It's time, I think, for a change of pace. Batman may, by night, converse with hired goons in the violence that is the only language they understand- but even he must retreat from Crime Alley to the opulence of Wayne Manor, sipping three-finger brandy twixt cracked lips and cracked ribs, and conveniently fudging the question as to whether the most effective means a multi-millionaire has of combatting citywide crime really is a boyhood fantasy of wish-fulfillment, costume-donning, and correctly identifying the clownish nature of the City's Prince of Crime. Well! Caesar himself must, after the day's battle, retreat to his tent: and so Guildenstern, after muddying his boots on those Angelgrrl_98s with Dirty Faces, is obliged to return to polite society.

Let's not tar Posthumous with a fleck of that metaphorical flourish, however- there is no taint of 'polite society' to be found here. Still, nevertheless, I must compare my initial impressions of "Legends of the Black Yak" to a vision of a fashionable dinner party, circa the 1880's. Wilde is there -of course Wilde is there- and so are you, unfashionable you; and Wilde is not talking to you, but nor is he talking to anyone and nor, indeed, is he talking to everyone, but merely talking to those who are listening whilst gently, discursively mocking those who are not. Thus it stands with Posthumous- the identity is not strict, but the analogy is worthwhile.

The comparison, I think, derives in the main from the conviction that Posthumous's diary entries, like Oscar Wilde's sparkling ripostes, are (merely?) the work of a moment, soundbites and observations which, like moments, come, are set down, and are gone. So? What's in an instant? Most of us have so many of them that none of them individually matter- they just slide like sandgrains down our back, leaving only a creeping, discomfiting sensation and an itchy rash. Why should we care more about Posthumous's moments than the countless seconds of our own that we have already forgotten? For no other reason than this: that Posthumous's diary is an object-lesson in the meaningfulness of a moment.

The diaries of Diaryland burst at their pretty pink seams with trivia and minutae- and these, in their way, are the noblest of subjects, if handled properly. The instillation of significance to -or, more properly, the extraction of significance from- an ostensibly insignificant subject is the very stuff of Life itself- the determination to wring every last drop of living from our brief sojourn upon this mortal coil is all that makes Life bearable. "Legends of the Black Yak" comes as an inspiration and a reminder, an example and an encouragement, a beacon to those who have lost their way and to those who have never found it. The entries pass like the moments they presumably were, once, for the writer- but as they pass us they prod us, remind us, nudge us, change us, just as our own moments always should. The question, as Posthumous' choice of subject constantly reminds us, is one of perception, not of lifestyle: deriving significance and delight from all around him, the writer constantly reminds us that all that separates the mundanity of our everyday from the nonconformity of his is the willingness to look around. You don't even have to stop.

The writer's voice, like Wilde's dinner-party orations, is confident and self-aware. Though the theme of the diary may sometimes admit of strains of didacticism, the danger is consistently averted by the warmth and sincerity of the written words- if Posthumous is a Zarathustra he is no bellowing, hectoring one, but a more sympathetic and sage variety of prophet, inviting us in to survey his mental furniture and see if it isn't so much better than the mass-produced trappings of our own interior worlds. Like Holden Caulfield, the end of every entry left me with the nagging feeling that I should phone up the author and ask him he fancies coming round for a chat and a game of backgammon over a snifter of port, if that's his taste and times being what they are.

We can talk negatives, but there is very little to say. The entries are always, in themselves, complete but very short- a move which, if stylistic, actually does work extremely well, but still leaves us tantalized and gasping for more. If Posthumous was Wilde, he'd end his entries by advertising his latest play to his now comprehensively reeled-in audience and relaxing in his comfy chair to the melodic "Ker-CHING!" of the box office cash-register- but here we are merely left hanging, with the frustrating suspicion that there is more, but we just don't know about it. This is in no way a poor reflection on the writer's abilities -indeed, it is very nearly flattery- but it still disqualifies us from thinking of the diary as a substantial body of work. That there is so little of it is all that keeps my scoring of it in the 80s.

In short, truly one of the most deeply entrenched of trough-buried gems in Diaryland.