Zombie Lapdance

First off, everyone who reads this within the next five hours needs to know that there is indeed a Space Squid room party. It starts at 9pm, in room 614. There’s signs, so if you’re actually at Armadillocon you can probably find it.

I never do quite as much picture taking as I feel I ought, but here’s some view of what was happening in the con for the past day or so.

Here we see the writer’s workshop. Notice that everyone has that bleary early-morning look. Notice that several people have been forced to read Space Squid. They are the early adopters.

Here’s my critique group. This photo was taken before the actual critique, where I carefully informed everyone of their latent genius. That’s why they’re not totally thrilled to be there yet.

Have you ever been in a room that suddenly goes silent, and you look up from your zine stapling to see Michael Moorcock? This is Moorcock presenting an award to Howard Waldrop. I can’t say I know exactly what that award is. You should look on someone else’s blog for that sort of thing. Remember, this blog is all about me.

Here we see an intimate little reading with Paige E. Roberts. She’s reading an explicit four-way lesbian vampire sex scene.

And people wonder why Paige is Space Squid‘s favorite author.

Here’s Jayme Blaschke. You’re always taking other people’s pictures, so how do you like it? Huh? Not so funny the other way, is it?

At the Apollocon party, which I look forward to all year long. Yeah, it’s true. Here we see editor D Chang eating the signature Apollocon jello shot by dipping a cheeto in it. It’s mad, I tell you, mad!

Also note that editor D displays his talent for always looking drunk whenever someone snaps a picture.

Some stuff I should have taken pictures of, but didn’t:
-The improv reading contest. We had 9 contestants and a full house of highly entertained audience. The grand prize winner was Nathan, with his chupacabra story.
-Me sitting at the signing table, with con-goer after con-goer turning down my offer to sign body parts.
-Me podcasting the podcasting panel. I got this all recorded, the sound quality will likely be totally heinous, but it’s something. The highlight of the panel was when I casually let slip that barbacoa is made from heads, making Alan J. Porter cry.

I’ll probably record my reading tonight, giving us one more thing to put on the podcast and pretend that we’re doing stuff.

There is indeed a completely assembled and printed entity that you may call Space Squid issue 8.

It’s been a long hard last few days, making sure that everything came together to make this thing of beauty that will yet again redefine literature as we know it. Here’s some photos of our ordeals.

This is editor D doing last-minute grommeting of the Space Squid official banner.

You see the grommet kit has a special squashing tool and an anvil that conforms the two brass pieces of the grommet into a single unit.

Neat, huh?

Meanwhile, editor Steve is inside the Space Squid headquarters doing all the work.

This morning I had to fix our photocopier, Sanjay2. He had developed a bad streaking problem that was only getting worse. You may find some copies of issue 7 floating around with these streaks along the top and bottom margins.

So, basically I had to pull out Sanjay’s guts. It took me twenty minutes to figure out the latching mechanism that released the photodrum assembly.

There was of course extensive use of my beyboard.

I wish that each and every one of you knew how to do photocopier repair, so you can know how it feels to have the innards of a living organism in your hands, and then put them all together again and have it live and copy like new.

Here’s Sanjay as he prints off the inner-pages part of issue 8.

It’s going to take a couple weeks probably to get through my closet stock of paper, but 2000 copies of Space Squid will eat straight through this.

So those of you going to Armadillocon, you can expect to hold a Space Squid of your own within the next day. If you aren’t, then it might take a little while longer. Contributor copies are going out between Monday and Wednesday. Everyone else, you’re going to have to figure out where the nearest Space Squid drop is. Or send us a donation, and I’ll make certain that you get a copy.

I am glad that this issue has finally gone to press. It’s on time, it’s extra large, and it’s a damn fine issue with damn fine fiction. Can’t imagine anyone doing better.

Here’s how everything stands. Editor Steve has the issue put together and we’re doing the final copy-edit tomorrow night. Then on Thursday I’ll spend all day with the photocopier running, so on Friday morning I can wander blearily into the Armadillocon writer’s workshop with a big box of Space Squid and a cup of coffee.

Of course there’s plenty that could go wrong between now and then.

But in the meantime, let me whet your appetite for the upcoming orgy of squid by showing you some of the graphics that I’ve put together.

Here’s my illustration for Frank Dutkiewicz’s "A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing."

And of course every issue of Space Squid has to have a portrait of our corporate mascot, Squishy the Squid:

I might get in one more entry before the weekend and I start the dillocon blogging and podcast coverage. So stay tuned!

We’re still in the final layout stages of putting together Space Squid issue 8.

Here’s some of the things to get you excited:

This will be the biggest Space Squid ever! No longer are we a sleepy little zine comprised of seven pages of legal-sized paper. Now we are a publishing megalith comprised of eight pages of legal-sized paper!

There will be at least three guaranteed rips on Mikal Trimm!

And once again there will be a funpage, where you can solve a picture-glyph puzzle like they have on the bottom of Lone Star bottlecaps (only without having to drink a Lone Star, create your own serial killer, and chuckle over T9 prediction synonyms!

It’s seven days until the next issue of Space Squid goes live. And it has been confirmed, because everyone has been whining about how sexist we are, that we will be having a dude on the cover.

That’s right, we’re taking a page from the Torchwood book and being sexist and exploitative with everybody.

So quit complaining.

Since everyone else is doing it, I’m going to list everything I’m doing at dillocon next weekend.

Fr2100DW Space Squid Flash Fiction Contest
Fri 9:00 PM-10:00 PM deWitt
M. Bey*

I still can’t believe Jonathan gave us time on the Armadillocon schedule and a room to do this. If you’ve been to a Space Squid release party in the past few years, you’ve probably seen our improvisational fiction competition. It’s based on the 24hr Film Festival format, where people are given a ridiculously short amount of time to create their art. In this case, the audience will provide a random genre trope and a random prop for every contestant, and then that contestant will have five minutes to create a short story based on those elements.

This has always been fun, and this year we’ll see if we can scrape up some prizes that people will want to win.

Sa1000PC Blogging and Podcasting
Sat 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Phoenix Central
A. Porter, M. Cardin, M. Tyler, J. Kenner*, B. Crider, M. Bey
From keeping in touch with fans to building a community.

Alan J. Porter, a frequent contributor to revSF will also be there. Considering that I actually have a blog and I’ve done podcasting, I’m kinda qualified for this one. Expect me to show up with a pint of coffee and a bleary expression.

Sa1500DR Autographing
Sat 3:00 PM-4:00 PM Dealers’ Room
M. Acevedo, J. Stein, M. Bey, R. S. Rose, V. Gischler

Remember, I sign body parts.

Sa2000R Reading
Sat 8:00 PM-8:30 PM Robertson
Matthew Bey

I prefer to read selections from upcoming stories that are also funny. Funny just goes over better. But I don’t really have anything that is both, although Drabblecast B-sides is going to re-publish my very first sale "The Elves Hate You." Although I’ve read that one to death. Probably what I will do is just decide a few minutes beforehand.

And as soon as I’m finished with my super-exciting reading, I will expect everyone to march upstairs to the Space Squid room party. We’ve got the room reserved, so it’s just a matter of adding the booze.

And I think that we’ll do what we did last time we had a room party at dillocon, and cross-list the party as the Space Squid/Revolutionsf.com joint party. This is because the two publications frequently collaborate, and because we hope to lure in Jayme Blaschke and his homebrew.

Space Squid Issue Eight is scheduled to come out by August 14th. We expect a triumphant debut at Armadillocon. Here’s some of the amazing things that will make the release of a new Space Squid the most exciting thing to happen in your life:

* Piles of crisp, new Space Squid, brimming over with free fiction.

* A Space Squid sponsored improvisational fiction contest on Friday. (I am currently carving a trophy that will make this the most prestigious and coveted prize in all of sci-fi.)

* A Space Squid room party. Limber up your liver, you’re going to need it at the top of its game.

The advertising deadline for Space Squid issue 8 is this Friday, August 7th. We still have some interior quarter-page ads for sale, starting at $25. And if you have something that really, seriously needs promotion, we still have some backpage ad space for the discerning business.

Otherwise everything is in place. It’s just a matter of fitting all the bits and pieces together into the stunning multi-media extravaganza which is Space Squid.

So, my week in the limelight at Pseudopod is over. It’s been amazing to read all the positive comments people made about "Hometown Horrible."

I’m sure the majority of the positive response is due to the spectacular performance by Elie Herschman and the creepy, crescendoing closing monologue by host Alasdair Stuart.

And because the ghost-meme of Helmut Finch compels the commentors to lure others into listening as well. Now that most everyone who is going to get an infestation of cornstalk witches probably has one, I would like to say a few things about the story.

First off, unlike my usual writing process where I barf up some text and then never change it, this story went through several radical transformations after visits to the Cryptopolis and Tryptophan writing groups, and a final transformation after some insightful suggestions from the Pseuopod editorial staff. I won’t bore you with the details, but it involved swallowing my pride and removing various stylistic affectations that simply didn’t work.

The origins of this story come from two places, the first being Richard Brodie’s Virus of the Mind. I took notes the entire time I read it. Although to be perfectly honest, I think that meme-theory is way too vague to have any real-world value.

The second origin is at the Austin World Fantasy Con a couple years ago. I only went to one panel discussion (I spent most of my time getting drunk at room parties, woohooo!) and that was the panel on Robert E. Howard literature studies. My colleague Mark Finn, author of the definitive Robert E. Howard biography, Blood and Thunder, was there, as was the Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa, pronounced ‘reh-hoopa’). Listening to that panel I was fascinated by how closely a love of Robert E. Howard was tied to a Texas identity. It made me wonder what a similar pulp-fiction figure from Wisconsin would be like. I was so lost in this wondering that I showed up late to the panel I was on with Lou Anders, Stephen Dedman, and Sharyn November. Sharyn mocked me in front of a packed conference room of about three hundred people, ensuring that the panel was the hit of the con.

In the spirit of Wisconsin jingoism, almost everything in "Hometown Horrible" that relates to Wisconsin is true. For instance there really is a Norske Nook and it has the most amazing pies in the world. I work as a baker, so I ought to know. If people are properly nice to me, I’ll bring my own imperfect re-creation of their sourcream raisin pie to the Space Squid room party at Armadillocon.

There also was a Zona Gale public library in Portage, which is roughly where I grew up. The library used to be the mansion of Portage’s only literary star, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ms. Zona Gale. For the past couple of years I’ve been reading the novelization of her prize-winning play, Miss Lulu Bett. It is breathtakingly dull.

As Bruce Sterling pointed out in his critique during Tryptophan, "Hometown Horrible" is just another version of "The King in Yellow." I like to think of it as "The King in Yellow" meets Fargo. (And for another King in Yellow esque meme story, you should check out "Meme" by Jeff Carlson, published here at RevSF.)

One more thing, just to put it out there for the record. I wanted the naming scheme to be vaguely reminiscent of pulp fiction writers without being directly analogous. The name Helmut Finch comes from the thought process that "Lovecraft" always made me think of lovebirds, which are not unlike finchs. And "Albert ‘Prof’ Jaqueline" comes from E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith, through the intermediary of my favorite artist of all time, Jacqueline Smith. Make sense now?

You know how you’ve been saying that you really wish that you could express your love for Space Squid by altering the personalized settings of your PC or Mac?

Well, today is your lucky day. Space Squid has expanded the campaign to provide you with wonderful free stuff by making a desktop image that you can look at!

You can go to the Space Squid free page, where you can also download a PDF or two of our award winning and terrifyingly cutting edge zine, or you could just download it here:

Here’s how to install your new desktop pattern (on a PC). Click the above link and the picture will appear in a new window in your web browser. Right-click on the image and choose "Set As Background" or "Set As Wallpaper". Done!

Hmmm. When you look at it like this, that chorizo really does look like salivary glands.

Okay, now on to new business. I thinking about transitioning to buying groceries mainly from specialty ethnic markets. Here’s a haul I got from New Oriental Market:

From left to right, there’s the sardines (which you’ve already seen), quail eggs, vegetable buns (which were quite delicious with some microwaving and some sauce), enoki mushrooms, dumplings (which turned out to be filled with red beans — yuck! it’s either savory or a desert, make up your mind, Asia!), and a mackerel.

I also got this giant jar of kimchi.

I figure I’m an adult. I deserve my own kimchi supply.

I fried up the enoki mushrooms and put them in with some of this green tea chlorella ramen.

Honestly, no matter what you put in the ramen, it pretty much just tastes like ramen.

Likewise, the quail eggs, rather than being the alien exploration into exotic poultry ovulation I hoped for, were, well, basically they were tiny eggs.

I’ve also been eating more often at the little lunch counter at the back of New Oriental Market. Here’s a couple of dishes that I got for just five bucks!

A soup with dumplings, rice cakes (rice wafers? rice noodles? rice gelatinous ovals? — you know what I mean), and beef.

It was so big that I couldn’t finish it all. And I’m the guy who can finish everything!

This morning I got the bilgimbabbogimgobobbob thing. You know, that one dish with the fried egg and the beef and the cucumber and carrot threads.

My frakker deputy Julia sent me this from the Pacific Northwest. Elk jerky!

Tasted like the freedom and majesty of the American wilderness, but flayed and smoked.

Here’s a barbacoa gordita from a cart down by Caesar Chavez and Pleasant Valley.

Delicious and crisp.

I’ve been sampling the snack fare available from this east Manor Rd. convenience store.

Starting on the left, those green tubes, the churritos de maiz, tasted pretty good. Kinda like those snack sticks you find in food co-ops, but much saltier. The multi-colored sticks in front of it, are thick plastic tubes filled with a stiff gelatin. It was not easy getting the candy out of the plastic containing it. It was less like a snack and more like one of those food-based tests they use to gauge primate intelligence. The havas, are roasted and spiced lima beans, which makes them taste marginally better than lima beans usually do.

In the glass is a Mexican Coke, which tasted exactly like Cokes usually do, only more expensive. I was just thinking the other day that "Mexican Coke" is the only time that "Mexican" is used as a prefix in a non-pejorative manner.

This convenience store has literally ten different varieties of fried pig skin. Here’s a sampling:

I haven’t yet been able to figure out the code, but these products represent a continuum of texture that stretches from light and crispy and ends at tooth-shatteringly hard (although if you suck on the really hard skins for a bit and gnaw at them like a labrador with a rawhide bone it is possible to eventually devour them). I think the code corresponds to the continuum like this: Skins -> crispy -> curls -> strips.