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THE GORELETTER:

Arnzen's Weird Newsletter

http://www.gorelets.com

+++ Vol 1 #11, May 30, 2003 +++

**Your Worst Fears**

----

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

Your Greatest Fears

What are your greatest fears? Here's
the oft-sited "Top Ten Fears of
Americans," lifted from The Book of
Lists:

10. Dogs\\
9. Loneliness\\
8. Flying\\
7. Death\\
6. Sickness\\
5. Deep Water\\
4. Financial problems\\
3. Insects and bugs\\
2. Heights\\
1. Public Speaking\\

Sound familiar? How many of these
are your own? How many of these do
you exploit in others? And do you
really have to be American to fear
them?

Skepticism creeps in when I think
about lists like these. I start to think of
all the exceptions. Besides, this list
clearly was compiled when Cujo was a
bestseller. Okay, perhaps not, but it
was long before terrorism was bleeping
on the cultural radar and I'm sure that
today more people fear Al Qaeda than
they do Fido.

And then the longer I sit with it, the
more the horror writer inside me kicks
me in the shins with his razor-tipped
boots and tells me that EVERYTHING
is -- or can be -- frightening. To write
horror, you have to be inherently
paranoid. Even worse: the horror writer
intuits these things and then
complicates them so there's no
escape: If you think "public speaking"
is scary, then how about a sick, lonely,
bug-infested dog speaking through
megaphones about the dying economy
as it flies above your ocean liner? The
horror!

This topic is on my mind right now
because Tanya Twombly, a grad
student in the writing program where I
teach (setonhill.edu), is conducting a
survey of people's "top ten fears" for a
workshop that she's prepping on
societal fears in horror. [And if you've
got the courage to share your own top
ten fears, e-mail Tanya right away
(before June 21st) at:
ttwombly@frontiernet.net]. Here's the
first of two responses I sent her:

10. Carpal Tunnel.\\
9. Impotence.\\
8. Blindness.\\
7. Skin cancer.\\
6. Rabies.\\
5. Illiteracy (ignorance in others; losing
my own control of language).\\
4. Old age/Senility/Alzheimer's.\\
3. Masses/Conformity.\\
2. Bees.\\
2.a. A Conformist Mass of Illiterate
and Blind Bees that Sting my
Cancerous Carpal Tunnel-Riddled Skin
and Render Me Impotent until
Alzheimer's Sets In.\\
2.b. Old, Impotent-yet-Rabid Men Who
Have Skin Cancer and Collect Masses
of Bees.\\
1. You.\\
0. And What You're Going To Do With
This Information.\\

As you can tell, I can't make it to ten
without being a smart-ass.

Later, she posted the question to a
discussion board and in a moment of
Lettermaniacal frivolity, I listed yet
another ten -- this time taking none of it
seriously:

10. Fear of numbered lists, bulleted
lists, top ten lists, and all corporate
forms of communication.\\
9. Fear of CNN.\\
8. Fear of Flying. The book.\\
6. Fear of forgetting how to count to
ten.\\
5. Fear of information gathering,
surveys, and so forth, falling into the
hands of not only direct marketers, but
also Richard Simmons.\\
4. Okay, I really just fear Richard
Simmons' hands. Even in his "slim"
phase, they're pudgy in an uncanny
and disturbing way. Look at the nails if
you don't believe me.\\
3. Fear of fear itself. Oh wait, I mean
"Fear of repeating clichés without
realizing it."\\
2. Fear of lawnmower noises when you
don't see anyone in the neighborhood
mowing their lawn.\\
1. Fear of compost.\\

By this point, you're probably thinking
that you'd never want a sarcastic
bastard like me for a teacher. But there
are reasons why I can never answer
this question about fear straight.

The first is a common one: horror
writers are asked "What scares you?"
all the damned time. As if you couldn't
figure it out from reading our work.
Eventually we develop stock answers
that mean nothing, like "spiders" or
"heights" or "absolutely nothing
anymore -- I've become a emotionless
lump, overdosed on my own gothic
angst."

I used to always say "surprises" scare
me. That sounded generic and truthful
enough. But it was a boring answer.
And I also stopped getting gifts and
surprise parties. So now the answer I
always give is: "you." That was #1 on
the first list I sent to Tanya. But it's also
the stock answer I've given time and
again. Because it's honest. People
scare me more than anything. The
human mind is capable of rationalizing
virtually ANY behavior, whether we're
talking about the individual psycho or
the collective mass mind. Dahmer
thought it was perfectly logical to drill a
hole in someone's skull and pour
hydrochloric acid into his head, in order
to create a zombie sex slave. The
people who build nukes think they are
perfectly safe or even necessary for
world peace. Rationalization is what all
evil villains and mad scientists do. That
capacity in mankind is what scares me
-- and it's also laughable -- and that's
why I write about it the way I do.

But I have other reasons for my
sarcasm. Like, naturally, why would I
confess my fears to a student who
probably fantasizes about torturing me
day in and day out as an act of
revenge? Why would I give >anyone<
instructions on how to freak me out?
Doesn't that defeat the very purpose of
fear's fight or flight? Sometimes it's a
call for comfort to tell people you're
afraid (like an airline passenger might
say "I'm really scared right now...I've
got a fear of heights" when the plane
takes off.) But that's also something
that can be used against you by the
terrorists of everyday life. ("Going up?"
your coworkers say with a grin as they
press the top button on the elevator
panel and block you from pressing
anything lower....). Unless you're a
masochist or a liar you simply do not
confess your fears.

And, secondly, fear is something that's
in a perpetual state of flux, isn't it? It's
unstable. That's part of what makes it
scary. And that's what makes a top ten
list different every day. One moment I
fear that terrorists are on the plane; the
next I fear the pilots are drunk. One
moment I fear E. Coli in the sandwich I
eat; the next I fear the chemical
cleanser I just washed my hands with.

You just can't win.

I'm not paranoid. I just think a lot about
possibilities...and anything's possible.
So it's hard to whittle fear down to ten
easy-to-swallow caplets. Maybe that's
why I keep writing fiction and poetry...
to struggle with the complexities of
fear.

The great Ray Bradbury, however,
once recommended this "listing"
technique as a way of coming up with
ideas for stories. In his article, "The
Thing at the Top of the Stairs," he
claims that if you list your childhood
fears in the form of nouns, you'll have
plenty of titles to get you started on a
good story. So he lists things like The
Lake, The Night, The Cricket, The
Basement, The Baby, The Crowd, The
Carnival, etc.

Of course, a crowd of carnival
sideshow babies chirping like insane
crickets as they shamble wet out of a
lake at night would make quite a horror
story.

[ Are you afraid to click on unattributed
links you get in email? Get over it and
click here for the top ten phobias:
<del>hub.lcp.linst.ac.uk/keythemes/phobia/</del> ]

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

Lego Death
http://www.digitalstuff.com/brainchild/legodeath.html

Lego Torture
<del>blockdeath.com/</del>

Lego Machine Gun
<del>silverlight.org/Cray/lego/machinegun.asp</del>

Lego Robotics
<del>cs.uu.nl/people/markov/lego/challenge/index.html</del>

Lego Escher
<del>lipsons.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/lego.htm</del>

Lego Mysticism
<del>annabeth.co.uk/playtarot/gallery.html</del>

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

+ A man walks into a convenience
store, a bodily organ in his hand
(whether it's attached to him or not is
up to you). Write the scene from the
perspective of the clerk behind the
counter.

+ Take the horror cliché, 'makes my
skin crawl,' and literalize it. Or,
alternatively, dramatize something
nasty getting under a character's skin.

+ Brainstorm a list of at least five ways
you'd hate to die. Combine two.
Imagine the worst. Make it happen in
prose.

[Instigation is now a WEEKLY
department in Hellnotes newsletter:
http://www.hellnotes.com ]

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

I'm breathless from reading Lance
Olsen's new short fiction collection,
Hideous Beauties, in one extended
sitting. It's a dark, dynamic, exploratory
and ultimately experimental work of
fiction that -- in a phrase -- refuses to
look away. And that made it very
difficult for me to put down.

The oxymoron in the title, Hideous
Beauties, defines what thematically
binds these twelve short stories
together: an attraction for that which
would otherwise be repellent (and vice
versa). It's an aesthetic that the freak
show and the horror genre are
fundamentally built upon, but Olsen's
book is more than any mere freak
show, more than any simple collection
of tall tales. It's an exploration of
ugliness that refuses to look away until
it pins down the truth. In fact, it actively
gets us to look closer than we
otherwise might at the grotesque.

Like many of Olsen's books, HB
audaciously bends the rules of
language and form, playing with
structure on a journey toward fresh
insights the way an experimental artist
might mix media. The structuring
device of this collection is a little
reminiscent of his most recent
slipstream collaboration with artist (and
his significant other) Andi Olsen, a
novel called Girl, Imagined by Chance.
In Girl, the Olsens created a series of
rendered photographs, which
sequenced the novel like a family
album or child's scrapbook, each
image followed by a chapter that was
in every way about the photograph -- if
not photography itself. In that novel,
the narrative traces the way a couple
deceives a distant grandmother that
they have had a child -- and
themselves in the process -- when in
fact, they've only manipulated photos
of kids and send them back to Granny.
It's a masterful novel, at once a
touching love story and scathing
indictment of "compulsory parenting" in
our culture, in addition to being, among
other things, a spiritual autobiography,
a work of art criticism, and a bound
exhibit of Andi's work.

In Hideous Beauties we're treated to a
similar conceit: each short story is
inspired by a work of grotesque art
(most of which is only referenced in a
dedication to the artist, not actually
reprinted). The art of the opening and
closing stories is generated by Andi
Olsen's brilliantly twisted imagination,
and it's merged with Lance's writing in
a collage of words and images. These
pieces (which have appeared in Fiction
International and Yellow Bat Review)
can best be called a "surrealist
illuminated manuscript," which is what
this book as a whole in many ways
purports to be. In other pieces, we get
direct reference to famous paintings,
like Two Children Menaced by a
Nightingale, which opens by actually
discussing the color patterns in Max
Ernst's famous collage of the same title
before launching into a nightmarish
tale about a father and daughter. At
other times, the poetic layout of
Olsen's writing mimics the structure in
the artwork referenced, as in the dual
columned story, "The State Hospital"
(inspired by a strange alien/comic book
piece by Edward Kienholz). The same
can be said about the radically over-
organized "Sketch of A Flying
Machine" (you guessed it: by DaVinci)
which is presented in outline form,
numerals and all. From typography to
narratology, text is an artistic playing
field for Olsen's verbal gymnastics,
combining his background in literary
theory with his (or is it our culture's?)
fascination for the spectacle of the
strange. As the epigraph suggests,
"Freaks are just like us, only more so."

From the experimentation with form to
the bright imagery, Olsen's writing
begs to be read as art -- or to have the
reader at least contemplate how art
produces meaning -- at every turn. Its
imagery -- "hideous" as it might be --
seduces the senses with its precision
and honesty. No one describes colors
like Olsen. Words are paint on his
palette and his choices are just right. In
the opening tale, "Village of the
Mermaids," we're given "warm
smudged air green-blue as sadness"
and "whitewashed mountains beyond
the cocaine-white beach in the
distance." In another story, colors
become verbs as air "lilacs" around the
protagonist.

But it's not just poetry and an imagistic
fascination that marks this book as
unique. The surrealist plotting and
humorous tone are very rewarding,
too. My favorite story in the collection
is inspired by the fragmentation
inherent to the uncanny image of Hans
Bellmer's twisted "The Doll," which
inspired Olsen's tale, "The Doll, or:
What the Dead Think About at the End
of the World." To explain this
hilariously dark story would be to give
away too much of the fantastic and
surprising plot. But let's just say it's
Stephen King's "Survivor Type" meets
Kubrick's turned love story, as a
couple's desire for something new in
their banal relationship takes a
disastrous turn. And it will definitely
have you rethinking your relationship
with your pinkie toes.

You can still catch a few excerpts from
this book online -- and when you read
the collection, I recommend calling up
the art referenced in the book on the
internet, too. Visit Lance and Andi
Olsen's freaknest at cafezeitgeist.com
to see just how strange and hideous
this beautiful book really is. Highly
recommended for those who are truly
on the lookout for something radically
new. That's why you go to the freak
show, isn't it? Searching for something
unique in a world that requires the
courage to never look away.

Hideous Beauties by Lance Olsen.
Eraserhead Press, 2003. Trade
paperback. Color cover and interior
illos by Andi Olsen. 200 pgs. $13.95

http://www.eraserheadpress.com

http://lanceolsen.com

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

Checking Out

No lines at our express check out.\\
Here you would impulse buy many\\
lively products if you still had a pulse.\\
Our gum is far staler than you but the\\
fashion zines advertise nothing new --\\
the same old glamorous zombies.\\
Paper or plastic? Want change?\\
Our afterworld market is open 24 hours\\
a night and perpetually pretends you\\
can take it with you, for a price.\\
But you're also always discounted:\\
Half off here, half off there, before\\
you're all sold out, before you're all\\
gone.\\

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

"The Darkly Gothic Crossword"

This is one tough -- and blasphemous -
- little puzzle, brought to you by the
dark comedians behind the Dead
Lounge and Sarco's Blood Bar and
Grill. "The Darkly Gothic Crossword" is
an online puzzle where every answer
is taken straight out of the jargon of
Goth culture and, literally, from
beyond. It's designed to torment you
with what it calls "the most
depressingly perplexing morbid-
minded crossword puzzle known to our
darkened world." It will have you
digging around in your Dictionary of the
Dead, or turning -- dare I speak it's
name? -- to the damned pages of the
dread Necrosswordicon, in search of
answers to its arcane and Eldritch
clues. I doubt you'll be able to score
more than 15 answers from memory.
But it's worth a stab, anyway. (Don't
worry -- they give you clues...).

My only complaint? No entry for 666
Down.

http://www.deadlounge.com/deadlounge/crossword.html

[Requires the Macromedia Flash 5
Player -- it will auto-install if you don't
have it already (you probably do)].

====ARNZEN NEWS====

+ SPORTUARY is the name of a new
poetry collection I just finished writing
that Cyber-Pulp will be publishing later
in the year. This e-book will feature
surreal color artwork by the illustrious
Marcia Borell and contain poems with
titles like "Satan's the Catcher," and
"Fearleader Camp" and "Shockey." (A
few haiku from this collection appeared
in the very first Goreletter last
September). Check out the sneak
preview page at gorelets.com:

<del>gorelets.com/demos/sportuarysampler.htm</del>

+ Gorelets: Unpleasant Poetry is now
slotted for an October release from
Fairwood Press. And I'm happy to
announce that Double Dragon
Publishing will concurrently release an
e-book version...with twenty-one bonus
Gorelets, on top of the other fifty-two!

http://www.fairwoodpress.com

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com

<del>gorelets.com/gorelets/retro/retro.htm</del>

+ "Julia, Daughter of..." is the clever
title of an anthology, edited by G.W.
Thomas of "FlashShot" fame. It
presents interpretations by various
poets of an epitaph found on an old
tombstone in a forgotten country
cemetery. My interpretation of what
Julia might be a daughter of is in my
contribution, entitled "Hate Clone." Go
figure. This e-book is hot off the ether
from Cyber-Pulp. (I'll also appear in
their upcoming antho of dark road
stories, Wicked Wheels, in the near
future):

<del>cyberpulp.netfirms.com/index2.html</del>
<del>flashshot.tripod.com/</del>

+ If you liked the free "Gentle
Monsters" chapbook illustrations at
Sidereality, you'll LOVE Matt
Schuster's DAILY sketches of even
more monstrous monstrosities! Check
this artist out and share your horrified
reactions in his new live journal.

<del>sidereality.com</del>
http://www.mpsindustries.com

+ I'll be attending the Horrorfind
Convention in Baltimore, August 15-17.
If you're anywhere near Poe's former
haunt, my reading is on Sunday
afternoon.

http://horrorfindweekend.com/

+ "FREAKCIDENTS TRANSCENDS
HORROR...What is so brilliant about
this collection is how Arnzen uses
literal outside descriptions of the freaks
to describe the internal alienation and
awkwardness of humans." -- Mike
Purfield, B-Independent.com

Feel the fiend. Touch the terror.
Caress the carnage. Go to DarkVesper
Publishing or Shocklines.com and
order Freakcidents: A Surrealist
Sideshow today:

<del>darkvesperpublishing.com</del>
http://www.shocklines.com

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

Things I Said When Hyped Up On
Krispy Kreme Donuts and Coffee, 5/25

"Why don't Americans trust people in
bow ties? I'll tell you why. Because
pets and clowns wear them, that's
why."

"You've heard of the glass ceiling, no?
Well I have an ass ceiling and I hit my
head on it often."

"Hear that song? That's The Loving
Spoonful. But what does the Hating
Forkful play? That's what I wanna
know!"

[ Thanks to Becca Baker, the best note
taker I've ever met, for actually
transcribing when I wasn't looking. ]

====LET'S TRADE====

EIGHTY of you took me up on my offer
last issue to include links on
gorelets.com as a way of saying
thanks for reading. You're entitled to
have a mention on my site just for
indulging me with this newsletter. So
send me an e-mail request with your
name and your URL and I'll add you!

<del>gorelets.com/gorelets/knuckles.htm</del>

I encourage you to surf these pages...
you might be surprised by the people
who are on this list!

Naturally, I'd appreciate a link back to
gorelets.com. To add a "button" on
your page, include this HTML code:

<del>gorelets.com/gorelets/gorelets-sm-banner.jpg</del>

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

Instigated this month by a prompt from
The Goreletter:

"Rhymes Kill" by John Edward Lawson
<del>house-of-pain.com/fictionarchives/2003/03-10-03.html</del>

Likewise, in an homage to my
chapbook, Paratabloids, poet Terrie
Leigh Relf reports that a poem she
wrote based on a Weekly World News
headline -- "Bigfoot Captures Sexy
Camper for his Love Slave" -- will be
published in a future issue of
Sidereality.com. I recently read Terrie's
new e-book, Metro Madness, and
enjoyed it quite a bit. Relf shows a flair
for delivering foreboding concepts and
twisted images in tight little packages
like this haiku:

ancient mating ritual\\
two enter the cocoon\\
one emerges\\

Simple, no? But one >what< emerges?
Her book is full of dark snippets and
snapshot images of terror. And the
accompanying art features twisted
children's drawings and simplistic clay
figurine photos that lend the whole
book an unsettling tone. Relf's dark
side is black as charcoal and she's a
poet to watch. A disturbing read!

<del>toadmama_pooh.tripod.com/bloodletterspressandelfhelperinc/</del>

====BOO COUPONS====

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

FLESH AND BLOOD PRESS
Your response was so strong last
month that Flesh and Blood Press is
now making a knockout NEW
exclusive offer to readers of The
Goreletter: get all available back issues
of Flesh & Blood magazine for 30% off
and any of the F&B book titles for 35%
off. Free shipping and handling on all
purchases. Please send payment
made out to Jack Fisher with a note
mentioning this discount to: Jack
Fisher, 121 Joseph St., Bayville, NJ
08721

<del>fleshandbloodpress.com</del>

DARK ANIMUS MAGAZINE
One of the best new horror magazine's
of the year -- Dark Animus -- will give
you $3 off a postage paid subscription
(from Australia). That means a year's
worth of dread for only $15! DA
contributors have included myself,
Graham Masterton, Mark McLaughlin,
Tim Curran, and others. You can begin
your sub with back issues, too. To get
your discount, include the phrase
"goreletter" in your correspondence or
order form available at:

http://darkanimus.com/

SHOCKLINES BOOKSTORE
Shocklines.com's exclusive coupon for
this month is a real treat for fans of the
classic Weird Tales magazine and the
works of HP Lovecraft. Through July
1st, visit shocklines.com and if you
enter coupon code GOREMASTER
when you check out, you'll get $4 off
the already discounted hardcover
edition of Arkham's Masters of Horror!
Here's a direct link for more info:

<del>store.yahoo.net/shocklines/armasofhorbr.html</del>

FICTIONWISE E-BOOKS
Fictionwise.com's 15% off page for
Goreleteers is updated weekly. This
week's features include free -- FREE! -
- Hugo Award nominees in ebook
format, along with stories by dark
fiction writers Tim Waggoner, Bruce
Boston, Mark Sanchez, and more:

<del>fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/</del>

CEMETERY POETS ANTHO
Take 10% off the new hardcover book,
Cemetery Poets, by visiting this hidden
exclusive ordering page on my site:

<del>gorelets.com/demos/cempoesale.html</del>

WRITE AGAIN SOFTWARE
Are you a writer? Try Write Again
manuscript organizing software and
get a 10% rebate when you register if
you tell them that Arnzen's newsletter
sent you! A very practical product.

http://www.asmoday.com/

====COLOPHON====
All material in The Goreletter is:
© 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>

Subscribe, unsubscribe, and shout out
about The Goreletter at:
http://www.gorelets.com

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

====PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS====

"A man is not completely born until he
is dead." -- Ben Franklin (died 1790)

----
{{page>gfoot&nodate&nouser}}