Next Week

A great read.

Some things I've been reading

I just got the new Keyhole and read the story by Michael Jauchen called "Our Electric Borders." It's about the Mexico/US border, but the Interesting Reader lodges the meaning more squarely on the borders between people, or even between the short sections that comprise the telling.

There's a resolute morality in Sarah, the main girl gives freelance psychology a shot before settling for border patrolling. Then there's the narrator, who is Sarah's husband or boyfriend, and he seems emotionally neutral but not detached. I mean, like not detached in a Jake Barnes way but in an independent way that does more to outline Sarah than himself.

The sections of the story are connected, but not in a linear or chronological way, more like the firing synapses of a good conversationalist. You know how a smart person can start at one point in a conversation and move back and forth and tangentially through it? That's kind of how this story goes, and this story goes to show the value of such a technique in writing.

Jauchen puts some pretty good jokes in "Our Electric Borders," too. Like, when they leave Texas for LA, "everything started costing twice as much. Even coffee or getting a key made or a three-pack of underwear."

It could be that's just good writing and not a joke. One actual joke is when Sarah's brain-weary grandmother calls and says, "Eggshells, what a waste!"

Someone could argue with me about the narrator's emotional neutrality. It could be that he is very deeply and wildly emotional. The story can support both of our opinions, I think.

Does Sarah die? Did she die? It doesn't say. I don't think she does, but I kind of felt that she does. I felt that because of the way the guy reflects so long on his first kiss at the end.

If you read that story and have an opinion, I welcome your comments. I'm interested in a reading group thing hosted by Blogger comments.

MLKNG SCKLS contest update -- 7 days to play

You have until Friday, June 26 to submit cover copy for the new video game, 6 DAYS IN FALLUJAH.

The winner will receive:

• Justin Sirois's newest book, MLKNG SCKLS, signed by Justin and Haneen Alshujairy (the Iraqi refugee who consulted with him on the story)
• A print of the cover copy inserted into the game design (see picture, below)
• A drawing Justin has been working on all week

Here's part of one entry that I like a lot:

Oof! Kill that person! Are you going to ice that person? That one?

How I'm Feeling

Personal: I'm scared?

Thanks

To everyone who came to the Genius Party, or thought about it: thank you.

I was so happy about everything that happened there, like Stephanie's deejaying and Joe's, and the exquisite corpse game and Shane and Jen's reading, and Justin's non reading drawings, and Dave's tight drum solo and Randy's flabbergasting magic tricks. And Michael's blackjack even though the house took a loss. And everything, like Sasha doing the thing with the paper.

It was pretty great at the end when Stephanie played all the songs really fast.

Yeah, thanks a lot you people.

Practice matters, I need to get to work.

Review of Light Boxes at The Urban Elitist

David Nygren wrote a really honest and thought-provoking review of Light Boxes. And also, it's nice:

By the time I arrived at page 168, if there had been more, I would have kept reading. What can I say? Might just have to read it again.

Thanks to Shane McJones for the picture.

UPDATE: Here's another nice review from PANK. It says, "This book is masterful."

MLKNG SCKLS contest

Justin Sirois wrote MLKNG SCKLS with Haneen Alshujairy, an Iraqi refugee, and when I read it for the first time I thought, Cool, a post-apocalypse story like A Boy and His Dog or Road Warrior. Then I caught myself: Wait, this is real. This is here and now. Or to be precise, this is Fallujah 2004.

That’s when Marines stormed the Iraqi city in response to a vicious and grotesque attack on four Blackwater mercenaries. Sensing the impending retaliation, many of the city's residents fled, including the characters in MLKNG SCKLS who walk a hard trip up the Euphrates. And today Fallujah is a bombed out post-apocalyptic city after all.

That isn't discussed in MLKNG SCKLS, though. The inciting incident is hauntingly absent. Instead, Sirois presents the quiet hustle of Salim and Khalil as they itch for a swim, a nap or a smoke on their trek to safety. I think it's a smart way to treat the whole thing. People should care about what happened in Iraq, and it's the strength of fiction to give a human perspective.

It's the strength of video games to give the first-person shooter perspective, and the new game "Six Days in Fallujah" is a dirty bomb to drop. It presents the early days of the fight in 2004, when 48 Marines and thousands of insurgents were killed. You play as a soldier. You walk through the rubble and decide whether or not the guy in the tracksuit is someone you should shoot.


That's where THE MLKNG SCKLS IS NOT A CALLOUS VIDEO GAME CONTEST comes in. Here are the details:

What?
• The contest is to write back cover copy for the video game, “Six Days in Fallujah.”
• The prize for the contest is one copy of MLKNG SCKLS, an 11x17” cover illustration by Sirois and a Sirois-designed image of the video game packaging that shows your write-up (see the picture).
• Send 1-3 entries to adam at publishinggenius by June 26, the Friday before MLKNG SCKLS official release on June 30. Entry is free, judged by PGP editorial staff.

What?
• Entries should be about 50 words long.
• They should address the events of April, 2004 in Fallujah.
• They should address the video game.
• There is no constraint on criticizing the game as a good or bad.

What?
• An entry could be a straightforward description of the game or a description from the perspective of a civilian living in Fallujah in April, 2004.
• It could address the "Play Theory" that Johan Huizinga writes about in Homo Ludens, that playing is freedom, and is distinct from real life.
• It could be about how much fun you'll have pretending to shoot real people, if that's your thing.

What?
• Aside from promoting MLKNG SCKLS, the purpose of this contest is to consider again the horrible situation in Fallujah, and to care about it.

MLKNG SCKLS on Goodreads

MLKNG SCKLS by Justin Sirois

Hey, why not add MLKNG SCKLS to your Goodreads shelf?

Chris Toll Poem

"When you turn one of my poems sideways,
you see the graph of a mood."

MLKNG SCKLS blurb

“Sirois’ MLKNG SCKLS reads like what might happen if you crossed Gus Van Sant’s ‘Gerry’ with the parts of an Iraq war documentary that the Bush administration had censored. A tight, spare and quietly tense gem of a book.”
Brian Evenson
Author of Last Days and The Open Curtain

(Get it here.)

Stupid Irish

Dogzplotz Reading

DOGZPLOT READING
ATLANTIC CITY, NJ
JULY 31 - AUGUST 2

READERS
RANDALL BROWN
ELIZABETH ELLEN
LANE FALCON
TIMOTHY GAGER
ANDREA KNEELAND
ROBERT LOPEZ
SCOTT McCLANAHAN
KEVIN MICHAELS
JEN MICHALSKI
MARY MILLER
AMANDA NAZARIO
ERIN PRINGLE
ADAM ROBINSON
CURTIS SMITH
TIMMY WALDRON

More peope will be getting on this list to. Hit up bgraham@dogzplot.com for more info.

Work

Work says no blogging from work. It's true that I write most of my posts from my cubicle. So. I'll try to keep things going in the before and after. This is a pretty huge blow.

Dear Blog

Would it be funny if I called myself "Daddy" to my blog?

Like, "Dear Blog, Daddy misses you but he's been very busy at work."

Some cool things are happening. Matthew Simmons's book, A JELLO HORSE, is about sold out. You can still get a copy if you act fast: ORDER HERE.

Some movie people are trying to decide to make LIGHT BOXES: THE FILM. Some German people are talking about making LIGHT BOXES: THE GERMAN BOOK. Some Slavs are like, LIGHT BOXES: THE EXCERPT IN CROATIAN.

Daddy thinks that's such good news.

Jamie plays bass in my band, Baby Wolf Sweatpants. His daughter played drums and sang with us at practice yesterday. It was awesome. I want a 7-yr-old in the band. She nails all the turns.

I think our music is pretty traditional rock, but I'm not sure. We're playing at The Black Hole on Saturday. That ain't your traditional rock club; check out the bartendars (sic) there. WTF?

MLKNG SCKLS is in the binding stage at the printers. I'm hoping to see them on Friday or Saturday, and mailing out copies to the pre-ordering people. PRE-ORDER HERE.

I'm going to have three poems in OCHO, thanks to Blake Butler. I wonder how that contest he's running is going.

Dear Blog, Daddy loves you.

Narrow House dwellers

Oh man.

This feature about Narrow House, my awesome publishers, makes even me look cool.

The Genius Party

 

The Genius Party is for fun.
Shane Jones to read. Justin Sirois to read. Michael Kimball to deal blackjack. DJs. Collaborative decorating. Jeopardy.