St. Remedius Medical College: "What To Do In Dallas When You're Dead"

Visiting The St. Remedius Campus and Don't Know What To Do?

(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)

(From the weekly newspaper Creative Onanism, available online and from bins across the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. First copy is free; all additional copies are $2.50, payable in cash, card, Bitcoin, and magic beans.)

by Edgar Harris

Between this weekend’s International Hodag Breeder’s Society competition, the tryouts for Zwinge Foundation thaumaturge certification and licensing, and the upcoming annual Time Traveler Ball, the area around the St. Remedius Medical College campus is packed with events this weekend, with many flowing out into Dallas proper. Don’t expect the typical college Halloween shenanigans (as a rule, St. Remedius people look at Halloween the way Hunter S. Thompson looked at New Year’s Eve, specifically as a day to let the amateurs have their fun), and everyone’s saving up for the JFK Interventionist convention in November, but if this is your first time in Dallas, or if you’re still recovering from the George Romero cosplay of the Red River Roundup and want something that fires the old brain cells, give these options a try.

Pyromancer Exhibition at Siouzi’s

Siouxzi’s Coffee and Books, 808 Park Lane

Started five years ago by a former St. Remedius metaphysics professor and current judge for Zwinge Foundation evaluations, Siouzi’s is already known for its outstanding combination of excellent coffee, outstanding casual reading material, and hipster-free atmosphere. This weekend, though, features an exhibition by some of the world’s best pyromancers, demonstrating their skills with fireballs, flamewalls, and slow salamander burns, in addition to the debut of a new menu of snacks and noshes, including a wide range of vegan pastries and cookies. Admission is free, but buying a book, any book, is highly encouraged.

Hypermutationist Film Festival

Matilda Theater, 5540 Yale Boulevard

Dallas’s two best repertory and social cinema venues, the Texas Theater and the Matilda Theater, have long had a friendly rivalry over the range and variety of films and live events at each, sometimes even putting together complimentary shows for those wanting to travel between the Greenville Avenue area and Oak Cliff. This weekend, though, the focus is on an all-weekend orgy of sex, violence, and concert footage sponsored by the Hypermutationist Church of Richardson. Among the selection: a recently recovered copy of the long-lost 1990 concert documentary Angry Aspic, featuring famed Dallas industrial band Daenodon, and Bring Me The Head of Kidd Craddick, the first and last concert by local metal band The Dragons of Melnibone ever played at the club Xage before its mysterious demolition. Admission is $25 for non-members, $50 for Church members (includes a “I Visited the Island of Misfit Sex Toys” T-shirt), and free admission with the donation of new spark plugs or bottles of motor oil.

Show Your Science at the Glass Glyptodont

The Glass Glyptodont, 8202 Park Lane

When new management announced that the Glass Glyptodont, a mainstay pub that acted as a second home for St. Remedius faculty and staff, was turning into a gastropub in emulation of the famed English pub The Piltdown Man, everyone was worried that the bar conversations would fade, or at least get overwhelmed by SMU slummers looking for a new locale to ruin and abandon. No concern on that: the famed all-day alligator tenders, along with a constantly rotating combination of bar food standards and gustatory sensations, now come with a return of the Show Your Science lectures from St. Remedius professors and graduate students, showing off the latest in xenobiology, alternate botany, and temporal physics. Because of the venue and the crowds, seating is limited. Admission is $10, with the admission refunded with any food order. Hours; 7:00 pm to 2:00 am.

Sale at Hyperborean Books

Hyperborean Books, 1922 Greenville

While most people are familiar with the Hyperborean Books store at the Alamo in San Antonio (the stairwell leading to it next to the Tomb of the Unknown Bowie), the flagship is still a Dallas tradition for anyone looking for esoteric reading. While not containing anything actually dangerous to and for magical amateurs, Hyperborean shelves still contain such surprises as the 1965 translation of the Eltdown Shards with an introduction by Lin Carter, Time Travel For the Mechanically Disinclined by Christine Ketterley, and History of the Literdew. This weekend, in order to make more room, all books are 25 percent off, or 50 percent if you can translate the alchemical formula on the blackboard out front. (Speaking from experience, just pay the 25 percent. Those formulae change every day, and they’re tough.)

Endurance Karaoke at Club Scintilla

Club Scintilla, 4411 Lemmon Avenue

While Dallas is already known for its darker clubs, particularly Panoptikon and The Nines, the long-running Club Scintilla still leads the pack in both the main dance floor and its secondary live stage, as well as its world-famous Soup Bar for non-drinkers (at least eight different recipes per night, including the standard New England clam chowder and vegetarian pinto bean). The real reason to go, though, is on Thursday nights, when the staff opens up the stage to Endurance Karaoke: a specially selected team of singers present a lineup of disturbing songs and amps up the disharmony, with the last person in the audience winning a $500 cash prize. Trust us: you only THINK you can get through covers of The Mission’s “Daddy’s Going To Heaven Now” or Ween’s “Spinal Meningitis,” but most never get past the cosmic horror of an augmented “One of These Days” by Pink Floyd. Admission is $15; paying an additional $15 for a stuffed animal when leaving is very highly recommended.

Edgar Harris is the former Sports Editor for Science Fiction Age magazine

(Dedicated to Pete Freedman, Danny Gallagher, Alejandro Riera, Jef Rouner, and other comrades from the weekly newspaper business. Solidarity.)

Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. And feel free to pass on word far and wide: the more, the merrier.