Brooks Sterritt
http://twitter.com/brookssterritt
Writing by Brooks Sterritt appears or will appear in The Believer, Subtropics, Salt Hill, Denver Quarterly, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago.
Tyrant Books Midnight Release: Strange Cowboy / Sky Saw
New York Tyrant/Tyrant Books has recently brought two more important texts into the world.
If you’re familiar with the work of these authors, you don’t need me to tell you it is awesome (as in inspiring awe) and wonderful (as in screaming waffle-irons). If you’ve never held an object from Tyrant Books in your hands, I suggest you find a remedy. First lines are below.
My mother sits, dead, could be, though I believe she lives, though she is old in life, and should she not be dead, then might at least appear to some to be more dead than living.
Now
White cone descended in sound blister
Found Text (with edits)
I just got back from the store and found this on the front door of my apartment building:
Did you know a man was shot in the chest on [street nearby] Wednesday night?
Did you know the man shot resides at [my street]?
Did you know three shots were fired in front of [street nearby]?
Did you know two of the three shots hit a parked car on [street nearby]?
Did you know one shot ricocheted off the car and has not been located?
To know more about what the city is doing about our neighborhood crime:
[twitter]
[facebook]
[gmail]
I’m pretty sure I heard it happen, and remember thinking “shots or car backfiring?”
Brooks Sterritt—
Let’s get this out in the open: what are your thoughts on the recent Duotrope Debacle?
19
25 Points: Every Laundromat in the World
Every Laundromat in the World
by Mel Bosworth
Safety Third Enterprises, 2012
48 pages / $5.00 (print) $2.00 (digital) buy from Safety Third
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
12 Comments
December 4th, 2012 / 12:09 pm
December 4th, 2012 / 12:09 pm
Brooks Sterritt—
Have you ever led someone to believe you’d read a book you really hadn’t (or straight up lied about reading a book)? In class? At a party? On the Internet? Ever try to make amends? Examples?
25 Points: Old Gus Eats
Old Gus Eats
by Polly Duff Bresnick
Publishing Genius Press, 2012
28 pages / $4 buy from PGP
[The Translator’s Note accompanying Old Gus Eats begins: “To visually mistranslate The Odyssey while not knowing the language, I looked for familiar shapes in the Greek symbols that could form English words. This has been termed eye-rhyming, bad lip reading, and Rorschach writing.” Similarly, I wrote a 25 point review of Old Gus Eats, translated it into Greek using Google Translate, and attempted to visually mistranslate the Greek back into English.]
1. Paprika Pad Thai mojo draws the attention of asphyxiating ukulele slatherers, forming a tautology.
2. Yogurt induces food observations.
3. Ventrical self-serving pie charts can and will increase avoirdupois noontime chestnut old betsy emissions. Otto enters the ether.
4. An echo purges me nightly, biting my journal of Hellenistic studies, kumquats, eureka, mazeltov, orange pod.
5. O.J. Simpson as maker of P.T. Barnum bone structures: not only cornucopia but 88 tote bags of ayahuasca doctors. Madeleine Albright goes deep.
6. Negative herpes icon resembling Tristan Tzara’s dressmaker dummy applies milk mask to mule, nods vigorously, becomes spurter, engages in tantric AYO ALMIGHTY KAPOW verses, pierces epilogue.
7. Aztecs not mentioned.
8. Aflac peen dongler appears as vat paddler. Oval apertures and vellum vulvas elongated to vast dimensions of fatwa flavors.
9. Otto triangle ensnares kava plant with Diplo audio, followed by frequent kevlar didacticism. Ottawa nixed from frontal bouche/gouge, and trumpeted into era of revisionist tapioca pap smears.
10. Mystic River references unencumbering, pie frequent, epoxy pleasant. READ MORE >
6 Comments
November 20th, 2012 / 9:09 am
November 20th, 2012 / 9:09 am
Krazy Kat: Herriman, Cantor, von Heyl
from Krazy Kat, 1913-1944 by George Herriman
So drop the bomb!
The sun on her carpet was swirling up into a fire of magnesium blues and sulfurous browns, a mushroom cloud of flame and smoke, with little Ignatz and his metal necktie rising serenely on top. Top o’ the World, Ma! Once more she was watching a fire storm that she had somehow caused, and it was shaking her apart! She felt like she had a snake coiling inside her, yet the snake was her, and she was inside it. The snake was made of blackness and stars. And every star in the snake was another smaller snake that was made of blackness and stars, and those stars were snakes made of blackness and stars. The snake was the beginning and end of things: death biting the tail of love, every yes that became no that became love become hate become yes again. The snake would kill her but it would give birth to her, too, over and over, if only she could keep the snake together. And the only way to do that was to get the tail of it into her own mouth, to bite the beginning and end of things and be the circle.
from Krazy Kat: a novel in five panels, 1988, by Jay Cantor
It’s Vot’s Behind Me That I Am (Krazy Kat), 2010, acrylic and oil on linen and canvas, by Charline von Heyl
Brooks Sterritt—
Why does 99.9999999999999999% of political writing seem to have such a short shelf life?
Reviews Section Update: 25 Points
HTMLGiant is now accepting submissions for a new category of book review. “25 Points” will feature reviews consisting of numbered series: 25 facts and/or opinions about a single work. Tangential list items, variations of length, and other deviations are encouraged. Reviews and queries can be sent to brooks [at] htmlgiant [dot] com.
Brooks Sterritt—
Is Cormac McCarthy the rural Don DeLillo or is Don DeLillo the urban Cormac McCarthy?