Made you look.
Three up; three down. We’re in the slot, five by five. I’m calling it: no. 14, “Mayhem,” begins its online run on schedule just under one week from today. Pre-orders for paper copies to be announced shortly.
While you’re cooling your heels: Vol. 1, “Wake up…” is slowly wending its way through various and sundry tortuous distribution channels and washing up on shores the likes of iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Lulu, LibraryThing, and GoodReads. If you’ve secured a copy, or read the chapters in question, and find you have an opinion on their worth, might you consider taking a moment to record that opinion at one or another of these fine venues? —Thanks everso.
(Next: “Frail.”)
—posted 4917 days ago
Nevus?
A link should perhaps have gone up earlier, when it first appeared, but we were in the thick of things then, weren’t we? (As if we aren’t also now as well.) —And now? It’s not too late, it’s not as if it’s gone, it’s still there, but it’s all gone quiet. —Anyway, there’s this: and yes, there’s context, but isn’t life more fun sometimes without?
—posted 4951 days ago
Must the youngest open the oldest hills—
“Changel” resumes tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, as I’ve been mentioning everywhere else, one of the Books Without Which heard the singing of the golden harp, and stirred, and woke the fuck up.
—posted 4967 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of the werewolf.
THE WEREWOLF. A third monster. It is possible that he may not appear in our story. In fact, as far as we know he has never appeared anywhere, but one never knows. He might suddenly appear from one moment to the next, and then how foolish we should look for not having mentioned him.
—posted 4982 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of where your fist stopped.
Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. This seems so clearly the case with grief, but it can be so only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. One may want to, or manage to for a while, but despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so, when we speak about “my sexuality” or “my gender,” as we do and as we must, we nevertheless mean something complicated that is partially concealed by our usage. As a mode of relation, neither gender nor sexuality is precisely a possession, but, rather, is a mode of being dispossessed, a way of being for another or by virtue of another.
—posted 4986 days ago
the Dream of the 1590s – Alive in Portland
The chalkboard reads “Seating is first come first served… be considerate of those waiting for tables.” No one seems to notice that the trio in the corner have been there for at least two hours eating biscuits and arguing in languid frustrating loops now picking at the remains of breakfast, the man who holds his leg out stiff frowning mildly at the young woman sitting in front of him, short blond hair with black dye clinging stubbornly here and there. She is still chasing bits of ham through slippery gravy picking up biscuit crumbs as she goes. Beside the man another young woman with a bow-shaped mouth who looks as if she’d rather be outside with the smokers shakes glossy black curls from her face. “What is with this douche anyway?” says Ysabel.
“What douche?” says Jo.
“The guy with the giant NPR glasses. He won’t stop staring at me.”
The Duke glances past Jo’s shoulder, fingering the rough hawk at the top of his cane. “Just another hipster. My demesne crawls with them. They are the cross I bear, I fear.”
“Not one of yours, though?” she says. “Like me, not like you?”
“Like you and not like you, Gallowglas,” agrees the Duke. Jo takes a turn at frowning and returns to chasing bits of ham.
“Aren’t they a little old for hipsters?” says Ysabel. “I just wish he’d stop staring.” She begins twisting her napkin. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Now the girl is staring, too.”
“You sure these aren’t yours? Is this something I need to worry about?” says Jo. She turns around, butter-colored leather coat squeaking on wood.
Behind them are the two staring hipsters male and female. He has an oddly rectangular head with a wide vista of a forehead hair cut like his grandfather must once have worn it if the barber had forgotten to clip the top. He wears large black-framed glasses that belonged on a nuclear physicist from the 50s, or that NPR guy, what’s his name. Ira something. The woman will have serious lines framing her mouth within the decade and wears black eyeliner and lipstick like her grandmother must have once applied and hair carefully made up to look like she’d forgotten to comb it. They are both staring in a way they obviously think is surreptitious and scribbling in notebooks. “No, they’re not yours,” says Jo. “Let’s get out of here anyway. They make me nervous.”
Jo quickly forgets about the hipsters. There are too many in this city, especially that part of the city, to distinguish them from other hipsters, even aging hipsters. Sometimes in the rare moments when she is alone on the streets she hears people say things like, “Have you read it?” before bursting into giggles. When she and Ysabel are with the Duke a stranger makes a remark about his cane: “You put a bird on it!” The Duke rolls his eyes but does not explain and for once Jo does not ask.
Afterward, she is in the apartment with Ysabel. Ysabel is asleep and Jo cannot sleep and so she turns on her TV with its illegal cable strung from an obliging neighbor’s apartment.
There are the aging hipsters.
They are in Portland. They are putting birds on things, and pretending to be bikers with giant earlobe plugs, and to be overly discriminating locavores. And then they are sitting in the corner at the biscuit place. He is dressed in rusts and plays with a distinctive cane. Her hair is short and blonde and patchy with black. They look like hipsters. They ignore a long line of people standing waiting for their table. The fake Duke and fake Jo look bored and amuse themselves deriding the patient crowd around them as hipsters. The real Jo considers throwing the remote at the screen but doesn’t want to wake up Ysabel. She settles for “Seriously? Die in a fire, asshole hipsters.”
And then the aging hipsters are dancing and singing before a phalanx of freaks and hipsters and bellydancers, the Gay Men’s Chorus, firebreathers and tall bike riders that stream behind them on the Esplanade near the river, the day framing them a blue so brilliant, so unlike Portland that Jo wonders whether it’s computer-generated. And where are the homeless people? The aging hipsters are singing that the dream is alive in Portland.
“You have no idea,” says Jo to the hipsters on the TV. “No. Idea. At all.”
—posted 4991 days ago
This lovely dish of poisson was prepared by MeiLin Miranda, whose Scryer’s Gulch and Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom are hereby commended to your attention. I myself whipped up something set in Maine, for Cassandra Stryffe’s delightful Zombie Diapers. —The master list of the day’s tomfooleries.
Three weeks (less change).
I’m in a giddy mood; there’s 8,000 moderately decent words in the hopper and that’s past the halfway point: not comfortably enough time left perhaps for the usual spit and polish, but then, we thrive on deadline pressure, don’t we? Eat it for breakfast with butter and jam? Isn’t that the theory?
Of no. 13, then, “Changel,” it can be said with some confidence that it will premiere on paper at the eighth annual Stumptown Comics Fest, Saturday, April 16th – Sunday April 17th. Online serialization will begin the following Monday, April 18th, and installments will appear Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays through the 29th.
(For those keeping track, this is by far the least amount of time between episodes. It has been a ride. And oh but “Mayhem” is next—)
—posted 4994 days ago
Coming attractions.
You’ve already seen the cover for “Innocency,” which begins in just over (eep!) a week; if you follow the Twitter, you’ve seen the following in their raw and (mostly) naked form. —Here they are then, done up in their livery and waiting in the wings each in turn for its cue, the next four chapters in our mad dash:
No. 13: Changel
No. 14: Mayhem
No. 15: Frail
No. 16: Plenty
Now all I need to learn’s what Dazzle is about…
—posted 5032 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of ever-after.
Endings are overrated; they are often the point when the writer bows to convention, and there is a lot more to a story than who gets the girl, or who dies. When I write fiction or drama, I know that my liking for a character is shown by my giving her a lot of page time and vivid scenes, however I may dispose of her by the end.
—posted 5034 days ago
Let me be the first to declare my own innocency in the matter.
So far, so good: Monday, February 28th will see the online première of no. 12, “Innocency,” with installments appearing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through March 11th. The paper zine will premiere at some point during the fortnight, with no actual celebration going on anywhere to mark its (long-delayed) arrival. Pre-orders should be available in a week or two? Keep your eyes peeled.
“Changel” is next, and all too soon. —What am I in for, here?
—posted 5037 days ago
