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THE GORELETTER:

Arnzen's Weird Newsletter

http://www.gorelets.com

+++ Vol 1.7, Feb. 9, 2003 +++

**Nail-Biting Horrors**


----

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

Maniacure

Why do we call them fingernails and
not fingerblades? They're really like
chitinous daggers that stab out from
somewhere underneath the skin.
They're constantly cutting. You can tell
by the ridges and streaks across their
surface, like the marks a serrated knife
leaves in cake icing. Only it's a slow
cut, so we're used to it. We forget.
Except when the cuticle splits. Then
we remember.

And they do cut other people, too. The
arts of eye gouging, back raking, and
meat cellophane splitting have
fingernails to thank.

Fingernails are weird. The white
moony part at the base of them
(appropriately called "lunula") is like
another nail, just waiting to come out.
Almost like a baby crowning or
something. Only it's also part of the
"live" nail above it -- the generally clear
screen over a bed of pink guts -- and
topped off with another white moonlike
ridge of dead nail. Birth, life, and
death, all connected in the same piece
of tissue. And you stick it up your nose
(and in other sensitive places) without
even thinking about it.

There's no way to get all the dirt out
from under the tips. You can scrape
and boil but there's just no way. That's
one reason why surgeons have to
wear gloves. Some people use a white
crayon underneath there, to make the
dead ridge look clean. Others have
long given up on mechanical oil and
grime that permanently resides there.
Both are foreign substances, so what's
the difference, really?

I'm a regular guy, so much of the nail
painting and pressing-on and soaking-
in-Palmolive business seems pretty
bizarre to me. What does a manicure
cure? Long nails just seem like ten
health hazards waiting to happen; red
nails just look bloodier than the pink
stuff that they're hiding. And the longer
they are, the easier they break -- it's
not like they're talons, as much as we'd
like them to be. So I don't really get it.

Don't get me wrong. I do understand
that there's an aesthetic to it -- and I
give nail technicians a lot of credit for
their art. It's hard to paint a trembling
finger and I've seen some really
awesome designs (gothed-up black
nails are pretty cool!). But I've never
found painted nails sexually attractive
and I wonder why some people pay so
much to have them professionally
done. Indeed, when I see a set of
overly done nails, for some reason I
start to wonder if the person bearing
them sports a plastic belly button, as
well.

And painted little toes...well, those
require a true artist do up right. Like,
say, a cosmetic mortician, who can
make any body look good. Pinkie toes
rarely hold up to polish. The shellac
crackles too easily and the flesh
around the nail pudges up around it.
After a good walk around town, they
look like shattered hard candy pressed
into a marshmallow or something.

When I'm bored or nervous, I
sometimes pick my nails, but I don't
bite them. I'm always trying to get
them to match the arc of my fingertip.
They make those funny little scissors
and clippers that have an arc built into
them, but I haven't found one yet that
actually matches my fingers. Instead, I
end up chipping away at the nail,
looking in the end like a beaver
gnawed on them.

My cats claw on scratch polls and
furniture legs as a way of doing their
nails. I sometimes find them on the
floor or stuck in the shag. Wouldn't it
be neat if humans did that? Maybe we
did, in a way, before they invented
those funky clippers to begin with.

All day long your fingertips put on a
show for you. Grip a handle, play a
guitar chord, press on the
keyboard...there's pink and white
kaleidoscope right in your hands. The
fingerpad is nature's way of giving us a
peek at what's really going on beneath
the skin. Right there, at the part of the
body you put the most pressure on,
you're exposed.

They're insidious -- and often powerful
-- body parts. If you don't eat right, if
you bang your fingers up, or if you
contract some bizarre mold, your
fingernails will betray you. If you
scratch the body of an attacker, you
can collect evidence that might convict
him or her. Fingernails are both
weapons and defensive armor.
They're signs of economic class.

They keep growing after we're dead,
stabbing out from our dead fingers with
a life all their own. If we could just
figure out their magic....

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

Pick a word at random from the
dictionary. Then add the word "kills"
after it and write that on the top of a
blank piece of paper. You now have a
title for your next piece -- run with it.
(Randomly chosen direct objects
optional (e.g. "Sausage Kills Pig")).

Pick a fetish, any fetish. Now create a
character who not only has that
perverse predilection, but who also has
the ability to hypnotize others. You
figure out the rest.

Work with the following quotation from
Susan Sonntag: "Cancer is a demonic
pregnancy."

====GORELETS====

Valendine

He buys her plain pink sidewalk chalk\\
and uses his used carving knife to\\
carve the meaningless sticks into the\\
meaningful shape of little pink hearts.\\
He heartlessly etches valentine's\\
etchings into every single one: Luv Ya,\\
Kiss Me, Sweetie Pie. Then he inserts\\
them into her lips, one by one as\\
cautiously as a suicide sips suicide\\
pills. He lines them up in her bloodied\\
up gums side by side like thirty-two\\
teeth in a tombstone smile. He kisses\\
her lips then gnashes her jaws to make\\
her chew up the dust of his lust to dust.\\

====SNIPPETS OF THE STRANGE====

Hunters Write Horror\\
(disgusting excerpts from postings in
the usenet group, rec.hunting...)

"One quick chop with a hatchet for
deer, three for moose. Once the
pelvic bone is split it is much easier to
remove the an*s." (08/19/98)

"I was leery of gut hooks, but this knife
really is like having a zipper on the
animal. The knife stays sharp for a
long time, (three deer and I have not
sharpened it yet!) and the rubber
handle is very easy to grip when its in
slippery conditions (if you know what I
mean)." (09/22/95)

"Somehow, either when I cut the throat
or cut the ribcage, the contents of the
stomach spilled out into the chest
cavity. I did not find out until this
morning when I went back to drag her
out and finish gutting her.... And to top
things off I just nicked the milk sack,
and as far as I can see only a
teaspoon worth spilled out but on to
the guts, nothing else. How will the
stomach contents effect the meat?" (11/08/99)

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

"Scared Straight Man"

For your next movie night, rent:\\
Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)\\
Take the Money and Run (1969)\\
Life (1999)\\

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

"Virtual Voodoo"

Want to curse someone with stickpins
and tiny barbs of pain? Pinstruck.com
will send your virtual voodoo doll
tortures to a victim who won't be able
to trace it back to the source. The
custom messages and artful dolls on
this site make it fun to play. I've seen
plenty of cyber-voodoo in my day, but
this is definitely the best. The
anonymous curse-sending feature
makes it more than a little edgy and
spooky for the victim.

http://www.pinstruck.com

====ARNZEN NEWS====

+ Poet Bruce Boston reports the happy
news that his poetry collection,
Pitchblende, has sold to Dark Regions
Press for a 2004 release. I selected
and organized the verse in this book in
addition to writing the introduction, so I
am very excited about this. Applause!
You can still read my review of
Boston's book, Quanta: Award Winning
Poems, at Strange Horizons magazine:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020708/chapbooks.shtml

+ There's a hunger inside you. Read
my short-short, "Stomachine," at
Champagne Shivers webzine:
http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/contents.htm

+ "Alma almost got away. Bailey was
blasted bloody into the blacktop.
Christa, conked unconscious. Dora,
gored. Eddie bled as dry as Freddy..."
Look death up in the "Obictionary":
http://www.clamcity.com/archivepage.html

+ Attn HWA members: Stoker
recommendation deadline is 14 Feb.
Remember The Goreletter when you
submit yours.

+ DarkVesper Publishing is hoping to
release my book Freakcidents by the
end of the month. Remember to pick
up a copy of Kurt Newton's acclaimed
"Psycho-Hunter's Casebook" at DV
Pubs to get a free mini-chapbook of
extra poems and stories by Kurt and I,
tromping around in each other's world:
<del>darkvesperpublishing.com</del>

+ Mikey Huyck posted a "5-BookWyrm"
advanced review of Freakcidents here:
http://feoamante.com/Stories/Reviews/DEF/Freakcid.html

"a foreign man in dire concentration/
walks awkwardly on his hands/
the bloody wristskin taut against/
angular whiteglass shards and coals..."
-- from my poem, "SuiSide Show" in
the recent anthology, SIDESHOW:
<del>iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0%2D595%2D26087%2DX</del>

+ Last issue, I told you I'd be the
featured poet for the April 2003 issue
of Sidereality magazine
(<del>sidereality.com</del>). What I didn't tell you
is that the feature will be a series of
new poems called "Gentle Monsters"
responding to the work of generous
and friendly artist Matthew P. Schuster.
Visit his gallery here for a sneaky peek:
http://mpsindustries.com/

+ I've been interviewed for the free
"Flash Fiction Flash" newsletter ... a
wonderful resource for all short story
writers. To subscribe send an email to
FlashFictionFlash-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com

+ Along with Piers Anthony and Mike
Resnick, I'll be judging the finalists in
the first Draco Awards. What's a
Draco? No, it's not a new James Bond
villain, silly. It's a hardcover & e-book
deal from Double Dragon Publishing
for the best novel entered in its genre!
http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/

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

Gothic Martha Stewart
<del>toreadors.com/martha/</del>

Corporate Goth
http://www.waningmoon.com/corpgoth/

Gothic Real Estate
<del>findaproperty.co.uk/cgi-bin/story.pl?storyid=2424</del>

Goth Bowl
<del>gothbowl.com/</del>

Christian Goth
http://www.christiangoth.com/

====DATA AND ERRATA====

Thanks to all of you who offered me
get well wishes after sharing my "sick"
essay last time around. Matt S. made
me laugh when he wrote, "You make
getting a cold sound very sexy in a bad
sort of way..." And Sabina Becker
opened my eyes (and nasal passages)
when she recommended I get a
fascinating contraption called a "Neti
pot." Thanks! Eekinacea for all!

====NEW AT GORELETS.COM====

I've decided to close the "Mutant Mug
Shop." This decision is not about
sales; it's a matter of boycotting. The
cup maker, cafepress.com, is getting
into the vanity publishing game by
encouraging folks to publish their own
book (minus a cut, of course) through
the site as if a book were nothing more
than an iron-on t-shirt. I don't like that.
So I'm pulling out of the cafepress
game come March 1st. If you wanted a
mutant mug, visit gorelets.com and get
it now before I pull the plug.

====BOO COUPONS====

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

FLESH AND BLOOD magazine offers
you an exclusive discount! Subscribe
for only $12 ($4 off!) or pay just $3 for
one issue (1/2 off!). Make your check
payable to Jack Fisher and put the
word "GORELETTER" in the memo
field. For contact information, see:
<del>fleshandbloodpress.com</del>

Take 10% off the new hardcover book,
CEMETERY POETS, by visiting this
hidden exclusive page at gorelets.com.
Thanks for the discount, Double-D!
<del>gorelets.com/demos/cempoesale.html</del>

Writers take note! You can get 10% off
the unique submission organizer,
WRITE AGAIN! Try it out and if you
decide to register this great software,
let them know that Arnzen's newsletter
sent you and they'll refund you 10%!
I've been using this program for about
a year now and I can vouch for it -- WA
is one of the best databases for writers
available. If you're a writer submitting
without a "system" yet, this is a must-
download. Includes a project
scheduler, graphs, and a financial
database. A very useful product.
http://www.asmoday.com/

FICTIONWISE.COM's 15% off special
page for gorelets.com visitors is
updated every week:
<del>www.fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/</del>

WILDSIDE PRESS -- publisher of my
collection, Fluid Mosaic -- kindly
continues to offer Goreletteers a one-
time 10% discount coupon! Enter the
coupon code ARNZEN at check out:
http://www.wildsidepress.com/

Didn't get a SHOCKLINES.COM
coupon in time for this issue...if you
were hoping for it, you should sign up
for their newsletter for special offers:
<del>yahoo.com/shocklines/</del>

====COLOPHON====
All material in The Goreletter is:
c 2003 Michael A. Arnzen, unless
otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to forward the
entire contents as a whole, without
alterations or excisions. For reprint
permissions of individual pieces,
please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

This newsletter is formatted in one
skinny column to accommodate
handheld computer users. If you own a
PDA, try The Goreletter as a free
Mazingo channel at:
<del>mazingo.net/pc/subscribe.php?site_id=1552&src=111</del>

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http://www.gorelets.com

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http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

====PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS====

"Do not seek death. Death will find
you. But seek the road which makes
death a fulfilment."
-- Dag Hammarskjold (died 1961)

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