Perhaps you thought that the butterfly flying over the naked and emaciated and grieving person on the cover of Nate Sheridan’s Tales From A Dying Mind was a monarch butterfly. If so, you would be forgiven, for it is a common mistake. It is, rather, its Müllerian mimic, its poisonous brother-in-arms: the viceroy, Limenitis archippus. I know this to be the case because of the distinctive black band near the tips of its hind wings, a band that would not be present were it the regal monarch.
Royally speaking, the viceroy is the monarch’s representative; they stand in place of the king, on behalf of the king, as the king’s voice and presence and, perhaps, his soul. The same thing could be said of Tales From A Dying Mind. A king has died, and someone needs to stand in their place and rule. In this case, that person is the viceroy Nate Sheridan.
It’s a difficult role to fill, for who is worthy of the king’s large and jewel-adorned shoes?
But even a viceroy can be filled with grief, and so they must navigate that rough river as best they can. Its glassed edges scour deep valleys into the edges of red and dam-burst eyes. Its darkness cold and impersonal and blinding.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
