The Portension Manifesto
Welcome to Jay Oatway's home for speculative fiction, slipstream stories, and other weird tales.
Dusting Off The Future
It feels like I’ve been here before.
I once had a blog called Portension. Portension is the act of foreshowing, which seemed appropriate for a blog about future tech. It was long ago, when blogs were new and everyone subscribed using RSS readers, before social media and such. It started on Blogger, but soon I moved to Wordpress. It taught me a lot about building websites. Sadly, and I wish I could have seen this coming: most of the blog was lost in a tragic technology snafu, so I shelved it for another day.
What follows is ‘The Portension Manifesto’ from that blog, which I wrote in March, 2004 — 20 years ago! Remember, it was the dawn of a new millennium, and I was a younger, more hopeful man.
“The future, in all its unpredictability, comes crashing champagne flutes in the fires of our hearts. It swings from the chandeliers of our minds, and rides the banister to the depths of our collective consciousness. It floods the basement of our instinct with urgency.
It’s the siren’s call. It's the still-fresh-scars from the last time we ventured on tomorrow's sweet promise. It’s the beat of the drum that keeps the party heart pumping until we once again are ready to dance.
It’s never what you think.
Portension is about second guessing the future. It's about second chances for dreamers. And its about living a life of continual learning. It's about sharing ideas and inspiration. Together we’ll witness the beauty of new cultures adopting new technology. Together, we’ll usher in a new era of customs and traditions.
It’s about community. It’s about communication.
It’s about working together.
It’s about crossing borders.
It’s about anxiety. It’s about feeling like a pretender. It’s the nervous laughter before you start your big pitch. The future is awkward like teenage kissing. Like adult kissing.
Portension is about understanding change.
It’s about understanding identity.
It about story and performance.”
Jay Oatway, 23-Mar-04
The Return of Portension
A lot has happened since I wrote that, but I still am drawn to the tentative hopefulness of it. And I’d like to think that somewhere deep inside me, that spark hasn’t died.
So, now, two decades later, as I make the move to bring my speculative fiction writing to the web, I’ve decided that I’m going to revive the old blog name (I still own the url, and all the old branding). And I’m going to use the old manifesto as a guiding light from the past for which I search for the future.
Anyway, the subtitle of Portension.com was “Future, Frivolity and Folly”. I liked the alliteration. To some degree, those three words will still inform what sort of writing you will find here.
Future Stuff
Ok, it’s not always future stuff, but I’m writing what might often be called speculative fiction. Maybe you are too. Or maybe you just got lots of time to read stuff. Regardless, welcome.
Frivolity Stuff
Sometimes, I like to write down funny things. Maybe you like to laugh. Maybe that’s worth clicking subscribe.
Folly Stuff
Sometimes humanity does stupid things. I sometimes rant when we do. I sometimes try to wrap that into a story. If you too sometimes can’t believe the direction the world is going, we might have stuff in common.
Looking for Friends
If you too are writing speculative fiction, let me know. I’d love the chance to read, share and discuss each other’s work.🙭