Bloody Fabulous out now

Fashion: Indispensable identity tool or the oldest professional marketing scam? 

 

Bloody Fabulous: stories of fantasy and fashion
edited and with an introduction by Ekaterina Sedia
published by Prime Books

Stories:
“Coat of Stars” by Holly Black
“Savage Design” by Richard Bowes
“Bespoke” by Genevieve Valentine
“Dress Code” by Sandra McDonald
“The Anadem” by Sharon Mock
“The First Witch of Damansara” by Zen Cho
“The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link
“The Truth or Something Beautiful” by Shirin Dubbin
“Waifs” by Die Booth
“Where Shadows Meet Light” by Rachel Swirsky
“Capturing Images” by Maria V Snyder
“How Galligaskins Sloughed the Scourge” by Anna Tambour
“Avant-n00b” by Nick Mamatas
“Incomplete Proofs” by John Chu

Publishers Weekly review

Buy from:
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If stingarees ate fruit . . .

A thought:
If our eyes, like this stingaree's, were on our back, then hotel fruit bowls would be filled with, not Granny Smiths, but medlars.

Stingaree (Urolophus), possibly Greenback (U. viridis)

Another view of this innocent slowgrowing common bycatch, that, if thrown back while pregnant, usually aborts. 

When rays or skates are presented at a restaurant, it's surprising they aren't called 'milk-fed'. Zola mentioned them as common fare for city canteens in L'Assommoir. But recently, when I was stuck at a lodge with pretentions, the dinner choice was Zebu, Skate with Caper Sauce, or nothing. I chose the Skate but the kitchen had no clue how to treat it, so the thing smelled like a nappy bin, and went back only lightly tickled by my tines. 

The next night at the lodge, the menu said "Fish fillets", which hooked quite a few innocents. It's rude to talk to things on people's plates, but I had met my table neighbour's dinner the night before, and could have said to it in sympathy, "You've had a dressing-down."

See Andrew Grygus' Skate Wings and Hank Shaw's Loving the Unloved.

And a must: Rhymes for histotrophy — a Quest.

"the oracle in my fahrenheit itches" — Portraits of Ruin. Just get it, despite the lying title.

For anyone wishing to self-gratify with a book that will make you want, finally, to efficiently slit your wrists, sheathe your blade if you think that PORTRAITS OF RUIN will be your (last) boon companion. It'll on the other hand, jilt you faster than you can say "Fie" or alternatively, as a passage in one of the stories does:

Marquis de Sade: [His new wife, Penny Porsche-de Sade, who’s flashing his new book, On the Paradisal Heights of The Orgasm Circus: Existentialism Is for Uptight Victorians and Dummies to cameramen, on his arm. Waves.] Hi!Hello. [Beaming.] Hi. [Throwing kisses to the fans in the bleachers.] Bonjour! Love every one of you!

PORTRAITS OF RUIN by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
with an introduction of rare quality, by Matt Cardin
Published by Hippocampus Press

Don't judge a book by its cover
This rather typically Horror-screaming cover covers many sins: damn fun, romantic lust, delirious joy; intense observation, oddly enough, of others ("Gull-voice oboe cries", "Gill standing [wearing a black wig / under the wig her real hair is wet--the wig sticks unevenly--some of it is flat and sticks out like crow feathers", "At this distance it could be an angel or the eyes of a pumpkin." "the accomplishments of a dead animal", "A shadow walks the street like a bass player with somewhere to go."); playfulness; heart-rending beauty as indissectible as a rainbow; magic; music in timbres unique to this writer, as if he'd mixed his own alloy and poured it, red-hot, to cast his own bell. 

There are many styles here, too. Sure, there's the whole panoply of human pain and paingivers, but that's only part of the whole.

Pulver is famous for his unique let-it-all-flow-out style, but there are many here. Also, the easy flow is, I suspect, as easy as an iceskater's smoothness.

             the fluent scent of disordered 
bare
bones

In this book the spaces matter. Fonts matter. So does all the punctuation. So does every word, no matter how shed like skin cells from aetheria and swept up it might seem. It's clear that Pulver is not only a perfectionist, but an agonist (isn't it an undramatised tragedy that this word, a noun even, isn't represented in dictionaries by meaning #3: 'one who agonises'— the snobs). (But as I was leading up to: five stars for the production team at Hippocampus Press, for this is a most excellently set book, with a variety of treatments, each executed with much care.)

The skill of writing is consummate and invisible, never dazzling us with lectures on technique. Nor is there any of that painfully padded & crafted abuse of words and our patience that is so common with MFA-waving 'experimental' authors. (I highly recommend Matt Cardin's unusually useful and most interesting introduction. It talks of many things, including trying experimentalism; and would be an excellent essay for anyone who must read anything about what is written.)

Above all, this collection reminds me of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade"; and if I had covered it, I would have woken Bakst, who would, I know, have done it for a copy he could take back with him; for Portraits of Ruin tells innumerable stories, not vaguely in the least—with no bullshit, but richly and not specifically (and he doesn't leave those hated 'ly words' and adjectives' to die from no exposure).

Furthermore, the celebrated Pulver flow cannot disguise his genuine romanticism, not one wedded to doom but surprisingly mushy. This collection could easily be sold with a chocolate box cover, and satisfy consumers. Oddly, this little secret is something no one ever mentions.

She removes her flower-print cotton dress—one land of tinted-weather melted to a hungry landscape of astronomy (every star for me to see). Offers this vampire ingot-nipples, oh the torchlight-joy contact. I FEEL TOTAL. Offers me that magnificent heart—Burn-burn-burn—Burn-burn! My own Alice, crackling, laughing, Drink me. Drink me. Come that I might annotate you with kisses and commas and prickled clouds. Come with your need. My cupcakes breasts will paint you with strawberry whispers.

I have told you this to pay him back for another unsocial characteristic of his. Many times in the past months in which I have had the privilege of fluffing his moustache with correspondence, I have quoted back a sentence or phrase that he's minted, because I've liked it so. He never remembers a one. I truly think he doesn't even wear his books in his coat.

The only other criticism I can think of is one about humility. Pulver has too much of it. Stop hoarding it, man. The rest of the world needs more. 

Feeding in the rain

A queen wouldn't sit as well
There has been so little rain for so long that this wallaby mum and toddler got their portrait taken, in celebration. She has such patience and the drinker is so in her cup, that it's a shame this isn't a daguerreotype.

Mitt Doom

"Best performance since '84"

 "He...at long last, began the process of offering a more authentic version of himself."
— David Brooks, "Moderate Mitt Returns!" The New York Times, Oct. 4

"Oh, Mr. Brooks... Surely you are joking....He had all the cheerfulness of someone who knows a lie goes around the world while the truth is putting on its pants."
— comment

Lost to Perpetuannuality in Carcosa

(This is for Joe Pulver, not just because he thought up and edited A SEASON IN CARCOSA but because he's a trip—one you couldn't take for lucre.)

The vibrating cesium atom (Time) is an atom of regular habits.
To wild Carcosa it went to count: purported anxious rabbits.
Long history left the landscape something some would call a waste—
its rolling -scape as marked by pock as the moon's full-forward face.
The task slayed mere stupendous,
to dimensions quite horrendous
if 'purported' grew to more than a few real rabbits making x with haste.

How every hole could one atom count since each one needed watch?
Did the atom blanch or dither, stop, veer, turn back, fibrillate, agitate, vegetate, delegate; or even hmm one notch?
This vast Carcosan underground needs an army to survey,
but that will only happen on the day someone bags Someday.

The task was quite impossible. Yet the atom never wavered.
Down it went into the hole, atomlogically, nearest favoured.
and never left, was lost! Is lost
What cost! What cost!
But do I hear hooray!?

It's there now (the atom, vibrating)
snared in springs (they cannot-or-will-not help it) that it tickled to hilarity
in a hole alive with watches owned by rabbits of gregarity.

O! the pitfalls of regularity! If it didn't hiccup so metronomicarilly, it could loose and flee for Whence.
Or if only it could change its character. Say bumpkinise, stop to smell the rabbits, slow as talk over a country fence.

But though Carcosa's wild as a Carcosan equashion,
Time's movement of autocracy governs every nation,
the Gov rules, see. The clock itself. Its pocket holds the key,
or so it would if only it could
break into anarchy.

So now, rejoice
lift up your voice.
Thank Carcosa's ancient wars,
for the homes they made for residents who warranted the survey of them who long ago but who knows when-- hopped up from the shore.
(and hopefully, those springs are eternal, forever, or at least forevermore.)

&
When next you miss an important date
you know who to thank—an atom of regular habits, wild Carcosa, and anxious rabbits—
for giving us the Gift of Late.

That's those of us, that is—those in power, those few made for greatness.
We don't have watches. We have chronographs, timepieces, complications.
Thanks to cesium, we can always be counted on for our lateness.
In fact, you can weigh our greatness by how long we make others (not you, surely!) wait.

Out, and on the road—A Season in Carcosa

The trailer is rolling.
Watch it and read an excerpt—at Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews, where you might also enjoy his reviews: Book trailer - "A Season in Carcosa" edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

This is an exceptionally fine anthology, not only because Pulver has a panoramic vision of what could be included in a 'tribute volume to Robert Chambers' KING IN YELLOW'. Pulver is also a superbly sneaky director. The production contains bespoke creations by people I'm awed to have my "King Wolf" slinking amongst.

As Miskatonic Press says, Haunting the pages of this tome are the following voices:
Joel Lane     "My Voice is Dead"
Simon Strantzas     "Beyond the Banks of the River Seine"
Don Webb     "Movie Night at Phil's"
Daniel Mills     "MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room"
Gary McMahon     "it sees me when I’m not looking"
Ann K. Schwader     "Finale, Act Two"
Cate Gardner     "Yellow Bird Strings"
Edward Morris     "The Teatre & Its Double"
Richard Gavin     "The Hymn of the Hyades"
Gemma Files     "Slick Black Bones and Soft Black Stars"
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.     "Not Enough Hope"
Kristin Prevallet     "Whose Hearts are Pure Gold"
Richard A. Lupoff     "April Dawn"
Anna Tambour     "King Wolf"
Michael Kelly     "The White-Face at Dawn"
Cody Goodfellow     "Wishing Well"
John Langan     "Sweetums"
Pearce Hansen     "The King is Yellow"
Laird Barron     "D T"
Robin Spriggs     "Salvation in Yellow"
Allyson Bird     "The Beat Hotel"

Miskatonic Press has also done an excellent job of producing a book whose physical attributes match the content. The evocative cover is by Daniele Serra; the text is also beautifully set and thoughtfully designed.

The Book Depository has free worldwide shipping and even takes Paypal.

Happiness=Soviet ice cream

Soviet ice cream should have had a worldwide reputation for excellence.

It feels creamier in the mouth to even say 'ice cream' in Russian. 

Mороженое — "mah-ROHZH-nah-yeh"

"In the 1920s Anastas Mikoyan set up the first Soviet Russian ice cream factory. That industry never looked back. Ice cream parlours are as popular in Russian cities as they are in the Mediterranean, and the product sold is of a purity and creaminess that constantly astounds Western visitors."
— Lesley Chamberlain, The Food and Cooking of Russia, 1982
Now out in a new edition from Bison Press—
See more at Culinate and buy at Powell's (US)
See more and buy at Amazon UK

5 years ago, in Yahoo Answers:
Question "How do you say "ice cream" in Russian?"
"Best answer" "Just say 'Baskin Robbins; and you will be pointed to the nearest location."

See:
The History of Ice-Cream in the USSR by CJ on EnglishRussia.com

At the flick shop in a country town

Not to trash Drama, but Cane Toads: The Conquest is so much more versatile, equally able to play as comedy, horror, kids' entertainment, nature & human somethingorother, and thriller. And when you realise that male cane toads have drives that go beyond life itself, then we get to the classification that lives toadlike under the labelled shelves, in the dark. Really truly, in one town hereabouts.

But for Drama and everything else, there is nothing that has topped the first flick in this series:
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (that's Dairy Queen! — and I don't mean the little girl)

P.S. to Askew's gorgeous cover for Crandolin

The other day I posted it, in all its glorious detail here.

But what I neglected to say is that this is only the face.
 What isn't revealed is the spine and back.

What does it matter? 
Many spines and backs are given as much thought by publishers as a sweatshop owner does, the workers'.

The spine is as important as the front. The spine supports the book. It actually has more work to do than the more obvious front, being for most of the book's life, the view that says, 'Pssst! I'm here!' 

A spine can be delightfully sensuous, funny, intriguing, elegant, instantly informative, and as with the back and front, something that makes you want to treasure the book in a similar way to a vintage tea package. A book however, is a package that is always full. 

But a book might take that 'package' description as an insult. Crandolin, a personality-filled book with distinct likes and scorns, is positively luxuriating over Askew's treatment.

Note about two spines: One book featured in the picture above is Alasdair Gray's The Book of Prefaces, which has two outstanding and distinctly different covers, both done by Gray (and the flyleaves are also in their own class). This book is a one-of-kind beast that belongs in every library. Its wit will never fail you ("To every generation appears an ageing writer who, with some published work behind him and no ideas for more, decides to produce THE BOOK OF BOOKS"), its passion never fade ("Work as if you life in the early days of a better nation").

I so much admire Alasdair Gray as a thinker, scholar, and fiction writer as well, that when Omnidawn's* collection ParaSpheres came out, with my story next to Alasdair Gray's "Five Letters from an Eastern Empire", I felt a thrill that I still do—partly because this strange person who has somehow never achieved the acclaim he deserves, would be bemused. His self-portrait in TBoP is the look-up-into-my-nose view.

* ParaSpheres was such an ambitious project, and Omnidawn's production standards so high that I have only praise for Rusty Morrison & Ken Keegan, senior editors & publishers. So to anyone who's ever contemplated venturing into the minefield of 'fiction contests', this one you can not only trust, but I recommend going for it: 
The Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook Contest (open till the 15th of October)
Judge: Jeff VanderMeer
Even if you don't win**, this is an opportunity to take a chance and let yourself write something that comes straight from the truest part of your storytelling self. VanderMeer deserves no less as a judge, you deserve no less of yourself.

** If you don't win, but you've written something magnificent, congratulations! You of course, only want to see it published in some venue you'll want to crow about. I highly recommend John Klima's Electric Velocipede. Both the writing and the art is top quality, and Klima's commitment to support this magazine through the years has been costly to him in all ways. I usually dislike Kickstarter campaigns because most of them are on behalf of people who prefer others to take risks—but this campaign gets my thumbs up because Klima has dedicated years to producing a zine that is a model of style and substance.
EV's cool too.