Win Nick Antosca’s MIDNIGHT PICNIC

You may have heard by now that Nick Antosca‘s brightly anticipated new novel, MIDNIGHT PICNIC, is coming out this month from Word Riot Press. It’s been through some kind of phantom haunting of its own but now in the firm hands of Jackie Corley and company, it will soon available for your eyes (and is now out from preorder on the site, if you are so inclined, and should be.)

I really loved Nick’s first book, FIRES, and having read MP already I can tell you it is like a mix of Cormac McCarthy’s CHILD OF GOD on too much Kool Aid and full of magic, phantoms, surreal shopping malls, those shots from Lost Highway where it is just the car going into the night, etc.

To celebrate the coming release, Nick and WR Press have hooked us up with two copies of the book for to give away to HTML Giant readers. Entry to the give away is simple:

What is the way you would least like to die?

Answer this question in as little or as many words as you need to best elucidate the exit method. Bonus points have been promised to those who illustrate their deaths with pictures or drawings in MS paint. Whoever most effectively, creatively, disgustingly, or whatever other adverb seems good as deemed by Nick will take home what I can guarantee is a book you will not soon forget.

Another thing I won’t soon be forgetting is the picture the author requested to be included in this post, which I will now bestow up you in all good faith that it will lead your mind to the gory end that gets you the book prize.:

Contest closes Monday night. Let’s hear it.

Author Spotlight & Contests & Presses / 97 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 11:01 pm

Viewer Mail!

from M. Baumer
to Justin Taylor
date Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:13 AM
subject a note from thieves jargon
mailed-by gmail.com

Hello Justin Taylor,

I am one of the fiction editors at Thieves Jargon.  I was going to write a big thing about Thieves Jargon and Matt DiGangi after I read your HTML post today.  I don’t think I’m upset. I think I most agree with Sam Pink.  Similar to Zachary German I used to not care for Sam Pink until about a week ago.  I was thrown off by his blog.  Anyway, I wanted to get across to you that I think Matt has done some really good things with Thieves Jargon.  He’s been at it for five years.  He started it back when the internet was still good.  I don’t know what that means.  Someone once said, “The internet died two years ago.”  I don’t know what they meant by this.  I can only guess.  They said this to me one year ago.  Three years ago the internet was still alive?  Maybe it’s because I don’t like to read comments.  Today made me feel a little nauseous.
I believe BB is a good person.  I know Matt is.  The internet makes people different.  I don’t think there is a right and wrong here.  I am being cliche or a pussy.  Someone should apologize.  I will.  “I’m sorry.  It’s my fault.  I think I was born out of wedlock.”
I feel like I’m doing a bad impression of Sam Pink.  Fuck…Bitch…Lewd sexual movements in Langston Hughes face?
I don’t know where else to go with this.  You know when you’re watching a movie and you can see the trainwreck coming and you tense up and want to kick the characters in the head because it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen next.  I don’t think this is like that.  I don’t think it matters that much.
Maybe I will go to your house some day in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt or a t-shirt.  That’s my threat.  I hope you’re scared.  You can tell all the contributors to HTML GIANT the same goes for them except for Jimmy Chen.  If I was going to Jimmy Chen’s house I would make a cake.  I have a very easy cake recipe.  You only need soda and cake mix.  Don’t tell Jimmy.  I don’t want him to be disappointed in my cake.
Fuck, I feel like making Mr. DiGangi a cake.  I think he deserves one.  BB could probably use one.  You should make him one.
Both of them wake up in the morning.  DiGangi posts the daily Thieves Jargon story.  BB probably looks at a Lost Highway poster or something.  DiGangi gets on the subway and reads a book that probably no one else around him has heard of.  The mailman probably thinks BB is a terrorist receiving airplane manuals.  DiGangi works all day publishing boring textbooks, then he goes to class, comes home, does homework, and Thieves Jargon editor duties.  BB probably writes a novel in that time.  Etc.  Etc. Etc.
I don’t know what else to say.  I’ve rambled on and said nothing.
Just know I was serious about my threat.  I’ve rejected people in person before.  I’ve gone to people’s houses and knocked on their doors and said, “Hello, I’m from Thieves Jargon.”
I’m glad today happened.
Everyone should cheer.
Hail DiGangi.
I don’t know what else to think.

-Mark Baumer
—
www.thievesjargon.com
www.everydayyeah.com

 

 

Gee, that was random.

 

********BONUS********* JUSTIN TAYLOR REPLIES:

rom Justin Taylor
to “M. Baumer”
date Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 11:33 AM
subject Re: a note from thieves jargon
mailed-by gmail.com

Hi, Mark, thanks for writing. I don’t really know what to make of your letter. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like it should have been addressed to me. It’s not exactly about any of the things I wrote about in my recent blog post, which itself was rather explicit about being somewhat predicated by, but hardly “about,” Matt DiGangi and Thieves Jargon–two entities about which I know very little, and not for lack of opportunity either.

I’m sorry that Matt has to edit boring textbooks. We must, all of us, do something. For example, I have to think of lesson plans and commute to New Jersey twice a week to teach my class, and then I have to grade my students’ papers. Let me tell you, brother, it’s no walk in the park, although I do get to walk through campus, which has many park-like qualities. Also, sometimes the students write things that are very funny. Typically, they have not done so on purpose.

Speaking of which, I have no idea what “when the internet was still good” means, but then I’m not the one who said it. Since you’re the one who said it, it is discomforting to know that you don’t know what it means either. Do you often make declarations incomprehensible even to yourself and then send them off in personal letters to strangers?

Personally, I think shoelaces both got really lame in the mid-90s, but they seem to have really re-emerged during the last year or two, totally transformed and ready to assert their relevance–even necessity, perhaps–to the culture. I can’t wait to see what happens with shoelaces next.

In closing, I wish that I could promise to keep your secret about the simplicity of your cake recipe from Jimmy, but the fact of the matter is that I’m almost certainly going to post your letter and my response (that is, this letter which I’m writing right now) on HTMLGiant later this afternoon, or possibly even this morning, so I guess he’ll probably learn the truth that way.

JT

 

************DOUBLE YOUR BONUS*********

M. BAUMER REPLIES TO THE REPLY:

 

from M. Baumer
to Justin Taylor 
date Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:52 PM
subject Re: a note from thieves jargon
mailed-by gmail.com

 

Hey Justin,

I give you permission to post my email without my permission.
Please include this:
I also want to say something about BB that makes fun of the way he gets off or something, but I am not very good at shit talking.  
Justin, I think you want me to kill myself.  ‘Shoelaces’ was my self-termination code word when I was created as a sad pot of soup on the back left burner.  Then some family ate me.
I honestly think lots of people would consider being gay with BB’s blogspot account.  I guess this is a compliment.  Sometimes I worry about saying anything bad about BB and any other expert bloggers because in the back of my head I think, “If they kill themselves someone in the future will read this comment of me calling them a ‘shitfuck’ and then they’ll google my name and find my address and come to my house via google maps and dump un-erasable spam on my front lawn and my wife will say, ‘how could you say that?’ and then stop talking to me over gchat and i’ll marriage will be over.”
Oh well.
To Blake
“You’re a shitfuck.  Don’t kill yourself.”

 

 

Are we having a feud now? When should we end it?

Are we having a feud now? About what?

Author News & Author Spotlight & Web Hype / 100 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 9:14 pm

Matt Bell’s HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND

I’d be hard pressed to think of a better all around guy than Matt Bell, not to mention one hell of a writer. Matt somehow is able to fuse the abstruse with just great storytelling in a way that few are able to unlock, meanwhile also capable shifting gowns of from one mode to another as cleanly as any magician I can think of.

His forthcoming chapbook HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND from Willow Wept Press is something to be excited about and look forward to. Here is a press release and how to order:

Matt Bell’s HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND is now available for pre-order!
How the Broken Lead the Blind includes ten fabulous stories by Mr. Matt Bell. And everyone’s favorite artist, Christy Call, is working on illustrations and cover art. We have blurbs on their way from Michael Kimball, Mike Czyzniejewski, Dave Housley, Steve Gillis, Steven McDermott, Dan Wickett, William Walsh, and Ryan Call. I think my job here as promoter is done: What else is there to say? This chapbook, I know, will easily sell itself.

So. What you need to know is this: How the Broken Lead the Blind will begin shipping in January. Please pre-order now, as there is a limited print run of only 100 copies.

Go here to order. At 100 copies, these will go mega fast. Do a buy.

Author News & Presses / 28 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 7:37 pm

Behind the Scenes of Tyrant 5: BEAR

A new feature in the making at HTML Giant: behind the scenes of production at your favorite litmags and presses, how things are put together, what is done, who eats first, and in today’s case, how many erections were caused during prep?

Here’s some outtakes from the recent, amazing cover of New York Tyrant‘s fifth issue, with some words on the shoot and the culmination of the innovative cover with editor GianCarlo DiTrapano:

Bears. Bears, bears, bears. I wanted the cover of Tyrant 5 to have to do with them. So, we got a bear-suit and met Barbara Nitke (a Project Runway photog) at the NYPL. She took many shots there, on the steps there at the library. The original plan for the cover: Chris, bear-suit, NYPL. (Not sure why exactly those three things though.) Barbara was kind enough to do the shoot for free, but on the condition that Chris (the bear) would come back to her studio and sit for a portrait after we were done. She was kind enough to invite me along. “Bring the bear-suit!” Ten minutes later we were back at her studio. My clothes were on the floor and all I had on was the bear-head and my underwear.

The pig mask: Maybe kind of stupid. I saw it where we rented the bear-suit and it looked like how I felt I should look sometimes, if my outsides matched my insides. Someone later mentioned The Shining, but I swear I never even thought of that. There were many shots from the library, and there were many shots from the studio. Between the NYPL and the erotic studio shots, we relegated the literary for the porn-ish. Erik Blair did the lay-out, chose that sweet 80s metal font. Erik is a magic cover maker.

I feel like I might owe an apology to all bear-enthusiasts that bought the mag on spec, thinking there was bear porn inside. I hope they like what they found inside instead. There are definitely some stories you could masturbate to if you concentrate hard enough.

Is it selling out to put a famous person on your lit mag cover to help it sell? Of course it is.  But these bitches have been selling like hotcakes so I have ceased to care.

One last thing: My belly-button wasn’t always ugly like that. I used to have a total innie. It herniated one night in Rome, at the age of 21, after over-indulging in food and wine and sex. How Roman. (Obviously, I have huge self-esteem issues to have to explain that fact.)

www.chrismarchdesign.com

www.barbaranitke.com

erik@kevinconceptual.com

To check out the final cover, buy the issue (which includes work by Gordon Lish, Sam Michel, Eugene Marten, Jon Haskell, Eva Talmadge, and about 20 other loons, or to submit work for perusal and distribution to the bear community, check out New York Tyrant online.

Behind the Scenes / 36 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 2:22 pm

checking back in with Joshua Cohen and Kafka’s Office Writings

I’m sure you’ve all been keeping up this week with Nextbook.org’s five part series on Kafka’s Office Writings, which I first blogged about on Monday. But in case you haven’t, this is a good time to look over what you’ve missed so you can be all caught up for the big (?) finale tomorrow. The series, as I’ve mentioned now several times, is authored by Joshua Cohen, quite possibly the youngest working critic to be described non-ironically as “venerable,” assuming he has ever actually been called that before, which, if he hasn’t–well he has now.

(clicking anywhere on the text of a given day takes you to that day on Nextbook)

Today (day 4) we’re learning about Kafka and Nazis:        >>It has become a commonplace to say that Kafka’s work prefigured, in image, or predicted, in word, the horrors of Nazism. That argument is most often advanced by a litany of external congruencies between Kafka’s fictional world and the Third Reich: bureaucracy (though the Nazis were always more efficient than the authorial imagination), the infringement of technology on daily life, random violence, unappealable official destinies, fates based on birth, etc. Kafka’s intuition of Nazism was far more personal, however, far more inwardly directed. It can be found in his characters’ desires to join something, to become part of something, whether a style or form of being, or even a Volk (which, in Kafka’s case, would have, perversely, been Judaism).<<

+

Yesterday, we learned about how Kafka’s work directly inspired his art:          >>While no intro1duction of “cylindrical shafts” could overturn such a metaphysical damnation, there is no doubt that the image of a body inscribed by technology springs from Kafka’s arbitrating experience with traumatized workers.<<

+

On day 2, we learned about the history of office life in Europe:           >>[Kafka’s] origins lie before industry certainly, before widespread centralization. He began, in fact, when people stopped working for themselves and started working for others; when individual or familial subsistence gave way to earning a living. Work, in the 19th century, became largely an indoor activity, making daily labor—not in the fields and farmlands, but behind four walls in a plant—seem contained, a place where behavior could be scrutinized, and surveilled.<<

+

And back on day 1 we got an overview of Kafka, and of what the rest of the week was going to be like:     >>Franz Kafka wrote as insurance against suffering the fates of his characters. It was as if every hour he spent writing, by candlelight and, later, by electric light, was an installment paid against darkness. He knew that with a stroke of the pen he could conceivably, at any time, have restored to Joseph K. his easy life before The Trial, and obtained for land surveyor K. a better position with a gentler Castle. But this is what makes Kafka the great writer of what has been called Modernity: That he stayed true to his fictions, and retained their tragedy.<<

+

After you’ve had your fill of nonfiction, consider perhaps some of his other literature. Cohen is the author of five fine books out from presses that Giant readers and contributors alike have deep affection for: A Heaven of Others (Starcherone, 2008), Two Tribal Stories (Small Anchor, 2007), Aleph-Bet: An Alphabet for the Perplexed (Six Gallery, 2007), Cadenza for the Schneiderman Violin Concerto (Fugue State, 2007), The Quorum (Twisted Spoon, 2005).  A new novel, Graven Imaginings, is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive.  Better get on over to his website and see what the score is.

Author Spotlight / 8 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 1:51 pm

Kitchen Reading Series

I like this: The Kitchen Reading Series, which is people doing readings in their kitchens.

PistolPress & Invisible Publishing present
The Kitchen Reading Series


Tired of boogie-boarding the net, watching laughing babies, silly cat montages, or anything scored to the Benny Hill Theme? For a grapefruit squirt in the eye, check out The Kitchen Reading Series, a video-based alternative to live literary readings. Our first batch features the following writers:

Deanna Fong
Stacey May Fowles
Jp King
Anna Leventhal
Jeff Miller
Hillary Rexe
Vince Tinguely

Here is an example, of Deanna Fong reading from her new book BUTCHER’S BLOCK from PistolPress, which looks really great:

Presses & Web Hype / 20 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 1:33 am

SPOT-CHECK: Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a Postcard)

POSTCARD #122: GROWING UP DEAD

This shit is badass and I am not even kidding at all.

This shit is badass and I am not even kidding at all.

Peter Conners was born September 11, 1970 in a small town called America. He grew up in the suburbs with his three siblings. His dad put on a tie and went to work while his Mom stayed home. The family house was on a cul de sac. Peter started writing on his own in high school. He started doing it one day and never stopped. After he finishes a project, he switches genres and writing becomes new again, which means he’s also experiencing the world differently. Peter met Karen in high school and they first dated when they were 15. They dated off-and-on for the next 13 years. They went to different schools and sometimes lived in different cities, but they were never truly apart. In addition to Karen, Peter fell in love with the Grateful Dead. He went from being a fan to a Deadhead and followed the Grateful Dead on tour, selling sundry, and traveling around wherever. The music still gets him off every time he listens to it. Peter and Karen got married 10 years ago. She is a clinical psychologist specializing in children and now they have three children of their own: Whitman (after Walt), Max (just because), and Kane (after Karen’s mother’s maiden name). Peter lives in Rochester, NY, where he works as an editor and is in charge of marketing for BOA Editions. Next spring, he will publish his third book, a memoir—Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead.

Not by Michael Kimball, but also potentially of interest is the following:

I remembered this book as having Postcards in the title, and by the time I found out what it actually was I had spent too much time looking for it not to use what I found, despite its basically not being related at all.

I remembered this book as having "Postcards" in the title, and by the time I figured out what it actually was I had spent too much time looking for it not to use what I found, and for whatever it's worth one of the essays in it is actually about The Grateful Dead.

Author Spotlight / 8 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 12:35 am

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

<50% of the people who read this site do not actually buy books.
<50% of the people who read this site will not be interested in what they are doing today in 5 to 15 years.
<50% of me is inside me too.
>50% of anyone is ready for liquidation.
<50% of Zach German woke up in America this morning.
<500000% of
~100% of me is going now to buy ice cream.

Websites.

Uncategorized / 6 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 12:32 am

HATE YOURSELF MORE THAN OTHERS

it is ok for someone to dislike you based on something of yours they have read.

it is ok to be called a dickhead or any other name by someone you don’t know on the internet.

it is ok to take someone’s work off your site because you believe that will make you feel better.

it is ok to accept someone who does not accept you.

it is ok to try to demean and refute someone in a comments section.

it is ok to write something that no one likes.

it is ok to get rejected.

it is ok to be offended by minor things.

it is ok to dislike something and then feel so insecure that you have to try to persuade other people to dislike it.

it is ok for everyone to hate you.

it is ok if magazines really like your work and accept it all the time.

it is ok if none of them ever care.

it is ok to say nothing in defense of anything else.

it is ok.

Random / 46 Comments
December 3rd, 2008 / 9:32 pm

Elizabeth Ellen

Being sort of old school and timid of new things, I didn’t realize that the internet indie lit scene rocked until I read Elizabeth Ellen. Fucking A.   I didn’t even know who Barry Graham was until I read everything that Elizabeth Ellen has ever published and everyone knows how important Barry is to me.  The clarity of  emotion! The  rawness! Her boobs! I worship her. She makes me a better writer just by having read her stories. And poems. Read her story on Dogzplot right now and tell me that it isn’t one of the bravest, twisted things of beauty that you’ve read. I also like that she’s got a tween, like me and Barry.  I like everything about her and I don’t know her at all!  You can read about her life story though at Michael Kimball’s “write your life story on a postcard” thingy. But really, buy her chapbook, Before You She Was a Pittbull. Then, hang out all day on her author website, clicking away at all of the links. I think she needs to update her website, though, and I would offer to help her with that because I love her so much.

Author Spotlight / 41 Comments
December 3rd, 2008 / 8:10 pm