The links below will take you to places where you can read my writings.
Bohacz Life Scrapbook (work in progress, 2020 to present)
If memory serves, I started the Bohacz Life Scrapbook in 2020. The first title of the book was The Open Source Codebook of the Cyborg Club to relflect the philosophy that we can describe the human being as a robot. Also, I think of the book's first title as a play on the Skull Club book's title The Secret Book of the Skull Club. I'd love to hear any feedback you'd like to provide.
The Secret Book of the Skull Club Volume 2 (work in progress, 2019 to present)
If memory serves, I started The Secret Book of the Skull Club Volume 2 in 2019. I'd love to hear any feedback you'd like to provide.
The Secret Book of the Skull Club Volume 1: Illustrated Writings of Terror-Children (10/31/2013)
Are children really innocent? How could little children organize this ghoul-scout troop known as the Skull Club? What hypnotic power did the young Green Skull use to psychologically subject his peers? This book rips away the veil to expose the alarming effects of childhood monster worship. See the unwholesome drawings of Red Skeleton, Green Skull, Blue Cougar Bones, et al. Recoil from the journals of Green Skull including his disturbing murderous rat fantasies. Cringe at the appalling Skull Club visions, secret identities, awful ideas, fearful musings and other terrifying tropes of tots. Even adults have been powerless to resist the insidious charm of the Skull Club with its mysterious rites. What malignant force could possess these youths to make such morbid machinations? You may find the answers only after it’s too late! Feel free to initiate your own souls into the Skull Club as you will find everything you need within the pages of this volume, including thirteen empty secret name slots waiting for your members’ entries.
Cyborg Gospel (work in progress, 2011 to present)
In 2011 I started this book I'd like to write. I'd love to hear any feedback you'd like to provide.
Cybernetic Aesthetics (work in progress, 2008 to present)
In 2008 I started this book I'd like to write. I'd love to hear any feedback you'd like to provide.
The Meaning of Cybernalia (4/3/2004)
Cybernetic Aesthetics Manifesto (1991)
I wrote this paper for my Erotic and the Sexual in Art class taught by Professor Robert Loescher. I attended the class at SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) in 1980. It's a loosely researched, poetically written paper with many of its statements admittedly inaccurate. Dr. Timothy Leary invited me to write for him after I gave him a copy of this paper. He was in Chicago performing his then current "stand-up philosophy" routine. Linda Robin Hornberg, my girlfriend at the time, and I attended his performance (that night, on returning home, Robin and I were involved in a traffic accident if I remember correctly).
During Dr. Tim's performance I remember him joking about a lot of things. In particular I remember how, if he were Adam in the Garden of Eden, he would have consumed the forbidden fruit with relish. After his performance, I went backstage and presented the paper to him. He glanced through it with glee and thanked me for it. I had provided my phone number on the paper and the next day he called me. He said my paper was "brilliant and beautiful" and he wanted to encourage me. I told him it was merely a third brain circuit recitation of his ideas and he said that was fine. He then said he wanted me to write for him. He told me I had to "get away from the Indian thing" and recommended I read The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters. He gave me his contact info.
We stayed in touch and I communicatd to him that I wanted to make a role-playing game based on his Leary Theories, as I liked to call his ideas on the past and future evolution of the human nervous system. He told me that no one was working on such a role-playing game and encouraged me to go forward. I worked on it until the game Spore came out. It was enough like the game I wanted to create to discourage my progress.
Tim also talked to me about my video art. I had sent Tim copies of my History of the Moon, Electromagnetic Fields Forever, There's Nobility Like Mobility and perhaps others (a shout out here to my friend Yvonne Duprez, LMT who saw these videos at Dr. Tim's house and brought them to his attention). He told me he loved my work. I remember the last telephone conversation Dr. Tim and I had before he died. I told him I wasn't quite finished with Electromagnetic Fields Forever. The last thing he said to me was "Oh Mike, it's never finished." Rest in power Dr. Tim!
The Impact of Primitive Art on Early Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture (1978)
I wrote this Eurocentric paper as a student at Morton College in 1978. I can't recall if this topic was assigned or whether I chose it. If chosen, I suppose I got interested in the topic after studying Cubism for an earlier paper. In that earlier paper I wrote how Picasso took an interest in African sculpture and how African sculpture influenced Cubism. I didn't use the word "primitive" at all. I have to apologize for the attitude of this later paper. If I were writing this paper today I'd reflect much more of a nonhierarchical perspective with respect to a comparison of African and European art. Please perhaps substitute "African" for every instance of "primitive" in the paper and it might be more palatable. A survey of my bibliography page shows the books I had access to in the Morton College Library. If memory serves, I researched the topic comprehensively at the college library so some of the blame must lie there.
I wrote and illustrated this paper for a psychology class I attended at Morton College during the spring 1977 term.
I wrote this paper for an art class I attended at Morton College in 1977.
Illustrated Journals Part 2 (6/16/1972 to 9/1/1972)
I wrote this paper just before graduating Irving Elementary School in Berwyn (yes, Svengoolie's Berwyn) in the spring of 1972. I got signatures from my classmates which seems odd seeing that I didn't get along with them very well.
Illustrated Journals Part 1 (11/1/1971 to 6/7/1972)
My Last Entry is a story I wrote for my Language Arts class at Irving Elementary School in Berwyn (yes, Svengoolie's Berwyn). I was emulating Edgar Allan Poe.
I wrote and illustrated this report for a Robert Burns Elementary School class in 1969.
Invertebrate Animals (2/17/1969)
I wrote and illustrated this report for a Robert Burns Elementary School class in 1969.
The Secret Book of the Skull Club (prior to 9/21/1968)
I created our Skull Club when I was around 8 or 9 years old. I recall that I felt great validation about the club when I saw the character No. 48 sing our Skull Club theme song Dem Bones on the climactic last episode of Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner. The episode Fall Out ran on CBS on the Saturday evening of September 21, 1968. Today the club continues and I regard the Skull Club as an ongoing series of conceptual-performance works of art and/or experimental theater. I updated, in a minor way, this downloadable version of the original secret book for those who want to join the club today. Feel free to initiate your own souls into the Skull Club as you will find everything you need within the pages of this volume, including thirteen empty secret name slots waiting for your members’ entries.
My older brother, Joseph Mefford (nicknamed Buddy), owned a book that I liked to look at a lot. The Body was one of Life magazine's books in their Life Science Library. Another title that I liked from the collection was The Mind. Buddy also took us to see the movie Fantastic Voyage and these sources inspired me to create this humble book. I partnered with my third grade chum Jeff Lockridge. We both wrote and I did all the illustrations.
I used to decorate my elementary school reports with drawings, as our teachers taught us to. On the back of this assignment I drew a likeness of Uncle Martin from the TV show My Favorite Martian. He stands gleaming in his space jumpsuit, the antennae on his head passing electromagnetic radiation between them. Different views of his spaceship are also in the drawing as is his home planet Mars. When I saw My Favorite Martian on TV, I so much wanted to be a martian I tried pushing antennae out of my head like Uncle Martin did on the show. I remember staring at the clock on the wall of our grade school classroom as the second hand rounded its way toward the top while I gave a supreme effort toward raising my pair of antennae. I was watching the clock because, if memory serves, I used it to time one minute of effort to raise those antennae. I had my first grade class convinced I was a martian. My legal name was Michael Anthony Montague at the time.
This assignment to print my name occurred at Robert Burns Elementary School probably in 1964.
