5/4/12

mostly I liked the whistlers, singers, and shriekers: the ones that screamed


I have a new story up at Tin House for their Flash Fridays series. It is called "Red-Faced Whistler, Emerald Tower, Rabid Wolfpack Motherload" and starts:

I always cared about the explosions, but mostly I liked the whistlers, singers, and shriekers: the ones that screamed. Billy Acres and I bought a backpack-full from a fold-up table beneath the overpass. The old hippie had smuggled them up from South Carolina beneath a load of tie-dyed shirts. He said we had to buy a shirt to get the rockets and that there wasn’t a holiday that wasn’t improved with fire. I picked out one with a peace sign and he handed me a free box of snappers.
Check it out if you'd like!

5/3/12

reading about reading


Ryan Chang has a very nice write-up of the recent Volume 1 reading I was a part of at Electric Literature's Outlet blog. The readers were Matt Bell, Melissa Broder, Julia Jackson, Jacob Silverman, and myself. Is it totally gauche to quote part of the write-up? Because I love this quote: "Michel’s marriage of the deadpan and totally absurd is a perfect iteration of the Uncanny, and it rules."

Deadpan, absurd and uncanny is pretty much what I'm going for! Anyway, thanks to Ryan, Tobias and Jason at Volume 1, and the rest of the readers.