I have struggled with my weight my entire adult life. Dwelling among cubicles for two decades, my sedentary existence saw my weight climb to nearly 300 lbs. The number is irrelevant, but the discomfort, desperation, and despair I lived with were all very real. Fast forward to the COVID-19 global pandemic, I came to a crossroads where I realized I could choose which “95” I wanted to be—eat, drink, and laze my way to 395 lbs., or battle the isolation and anxiety by getting on my bike and pedaling toward for 195 lbs. I chose the latter. Since May 2020, I have logged more than 65,000 kilometers on my bike. I am not a slick, spandexed cyclist practicing his art in pelotons. I am a lone, obsessed hobbyist.

On June 30, 2023, Dave Hunter, father, husband, friend, philanthropist, entrepreneur, passed away at the age of 47. Two days later, in the predawn hours, as I prepared for a 100 kilometer cycling adventure, I felt Dave's presence and invited him to join me.

A chance meeting at a café one afternoon, I ran into an old girlfriend months after our years-long relationship ended. There was awkward talk of new jobs, new friends, and as I moved to say goodbye, there was one more piece of news: “I’m going to be an aunt,” she said. I looked at her. She shrugged, smiled sadly. “Deirdre’s pregnant. Two months, now.” The news echoed in my ears, quivered through my bones. I mouthed the words, Deirdre’s pregnant. Deirdre was seventeen years old. There seemed nothing more to say except goodbye and good luck. As I stepped into the sunlight, stunned and blinking, a murmur of longing and regret whispered through me. It continued unabated as I walked toward home, past my street, to the waterfront. All the while that voice welled until it surged through me like a cry… I cannot let this passing of affection happen without a word...

Nine thousand years ago, Mamalujo was a Chronicler living and working at Kinoomaagewaapkong, “the rocks that teach,” in what modern maps identify as Woodview, Ontario. He was the first technical writer. A poor hunter, afraid of the dark, born with twelve toes, Mamalujo was known as mayagenim, “quarefella,” “weirdo.” When the odoodem’s chieftain demanded that Mamalujo depict him on the Teaching Rock, an offense against the gods, Mamalujo produced a work of mocking satire. The chieftain fired Mamalujo as Chronicler, banishing him from the odoodem—a veritable death sentence. Mamalujo’s friend, the medicine man, was distraught. The woman Mamalujo secretly loved, Gracealujo (and who secretly loved him) was heartbroken. What ensued, however, as Mamalujo wandered out beyond the Anishinaabe hunting grounds, was a process of survival, discovery, and resurrection.

Now, after 34 years, here is the book the Vatican banned in 88 countries, the FBI tried to suppress, and every major media outlet in the English speaking world told you did not exist. Available in this limited, unauthorized edition are the stories of Homunculus. These are the ravings of a desert-maddened wanderer grown lunatic on locusts and honey, crazed by these voices that refused to be silenced. Written in the margins of international telephone directories, take-out menus, matchbooks and business cards, Homunculus has been meticulously reconstructed, its hidden codes broken and laid bare. Shield the elderly and the infirm, protect the innocent and nubile.

I met Pryvett on New Year’s Eve 1999. He was an improbable personage. At first glance, Pryvett resembled a melted snowman, a shapeshifter stuck between two ambitious shapes, but he was, clearly, not to be underestimated. He was drinking beer and tequila and wine coolers and smoking a pipe. He was the friend of friends, and I never really caught the connection Pryvett had to them other than he had once “gamed” with them. As the night wore on and outrage after outrage poured out Pryvett, my wife asked me (as other girls in the room were asking their boyfriends), “Who is that guy?” To which a friend, still choking on his drink, laughing at the freshest mordant bon mot from Pryvett, croaked, “He’s the the love-child of Don Rickles and Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay!”