'The Passionate Male Prostitute'

For my story 'The Ruined Child' in the new issue of Barrelhouse, the dudes asked me to maybe throw over a bonus feature for the web, something like Michael Czyzniejewski's awesome pop-up video style annotation of his story, and the other nice thangs they have compiled

In the spirit of our Scorch Atlas remix competition (which ends at the end of this month), I remixed 'The Ruined Child' by doing a series of Find/Replace and other insertions until it became The Passionate Male Prostitute. It's a big rumblefuck, and includes maybe my favorite sentence I've ever (semi-accidentally) written:

"Anton LaVey opened the labia and saw just a grizzly bear eating Cheerios."

It was interesting to see how dramatically the nature of the story could be changed just by switching some of the major nouns and verbs, without changing the structure of any sentence, or the minor connective words. Made me realize a lot about how important word choice is even in places it might seem minor, which is a good lesson to relearn.

Please get up on The Passionate Male Prostitute.






Congrats to Sean Kilpatrick for having his LC story The Origin of Species Reinterpreted Through Massacre make the 2008 storySouth Million Writers Notable Stories list. Love to see a blood-sniffing text on the powerlist.

Thanks to the judges who picked Sean's piece, and to those as well that selected two of my stories for the list. Very cool. And many cool others in the house as well.






For those in NYC, there is a great event for Noemi Press upcoming:

"Join us at 7 PM on 2 May 2009 for a Noemi Press reading at Stain Bar, 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn NY, 11211 (L to Grand, 1 block west) 718-387-7840

Featured readers: Claire Hero, Shya Scanlon, Mark Tursi, and Lila Zemborain"





If you are in Atlanta (tonight!), Kevin Wilson is reading in Decatur at 730... right now I'm scheduled to work tonight, but trying to finagle my way out. His just released TUNNELING TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is high on my wanting list, and I hope I get to buy it from him tonight. Atlantans, go!






My reading bug is back in me full on.

I just started reading Ignácio de Loyola Brandão's TEETH UNDER THE SUN from Dalkey, and am loving it: my Dalkey count for the year is at 7 now. This book is so far very calm and magical, and easy and fun to read, with simple but power-infused sentences. More evolves.





Just found one of Gaspar Noe's early short films on YouTube, 'Carne,' this could be used as the most effective don't eat animals commercial ever. ** Seriously do not watch this if you are squeamish about animal violence, particularly horses. **

LINK





Finished 1st draft of EVER sister yesterday, maybe to begin noodling now, or something.

Matthew Simmons's CAVES

New ebook up at Lamination Colony:



Blurbed by Matthew's mother, sister in law, and cousin, CAVES is truly unlike anything else I've read. Here's the first sentence:

This man only dated caves. It was, like, a fetish or something.

Read CAVES here.

I am really excited about this one, it's new in new ways. Please shout it out and blog it up.




Next in line: Michael Kimball's guest edited issue, followed by ebooks from Mark Cunningham and Prathna Lor.




The new issue of Barrelhouse is out, with a huge slew of great work from people like Matt Bell, Rachel B. Glaser, Peter Davis, Michael Czyzniejewski, and a ton of others. It also contains, among its 'The Future' section, one of the longer stories from SCORCH ATLAS, 'The Ruined Child,' about a baby that grows in size inside its parents' attic after they try to mercy kill it when it is infected with a disease that makes it foam.

Right? Right.

Here is the first graph:

They carried the child into the outside by his wrists and ankles, wriggling. His flesh had turned translucent. His mouth would often froth. They waded waist-deep into the sewage past the upended Mustang where neighbor Bill had tried to drive—the engine crusted over now, back wheels high in the air. The rain had wrecked the city, burst the sewers, drowned the roads. Downtown was underwater. Bill, like many others, had still believed in some way out. He'd spent hours out there with a lone rope trying to yank the Mustang free, his crazed face and muscles so stretched and shining it seemed he might burst open or combust. Finally it was the dogs that had gotten to him, mange-mottled packs of ex-pets combing the old neighborhood for blood. They'd ripped him limb from limb, to rib and tendon. Gnats made short work of the remainder.

Anyhow, you can buy the issue here.

Thanks again to the 5 righteous B-house dudes for the paper party.




A couple other new things in new issues of mags, but will save those for next time.





Reading at 510 in Baltimore on Saturday with Shane Jones, Kyle Minor, Rahne Alexander, and Kathleen Rooney. If you are in the zone, come out!

I think in order to keep my blood at the same level as it was on the el reading, I am going to shout the whole 12 minutes. Gotsta.