Posted inNot Dead Yet: Print Reviews

Two Fake Books from McSweeney’s

One of my old Army buddies, Eric Hoffman, went on to become a comedian, making a name for himself in the Chicago improv circuit and landing some good roles in TV and film (most notably, he parodied the John Travolta character from Pulp Fiction in My Big Fat Independent Movie). He even wrote for Bob & Dave's "Mr. Show" for awhile. Well, now he's an author, or co-author with Gary Rudoren, anyway, with the release of a great humor book: Comedy by the Numbers I didn't intend to review the book here, but it's such a singularly funny read that…
July 18, 2007Posted inNot Dead Yet: Print Reviews
Posted inInstigation

Twisted Prompts for Sicko Writers

+ Bind a book in something dastardly...but avoid the obvious (lemme guess: skin, right?). + There's a campaign afoot to nominate Cthulhu for president (http://www.cthulhu.org/). Create a Lovecraftian story that satirizes today's politics. + Write a short-short with the title "Surgical Puppet Theater" *** Congratulations to Kathleen J. Trimmer who recently published a short-short called "Getting Off Death Row" in Cthulhu SM (3:13) based loosely on a past Instigation prompt. If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I'll mention it here!
July 18, 2007Posted inInstigation

"In an aversion to animals the predominant feeling is fear of being recognized by them through contact. The horror that stirs deep in man is an obscure awareness that in him something lives so akin to the animal that it might be recognized. All disgust is originally disgust at touching." -- Walter Benjamin (died 1940)

The Petting Zoophobia