Asher Black is an enigma, but observation *will* reveal certain things about him. For example, on the most basic, surface level, it is evident that mine host is a talker first, and a writer second. In fact, he is currently exploring technology that will turn spoken words into written ones, enabling him to conflate talking and writing. Anyone who has spent any time with him at all knows that he loves to hold forth, and discuss, and discurse, and argue, and incite, and bewilder, and instruct, and persuade, and cajole, both in person and in print. And that he does these things most brilliantly after midnight.
Observed a bit more attentively, Asher reveals further a tendency toward devious thought, and an inclination to the heretical. Moreover, he rather likes these qualities about himself. The latter trait arises, perhaps, from the fact that he will listen as intently as he will hold forth, and if he perceives himself to have been wrong about something, he changes his position immediately to be right. (This, however, is a more speculative observation, and so let us return to the traits of Asher’s that pure attention reveals.) He is unafraid of the dark, can think about and act upon several ideas simultaneously, and smokes, not absent-mindedly or efficiently, but ritually (and please put your Freud away. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. Now, cigars, on the other hand…definitely Freudian. Just think about it.).
Asher was heard to remark recently, “I like my food like most things: delicate yet hearty.” This remark is germaine here because it points to another trait of Asher’s which it is impossible not to observe: he is an epicure of the old school, or at least an assiduous student thereof. In tobacco, food, clothing, and so on and so on, Asher knows what he likes, and what he likes are fine things.
Asher demonstrates an unmistakeable facility in writing, with a tendency toward the Romantic (heretical?). He has written editorials, poems, stories, and other, less easily classified works, some of which he has displayed for the delectation of Haunt residents. A far wider audience is indicated, in the opinion of this humble scrivener.
