goreletter

The Goreletter 6.01: Of Mice and Tentacles

2009-10-31T15:33:41Z

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THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 6.01 | Oct 31, 2009 +++
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009!

It's my 20th anniversary as a published author, and this issue launches the SIXTH volume of The Goreletter! To celebrate, I'm giving away a free e-book: SPORTUARY, an electronic chapbook of sports-related horror poetry, long unavailable and out-of-print, now expanded into 54 pages in a new and improved 2nd edition!

The ebook is available in .pdf and .mobi/kindle format, so you can read it online or on your hard drive. To get yours, just pretend you're subscribing again to the goreletter using any of the sign-up forms on http://gorelets.com ...and you'll instantly get instructions.

I've also posted a few fun audio samples online, taken from a recent reading I gave to students at Seton Hill University at a Halloween event. Listen to some of my new unpublished pieces and share in the laughter here:

http://www.gorelets.com/blog/weblog-exclusive/clips-from-my-halloween-reading-at-shu-2009/

THANK YOU for reading and instigating my bizarre imaginings all these many years. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Return of the Son of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Cthulhu the Obscure
A Connecticut Devil in King Arthur's Inferno
The Golden Bowl of Blood
The Isle of Dr. Moreau and Mr. Hyde
As I Lay Resurrecting
Creature from the Walden Pond
Of Mice and Tentacles
A Midsummer Night's Scream
Jane Weyrewolf
Oedipus Rex: The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes
Uncle Tom's Cannibal Cabin
A Poison Clockwork Orange
Rabid Animal Farm
Lord of the Giant Flies
Clone King Richard the Thirtieth
A Morgue of One's Own

***
With irreverence for Quirk Classics:
http://irreference.com/quirk-classics/

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OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

1980's Bad Guy: Gene Simmons

For your next movie night, rent:

Never Too Young To Die (Bettman, 1986)
Wanted: Dead or Alive (Sherman, 1986)
Runaway (Crichton, 1984)

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THE CONTESTATORIUM

H.C. Zuerner won an autographed copy of Audiovile for being my 500th follower on twitter. Scott Colbert, Joshua Byrnes and Will Prescott all won signed copies of Skull Fragments for responding to a shout-out on twitter. Follow my tweets and you never know if I'll throw up a prize (figuratively and literally)!
http://www.twitter.com/MikeArnzen

Last issue, I asked you to post your own "Pithy Morbid Thoughts" -- i.e. unpleasant but quotable quotes, just like the one that ends every issue of this newsletter -- on the Goreletter blog, with collectible prizes going to winners of a random draw. Congratulations go to WD Presscott, EA White, Chris Valk, John Pupo and Ron McGillvray. Ron's post was among my favorites:

"I want to die like my father, peacefully in his sleep, not screaming and terrified like his passengers."
– Bob Monkhouse (died December 2003)

Read them ALL here, for your personal edification and/or deadification:
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dataerrata/pithy-morbid-thought-contest-winners-announced/

Time for a new contest.

The prizes are VERY rare collector's items...

1st prize gets one of the "test design" pressings of the "Live and Vile" audio disc -- a CD that was released in only 26 lettered edition copies, bundled with the leather bound edition of my novella, The B*tchfight, from Bad Moon Books in 2008. This CD features a live reading at the Zombiefest convention and demo versions and outtakes from my recording sessions for Audiovile. Only 26 people in the country own these tracks; and only three copies of this particular test pressing exist. It's signed. The winner will get this PLUS a signed copy of 100 Jolts for read-along fun.

2nd prize gets a signed deck of Play Dead playing cards. These cards feature art by David Liscomb, inspired by images in my novel PLAY DEAD. They were included with the "Grim Grimoire" (sculpture-bound) edition of the novel. Not a lot of these exist! The winner will get the cards PLUS a copy of Exquisite Corpse, the film based on my short-shorts and poetry.

3rd prize gets a signed "advanced review copy" of my novel Play Dead. Unavailable anywhere, these bound paperback versions were sent only to book reviewers before the book's release. You'll get this PLUS a signed copy of my latest chapbook, Skull Fragments.

So what do you have to do to win one of these rare treasures?

Easy. Write a new "customer review" of ANY of my books/stories/cds/films at either amazon.com, horror-mall.com, itunes.com, or cdbaby.com. E-mail me at arnzen@gorelets.com with an alert or link to your review and you're entered. Simple as that. I don't care if you hate it, love it, or are indifferent...I don't care if the book is 20 years old or out this month...if your review is at least five sentences long it will get you an entry. Every review you write gets you an extra entry (but please don't copy the same review to different places). You can review my work as it appears in anthologies and collections, too -- not just my single-authored books. You haven't read any of my books? Fine: write a review of The Goreletter itself on my Amazon Profile page here -- http://bit.ly/1wb2DR -- located under "Customer Discussions" and it will count for an entry!

Every entry I am told about via e-mail will be assigned a number, and I will use the number generator at http://random.org to pick the winners on December 1st (you need to email me before the deadline on Midnight eastern time, Dec 1st). Winners will be posted to The Goreletter and on Twitter.

Nothing to lose! And it's easier to win than you think. Here's the kicker:

THE FIRST 30 REVIEWS GET A FREE AUTOGRAPHED/NUMBERED BOOKPLATE! Limit two per reviewer, first-come, first-served. Postage-paid. See this photo for what it looks like:
http://www.gorelets.com/gallery/covers/LtdFrogBookplate2009.jpg.php

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ARNZEN NEWS

BOSS HORROR
Darkness on the Edge -- tales inspired by Bruce Springsteen songs -- will be out soon. It features my story, "The Hungry Heart," alongside other great tales by Sarah Langan, Gary Braunbeck, Lawrence Connolly, Elizabeth Massie and many more. Sure to be hit. Wrap your legs round its velvet ribs and strap your hands cross its engines here:
http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/acatalog/forthcoming_titles.html

WEIRD FOR CHARITY
Last Drink Bird Head is the title of a new anthology of flash fiction edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer that's not only a great collection of surreal and strange short stories, but also a donation to a charitable cause. Contributors include me, Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Conrad Williams...over 80 writers in total! The design of this collectible is great (it even features a neat flipbook in the margins) and the cover art by Scott Eagle is phenomenal. Here's the kicker: all proceeds go to proliteracy.org, an organization that is supporting reading and literacy skills across the globe. Do the right thing and give your bird head its last drink:
http://wyrmpublishing.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=20

LEARN THE CRAFT OF THE CRYPT
The Writer's Workshop of Horror is a great collection of non-fiction (already in its second printing!) from a truckload of masters in the horror genre, who are not only dishing out some remarkably savvy advice on how to craft scary stories, but also revealing quite a bit about their own fiction and the great tales in the genre itself. I think any fan of horror fiction and film would enjoy its insights, from the contributions, from the great essays by Gary Braunbeck and Brian Keene to the interviews with Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker...and way more than I can list here. I've contributed an essay to the book called "Stripping Away the Mask: Scene and Structure in Horror Fiction" -- which I recently learned will also be featured in the January issue of The Writer magazine! Get it now:
http://writersworkshopofhorror.com/arnzen

SPEWING ADVICE
Speaking of teaching, I'll be running some writing classes in the year ahead that might be of interest to some of you. For one thing, the graduate program in "Writing Popular Fiction" where I teach horror writing is now officially an "MFA" granting program (it used to be MA). The difference is moot to some, but important to many, so if you want a writing degree, this is a great opportunity. Not interested in a degree, but want to learn more? You can catch me next summer, where I'll be making the "Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop" a little "od-der" as a guest lecturer (along with top writers like Gregory Frost, David Hartwell, Alexander Jablokov, Elizabeth Hand & Laura Ann Gilman). Or if you're under 20 years old, catch me at the Alpha SF/F/H workshop for Young Authors (also featuring guests like Holly Black, Timothy Zahn, and Tamora Pierce). Scary!
Links:
WPF: http://fiction.setonhill.edu
ODYSSEY: http://www.sff.net/odyssey/
ALPHA: http://alpha.spellcaster.org/

AN INTERSPEW
Check out Karen Newman’s new interview with me at The Black Glove review website. The questions get personal, and I talk about being born in Amityville, my amateur writing days when I was in the Army, zombies (always zombies), and more:
http://the-black-glove.blogspot.com/2009/10/stabbed-in-stanzas-feature-poet-michael.html

SPEW AND SPEW AGAIN
Look around and you might spot my work in some new books coming out this Fall. I'll appear in the "spoon river horror poetry anthology," Death In Common, edited by Rich Ristow, out soon. And two of my critical essays on The Exorcist will appear in Studies in the Horror Film: The Exorcist, which promises to be a fantastic — if not the definitive — collection of studies of this seminal shocker, from the always exquisite publisher Centipede Press. Other books in production include Nostradamus' Fate (Dark Regions Press) and Armageddon Lightshow (Bloodletting Books) and Miskatonic Falls (Shroud Publishing). Keep watching The Goreletter for news.

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SKINDLE
I want you to buy a Kindle -- well, any of the new ebook readers coming out, like the "Nook," will do, but I prefer the Kindle.

I explain in detail why I think you should get a Kindle here: http://bit.ly/oU8U8

Keep watching these pages for available ebook versions of my work in the future:
Arnzen e-books at Amazon: http://bit.ly/2P63BT
Arnzen e-books at Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/a1527/Michael-Arnzen/?

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WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Freaky Faces

We Have Band music video
http://submarinechannel.com/articles/item/358

James Kuhn's Unbeatable Facepaint Videos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hawhawjames/tags/video/

The World Bodypainting Festival Galleries
http://193.171.119.147/us/wbpf/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=40422

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DICTIONSCARY

"gavage"

Tap-tap-tap. Class, pay attention. I'm going to teach you a new word today.

It's called "gavage." Say it out loud. No, not like "savage," Little Jimmy. It's pronounced like "garage." That's right, Mary: >guhvahzh<. Really resonate that last syllable in your mouth. What? No Patty, "garvage" is not a word.

Gavage. Do any of you know what it means?

No, Jimmy, it's not the trash you run over in your garage.

No, Mary, it's not a battlefield dressing invented during the French revolution.

What's that, Patty? No. Absolutely not. That's not even humanly possible.

Take notes, class. "Gavage" is a French term for "force-feeding." Surely your mommies and daddies have forced you to finish your dinner at one time or another, but it's not quite that. Gavage is what people do when they insert a tube down another person's throat and -- often with a funnel -- pour food and liquid down into the gullet.

Um...yes, Mary?

I don't know what a beer bong is, but I highly doubt it. Gavage is a technique used in emergency rooms, not pubs. A gavage can save the life of the malnourished. On the other hand, it has also been used for despicable reasons. Does anyone here know what foie gras is?

No Jimmy, it's not frog water.

No, Mary, it's not force feeding people frog legs in France.

Yes, Patty! My gosh, you're right! It's the liver of a goose that has been force fed grain over and over again -- through gavage -- until the organ is bursting with rich, buttery flavor. I had no idea you were such a gourmet!

Because it relies on gavage, foie gras is extremely controversial. Animal rights activists protest the practice, while some chefs argue that all the animals we feed on are already subject to...

[Sigh.] Yes, Patty? What's that? You call it "moi gras"? I'm not sure what that means, but see me after class, please.

Okay, everyone. Let's move to the next lesson. Open your books to page 96, "Slaughterhouse Law."

***
"Delicacy of Despair": http://www.goveg.com/feat/foie/
History of gavage: http://bit.ly/4iJ6ja
"La Gavage" Restaurant: http://www.randomscripts.com/humor/gavage.htm

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ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Scuttlebuggery

Scuttlebuggery is a stylishly steampunk online promotional game for the goth band Johnny Hollow, brought to you by the geniuses at My Pet Skeleton Productions (maker of "A Murder of Scarecrows" featured here awhile back). In it, you play a scuttlebug -- a round beetle who must figure out how to push bubbles of absinthe toward a drain, dodging beetles and flittering moths along the way. It's like soccer for scarabs. And though it sounds like child's play, it is a Sisyphean challenge that will likely make you appreciate the vast labor of the insect world, scuttling all around us when we're not paying much attention. Happy Halloween:

http://www.scuttlebuggery.com/

Thanks to Blue Tea for calling attention to this game in their Halloween Roundup:
http://deeplyblue.com/bluetea/2008/10/fourth-annual-halloween-roundup.html

See also:
http://www.amurderofscarecrows.com/

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TWITTER LITTER

According to google, I now blort 4.8 items a day to twitter, when I probably should be writing something more meaty and less tweetie instead. But sometimes what I blort is, upon reflection, worth reblortitating here, all over again. (If you want to get short blurts like these live, 4.8 times a day, join twitter.com and search for "@MikeArnzen".)

What's worse: your doppelganger, or an army of your clones? I say doppelganger. (No, >I< say doppelganger!) [We all say you're both wrong!]

Nothing worse than a SAD zombie clown. Especially the kind in a velvet paint-by-numbers portrait.

"While Brushing": in the morning mirror / an insect worms out from the bush / of your right eyebrow / you grin and leave it / work to do

@wdprescott Good post. I say we are ALL "the balloon animals of horror."

I have a coaster by my computer that says "Sam Adams: Don't Be Afraid of FLAVOR!" Yet there ARE flavors to fear (and not just flavor flav).

An ad at Amazon pointed me to "Gerber" brand knives and tools and, of course, I imagined 2 infants bound by wrist, engaged in a dagger duel.

I am disturbed by the slogan in Unisom sleeping pill ads: "Melt to Sleep". Might as well say "Boil Your Dreams."

#badproverbs Birds of a feather get shot together.

What is the etymology of the phrase "drop off"? It sounds horrifying -- like something Wyle E. Coyote would do, rather than a schoolbus.

Why isn't Imagination the name of a country? In fact, have we stopped naming countries? What -- have we run out of ...imagination?

#homem : "The Final Buzz": bees eat penguins / on cool mountains / above psychotic oceans / of hot water

"We are the Knights who say....Nyarlothep!"

@BrianKeene @Tweet_Shrieks HELL IN A CELL >should< be a college subject. Or at least the name of an AC/DC song.

#oneletteroffmovies Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the sushi bar..."Raws"!

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GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

All Chocolate is Chocula

all chocolate is Chocula —
it seduces with its riches,
wraps your desire in the cape
of your mouth, and invites
the sink of teeth. we never bite
gently; we always suck it
to vapor, feeding on its potency
until we are left only with the empty
pang for more and more and more.
we are undead with diabetes,
obese with our obsession,
unquietly unquenched
while we dwell upon
the mortality of the melt.

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NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

A Double-Take on The New Uncanny

Last year's Shirley Jackson Award winner for "Best Anthology" -- The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease, edited by Sarah Eyre and Rah Page (Comma Press, 2008) -- is a knockout example of genre renewal. The book features some of the best British horror authors alive, including Ramsey Campbell, Nicholas Royle, A.S. Byatt, Christopher Priest and many more...even Matthew Holness (whose comedic double from the BBC, Garth Merenghi, is echoed here). The book definitely deserved the Jackson Award for its ambition, because it makes for an interesting literary experiment.

The book, essentially, was an assignment. All its contributors were challenged to read Sigmund Freud’s seminal essay on horror aesthetics called "The Uncanny," and then write a fresh fictional interpretation of the ideas within it, in order to explore what the Uncanny might mean 100 years later, in the 21st century. The goal: "to update Freud’s famous checklist of what gives us the creeps."

If you're not familiar with Freud's "Uncanny," the introduction by Ra Page is an excellent survey of its key components in its own right, discussing how Freud provided a "literary template...a shopping list of shivers" that horror writers have managed to return to again and again over the past century. That template includes such icons as "the double" (aka doppelganger), living dolls, evil robots, recurring numbers, dismembered limbs that move on their own accord, animals that speak, the living dead, and more. Page explains the meaning of Freud’s essay in one of the most clear and careful ways I’ve ever seen in print. Thus, the introduction is a must-read, and it establishes the premise of the book perfectly.

What happens, though, is that the reader is put into an evaluative frame-of-mind, constantly asking themselves "How is this writer working with the source material?" and "Have they contributed something original to the concept?" This almost lowers the book to the status of a writing contest, of sorts, as the reader will inevitably begin to compare each author's treatment side by side, looking for the best interpretation. This is fine, but it also makes us less susceptible to the emotional impact of the stories, since we're inherently put into this judgmental distance from the worlds imagined by the authors. The best writers, however, thoroughly succeed in pulling us into their haunted characters' worlds, forgetting about the "uncanny" altogether so we can experience the tale in an immediate fashion.

When discussing the tales in The New Uncanny, Page interestingly notes that the majority of the stories feature either the double or the doll most often. This is true, but it does not diminish the quality of the writing. There are "playful" types of dolls chosen, like Adam Marek's "Tamaogotchi" or Nicholas Royle's "The Dummy" -- but even A.S. Byatt's more traditional children doll story is thoroughly enjoyable as a work of terror. One of my favorite tales in the collection, however, transcends the usage of dolls AND doubles, and manages to be a gritty little gross-out number, to boot: Matthew Holness' "Possum" is a thoroughly raw and psychologically scarring story about a puppeteer who uses an animal head to scare children (among other things) -- it is unsettling because it uses an unreliable narrator in an unstable manner, and the icing on the cake is that you can never quite tell if Holness is earnest in his narration or if he is playing the role of Garth Merenghi writing
horror fiction -- which would be laughably outrageous if the writing weren't this talented. I loved it.

Another quirky original is Jane Rogers' "Ped-o-Matique" -- about a foot massaging device that seems to have a mind of its own -- and the story gives us a great psychological portrait of a woman "frozen" in place. To say much more about stories like these would give too much away.

Because writers are all offering variation on a theme, without knowing what each other are up to, there is some redundancy among the stories. Gerard Woodward's "The Underhouse" -- about a man who constructs an uncanny "mirror image" room in his basement, for example, is an ingenious story, told well. But it closely echoes Ramsey Campbell's opening tale, "Double Room," in which a hotel guest discovers that his every action is echoed by identical sounds in a neighboring room, but with a hostile intent. These "mirror room" stories feel "strangely familiar" in their own right. But the redundancy isn't too worrisome; the latter shows why Campbell is a master of psychological suspense, and while the idea is a little too similar to Woodward's, it is more chilling, while Woodward's is a wee bit more clever and whimsical in its conception. Drawing comparisons like these is part of that "distance" I was talking about in the outset of this review: the structure of the book both enables
and gets in the way of its enjoyment. But on the whole, it is an excellent study in the Uncanny, and a fun -- albeit disturbing -- read of new British horror fiction. Compared to many anthologies in the horror genre, this one has a very clear literary purpose, and I recommend it very highly.

I also recommend it for teachers of literature. I actually assigned this book in a recent course I taught in Psychological Horror fiction at Seton Hill University. I asked students to review a story from the book on my other blog, The Popular Uncanny (these include MANY spoilers, however, so read the book before you read their thoughts) at http://www.gorelets.com/uncanny/

The New Uncanny is an attractive and rich 226 page paperback, available for about $8 from amazon: http://bit.ly/4eTSM2
Order from Comma Press (8 pounds) in the UK: http://www.commapress.co.uk/

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INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

Funereal Fun

+ Describe an operation or autopsy that transpires in total darkness.
+ Reveal a secret during an open casket funeral.
+ Discover a "pattern" among the gravestones.

***
You can post whatever this instigates -- or news of any publication that results -- here:
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dept/instigation/

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AS YOU LIKE IT

If you liked PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS ...
you'll like FUTILE EFFORTS by Tom Piccirilli
http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/picciril03

If you liked HE IS LEGEND ...
you'll like THE BOX: UNCANNY STORIES by Richard Matheson
http://us.macmillan.com/thebox

If you liked PLAY DEAD ...
you'll like JAKE'S WAKE by John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow
http://jakeswake.com/

If you liked SPORTUARY ...
you'll like BLOOD LITE edited by Kevin J. Anderson
http://horror.org/hwabooks.htm#blood_lite

If you liked PARATABLOIDS ...
you'll like MORBID CURIOSITY CURES THE BLUES edited by Loren Rhoads
http://www.charnel.com/morbidcuriosity/morbid.html

If you liked WRITER'S WORKSHOP OF HORROR ...
you'll like BOOKLIFE by Jeff Vandermeer
http://www.tachyonpublications.com/book/Booklife.html

If you are curious about any of the Arnzen books that I mention above, just visit the handy-dandy bibliography page at gorelets.com (which include cover art, contents lists, reviews, excerpts, ordering info, and more): http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Books

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BOO COUPONS

Here's some exclusive coupons and discounts on horror-related merchandise -- your reward for scrolling down!

Director Jim Minton has some extra copies of our movie, Exquisite Corpse, available for Goreletter readers at a great Halloween discount: just $8.99 + $2 shipping while they last. You can get one without the case for $5.99 + $2 sh. But you'll want the case.
Trailers and more at http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Multimedia.ExquisiteCorpse
Make payable to Jim Minton, c/o Jim Minton Design Studio, 3339 Merrell Road, Dallas, TX, 75229.

Get a mint, signed hardcover of my out-of-print novel, PLAY DEAD, for only $22, ppd. Paypal to arnzen@gorelets.com

FREE SKULL FRAGMENTS!
Didn't run out of copies last time so I'm running this deal again (last time!). I'll bundle a free SIGNED copy of my new French-English chapbook, Skull Fragments, together with a sealed copy of my cd, Audiovile for just $15 (outside the USA, $20). That price includes shipping. Paypal me at arnzen@gorelets.com and don't forget to include your delivery address.

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DATA+ERRATA

Last issue I recommended the "myspace site for horror fans" called The Haunt. The site was a lot of fun, but it's reducing its overhead by transforming into a bulletin board for the Horror Mall. It's still a great hangout for anyone interested in Indie Horror and collectable editions, but note that The Haunt will soon be, literally, a ghost town. Visit the Horror-Mall here: http://www.horror-mall.com/forums/

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All material in The Goreletter is © 2009 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For permission to reprint individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 41. This newsletter is a past recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, read back issues, get extras, add us to your RSS reader: http://www.gorelets.com

I be a-tweetin': http://www.twitter.com/MikeArnzen/

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

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PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

My Heartfelt Thoughts

"Could it think, the heart would stop beating."
-- Fernando Pessoa (died 1935)

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The Goreletter 5.04: Black Saabath

2009-06-13T23:56:33Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 5.04 | June 14, 2009 +++
========================

SPECIAL 40th ISSUE!

That's a lot of Goreletter. And, yes, it's been almost a full year since the last issue. So it's an anniversary issue, of sorts, too! I'll try to be more timely in the future, but as of Volume Six -- the Volume of the Beast -- this e-newsletter will no longer be delivered as a steady Quarterly -- it is now officially a "Whenevericannerly." If you find yourself pining for another issue between now and next Whenevericansday, well, be sure to visit the NEW AND IMPROVED WEBSITE at http://www.gorelets.com/blog/ for updates, because I post a lot of news and entertainment there solely to assuage your profoundly unquenchable lust for goofy strangeness.

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BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Classic Car Accident Ad Slogans

Have You Driven A F*rd Over A Stroller Lately?
This Is Your Late Father's *ldsmobile.
V*lvo. For Life Support.
Killt F*rd Slough.
Ch*vy. The Last Heartbeat of America.
Chummer -- Like Nothing Else!
Ponti*c. We Are Driving Excrement.
Grab Life By The Horns. That Won't Stop Honking.
Sa*b. Move Your Mind. Off My Lap.
B*W. The Ultimate Chicken Machine.
V*lkswagon. Drivers Haunted.
Juice in Engineering. *udi.
C*dillac. When You Turn Your Car Off, Does It Return The Favor?
Unlike Any Other. Mortcedez Endz.
B*ick. Drive Beautiful. Into Crowds.
The All New Ch*vy. Built to Last Breath.
H*nda. The Power Of Screams.
S*turn. Like Always. Like Never Before. Like Rotten Haggis.
L*coln. Reach Higher. We're Sinking.
I Hate What You Did To Me -- T*yota!
Tahrvernoggin!

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

NEW BOOK: SKULL FRAGMENTS
l'horreur! A sweet and petite bi-lingual (French and English) edition of my serial flash horror story, "Skull Fragments," marks my debut publication in France! Translator Jerome Charlet did an excellent job on this book, published by Les Perseides as part of their "Art Bref" line of playing card deck-sized books. An early French reviewer calls Skull Fragments "a small gem to be consumed without moderation! It is short, strong, terrible, but -- qu’est-ce que c’est -- good!" See "Boo Coupons" for a way to get a copy free. Or learn more about these 'fragments de crane' here:
http://tr.im/nHHC

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE
PS Publishing is now taking pre-orders for the upcoming anthology, Darkness on the Edge: Stories Inspired by the Music of Bruce Springsteen. My contribution (which, incidentally, was also inspired by Poe!) is called "The Hungry Heart." I tend to be quite literal, if you can't tell. Others in the book include Elizabeth Massie ("I'm on Fire"), Lawrence Connolly ("Murder Incorporated"), Sarah Langan ("The Rising"), Kurt Dinan ("Two Faces") and about 15 others you'll recognize. You can tell just from the titles of the songs alone that this is going to be one dark, entertaining book.
http://tr.im/mRvB

IN THE HORROR LIBRARY
Current Bram Stoker Award-finalist, Horror Library III, is the latest in a series of knock-out horror story anthologies from Cutting Block Press, and it's one you won't want to miss. Released last Halloween, the collection features new work by notoriously good writers like Bentley Little, Gary Braunbeck, Matthew Warner, Kealan Patrick Burke, and a litany of others. My contribution is about the horror of going through those frustrating airport security checkpoints, called "Guarded." Get it!
http://www.cuttingblock.net/

SCREECH!
"She Screech Like Me" now appears in the highly-sought-by-collectors book, He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson (Gauntlet Press, 2009). My story, a sequel to Matheson's classic "Born of Man and Woman," features a spooky interior illustration by the phenomenal Harry O. Morris. Other contributors include Stephen King and his son Joe Hill collaborating for the first time, Gary Braunbeck, Nancy Collins, and far too many great authors to list. The book's finer editions have already sold out for hundreds of dollars, but I believe trade hardcover editions are still available from Gauntlet Press' website:
http://www.gauntletpress.com

BARE BONE FINALE
The just-released issue (#11) of Bare Bone magazine is officially the last of the line. You should get a copy. My poem, "Switched at Birth" appears therein, but that's nothing compared to the great dark bizarro and avant horror stories by writers like Paul Finch, Steve Rasnic Tem, Cody Goodfellow, Kurt Newton, and Michael Kelly. Just ten bucks from Raw Dog Screaming Press:
http://tr.im/obFI

GIVE THE HORROR BOOK OF LISTS A HAND
I hope you haven't neglected to add 'The Book of Lists: Horror' (Harpers, 2008) to your shopping list. If so, you've overlooked a current Stoker finalist that is getting rave reviews everywhere, including amazon.com, which features a clever excerpt from writer Sarah Pinborough: http://tr.im/obN0 One of my contributions to the book got cut for space, but the editors graciously let me post it on my weblog. So if you'd like to read my list of "Classic Dismembered Hand Stories" go here:
http://tr.im/ol7x

"IN THE HORROR GENRE, YOU GOTTA GO OFF SCRIPT..."
Last Halloween I was interviewed in the studio by Doug Dangler at the Ohio University "Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing" for a spot on NPR. It turned out remarkably well. Visit their podcast archives for this and interviews with other writers you might recognize here:
http://tr.im/ol8T

"BECAUSE THE DEAD SPEAK AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE..."
Speaking of getting "cut for space," I was also interviewed by Jonathan Maberry for his neat "forensics of the living dead" book, Zombie CSU, but our conversation got dropped from the final edit of the book. With Maberry's permission, this "lost interview" has been resurrected in the "weblog exclusive" department of The Goreletter blog online.
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dept/weblog-exclusive/

TEACHERS OF TERROR
Dissections: The Journal of Contemporary Horror just released their May 2009 special issue on issues of teaching the horror genre in the classroom. Sure, I'm in there with a discussion of "learning objectives" in a horror course, but with essays like Doug Ford's "The Sublime Trials of Jack Ketchum: Teaching 'The Girl Next Door' in the Era of Torture P**n" and poems about classic movie actors by Bryan Dietrich, you know you're getting something as fascinating as it is educational.
http://tr.im/mz4q

HAUNTED
I'm now on the "MySpace for horror fans" web community called The Haunt. Haunted? Join us: http://tr.im/nVCO

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

The Goofy Terror of Richard Benjamin

For your next movie night, rent:

Witches' Brew (Strock, 1980)
Love At First Bite (Dragoti, 1979)
Saturday the 14th (Cohen, 1981)

========================
DATA+ERRATA

GORELETS 2.0 (well, 3.5, actually)
I have overhauled the design of my website, http://www.gorelets.com and I do believe it's easier to find your way around. New features include a brand new blog for my upcoming academic non-fiction book, The Popular Uncanny, a variety of rss feed updates, twitters, an updated gallery and biography, a sideblog of nutty tweets from twitter.com, and other hidden delights. Please come warm the place up by surfing around and leaving comments. E-mail me if you find an error or have feedback about the site. There's also a free book contest there, ending July 1st (see below)!

Or if you want to AVOID me, go to Facebook. I'm avoiding that place. But that's all the more reason you should all mob the fan group "What Would Mike Arnzen Do For A Klondike Bar?" and post something nutty since I can't respond!: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21693239278

STOKER AWARDS ANNOUNCED!
The 2008 Bram Stoker Awards have been announced this weekend at the Horror Writers Association annual Award Banquet. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners alike! I've read almost all of them, and they quite commendable. As I learned live on twitter, winners this year include Stephen King (for both novel and collection), Sarah Langan (first novel), John Little (long fiction), and Bruce Boston (poetry). More info should be available here soon:
http://horror.org/stokers.htm

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

Skin Can Crawl

she caressed my arm
but paid no heed
to the recoiling dance
of my terminal hair --
my infestation
my need
my friends,
twittering aimless
in the air
from wrist to sleeve --
a thousand daddy longlegs,
a thousand disturbed
grasping
ends

========================
TWITTER LITTER

I joined twitter ( http://twitter.com/MikeArnzen ), and keep posting weird things. Not really very profound things, but things I've reflected on and thought, well, maybe that's clever enough to keep. Not knowing what else to do with them, I'm pulling out the ones that I thought people might get a laugh out of later on, completely out of context, for a new segment of The Goreletter e-mail edition I'm calling..."Twitter Litter."

#onceuponatime Advil Jones popped a pain killer and relieved herself to death.

It is unfortunate that the entire squad of Law and Order: Criminal Intent -- superlative actors, all -- look like vampires.

BEHOLD THE POWER OF CRAYOLAMAN. He shoots deadly crayons -- 64 colors -- from his nostrils (which double as sharpener).

Substitute "weirdo" for "auto" whenever possible. "I'm working on my weirdobiography" and "I drive a fancy weirdomobile." "Weirdomatic!"

Car Accident or Rock Song?: "Saabbath Bloody Saabbath"

Just saw that our retractable tape measure is a "Slaymaker" brand. Heavy in hand. Sharp metal edges. Wound lengths up to 25'! :-)

#zombiehaiku riding the coaster / zombies await down below / I throw up my arms

Are there any cities named "Cronenberg"? If not, there should be. Fly-men on subways. Mugwumps at Starbucks. Brood kids on playgrounds.

Snippet heard from the TV downstairs: "Enjoy the feeling of being vein free."

The opposite of "practicality" ought to be "crapticality."

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Imaginary Anatomies and Astonishing Somatic Illustrations

Cartoon Characters
http://tr.im/op2a

Kaiju
http://tr.im/op2d

Balloon Animals
http://tr.im/op2h

***
MORE!: http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dept/weird-sites-of-the-month/

========================
DICTIONSCARY

"offal"

It's funny: when I turn to my dollar-store dictionary for advice on the correct way to pronounce "offal" it says "awful"! I thought so. There's nothing wonderful about offal: it's all awful, even in its very utterance.

Offal is butcher's term for the "less valuable edible parts of a carcass" -- which is another way of saying the "guts" that are left over after the "meat" has been cleaved into muscular, familiar chunks. But the important thing to remember is that while these aren't worth much, they're still "edible."

I think horror writers often use the thesaurus to look up synonyms for gut-terms. I know I do, and end up spending hours giggling as I turn through the pages ("ocular jelly"...tee-hee-hee...or in the right circumstance, "BInocular jelly"...har-har-har...or given the right animal, "RHINOCULAR JELLY"...bar-rar-rah!). But if a writer says "offal" when they really mean "entrails" or "intestines" then you have to wonder: did they just yank that word from a thesaurus or do they REALLY intend to suggest that their character's bowels are edible? Or did they just lazily copy the word out of the thesaurus because there are only so many words for guts that sound as repulsive as "offal"?

Consider this test case from an imaginary story:

She swiped her sharpened plastic credit card across his belly and the line it cut proceeded to split open and charge his account with a massive withdrawal of blood and entrails. He scooped his arms around his waist to collect his offal but it spit and spooled out from his gashed abdomen like so many coins from a slot machine, and as the disemboweled man fell into the brackish puddle of his own innards, she chuckled to herself: "I told you: it pays to Discover!"

A-hem. "Offal" might sound like the right word choice in this context, but the term is incredibly out of place, because it refers more to food than currency. This murderer is not a crazy cannibal, just a crazy consumer. If she wants offal, she'll spend her Payback Bonus Award on a proper tripe dinner at a fancy restaurant (where the waiter better be nice).

But to be fair, my research, albeit scant, on the derivation of the term "offal" reveals that it comes from the Middle English "af vallen" which quite literally translates as to "fall off" -- ergo, "afval" was the name given to anything that fell off the butcher's block. Thus, I stand corrected.

Fine: "Offal" can refer to any body parts that "fall off," whether edible or not.

But with one caveat. The five-second rule still applies.

Related Reading:
http://tr.im/op1N

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Evolving Your Monster

“Monster Evolution” is a clever online game from Nob Studio, in which you terrorize a city eating humans — and if you eat enough of them, you can “evolve” into creatures with special powers and take out the shooters and tanks that come after you.

It’s like Cloverfield meets John Carpenter’s The Thing. Almost.

Try “Monster Evolution” for yourself, and play God(zilla) for awhile: http://tr.im/op25

***
MORE!: http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dept/online-gizmo-of-the-month/

========================
THE CONTESTATORIUM

POST YOUR PITH AND WIN!
Enter the new "Pithy Morbid Thought" contest! FIVE WINNERS will be chosen on July 1st, who will each get a free signed Arnzen book. If you have the endurance to read all the way through The Goreletter, then you know that every issue is capped off at the end with a "Pithy Morbid Thought" -- a somewhat disturbing "quotable quote" from a person who is no longer among the living. This is the easiest part of the newsletter for me to write, because, well, I'm just quoting someone else! And now you can see how easy it really is. All you have to do is submit your own favorite "pithy morbid thought" for the chance to win. Only ONE entry per contestant. The contest has already begun on the weblog, where you can read all the rules (and must follow them, please) at http://tr.im/n3iL

AND THE WINNER WAS...
Our previous contest asked you to come up with a funny caption to a really weird piece of original art by Proverbs for Monsters cover artist Matt Schuster. This was the most popular contest ever, and you can read all the HILARIOUS results here: http://tr.im/ontA Congratulations to Kurt Newton, Steven Pirie, and Josh Byrnes, who all took away rare copies of books, free comics, and -- for Josh -- a signed print from the artist!)

Good luck!

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

Sorry for the length of this section, but I'm making up for lost time. This time around I offer four "flash" reviews of books that are quite effective because they inexplicably feel "autobiographical" in some way, despite being entirely, totally, and thankfully made up.

>> Chimeric Machines by Lucy A. Snyder
Snyder is a massively talented writer -- the sort who knows how to make you take a gulp when you hit the ending of a story or poem -- and this poetry collection made me gulp with awe on virtually every page. Although her poetry/fiction collection Sparks and Shadows remains the best introduction to this writer's work in print, Chimeric Machines is her best work of poetry to date, because it is the most personal and -- as usual for her writing -- profound in its observations of the emotional undercurrents and potential for fantastic transformation in everyday life. The title made me thing the collection would be rife with fantastical creatures but this is deep poetry; literary writing, much of it seemingly autobiographical, tinged with a fantastic worldview. In these poems, which often turn whismical -- as in the poem where the narrator vomits a squid in an exceptionally visceral moment -- even the squid carries weighty ominous meaning. Many are dark, such as "The Monster Betw
een the Sparks" (which is the space you see between the stars), and chill you where you thought you warm. Others explore hopelessness -- but with a tiny spark of hope underneath the snuff of the universe. With an introduction by Tom Piccirilli and collaborative contributions from Gary Braunbeck, many horror readers would enjoy the experience of this collection. This is not horror poetry, always, but it is something bigger, something simpler: just great poetry. Snyder's Chimeric Machines deserves to win a literary award. Available for about $10 from
http://www.creativguypublishing.com

>> Don of the Dead by Nick Cato
I read this novel in advanced form, and it should be out very soon from Coscom Entertainment. Cato is the man who had the audacity to bring my absurd novelette, Licker, into print, mostly because he is simply a huge fan of horror-humor. His upcoming novel (his first?), Don of the Dead, is clearly a labor that reflects that same love of comedy and terror, mashing together the mob story genre with the zombie genre into a concept story that seemed pretty fresh and original to me, despite the dripping saturation of the genre with zombie fiction and film these days. I recently sent him an endorsement for the book, so allow me to simply say "I laughed a lot" and reblurbitate it: "It's as if George Romero has eaten the brains of Mario Puzo, Martin Scorcese and Dave Barry and spit out fictional gold." While this story is only likely to appeal to zombie and mob fans, I count myself among them, and recommend it to kindred spirits looking for a good Troma-styled romp. (And if you know
what "Troma-styled" means, then you're one of them). Available shortly from
http://www.coscomentertainment.com/webstore.html

>> Blankety Blank: A Novel of Vulgaria by D. Harlan Wilson
This disturbing read is a breakthrough work of fiction that deserves a spotlight on the literary landscape as one of the best works of experimental writing of the year, if not ever. The story is quite a mess, and difficult to encapsulate in a review, and this is fully intentional, yet beyond the sheer irreal humor that permeates every page there is one strong epoxy that holds it all remarkably well together: the palpable sense of liberation that Wilson surely must have enjoyed as he sets out to unlatch his own memoir from every rule and formula and stricture of narrative ever made, with fervent, violent, glee. He rubs the face of Truth into the doggie doo of Fiction, with outrageously successful and bizarro results.

It's a memoir but it's not. The title of this story refers to the name of a serial killer clown, stalking his victims in the McMansion-bloated suburb of Vulgaria, set somewhere just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan...just outside the borders of a parody of conventional reality...yet also somewhere inside of D. Harlan Wilson's own historical past (and present, too). The bizarre humor and deft wit in Wilson's writing makes for compulsive, compelling reading, and generates a lot of laughs along the way (I have a high affection for the passage where the narrator tries to grapple with the Freudian concept of Uncanny), but I have to warn horror fans that this book might challenge anyone who simply likes to escape into the world of a straightforward story.

The emotional thrill-ride of Wilson's writing is grounded in intellectual acrobatics more than character identification. His purpose, I think, is trying to reveal that there is no such thing as a coherent story in the first place and that history is a fiction, and that that's where the horror always lies, because we can't escape these fictions, these truths, this stuff called language. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves is a fiction that our lives are built upon, as post-structualists have argued for about as long as Wilson has been alive, and so "Mr. Blankety Blank" is a figure for the desire for erasure from history, compelled by a smattering of hope for anything but the banal. The storytelling attacks itself in this grand experiment of "avant horror" that might remind you of the work of a young Kurt Vonnegut (if the "gut" part of his moniker were literal), and though it helps to know your postmodernist theory if you want to understand a book like this, it's stil
l a rip-roaring read. Despite it's persistent intellectalizing this remains a genuine horror story because, much like Danielewski's House of Leaves, it begs the question of its own capacity to capture something much larger and much more sinister than itself in language and narrative, and this is what Freud meant by "the return of the repressed." Somewhere, somehow, the id is unlatched within this masterful work of historiography, and that's what gives this bizarro memoir its own unique and uncanny sense of horror. See if you can handle it. You'll probably laugh a lot. $15 bucks from:
http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/blank.html

>> Latter-Day Cipher by Latayne C. Scott
It's not often that I read religious-oriented fiction, and I'm going to bet that most readers of The Goreletter haven't even heard of this book. But Latter-Day Cipher (Moody Publishers, 2009), the first suspense novel from Latayne C. Scott, strikes me as a very bold step into some very challenging and original waters: the shadowy history of the Mormon church. In Latter-Day Cipher, a journalist is assigned to cover a series of bizarre (and I mean bizarre!) and gory murders in Utah, involving strange symbolic carvings discovered in the flesh of the victims and a 19th century document written entirely in code with ties to the Latter-Day Saints. Along the way, the Church of LDS tries to silence the publicity (sound familiar?) while a madman seems to be following archaic LDS religious practices quite literally. Scott uses fiction to explore what would happen if the early rite of "blood atonement" was still carried out today, while also realistically exploring the spiritual crises
of her characters.

In the book's afterword, Scott makes a case for the reality of "blood atonement" rituals, but I felt a little skeptical of >some< of this, given her own status (broadcast very clearly in the book) as a recent convert away from a long-held following of Mormon principles. The book seems to be constructing an argument against Mormonism in favor of Christianity as much as it is trying to tell a story that illustrates it. While Scott isn't to blame, this undercurrent is why I usually don't read books like these -- because the writer's agenda or ideology seems so close to the surface of the text that I have problems suspending disbelief. But this book manages to transcend such matters by raising such intriguing and unique questions. I have to say that Latter-Day Cipher is such a compelling and scary story that it stands on its own two feet as a proper psychological suspense novel: Scott's deft and successful storytelling abilities -- and her zeal for telling an original story while
simultaneously investigating the historical realities of the Church -- on top of all the weirdness that is everywhere apparent in the story -- really won me over. I kept forgetting I was wearing my black skeptic's hat as I read it. So if you're tired of the usual serial killer fair, or if you want to see what Anne Rice really SHOULD be writing post-conversion, then this is a book you'll want to read. Take a look at the neat book trailer and other information at the author's website: http://www.latayne.com/

========================
OUR *BONUS* ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Fake Horror Movies I’d Really Like To See

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon (Gale, 2008)
http://www.criticizedmovie.com/

Gobstopper (Appel, 2009)
http://www.gobstoppermovie.com/

Student Death Camp Gore Massacre Part 13 (Hale and Pace, 1988)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FBpdZEPcD8

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Write a poem that draws language directly from all the song titles from a death metal music album.
+ Craft a story around a doctor, dentist, or other health worker who secretly uses one of the job's instruments for his or her own unhealthy pleasure.
+ Describe a mass hallucination in a surreal and dreamy manner, using first person plural ("we").

***
You can post whatever this instigates -- or news of any publication that results -- here:
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dept/instigation/

========================
AS YOU LIKE IT

Here's a department where I recommend titles that have a similar appeal to my own work. (Oh, okay, I stole the idea from amazon.com, but why let a profit-based computer code decide what you read? Here you've at least got an egocentric writer doing the job!)

If you liked PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS ...
you'll like AFTERSHOCK AND OTHERS: 19 ODDITIES by F. Paul Wilson
http://us.macmillan.com/aftershockothers

If you liked RIGORMAROLE: ZOMBIE POEMS ...
you'll like ZOMBIE HAIKU by Ryan Mecum
http://zombiehaiku.com/

If you liked LICKER ...
you'll like BENJAMIN'S PARASITE by Jeff Strand
http://jeffstrand.wordpress.com/books/benjaminsparasite/

If you liked THE B*TCHFIGHT ...
you'll like THE SHALLOW END OF THE POOL by Adam-Troy Castro
http://www.creepinghemlock.com/shalst.html

If you liked PLAY DEAD ...
you'll like THE GOOD HUMOR MAN by Andrew Fox
http://www.tachyonpublications.com/book/Good_Humor_Man.html

If you liked GORELETS: UNPLEASANT POEMS ...
you'll like MORTICIAN'S TEA by G.O. Clark
http://tr.im/npNC

If you are curious about any of the Arnzen books that I mention above, just visit the handy-dandy bibliography page at gorelets.com (which include cover art, contents lists, reviews, excerpts, ordering info, and more):
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Books

========================
BOO COUPONS

Here's some exclusive coupons and discounts on horror-related merchandise -- your reward for scrolling down!

FREE SKULL FRAGMENTS!
Shatter your head with my cd, Audiovile, and you'll get free Skull Fragments! I'll bundle a free SIGNED copy of my new French-English chapbook, Skull Fragments, together with a sealed copy of Audiovile for just $15 (outside the USA, $20). That price includes shipping. Paypal me at arnzen@gorelets.com and don't forget to include your delivery address. While supplies last, and they're limited, so act quick.

STARKWEATHER DREAMS
Christopher Conlon is offering Goreletter readers an exclusive discount on his new book of poems, Starkweather Dreams (featuring cover art from 100 Jolts artist Matt Sesow). It's an amazing collection of verse. For just $6 you can get a SIGNED copy of this book (which usually goes for $10) with free postage, directly from the poet! E-mail him at wehsconlon@aol.com for ordering details. Offer expires June 21st!

GOING GOING GORE
The original chapbook to which this site owes its name, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems, has gone out of print at Fairwood Press ( http://fairwoodpress.com ). The publisher is kindly offering a discount on his remaining in-stock copies -- just $5 a pop (postage paid). That's a really good deal on this Bram Stoker Award-finalist piece of Arnzenalia! Mention the phrase "Gorebones" or "Gorelets" when you paypal him patrick@fairwoodpress.com or send your check to Patrick Swenson, Fairwood Press, 21528 104th St Ct E, Bonney Lake, WA 98391

DYING DYING DEAD
My funky "Martha Stewart Living" parody, Michael Arnzen Dying, has also gone out of print at Tachyon Publications ( http://www.tachyonpublications.com ). In order to clean house, the publisher is sneaking Goreletter subscribers their own special discount page to order the book at great 20% discount, with free media mail shipping. Visit this exclusive site before the deal expires on August 1st!: http://www.tachyonpublications.com/book/Dying_discount.html

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2009 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For permission to reprint individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 40. This newsletter is a past recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or add us to your RSS reader: http://www.gorelets.com/blog/

Visit MySpace for extra pictures, sounds, doohickeys, and web design blunders:
http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

The Truth about Oozing

"Terror is as much a part of the concept of truth as runniness is of the concept of jam. We wouldn't like jam if it didn't, by its very nature, ooze. We wouldn't like truth if it wasn't sticky, if, from time to time, it didn't ooze blood."
—Jean Baudrillard (died 2007)

========================

The Goreletter 5.03: Wackee-Packed!

2008-07-02T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 5.03 | July 2, 2008 +++
========================
NEWSFLASH

A NEW WEBLOG!

The weblog edition of The Goreletter has moved to:

http://www.gorelets.com/blog/

I'd like you to drop by and post a comment to help me warm up the new home. You'll find a "caption contest" there as part of the housewarming party (see below for more details). The blog now includes the ability to post comments on any department, share your creative "instigation" responses, and view exclusive online content. You can now subscribe to a host of different RSS feeds. In May, gorelets.com changed to a faster server and the photo gallery is also finally online.

I humbly ask you to help me spread the word, too, by posting links or mentions elsewhere online, so oddballs everywhere know where you go to get your weird on. If you want anything special on the site, now's the time let me know at arnzen@gorelets.com

========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Rejected Wack-ee Packages

PRODUCT NAME: Top Parts
ARTWORK: Toaster sizzling the ears and bleeding noses that spill out of the slots.
REASON FOR REJECTION: Close, but the crusty 'parts' aren't quite pastry-esque enough.

PRODUCT NAME: Fearios Breakfast Feareal
ARTWORK: Eyeballs floating in a bowl of blood.
REASON FOR REJECTION: Two fears is one too many. Eyes too wet for dry cereal. Try again, maybe with screaming mouth Os?

PRODUCT NAME: Toast Tito's Corn Chips
ARTWORK: Corn Chip Bag brimming with crisped brown foot ailments.
REASON FOR REJECTION: Too sick, even for us. The pictured dip is...worse.

PRODUCT NAME: Axe Devitalizing Shower Gel
ARTWORK: "Psycho" shower scene with axe-wielding maniac in silhouette behind a curtain.
REASON FOR REJECTION: This is more an idea than a product parody.
Besides, Axe is for men, and the sudsy nude in the shower is clearly female.

PRODUCT NAME: BloodGeyser
ARTWORK: Brown bottle spraying blood from top.
REASON FOR REJECTION: Not bad, but pun is too easy.
It would help if the bottle wasn't jaggedly broken in half
and embedded into Smokey the Bear's chest. (Huh? Yellowstone, maybe?)

PRODUCT NAME: Ball Park Frank
ARTWORK: Puffy male head, carrots, and bones bobbing in cannibal pot...along with hot dogs.
Caption reads "He plumps when you cook him."
REASON FOR REJECTION: Getting close. But I see no reference to a "Ball Park"...wait, there's a baseball cap, filled with...scalp? Ugh. We can't print this.

PRODUCT NAME: Neumann's Own Dressing
ARTWORK: Soiled gauze. Literally. A used bandage.
REASON FOR REJECTION: This is biomedical waste, not art.

PRODUCT NAME: Killette! The Blood a Man Can Jet!
ARTWORK: Silver razor embedded in a blood-spraying throat.
REASON FOR REJECTION: Close again...but >another< blood spray?! Lame. Besides, everyone knows that disposable razors aren't straight razors.

PRODUCT NAME: Drunken Donuts
ARTWORK: Chubby mustachioed maniac pulls a hacksaw through a wino's leg. The oblivious wino drinks from paper bagged bottle. Caption reads: "Time to make the donuts, Daddy!"
REASON FOR REJECTION: We've done this one before (the lost 1992 series)...only in a much more palatable way.

PRODUCT NAME: Wonder Head
ARTWORK: Human head, pre-sliced, wrapped tight in white plastic. "Fortified with 666 essential sinerals."
REASON FOR REJECTION: What the hell is this? "Sinerals?"
Is that the president's face behind the plastic?
Why the fake beard?

PRODUCT NAME: Wack-ee Package
ARTWORK: Square chrome object on shiny silver paper...a machete glinting in a mirror?
REASON FOR REJECTION: I don't get....

***
Note: My "Wack-ee" Packages are not to be confused with authentic Topps brand Wacky Packages. Visit their web site for fun online games and samples...and you'll even find a link to buy their awesome new coffee table art book (comes in waxed paper wrap!) http://www.wackypackages.com/

Also drop by WackyPackages.Org for more parody-loving bubble gum-smelling Wacky Fandom than you could possible handle.

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

ANTHOLOGY NEWS
My short story, "She Screech Like Me," will be appearing in the upcoming book, He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson (Gauntlet Press, 2009). This anthology features new sequels, prequels, and variations on Matheson's stories by a wide cast of popular authors. "Screech" is my sequel to Matheson's classic tale, "Born of Man and Woman." Other contributors to the book include Joe Hill & Stephen King (the first collaboration between father and son, riffing on Matheson's "Duel"), along with Gary Braunbeck, William Nolan, Joe Lansdale, and a host of others you'll recognize, extending the worlds of classic stories like I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, Hell House, and more. Gauntlet Press publishes a great number of Matheson-related titles, in addition to an amazing assortment of collector's items by living legends of fantasy and science fiction. Drop by their catalog page to learn more about He is Legend, which is selling out quickly (and also just went up for sale a

t Cemetery Dance publications, as well).
http://www.gauntletpress.com
http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/o_conlon01

I'll also have stories soon in Horror Library vol. III (Cutting Block Press, Fall 08), Winter Frights (Fall/Winter 08), and the exciting Bruce Springsteen-inspired anthology, Darkness on the Edge (PS Publishing, Winter 09). These fantastic books will include a host of great writers like: Bentley Little, Elizabeth Massie, Gary Braunbeck, TM Wright, Jeff Strand, Kealan Patrick Burke, Cullen Bunn, Mark Justice, Michael McBride, Lawrence C. Connolly, Lisa Morton, and -- whew, I'm out of breath. Links to all of these projects and more are listed here:
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Anthologies

FEATURES
Pittsburgh Professional Magazine recently ran a feature on my career, "Ghoulish Goals," with some great creepy photographs by Jim Judkis:
http://gorelets.com/demos/Arnzen-PPM-spreads.pdf

FearZone's interview with me about my crazy novella, "The B*tchfight," is online at:
http://www.fearzone.com/blog/mike-arnzen

Gail Z. Martin, author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer series, recently interviewed me for her ongoing series of podcasts with dark fantasy, paranormal and science fiction writers. Our funny and chatty conversation about gore, humor, death and the attraction of horror stories should be online in a podcast circa July 15th. Gail's podcast page presently features an all-star roster of writers, including Jeffery Thomas, Tony Ruggiero, Justin Gustainis, Alethea Kontis, and Mark Chadbourn. Gail's latest book is The Blood King, available now from amazon.com, and her new book, Dark Haven is due soon from Solaris Books.
http://www.chroniclesofthenecromancer.com/page/page/5550992.htm

I'VE GOT A RABID SHIH TZU FOR YOU
My latest novella, The B*tchfight (Bad Moon Books, 2008) has been getting great reviews. In the May issue of Horror World, Ron Dickie compares it to "a rabid Shih Tzu" which "quickly drags you in and goes for your throat...Not since Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door has a story been as equally repellent and captivating as this." Horror Web gives it 4-1/2 stars. And Dark Scribe magazine's review begins, "I'm not sure whether to fall over in a fit of giggles or sit crying in the shower after reading The B*tchfight." Grab a bar of soap and then pick up your copy from the Horror-Mall, or directly from publisher Bad Moon Books, before the limited run sells out:
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.TheBitchfight
https://www.horror-mall.com/Michael-Arnzen-p-1-c-359.html
http://www.badmoonbooks.com/
[And if you want to drool over the leather lettered edition, drop by the Bad Moon Books gallery in the "Extra Extra" section at Awful Books and get a peek: http://www.awfulbooks.com ]

WORLDS OF HORROR
"How aware are you about the horror coming out of countries foreign to you? Are you aware how freaking WEIRD that stuff is? How bizarre and scary? Horror is ALL ABOUT the foreign, alien, and altogether OTHER, and I bet that if you haven’t read a lot of 'multicultural' horror, you haven’t really seen just how weird and different tales from foreign lands can be."

The above is taken from my lengthy guest blog post at Horror Library's "Horror Blog-o-Rama" called "Worlds of Horror," where I issue horror fans a challenge to read more international horror writers and break out of their "literary isolationism." I offer some titles to help you get started on a tour of scary world literature.
http://horrorlibrary.blogspot.com/2008/06/worlds-of-horror-by-michael-arnzen.html

You should also check out the Horror Library anthology series, published by Cutting Block Press. I'll have a story about the horror of going through those frustrating airport security checkpoints in the upcoming volume later this fall, called "Guarded." Learn more here:
http://www.fearzone.com/blog/horror-library
http://www.cuttingblock.net/
http://www.horrorlibrary.net/

LISTS OF THE DEAD!
"The Book of Lists: Horror" will be published by Harper this September, and it promises to be an awesome contribution to the horror genre. Editors Scott Bradley, Del Howison, and Amy Wallace have gathered together numerous thematic clusters that reveal just how multi-faceted and multi-fascinating this genre really is. Along with Stephen King, Eli Roth, Ray Bradbury, Gahan Wilson and many more, I'll have a few lists of my own in there. Pre-order it now at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Lists-Collection-Featuring-Introduction/dp/0061537268/

LAST LICKS
My wacky novella about a boy with an hallucinogenic tongue, Licker, has sold out from Novello Publishing and is now officially out-of-print. You might still find a copy at the Horror Mall, but it's getting scarce.
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Licker
https://www.horror-mall.com/Michael-Arnzen-p-1-c-359.html

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GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

Head Games

The mounted head begins to speak:
you know, I like it better this way,
I feel more like myself,

no body to worry about anymore,
just me alone with my thoughts,
and there's time to talk to you
without the distractions of

yada yada yada

I know dear and I prefer it, too,
I say, putting on my
boxing gloves.

Now remind me,
where did you store
the tongs?

========================
A TOAST TO RAW DOG SCREAMING PRESS!

If you'll indulge me for a moment: please pick up your wine glass, water bottle or coffee mug. I want to raise a high toast to a great publisher.

This year marks Raw Dog Screaming Press' fifth anniversary. Anyone who knows the independent press, knows that simply surviving that long -- especially in today's publishing economy -- is a true milestone of success. I'm proud to be one of their authors, an early runt of their raw puppy litter -- and when I think about how far they've gone to support my experiments in horror, I am not only humbled, but also proud to be a part of their efforts to push the envelope of the genre, if not literature itself. Not only do they persistently take risks on some very edgy work ("A Child's Guide to Death" anyone?), but they also go out of their way to promote their titles and support their authors in creative ways.

"What we wanted to do was publish the unpublishable, put out books that other publishers wouldn't touch because they cross genres, mix conventions or just don’t play by the rules," co-publisher Jen Barnes writes about their origins, in a retrospection on their livejournal. Now, almost five years later, Raw Dog Screaming has published 18 novels, 14 collections (including 2 books of poetry), 10 anthologies and one CD/audiobook.

I've been very lucky to have them as a literary partner over these five years. Two of our books together were Stoker award finalists and the one that remains in print -- 100 Jolts -- continues to be a very popular book. My second novel, Play Dead, was too experimental for the mainstream press, but Raw Dog grabbed it in its feral jaws and ran with it: they not only printed Play Dead in both a fine limited hardcover and an amazingly sculpted "Grim Grimoire" edition, but also created a deck of custom-illustrated playing cards (highly collectible now) to go along with it -- AND they hosted a charity poker game party at World Horror Convention to debut the book! The fact that this novel sold out its complete run in hardcover says a lot about the commitment that John Lawson and Jen Barnes at RDSP have to their authors.

If you haven't been reading their books, you should give their catalog a look-see. They relish the experimental -- from Harold Jaffe's "docufictions" to D. Harlan Wilson's outrageously funny brand of the bizarro. My 100-story collection, 100 Jolts, is another great example of books that other publishers probably would be too afraid to touch. A single-author collection, filled with short-shorts, some no longer than a paragraph? Unheard of. But creative risks like these pay off, because readers are actually hungry for fresh angles and tired of the same old story. Jolts was successful enough to recently be re-released in a hardcover edition with bonus material -- and if that wasn't enough, they went beyond the pale to supplement it with a CD of musically-enhanced readings, in Audiovile! This indulgence of my musical and oratorical performances is quite remarkable, I think, and it says a lot that the Raw Dog is willing to sniff its gory nose around diverse new media territories,

hungry for blood. Seriously: how many publishers really cultivate the artistic side of their writers in such unique ways? I can think of...none. Raw Dog isn't just printing books, they really care about the Arts -- just look at their wild covers, or their recent reaches into children's picture books, and it quickly becomes self-evident: they're twisted, but they care about creativity.

So John and Jen (and Ripley) at Raw Dog Screaming Press: here's to you!

To celebrate, RDSP is hosting a 5 year anniversary party at HorrorFind Weekend in the Baltimore area this coming August. I'm going to be there, along with several other members of the Raw Dog pack: presently, D. Harlan Wilson, Adam Golaski, John Edward Lawson, Donna Lynch, Ronald Damien Malfi, and Matthew Warner are all scheduled to appear, with readings, parties, and other fun events. To quote the evil dead: "Join ussss!"

TA-DA!
To pop the champagne early, they are offering Goreletter readers an exclusive discount on Audiovile -- their first audiobook, by yours truly. You can get a copy directly from Raw Dog Screaming for just $7.95, ppd! That's $5 off! Click here to order: http://tinyurl.com/3gu8c7

Visit Raw Dog Screaming Press: http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/
Read the editor's retrospective: http://raw-dog.livejournal.com/132175.html
Come to Horrorfind: http://www.horrorfindweekend.com/
Learn About Audiovile: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Multimedia.Audiovile

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Dead Cat Bounce

If shooting a frail little kittie out of a high-powered cannon is your idea of fun, then just wait until you try Dan Fleming's "Kitten Cannon" game -- where the aim is not only to watch the fuzzball fly, but to make that feline soar as far as possible by ricocheting its body off of trampolines, bombs, and TNT stockpiles...but look out for the Venus Fly Traps and metal spike pits!

I'm a cat lover and I can't seem to stop playing this game long enough to finish my letter to the ASPCA. Ah well, maybe it isn't so bad: this tortured tabby has wayyyy more than nine lives.

My best distance to date: 1182 ft.

Kitten Cannon: http://www.burststudio.com/kitten.html

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SNIPPETS OF THE STRANGE

"Notes from Horror 101"

Most readers know I also teach college at Seton Hill U, where we have a top-notch Master's degree program in Writing Popular Fiction. Last month, I wrapped up teaching a once-in-a-blue-moon undergraduate course we also offer in "Horror & Suspense Writing." Shortly after I turned in grades, I found a slip of paper under my office door from an anonymous student, who unbeknown to me had been taking notes a little too carefully -- writing down the weirdest of the wacky things that came out of my mouth during lectures and discussions. Here's a select few snippets of profound wisdom which, in my defense, are lifted completely out of context but which I assure you would be pedagogically justified if that context were provided. A-hem. Here goes...

On point-of view in horror fiction:
"You shouldn't be writing in First Person Singular all the time...try writing in First Monster Singular, instead."

Responding to a question about sexual perversion in horror fiction:
"What do you mean? Necrophilia is the safest of sexes."

On ghosts and the supernatural:
"There are no friendly ghosts in horror. Try running off with Casper to his friendly place and it won't be long before he turns around and eats you."

When arriving late during a snowy day:
"I had so much snow in my shoes today, I almost fell down three flights of stairs, which would have been bad for the metal plate in my head."

On genre:
"Horror and fantasy have a lot in common, but you know horror when you see it. If your story starts out with unicorns and fairies having sex, that's not horror...even if it's still pretty scary."

On conflict:
"Characters shouldn't just whine, 'oh, wah, I hate my life.' Try 'I hate my job, I hate my mother, and, oh yeah, I have a knife in my belly, too.' Your protagonist needs to be in agony."

On word roots:
"Agony and aggravate have nothing to do with agriculture."

On the psychology of horror:
"Horror fiction is about looking at yourself after you hack a person to pieces...and your brain is thinking 'Gee, I still want that pickle.'"

This class was a lot of fun. At the end of the term, we had a writing contest with the grand prize of a piñata that my wife made in homage to Edvard Munch's "The Scream." You can find a photo of this in the brand spanking new online gallery at gorelets.com. Drop by and leave a comment!

========================
DICTIONSCARY

"funicular"

It starts with fun, so it can't be bad, right? Wrong. That would be like sticking your head in a raging furnace, hoping to see a fern.

Chances are 80-20 that if something is "-icular" it is going to be nasty. You know what I mean: cancerous prefixes like "test-" or "mast-" -- and manslaughtery ones like "vehi-" or "curr-" -- all leap immediately to mind.

But to be "funicular," in particular, is to be ropey and nasty.

The root of the word is "funicle," which in botany is a term that refers to the stalk of an ovule or seed. In anatomy, it's any corded tissue, like a bundle of nerves, or that weird stuff that connects back to a placenta. Thus "funiculus" is a synonym for an umbilicus, only less umbly.

In less scientific -- but no less geeky -- parlance, "funicular" is simply an adjective pertaining to a rope, a cord, or its tension. "Funiculus" is Latin for "slender rope." Thus we have "funicular railways" that run cable cars. But to me, "funicular" still sounds like a "funny collar," and I don't know many of those made of rope, except when you're hanging a clown.

This looks academicular:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/funicular

This looks funicular:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/ronald.asp

And this is just a funny collar:
http://www.frightcatalog.com/Halloween-Props/Weapons/Rubber+Noose-1018002/

========================
THE CONTESTATORIUM

The winners of last issue's witty "photo caption" contest are Dean M. Watts and Jason Jack Miller. Both have received prize copies of the Exquisite Corpse DVD -- congratulations! You can see their hilarious captions for James Newman's awesome photo at:
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dataerrata/contest-winners/

As I mentioned at the top of the newsletter, this issue's contest is a housewarming party for my new weblog. Matt Schuster (artist from Proverbs for Monsters) has provided us with a new, original, biZARRO piece of art. All you need to do is post the best caption you can come up with in a blog comment, and you could be one of two people who will win one of the following prize sets:

An almost-impossible-to-find signed Advanced Review Copy of The B*tchfight by Arnzen + the first four issues of Jai Nitz's horror comic series, Heaven's Devils (Image).

<<<OR>>>

A signed copy of Arnzen's novella, Licker + the first four issues of Army of Darkness vs. Reanimator (Dynamite Comics).

BONUS THIRD PRIZE:
Artist Matt Schuster himself will judge his favorite caption and the winner will get the original sketch used for this contest!!!

The deadline is July 6th. Entries have already come pouring in from web visitors, so don't miss your chance. Full rules, details, and entry forms are here:
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/weblog-exclusive/enter-a-caption-and-win/

Learn more about Matt Schuster's art at:
http://www.mpsindustries.com

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

"The Frolic" by Thomas Ligotti

Late last year, Wonder Entertainment released a special collector's edition of Thomas Ligotti's short story "The Frolic" in a book that comes bundled with a DVD -- a 24 minute adaptation of that story directed by Jacob Cooney. Get it soon, because this product is limited to 1000 copies, and there are signed editions available. Remarkably, this is the very first cinematic adaptation of Ligotti's work -- and I must say, it's an excellent treatment, co-scripted by Ligotti himself, intensely directed, and well-acted.

In my Goreletter reviews, I try to shine light on (mostly independent) "print" books because I feel that other media already get plenty of press and attention. At first I didn't want to review The Frolic here because it is a new film, but the truth is this edition is more of a multimedia "story event" than your usual DVD release. Here you'll get a full-blown celebration of the short story in a perfect-bound paperback which features not only a "newly revised version" of "The Frolic" (which originally appeared in Ligotti's first collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer), but also an eyebrow-raising introduction by the author, the complete screenplay for the adaptation by Ligotti and his screenwriting partner Brandon Trenz, and also enlightening interviews with everyone involved with the production of the film. Indeed, the book is everything that would normally appear on a "special features" section of an ordinary DVD, but here the printed word is so well-respected that it truly cele

brates Ligotti's mastery as a storyteller above all.

In a nutshell, the short story itself is about the chilling effect a child killer named "John Doe" has had on his prison house psychologist, David Munck. The killer, who justifies his actions by claiming he steals children away to some unearthly place so they can "frolic" together, disturbs Munck at the core, chipping away at his "objective" scientific worldview and replacing it with the supernatural. This foments into sheer terror when Doe refers to a "Colleen" during an interview -- a name that sounds a lot like his own daughter's, "Noreen," a name Doe couldn't possibly know. Ligotti does a masterful job of fracturing Munck's world, from his faith in science and his career to his family relations, and much of the horror of the story comes from its inevitable, unstoppable conclusion.

The story artfully juxtaposes the doctor's job in the adult world against the killer's "work" in the world of children -- and the characters lives intersect in artfully frightening ways. The film version does a great job capturing the creepy tension between the doctor and the killer by focusing on their parallels, without ever directly depicting any violence or gore, and the film changes the storyline just enough to make it stand strongly on its own two feet as a distinctive tale. The film, like the story, is dialogue-heavy, but it puts more focus on John Doe than it does the doctor and his family. However, the acting is so good (especially by John Doe played by Maury Sterling) that the tension between the characters mounts in a way that is highly reminiscent of the scenes in Silence of the Lambs, where Clarice Starling interviews Hannibal Lector: we can feel the prisoner's great power despite his physical restraint, and we recognize his potential for evil in the glint of his

knowing smile.

The bundled book gives excellent insight into Ligotti's process. In his introduction, the author discusses the history of the story in a way that makes him sound almost embarrassed about its creation in 1982, yet proud of this cinematic treatment of it twenty five years later. He writes about his aversion to using "normal characters" as protagonists, which is the stock approach of contemporary domestic horror. Horror cinema, he argues, is inherently told from the viewpoint of normalcy, under some kind of threat by the abnormal, and this is how it engenders chills in the "normal" audience who are forced by films to confront it -- but from a safe distance. In his fiction, Ligotti prefers to distort reality and present an abnormal worldview, tapping into the Weird with a capital W. But, in the 80s, Ligotti wanted to try his hand at one of these "normal" kinds of horror stories, just to see what it would happen if he sifted his proclivity for the aberrant through his abnormal len

s. "The Frolic" was the result...and, he implies, the fact that he wrote a moderately "normal" horror story is precisely what makes it more adaptable to cinema than his other work.

In other words, "The Frolic" is Ligotti at his most conventional, if not accessible. It's a great choice for the first adaptation of his work -- but the story is no less disturbing because of it. Ligotti is very much a literary horror writer, if only in that he writes stories that are meant to be read and thought about in a way that cinema -- which imagines the visual FOR us -- does not allow. His stories are very much psychodramas of the dark fantastic, and since much the "psychodrama" is in the reader's mind, the gaps and limits of language are imperative to staging it. The film version of The Frolic succeeds because it keeps the camera movement and other direction relatively low key, letting the dialogue of the actors and the written script drive the story. Anyone expecting the rapid editing and riotous gore of films like Hostel will be let down by this story, which is very "talky" -- but since most of the story is a conversation between a mystified psychologist and an imp

risoned child murderer, its tension and intrigue are high.

The film version differs just enough from the fiction version to make the set worth your while. Read the story first. Then watch the movie. Then read the screenplay and watch the special features. While the interview with Ligotti appears in the book, you won't get any special appearances in the shape of cameos or interviews from the man (who seems to be so reclusive that he might well be the Thomas Pynchon of horror). If you like to see Ligotti's imagination transformed into a visual medium, you might also be interested in the wonderful comic anthology from Fox Atomic, The Nightmare Factory; the first volume is excellent (and a second volume is coming soon).

The Frolic ($45) signed collector's edition: http://www.filmbaby.com/films/2713
Thomas Ligotti Online: http://www.ligotti.net/

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

The Call-In Radio Horror Show

For your next movie night, rent:

American Nightmare (Keeyes, 2003)
Psycho IV: The Beginning (Garris, 1990)
Busu (aka The Booth) (Nakamura, 2005)

========================
ARNZEN APPEARANCES

July 16-25 | Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers | Univ of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, PA
I'll be a guest lecturer at this year's Alpha writer's workshop in speculative fiction for young writers of talent (ages 14-19), along with Chris McKitterick, Timothy Zahn, and Tamora Pierce.
http://alpha.spellcaster.org/index.html

July 19, 7pm | Barnes and Noble Bookstore | Greensburg, PA
Reading and book signing, along with sci-fi writer Timothy Zahn, at Barnes and Noble Bookstore, to celebrate Alpha. Open to the public

Aug 15-16 | HorrorFind | Adelphi, MD
Join us at Horrorfind for the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY for Raw Dog Screaming Press! I'll be there, in addition to reading at this HUGE annual convention of horror film and fiction fans in the Baltimore region. Party details will follow; watch the Raw Dog Screaming page for updates.
http://horrorfindweekend.com/
http://www.rawdogscreamingpress.com

Sept 26-28 | Context-21 | Columbus, OH
I'll be running a workshop on flash fiction writing and more at this excellent literary convention in Ohio. I was Horror Guest of Honor last year at Context and loved every minute of it. Other horror fiction notables in attendance this coming year include Guest of Honor Brian Keene, Gary Braunbeck, Mike Laimo, Tim Waggoner, Paula Guran, Maurice Broaddus, Fran Friel, and Lucy Snyder. (Alert: Only one seat remains for my workshop as of this posting...better sign up soon!)
http://www.contextsf.org/

Oct 25-26th | Zombiefest 2008 | Monroeville Mall Expo Mart, Pittsburgh, PA
It returns! And like the living dead, I, too, will be crawling back to the mall. It's still too early to know details, but save the date, which will coincide with World Zombie Day!
http://www.theitsaliveshow.com/zombiefest2008/home.htm

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Write about a woman-eating plant (as opposed to just a man-eater).
+ Everyone says they're afraid of clowns. What are clowns scared of? Depict their worst nightmare.
+ Ever heard the expression, "Let your freak flag fly"? Write a story or poem about a freak nation and its hallowed flag. (Option: try drawing or describing the iconography of the flag before you begin).

***
Visit the new Goreletter weblog where you can post your writing!
http://www.gorelets.com/blog/dept/instigation/

========================
AS YOU LIKE IT

Here's a department where I recommend titles that have a similar appeal to my own work. (Oh, okay, I stole the idea from amazon.com, but why let a profit-based computer code decide what you read? Here you've at least got an egocentric writer doing the job!)

If you liked PLAY DEAD ...
you'll like VEINS by Lawrence C. Connolly http://www.veinsthenovel.com

If you liked LICKER ...
you'll like SKULL CATHEDRAL by Tim Waggoner http://horror-mall.com/SKULL-CATHEDRAL-by-Tim-Waggoner-p-17992.html

If you liked FREAKCIDENTS ...
you'll like THE NIGHTMARE COLLECTION by Bruce Boston http://horror-mall.com/THE-NIGHTMARE-COLLECTION-by-Bruce-Boston-p-18042.html

If you liked GRAVE MARKINGS ...
you'll like HAWG by Steven Shrewsbury http://www.gravesidetales.com/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=3

If you are curious about any of the Arnzen books that I mention above, just visit the handy-dandy bibliography page at gorelets.com (which include cover art, contents lists, reviews, excerpts, ordering info, and more): http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Books

========================
BOO COUPONS

Here's some exclusive coupons and discounts on horror-related merchandise -- your reward for scrolling down!

A PROVERBIALLY MONSTROUS BARGAIN
Dark Regions Press and the Horror Mall are offering Goreletter readers an exclusive discount on the limited edition hardcover of my recent Stoker award-winning collection, Proverbs for Monsters! Enter the code PROVERBGORE10 on checkout, and you'll get 10% off the book. Limited to one per person; expires July 24th or while supplies last, at:
https://www.horror-mall.com/PROVERBS-FOR-MONSTERS-by-Michael-A.-Arnzen-Limited-Hardcover-p-16973.html

ENTER THE ZOMBIE MALL
There's another mall down the street, teeming with terror: the Zombie Mall! You won't believe the weirdness they have in store for you -- from "infant zombie creepers" to "hot dog zombie pillows". And they're currently running a cool promotion where if you purchase an item from their online store, pose in a photo "playing" with it somehow, and then send the picture back to them, you can get 15% off any item.
Visit http://www.zombiemall.com/ to make your purchase
then send your photos to dead@zombiemall.com

RAW DOG SCREAMING PRESS
Read my tribute to RDSP's five year anniversary elsewhere in this newsletter for a $5 break on my cd, Audiovile!

LIBRARYTHING
LibraryThing.com is STILL graciously offering up a "one year unlimited" free membership to Goreletter subscribers. See my profile at http://www.librarything.com/profile/arnzen and snoop around in my personal library, to learn more about this great site for book hoarders. To get your free unlimited account, all you have to do is go to http://www.librarything.com/ and sign in to create a new FREE (200 book limit) account. Then simply e-mail me the link to your new profile at arnzen@gorelets.com and I'll let them know to upgrade you to the ONE YEAR membership (unlimited books) for free! First come, first served (and limited to new LT memberships only).

Are You FICTIONWISE?
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. THIS WEEK'S SPECIALS include titles by Kim Harrison, Jeffery Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, and Joshua Reyolds. Fictionwise is also currently the only way to get some of my out-of-print books, like Paratabloids.
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Category.OutOfPrint

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All material in The Goreletter is © 2008 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For permission to reprint individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 39. This newsletter is a recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or add us to your RSS reader: http://www.gorelets.com/blog/about

Visit MySpace for lots of pictures, sounds, doohickeys, and web design blunders:
http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

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PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

Spit Happens

"Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time."
-- George Carlin (died June 2008)

========================

The Goreletter 5.02: Grim Henzen Productions

2008-04-02T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 5.02 | Apr 2, 2008 +++
========================
NEWSFLASH:

PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS
WINS 2007 BRAM STOKER AWARD

for "Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection"
Tied with Peter Straub for his book, 5 STORIES

Thanks to everyone who read, voted, and sent me kind words. I'm still in disbelief. What a year! Congratulations to all the winners and nominees...I recommend all of their books.
-- Michael Arnzen

The Stoker Award Winners:
http://horror.org/news-2007stokerwinners.htm

My Acceptance Speech (read by Weston Ochse at HWA Banquet):
http://www.gorelets.com/demos/Arnzen-StokerAcceptance-2008.htm

All About Proverbs for Monsters:
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.ProverbsForMonsters

========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Grim Henzen Productions

Wormit the Legless Frog
Everybody's lovable green buddy crawls back from the grave on his two lanky arms, his backside grotesquely tapered much like the tadpole he once was. He haunts the parking lots of French restaurants...and in his nasal-congested voice cries out for "leggggsss!" He leaves a snotty trail behind him. He is frequently run over by cars.

Googee Monster
He chaotically throws fistfuls of cookies into his mouth, munching wildly, growling "Gooooogeeee." Sometimes you can see his razor-sharp teeth cutting into his own bloody gums. And sometimes you see human fingers jumbling in the mouth fuzz, and they're not the puppeteer's.

Clownt von Clownt
Combining the worst elements of a vampire and a clown, Clownt von Clownt's lofty domed forehead broods above the eyes and mouth painted not with grease but with the blood of the innocent. But he is tortured with immortal irony. He loads the chambers of his revolver with five blanks and one live round, playing Russian Roulette in front of the camera. "Uh-one," click. "Uh-two," click! "Uh-three...," BAM! And the pointy teeth go flying.

Big Dead Bird
His yellow feathers are fading and falling out. Patches of death-pale gooseflesh are visible everywhere. But worse: large earthworms writhe in his Big Rib Cage. His enormous eyes are always closed. He smells. Badly. The children avoid him.

Shuffleupeatus
This shy wooly mammoth is oh so cute...and everyone thinks he's just Big Dead Bird's imaginary friend, until he shuffles up within trunk-grabbing distance of you. His trunk is always larger than the children calculate. He teaches them how to count with each determined mash of their bones between his perfect, poisonous tusks. They never really get past three.

Burnie and Dirt
Burnie died in the apartment building fire, but now he's back from the grave along with his old pal Dirt, his old roommate, who he now carries around in a funerary urn. Dirt perpetually reminds Burnie that the fire was all his fault and that he warned him and he should have listened...when he's not otherwise whining about having to share his urn with Rubber Duckie. Together they roam the streets, forever homeless, seeking a bathtub.

Scar the Grump
There's nothing but scabrous tissue where you thought you'd see lips. He's still a grouch, but at least his nonstop complaining is less annoying, all mumbles and muffled screams behind that stretchy scab where his mouth should have been. His trashcan abode bears the placard for biomedical waste.

Smellmo
No one wants to tickle this stinky scab-colored creature (especially not in those nasty underarms), but that doesn't stop this monstrosity from sitting in the alleyway, tickling himself in the dark shadows, chortling with perverse glee.

O-ver
This skinny blue corpse dons his grim reaper cowl and scythe. He has come back to the Street, with a lesson to teach the little ones....

***
Related:
Tickle Me Emo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nRNYG_xM2U

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

THE FIGHT IS ON, DAWG!
The B*tchfight is my latest novella, published in trade and collectible hardcover, mailing this week from Bad Moon Books. Brian Hodge (author of Mad Dogs) provides an wonderful introduction that explores the book's not-so-subtle subtext. The novella has already gotten some great reviews (Norman Rubenstein calls it "an enormously entertaining modern tale of terror perhaps destined to become a future classic."), so you might enjoy it, too...if you're bent. Order The B*tchfight now from the publisher, and learn more about their other exclusive collectible editions: http://www.badmoonbooks.com
Read the reviews and find out much more: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.TheBitchfight

[People who ordered the fancy hardcover edition of B*fight are getting a cool limited edition audio CD called "Live and Vile" that features outtakes from Audiovile and a live recording of my reading at Zombiefest 2007! Sorry to report it's already sold out, but you CAN still get Audiovile on cdbaby.com, iTunes, and now amazon.com. Visit the Audiovile page for links: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Multimedia.Multimedia ]

MORE PROVERBS NEWS
Shortly after I mailed the last issue of this newsletter, Dark Regions Press announced that they are releasing a special lettered edition of my book, Proverbs for Monsters, in addition to the limited hardcovers and paperback run. I received my copies and it is a very nice production; the hardcover is high quality with ribbon. With art by Matt Schuster, this short story collection is a "best of Arnzen" omnibus, featuring thirty short stories and even more poems selected from over the past fifteen years of my career, including new and very hard to find work. This book is probably the best overview of my writing currently available...and it just won a Bram Stoker Award! Learn all about this book here: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.ProverbsForMonsters

SLIP INTO THE FEARZONE
Did you miss "Arnzen Week" at the awesome daily horror news site, Fearzone? Here's what they did:
Arnzen Interview by the inimitable Jeff Strand http://www.fearzone.com/blog/mike-arnzen
Opening Chapter from The B*tchfight http://fearzone.com/blog/bitchfight-1
Review of The B*tchfight http://www.fearzone.com/blog/macabre-bitchfight

MORE THAN JUST ZOMBIES AT THE HORROR MALL
Horror Mall (the "Dark Oddities Emporium") is a fantastic new online store for lovers of all things horror and bizarror. Check out my author page there for some good deals on my books, some rare collectibles, and even a downloadable edition of my cd, Audiovile, for under $10! All purchases at the Horror Mall earn points for later discounts. [See the "Boo Coupons" department below for a special deal for Goreletter subscribers only!] Highly recommended for the true horror aficionado: https://www.horror-mall.com/Michael-Arnzen-p-1-c-359.html

EXQUISITE CORPSE WINS ANOTHER INDIE FILM AWARD
Congratulations to producer Jim Minton for winning "Best Visual Effects" award at the 2007 Sansevieria Film Festival for his work on the film adaptation of my poetry and flash fiction, Exquisite Corpse! To purchase this DVD in the US send $15 + $2 shipping/handling via paypal to jiminton@swbell.net or mail a check/money order payable to Jim Minton to: Jim Minton Design Studio, 3339 Merrell Road, Dallas, TX, 75229. A printable order form is also available here, where you can learn all you need to know about this international horror-art film: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Multimedia.ExquisiteCorpse

AN ILL LAD AT THE ODYSSEY
You can hear a snippet from my guest lecture last Summer (called "What's So Funny? Humor in Genre Writing") to students at the wonderful Odyssey SF/Fantasy Writing Workshop, along with other podcasts from writers talking about the craft here:
http://www.sff.net/odyssey/podcasts.html

GOODREADS BADREADS (You Know I've Had My Share)
I'm on GoodReads now, too. Are you? http://www.goodreads.com/profile/Arnzen
[I like this site, but I'm still a fan of LibraryThing.com -- see the "Coupons" department for more information!]

RUE MORGUE
Look for a review of Proverbs for Monsters in this month's issue of Rue Morgue (March 2008). If you haven't read this great magazine on all things in horror entertainment, you can probably find it at your local newsstand, or visit: http://www.rue-morgue.com/

AND DON'T MISS THESE....
You Have Time For This: Contemporary American Short-Short stories (edited by Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka) is a knock-out anthology of literary flash fiction that includes my tale from 100 Jolts, "The Curse of Fat Face." Other familiar authors in this book include Bruce Holland Rogers, Marge Simon, and Bruce Boston. http://www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu/you.html

Licker: Novello Publishers still has only a handful (literally -- like, five) copies left of this limited run novella about a boy with an hallucinogenic tongue and the carnival freaks who want a taste of the action. Gross-out humor for the jaded horror fan looking for yet another book to put way up high on the shelf, out of sight. Revisit their webpage for some exciting new books to come in 2008: http://www.novellopublishers.com/

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

Evolution of the Senses

I want you to feel
the air whistle and wheeze
between the crackling bones
behind your ears.
The polite tap
of my rock hammer
is precise enough to provide
a sort of kindness.
As I peel away the eggshell
shatter of skull
you will feel as though
I have unplugged a waxy ear
that's been waiting all along
to receive all these secret signals.
Your senses evolve, you see,
which makes the munching mouth
sound all the worse, I know,
but I won't apologize because
I have developed
a taste
for it.

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Ragdoll Avalanche II

It's a dance with death! A simple idea, "executed" quite nicely beneath a rainstorm of blades.

http://www.ragdollsoft.com/ragdollavalanche/

========================
DICTIONSCARY

squalid

"Squalid" refers to something filthy and repulsively foul -- like the living conditions of a cat collector with an affinity for gourmet cheese -- but to me it sounds even worse. When I hear the word "squalid" the very sound of the letters makes me think of a "squid" with a "wall" in the middle of it -- the wall of a nasal cavity. It also sounds sort of square, sort of solid, but not quite either of those -- more lumpy and slumping like some lesser Lovecraftian monstrosity. Yeah, Squalid is the younger brother of Nyarlathotep, but he isn't quite so scary -- he just sits on the couch all day, playing X-Box, festering in a pile of cookie crumbs and black ooze, sickly digging into an economy sized bag of Ctheetos every minute or two with a soiled tentacle, wiping the combined orange residue and ichor of his suction cups all over the arms of the sofa. As you can imagine, Squalid -- like most young tentacled creatures -- kind of smells bad, too.

His older brother, "Squalor" is much smarter, an honor's student at Miskatonic U, majoring in Home Ick. He's currently on the Dean's List.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=squalid

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Third Party Candidates You Might Have Missed

Elect General Zod
http://www.zod2008.com/

Elect Cthulhu
http://www.cthulhu.org/

Elect Chuck
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56107

Elect the Impaler
http://www.columbiachronicle.com/paper/arts.php?id=3525

BONUS: The Truth is Out There!
http://www.presidentialufo.com/2008_election.htm

[Thanks to Michael Marano -- http://www.mindspring.com/~profmike/ -- for sharing the Zod link.]

========================
THE CONTESTATORIUM

Halloween may seem like a lifetime ago, but that's the time I last sent out a Goreletter. So I owe you an update and a new contest!

The winner of last issue's "Virtual Halloween Costume Contest" was author James Newman for his creepy family portrait. You can see his photo, and all the contestants, on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/arnzen Also be sure to drop by James' website to learn more about his new book, People Are Strange: http://www.james-newman.com/

I actually adored ALL the entries...so why did James win? Ultimately, it came down to the scenario of the photo. I liked the vampiric relationship implied by the couple, but it was the "eyeball with fangs" child that did it for me... it looks like something out of a Guns and Roses album cover...and how can the kid breath inside that mask? FREAKY!

James wins a limited edition hardcover of Proverbs for Monsters, along with a DVD of Exquisite Corpse.

It's time for a new contest. The prize? A scratch-and-dent copy of the hard to find Exquisite Corpse DVD! I have TWO to give away, and while the cases are damaged, the discs play fine. The rules? Easy: Post a funny caption under James Newman's contest winning entry on my Myspace page! I'll randomly choose two winners from the captions -- regardless of how funny they are (but they must TRY to be funny). Look under "pics" on my profile page: http://www.myspace.com/arnzen or e-mail to arnzen@gorelets.com your caption for the photo posted here and I'll post your caption for you: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/cat_dataerrata.html#022208

DEADLINE: MAY 1st 2008. Winner announced next issue, in early Summer.

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Are You Gellin'?

For your next movie night, rent:

The Incredible Melting Man (Sachs, 1977)
The Stuff (Cohen, 1985)
Slime City (Lamberson, 1988)

========================
ARNZEN APPEARANCES

July 16-25 | Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers | Univ of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, PA
I'll be a guest lecturer at this year's Alpha writer's workshop in speculative fiction for young writers of talent (ages 14-19), along with Chris McKitterick, Timothy Zahn, and Tamora Pierce. The deadline for applications has passed, but it's a good program, so if you're a high school-aged writer, look into it for next year!
http://alpha.spellcaster.org/index.html

Oct 25-26th | Zombiefest 2008 | Monroeville Mall Expo Mart, Pittsburgh, PA
It returns! I'll be there. It's still too early to know details, but save the date, which will coincide with World Zombie Day!
http://www.theitsaliveshow.com/
http://www.myspace.com/worldzombieday

Sept 26-28 | Context-21 | Columbus, OH
I'll be running a workshop on flash fiction writing and more at this excellent literary convention in Ohio. I was Horror Guest of Honor last year at Context and loved every minute of it. Other horror fiction notables in attendance this coming year include Guest of Honor Brian Keene, Gary Braunbeck, Tim Waggoner, Paula Guran and Lucy Snyder.
http://www.contextsf.org/

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Reverse the roles in an alien autopsy.
+ Choose an inanimate object from your kitchen cabinet. Give it a mouth. Allow it to unexpectedly speak one morning to a child while he is preparing his own breakfast.
+ Speculate on paper: If you were to eat your own brain matter, what do you think it would taste like? Describe it, appealing to the senses, evoking the texture and flavor. Then begin the next paragraph. See if you can keep going, unfolding a plot that explains why you would be eating your own brain to begin with. Don't force it...discover it.

***
If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I'll mention it here!

If you like working with twisted prompts, then you might enjoy the new site run by Matt and Natalie Duvall, called "The Write Way": http://www.thewriteway.org/

========================
AS YOU LIKE IT

Here's a department where I recommend titles that have a similar appeal to my own work. (Oh, okay, I stole the idea from amazon.com, but why let a profit-based computer code decide what you read? Here you've at least got an egocentric writer doing the job!)

If you liked AUDIOVILE ...
you'll like HALL OF MIRRORS by Mike Bennett
http://www.oneamongthesleepless.com/hallofmirrors.htm

If you liked THE B*TCHFIGHT ...
you'll like THE FEVER KILL by Tom Piccirilli
http://www.horror-mall.com/THE-FEVER-KILL-by-Tom-Piccirilli-p-16518.html

If you liked ON WRITING HORROR ...
you'll enjoy LESSONS FROM A LIFETIME OF WRITING by David Morrell
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582971439/

If you liked FREAKCIDENTS ...
you'll like PHANTASMAPEDIA by Mark McLaughlin
http://www.horror-mall.com/PHANTASMAPEDIA-by-Mark-McLaughlin-p-16764.html

If you liked LICKER ...
you'll like SUCKERS by Jeff Strand and J.A. Konrath
http://www.horror-mall.com/SUCKERS-by-J.A.-Konrath-and-Jeff-Strand-p-17711.html

If you are curious about any of the Arnzen books that I mention above, just visit the handy-dandy bibliography page at gorelets.com (which include cover art, contents lists, reviews, excerpts, ordering info, and more): http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Books

========================
BOO COUPONS

Here's some exclusive coupons and discounts on horror-related merchandise -- your reward for scrolling down!

Visit the Horror-Mall
Swing on by the Horror Mall, where Goreletter readers can get 10% off on any purchase of BOOKS of $50 or more. When you check out with your online shopping cart, just enter coupon code: "Goreletter10" This is valid 1 time per customer. Expires 4-15-2008

Gila Queen's Guide to Markets
WRITERS: Kathy Ptacek of the Gila Queen's Guide to Markets is offering a great discount to subscribers who write and want to keep up with the magazine and book markets. Gila Queen's guide often features meaty articles about publishing (including the occassional essay by Arnzen) along with the most up-to-date guidelines and insider news you'll find anywhere. Usually a 20-issue subscription is $20, but you can get a trial rate of ten issues for just $8. Paypal $8 to katptacek@yahoo.com (be sure to mention the "Arnzen Goreletter Discount" in the comment field) or send a check payable to "Kathy Ptacek" to: Arnzen Goreletter Offer c/o Gila Queen's Guide To Markets, PO Box 97, Newton, NJ 07860-0097. Expires 4-30-2008

Dark Cloud Press
Thou Shalt Not Overlook this Bargain! Dark Cloud Press is offering a huge discount to subscribers who want to get a copy of Thou Shalt Not -- an anthology of horror and crime stories involving the 10 Commandments (including my own story, "Blasphemebus") -- for half price! Visit http://www.darkcloudpress.com/Buy_Thou_Shalt_Not.htm and enter code "goreletter" in the shopping cart's Voucher field to get 50% off the cover price! Expires 4-30-2008.

LibraryThing
LibraryThing.com is STILL graciously offering up a "one year unlimited" free membership to Goreletter subscribers (this offer ends after twenty people take advantage of it). See my profile at http://www.librarything.com/profile/arnzen and snoop around in my personal library, to learn more about this great site for book hoarders. To get your free unlimited account, all you have to do is go to http://www.librarything.com/ and sign in to create a new FREE (200 book limit) account. Then simply e-mail me the link to your new profile at arnzen@gorelets.com and I'll let them know to upgrade you to the ONE YEAR membership (unlimited books) for free! First come, first served (and limited to new LT memberships only). I'm surprised that more people haven't leapt on this offer.

Are You FICTIONWISE?
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. THIS WEEK'S SPECIALS include the McSweeney's Joke Book, Romance fiction by Tess Gerritsen, horror and fantasy stories by Angeline Hawkes, and also Apex Science Fiction and Horror magazine! Fictionwise is also currently the only way to get some of my out-of-print books, like Paratabloids.
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Category.OutOfPrint

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2008 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For permission to reprint individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 38. Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or just add us to your RSS reader: http://www.gorelets.com/blog/

Visit MySpace for lots of pictures, sounds, and doohickeys: http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

We'll Manage

"If death had only negative aspects, dying would be an unmanageable action."
--Emile M. Cioran (died 1995)

========================

The Goreletter 5.01: Cold Cuts

2007-10-19T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 5.01, Oct 19, 2007 +++
========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Cold Cuts

One of the ways I entertain myself when I stand in line at the local sandwich shop chain is by watching the cold cut artists behind the counter as they prepare my meal. They arrange the order line so you can customize your sandwich as they create it, dictating what toppings and sauces you'd like to include in your meal. It makes you feel special.

But me? I'm fascinated by the open display of butchery and cold meat.

Standing behind the sneeze guard glass makes me feel like I'm in a surgical theater, watching doctors operate as they slice bread with their long knives and handle meaty tissue in their latex-covered hands. They spritz and drizzle dressing along the cut like they're cleansing an open, foot-long wound. Sometimes it's a messy affair, when the sandwich spills its contents across the counter like the mess you'd see on a coroner's table during a lunch break. But I forget all that as they wrap up the meal in paper, twisting it up tourniquet-tight, like they were saving a bleeding leg.

Those creepy latex gloves they wear. That's what sends me into this fantasy.

And they don't change them often. They don't scrub in. They don't sterilize their instruments. They might put on fresh gloves when you place your order, but they rarely change them when they pick up a dirty butcher's knife handle or press a button on a crisping oven or a microphone transmitter to the drive-thru window, or -- worst of all -- handling the cash register or all your filthy lucre before they are finished making your meal.

It's like they think the gloves are there to protect their hands, rather than the sanitation of your sandwich.

And eating all that contact residue is like -- I dunno -- like you're on the subway, licking the seats or something.

***
I fear raw meat and cold cuts. For more of my opinions on such culinary delights, here's an oldie from The Goreletter:
http://gorelets.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/archive/goreletter/20030324120000/

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

They Eat People

I Eat People: Animated Video by Dan Hess
http://www.venisproductions.com/movies/iep.html

Cannibal Corpse Lounge Music: YouTube Parody by unknown lounge act
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-V3NYckOI

Why Dost Thou Love to Eat People?: YouTube weirdness by anonymous guitar-playing vampire freak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2qduBHImF4
(this too has been parodied...badly)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty2Tub2zhFk

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

EXQUISITE CORPSE: NOW ON DVD
Exquisite Corpse: Films Based on the Writing of Michael Arnzen is now available on DVD. To purchase in the US send $17 ($15 + $2 shipping/handling) via PayPal to jiminton@swbell.net or mail a check/money order payable to Jim Minton to: Jim Minton Design Studio, 3339 Merrell Road, Dallas, TX, 75229.

AWARD PICK: A WITCHY FOR THE SCAB
Producer Jim Minton just received a 2007 Tabloid Witch Award for "Best Animated Horror Short" for his adaptation of my poem, "The Scab" (which some of you might recall from the Stoker-winning poetry book, Freakcidents, if you didn't see it in Exquisite Corpse). The film will be screened at the Santa Monica Public Library on Halloween weekend and an encore screening will take place at Loscon convention in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving weekend. Congratulations, Jim!
Tabloid Witch Awards: http://www.hollywoodinvestigator.com/2007/horrorfilm2007.htm
Exquisite Corpse: http://www.myspace.com/exquisitecorpsemovie

AUDIOVILE: MUSIC TO YOUR FEARS
My "album of flash fiction" set to music, Audiovile, is now available at numerous outlets -- from iTunes to cdbaby.com -- in both downloadable and audio CD format. This disc was released last month by Raw Dog Screaming Press as a sort of illuminated audiobook companion to the expanded hardcover edition of 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories, which also just came out from them. Check out the samples on gorelets.com and do post a review somewhere to help me spread the word, if you like it. Here are some primary links to learn more:
Publisher's Page: http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/jolts_hc.html
Gorelets' portal to all things Audiovile: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Multimedia.Audiovile
100 Jolts on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/100-Jolts-Shockingly-Short-Stories/dp/1933293292/

HOW TO GROW A PSEUDOPOD
Pseudopod: The Sound of Horror has just podcast my short story, "How to Grow a Man-Eating Plant" (read by Sheila Unwin). Listen online or subscribe through iTunes and start gardening now.
http://pseudopod.org/2007/10/18/flash-how-to-grow-a-man-eating-plant/

AN ARNZEN OMNIBUS: PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS
You're hearing it first: Dark Regions Press now has signed trade paperback copies of my latest collection, Proverbs for Monsters, available for order direct from the publisher. With art by Matt Schuster, this "best of Arnzen" collection features thirty short stories and even more poems selected from over the past fifteen years, including new and very hard to find work. This book is probably the best overview of my writing available. Dark Regions will also be releasing a hardcover signed limited edition very soon. Proverbs will soon be available on amazon.com and at other outlets, but your best bet is to order from the publisher:
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.ProverbsForMonsters

DEALT OUT
Raw Dog Screaming Press reports that my novel, Play Dead, is now officially out of print and virtually all copies are sold out from their warehouse. You should easily still be able to find it on the secondary market, but it won't be around forever. Likewise, Novello Publishers is also reporting that they have only a handful (or is it a mouthful?) of my comedic novelette, Licker, left in stock (see "boo coupons" below for your last chance to get a copy).
Play Dead: http://www.rawdogscreaming.com
Licker: http://www.novellopublishing.com

HOWLING AT THE MOON
I'm presently revising a new story for a collectible chapbook (tentatively called "The B**chfight"), to be published this fall by Bad Moon Books. The limited edition will feature an EP of new readings, remixes of Audiovile tracks, and live recordings on a CD. Keep your eyes on Bad Moon's website for breaking news in the months ahead: http://www.badmoonbooks.com

YOU HAVE TIME FOR THIS
You Have Time For This: Contemporary American Short-Short stories (edited by Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka) is a new anthology of flash fiction that includes my tale from 100 Jolts, "The Curse of Fat Face."
http://www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu/youhave.html

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

My Pet Vampire

Tight as a tick to a scalp,
I keep my vampire nailed down
to the floor in my bedroom.
His arms are stretched pale and flabby
as the hairy little bat I know
he wishes he could turn into
when I see him squinching his lupine brow
and grunting like he's constipated.
But the nails won't set him free
from the clock-handed impalement of his limbs.
Maybe he could transform into a flying rodent
but he's stretched so tight, the tension
between those silver spikes would only split
him right in two. I keep him fed
with stray pet blood and sometimes
he acts like he loves me for it --
cooing like he's the one stray I kept,
the one pet I cared enough about to take in,
the lucky survivor I won't kill.
At other times -- usually at night
when I peek over the bed before sleep --
his eyes quiver ablaze and he stares
right at me like some starving feral animal
caught in a barbed wire fence.
Asleep, I dream of torture --
of drizzling holy water left-right
across pasty dead flesh, drawing
cross-shaped wounds in the gray canvas
of skin. I dream of taking needle nose
pliers to teeth before teasing him
with my bare wrist and strained neck.
But in the morning, the sunlight blares
into the windowpane, fizzling his face
and he screams like a drowning hyena.
It's annoying. And as I close the curtains
I deeply wish I could just finish him off,
but this supernatural sundial
is the best alarm clock I ever had.

========================
ARNZEN APPEARANCES

(TONIGHT!)
Oct 19th 7:30pm | BottleWorks | Johnstown, PA
Poetry reading along with Gerry LaFemina [gerrylafemina.net] at the Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center (3rd Avenue & Chestnut in Cambria City), sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Free event, open to the public.
http://www.bottleworks.org/

(TOMORROW NIGHT!)
Oct 20th 8-10pm | Dv8 Espresso Bar & Art Gallery | Greensburg, PA
Come kick off the Halloween season by watching me gargle piping hot coffee while reading horror stories as the featured reader in the "Get Lit" series of literary performances at this wonderful art gallery in Downtown Greensburg (208 S. Pennsylvania Ave). While you're there check out Nora Jayne Thompson's very cool macabre art series, The Rots. Free and open to the public.
http://www.myspace.com/dv8espressobarandgallery
[The Rots: http://www.the-rots.blogspot.com/ ]

(NEXT WEEKEND!)
Oct 27-28th | Zombiefest | Monroeville Mall Expo Mart, Pittsburgh, PA
I'll be reading on a panel and signing books at the Raw Dog Screaming Press table during this brand new Convention of the Undead, which culminates with an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest "zombie walk" through the Monroeville Mall -- the actual location for the original Romero film, Dawn of the Dead! My panel (with Greg Lamberson and Scott Johnson) is at 2pm on Saturday; other attendees include Gary Braunbeck, Kim Paffenroth, and Max Brooks.
http://www.theitsaliveshow.com/Zombiefest2007.htm

Nov 10th | PARSEC Lecture | Carnegie Library (Squirrel Hill Branch), Pittsburgh, PA
Presentation on "Exquisite Corpse in Print and Film" to the Pittsburgh Area Science Fiction Enthusiasts Club. Members only, but it's just $15 at the door to join.
http://www.parsec-sff.org/

Nov 30th 4pm | Seton Hill University, Administration Building Rm 308 | Greensburg, PA
Screening of Exquisite Corpse and a presentation of my recent creative work to the campus community (where I teach in the MA degree program in Writing Popular Fiction). Free and open to the public.
http://www.setonhill.edu/o/index.cfm?PID=3&PRID=1282
http://fiction.setonhill.edu

July 16-25 | Alpha SF/F/H Writing Workshop for Teens | Greensburg, PA
I'll be a guest lecturer at this year's Alpha writer's workshop in speculative fiction for young writers of talent. I mention it now only because applications need to be sent in early to get a seat, if you qualify.
http://alpha.spellcaster.org/index.html

Chances are good I'll also attend the ICFA and World Horror Convention in Spring 2008.
http://iafa.org/
http://www.whc2008.org

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Face Dances

Mono-1.com (a progressive advertising agency) has posted a fun "mix and match" game where you can assemble all the elements of the human head into a freaky photorealistic picture. They say there are 760,000 possible "monofaces" you can make with the various random mash-ups of eyes, noses, mouths, and hair/shoulders. Create your own mutants and have a ball.

http://www.mono-1.com/monoface/main.html

========================
DICTIONSCARY

suppurate

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that "suppurate" described the after-effect of a satisfying dinner. A term for how you satisfied, sated, and sedated you feel when you sit on the couch after, say, a Thanksgiving meal, opening your belt. But no: "suppurate" is the fancy word we reserve to describe pustular discharge. Slimy, often freakishly yellow, leakage. The putrid rot that spills from a burst boil or infected blister.

It comes from the Latin term "puris" which means "pus" though there's nothing pure about it, since pus is surely disgusting. I have a friend who once argued with me that "pus" is incorrect; that it's actually spelled "puss." I asked him how his cat was doing. He said "Fine, she's even purring on my lap right now." If I was smart, I would have replied "Sup-purr-ating, maybe."

========================
THE CONTESTATORIUM

The winners of the "Be My Audiovillain" contest from last issue are DW Green and Michael Shrum. Both of these guys did a lot to help spread the word about the launch of the Audiovile CD, and also created some wonderful artwork. They won collectible decks of "Play Dead" playing cards and the original proofs for my story, Licker, along with other rare items and a gift certificate to Shocklines. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Visit the "pics" section of the Arnzen profile page on myspace.com to see the collection of "fan art" that features their contributions, and those by other readers. There are some hilarious images on there (I think the "Domestic Fowl" image by Shrum is my present favorite). PLEASE CONTINUE to send in your own artwork inspired by anything I've written, and I'll share it with the world on that page! I really love fan art.
http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

VIRTUAL HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST!

This one ought to be easy and your chances of winning are good! Send me a photo (whether at a party, on your doorstep, or whatever) of someone/anyone/you in costume. It doesn't HAVE to be a Halloween photo, but I imagine that would be the easiest time to take a picture. (I will post your photos online at myspace.com, so entering this contest grants me one-time online publishing rights to your photograph).

Rules:

Deadline: November 5th (do send before or on Halloween if you're able)
Preferred format: .jpg file (may be re-sized for space)
Size limit: 1.4 megabytes
SEND TO: arnzen@gmail.com

Horror imagery preferred. Points for creativity, craft, and use of scenario/scenery. Bonus points for incorporating any Arnzen-related paraphernalia in your shot (holding a book, dressing up like a character, whatever). Try to keep the imagery below an R rating please, since little kiddies read my stuff sometimes and I don't want my site to get censored/banned/etc. by the powers that be. (I will not publish nudity, drug references, or other images that I'm not comfortable sharing with the public.)

ONE GRAND PRIZE TO MY FAVORITE PHOTO: A free signed limited hardcover copy of PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS upon release ($50 value!) & one DVD of EXQUISITE CORPSE ($17 value!) with autographed Arnzen ephemera inserted in the clamshell case.

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Office Space Terrors

For your next movie night, rent:
The Temp (Holland, 1993)
Office Killer (Sherman, 1997)
Netherbeast Incorporated (Ronalds, 2007)
(or The Netherbeast of Berm-Tech Industries, Inc. (2004))

========================
OTHINGS (*other things)

CHATTER
Last month I was a guest blogger for a week on the website, "A Bunch of Wordz." Host Edie Montgomery gave me free reign to post about random things that I might normally post in The Goreletter, if I ran it as a regular blog instead of a newsletter. Topics included the role of music in the creative process, an analysis of suspense in a comic strip, a riff on a Poppy Z. Brite story, and wordplay with the seven deadly sins. Her next guest blogger will be paranormal suspense author Kelley Armstrong, posting on Oct 28-30th. If interested, you can review my posts here: http://abunchofwordz.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/michael-a-arnzen-thanks-and-index/
Here's an interview about horror that appeared in At Home with Jennifer (a regional magazine similar to Oprah), called "Dr. Dread: Seton Hill University Has its Own Professor of Horror": http://www.athomewithjennifermagazine.com/current_month/home_library.php
Around Halloween, you can also read my conversation with author Michael Sims' about fear and writing in his great "Creative Approach" column in Rezoom magazine: https://www.rezoom.com/entertainment/creative-approach/
You should definitely pick up Michael Sims' witty and insightful books, by the way. Especially "Apollo's Fire" which was just published by Viking: http://www.michaelsimsbooks.com/default.htm

CONTEXT
I was the "Horror Guest of Honor" at Context Convention in Columbus, OH last month. This was my first time being a special guest at a con, and I had an enormously enjoyable time. Context is a science-fiction/fantasy convention that leans toward the literary side of the equation, with daily writer's workshops (I ran one on writing genre poetry), readings, panels on books and academia, and guest interviews. It was a blast hanging around with a herd of writers I know -- a list that is too long to mention here -- and getting to meet some new friends.
One of the highlights for me was chatting with Gary Braunbeck, who hosted a Saturday night conversation with me. We talked about all things horror, I confessed about my past, we listened to tracks from Audiovile, and we screened short films. We not only watched Exquisite Corpse, but Gary was kind enough to share an advanced screener of the upcoming film based on his knock-out short story, "Rami Temporalis," called "One of Those Faces" (adaptation by Earl Newton). You absolutely MUST see Gary's story on film when its released to the public, and check out the wonderful creativity displayed by Newton at Stranger Things TV: http://www.strangerthings.tv/
Context is a great, intimate and even educational conference. Their website is: http://s187772641.onlinehome.us/ You can see photos from Context 20 on my myspace page or at Heidi Ruby Miller's weblog: http://www.myspace.com/arnzen or http://ambasadora.livejournal.com/146100.html

GORELETS.COM UPDATE
Welcome to the fifth volume of The Goreletter! I've been running this internet sideshow for over five years now, and it remains a blast to put together. Almost 2000 people read this whenever I send it out (and I'd love to have more readers, so please spread the word)! Thank you for subscribing and reading for all these years, and for continuing to support my creative sickness.
When I sent the last issue (July 18, 2007), I received a number of "bounced" messages, especially from hotmail. If you didn't get yours, drop by the archives to see what you missed. And do make sure gorelets.com is not ending up in your spam folders. http://gorelets.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?flavor=archive;list=goreletter
I may be changing servers in the months ahead, which might produce a temporary outage on the website. If I need to change domains, I will e-mail you first to alert you.
I'm also seriously considering expanding The Goreletter into a book of some kind in the year ahead. If anyone has any leads on an ideal publisher who might be interested in such a venture, by all means, please let me know. For now, a few choice pieces from The Goreletter will appear in my new "best of Arnzen" collection, Proverbs for Monsters, mentioned elsewhere in this issue. I do hope you'll pick that up in support of this newsletter, which does take up a good deal of my writing time. It may be awhile until you get the next issue, because I'm in the middle of writing a very weird novel and I need to keep the fire blazing on that. So if I'm late, keep checking the Goreletter weblog for updates as time passes and know that I remain committed to publishing The Goreletter as an e-mail missive well into the future, perhaps in perpetuity, for free.

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Write a story from the viewpoint of a groundskeeper at the graveyard -- avoiding any of the typical trappings of the horror genre. Make it mundane, even. Avoid using speculative fiction technique at all until you get to page three. Then, if you need to jazz things up, let her rip.
+ Devise a plot surrounding a schoolyard bully...when he's elderly, in the nursing home.
+ Describe a tuft of stiff hair that has grown in a very unexpected place on your main character's body.

***
If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I'll mention it here! Congratulations this time around to D.W. Green, for his story "Surgical Puppet Theater," which will appear in the upcoming anthology, Darkened Horizons. http://www.myspace.com/kimchiandtheflyingfish

========================
AS YOU LIKE IT

Here's a department where I recommend titles that have a similar appeal to my own work that you may not have heard of before. (Oh, okay, I stole the idea from amazon.com, but why let a profit-based computer code decide what you read? Here you've at least got an egocentric writer doing the job!)

If you liked GRAVE MARKINGS ...
you'll like THE BONE PARADE by Mark Nykanen
http://www.marknykanen.com/html/books.html

If you liked 100 JOLTS ...
you'll like SPIDER PIE by Alyssa Sturgill
http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/spiderpie.html

If you liked AUDIOVILE ...
you'll like GONZO SCIENCE by Jim Richardson
http://cdbaby.com/cd/gonzosci

If you liked LICKER ...
you'll like GLEEFULLY MACABRE TALES by Jeff Strand
https://www.deliriumbooks.com/catalog/product.php?productid=70&cat=1&page=1

If you liked PLAY DEAD ...
you'll like THE SCALDING ROOMS by Conrad Williams
http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/acatalog/the_scalding_rooms_hc.html

If you liked EXQUISITE CORPSE ...
you'll like EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR 1 & 2 compiled by Other Cinema
http://www.othercinemadvd.com/experiments.html

If you are curious about any of the Arnzen books that I mention above, just visit the handy-dandy bibliography page at gorelets.com (which include cover art, contents lists, reviews, excerpts, ordering info, and more): http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Books

========================
BOO COUPONS

Here's some exclusive coupons and discounts on horror-related merchandise -- your reward for scrolling down!

LAST LICKS
In an effort to move the last few copies of my chapbook, Licker, out of their warehouse, Novello Publishers is offering Goreletter subscribers a special "buy Licker, get one book free" offer. Order Licker and they'll send you a free copy of either Two Twisted Nuts by Jeff Strand and Nick Cato or Right House on the Left by Steve Vernon, Mark McLaughlin, & L.L. Soares (choose your favorite). As a bonus, they'll ALSO throw in a free copy of Dark Jesters -- their one-shot humorous horror fanzine, featuring stories by Lucy Snyder, Mark McLaughlin, Tom Moran, and others! That's a $19.00 value for just $10.00 -- postage paid! You have to order it by regular mail: follow the ordering instructions on their website and mention the "Novello Publisher's Licker Deal" along with which chapbook you'd like, and don't forget to include your delivery address.
http://www.novellopublishers.com/orderpage.html

LIBRARYTHING
LibraryThing.com is still graciously offering up a "one year unlimited" free membership to Goreletter subscribers (this offer ends after twenty people take advantage of it). See my profile at http://www.librarything.com/profile/arnzen and snoop around in my personal library, to learn more about this great site for book hoarders. To get your free unlimited account, all you have to do is go to http://www.librarything.com/ and sign in to create a new FREE (200 book limit) account. Then simply e-mail me the link to your new profile at arnzen@gorelets.com and I'll let them know to upgrade you to the ONE YEAR membership (unlimited books) for free! First come, first served (and limited to new LT memberships only).

Are You FICTIONWISE?
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. THIS WEEK'S SPECIALS include a few Raw Dog Screaming Press titles, like Vacation by Jeremy Shipp, Your Point Is? by Steve Aylett and Discouraging at Best by John Edward Lawson! Fictionwise is also currently the only way to get some of my out-of-print books, like Paratabloids.
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Category.OutOfPrint

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2007 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For permission to reprint individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 37. Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or just add us to your RSS reader: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/

Visit Arnzen's space for pictures, sounds, and doohickeys: http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

Look Out, Cannibals!

"When the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, 'If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you.'...So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."
-- Benjamin Franklin (died 1790)

========================

The Goreletter 4.04: BLUGH!

2007-07-18T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 4.04, July 18, 2007 +++
========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

13 Furnishings You'll NEVER Find at IKEA

BAGEMUP
Mob Hit Throw Rug with Latex Backing

GNUCKS
Knucklebone Beaded Curtain

HOOGAFLOOF
Neck Pillow Stuffed with Ukrainian Owl Eyes

NOZZOIKS
Teflon Glove for Throwing Electric Chair Switches

JYMJONZ
Paper Cup Dispenser

SMÊGMAR
Bordello Mattress Liner

STYNXEE
Swedish Pine Urinal Disc

SLAZISUZI
Saw Blade Turntable Appetizer Tray

BRÅNZ
Chrome Cannibal Serving Bowl with Designer Drip Saucer

OFFTAPOTTER
Stuffed Otter's Head Toilet Brush

LILCOUGHIN
Children's Storage Unit

BETÎPAJ
Beechwood Rotating Whip Rack with Emergency First Aid Kit

BLÜGH:
Envelope Moistener/Spittoon

***
Related Reading
The Store: http://www.ikea.com
The IKEA Name Generator: http://www.minimarketing.it/ikea_gen.htm
Where IKEA Gets the Names: http://tinyurl.com/2lx9ga and http://tinyurl.com/ob5v
The IKEA Game: http://www.iamcal.com/games/ikea/
How to Survive IKEA by Matthew Baldwin: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/the_nonexpert_ikea.php

========================
ARNZEN NOW ON MYSPACE

http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

Visit my NEW myspace page to listen to audio samples from my upcoming CD, Audiovile. I've uploaded a ton of photos there, and I've started using their blog system once in awhile, too. You never know what you might find there. (And this is the link to use in the new contest lurking somewhere below).

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Obscure Cat Horror-Comedies

For your next movie night, rent:
Xiong mao (Yu, 1987)
Strays (McPhereson, 1991)
Goosebumps: Cry of the Cat (Bond, 2002)

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

+++ AUDIOVILE!
An "album" of my fiction set to music, on compact disc, called "Audiovile," will be out in the month ahead! Audiovile is a weird compilation of stories (mostly dark humor ones from my book, 100 Jolts), transformed into musical numbers (yes, I did virtually* all of the music myself). You can now get a taste by listening to three of the sixteen tracks on the internet at http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

My goal was to make an audio book worth listening to more than just once...and it turned into something entirely more than just an audio book. I don't know what to call it -- a performance? -- but I think you'll be entertained, surprised, and maybe even a little freaked out when you realize you're tapping your foot to a goofy song about a serial killer.

Early reviewers are loving the novelty: Horror-Web gives it 4 stars, and calls it "Very eclectic, very dark, but jovial and very enjoyable." Horror World writes, "[The CD contains] more than enough laugh out loud, make you cringe moments for me to recommend Audiovile, which caters to those among us who are just a bit twisted." And ChiZine writes, "Not exactly sung, not quite read, Arnzen narrates each piece with an enthusiastic growl in which you can hear how amused he is, trying on this new mantle. The Morrison of the Macabre...it's an unexpected pleasure. Put this in your iPod and smoke it!"

* Guest musicians appear on two tracks: Jason Jack Miller plucks a mean psychedelic banjo on "Dreamachinery." Visit Jason (co-author of Moon Pennsylvania Camping) here: http://www.moonstonewritings.com/JASONHOME.html And Mark Meritt (who is "Ace" in San Francisco-based KISS tribute band Destoyer and is also one of the freaks behind the ingenious concept album "Mulletor" -- http://www.mulletor.com ) lays down a brain-bending heavy metal guitar throughout the epic cadaver story, "Donation."

Raw Dog Screaming Press is publishing the disc and offering it cheap, for about $13. Audiovile will soon be available from cdbaby.com and other distributors, even in downloadable mp3 form. But if you want yours early, and SIGNED, then pre-order a copy of this wickedly wacko disc from Shocklines Bookstore:
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/aubymiaarbau.html
or better yet, order it bundled with the new hardcover edition of 100 Jolts for a discount:
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/100joshaedba.html

Here's the publisher's official page: http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/jolts_hc.html

See the contest in this issue for a potential prize for preordering.

+++ BRAIN CANDY
Speaking of Audiovile, Jen Barnes created a funky music video/cartoon to go along with one of the zombie-related tracks, called "Brain Candy." Check it out at YouTube for a quick up-chuckle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWiavMEpO1Q

+++ PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS
I just finished proofreading the final pages for this compilation of my best short stories and poems, due late Summer from Dark Regions Books. Proverbs for Monsters is a MEATY collection, just under three hundred pages long, with over thirty stories and forty-five pages of poetry. It's filled with reader's favorites from the past 20 years and includes some new and otherwise impossible-to-find work. Proverbs features interior and cover art by Matt Schuster (of mpsindustries.com, who you might remember from our online collaboration in 2003, "Gentle Monsters" http://www.sidereality.com/volume2issue2/contentsv2n2.html ). The book will be released in a limited run, in 100 signed hardcovers and 500 signed paperbacks. It's probably the most representative look at my writing career so far. Watch this page (which includes a contents list and cover art) to find out how to order: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.ProverbsForMonsters

+++ AFTERSHOCKS! 100 JOLTS IN HARDCOVER
100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories (Expanded Edition) is a new hardcover reissue of this collection of one hundred disturbing and darkly hilarious stories -- most of them no longer than a page. The book will include bonus materials you can't find in the original 2004 edition: "Aftershocks" (a batch of new stories), a new afterword that looks at short-shorts and their relationship to "snack media culture," and a bundle of creative writing prompts based on the stories in the collection, in the vein of The Goreletter's own "Instigation" department. Horror Library claims "...this collection will be a treasured favorite for any collector of horror literature and indispensable reference material for any writer, horror genre or not." This new hardcover edition should be out at the same time as Audiovile, its companion piece, for about $30. Preorder the two together for a discount (see above) or preorder the book alone and you'll get it signed here: http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.n
et/100joshshstb.html

+++ MORE MORE MORE
+ Take a deep breath...I know this is getting long...this is what happens when I run late, and I apologize.
+ If you've got an iPod, subscribe to the free horror story podcasts at http://pseudopod.org Pseudopod is currently producing an audio adaptation of my story, "How to Grow a Man-Eating Plant" that should be out in the month's ahead.
+ I know this gives some people "cognitive dissonance," but I actually do academic writing in my role as English professor, too. I'll have an essay that compares the movie Maximum Overdrive to the short story "Trucks" in the upcoming collection of criticism, The Films of Stephen King (Palgrave, 2007). And I'm pleased to announce that a version of my doctoral dissertation, called "The Popular Uncanny," has just placed with Guide Dog Books! Expect more news in the year ahead. To learn more about these academic pieces, visit my non-fiction "creations" page at gorelets.com: http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Nonfiction.Nonfiction
+ Did you catch my poem, "Not the Reaper," in the latest issue of Bare Bone (#10)? I think it's one of my best "formal" pieces (and fun to read -- it will also appear on Audiovile): http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/bb10.html
+ This Fall, a new limited edition fiction chapbook called "The B*tchfight" will be published by Bad Moon Books. It's actually about female dogs, I swear. Collectors take note: the hardcover edition will come with an exclusive surprise tba: http://www.badmoonbooks.com
+ Look for my comedic fantasy story, "The Filling," in Until Someone Loses an Eye, coming soon from Twisted Publishing: http://www.bradfordhousepublishing.com/loseeye.htm
+ I recently placed a new story, "The Hungry Heart," in a collection of horror tales inspired by Bruce Springsteen songs, called Darkness on the Edge. It will be out from PS Publishing next year, but I'm excited about it now so I thought I'd bulk up this bulky news section with a mention. Watch: http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/forthcoming.asp
+ WRITERS! Don't miss the HWA's new edition of On Writing Horror: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582974209/

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Online Oddities

Amazon Oddities
http://amazon.com/tag/amazon%20oddities/ref=tag_tdp_tdp

eBay Oddities
http://www.whattheheck.com/ebay/index.html

Google Streetview Oddities
http://www.streetviewr.com/

========================
AS YOU LIKE IT

Here's a new department where I will recommend recent titles that have a similar appeal to my own work. (Oh, okay, I stole the idea from amazon.com, but why let a profit-based computer code decide what you read? Here you've at least got an egocentric writer doing the job!)

If you are curious about any of the Arnzen books that I mention here, just visit the handy-dandy "creations" subpage at gorelets.com (which include cover art, contents lists, reviews, excerpts, ordering info, and more): http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Books.Books

If you liked LICKER ...
you'll like DISPOSAL by Jeff Strand
http://www.bitingdogpress.com/Bitingdogpub/disposal.htm

If you liked PLAY DEAD ...
you'll like YOU IN? by Kealan Patrick Burke
http://www.badmoonbooks.com/product.php?productid=804&cat=0&page=1&featured

If you liked AUDIOVILE ...
you'll like the JOHNNY GRUESOME CD by Marcy and Giasone Italiano
http://slimeguy.com/gruesomeCD.htm

If you liked GRAVE MARKINGS ...
you'll like DEAD SLEEP by Greg Iles
http://www.gregiles.com/dead.htm

If you liked RIGORMAROLE ...
you'll like THE LONG LAST CALL by John Skipp
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Last-Call-John-Skipp/dp/084395843X/

If you liked 100 JOLTS ...
you'll like THE KEYHOLE OPERA by Bruce Holland Rogers
http://www.wheatlandpress.com/keyhole/index.html

If you liked GORELETS: UNPLEASANT POEMS ...
you'll like POSTCARDS FROM HELL (series)
http://postcardtales.blogspot.com/

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Dark Cut

In Armor Games' free online simulation, "Dark Cut," you play a medieval surgeon, summoned by your king to perform offbeat, primitive surgical procedures -- like removing an arrow or lancing a nasty boil or dispensing with a...well, I won't say.

It's a relatively easy operation, because you're given instructions virtually all the way through it and the "game" doesn't involve much challenge -- all that's required is a steady hand and a dark sense of humor. What makes it worth wasting your precious time is the disturbing surprise of each patient's symptoms and the anticipation invoked by each repulsive-yet-cute cartoon graphic that goes along with it.

http://www.armorgames.com/games/darkcut.html

If this sort of thing is your cup of gory glee, you also might have some fun with this medieval surgery mad lib. It was designed to be educational, but I recommend printing it out and using your own randomly chosen words!

http://www.educationforum.co.uk/barbs.htm

***
Some readers received the wrong web link to "Operation Thule" last issue, and found themselves impaling squirrels with peanuts instead. You probably don't want to go here, especially if your sensitive about animals, but for the record, the intended link to last issue's crazy online gizmo is: http://www.dr.dk/spil/dolph/

========================
WELCOME TO THE CONTESTATORIUM!

Last issue, I held two cool contests for e-mail subscribers and the results are in.

First up was the "Corpse Contest," sponsored by Jim Minton, the producer of Exquisite Corpse [ http://www.exquisitecorpsemovie.com ], with a free DVD version of the film as a prize. This contest asked readers to write a poem, eleven lines or less, about horror cinema. The only catch was that the words 'exquisite' and 'corpse' had to appear somewhere in the poem and the final two lines had to rhyme. A lot of great creative entries came in for this one, but I picked the poem that had the strongest imagery or wordplay. And Jim kindly tossed in an extra DVD so that TWO entrants won! So here they are, for your bonus reading pleasure...

IN CONSIDERATION OF MR. BIRD
by James C. Wardlaw [1st Place]

The organist coaxed screams and crescendos from the pipes.
The movie projector cast the flickering images of a corpse
dressed in a black tuxedo.
He rested on the park bench, hands folded on his chest
while ravens pecked at the sinkholes that served him for eyes.
The audience gazed at the staccato pictures in black and white,
wondering just what the hell would happen next.
Those black birds pulled out chunks with veritable haste.
It was a study in exquisite poor taste.

***

BLOOD PORTRAIT
by James S. Dorr [2nd Place]

Exquisite,
Max Schreck --
his name even meant "fear" --
lurking corpse-silent through
Nosferatu,
no gentleman vampire he,
Bela Lugosi,
but claw and breath
drenching death.

***
The second contest last time around was a trivia contest -- a random draw of people who sent me an e-mail correctly identifying the name of my first website. The winner was author Jeff Strand, who managed to remember that my former website was called, "Arnzen's Arbor Vitae," from the mid-to-late 1990s. Congratulations, Jeff! You won a rare broadside of my poem, "Six Short Films About Chauncey The Serial Killer" and an advanced demo of my upcoming CD, Audiovile. You can now reuse those precious brain cells that were taken up by this memory.

***
THE NEW CONTEST: BE MY AUDIOVILLAIN!

I hate the whole phrase "viral marketing." For one thing, I prefer to call it "entrepresneezing." For another, it's crassly commercial and disingenuous. But because Audiovile is so different than a book, I need help getting news of it out on the street. I'd love your help, especially if you're a, well, audiophile.

Please don't do this if you don't believe that horror writers should be doing nutty things like recording themselves making weird noises and then having the audacity to make you their co-conspirator. Otherwise, sneeze away to spread the word about Audiovile...and you just might WIN ONE OF TWO COLLECTIBLE PRIZE SETS:

+ A signed deck of the very rare, very bizarro, custom-designed PLAY DEAD playing cards! Plus a five track CDR sampler from Audiovile + $15 Shocklines.com Gift Certificate + one random surprise gift from the Arnzen archives!

+ The actual hand-corrected proofsheets of my over-the-top comedic horror novelette, LICKER, with a signed bound review copy! Plus a five track CDR sampler from Audiovile + $15 Shocklines.com Gift Certificate + one random surprise gift from the Arnzen archives!

This will be a random draw for two lucky winners at midnight on August 18th (exactly one month from this mailing). It's easy. You get entries for whatever you decide is ethical and righteous to do from the following list (one or all):

+ Add a track from Audiovile to your myspace.com profile page for at least two weeks = 4 entries
+ Draw a funny picture or pose a funky photo inspired by the track "Psycho Hunter" and post it somewhere online with a link to the myspace page = 4 entries
+ Preorder a copy of Audiovile = 3 entries
+ Link to the audiovile myspace page in your own newsletter or on your website/blog = 2 entries
+ Add a creative comment on one of the tracks on my myspace page (within the song player itself, not on the profile) = 1 entry
+ Open a new discussion about the Audiovile tracks from myspace on a discussion board where it hasn't been discussed yet = 2 entries
+ Post comment(s) in an online discussion board about it = 1 entry (only)
+ Create your own form of promotion and I'll subjectively determine how many entries it deserves = tba

Easy sneezy. Will you please be my Audiovillain? E-mail me proof of your viral discharge at arnzen@gorelets.com (if you send me a preorder receipt, edit out your credit card info please, for security). Winners will be announced next issue, and if you do a funny photo I will totally link back to it.

[Of course, if you're a professional reviewer I can send you an advanced listening copy, too, but you won't qualify for a prize beyond the usual multimillion dollar bribe and free confection oven I always send my reviewers. E-mail me.]

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

Dead Meat: A Haiku

at the meat counter
cellophaned brains trick zombies --
the butcher runs out

***
The above haiku is one of many neat 'zombie zen' pieces by various authors scattered throughout Kyra Schon's website at http://ghoulnextdoor.com. Kyra is one of the coolest stars from the original Night of the Living Dead. Check out her webpage and you'll recognize her instantly!

***
See Richard Ristow's weblog for a surprisingly in-depth analysis of last issue's poem, "The Fall Down the Stairs of the House of Usher": http://damnedcritic.blogspot.com/2007/03/arnzen-versus-william-carlos-williams.html While you're there, congratulate Richard -- he just won a Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association (http://www.sfpoetry.com) for his verse!

========================
ARNZEN APPEARANCES

July 28-29th | Confluence 2007 | Pittsburgh, PA
I will be signing books, reading fiction, and sitting on two panels at Confluence, Pittsburgh's annual con for fans of science-fiction and fantasy literature. A highlight this year will be the screening and discussion of the film based on my work, Exquisite Corpse, alongside the film adaptation of Lawrence C. Connolly's classic short-short, Echoes.
http://www.parsec-sff.org/confluence/index.html

Aug 11th | Horrorfind Weekend | Hunt Valley, MD
Raw Dog Screaming Press is hosting a CD release party for AUDIOVILE at Horrorfind. I am not yet certain if I'll be in attendance at this year's convention (sniff-sniff), but if you're there, come join the party!
http://www.horrorfindweekend.com/state/maryland/august/

Sept 28-30th | Context 20 | Columbus, OH
I'm honored to be this year's "Horror Guest of Honor" at this literary convention held annually in Ohio! In addition to the usual reading performance, panel discussions, and books signings, I'll also leading a poetry writing workshop. There are still a few seats left for it, but you have to register early to get one (registration fees rise after Aug 11th, too).
http://s187772641.onlinehome.us/

Oct 19th 7:30pm | BottleWorks | Johnstown, PA
Poetry reading along with Gerry LaFemina [gerrylafemina.net] at the Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center (3rd Avenue & Chestnut in Cambria City), sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.
http://www.bottleworks.org/

Oct 27-28th | Zombiefest | Monroeville Mall, PA
I'll be reading and signing books at the Raw Dog Screaming Press table at this brand new Convention of the Undead, which culminates with an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest "zombie walk" through the Monroeville Mall -- the actual location for the original Romero film, Dawn of the Dead!
http://www.theitsaliveshow.com/Zombiefest2007.htm

========================
DICTIONSCARY

scabrid

Scab. Rabid. Scabrid.

This word sounds like it belongs on a t-shirt worn by an angry kid with a purple Mohawk and spiked leather wristbands. And like many punk rock band names, it is, in fact, lifted straight out of the medical dictionary: "scabrid" typically refers to skin (or other tissue) that is scaly or rough to the touch. Often the flesh is rough, delicate, exhibiting irregular projections, lesions, bumps, knobs, or disgusting little follicles. Caress Tommy Lee Jones' right cheek and perhaps you'll feel something scabrid.

Since plants are more often scaly than humans, Scabrid is a term probably used more frequently by botanists than celebrity dermatologists. A synonym for scabrid is scabrous. Its antonym? Glabrous, which sounds happy, and happily it is just as fun to say with your mouth full of liquid as scabrid is.

The term is also sometimes used to mean "difficult" or "knotty," as in the sentence, "I do say, good sir, your choice of noose is particularly scabrid and not glabrous at all...would you mind removing it from my neck before I develop a nasty rash?"

========================
OTHINGS (*other things)

+ Exquisite Corpse ( http://www.exquisitecorpsemovie.com ) screened in June at the Presaro Film Festival in Italy and also in the San Antonio Underground Film Festival in the US. Reports all suggest that the film was well-received. In fact, at San Antonio, the sound system failed at the beginning of the screening, so they kindly screened the movie again at the very end of the festival as a strange finale, to much applause. The producer tells me that the Exquisite Corpse DVD package may be offered for sale by hand at conventions and screening events soon. I'll be screening the film at Confluence and Context conventions in the months ahead.

+ At the top of the month, I taught a class in humor and flash fiction at Odyssey, the annual science-fiction/fantasy workshops run by Jeanne Cavelos in New Hampshire ( http://www.sff.net/odyssey/ ). I had a blast and the students were just awesome. (Anyone who can laugh at bad jokes about clown copulation is a friend of mine). I wish Odyssey would have been around when I was getting started; so I thought I'd mention it to help spread the word, in case there are any writers reading this who are thinking about going pro and becoming a better writer. Sure, you should consider getting a Master's degree where I teach ( http://fiction.setonhill.edu ), but if that's beyond your means or qualifications, I highly recommend you consider Odyssey! Check out their podcasts from former lecturers, like Charles Grant and Jeff Vandermeer. I'm likely to appear there in the months ahead, too, with something weird and cryptic excerpted from my so-called "talk."

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Bind a book in something dastardly...but avoid the obvious (lemme guess: skin, right?).
+ There's a campaign afoot to nominate Cthulhu for president (http://www.cthulhu.org/). Create a Lovecraftian story that satirizes today's politics.
+ Write a short-short with the title "Surgical Puppet Theater."

***
Congratulations to Kathleen J. Trimmer -- http://www.myspace.com/kat_emerson -- who recently published a short-short called "Getting Off Death Row" in Cthulhu SM (3:13) based loosely on an Instigation prompt. If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I'll mention it here!

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

Two Fake Books from McSweeney's

One of my old Army buddies, Eric Hoffman, went on to become a comedian, making a name for himself in the Chicago improv circuit and landing some good roles in TV and film (most notably, he parodied the John Travolta character from Pulp Fiction in My Big Fat Independent Movie). He even wrote for Bob & Dave's "Mr. Show" for awhile. Well, now he's an author, or co-author with Gary Rudoren, anyway, with the release of a great humor book: Comedy by the Numbers.

I didn't intend to review the book here, but it's such a singularly funny read that I just have to. Sure, I'm biased. But don't let that stop you from buying it.

Comedy by the Numbers is a mock "how to be popular" book -- a technical guide to being the class clown or life of the party -- with a catalog of 169 tried-and-true comedy "secrets" that are applicable to any stand-up routine, comedic screenplay, or water cooler conversation. The book parodies itself with mock authority, and as it enumerates all the clichés we've all seen before (#1 Animals Doing Things Humans Do, #16 Clowns, #36 Dwarves, Midgets and the Like), it catches you off-guard once in awhile by throwing in an absurd example of a tip here, or an excessive and over-the-top application of the secret there (like the list of "Clown Names Still Available for General Use" that includes names like "Cancerella, Spoogie, Stone Phillips and Blazey the Arsonist Clown"). Ever wanted to know how to properly shop for ventriloquist dummies? (Floppy legs are best). Which facial expressions are the best reactions to pain? (Sometimes it's the "anger face," sometimes it's the "Indian sho

t arrow in the windpipe" face). What the best choices are for mimes who want to pretend to be trapped inside an object? (The back end of a horse costume always gets a laugh).

As you read along, you'll find yourself caught up in all the stock examples from film comedies you've seen, and you'll start to realize that Comedy by the Numbers still manages to be rather educational despite itself, by successfully surveying the genre and exposing all its formulas, strengths, and weaknesses. But beyond its content, the writing succeeds because the authors adopt a comedic perspective on their own material -- at times excessively bragging about their own wit, at others pulling the rug out from under their own advice -- and it's a perspective that's utterly contagious. By practicing what it preaches, the book charms, even when it fails to get a belly laugh by, say, going for an obvious fart joke. It's an altogether fun, light-hearted and often "blue" (e.g. rated R) read, littered with hilarious illustrations and scenarios.

There's a sense of nostalgia about this book, too -- you can tell that these writers love old slapstick movies -- and reading the book reminded me of Mad Magazine in its heyday. But I also found it inspirational (and I can't believe I'm admitting this) for brainstorming my own writing ideas. For example, Secret #26 is "Death Portrayed as an Entity" which recommends writers put the grim reaper in their screenplay as "an ice cream salesman, bumbling civil servant, adorable doggie, crotchety librarian, or smarmy bellboy." Hilarious. That got me thinking about other scenarios for a potential horror story in a similar vein (my notes say something cryptic like: "trial testimony by grim reaper arrested for indecent exposure").

From the profane to the sacred...

When I pre-ordered Comedy by the Numbers from its publisher, McSweeney's, I also picked up a curious little book called The New Sins by David Byrne (yes, that's Mr. Big Suit of Talking Heads fame). The New Sins is another parody of textual format, but in this case it aims for the heavens instead of the belly: the book is quite literally a mock up of those freebie bilingual bibles you may have seen, with gold foil stamped lettering imprinted on a faux red-leather cover. Indeed, as a sort of public art performance, Byrne placed copies this book anonymously in hotel rooms during the 2001 Valencia Biennial. Now it's available for sale, "with 9% more sin," in a revised Spanish/English paperback edition.

Blasphemy? Not exactly. The New Sins fictionally purports to originate in newly-discovered ancient scrolls "that seem to imply a negation of vices and a missing set of sins." It presents itself as a translation of the original tongue of a lost tribe from Croatia. It's a fiction that presents itself as sacred text -- and this may be the argument that Byrne wants to make about all sacred texts, too, though he means no disrespect: to Byrne fictional metaphors are potent and meaningful. Indeed, this book is a very poetic and philosophical musing on the spirit and the true meaning of suffering...and it's quite funny, too. Byrne's book is a thought experiment, and reading the various sins in its catalog ("charity, a sense of humor, beauty, ambition, thrift..." -- yes, he turns what we assume to be virtue on its head) was an experience that for me felt like I was reading an expanded album cover from one of the Talking Heads' old records...while sitting in a cathedral. Byrne'

s photos, collages and colorful artwork throughout the text are just as important as the writing. The intended meanings are impenetrable, yet they get you to reconsider what you already assume about vice and virtue and religious belief. Although it does make the argument that "heaven and hell do not exist...they are metaphors," the book never tries to substitute a dogmatic belief system of its own. It is purposefully written in a way that is wide open to reader interpretation (in the necessary section called "How to Use this Book," Byrne writes that "the pictures in this book will explain what the text obscures. The text is merely a distraction, a set of brakes, a device to get you to look at the pictures for longer than you would ordinarily.") Cool. It is, in sum, a weirdly fascinating and inspiring book about books and how we rely on words and icons to sustain our faith. And like Comedy by the Numbers, it also got my creative engines running at full speed, producing new sto
ry ideas involving the supernatural.

Both fake books are now available cheap (under $15 ea.) from The McSweeney's Store: http://store.mcsweeneys.net

Or visit these web sites:
Comedy by the Numbers: http://www.myspace.com/comedybythenumbers
and if you want interactivity: http://www.comedybythenumbers.com
The New Sins: http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/new_sins/index.php

***
If you are disappointed because I didn't specifically recommend a HORROR book to read, why not drop by my excessively annotated list of "Must-Have Horror Anthologies" that was published recently in the Horror Fiction News Network's "Reading Room"? There's plenty there for your reader's eyes to chew on till next time.
http://readingroom.horrorfictionnews.com/

========================
BOO COUPONS

Whew, you made it through the whole issue. And guess what? It actually pays to scroll this far down.

THE LIBRARYTHING ON THE DOORSTEP!
Between last issue and this one, I joined a great site for book lovers, called LibraryThing -- an online place for you to catalog, share, and discuss your books with others. See my profile at http://www.librarything.com/profile/arnzen and you can snoop around in part of my personal library. (I have even 'tagged' every book I've reviewed in The Goreletter there (look for the tag 'goreletter'), so you can learn more about it.) And guess what? LibraryThing is offering the FIRST TWENTY Goreletter subscribers a free upgrade to an unlimited one year account! All you have to do is go to http://www.librarything.com/ and sign in to create a new FREE (200 book limit) account. Then, if you have more than 200 books you want to add, simply e-mail me the link to your new profile at arnzen@gorelets.com and I'll let them know to upgrade you to the ONE YEAR membership (unlimited books) for free! First come, first served (and limited to new LT memberships only), so get on it now.

Are You FICTIONWISE?
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. This week's specials include futuristic stories by Norman Spinrad, zombie stories by Eric S. Brown, horror by Dean Koontz and an electronic edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Fictionwise is also currently the only way to get some of my out-of-print books, like Paratabloids.
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Category.OutOfPrint

RAW DOG SCREAMS AND SCREAMS AGAIN
Raw Dog Screaming Press is offering $5 off any pre-ordered bundled of Audiovile and 100 Jolts in hardcover, which you can get at this page http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/jolts_hc.html

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2007 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For reprint permissions of individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 36. Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or just add us to your RSS reader: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/

Visit Arnzen's space for pictures, sounds, and doohickeys: http://www.myspace.com/arnzen

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

The Petting Zoophobia

"In an aversion to animals the predominant feeling is fear of being recognized by them through contact. The horror that stirs deep in man is an obscure awareness that in him something lives so akin to the animal that it might be recognized. All disgust is originally disgust at touching."
-- Walter Benjamin (died 1940)

========================

The Goreletter 4.03: Introducing MyBlade

2007-02-11T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 4.03, Feb 11, 2007 +++
========================
THE NEW GORELETS.COM

I have finally overhauled gorelets.com. It was time to rearrange the furniture. I'm still doing some heavy lifting, but please drop by and take a look around. You'll bump into a few kinks, and some old things have been relegated to the morgue, but you'll find lots of fun new pages to check out, especially the "Creations" page. New free excerpts of my writing will appear in the bibliography alongside links to older work archived elsewhere online. And I'm sorting through my old photos to find fun/weird things to post in the new gallery.

========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Introducing MyBlade

Thank you for coming out tonight, to this momentous occasion. I'm here to introduce you to a breakthrough technology, one that will change the very way you live your life.

It's called MyBlade.

And this fantastic device is literally on the cutting edge.

MyBlade is the world's first electronic knife. You heard me right. This is no mere "electric" knife simply intended to carve your way through a tough turkey. It can do that, true, and more! But no, MyBlade is not electric. MyBlade is electronic. Inside its handle is a 3.4gHz microcomputer with 8 Gigabytes of memory and a wireless network card interfacing directly with a 16-inch stainless steel surgical-quality blade.

MyBlade will entirely change the way you slice, dice, chop and fillet.

Intrigued? Let me tell you all about it.

The "brain" of MyBlade allows any chef, camper, or craftsman to set the slicing speed at just the right level -- from a slow-saw that carves so gently it massages -- to a rapid cutting motion that puts conventional chainsaws to shame. I'm talking up to 30,000 slices per second, more than the naked eye can see, even up close.

MyBlade can either heat or cool the steel to a temperature you select -- or it can recommend just the right level of heat for what it's about to cut. Your cold cuts can truly be cold, if you like. Or you can you can treat yourself to a hot pot roast sandwich with only raw beef and a loaf of bread. MyBlade is the first cutting instrument to actually cook the very meat it slices, as it slices it!

And if you happen to somehow cut yourself or someone else, you won't need to worry about dialing 911. The wound will instantly be cauterized!

But yes, even if you still want to dial 911, it can do that for you, too. Did I mention that MyBlade is wireless? And networked? Indeed, it is always online and can easily be used as a phone, a pager, a web browser, a weather station, an emergency medication alert and an IM communication center. You can throw away your cell phone. The metal blade can receive vibrations from your voice and the handle has an earpiece you can use as either a speakerphone or a private line. You simply need to hold it correctly.

It's an amazing communication device. But MyBlade is still, ultimately, a knife. The greatest piece of cutlery ever invented. It will cut on demand or your money back.

MyBlade is entirely self-cleaning and self-oiling. MyBlade even automatically detects if its edges are dull -- and it self-sharpens while it rests in its charging bay.

MyBlade has a brain that can be voice-activated. It can be remote controlled, or operated with an internet browser from your office. Prepare your dinner while you're still at work!

Or if you like to do it yourself, you can listen to over 1000 songs while you chop, sheer...or even shave!

Amazed?

And that's only a small segment of what MyBlade can do. I haven't even mentioned it's main breakthrough, one only made possible by the invention of something so remarkably unique as MyBlade.

Sonic slicing. And sonic slicing will revolutionize the way you literally make cuts.

The speed of MyBlade is so fast that its subsonic frequencies literally spread the molecules around it.

We could have stopped there, but we didn't.

MyBlade also records sounds while it slices, saving unique sonic footprints that only MyBlade itself can hear. This is cutting up close -- closer than its ever been before. Press the silver button on its grip, and you can save every chop, hack, and stab you make to the copious mp3 storage drive built inside its form-fitting handle.

Cut a sandwich or cut a track -- the choice is yours. It is the first musical instrument of its kind, and butchers around the world have already begun composing some amazing new music. You can hear them -- and join them by sharing your own cuts -- online at the knife's hone page.

Did I say hone page? I meant home page. And MyBlade logs on instantly, BladeCasting to the world.

Still not sold?

Well, let me demonstrate. Here, put these MyEar phones in your ears.

Now give me your arm.

Don't worry. MyBlade cauterizes. And trust me, MyBlade is faster than you'll believe.

That's right, go ahead and sing along. We're BladeCasting live.

And it's MyArm now.

***
Note: I was going to call MyBlade an iBlade, but someone beat me to it! See this AMAZING apple peeler with an attitude for yourself at this Mac-lover forum: http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macdesign/iBlade.html

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Overpopulation Anxieties of the 70s

For your next movie night, rent:
Z.P.G. (Campus, 1972)
Soylent Green (Fleischer, 1973)
Logan's Run (Anderson, 1976)

========================
CORPSE CONTEST: WIN A DVD OF EXQUISITE CORPSE!

Jim Minton Design Studio [ http://www.mintondesign.com ] is kindly sponsoring a poetry contest for Goreletter subscribers only, in which you can win a free DVD of Exquisite Corpse [ http://www.exquisitecorpsemovie.com ]. This film is currently not for sale, and most people can only see it at film festivals in the year to come. Here's your exclusive chance to have your own personal copy!

To enter, here are the rules.

+ Write a short horror poem no longer than eleven lines, creatively involving HORROR CINEMA.
+ The words "EXQUISITE" and "CORPSE" must appear somewhere -- anywhere -- in the poem.
+ The poem must end with two lines that rhyme (a rhyming couplet) but free verse is otherwise highly encouraged.
+ Do not submit previously written or published work. Do not submit work not written by you. Only one entry per person.
+ You must be an e-mail subscriber to The Goreletter to enter [ http://www.gorelets.com ]. The top entries will be published online and in a future issue of The Goreletter. Submit to the contest understanding that your work may be published one-time online, and that you alone will be held accountable for all matters of copyright.
+ The contest will be judged by Michael Arnzen. E-mail your entry to gorelets@gorelets.com with the subject line "corpse contest"
+ Deadline: April 1st, 2007.

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

+++ AUDIOVILE: UPCOMING AUDIOBOOK
I'm thrilled to finally announce that in Spring 2007, Raw Dog Screaming Press will be releasing an audio companion to my book, 100 Jolts, called Audiovile. I love the way the publisher describes it, so I'll let their catalog page speak for itself: "Audiovile is Michael Arnzen at his weirdest and, well, most vile. Known for his entertaining and over-the-top readings he now takes it one step further with the addition of some musical madness. This is not so much an audio book as it is an album of flash fiction, a truly unique experience. Most of the 16 tracks are taken from the ground-breaking short story collection 100 Jolts but the CD also includes some new material."

It's VERY different and I guarantee you'll be surprised! Audiovile is due from RDSP sometime this Spring. Visit this page on my website to learn more or to download an advanced excerpt:
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Multimedia.Audiovile

+++ ON WRITING HORROR
The book, On Writing Horror, is among the best "how-to" books for writers working in the genre of fear, and a newly revised edition has just been published. Any writer who hopes to terrify their readers should pick up a copy of this newly updated edition of the classic textbook in writing and marketing horror fiction. Written by members of the Horror Writer's Association (contributors include Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, David Morrell, Harlan Ellison, Jack Ketchum, Tom Piccirilli and many more!), the book covers a surprisingly wide range of issues with insight -- from how to craft monster stories that creep into the reader's nightmares to how to generate innovative works that redefine the genre itself. It also includes a savvy section on the horror market, education, and other resources for the aspiring writer. I contributed a new article about horror in academia, called "Degrees of Dread," that talks about how to combine an interest in horror with college studies and goi
ng after your MFA.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582974209/

+++ DISSECTIONS
This new "Journal of Contemporary Horror" just went live, and it features a number of academic articles about my experiments at gorelets.com. I also contributed an essay on the "New Media Tie-In." The more academic among you might find it of interest: http://www.simegen.com/writers/dissections/

+++ LICKER
LICKER -- my comedic horror novelette about a boy with a hallucinogenic tongue -- made the 2006 "top-selling softcover books of the year" list (#8) at Shocklines Bookstore. Thanks to all of you sickos who bought it, and thanks to Novello Publishers for disseminating such a strange, strange tale. I think Licker is almost sold out, but a few copies might still be left of this limited edition freakfest at Shocklines Bookstore or Bad Moon Books:
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/linobymiaarb.html
http://badmoonbooks.com/product.php?productid=736&cat=0&page=1

+++ AMAZON BLOG
I've decided to stop using the author blog feature at amazon.com. I don't like the way it crowds out the book pages that it appears on, and I found out that some spammer copied text out of it and used it in their spam...and I hate that. So I've deleted entries from the amazon blog for now...but perhaps my "dismembered hand" will take questions elsewhere in the near future.

+++ MORE MORE MORE
+ This month I'll be the featured poet, and interviewed, in the new Doorways Magazine: http://www.doorwaysmagazine.com
+ Look for my comedic fantasy story, "The Filling," in the awesome anthology, Until Someone Loses an Eye, coming soon from Twisted Publishing. The table of contents was just posted to: http://www.bradfordhousepublishing.com/loseeye.htm
+ I'm excited to report that, later this year, a full-length collection of the best short works from my career so far, called Proverbs for Monsters, will be published by Dark Regions Press: http://www.darkregions.com
+ This Fall, a new limited edition fiction chapbook called "The B*tchfight" will be coming out from Bad Moon Books. See the coupon elsewhere in the newsletter: http://www.badmoonbooks.com

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Gourmets of the Grotesque

Weird Meat
http://weirdmeat.com/

Steve, Don't Eat It!
http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php

Rude Food
http://www.dazbert.co.uk/sites/rudefood/

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

The Fall Down the Stairs
of the House of Usher

When I push her down the stairs
she swims in the air for a moment
like we're dancing
and I play a little song in my head
to accompany it
before the erratic thud of her skull
against the steps
breaks my waltzing daydream
with its own offbeat tempo
and I hear another voice sing
as I stumble forward

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Surreal Flights: High and Low

While surfing the web looking for online games that involve clubbing baby seals and other juvenile diversions of that ilk, I somehow stumbled across a delightfully gentle and whimsically surreal game -- "Fly Guy" by Trevor Van Meter. It involves an ordinary bloke standing at a bus stop, who spontaneously develops the ability to fly, and zips off into the sky. You steer "Fly Guy" around in the heavens (and if you can figure it out, outer space!), interacting with various floating oddities just to see what they'll do with (or to) him, trying to avoid getting shot back down to reality. It's a simple, serene, light-hearted touch of irreality, artfully done.

http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/

Oh, okay, from the sublime to the ridiculous. In Operation Thule you can club seals, bash hippies, and get impaled by falling icicles while being cursed at in Danish. It's worse than crass, but nonetheless surreal in its own way. (Click on "Start Spil" to begin).

http://www.dr.dk/spil/dolph/

========================
ARNZEN APPEARANCES

March 14-18th | ICFA-28 | Ft. Lauderdale, FL
This year's International Conference for the Fantastic includes a screening and panel discussion of Exquisite Corpse; Arnzen will also be reading with Peter Straub and Ellen Kleges, and also delivering a paper on Stephen King's "Trucks."
http://www.iafa.org/

March 29-April 1 | World Horror Convention | Toronto, Canada
World Horror Convention promises to be truly international this year. Programming is currently tba, but I typically deliver a reading, sit on a panel or three, and, well, hang out at the bar.
http://whc2007.org/

July 5-6 | Odyssey Fantasy Workshop | Mt. Vernon, NH
Arnzen will be a Guest Lecturer at this notable workshop for writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Other guests this year include Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Elizabeth Hand, John Clute, George Scithers, and other great writers.
http://www.sff.net/odyssey/

Sept 28-30 | Context 20 | Columbus, OH
Arnzen will be the "Horror Guest of Honor" at this literary convention held annually in Ohio!
http://s187772641.onlinehome.us/

========================
TRIVIA CONTEST: WIN A RARE BROADSIDE!

Brian Keene (author of The Rising and Ghoul) keeps an excellent weblog at http://hailsaten.blogspot.com. In a recent post, he discusses the way the horror community found a place to gather on the internet, just as the "boom" of horror paperback fiction was dying off in the 1990s. His memoir brought back a lot of memories for me.

One of those memories is very geeky, but since I've been working on the web a lot this month, it's pertinent. Gorelets.com was not my first web page. When I was in graduate school (1992-1999), the web was rising in popularity, but still relatively new and unexplored. At the University of Oregon, we were encouraged to experiment with the internet as a research and teaching tool, and we were given free web space if we wanted it. One of the things I did with that space was design an early horror-oriented web page in 1995, one that pointed to all the resources online I could find that had anything to do with the horror genre. It was rudimentary, but I learned a lot by doing it and the site was lucky enough to even get one of those "Best Sites of the Day" accolades from Netscape. Some published references (like Stanley Wiater's book, Dark Thoughts) even cited it as a notable website in the horror genre.

Maybe some of you remember it, but I'm betting a lot of you don't. Maybe some traces of it are still available online, but maybe not. This is all QUITE trivial, I assure you. So I thought I'd make a trivia contest about it.

E-mail me the full title of my first web site, accurately spelled, along with your postal address, to gorelets@gorelets.com. Put "broadside contest" in the subject line and you'll be entered into a random drawing for the following prize (one winner only):

* A rare signed broadside (a nicely-designed poem on a fancy sheet of paper) of "Six Short Films About Chauncey the Serial Killer." I made only twenty-five of these broadsides as a gift to all the creators involved in making the film, Exquisite Corpse. Only a few extras were left over -- and you can win one!
* A signed poster for the film, Exquisite Corpse.
* A free signed copy of a book of your choice: Fluid Mosaic, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems, or Licker.
* A self-made audio CD (burned CD-R) with three excerpts from Audiovile on it.

========================
DICTIONSCARY

gibbous

Nope: this adjective has absolutely nothing to do with Barry Gibb, though it may be associated with a "night fever" of another kind, since the term is often used to describe the moon. A "gibbous moon" is what you call it when the lunar disc is more than halfway illuminated, but not yet full. It is the "pregnant moon" -- the one that frustrates werewolves and geeky lunar eclipse aficionados everywhere.

"Gibbous" also more generally describes an oddly convex shape, a lumpy bulge...anything grotesquely tumescent or otherwise odd-shaped and resembling the head of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. Gibbous comes from the Latin word "gibbus" which literally means "hump" and the term has been employed to malign hunchbacks by foppish aesthetes everywhere since the 18th century. I hereby propose we deem Wednesday of the work week "Gibbous Day" (instead of the colloquial "Hump Day," which always sounds nastier than it ever is).

Of course, in "first person shooter" games, any splort of blood or flesh blown off a person's face is called a "gib"...but this term likely comes from "giblet," not "gibbous," as any chicken farmer who has read his HP Lovecraft certainly would know.

http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/gibbous
http://www.consultsos.com/pandora/gibbus.htm
http://www.barrygibb.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibs

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ What does the moon say to the lycanthrope? Write a monologue.
+ A wife suspects her husband is a serial killer when he's not. Script their argument one night when he comes home late from work.
+ Torture a competitive eater. Don't use hot dogs.

***
If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I'll mention it here!

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

Screaming in Code

Have you ever read Thomas Wiloch? If not, maybe you should. Don't just take my word for it. Thomas Ligotti says Wiloch is writing "what deserve to be included among the best prose poems ever written in any language." And like Ligotti, Wiloch has been quietly working away in relative obscurity in his own "niche" for two decades, developing a one-of-a-kind approach to a form he almost entirely owns. Wiloch writes surrealist short-short pieces, often no longer than a page long, that are as philosophical as they are whimsical, as clever as they are poetic, and as disturbing as they are intelligent -- easy to read prose-poems and vignettes that pull language together as tight as a pirate's knot on an iron anchor.

We don't see books by Thomas Wiloch very often, but his latest book, Screaming in Code, is a great introduction to what he's all about, enhanced with whimsical photo-collages generously contributed by the author himself on virtually every page. It's a slim chapbook, 58 pages perfect bound, printed nicely with a glossy color cover (whose only flaw, perhaps, is the thin paper stock used for the book cover). If you're a fan of flash fiction, short-shorts, or prose poems, you'll like what Wiloch is screaming (though often with a tongue in cheek or with a gentle whisper).

Screaming in Code assembles 35 new pieces by Wiloch, launching off with the clever instructional guide, "How to Read this Book" -- a brief and comedic introduction which parodies the label commonly found on those little brown medicine bottles. Its warning ("Do not exceed 8 prose poems in 24 hours or read for more than 10 days") suggests that these capsules of fiction are not to be popped like pills, but savored like everlasting hard candies. If not, Wiloch writes, then "In case of accidental overdose, take a warm TV show to induce vomiting." Writers often take easy jabs at television, but in this playful short parody (whose ending I've unfortunately given away) makes a poignant meta-comment about how Wiloch sees his art, pulling in big topics like education, mass culture and media literacy along the way, all in less than seventy-five words. This clever opener both acknowledges and dispenses with any notion that these stories are designed for "short attention span" reading
; they are deceptively easy to consume, and sadly, we do need to be taught how to read work like this because it's become so unfamiliar to today's media saturated audiences.

If I'm reading too much into this one piece, it's because many of the stories in Screaming in Code seem only to be whimsically humorous musings upon first read, but upon re-reading, their deeper existential messages and subversive literary meanings creep up on you. In my favorite in the book, "Tell Me I'm Wrong," we listen to a narrator making an argument that gets more and more disturbing (and yet funny) as it develops, beginning with a very scientific hypothesis (that the human body is not composed mostly of water, but of atoms and orbiting particles...in other words, mostly nothing)...and then precedes to use this logic to plead his innocence in a crime. I don't want to say more, because I'd give the whole thing away, but it's a brilliant twist of logic and language that made me laugh, made me nod, and made me wish I'd written such an ingenious little story. Most of the stories in Screaming in Code got the same reaction out of me. And the ideas stuck with me for so lon
g after I'd read them that days later I'd return to the book and read them again, encountering nuances I hadn't realized were there lurking in the writing all along.

In "The Performers," we're told about all the strange plans a performance artist has for a bowl of blood, only to learn about another artist's even darker intentions. In "The Corpse Who Went for a Walk," we get a little anecdote about a dead body who cavalierly pays a visit to a convenience store to get "some air freshener...maybe a couple of magazines" only to have the tables turned on him. In "Tiny White Skulls" we're given a catalog of all the fun uses that human bone can be put to. These are horror stories as much as they are absurdist parables. All of them are no longer than they need to be. All of them are brilliant.

The title, Screaming in Code, suggests that the book might be a work of cyberpunk, but it's probably more accurate to say this book is about existential horror: the title is a statement about the limits of language, and how we struggle to connect and communicate in a world where, really, the only thing that passes between us is letters, digits, symbols, and code. Writers like Wiloch don't just scream in code -- they bathe in it like a performance artist with a peculiar bowl of blood -- and if they seem to be screaming, it's not so much in caution as it is so that you'll pay more attention to the meanings it harbors and the mysteries it holds.

Maybe we should be paying more attention to Thomas Wiloch, too. Because he is certainly paying attention to us.

Screaming in Code is a mere $8 from Naked Snake Press or Shocklines Bookstore. If you enjoyed 100 Jolts, you'll dig it immensely.
http://www.nakedsnakepress.com
http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/scincobythwi.html

========================
BOO COUPONS

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

SHOCKLINES LIGHTS UP
Get a $7 discount on the fantastic anthology from Cemetery Dance Books, Poe's Lighthouse! Edited by Christopher Conlon, this wonderful collection of popular writers "riffing" on an unfinished fragment by Edgar Allan Poe is an amazing read. My tale, "The Dead Lantern" is in there, alongside greats like Gary Braunbeck, Mort Castle, Tim Lebbon and more! Just enter the code POEGORE7 when you check out, after shopping from Shocklines.com. Expires March 30th:
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/poliedbychco.html

A BAD MOON IS RISING
This Fall, Bad Moon Books is publishing a story I've written called "The B**chFight" in a fine, limited chapbook. You can get FREE SHIPPING from Bad Moon Books if you e-mail proprietor Roy K. Robbins at [royrobbins@sbcglobal.net] and request to be added to his pre-order mailing list! Bad Moon has all sorts of great titles and just launched a new line of limited edition titles, beginning with Weston Ochse's wild pulp story, "Outlaw Vampires of the Milky Way." Check 'em out here:
http://www.badmoonbooks.com

RAW DOG SCREAMS AND SCREAMS AGAIN
Purchase both of Ronald Damien Malfi's novels Via Dolorosa and The Fall of Never together for a total of $40 (shipping included) with this link: http://tinyurl.com/3exy9l. Sorry, this amazing $20 discount is only available for US shipping addresses.

Are You FICTIONWISE?
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. Fictionwise is currently the only way to get some of my out-of-print books, like Paratabloids.
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/
http://www.gorelets.com/biowiki/index.php?n=Category.OutOfPrint

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2007 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For reprint permissions of individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 35. Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or just add us to your RSS reader: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

You Still Have to Take the Final

"All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing."
-- Maurice Maeterlinck (died 1949)

========================

The Goreletter 4.02: The Wink of the Cyclops

2006-09-01T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 4.02, Sept 21, 2006 +++
========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Why it Sucks to be a Cyclops

+ The giant monocle seldom looks flattering.
+ The forehead horn is completely worthless. It just gets in the way, actually.
+ The loss of depth perception makes it hard to know just where to bite when feasting on live meat.
+ No one gets it when you wink at them.
+ The eye chart at the optometrist's office is really an "eyes chart." Not that you can read. But still.
+ The insensitive slurs from the two-eyed community ("myopic," "short-sighted," etc.) are never-ending.
+ Only Siamese twins get to look cross-eyed.
+ The giant single eyeball only assists the archer's aim.
+ The pirate's patch fools no one.
+ Cartoons have filled the children you eat with all sort of false assumptions about how you do so. (However, this can be a benefit, if you have the right Cyclopean attitude).
+ If you lose a contact, you're doomed.
+ The Encyclopedia has been replaced by the Wikipedia.

[Thanks to Karissa Kilgore for inspiring this month's Blather by pointing me to the real-world freakcidents at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopia ]

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

+++ LICKER
To be published in a limited edition of 150 paperback copies by Novello Publishers, LICKER is a new comedic horror novelette about a boy with a hallucinogenic tongue...and the strange people who want a taste of the action.

In an early review, Horror World calls it an "over-the-top, gross-out laugh riot....Arnzen clearly had a lot of fun in trying to outdo himself, from the very first paragraph all the way to the last." Peter Straub says it's "Beyond over the top...Licker violates every possible notion of good taste, gleefully, and the result is an optimistic graveyard fandango." And D. Harlan Wilson writes, "Mike Arnzen is the chicest, craftiest horror writer in the Biz, and Licker is among the best in his library. Devilish, bizarre and irreverent, this book has everything: an insatiable plot, fingerlicking prose, and characters who will eat your heart out with a wooden spoon! Arnzen has imagination pouring out of every orifice."

This is, bar none, the WEIRDEST thing I've ever written, and I blush to admit I laughed out loud even when I proofread the thing. The cover art alone will disturb you. Definitely not for the squeamish. Definitely freaky.

The book includes a bonus flash fiction story, an introduction by Jeff Strand, and more. Want a lick? Licker will be shipping on Halloween. But it is now available for preorder from Shocklines.com -- the only place selling signed copies -- for just $10. (In fact, I'm happy to report the book was a Shocklines bestseller when it was first announced!)
Visit Shocklines Bookstore http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/linobymiaarb.html
or see Novello Publishers http://www.novellopublishers.com/licker.html

And be sure to come visit me at the online launch party for Licker at "The Lost and the Damned" chat rooms on Thursday, Oct 19 @ 10pm Eastern Time http://lostdamned.com/chat.htm

+++ EXQUISITE CORPSE
Big news. This weekend, the first film adaptation of my work, Exquisite Corpse, will premiere in the Short Film Showcase at FantasyCon in the UK! Exquisite Corpse is a compilation of eleven short-short movies by an international group of filmmakers, inspired by my poetry and a selection of stories from 100 Jolts. Producer and director Jim Minton did a fantastic job coordinating this artful and chilling movie, which features such talents as Mike Bohatch, Can Yildirim, Michael Mourocade, and too many more to mention here. You can learn all about this exciting art film and preview it on the web here: http://www.exquisitecorpsemovie.com The movie is NOT available to purchase on DVD at this time; presently, you can only see it at film festivals, conventions, and contests to be announced. Exquisite Corpse has a myspace page which will be updated with screening events as they are arranged...and it wants to be your friend! http://www.myspace.com/exquisitecorpsemovie

+++ ANTHOS & MAGS
You can find my latest weird writing in the following anthologies and magazines, just published:
"Blasphemebus" in THOU SHALT NOT: http://www.darkcloudpress.com/Buy_Thou_Shalt_Not.htm
"Degrees of Dread" in ON WRITING HORROR: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582974209/
"Help Yourself" in CEMETERY DANCE #55: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/_cd055
"The Dead Lantern" in POE'S LIGHTHOUSE: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/conlon01
"E-Book Mistakes I've Made" in GILA QUEEN: http://gilaqueen.us/
"Those Who Landed, Surprised That Zombies Had Overtaken the Planet" in THE 2006 RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY: http://www.sfpoetry.com/rhysling.html

+++ HONORED, HUMBLED, HUBRIS
The muse caressed me this year. Not only did I receive the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Poetry Collection in June (for my book Freakcidents), but my short poem from Dreams & Nightmares magazine last year -- "Those Who Landed, Surprised That Zombies Had Overtaken the Planet" -- was also a nominee for the Science Fiction Poetry Association's annual "Rhysling" Award for best short speculative poem and also received an "Honorable Mention" nod in the latest edition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. If you want to read these titles, you can still get my zombie poetry collection, Rigormarole, from Shocklines Bookstore, along with Freakcidents, if you like. (I believe there might be a FEW of the collector's hardcover editions of Freakcidents still available!)
Rigormarole: http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/ripobymiarbi.html
Freakcidents softcover: http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/freaksursidb.html
Freakcidents hardcover: http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/freaksursidb2.html
Bram Stoker Award acceptance speech for Freakcidents: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/Arnzen-StokerAcceptance-2006.htm

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Roasted Peanuts

Robot Chicken's "The Time of the Great Pumpkin"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=M962jbHbgsA

MadTV's "South Parknuts"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0fDq-e__lEo

Raymond J. Dartsch's "Rest in Peace, Charlie Brown"
http://www.gke.on.ca/ripeanuts/front.htm

Jim Reardon's "Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown"
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2668909?htv=12

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

curse of the hempire

hippie vampires look the worst
because they refuse to Lugosi
their hair back with pomade;
they sit cross-legged beside their
broken coffins and tie-dye
their funeral garb into spirographic florals
of mold and mud, tripping on homegrown
shockwhite graveyard mushrooms,
believing they're good vegetarians
until the thirst for human blood
animates their groovy shambling
and like stoned-out stone-cold soldiers
they hunt hungry for a feast of friends;
"make blood, not war," some cry and
they bite men in the spirit of free love --
their undead heads slurping in shadows
that no longer see summer or sunshine
forever young

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

MONSTROUS TREES

For your next movie night, rent:
From Hell it Came (Milner, 1957)
The Grandmother (Lynch, 1970)
Little Otik (Otesanek) (Svankmajer, 2000)

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Rock and Roll Apocalypse

Here's some wacky nonsense that for some inexplicable reason addicted me for hours. The idea is to restore the fabric of space and time -- and heavy metal itself -- by swinging a strange swinging object around a series of constellations before the universe implodes. The opening introduction is not to be missed and I dare say this crazy game is quite a challenge!

http://www.ridiculopathy.com/crappy_flash_games.php?gamename=swinger2

This ridiculopathic treatment is brought to you courtesy of humorist Mark Arenz. Check out his funny site at http://www.ridiculopathy.com/

[This game requires the Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Player. Installed automatically as a browser plug in at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash). If you haven't updated your Flash Player in awhile, now might be the time to do it.]

========================
ARNZEN APPEARANCES

September 23 | FantasyCon | Nottingham, UK
EXQUISITE CORPSE PREMIERE. While I won't be there in person, if you're attending the British Fantasy Society's annual FantasyCon, be sure to attend the Short Film Showcase! You'll not only catch the premiere screening of Exquisite Corpse, but also be able to see short films adapted from writers like Rick Hautala, David Silva, and more. Also includes "Hellraiser" fan films! Definitely a worthwhile event!
http://www.fantasycon.org.uk/ and http://www.purplerage.co.uk/horror/bfs_sfs06.htm

October 19 @ 10pm Eastern Time | ONLINE CHAT
LICKER LAUNCH PARTY. Chat with me online at "The Lost and the Damned" discussion boards. Win book prizes. Laugh out loud. Emote weirdly. Whatever. http://lostdamned.com/chat.htm

PLANS FOR 2007:
March 14-18th | ICFA-28 | Ft. Lauderdale, FL
http://www.iafa.org/
March 29-April 1 | World Horror Convention | Toronto, Canada
http://whc2007.org/
July 5-6 | Odyssey Fantasy Workshop | Mt. Vernon, NH
Guest Lecturer
http://www.sff.net/odyssey/

========================
DICTIONSCARY

lugubrious

Though you're likely to drool when you pronounce the word carefully, the term "lugubrious" doesn't have as much to do with loogies, goo, grubs, or brie as you might assume. "Lugubrious" describes maudlin mourning, exaggerated sorrow, excessive gloominess...or simply the emotional state of mankind in the year 2006. It should be an emo metal band; I'd like to see Lugubrious written in drippy letters on a soiled black t-shirt. "Bela Lugubrious" would also make a good title for either a Bauhaus song or a splatterporn actor. And anyone named Lou Gubrias should sue his parents for libel.

http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/lugubrious

========================
BONUS ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

50 Hidden Horrors That Melt in Your Hand

Here's an extra online game for this issue that you might find fun...and more challenging than you'll expect!

http://us.mms.com/us/dark/

M&M's Dark Chocolate wants to test your movie knowledge in a clever and artful way.

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Dramatize an electroshock therapy session in second person, future tense.
+ Sketch a humorous conversation involving the devil's accountant.
+ Adapt the features and traits of any cartoon character into a "real" creature or man, exploring the freakish results. (e.g. What would a "Spongebob Squarepants" creature >really< be like, if living flesh in the real world? Write it out, obliterating the original reference to the cartoon in the process.)
***
If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I'll mention here next issue!

========================
CONGRATULATIONS

Last issue, The Goreletter held two contests. Congratulations to Ron Breznay, who won a free deck of the rare Play Dead-inspired playing cards for sending in the wildest interview question for my amazon.com weblog.

Ron asked, "If you could be a corpse, which corpse would you be?" Trick question! To read my dodgy answer, visit my amazon blog at http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A323GTX50R4CH5/

The "SpamINot" contest produced two winners -- Craig Clarke and Tracy Mowdy -- who won a large batch of prizes for sending in winning guesses just hours after the issue was mailed. The "spaminot" contest asked readers to guess which of the following phrases was NOT a real spam header I received in my inbox: aggressive mannequin, be decomposable, cuddle grime, diabolical meathead, drive by grimace, efficiency nose ring, goth seniority, grandmamma warlock, medication madhouse, open face surgery, sanity immersion, toucan retardation, and undeliverable baby. (Can you believe the sick ingenuity of spammers?). The made-up phrase was "diabolical meathead." Guess I wasn't so diabolical after all. Congrats again to the winners and keep reading The Goreletter for new contests in the near future!

Please feel free to drop a comment on my amazon blog when you get the chance, folks. http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A323GTX50R4CH5/

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

A Troika of Weirdness

I've been dying to get the word out about three intriguing (and vastly different) titles before they fall off the literary radar.

First up is John Edward Lawson's new poetry collection, The Troublesome Amputee. I wrote the introduction to this book, which I have to say is one of the weirdest and goriest collections of literary poetry I've ever read. Lawson, a writer at the forefront of the "bizarro" movement, really comes of age as a poet in this collection, which features topics ranging from the most successful scatological poem I've ever read (a piece about zombies tongues that travel in the sewers ("Will Work for Food")) to an ingenious catalog of the ugly side of famous comic book super heroes ("Marvels of Horror"). At turns audacious, at others hilarious -- and always surprisingly inventive -- this book really disturbed and disgusted me in that creepy way that I like so much. And that's saying a lot. The Troublesome Amputee is a generous collection of Lawson's work, clocking in at 96 pages, and revealing a wide range of poetic talent. If you're truly looking for something different, get this trade
paperback book for $8.95 from Raw Dog Screaming Press here: http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/

I love fast-paced, well-plotted psychological thrillers, but nothing prepared me for the one-two punch of Jeff Strand's remarkably tight new novel, Pressure. This book goes places I wish more thrillers would go: into the dark and twisted pathways of the mind, exploring the boundaries of what we take for consensus reality. Strand -- known primarily as a humorist -- here takes off the funny gloves to deliver a fatal body blow with all seriousness. Pressure is essentially about the tension between two childhood friends, as one of them turns increasingly, morbidly...different. And yet the bond remains, even as Strand ratchets up the dread and things seriously take a turn for the worse. You can't help but identify with the very human protagonist and his escalating trouble with his old friend in this story. It's a great example of the "edgy" thriller, one in which the lines between the moral and the taboo, the innocent and the guilty, are always palpably felt in the emotional roll
ercoaster ride of the story. The writing is sharp -- surgical sharp -- and the pace is pitch perfect. I loved it. Get your quality hardcover edition right away from Earthling Publications [ http://www.earthlingpub.com/ ] or visit the nifty Pressure website here: http://www.pressurenovel.com/

Finally, I want to recommend an offbeat book that's a year old, and probably a flash in the pan of the literary scene, but one that in my opinion should not be overlooked. A lot of people I know enjoy Tom Robbins' quirky novels (like Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, or Jitterbug Perfume) for their wild play with language and humorous, whimsical approach to the universe they create. In this book, Wild Ducks Flying Backward: The Short Writings of Tom Robbins, you get what you love about Robbins but in an unusual presentation, along with many welcome and refreshing surprises. The book is really just a collection of ephemera, featuring batches of travel essays, tributes to celebrities, critiques, short-shorts, poems, song lyrics and interview responses -- mostly reprints culled from a wide variety of magazine publications that you might not have read before or cared about. I didn't expect to really give a darn about Robbins' opinion of, say, Jennifer Jason Leigh, or, say, his musings

during a visit to an antiques shop in Montana, but after the first sentence of each piece in this book I couldn't stop reading. His love of language perpetually won me over -- it's contagious and fascinating -- and even when I found myself disagreeing with his politics or his treatment of women, I still found myself laughing or subscribing to his idealism. It's as though he realizes that these short essays are not as heavy with significance as his (already rather "light") novels, so he simply enjoys the wordplay and the whimsical musing for its own sake. Although there is very little horror in this book, some of the pieces do have a dark side, and I think it's fair to claim that Robbins is a fantasist. There's plenty of dark stuff to be found in the lyrics of "Honky Tonk Astronaut" or the poem, "Triplets" (with lines like, "I went to Satan's house./It was supposed to be an Amway party./I wanted one of those hard as hell steak knives.") And if you enjoy my "Blather" department
in The Goreletter, I have a strong feeling you'll be entertained by this book (I mean, one entry in Wild Ducks is simply dedicated to Robbins' love of the letter Z, for crying out loud). Wild Ducks Flying Backward was published by Bantam in Sept 2005 to a mild reaction by mainstream critics, but even though there is some unevenness to it, I think it's a pretty solid book, thick with think pieces, loaded with laughs. You can find it on amazon.com for under $10 here: http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Ducks-Flying-Backward-Robbins/dp/0553383531

========================
BOO COUPONS

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

THOU SHALT NOT waste a dollar!
Exclusive! Goreletter readers will be the VERY FIRST READERS to receive the new anthology, Thou Shalt Not, when they order it directly from Dark Cloud Press' website. Receive one dollar off the cover price of $17 when you visit the shopping cart on the book's webpage and enter the code "goreletter" (no quotation marks) in the voucher field. Offer good through October 31, 2006: http://www.darkcloudpress.com/Buy_Thou_Shalt_Not.htm

The RAW DOG screams!
For the month of September get a $10 discount on Eyes Everywhere by Matthew Warner. Shipping is free in the US (for international shipping rates please email books@rawdogscreaming.com first). Copy this whole link into your web browser to order directly from Raw Dog Screaming Press: https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dlo444%40aol.com&item_name=Eyes+Everywhere+by+Matthew+Warner+(Promotional+Discount)+&amount=20.00&shipping=5.00&no_shipping=2&no_note=1&tax=0¤cy_code=USD

SHOCKLINES DEALS...
...a wicked Ace of Spades! The 72 copies of the creepy "Grim Grimoire" edition of my novel, Play Dead, sold out before they were even made available for sale. But Shocklines Bookstore found a few copies hiding in their warehouse and are offering them up for sale at a $30 discount! First come, first served here (won't last long!): http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/pldebymiaarb.html

Are You FICTIONWISE?
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. This week features Max Brooks' new zombie novel, World War Z, McSweeney's hilarious Mountain Man Dance Moves, and lots more at a great discount. Search for economical Arnzen titles while you're there, like 100 Jolts or the hard to find Stoker finalist, Paratabloids!
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2006 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged, so long as credit is given to Michael Arnzen or gorelets.com. For reprint permissions of individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Delivered free since Sept. 2002. Issues to date: 34. Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or just add us to your RSS reader: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/
[ New RSS feeds of full issues are available on the archive page here: http://gorelets.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/goreletter/ ]

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend! And if you'd like to link me, you can find bizarre buttons for your website here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

Perspective

"After being struck on the head by an axe, it is a positive pleasure to be beaten about the body with a wooden club." -- Anonymous (Chinese Proverb)

========================

The Goreletter 4.01a: EXTRA!

2006-06-19T12:00:00Z

EXTRA

Arnzen Wins Third Bram Stoker Award!

I'm happy to report that my book of mutant character studies-in-verse, FREAKCIDENTS, has just won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection! This is my third Stoker, and I'm jumping with manic joy. Thanks to all who have sent me kudos, and many thanks to the Horror Writers Association -- this is probably the highest honor for horror literature, and I honestly am humbled to receive it.

You can read a transcript of my acceptance speech on gorelets.com if you are looking for something to help you go to sleep this evening:

http://www.gorelets.com/demos/Arnzen-StokerAcceptance-2006.htm

I don't have any photos, but I'll add links as I find them online. A lot of good books won the award this year. I tied in the Poetry category with Charlee Jacob, for her poetry book, Sineater. Jacob also won for Best Novel with Dread in the Beast (which also tied with David Morrell's great novel, Creepers). Other Stoker winners this year included Gary Braunbeck, Joe Hill, Stephen Jones, Peter Straub, Weston Ochse and more. To learn more about the Bram Stoker Awards, visit the Horror Writers Association at http://www.horror.org

To learn more about Freakcidents, visit publisher Shocklines Press at:
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/shpr.html

*****
CONTEST UPDATE!

We have a winner in the "Play Dead Card Contest"! The contest asked subscribers to pose an interesting interview question for my weblog on amazon.com. The winner is Ron Breznay, who asks:

"If you could be a corpse, which corpse would you be?"

Trick question! To read my dodgy answer, visit my amazon blog at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A323GTX50R4CH5/

Ron wins a free deck of the rare PLAY DEAD-inspired playing cards. Thanks to everyone who sent in groovy questions; I fully intend to answer some more of them, so keep your eyes on that amazon blog. You can always send me a question for the blog if you like, but note that all contests from Goreletter 4.01 are now officially closed.

The "spaminot" contest from Goreletter 4.01 is also already over! We have two very crafty winners! See which phrase I made up and learn who took the prize here:

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/cat_dataerrata.html#015909

*****
LICKER

Positive reviews are already starting to come in for my upcoming novelette about a boy with a freaky tongue, called LICKER, coming out this Fall from Novello Publishing!

Peter Straub (author of In the Night Room and Ghost Story) writes:

"Beyond over the top, LICKER is like splatterpunk with a better sense of humor. If you've ever thought about being locked in a cell with a chuckling madman bent on sexual gratification, this is the book for you. LICKER violates every possible notion of good taste, gleefully, and the result is an optimistic graveyard fandango."

I love it. "Violates...good taste" is right! This is a VERY strange book, and silly fun. Can't wait to share it with you all. Rumor has it that you can pre-order Licker on shocklines.com later this summer. I'll keep you posted.

http://www.novellopublishers.com

*****
THANKS!

Thanks for putting up with this extra announcement! If you're new to The Goreletter, know that I only clog your inbox like this very rarely.
The next issue of The Goreletter will likely be sent in August. The latest issue was mailed on 25/May/2006, so if you didn't receive one check your spam filter box or write me at arnzen@gorelets.com for a resend.

Cheers!

-- Mike Arnzen, http://www.gorelets.com

The Goreletter 4.01: Tender Cuts

2006-05-26T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 4.01, May 26, 2006 +++
========================
BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

The Alpottoir

Take a walk down the pet food aisle, the next time you're at the supermarket. Marvel at the rows of canned meat and bags of hearty pellets -- all those wasted by-products scraped from the slaughterhouse floor and the oily sludge trellises of the fishery, all that scrapple repackaged for consumption by animals who really have no choice in the matter. This is what we've ordained to feed our domesticated beasts. It's a wonder they don't come after us with...well, with tiny little torches and pitchforks.

Take a pensive moment under the fluorescent glare of the pet food aisle to contemplate the fact that you're surrounded by more dead meat than you'd find in some morgues. Try not to imagine all the chopping, carving, slicing, cubing, mashing, and grinding that went into each and every one of those perfectly stacked cans. The chow packets are as bulky as body bags. Don't be fooled: there's nothing "tender" about a "tender cut." There's no gourmet Navy chef at work behind the "Sea Captain's Stew" of salmon guts commingling with cow testicles in a broth of poultry gizzards. Take a whiff -- smell all that yumminess? That's the fine odor of dismemberment, dried and fortified with "more great taste!"

If cats had taste they wouldn't lick themselves clean. If dogs had taste, they wouldn't drool all over my fine carpet.

But I digress. Sometimes it's the dried foods that are the worst of all. They come in all shapes and sizes -- little formed fishies, tiny X's, teensy squares. More than "nine lives" are in them, their bodies stewed together in some giant vat to produce a brown muck that is subsequently formed and baked and bagged. All traces of life are removed and transformed into a magic "formula" that animals would never find in nature, but which pet nutritionists are more than happy to endorse. Imagine pouring milk over your breakfast cereal and spooning up a brown pellet of soggy meat. That's what you're doing to Fido every day, when you're not otherwise teasing him with a dog biscuit that's shaped an awful lot like a skinned human leg bone.

The more you think about these things, the more repulsive they become. But we don't want to think. We want to feel good about spending less on our pets than we do on our own meals, and we want to feel loved for selecting them the fanciest of feasts. But what really creeps me out is the happy little packaging that leads us to believe we're somehow making the right choices. I'm talking about all those picture perfect cats and canines, from the snarky fatcat models like Morris to those dopey-but-lovable Alpo dogs. Like famous athletes on cereal boxes, these are celebrities in the animal kingdom, right? Wrong: Morris would be dead meat in an alley fight and Lassie would get so mauled by the pack she'd single-handedly redefine the meaning of dog biscuits. Even when the animal sponsors are cutely drawn, they're kind of creepy to me. The "Meow Mix" brand logo is, essentially, a dismembered cat, it's alphabet soup of body parts formed into letters that spell the brand name. These hap

py-go-lucky names and slogans don't help. Like, do I really want my animal to be "Friskie"? Couldn't that get me arrested in some states?

No, there's nothing cute and cuddly about the pet food aisle -- all those perfect pet faces on the packages are utterly unnerving. Look at them, lined up in rows and columns like some animal clone army -- gazing up at us, head cocked to one side with unknowable intention, licking the Pavlovian drool from their lips and baring their sharpened, pearly white teeth! It's a nearsighted veterinarian's living nightmare.

And did you ever notice that in every pet package, the animal is smiling? Smiling! Animals do NOT smile! They don't waive hello and say "howdy-do" or "it's grrrreat!" or "hmmm...snuggle!" They snarl and champ and would bite the hand that feeds them if they weren't so preoccupied by the puzzling sound of food pouring into a ceramic dish. Seriously -- the "photoshop tricks" on the pet food packages don't fool me. I can still see that look in their little kitten and puppy dog eyes. And I recognize it. It's the same look you see on Wild Kingdom or Animal Planet, when they show lions tugging a string of bloody muscle from fresh kill. The glint of primal satisfaction from gnawing on all that gamy goodness.

Now, I know there are a lot of "alternative" pet foods that are out there -- from scientifically formulated dietary mixes to "vegetarian" snacks to chocolate covered dog biscuits. But the more that pet food becomes like human food, the more human food becomes like pet food. Most of the prefab stuff you buy at the grocer's is close enough already, thank you very much. And until Fido can pick up the tongs properly, he isn't getting any of my salad.

So I guess we have little choice but to slop it all out in a pretty little dish and leave the stinking dead meat in the open air. It sits there in a puddle in the corner like a torn carcass in the Serengeti, drawing flies. Fluffy comes and goes as she pleases, lapping at the corpse cuttings, happy that her owners have provided her with every morbid morsel.

Mange! And I mean that both ways, carnivores.

And don't even get me started on the TV commercials. Where you see puppies hopping on laps like happy little children, licking their owner's faces, I see wild animals getting a little taste of their prey before the bestial mauling and fanged carnage begins. Dogs love bones. And we are pet food. Don't forget that.

========================
CONTEST: WIN A DECK OF PLAY DEAD CARDS!

Let's start with the prize: the highly collectible, one of a kind deck of cards inspired by my novel, Play Dead. These decks were originally made exclusively for book collectors who purchased the ultra-limited, ultra-creepy sculpture-bound "Grim Grimoire" edition of the book. They feature outrageous bizarro art by Dave Liscomb (for example: hearts that are actually hearts torn from a ribcage, a zombie Elvis for the King of Spades, a Joker that resembles Mike Arnzen) yet still meet all the standards of regular playing cards. You can see what these look like on the Play Dead page at amazon.com or at Raw Dog Screaming Press' website. Rumor has it that the publisher may be selling these decks to fans, but I've got my hands on some extras and I want to deal one out to a lucky Goreletter subscriber and faithful reader.

Here's how to enter: E-mail me a creative interview question you'd like me answer on my new weblog ("talk to the dismembered hand") at amazon.com. One question only please. Be as straightforward or as crazy as you like. Include your name, website, and mailing address for prize delivery. If I choose to answer your question first, you win the deck! My judgment will be purely subjective, based on the question I'd most like to answer, but I won't play favorites. Moreover, any question sent to me may or may not appear in a future amazon blog entry or Goreletter, regardless of remuneration. So deal me your best. Entries must be received by June 10th. Although I'll be posting the rules of this contest on the web, you must be a subscriber to the e-mail edition of the Goreletter (free) to win. Send your question to gorelets@gorelets.com with the subject "Card Contest." That's it!

See elsewhere in this issue of The Goreletter for yet another groovy contest!

========================
WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Crazy Concept Bands

Hatebeak
http://www.reptilianrecords.com/reptilian/hatebeek.html

The Electric Amish
http://www.electricamish.com/

Cookie Mongoloid
http://wearemongoloid.com/cookie/

[Thanks to Bruce Siskawicz and Rick Fleck for suggestions.]

========================
GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

People Repellent: A Flash Fiction

He found the bottle of People Repellent at a health food store. The package was right next to the all-natural bug sprays and fly papers and anti-mosquito incense. It cost $24, emblazoned with a stick figure logo that raised a scrawny arm in a "talk to the hand" gesture. He thought it would make a funny gift for his girlfriend, who always complained about the people in her office, so he blew what was left in his wallet for the novelty spray, along with his usual assortment of herbal extract supplements and offbeat teas.

At home, he started wrapping the gift. He chuckled at the logo on the bottle again, but then found himself questioning his choice. Maybe she would read between the lines and accuse him of calling her anti-social. Or maybe she'd assume that all the gifts in their relationship from that point forward would be juvenile pranks. She might conjure an image of fake doggie doo in her Christmas stocking or a squirt ring surprise during their marriage ceremony, and then quickly remove him from her speed dial.

He didn't want to "repel" his own girlfriend, after all. So he grabbed the bottle and opened the lid of the trashcan. Then something liquid sloshed inside. He shook it. Wondered what it really was made out of. Took a whiff of the sprayer.

It smelled fantastic. Like flowers fountaining inside of other flowers. But it was still musky enough to be called cologne. He decided to try it out. He sprayed People Repellent on his neck, then his arms, then his chest, and then inside the waistband of his jeans...spritzing copiously until he was sure he could keep inhaling it like a floral cloud descended from heaven, floating around his body.

Immediately a number of houseflies stirred inside his trashcan and zoomed up from the refuse to glom onto his flesh. More flying gnits zipped across his house and landed on his skin, fizzling in the still-wet sheen of People Repellent on the back of his neck and on his arms. Mosquitoes followed, whining around his ears before dipping their beaks into their newfound nirvana.

They itched, and he was surprised by just how many flying insects were living in his house, but he also understood what was happening with perfect clarity. He went outside and walked slowly down the sidewalk, heading towards his girlfriend's house just a few blocks away. A thousand thousand more insects joined their brethren on his flesh. His body became a living block party for the local gnats. Moths landed on his eyelids. Honeybees buzzed and nuzzled into his belt line. And people quickly got out of his way.

He was a living coat of writhing wrigglers when he rang her doorbell, waiting to see what kind of person she'd turn out to be. Beneath a mitten of mites, he still clutched the spray bottle in a free hand, which he held behind his back like a lover's bouquet.

***
If you like stories like this, you'd probably enjoy my flash fiction collection, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories
http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/jolts.html

========================
OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Funny Brain Transplants

For your next movie night, rent:
The Man with Two Brains (1983)
MST2K: The Atomic Brain (1997/ aka Monstrosity, 1964)
Man with the Screaming Brain (2005)

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

It Wants You to Eat It

Most free movie-inspired online games are trite gimmicks, and Slither: Hunting Season -- based on James Gunn's 2006 campy horror film, Sliver -- is certainly one of them. But Hunting Season is astonishingly well-made for a simple 3rd person shooter that has you do little more than point and click to shoot at random on-coming targets while offbeat sound bytes from the film randomly play over the speakers. The game puts you, a desperate cop with a rifle, slightly off the center of the screen, generating a sense of helplessness as the camera peers straight down from above in an bird's eye view. The player's job is to keep on the lookout for approaching monster worms, targeting the cop's rifle at them as quickly as possible. As if pinned to the hub of a wheel, you don't get to move. Instead, things come crawling at you -- and the better you are at picking them off, the harder and harder it gets to shoot them all. The game play is excellent, because it truly succeeds in making you

feel "surrounded" by the enemy... which wants to jump in your mouth, wriggle down your throat and infest you with its slimy body. You'll get a gratuitous gore clip when you get killed in the game, which makes the impossible survival of the onslaught sort of worth it. ("What kind of animal WANTS you to eat it?" one sound byte from Slither asks. The answer? Hollywood.)

Bring on the worms: http://www.slithermovie.net/hunting/

This game requires Shockwave Player (installed automatically as a browser plug in at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download). It may also require a fast internet connection and a decent graphics card in your computer, because the design is competitive with most modern shooting games of the PC.

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

Bullet points of bravura:

+ My crazy mutant freakshow of a book, Freakcidents (Shocklines Press, 2005), is presently a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection! Congratulations to all the Bram Stoker Award Nominees, especially my fellow poet nominees: Gary Crawford, Dan Shields, and Charlee Jacob. Shocklines is offering a sweet 30% off deal (on TOP of a great buy one-get one free offer) that you really should take advantage of if you haven't read Freakcidents yet: http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/freaksursidb.html And to see the complete list of Bram Stoker Award Nominees, visit this page to see what books you should be reading! http://www.horror.org/stokerballots.htm

+ Exquisite Corpse -- a compilation of short films responding to my poetry -- is coming along swiftly. The website isn't up yet, but it is likely to appear at http://www.exquisitecorpsemovie.com any day now. I've seen an advanced look at the DVD cover sleeve and a few snippets from the film. Keep your eyes on my weblog for more about this one: this is going to be VERY COOL! You can get a sneak peek at the theater poster for Exquisite Corpse on my weblog here: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/cat_arnzen_news.html#015903

+ Look for the hilarious interview, "Michael Arnzen Walks the Plank," on fantasy author Jeff Vandermeer's weblog. (And be sure to check out one of Jeff's recent novels if you haven't read them yet -- he's at the top of his game). http://vanderworld.blogspot.com/2006/05/michael-arnzen-walks-plank.html

+ My upcoming humor-horror novelette, Licker, is nearly complete...and has had me cackling over my keyboard for months now! Look for information about this tale of oscular aberration on Novello Publishers' website shortly. http://www.novellopublishers.com

+ Raw Dog Screaming -- publisher of my books, Play Dead and 100 Jolts -- has overhauled their website. It looks fantastic and they've got some terrific new surrealist titles recently announced, with some of the best book titles I've seen so far this year -- Matt Warner's Eyes Everywhere, Steve Beard's Meat Puppet Cabaret, and John Edward Lawson's The Troublesome Amputee (which I loved so much I wrote the introduction). http://www.rawdogscreaming.com

+ My contributor's copy of Poe's Lighthouse -- tales inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished story fragment, "The Lighthouse" -- arrived from Cemetery Dance books while I was away at World Horror Convention last weekend. And though I bought a lot of books at that convention, this one is the first I started reading. It's a gorgeous hardcover -- and the posthumous collaborations with Poe that I've read so far (by John Shirley, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tim Lebbon and Gary Braunbeck) are delightfully dreadful and weirdishly witty. It's fun to see how differently each author took on the challenge of working with Poe's fragment. Only 1000 were printed, so get this treat for fans of horror literature before it sells out. You also might want to subscribe to Cemetery Dance magazine while you're at the publisher's website; I'm appearing in the next issue with a collaboration with, no, not Poe, but the even more impishly perverse Mark McLaughlin. Find it here: http://www.cemeterydance.com

/

+ Check out my piece, "muscle boy," in the latest issue of Mythic Delirium, one of the top sci-fi/fantasy/horror poetry magazines out there: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/cat_arnzen_news.html#015635

+ The academic panel on Arnzen's writing at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts last March was such a hit that the essays will be published as part of a feature in an exciting new academic journal called "Dissections: The Journal of Contemporary Horror," headed by Gina Wisker. Critical articles about my writing and/or new horror scholarship in general are now being solicited for the launch of Dissections. If you've written any scholarship about my work or would like to, or if you have something else on contemporary horror you'd like to propose for publication, contact her at gw4@boswell.cam.apu.ac.uk Some creative works, too, will be included in the journal.

+ Speaking of academentia: between this issue and last, I received tenure as an Associate Professor of English at Seton Hill University, where I teach courses in horror writing in the Master's Program in Writing Popular Fiction. http://fiction.setonhill.edu

+ The Goreletter is proudly sponsoring "Pod of Horror" for the month of May. If you haven't listened to this wacky mock "horror radio show" in podcast form, set your mp3 player to: http://www.horrorreader.com/

+ Did you know I have a dismembered hand in a box? And that it's taking reader questions for my new weblog at amazon.com? See this issue's special contest and he might even deal you a death card. Read the amazon blog here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A323GTX50R4CH5/

========================
DICTIONSCARY

serpiginous

Today's word is "serpiginous" (pronounced "sir-pijin-us"). This pretentiously bizarre adjective actually means "creeping from one part to another" or "having a wavy border" and is often applied by medical doctors to refer to visual skin disorders, like ringworm, snaking lesions, or drunken tattoos. Example: "Her serpiginous freckles run in an S-shape down her back like schizophrenic bird droppings down the sidewalk." Note that "serpiginous" is not to be confused with "serpentine"-- for the former clearly involves a snake-eating pigeon while the latter refers to a snake with a strange affinity for turpentine. Nevertheless, both terms work equally well in limericks and are especially funny when slurred by the mouths of tippling drunks. Some Satanists debate about whether or not the Great Dark One is "serpentine" or "serpiginous" -- but the answer is obviously neither, and they really ought to look these words up in the Satanic Collegiate Dictionary before uttering them so carel

essly. After all, the Great Dark One is notoriously litiginous. http://missinglink.ucsf.edu/lm/DermatologyGlossary/serpiginous.html

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Reveal a horrifying disfigurement behind a woman's veil.
+ Something is "bulging" beneath Charlie's sweater. Jane is obsessively fixated on this. Dramatize the revelation of Charlie's hidden surprise.
+ Create a character who has no fingernails. What happened to them and what surprising skill can he perform without them?

***
I'm sad to report that my weekly "Instigation" column will no longer appear in Hellnotes newsletter, because it is a newsletter no more. Moreover, the "Wee Small Hours" flash fiction webzine has been canceled. But not to fear: Hellnotes is still alive under the editorship of David Silva, and has evolved into a new FREE syndicated weblog that you should visit regularly at http://www.hellnotes.com

And I will continue to publish Instigation in The Goreletter. I recommend skimming the back issues on the weblog, if you're a writer looking for a cattle prod to the brain for some inspiration. http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/cat_instigation.html

========================
CONTEST: SPAMINOT

Ever since buying my own "domain" name, I've been hounded by a continuous stream of spam e-mail. It bothers me, but I sometimes wonder about the strange lengths that spammers will go to, and who out there would ever respond to it. Lately, I've been getting messages with very bizarre "subject" lines (possibly generated randomly by some nutty software) and so I've been taking notes. I was thinking about writing stories based just on these wacky phrases, and maybe I will, but I figure I can also put this stuff to better use here, in the form of a contest.

What follows is a list of actual spam subject lines...all but one of them is cribbed from an actual spam message I've received. Your mission is to guess which ONE phrase I made up (unbelievably, all the others are real!). E-mail your choice to gorelets@gorelets.com with the subject line "spaminot contest." You are only allowed one guess. Only subscribers to the e-mail edition of The Goreletter are eligible to win. Please include your mailing address (for prizes!) with your guess. Once I get two correct guesses, the contest closes (and I will post news of this to the weblog version of The Goreletter at http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/ ). The prizes include signed Arnzen goodies and new horror collections from Cutting Block Press (http://cuttingblock.net/index.htm ) which the wonderful gents at www.horrorlibrary.net kindly provided me at World Horror Convention.

1st prize = Autographed paperback ARC ("Advanced Review Copy") of Play Dead, The Dead Cat Poet Cabal (constructed by Gerard Houarner), signed Play Dead book jacket, and Horror Library Vol. 1 (edited by RJ Cavender).

2nd prize = Autographed copy of Mythic Delirium #14 (featuring Arnzen's poem "muscle boy"), signed Play Dead book jacket, and Butcher Shop Quartet (edited by Frank J. Hutton).

Here's the spam subject lines. Only one of them is invented. Can you guess which one?

aggressive mannequin
be decomposable
cuddle grime
diabolical meathead
drive by grimace
efficiency nose ring
goth seniority
grandmamma warlock
medication madhouse
open face surgery
sanity immersion
toucan retardation
undeliverable baby

Good luck. See elsewhere in this issue of The Goreletter for yet another groovy contest!

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

Bob the Angry Flower: Dog Killer

Meet "Bob the Angry Flower," Stephen Notley's outrageous main character in his comic strip by the same name. Bob is a pissed off sunflower -- that icon of happiness and sunshine. But Bob's disposition isn't sunny, sappy, or sugary -- he's angry as hell. This embodies Notley's approach to the form: he turns what we assume about popular culture icons inside-out and upside-down, in the process challenging our worldview. And it makes for a very entertaining, thought-provoking read.

Dog Killer -- his latest collection of comics -- is rife with wry political commentary and subversive play, but it's also an appealing work of dark surrealism. In Bob's world, the sky hails eyeballs and the local furniture store sells chairs made of human skulls. Bob follows his shadow underground, only to discover a Starbucks at the end of the cavernous journey. Bob slays ghosts with a samurai sword, and begs to know why they are haunting him ("Stop...killing...us!" is their answer!). Notley's sly approach has got a knock-out underground power to it: Notley plays freely with form, experiments with structure, and just takes no prisoners in his attack on conventional truth and habitual ways of seeing. In this book's introduction, Ted Rall describes "Notley's rageful ranting" as revealing a "tragic honesty" about the American universe through some "pretty scary allegory" that's "grim" even when it's optimistic. "This brutal appraisal of the human condition," Rall writes, is "ne

ver crueler than when it's turned inward, [and this] bugs the hell out of people." It's courageous alternative art. Sounds a lot like what I enjoy about horror fiction.

So who is Bob? Why is he angry? Why floral? Hard to say, but he's one of the more original characters you'll find in the genre. Bob is, well, a sunflower embodying the morphed personality of Sam Kinison and Denis Leary, hopped up on some strange mixture of Starbucks, psychedelics, and anabolic steroids. He reminds me of a poster I once saw, called "Defiance," which featured a tiny mouse snarling and flipping a middle finger at the eagle descending upon it from above with its dangerous talons. That's Bob: defiance, personified. Which might explain why you haven't met him before -- Notley's character goes against the grain of most cartoons on the comix page. So thank goodness for books like Dog Killer, the fifth collection of BTAF in print.

Bob often has a message, but I can imagine that he often puzzles readers who don't quite understand just how deep this defiance goes. Take the title strip, for example, "Dog Killer." [viewable online at: http://angryflower.com/dogkil.html ]. All that happens here is that Bob shows up at the doorstep of a white man in a suit, collar opened, head heavy, eyes evasive, saying "Thanks for coming." Bob shoulders his shotgun and says, "I understand. You need your dog put down and your not man enough to do it." Bob goes in the back yard, pets the sick dog for four panels, soothing it with "good boys" ... and then blows its head open (the extreme closeup on the furry skull bursting is so excessive, you can only make out the fanged upper palate in the carnage). Then Bob blows on his finger in the end panel: "Ooh, I burnt my finger!"

Most people, I imagine, might call this gratuitous violence. A juvenile thrill, akin to pulling the wings off a fly. But as most savvy readers realize, there's more to such a spectacle of guts than first meets the eye. For one thing, there's drama in the suspenseful soothing of the dog. This one page is worth a thousand Old Yellers. Then there's the ugly truth exposed by the blast. It's everything Old Yeller never had the guts to do. This is accented by Bob's exposure of the pettiness of human pain ("I burnt my finger!"). And an attack on the lack of backbone in much of the middle class, refusing to both soothe those who are failing and to get their hands dirty when there's an uncomfortable problem that needs to be solved.

In the back of the book, Notley gives excellent annotations which read like an insightful and witty "director's commentary" track on a DVD. Notley's discussion of "Dog Killer" reveals that it's based on a true story from childhood. He also manages to unveil his general approach to the comic as a whole: "Just as 's holding the dog's head down and coaxing it, I'm holding the reader's head down until that moment I make them look at a dog's head getting pulped. Sometimes you have to take cherished notions into the back yard and blow their heads off, and you can't look away when you do it." I couldn't agree more.

Such thematic depth can be found in even the most silly or bizarre entries in the book -- all of them force you to look at something in a new light, from a skewed angle. There's a lot of meat and grizzle to chew on here, in 158 pages of high energy drawing. I think this book will appeal to horror fans very much. But Bob the Angry Flower eludes genre, ranging from direct political commentary (a number of the pieces in Dog Killer refer explicitly to the 2004 Presidential Election) to surrealism (in one entry, Bob awakens as a bug and cursing Kafka and then transplanting his floral head onto a clone in a gory, pitiless act of decapitation) to science-fiction (Bob makes killer robots) and the gross-out (Bob sticks his fingers in the squirming maggots of a dead bird over and over again in one strip -- and that's the whole bit). I am hardly an expert on the graphic fiction genre, but I think it's safe to say that Notley's approach to sequential art is incomparable. The manic and ra

w drawing style, the play with titles and captions, and the sheer audacity of the premises all reminded me a little bit of Jhonen Vasquez's brilliantly sick and expressionistic comic, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, but without the Goth sensibility. Skewed, dark, twisted, smart, sick, scary, witty...even these words don't do it justice. That's why it's art. And why it's angry.

You gotta see it for yourself. Dog Killer is Stephen Notley's fifth compilation of BTAF cartoons, but the first American collection (his work originates in Canada). It's bound to be a hit. The trade paperback is hitting stores this June, from Tachyon Publications, for $12.95. Get it while it's hot-headed.

Visit the publisher at: http://www.tachyonpublications.com
Preorder on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1892391341/
Bob also has his very own website, chock full of sample strips, at: http://www.angryflower.com

========================
BOO COUPONS

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

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ryant St., Portland, OR 97211) and reference the promotion code: GOREPUNK. This offer expires July 25, 2006.

THE SHOCKLINES SPECIAL
This issue, Shocklines.com -- the web's great horror fiction bookstore -- is offering Goreletter subscribers a 50% savings on Stephen King's recent novel, The Colorado Kid. Enter coupon code COLORMINUS3 in your shopping cart, and get $3 off this noir entry in the Hard Case Crime lineup. Offer expires July 31st, 2006.
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/cokibystkibm.html

GET FICTIONWISE
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. This week features my friends Robert Devereaux, Simon Wood, and Nancy Holder at a great discount. Search for economical Arnzen titles while you're there, like 100 Jolts or the hard to find Stoker finalist, Paratabloids!
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/

========================
All material in The Goreletter is © 2006 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged. For reprint permissions of individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, get extras, or just add us to your RSS feed: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend!

========================
PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

The Nurse Wears Black

"Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation."
-- Tennessee Williams (died 1983)

========================

The Goreletter 3.06: Extreme Makeovers

2006-02-11T12:00:00Z

========================
THE GORELETTER:
Arnzen's Weird Newsletter
http://www.gorelets.com
+++ Vol. 3.06, Feb 11, 2006 +++
========================
Note: this issue is both longer than usual and later than usual. There's a reason for this. The Goreletter is reducing the number of mailings per year from 13 to 4-6. That means longer, meatier newsletters, but you'll receive them less often. If you ever worry about missing an issue, be sure to check The Goreletter weblog or archives, accessible via gorelets.com. See the "Gorelets.com Roundup" article below for more information on changes afoot. Thanks again for subscribing, sickos!

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BLATHER
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Bod Mod I'd Like to See

Flesh-a-Sketch
We ought to have temporary tattoos that are nonetheless permanent. Why must the art be stagnant? Especially if it's bad? We want art that we can revise and change, yet something that still sends the message that we're so committed to our art that we're willing to be surgically altered. If they can make adjustable pacemakers and prescription birth control patches these days, they ought to be able to make movable tattoos. Here's my idea: embed little colored metal pellets under the surface of the skin, so we can use a magnetic device to move them around whenever we want to. Like that children's drawing toy, I'd call it "Flesh-a-Sketch." Don't like that evil Ace of Spades? No need for that blow torch. Just shake your arm. It's gone.

Replaceable Fingers
I think there's much more we can do with the human hand. Particularly the fingers. I think our fingertips should be replaced with jacks that allow us to screw in and swap all sorts of prosthetic devices, right from birth. As a writer, naturally, I'd love it if I could press a secret button on my palm and click a ballpoint right out from the tip of my finger. Got a kid who likes to suck on his thumb? Give him "fingernips" instead. And we call all be really wild Freddy Kreugers with insertable blades. We could embed cell phones into our palms and literally "talk to the hand." Set it on vibrate. Imagine the possibilities!

Stomach Paperclips
You've heard of stomach stapling before, right? Same idea. Only temporary. Sometimes I like feeling so full I have to open my belt.

Mobile Airbags
When a car gets impacted, airbags inflate and save lives. Why can't we embed a similar technology in our flesh? Someone punches you -- boom -- your shirt explodes and a large pillow of air absorbs the blow. Slip on the ice -- bam -- a large buttock inflates and you land so safely you could go tubing down a mountain on your own rear end. We could all play suicide with trains and tall buildings. What a thrill! This invention would make the automobile airbag useless, so it would even save us millions.

Tongue Implants
People get all sorts of things implanted into their mouths -- braces, bridges, fillings. Why should the teeth have all the fun? Let's accessorize our mouths with extra tongues. Clone 'em, take them out of cadavers, make 'em out of vinyl...it's all good. Maybe get one pierced that wouldn't always get in the way; or mod them both to play mouth maracas. We could even invent a new language when we're not so busy French kissing. Wait, that wouldn't be "French" kissing anymore. But you get the idea. I'm sure you've even got some ideas of your own now.

========================
ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH

Knife Throw

You've seen it in every carny movie ever made. Now's your chance to throw blades at the person tied to a spinning wheel. It's simple, childish, time-consuming fun -- like darts for the demented.

http://quickflashgames.com/games/knifethrow/

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GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems

blood, bath and beyond

The claw foot tub clenches
the floor whenever I twist
the handle to hot, scouring the bone
china tiles and filthy basin belly.
Droplets spray and pepper the flesh
-- and that's just the curtain of skin
dancing on its meat hooks, absorbing
the stream, but perpetually unclean.
I don't understand why the blood
doesn't wash out; why it molds so much.
Maybe something ill spills
from the green gums of that open-mouthed
shower head, spraying its sickness.
Or perhaps it's just my plumbing.

========================
NOT DEAD YET: PRINT REVIEWS

Corpse Blossoms

Few realize that the term "anthology" -- which we use to denote collections of short stories by different authors, usually following a shared theme or genre -- comes for the Greek word for "flower-gathering." Corpse Blossoms -- the first volume in a series of anthologies from the new horror publisher, Creeping Hemlock Press, is more than just a collection of some dead leaves -- it's like an amazingly fulfilling chilled salad. Or should I say a very full, chilling salad? Either way, it's fiction with an earthy, dark flavor in every bite. And though I'm more than satisfied by the meal, I can't wait till they toss together their next dish.

Edited by Julia and RJ Sevin, Corpse Blossoms will immediately strike you as a different kind of horror anthology the second you hold it in your hands. If an anthology is a flower-gathering, then the editors have arranged these twisted clippings into a very distinctive bouquet. First off, there's something inherently gentle about the package -- from the charcoal image of the funeral flower on its gray front cover to the high quality green bindings and pastel cover with a copper foil stamp. Usually I don't judge a book by its cover, but when I examine a new publisher's first offering, I am interested in the investment they put into the quality and I can't help but judge whether or not they really know what they're doing based on the book's production value, in addition to its general aesthetic unity. This book sends a message: the stories you're about to read are high quality. And the book has a distinctive character. Corpse Blossoms evinces a soft horror mood that's really so

mewhat eerie -- like a thing found abandoned in a mortuary, yet quivering with a life all its own.

So do the stories match the quality and character of the book? Are they, in the publisher's words, "tales of quiet terror and screaming fear by some of the finest authors in the field"? Indeed, for the most part, they are, and though there were many fine horror anthologies published this past year (indeed, we may be experiencing a horror anthology renaissance), Corpse Blossoms holds its own as one of the finest horror anthologies to come out this season.

One of the most interesting elements of the book is the dictum in the foreword, which begs the reader to "read these exceptional stories in the order that they appear for full effect." Corpse Blossoms has twenty-four stories, many by longstanding and reputable writers in the horror genre (Gary Braunbeck, Tom Piccirilli, Ramsey Campbell, Bentley Little, Steve Rasnic Tem) and many by writers who have made a noticeably significant splash in the horror scene since the turn of the Millennium (Kealan Patrick Burke, Scott Nicholson, Darren Speegle, Bev Vincent, Nick Mamatas, Steve Vernon, Brian Freeman). The fiction is generally harder in tone than you might expect, given the gentility of the packaging. In the stories themselves, the "quiet terror" usually stems from a character whose reality has started splitting apart at the seams, and the writers ratchet up the creep-outs until everything erupts in a moment of "screaming fear" -- and for some, explosive gore -- in an emotionally
powerful way.

I can't talk about all of the tales, but let me share my thoughts about three that really stuck with me, to give you a sense of the book's range.

One of the weirdest pieces in this collection is "The Last Few Curls of Gut Rope" by Steve Vernon. The title is a tad bit misleading, because Vernon's tale is really a surrealist piece rather than a gorefest (though you won't be entirely disappointed in the climax if a little gut-wrenching splat is what you're seeking when you read this one). What makes "Gut Rope" surreal? Well, if you've ever read my short-short story, "Domestic Fowl," then this is "Domestic Fowl" to the 20th power. It's about a guy who orders eggs at a restaurant and is served a live squawking chicken ("You asked for eggs," the waitress says, "but the chicken comes first.") And then it just gets weirder and weirder, playing off the familiar chicken-and-egg formula by "dishing out" many absurdist moments and encounters, until it reaches its bizarrely-feathered conclusion. Vernon is gaining a reputation for his humorous voice, and though this story does not disappoint in that regard, it also reveals a layer o

f psychological depth underpinning his fiction that is getting deeper and more profound than in the past. It's one of his best tales yet.

Another wildly-imagined contribution to the collection comes from Bentley Little, whose opening paragraph is probably the most creatively hilarious of the book:

"He found it in a shack in the desert, a horrible thing of jellyfish and claws, scales and squid, bound into shape by strands of dark kelpy seaweed. It was sitting in the center of the rotted wood floor, and under his gaze it shifted, moved, tried to slink away beneath a sandy bench, all the while making a hideous squeaking squelching sound.
"'Dad?' he said."

This is from Little's "Finding Father," a quirky and emotionally disturbing tale about a trucker who is hunting down his father, who, it seems, is leaving a trail for him to follow in the form of bathroom stall graffiti. The premise of this one is a little hard to swallow, but that's almost universally true of Bentley Little's short stories. Little always ambitiously pushes the envelope of horror fiction and writes horror with a contagious sense of frenetic glee that inevitably takes you on such a ride that you not only forgive the absurdity behind his stories, but also gladly join him in his playground of the unreal. This story had me at "jellyfish and claws." They latched onto me and I went along for an outrageous descent into terror.

I love stories like these; tales that go over the top in a quest for unconscious thrills. Their unsettling humor pushes you over the edge and into some psychic state of disbelief akin to madness. Corpse Blossoms is at its best when it delves into the psychological -- rather than supernatural -- side of horror. And it doesn't just go for the outré or the darkly funny. Many of these stories, particularly those early in the book, evoke the eerie mood of dark fantasy, working to unhinge the reader's confidence in conventional reality. And the book hosts some shining treasures in this regard. For example, Kealan Patrick Burke's "Empathy" -- one of the longer pieces in the book -- ratchets the terror up in sharp increments that build like the tension of a lug wrench tightening a nut bit by bit up to its breaking point. In this exceptionally well-developed story, a man is so emotionally scarred by watching a torture scene on the internet (just out of curiosity), that he can't stop e

nvisioning the visceral scene playing out again and again, especially on his family. Burke effectively gets us inside the mind of the haunted and obsessed, as the protagonist's nightmares seep progressively into his waking life. "Empathy," while somewhat familiar in its plot of traumatic "repetition-compulsion," is one of the strongest pieces in the collection, written with a rock solid narrative voice and a masterful control over psychological suspense. It's certainly worthy of an award for best scary novella of the year.

If Corpse Blossoms is a gourmet salad, then the leaves have occasional brown spots here and there, but that happens when the kitchen doesn't sanitize out all the flavor. I encountered a few typos as I read Corpse Blossoms ("at" for "ate" in one climactic scene really threw me off), but the fact is, I've seen far worse mistakes made by established pro publishers before. In the back of the book, the editors write about their own feelings about each of their story selections -- I found this very insightful, lending even more character and editorial panache to the book; it drove home my feeling that this is a publisher who has a strong editorial direction (though perhaps it's a bit indulgent at times... as an author, I think I'd be mildly embarrassed if readers were explicitly told that my story was sent back several times for a revision, even though that's a natural part of the process. And I will warn you that sometimes the chatter about the tales in this appendix gives away ke

y elements of the story, so hold off on reading the ingredients list until you've finished the bite).

Finally, it's worth noting that the publishers of this book were impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The fact that they were able to put together such a fine collection and launch a new quality publishing line while being dislocated and traumatized by that terrible chaos is not only admirable, it's miraculous. As they note in the book's postscript, this project "served as something to take our minds off of mold-covered walls and ceilings collapsed...something on which to focus, a goal, a signpost, a destination." This passion is evident everywhere in the book, and if it was their destination, then, well, they've certainly arrived! Editors with this kind of dedication to good storytelling and quality publishing really deserve the support of readers who love munching on a good salad of fiction that has a real bite to it. This review has been lengthy, but I've only shown you a small part of the menu and shared a few morsels. I highly recommend you order a large bowl of Corpse Blossom

s and sample this anthology for yourself.

Corpse Blossoms is a $40 hardcover limited to 500 trade copies, 500 signed copies, and 26 lettered leather copies available from the publisher at Creeping Hemlock Press or from your friendly favorite horror bookseller (like Shocklines.com, who is offering a discount for Goreletter subscribers only...see "Boo Coupons" below).
http://www.creepinghemlock.com

========================
DICTIONSCARY

Today's word is "squeg" (pronounced "skweg"). To "squeg" generally means "to oscillate in an irregular fashion." My fan squegs when the gears need oil. Squegging is what a volume meter does when a singer bumps into the microphone. Waves squeg when someone drops a body in the ocean. Pencils get all squeggy when you do the old "rubber pencil" trick. I squeg back and forth when I drink brandy and walk on ice. "Squeg" is not to be confused with "squegg" which means to either be disinterested in gender or to try to freak someone out. Squeg has no relation to Squiggy, Square Peg, Egg Squirts, or Queequeg from Moby Dick. Squeg was not invented by the authors of the Scrabble dictionary. Squeg would be a good name for a baby, but only last until age 21.

========================
INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS

+ Place a deaf person in a burning building. First sentence: "(S)He didn't hear the alarm."
+ Place a wheelchair-bound character on a sinking ship.
+ Dramatize the methods of a "slow" serial killer.

***
Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter...who also now publishes a new online magazine based on selected prompts called Wee Small Hours!

Hellnotes: http://www.hellnotes.com
Wee Small Hours: http://www.hellnotes.com/fiction.html

========================
ARNZEN NEWS

+ ABOMINOMINATIONS
I just learned that my poem, "Those Who Landed, Surprised to Discover that Zombies Had Taken Over the Planet," is a nominee for a Rhysling Award in Short Poetry. The Rhyslings are one of the few genre poetry awards out there; it's given each year by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. "Those Who Landed..." first appeared in Dreams and Nightmares magazine this past Fall, and subsequently reappeared in my chapbook, Rigormarole: Zombie Poems. As a member of the SFPA since 1987, I'm very jazzed to be a part of this.

Since I'm tooting my own horn with these abomi-nominations, I guess I can play another note. I'm overjoyed that my novel, Play Dead, and my poetry collection, Freakcidents, are both receiving numerous recommendations for the 2005 Bram Stoker Award. It's still too early to know if they'll make it to any official ballots, but it truly is an honor to be recognized this way by the Horror Writers Association. (If you're a member, let me know if I can hook you up with a review copy).

I've also been nominated by my wife as the 2005 "Man Most Likely to Take Out the Garbage," so I better go give my acceptance speech to the rats....

+ COMING UP
We've got a lot of catching up to do....bear with me for a moment while I share lots of good news.

I just finished a short story called "Blasphemebus" for Thou Shalt Not, an anthology of dark stories based on the Ten Commandments. I wrote a funky piece about a guy who rewrites roadside church signs, breaking the third commandment ("misusing the lord's name"). Look for this book from Dark Cloud Press late in the year. http://www.darkcloudpress.com

My article on horror in higher education, "Degrees of Dread," will appear in the upcoming writer's help book, On Writing Horror. This is the second edition of the classic compendium of advice from the Horror Writer's Association, edited by Mort Castle for Writer's Digest Books. Should be out around Halloween, I expect. http://www.horror.org/hwabooks.htm#write_horr

In Delirium, edited by Brian Keene, just arrived in my mailbox. I'm told that this horror anthology has already sold out, but if you dig around on Keene's excellent website, you just might find a copy. I've already read half of it, and it's really GREAT read (and deserves a wider distribution). I read my contribution, "Mr. Mouth," at World Horror Con last year to much laughter. http://www.briankeene.com/bookstore.shtml

Look for Poe's Lighthouse -- a diverse collection of tales by writers riffing off an unfinished fragment by Edgar Allan Poe -- to be released this Spring by Cemetery Dance Books. My twisted contribution, "The Dead Lantern," was a lot of fun to write. Nothing like channeling Poe to torture a character. http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/conlon01

The next issue of Cemetery Dance magazine will also feature a story called "Help Yourself" -- a collaborative piece by me and Mark McLaughlin about a very strange "self-help" bookstore. Mark and I have collaborated in the past (see his collection, Once Upon a Slime), and he always pushes me to be weirder than I am. I like that. Anyway, I'd guess that Cemetery Dance should be out by April at the latest. http://www.cemeterydance.com/

A handful of new creepy poems appear in the latest issue of the UK litzine, Spokes. Of particular note are the great illustrations throughout the magazine by Deena Warner. http://www.simegen.com/writers/spokes/

I just received the latest issue of the dark poetry journal, Poe Little Thing. I've got a poem in there called "The Goth Birthday Clown." If you buy a copy of my zombie chapbook, Rigormarole, direct from the publisher (for $9.95 + s/h) you can still nab a free subscription to PLT as a bonus. Order it at the NSP bookstore. http://www.nakedsnakepress.com/Bookstore.html

An incredible book arrived in my mailbox the other day -- my author's copy of the "Grim Grimoire" sculpture-bound edition of Play Dead. You have to touch it (but watch your fingers) to really feel how cool this thing is, but you can get an idea of how will it is at the Raw Dog Screaming Press website. I know that a few early adopters have received their copies, but the book will likely only be available from booksellers who have placed advanced orders. I don't know if you'll be able to get one before it sells out, so all I can say is keep your eyes peeled. (A paring knife will do the trick). http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/thedreampeople/rds/catalog/playdead.html

I'm told a website dedicated to Exquisite Corpse -- a compilation of short-short films based on my poetry and flash fiction by diverse international filmmakers, coordinated by Jim Minton Design -- is forthcoming shortly. This is going to be a wild dark movie, folks. It should be made available on the Independent Film Channel website once all is done, in addition to a screening tour. I'll report news on the Gorletter weblog as things develop. http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/cat_arnzen_news.html#013041

Still with me? There are lots of other miscellaneous things in the works right now, from book introductions to literary criticism, to my next novel. Most exciting to me at the moment: I've been solicited by a fun publisher to write a humorous horror novelette, which I'm just now getting into. I believe this is my first attempt at a "long story" at this specific length, and I know it's going to be a blast. More on this in a future issue of The Goreletter, once the ink dries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelette

+ FUTURE APPEARANCES
I'm always happy to meet readers at conventions and performances. I'll be reading and participating on an academic panel about my writing called "New Directions in Horror" at the 27th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, held in Ft. Lauderdale on March 15-19. I also have plans to attend World Horror Convention in San Francisco on May 14-16.
http://iafa.org/
http://whc2006.org/

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WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH

Surreal Coconut's Meat Gallery by Eric Bragg
http://www.surrealcoconut.com/meat_gallery_home.html

The Meat Show by Mark Ryden
http://www.markryden.com/paintings/meat/index.html

Corpse Meat Protest Art by Emilio Mogilner
http://www.123emilio.com/htms/art/sculpture/poultry_meat_corp/poultry_meat_corp.htm

Meatscapes by Nicolas Lampert
http://www.machineanimalcollages.com/Menus/MeatScapesMenu.html

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GORELETS.COM ROUNDUP

So has it been too long since the last issue? I've made the decision to slice a few issues off the production line, and so this newsletter will be going to 4-6 issues per year. Not quite quarterly, not quite bimonthly, but less often than you might be used to. Volume 4 will launch with the next issue.

I'm also going to be strategizing about ways to overhaul the main gorelets.com website over the next few months. They say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" so I hope to keep most of this weird wide webspace as-is. But if you have any thoughts, by all means e-mail them to me. The "Sickolodeon" page has been down for awhile, because bitpass.com changed their programming code without warning me, and I'm still trying to figure out how to make it work right with my Internet host. It might not be worth the effort, however, and I may punt it altogether.

Gorelets.com is a relatively popular website compared to many author-centered pages, but it's not nearly as "visible" to people as you may assume. My ISP's stats say that I get only 40,000 hits a month on average. That's nothing compared to, say, bigbadchinesemama.com, but it's actually a ton for a writer of icky things who doesn't currently have a mass market paperback on the shelf. But I still think it could do better. I would like to see more potential subscribers to the newsletter drop by, since I put a lot of creative energy into this thing and while I do hope to sell a few books here and there, my primary aim -- more than anything else -- is to make readers laugh, squirm and think. At this time last year, I had about 900 subscribers and my goal was to double that in a year. We're up to 1230 subscribers, but that's not even half as much as I'd hoped. I'll wipe away the teardrops and give myself another year.

Can you help? I never come to you begging for "link love" and I never use the mailing list to spam you with sales pitches for things like Fluid Mosaic underoos. But to try to reach my goal of 2000 subscribers by next February, I'm appealing to you to actively help me get this disgusting e-rag out to the masses. Here are some ways you can assist in spreading this corruption:

+ If you have a weblog, please consider adding a link to my own "blog" for The Goreletter, where I post newsletter departments as they come out, and where I offer an "rss" headline feed to anyone who wants one. The link to the weblog is http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/ For RSS you can directly link to http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/index.rdf

+ Many of you have LiveJournals. If so, did you know that LJ syndicates The Goreletter? Add it as a "friend" or subscribe to the syndication at this address, even if you don't really rely on this to get your Gore on: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/gorelets/

+ Even better than a link, of course, might be to write a mini-review or discussion of one of my books or The Goreletter on discussion boards, in your weblog, or in your own newsletter, or, hell, anywhere else (say, that article you're writing for the New York Times?), along with a link to my site. A number of you have so kindly posted reader book reviews on amazon.com, and I really appreciate it. Thank you! Some of you raved so much you almost made me buy a copy of my own book!

+ The best way to help out, of course, is to simply forward this issue to any friend you have who has a warped sense of humor, whether they are a horror fan or not. (Make sure you snip off the code appended to the bottom of the issue that would allow them to unsubscribe you. Seriously).

+ If you have a website, a link to gorelets.com is always treasured. And I'll gladly link back to you. Indeed, I encourage everyone to spend some time browsing around the "subscriber's links" page on gorelets.com next time you're looking for something odd -- you're in wild company! Anyway, if you do want to link to me, you can even include a fancy button or graphic -- I already provided the code for you. You can pick and choose from the graphics available here: http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

+ There will be contests to subscribers in future issues, I promise. I've got some fresh ideas brewing.

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OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE

Extreme Makeovers

For your next movie night, rent:
Circus of Horrors (1960)
Seconds (1966)
Johnny Handsome (1989)

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BOO COUPONS

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

THE SHOCKLINES SPECIAL
This issue, Shocklines.com -- the web's great horror fiction bookstore -- is offering Goreletter subscribers a special discount of $5 off the unsigned trade edition (only) of Corpse Blossoms, reviewed earlier in this issue. Just enter coupon code "CORPSELESS5" into the order form when you check out. This book also falls under Shocklines' "Guaranteed Good Read" program, which makes it a safe investment in terror. This offer expires on June 1st.
Corpse Blossoms: http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/coblbbyjurjs.html

ARNZEN OFFER
Thanks to everyone who bought something from my "book tour surplus" offer last issue. I've still got a few books leftover and figured I'd offer a Goreletter exclusive bundle this issue. Get signed copies of both Play Dead and 100 Jolts bundled together for the low price of $30, postage paid (that's ten bucks off list price). I've only got FIVE of these bundles to sell, so first-come, first-served. Please be sure to send me your mailing address at arnzen@gorelets.com . For this transaction, I prefer PayPal, or, alternatively, a gift certificate to any online shop; just e-mail me if you have any questions.

GET FICTIONWISE
Fictionwise.com -- the web's best sci-fi and horror e-book seller -- maintains a special 15% off page for Goreletter subscribers, which is updated weekly. This week features books like Twisted Cat Tales by Esther Schrader & Elizabeth Massie and The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg at a great discount. Please search for economical Arnzen titles while you're there, like 100 Jolts or the hard to find Stoker finalist, Paratabloids!
http://www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/

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All material in The Goreletter is © 2006 Michael A. Arnzen, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward the entire contents of this newsletter as a whole, without alterations or excisions. Direct links to articles in the archives or the weblog are permitted and encouraged. For reprint permissions of individual pieces, please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

Winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms from the Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm

Subscribe, unsubscribe, or read back issues: http://www.gorelets.com

Read The Goreletter online as a draft-in-progress, post comments, and get extras: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Arnzenews/

Our surrealist product endorsement: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

With apologies to latitude 53,41667, longitude 27,91667.

Help spread the strange. Forward this issue to your weirdest friend!

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PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS

The Gift of Life

"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."
-- R.D. Laing (died 1989)

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