ally

ally is an ergodic, arborescent, semiautobiographical work about identity, mental health, spirituality, and the mutability of the past. A lot of the information contained within is real, some of it isn’t. Each page is structured as a conversation between myself and my ally, a mirror reflection of myself.

ally.id and the book explore different facets of my life — some true, some embellished, some wholly fictitious — in a non-linear, ergodic fashion, using color, page-layout, and mixed-media to create a book more experience than memoir.

The idea was originally cribbed from Dale Pendell’s wonderful Pharmako/* trilogy back in my late teens, but has since taken on a life of its own. Other inspirations are Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst’s S for both their ergodic elements and the underlying autobiographical elements. On the hypertextual side, projects such as the old Fray (notably the story The Worm Within) and Nobody Here. Bonus points to Ouverture Facile and the ilk for getting me thinking about online projects, even if this one isn’t so riddly yet.

If you’d like to read more of my stuff, I have a writing page (which even includes a plain old blog) and a writing portfolio.