More On Zireaux
Sometimes I publish something that I just know is filler,and it turns out to be some of the most popular content on the site. Look to the right in the sidebar. That piece about the fake IRS email is consistently one of the most read and searched for posts on the site, and the day I published it, I almost didn’t. I thought it was too corny and silly. Shows you what I know.
Earlier this week I wrote a piece on Immortal Muse and Zireaux. It has continued to be a very commented and visited piece through the week. Almost immediately after publishing it, I received a comment which made me look at the “whois” information, which in turn led me to conclude that the artist and the publisher were in cahoots with each other, and that the whole thing was most likely a marketing scam.
Now I am not so sure.
Thanks to a comment by Allan, I revisited the Zireaux.com site, and was redirected to a fresh wordpress blog, where I read the following:
“Retraction
Two days ago I received, or rather my lawyer received, a letter from a certain publisher, or rather from the attorney of said – or rather unsaid – publisher, demanding that I remove a statement which I had originally posted on Zireaux.com, and that, “according to the terms of last month’s settlement,” I neither “mention the publisher’s name (or the name of the work in question)” nor “interfere with the sales, distribution, or promotion of [the work] in any manner whatsoever” lest I grant, “by breach of aforementioned settlement,” the unsaid publisher “express legal right to the disclosure of certain facts” about my personal life. Or maybe it was “marital life,” my lawyer mumbles over the phone.
Thus, I wish to make it clear to the poor lost reader of Zireaux.com, that I’ve decided to comply to this cold and impregnable command, that I’ve removed the offending statement forever and will reserve my negligible scrap of webspace for the most benign of blogging activities: an occasional book review perhaps, or maybe a travel piece, a blurb about the noisy Stitchbird that lives in my cabbage tree, a recipe, a rumour, an unprovoked slander against some innocent artist, or a thousand other meaningless little write-ups and causeries – but never, no never the slightest particle of my poetry, which, like so much of the medium, is composed to be heard, not read.”
Assumptions and Conclusions
I’m going to assume here that this statemant can be viewed as honest and sincere in its content and presentation. I’m going to further assume, since it is directed at zireaux.com readers, that it is meant also to provide some information to explain the apparent inconsistencies we saw when we looked at the story earlier.
I see one phrase in there that would go far to explain things, and that phrase is “marital life”. It’s presented to us by Zireaux as an alternative interpretation, attributed possibly to legal mumblings. If I assume that this is all wrapped up neatly inside a disintegrating relationship, then some things can become clearer. Of course you know what they say about assuming… so let’s do it some more.
The box of notebooks, which I originally thought were stolen, could’ve been property contained within the “settlement”, and therefore not stolen at all. The publisher’s obvious disdain, which I called attention to in the original article, is easily explained as well as the arrogant publishing of works which may have been awarded by a judge.
The whois information would look that way if the sites in question were purchased before the relationship broke apart. The more I look at it, the more it looks like Zireaux is not the scammer here. The publisher, on the other hand, well, at the very least, I don’t think we would be friends. You may feel differently.
I dunno, but I just wanted to throw this out here since it seems so many people are interested.
I am Jon, and I guess that sometimes, I get a bit hasty. But I’m still not buying the book.
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I live in Auckland NZ and had the good fortune to see Zireaux give a reading in Ponsonby a few years ago. He had the audience “in his palm.” We were all enchanted by his “epic poem” as he called it, which I’m pretty sure was “Kamal” (I remember because the title reminded me of an American stand-up act I once saw on tv by someone named Kamal). When I saw the book “Kamal by Zireaux” was published I was keen to buy it. But now I don’t know what to do. I’m hesitant to buy through Immortal Muse but I would love a copy. If anyone has a suggestion please share.