THEORY OF BRUTALITY

Here's a link to a great interview with Johnny Ryan on his new series, Prison Pit, a book I've been pushing over the last couple of months. It is probably one of the most gruesome, insane things we carry in the store, which is one of many reasons it's so interesting to read the creator's thoughts on the work's origin (horror manga and WWE as it turns out). The interview also gives nods to the works of C.F. (Powr Mastrs) and Benjamin Marra (Night Business), a couple of guys who are putting out some strange and inventive new books which really deserve more recognition than they're probably getting. Anyhow, I won't spoil the whole thing for you. Have a look yourself.

Note: Night Business is only out in single issue format, so visit your local comic shop!

Poem of the Week by Denise Newman

Happy Monday. Glad to see the sun is back in the Richmond District today. Here's a poem to start your week, from The New Make Believe by Denise Newman (The Post-Apollo Press, 2010).

The First Rip

then I went out new in my accident to see
if humankind looked new
and it did
looking up at people moving freely above the station
each living thing influential in its ability to move freely
along more or less the same lines
not that I was new but I was shiny and well tuned
with a new buoyancy limb, that is, my accident,
which hasn't happened but I know it
on instinct as I once was my animal,
animate, breath in that way
when it ripped through me going up the escalator
only lips moving at the tip of
a long spasm triggered from bottom like saturated
ground holding
all the dark water without
breaking and they thought I was drunk when I cried out
but this was the poem
and this is documentation, for now

WTF Is Up With Your Love Life?!

I couldn't really tell ya what's, er, up with your love life, but maybe Jessica Massa and Rebecca Wiegand could. The two ladies behind WTF Is Up With My Love Life?! will be stopping by the store on Monday night (October 25, 7pm) for a lively reading of favorites from their blog, as well as a "love advice" Q+A session. There will be wine. There will probably be awkwardness. There will definitely be laughter. See you tomorrow evening!

Happy Birthday

The first thing I did today after coming in to work was sell a copy of Weird Al's greatest hits. Fact: Today is Al's birthday.

NaNoWriMo (there...I said it)

Yes, the National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us, and for the first time, I'm going take a stab at writing a 50,000 word novel, from scratch, during the month of November. What I need now are a couple of tips on working through the madness...lucky that there's BoingBoing!

In a BoingBoing column last week, one of Green Apple's favorite authors, Nicole Krauss, walks us through her creation process and really gets to the heart of the matter of 'doubt'. I suggest that you read it here.

Krauss says, "I begin my novels without ideas. I don't have a plot, or themes, or a sense of the book's form. Often I don't even have a specific character in mind. I begin with a single sentence of no great importance; it almost certainly will be thrown away later."

I guess that there's hope yet!