My heart must have replaced my brain for all that fills my head is a dull thump. It swells in and out, rattling inside my skull. I string threads of minute details together. They unravel, leaving me with nothing but a ribbon of memory dancing through blackness and the scent of ash.
Tuna Fish Special by Perry Nardone
Angie and Figa, my hated siblings had front row seats as I was marched to the kitchen sink. My father, fat Remi held my arm securely as he led his cow to slaughter. He poured a long glass of water and set it upon the counter. He opened the plastic bottle of Bayer aspirin and set two down. He then Continue reading Tuna Fish Special by Perry Nardone
A Beautiful Song, Just Beautiful… by William J Fedigan
Michael says he sings to cancer, says cancer sings to him.
Michael says cancer is a woman. Michael says she loves him, says he loves her.
Continue reading A Beautiful Song, Just Beautiful… by William J Fedigan
Death Takes A Snow Day by Cindy Rosmus
“Yeah!” they all cheered, as Hank stumbled in Bar 13.
In a snowstorm like this, only the diehards came out. Tina had just three customers since 3 P.M.: twitchy Speed; Ringo, the bald biker; and Carolyn the crack whore. And now Hank.
“The more the merrier,” Tina said.
And meant it. She was sick of these clowns. Hank was the nicest of all her regulars.
In A Lonely Place by Pete Risley
A fierce swelling on her forehead, where the squat and grinning man had struck her, throbbed with pain. The hood of the trunk pressed hard against her upward left side, and her hands were bound cruelly tight behind her. Her eyes were open, but the darkness was total. Facing the torturous end of everything, she was alone, more so than ever. Within her Continue reading In A Lonely Place by Pete Risley
Noise Complaints by Connor de Bruler
The man in the adjacent apartment used to listen to sitcoms all night long. The noise pollution of weak storylines and canned laughter bled through the prefabricated walls like noxious gas into a death chamber. I didn’t sleep for days. I have always suffered from severe insomnia. The tenant’s name was Pharat and he was from Istanbul. I knocked on his Continue reading Noise Complaints by Connor de Bruler
The Ultimate I.D. by Fiona Glass
Shirley was nagging again. Yip-yip-yip, on and on like an irritating little bird that never stopped chipping and cheeping till it did his head in. Usually it was the biscuits, or because he’d left the loo seat up again, but this time it was some crap Continue reading The Ultimate I.D. by Fiona Glass
Groovy Surrealism in Film, Alternative Films, and the Challenge of Viewer Attention by Matt Dukes Jordan
A LONG PREFACE
The following exploration of surrealism in film and alternative films began with my desire to write about a weirdly appealing film by Alejandro Jodorowsky called Fando y Lis. That film caused a riot when it was first shown at a film festival in Mexico. Jodorwsky claims that he barely escaped the festival alive. The audience was furious. Enraged. VIOLENT!
I love the film. I feel affection for it, and have no desire to attack Jodorowsky.
I LIKE Jodorowsky, who I watched in interviews and other DVD extras. The extras accompanying one film even showed him leading a weekly human-potential seminar/encounter group that he does in Paris. He’s very appealing and charismatic.
Molotov’s for Humpty Dumpty by Aaron Philip Clark
Recently I came across a novel by Marc Blatte entitled, Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed. After hearing the author discuss his book on NPR’s (National Public Radio) Weekend Edition radio show a while back, I decided to investigate the novel for myself. A rather catchy title, Blatte’s novel had been categorized as “Hip-Hop Noir.” Yet, what I imagined “Hip-Hop Noir” to be was not quite Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed, instead I found his novel to be a kind of farce, in which the characters were more like amalgamations of every urban stereotype imaginable. They were like crude drawings, stick figures that lacked depth and soul. Blatte used terms like “ghetto thug” and “punk-ass” in descriptions and dialogue in an effort to add authenticity to the fictional landscape, but it only overpowered the rather middling prose.
Continue reading Molotov’s for Humpty Dumpty by Aaron Philip Clark
Writer’s Interview: Allan Guthrie by Paul D Brazill
Allan Guthrie’s novel SLAMMER is one of my favourite books and he’s recently released a couple of cracking eBooks too.
Allan was decent enough to answer some of my daft questions recently so ‘Hey Ho, Lets Go!’
PDB: Congratulations on Bye Bye Baby getting into the Kindle Crime Top Ten and Killing Mum getting into the Kindle Thriller Top Twenty. Is this the end of ‘proper’ books for you?
AG: Thanks! Ebooks represent a terrific opportunity for us ‘mid-list’ writers, no question. But I think it’s a mistake to look at it as an either/or proposition. I’d like to be greedy and have both! I’ve been lucky enough to have managed that with both the books you’ve mentioned, KILLING MUM having come out in paperback in June ’09, and BYE BYE BABY due out in 2013.
PDB: Bye Bye Baby is an adaptation of a short story of the same name. How did that work out?
Continue reading Writer’s Interview: Allan Guthrie by Paul D Brazill
PULP METAL MAGAZINE 