I’ll be reading in NYC on Wednesday, May 12 at Lolita Bar as part of the Columbia Journal Issue 48 launch party.  The event is free, as far as I can tell, and includes readings by Dr. Oliver Sacks and Sean Casey.  I’ll be reading from “How the Rebels Took Port Harcourt,” which appears in the issue. This event is NOT safe for children.

This is another story about assassinations.  It is available as a standalone chapbook, whatever that means – I just made that up – from JR Vansant Books.  JR released “The Snipe” alongside Stan Mir’s “Test Patterns,” which you are strongly advised to pick up as well because it’s stunning as all get-out.

Back when The Social Registry was supposed to release the second Christy & Emily record, Superstition, in the U.S. this past November, I wrote a review of the record for the Panorama issue of McSweeney’s.  I don’t know what happened in the time since, but I can no longer find any reference to the record on The Social Registry’s site.  This is a shame if it prevents people from hearing this outstanding album.

Looking back at the by-track enjoyment chart I made for Superstition, I feel like I was maybe a little harsh on the tracks I liked least.  It holds up extremely well over time. Go out and buy it if you can find it (frustratingly, you probably can’t).

I just visited the PistolPress site and found that they’re giving away The Future Hygienic for free via Rapidshare.  Their homepage makes reference to a ‘rocky’ and ‘slow’ season – I hope they’re okay.  But in the meantime, there is The Future Hygienic for free.  Nearly as worth your time as the paid, physical version, which seems to be available nowhere.

Blake Butler recently wrote about 25 important books of the ’00s at HTML GIANT.  I was surprised and honored to find Super Flat Times sandwiched between Amy Hempel and Ben Marcus, both of whom were unknowingly yet profoundly influential in its creation.  In the comments, Butler stated that I was ‘sort of an old school thing’ for him.  That’s a good thing, right?

Matt Bell edits the fine journal The Collagist, and he recently interviewed me about “Full Metal Jhacket,” the story of mine that appears in the October issue.  Read it here.

Oh, right.  I have a story in this anthology, entitled “A Woman in the Snow” – it’s the second part in my Cosmonaut trilogy.  Part One was published in the Columbia Journal a few years ago.  Don’t worry – you won’t understand Part Two any more having read Part One.

The latest issue of The Collagist is live, now, on the internet.  In it, you’ll find a story I wrote called “Full Metal Jhacket.”   Set in 1987, it deals with two young men struggling to retain the title of their stop motion animated film about Vietnam, Full Metal Jacket, after finding that director Stanley Kubrick has already reserved it.

This Sunday I’ll be reading in Cambridge as part of the Small Animal Project reading series.  I will be reading a portion of a story that’s slated to appear in Issue #3 of The Collagist. The story is set in 1987, shortly before the release of Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam epic Full Metal Jacket, and is called “Full Metal Jhacket.”

Sunday, 11 October
3 pm
Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St., Inman Square
Cambridge, MA

Not Coming to a Theater Near You is a website devoted to forgotten, neglected, or rarely seen films that deserve a second look.  Every October, they feature a daily horror film review, and I had the honor of kicking things off with Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond, a weird, campy adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story that had a profound effect on me when I first saw it on VHS in 1986.  The conditions were perfect: My parents were out of town for the weekend; the clerk at the local video store was extremely lenient; and I was thirteen years old – an awkward, gangly hormonal powderkeg.  The garish parade of blood-drenched, flesh-bursting, brain eating creatures was as accurate an illustration of my id as anything I’d seen.  It will always have a special place in my heart.

Read The Review