic hue. Under the wan light of shifting stars. Half written science-fiction novels. A warm coat. Summers on fairy hills. Ballpoint sketches of mythological creatures. Turning endlessly in some slow penumbra. Ill-prepared expeditions. Movements across alien quarters. Wilderness and waste. A searching out. Esoterica, transcendence. Astral projection as a cul-de-sac. That ultimate, un-filmable camera angle. When the money ran out. When patience broke down. The entire process. Starting up once again. Comforts of the north — plaque to tartar. Rich rot to counter Africa. All its bleached and vacant lots. Rising steam of sub-tropical isolation. Fogging the glass of every thought. Prompting once more, the need to escape. Perhaps the owls are what they seem…
✖✖MY✖SECRET♥NAME✖IS♥LAURA✖✖ from witch boy on Vimeo.
More NIKHIL SINGH at HILOBROW: DREAMING MEDIA (Q&A) | JOURNEY TO IXTLAN | HASHTAG FASHION POLICE PROBLEMS | ILLUMINATE OR DISSIPATE? | HATE ISLAND. ALSO: HADRON AGE SF (2004–2023) | ORIGINAL FICTION at HILOBROW.