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THE GORELETTER:

Arnzen's Weird Newsletter

http://www.gorelets.com

+++ Vol 1.3, Nov. 13, 2002 +++

**Halloween Dreams**

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

Halloween Costumes
I Wish I Would Have Seen

+ Pushpinhead\\
+ Sumo Uncle Fester\\
+ The SlimJim Reaper\\
+ Shattered Stunt Man Skeleton\\
+ Apple Sauce\\
+ Osama Been Rotting\\
+ Transvestite "Double-Yuh"\\
+ Fixed Lethargic Cat\\
+ Drawn and Quartered Gladiator\\
+ Suicidal Van Helsing\\
+ Quivering Giblets in Blood Gravy\\
+ Zombie Homeless Man\\
(with "Will Work for Brains" sign)\\
+ My Very Own Doppelganger\\
+ Plaque\\

====OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE====

"Creepy 'Short-tailed' Cats"

For your next movie night, rent:\\
Cat's Eye (1985)\\
Two Evil Eyes (1990)\\
Tales from the Darkside (1990)\\

====SADISTIC STATISTICS====

Number of Friday the 13th movies
produced by 2003: 11

Total body count in the Friday the 13th
films to date: 133

Total number of decapitations in the
Friday the 13th series: only 4

Maximum number of steps a beheaded
body can take after decapitation: 32

Highest number of public beheadings
in a single year (1995) in Saudi Arabia:
192

***
Sources: pravda.ru 9/2/02; Guardian
UK 10/24/99; Friday the 13th Web
11/09/02; imdb.com 11/09/02.

====GORELETS====

Sketching the Mutant Nude

surrounded, sweaty under lamplight,\\
pseudo-woman slowly pulls open\\
her robe strings and sits on a stool\\
as the stained terrycloth cascades\\
down to reveal pertly perfect breasts\\
resting atop an abdominal abomination\\
until a third hand reaches around\\
from her back to snuff the button eye\\
that dilates and rolls so wetly to ogle\\
those who would dare recreate her\\

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

"Love bugs come alive here in May
and September. No other creature will
eat them. They copulate in midair for
56 hours, on average, then look to lay
eggs in anything rotten. But they
mistake exhaust fumes for rot and
swarm all over the roads, igniting a
twice-yearly car-gunk crisis."
-- San Francisco Chronicle, 7/02

"Don't want to wear your favorite
disease around your neck? Matching
underwear is also available."
-- Thisistrue.com, 11/02

"Brain cells don't blow up after five
minutes, nor (unfortunately) do they
issue up little cellular ghosts, shaped
like little neurons, but wispy and
transparent and with blank eye holes."
-- sci.med Usenet newsgroup, 5/16/97

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

"The Intestine Creator"

This "useless" interactive online toy
makes uncanny renderings of
intestines in an impossible array of
colors -- just like they do in medical
diagrams. To make it work at its
digestive best, draw a pretzel several
times with your mouse using a
mustard-colored brush:

http://www.urban75.com/Mag/shock1.html

[Requires the "Shockwave" player -- a
free add-on to your browser that will
auto-install upon arrival. No worries.]

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

"Literary Lights" are actual matchbooks
of matchbook-sized fiction. Published
by Gargoyle Daily, these unique
flamers feature four short-short stories
(printed in a limited edition of 4000
matchbooks (1K per tale)). They're
sure to "strike up" conversation the
next time someone asks, "Got a light?"
Just hand them one of these artistic
objects and you'll literally enlighten
them.

The conceit is brilliant. The stories -- all
under 100 words -- are printed on the
inside of the matchbook, which is
functional yet parodic. (You are told by
the underleaf to "Open Cover Before
Reading"). On the outside is a
thoughtful image of a gargoyle and a
label that promotes the publisher's
website, "Gargoyle Arts & Letters."

The four teensy tales themselves are
genuinely high quality literature and
definitely worth the cost (at a quarter a
pop, it's not like you're setting your
wallet on fire). In Joseph Faria's
touchingly subtle "Hands," a family
dysfunction is revealed in a memory of
a father's big hard hands. Good
kitchen candle reading. In Bob
Thurber's piece, "Good Advice," a
father's words of wisdom are spelled
out in ten hilariously apt snippets worth
musing over while the logs in the
fireplace ignite. Andrew L. Wilson
presents a great tale of the fantastic in
"The Further Adventures of the
Incredible Shrinking Man" with
hilariously ironic results. Perfect for the
camper who wants a little night
reading. And Mary Kelly's "Seduction"
is an erotic exploration of food --
perfect, I suppose, for reading during
an after dinner smoke.

Although works of literary mainstream,
the tales seem to represent a range of
genres, from the science fiction
comedy of "Shrinking Man" to the
romantic promise of "Seduction."

The matches work well. The striker is
sure. The stories are so good, I doubt
anyone will burn them. And I am
certain matchbook collectors will
cherish these little gems.

Gargoyle Daily mails one set of four
matchbooks for a buck-fifty ($1.50 US)
which includes postage. Discounts for
bulk. Visit their website for ordering
info: <del>gargoyledaily.org/</del>

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

Odd Artists Taking Odd Requests.

Acting.
http://www.emotioneric.com/

Photographing.
<del>whatshouldiputonthefence.com</del>

Drawing.
http://www.explodingdog.com/

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

What if -- via genetic mutation -- an
organic "optical illusion" was created?
Describe an original one. Make it do
something nasty to someone else.

It's common knowledge that serial
killers often torture pets or insects in
their youth. Write a scene where an
animal tortures such a kid, instead.

Fun with Onomatopoeia: How many
weapons (or potential weapons) can
you list that sound like what they are
intended to do? (silly example: Skil
Drill). Write a poem or experimental
prose piece based on this list. Or a
story about a poetic killer.

====ARNZEN NEWS====

+ My "Year's Best Horror Stories"
selection, "Spring Ahead, Fall Back,"
hit #1 in the bestselling horror e-book
charts at Fictionwise.com over
Halloween weekend. It's slipped down
by now, I'm sure. But if you read it:
thanks! If not, it's still available at:
<del>fictionwise.com/servlet/mw?t=author&ai=1527&id=4004</del>

+ FlashShot Daily is a neat way to get
very short genre stories in your inbox
every day. I've already had two stories
published there and two more are
coming out soon. For more info, visit:
http://www.gwthomas.org/flashshotindex.htm

+ Macabre magazine came in the mail
from Singapore yesterday.and it's a
really fun-but-disturbing read. Two of
my poems lurk inside: an insectoid
horror called "Bookworm" and a
strange thinkpiece, "Terms They Never
Illustrate in Dictionaries" (What would
you guess they are?). Get weird at:
<del>allegrapress.com</del>

+ Like Peter Straub? Feeling
academic? The latest issue of
Paradoxa is out with my review of Bill
Sheehan's book about Straub (the
World Fantasy Award winning study, At
the Foot of the Story Tree). It also
includes a great study by my friend
Kate Sullivan on the "monstrous
feminine" in Straub's fiction. Indeed, I
highly recommend the whole "Horror"
issue of Paradoxa if you've got any
academic interest in the genre. Look
over the contents list here:
http://www.paradoxa.com

+ I've placed nearly a chapbook's
worth of work (a whopping 18 poems
and 5 vignettes) in a hardbound
anthology called Cemetery Poets due
to be published March 2003 by Double
Dragon Publishing. http://double-dragon-ebooks.com/ 
All poets in this
collection are using the "Fridge of the
Damned" at my website for at least
one of their entries in the book. See
the neat color cover here:
http://www.gorelets.com/demos/CemPoetsCoverFin.jpg

+ Earlier this week, I put the finishing
touches on an introduction to a new
horror poetry book entitled,
Pitchblende: Songs of Flesh Bone and
Blood, by multi-award winning poet
Bruce Boston. I selected the best
horror poems reflecting the range of
Boston's horror poetry over the past
decade and arranged the contents into
an interesting melange. The book is
seeking a publisher, but sure to get
picked up in a snap.

+ Also recommended: Dark Animus
magazine, which debuted from
Australian publisher James Cain this
week. Marcia Borell's "Munch mask"
illustration to accompany my poem,
"Scream 6," is just gore-geous! See:
http://www.darkanimus.com

====DATA & ERRATA====

My new story, "The Boblin," which I
mentioned in my Halloween card last
month, will no longer appear in
Switch.Blade, fictionwise's original e-
book anthology (the whole book was
dropped for various logical reasons by
the editor). I'll alert you when the tale
places elsewhere. The Switch.Blade
series itself is not dead -- the next
edition is likely to appear on
fictionwise.com around Valentine's
Day, with some offbeat romance tales.

====NEW AT GORELETS.COM====

+ "Really, Really Badminton" is the
most recent poem hidden in the gory
handheld on the Gorelets front page.
It's part of a series of sports-related
fantasy/horror poems I'm working on,
so expect to see more of them from
time to time.

+ I recently discovered a trick to using
"The Refrigerator of the Damned." If
you're using Internet Explorer, it should
work for you, too. Click on the
immediate right of the scroll bar that
runs vertically up the center of the
page. Drag it to the left. This should
give you a little bit more work room for
the playing field.

====BOO COUPONS====

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

SHOCKLINES.COM offers up a
coupon for you and you alone:

"Nancy Collins' new collection,
Knuckles and Tales, is now out from
CD Publications -- in a signed, limited
edition of only 600 autographed
copies. Artwork by JK Potter. Normally
retails for $40.00; Shocklines.com sells
it for $34.00. But for Gorelets readers
only, until 11:59 PM November 26th, if
you have Knuckles and Tales in your
shopping cart and use the coupon
code GORELETKNUCK, you'll get
ANOTHER $6.00 off the price -- so you
get this great signed, limited edition for
only $28.00! (International orders
should email help@shocklines.com for
a shipping quote -- and mention this
coupon code to get the $28 price)"

Knuckles and Tales @ Shocklines:
<del>store.yahoo.com/shocklines/knucandtalby1.html</del>

WILDSIDE PRESS -- publisher of my
collection, Fluid Mosaic -- kindly offers
Goreletter subscribers a one-time 10%
discount coupon! Enter the coupon
code ARNZEN at check out:
http://www.wildsidepress.com/

FICTIONWISE's list of ebook discounts
for Goreletter readers, updated weekly:
<del>fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/</del>

====FEED YOUR DEAD====

Wanna get your hands on a SIGNED
copy of my short story collection, Fluid
Mosaic? I've got two on hand for sale.
Order a copy through me and I'll
include a few Literary Lights (see this
issue's review), a collectible "World
Horror Convention 1996" notepad and
five hilarious "Get Out of Hell Free"
cards for the next time you land on
life's Chance. No lie. After these two
books sell, I can still provide
autographed copies + the Hell cards,
but the other freebies are limited to the
first two orders. To get your book, you
MUST use PayPal to remit $15 US to
arnzen@gorelets.com (this price
includes postage!). If you're not a
PayPal user, click here to sign up:
https://www.paypal.com/refer/pal=MVGRAYAWYXPLE

Promise you won't burn the book with
the Literary Lights. ]:-<

====COLOPHON====
All material in The Goreletter is:
c 2002 Michael A. Arnzen, unless
otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to forward the
entire contents as a whole, without
alterations. For reprint permissions,
please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

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====PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS====

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid
someday, lying in hospitals dying of
nothing." -- Redd Foxx (died 1991)

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