Author News
Amelia Gray’s Museum of the Weird
This is one for the decade, and came out today. You are going to need at least 1-3 copies. I’d say more but you probably already know. Or here are blurbs.
“Amelia Gray’s Museum of the Weird is a cabinet of curiosities—a talking armadillo, a serial killer named God, a woman who amputates her toes for dinner, a man married to a paring knife—this collection of stories is so good and funny and wondrous that I couldn’t look away from her dark and curious imagination.”—Michael Kimball
“To say Amelia Gray belongs in the hilariously inventive hallows of Ann Quin and Rikki Ducornet would be to miss her light. This book is gleaming evidence of the author as a trophy case unto herself, wrought of magic equally surprising, wicked, giddy, and loaded with a megaton of Boom.”—Blake Butler
[Here is a sample text from the book: There Will Be Sense.]
Get get now. Do the get. Get the real: straight from FC2.
Or also available here.
Tags: amelia gray, fc2, museum of the weird
amelia gray scares the shit out of me.
Yes. YES.
Yeesh. Scary-talented, plus, recently, I also find out she’s SUPER HOT… Normally, so appalling, but as I’m a dude, all I can say is: AWESOME!
I loved it and love it, and I’ve got a long-ass piece coming out later this week or next in the Faster Times about what thoughts it provoked (chief among them: envy) in this reader.
got an email at 6 a.m. saying this was being shipped. god, i can’t wait.
cool
Just bought this. I am really looking forward to it.
I don’t think she goes for anonymous dudes, though, Pemulis, so you might be out of luck.
I really wish it were possible to discuss women who write without referring to their hotness. Apparently not.
So tempted to buy the ebook so I can read it right now. BUT will be buying the paperback so I can give it away.
As somewhat of an armchair voluptuary, I feel compelled to remark on beauty when I find it — remarkable.
(Plus: again with the anonymous thing? Not everyone has something to plug. Peeps should just disable the option if it’s so objectionable. -sniff!-)
we should totally be talking about the tightness of their holes instead.
you are right.
pem, how can you declare someone beautiful or not if you have not held their gaze in person yet?
Hey, beauty isn’t just about physical attributes! Now, c’mon, man… .
Pemulis is right.
Besides: we have imaginations, don’t we?
(As for ‘anonymous’ posting: context — and approach — is everything.)
amelia gray scares the shit out of me.
owen his comments support the idea beauty is nothing but “looks.”
and the question has nothing to do with amelia.
it is in response to the nonsense of beauty before experience.
Oops… I missed the first sentence of his original comment.
Pem: You won’t be angry if I rescind my endorsement, will you? Nothing personal… . Politics, you know. I have an election to win.
Also: Will anyone hold it against me if I suggested that I found myself physically attracted to the Museum of the Weird?
Nah, Jereme…my comments — that I found her writing beautiful, then later, her appearance, beautiful — contradict the view that beauty is solely about looks.
Just for the sake of accuracy…
where do you make such a declaration about her writing?
i didn’t see it.
i don’t really care if you think she is or isn’t hot.
i just don’t understand how you could make a remark about something being beautiful when you haven’t experienced it yet.
Yes. YES.
@Jereme, my first comment was that she’s “scary-talented”!
I’m not sure I understand your question, though. Within the scientific/research community, it’s 100% acceptable to judge physical beauty through photos, video, etc. Did you never take part in one of those facial symmetry or hip ratio survey things as an undergrad?
Yeesh. Scary-talented, plus, recently, I also find out she’s SUPER HOT… Normally, so appalling, but as I’m a dude, all I can say is: AWESOME!
When I was in Jr. High, I remember a friend of mine suggesting that you can’t judge beauty from a photograph. I thought that was pretty sound thinking, at the time, and I still do.
I saw a program, once, on those scientific experiments about the sorts of faces infants perceive as comforting, and the sorts of facial structures that most people seem to see as constituting “beauty”. I didn’t buy a single second of it.
not even a single second?
Really, Owen? Because it’s pretty much all math….
(Sure, there’s lots of in-person stuff that attracts you in ways photographs can’t — eye contact, confidence, voice tonality, etc. — but that doesn’t negate what we pick-up on from images. Surely you don’t watch a movie and wonder which one’s Megan Fox?)
That’s why we love ‘er, eh?
Perhaps, but if such a second occurred, I don’t remember it.
That is to say: I bought that they believed in their process and their findings; I did not believe what they were trying to suggest that it all implied: which is that beauty can be reduced to mere composition. Beauty, to me — and I think to most people — is not about composition but about a lot of different things, and the physical aspect itself has an awful lot to do with one’s personality: the sorts of attributes one is attracted to is shaped to no small extent by how you’ve come to perceive other people. And then, of course, beyond that is the personality, which on a physical basis manifests as things like facial expressions, how often the person smiles and how they smile, etc. . . . and then it goes on to other, non-physical matters which help to inform one’s perception of a person. None of these factors were addressed in this scientific study.
Can’t say YES enough to this book, and this writer. Oh, and I finally got my goodreads shit together last week, and I saw that Ms. Gray cites Russell Edson as a primary inspiration. I knew it.
I loved it and love it, and I’ve got a long-ass piece coming out later this week or next in the Faster Times about what thoughts it provoked (chief among them: envy) in this reader.
@Pemulis: Notwithstanding I honestly don’t know who Megan Fox is (and suspect that it’s not important that I don’t know): No, I don’t think it comes down to math. Sure, you can reduce a person’s physical attributes to geometric principles and say that certain arrangements are generally preferable to other arrangements to an infant who hasn’t had the chance to develop a personality, but this is really very basic since it takes no other factors into account. A human being is not a collection of geometric principles.
Russell Edson (who’s awesome) lives in Connecticut, where I’m now living (goodbye Boston, I’ll let you know when I start missing you): which means he’s a local.
Some more trivia: Yves Tanguy, my second-favorite painter in the whole wide world ever, also lived in Connecticut.
I’ll make one concession: I’m not saying that I never look at a photo and say, “wow, she’s gorgeous”. I mean, I do it all the time. All I’m saying is that that statement, that judgment, is only a one-dimensional judgment. I’m making a call on her visual appearance and then leaving my imagination to fill in all the blanks, at which point I can say whether or not I find her attractive . . . but in the end, a picture really is just a picture, and “beauty” is more than just an image. Maybe different people have different definitions of “beauty”, but I don’t see how an image of a person, in itself, can really be “beautiful” — it’s just one dimension, and beauty is three-dimensional. The fact that I can feel attraction to a photograph does not mean that attraction = geometry, it only means that I’ve taken information and then, like I said, filled in the blanks with my imagination. Even then: the person remains a figment of my imagination, she’s not “real”.
Of course, when it comes to visual art: there’s a similarity of approach, here. If I look at a painting by Remedios Varo and I say “that’s beautiful” or “this painting is gorgeous” . . . I’m not just making an assessment of the colors and composition, I’m also making an assessment of all the other stuff I take from it . . . PLUS all the blanks I’m forced to fill in with my imagination.
Haven’t you ever met a girl you didn’t find technically/scientifically ‘beautiful’ and yet found yourself attracted to her anyhow, and soon came to find her beautiful? Her mannerisms, her personality, all adding to her physical attributes so that those physical attributes, effectively, became ‘artificially’ transformed?
As far as actresses go: One of the most beautiful living actresses I can think of would be Maggie Gyllenhaal. Certainly not because of geometry — leave it up to that and lots of actresses will upstage her — but because of her personality, her mannerisms.
I know, I’m in danger here of mixing up “beauty” with “sexiness”… but I honestly don’t see how beauty can be composed in entirety by mathematics.
got an email at 6 a.m. saying this was being shipped. god, i can’t wait.
cool
Just bought this. I am really looking forward to it.
I don’t think she goes for anonymous dudes, though, Pemulis, so you might be out of luck.
i was just watching once upon a time in the west the other day and thought of this line just now
Cheyenne: Make believe it’s nothing.
I like Amelia Gray. She is nice, polite. The way she is pretty does not lend itself to message boards.
I really wish it were possible to discuss women who write without referring to their hotness. Apparently not.
So tempted to buy the ebook so I can read it right now. BUT will be buying the paperback so I can give it away.
Really? Man, I didn’t know he was still around. Well say hi from me when you run into him at the local… pub?
I love love love that movie.
Frank is the baddest badass movie villain of them all, ever.
I like when Cheyenne says “Yeah, I gotta go, too” (or something close to that, near the end of the movie).
And when Morton dies with his face in the puddle, the sound of the ocean in his head, I almost cry.
what does math or science have to do with experience?
we are talking about something you have no experience of. your only memory is based off a false representation. i mean have you ever even held a photo of your object of beauty?
bling blah blowen
As somewhat of an armchair voluptuary, I feel compelled to remark on beauty when I find it — remarkable.
(Plus: again with the anonymous thing? Not everyone has something to plug. Peeps should just disable the option if it’s so objectionable. -sniff!-)
we should totally be talking about the tightness of their holes instead.
you are right.
pem, how can you declare someone beautiful or not if you have not held their gaze in person yet?
Hey, beauty isn’t just about physical attributes! Now, c’mon, man… .
Pemulis is right.
Besides: we have imaginations, don’t we?
(As for ‘anonymous’ posting: context — and approach — is everything.)
owen his comments support the idea beauty is nothing but “looks.”
and the question has nothing to do with amelia.
it is in response to the nonsense of beauty before experience.
Oops… I missed the first sentence of his original comment.
Pem: You won’t be angry if I rescind my endorsement, will you? Nothing personal… . Politics, you know. I have an election to win.
Also: Will anyone hold it against me if I suggested that I found myself physically attracted to the Museum of the Weird?
Nah, Jereme…my comments — that I found her writing beautiful, then later, her appearance, beautiful — contradict the view that beauty is solely about looks.
Just for the sake of accuracy…
where do you make such a declaration about her writing?
i didn’t see it.
i don’t really care if you think she is or isn’t hot.
i just don’t understand how you could make a remark about something being beautiful when you haven’t experienced it yet.
@Jereme, my first comment was that she’s “scary-talented”!
I’m not sure I understand your question, though. Within the scientific/research community, it’s 100% acceptable to judge physical beauty through photos, video, etc. Did you never take part in one of those facial symmetry or hip ratio survey things as an undergrad?
When I was in Jr. High, I remember a friend of mine suggesting that you can’t judge beauty from a photograph. I thought that was pretty sound thinking, at the time, and I still do.
I saw a program, once, on those scientific experiments about the sorts of faces infants perceive as comforting, and the sorts of facial structures that most people seem to see as constituting “beauty”. I didn’t buy a single second of it.
not even a single second?
Really, Owen? Because it’s pretty much all math….
(Sure, there’s lots of in-person stuff that attracts you in ways photographs can’t — eye contact, confidence, voice tonality, etc. — but that doesn’t negate what we pick-up on from images. Surely you don’t watch a movie and wonder which one’s Megan Fox?)
That’s why we love ‘er, eh?
Perhaps, but if such a second occurred, I don’t remember it.
That is to say: I bought that they believed in their process and their findings; I did not believe what they were trying to suggest that it all implied: which is that beauty can be reduced to mere composition. Beauty, to me — and I think to most people — is not about composition but about a lot of different things, and the physical aspect itself has an awful lot to do with one’s personality: the sorts of attributes one is attracted to is shaped to no small extent by how you’ve come to perceive other people. And then, of course, beyond that is the personality, which on a physical basis manifests as things like facial expressions, how often the person smiles and how they smile, etc. . . . and then it goes on to other, non-physical matters which help to inform one’s perception of a person. None of these factors were addressed in this scientific study.
Can’t say YES enough to this book, and this writer. Oh, and I finally got my goodreads shit together last week, and I saw that Ms. Gray cites Russell Edson as a primary inspiration. I knew it.
@Pemulis: Notwithstanding I honestly don’t know who Megan Fox is (and suspect that it’s not important that I don’t know): No, I don’t think it comes down to math. Sure, you can reduce a person’s physical attributes to geometric principles and say that certain arrangements are generally preferable to other arrangements to an infant who hasn’t had the chance to develop a personality, but this is really very basic since it takes no other factors into account. A human being is not a collection of geometric principles.
Russell Edson (who’s awesome) lives in Connecticut, where I’m now living (goodbye Boston, I’ll let you know when I start missing you): which means he’s a local.
Some more trivia: Yves Tanguy, my second-favorite painter in the whole wide world ever, also lived in Connecticut.
I’ll make one concession: I’m not saying that I never look at a photo and say, “wow, she’s gorgeous”. I mean, I do it all the time. All I’m saying is that that statement, that judgment, is only a one-dimensional judgment. I’m making a call on her visual appearance and then leaving my imagination to fill in all the blanks, at which point I can say whether or not I find her attractive . . . but in the end, a picture really is just a picture, and “beauty” is more than just an image. Maybe different people have different definitions of “beauty”, but I don’t see how an image of a person, in itself, can really be “beautiful” — it’s just one dimension, and beauty is three-dimensional. The fact that I can feel attraction to a photograph does not mean that attraction = geometry, it only means that I’ve taken information and then, like I said, filled in the blanks with my imagination. Even then: the person remains a figment of my imagination, she’s not “real”.
Of course, when it comes to visual art: there’s a similarity of approach, here. If I look at a painting by Remedios Varo and I say “that’s beautiful” or “this painting is gorgeous” . . . I’m not just making an assessment of the colors and composition, I’m also making an assessment of all the other stuff I take from it . . . PLUS all the blanks I’m forced to fill in with my imagination.
Haven’t you ever met a girl you didn’t find technically/scientifically ‘beautiful’ and yet found yourself attracted to her anyhow, and soon came to find her beautiful? Her mannerisms, her personality, all adding to her physical attributes so that those physical attributes, effectively, became ‘artificially’ transformed?
As far as actresses go: One of the most beautiful living actresses I can think of would be Maggie Gyllenhaal. Certainly not because of geometry — leave it up to that and lots of actresses will upstage her — but because of her personality, her mannerisms.
I know, I’m in danger here of mixing up “beauty” with “sexiness”… but I honestly don’t see how beauty can be composed in entirety by mathematics.
i was just watching once upon a time in the west the other day and thought of this line just now
Cheyenne: Make believe it’s nothing.
I like Amelia Gray. She is nice, polite. The way she is pretty does not lend itself to message boards.
Really? Man, I didn’t know he was still around. Well say hi from me when you run into him at the local… pub?
I love love love that movie.
Frank is the baddest badass movie villain of them all, ever.
I like when Cheyenne says “Yeah, I gotta go, too” (or something close to that, near the end of the movie).
And when Morton dies with his face in the puddle, the sound of the ocean in his head, I almost cry.
what does math or science have to do with experience?
we are talking about something you have no experience of. your only memory is based off a false representation. i mean have you ever even held a photo of your object of beauty?
bling blah blowen
Kyle’s review, which is excellent and totally wild in a way I have never really seen before in a review, is up here: http://thefastertimes.com/indiebooks/2010/09/08/human-tongue-sauteed-in-buttermilk-megalomania-things-we-do-to-each-other-in-hotel-rooms-nothing-really-about-post-sartrean-french-philosophy-and-a-few-words-about-amelia-grays-museum-of-the-w/
Be honest: this ‘jereme’ character is a giant put-on, isn’t it!
Man, that is a rad review! The asides, the lists, the self-interview, all culminate in a great read about a book I want to read. Thanks for the link.
Kyle’s review, which is excellent and totally wild in a way I have never really seen before in a review, is up here: http://thefastertimes.com/indiebooks/2010/09/08/human-tongue-sauteed-in-buttermilk-megalomania-things-we-do-to-each-other-in-hotel-rooms-nothing-really-about-post-sartrean-french-philosophy-and-a-few-words-about-amelia-grays-museum-of-the-w/
nope, this is me.
why don’t you just say what you really mean and leave the beauty part out of it.
The problem is not expressing that you find someone beautiful. The problem is the constant and systematic reduction of female writers/athletes/anythings to their physical beauty, rather than their skill/novelty/personality/whatever. This does not happen to men.
(By the way… is ‘hot’ synonymous with ‘beautiful’?)
Back on topic: this book looks awesome.
Be honest: this ‘jereme’ character is a giant put-on, isn’t it!
Can’t wait to get into this. Very exciting. And one HELL of a review/article Kyle. Damn. Best of luck with this Amelia, I know it’ll be a huge success.
Man, that is a rad review! The asides, the lists, the self-interview, all culminate in a great read about a book I want to read. Thanks for the link.
nope, this is me.
why don’t you just say what you really mean and leave the beauty part out of it.
The problem is not expressing that you find someone beautiful. The problem is the constant and systematic reduction of female writers/athletes/anythings to their physical beauty, rather than their skill/novelty/personality/whatever. This does not happen to men.
(By the way… is ‘hot’ synonymous with ‘beautiful’?)
Back on topic: this book looks awesome.
Can’t wait to get into this. Very exciting. And one HELL of a review/article Kyle. Damn. Best of luck with this Amelia, I know it’ll be a huge success.
[…] Want: Amelia Gray’s Museum of the Weird. […]
He lives at the opposite end of the state, so… little chance of my running into him.
Perhaps he’ll show up here and say hi?
He lives at the opposite end of the state, so… little chance of my running into him.
Perhaps he’ll show up here and say hi?