"Could it think, the heart would stop beating." -- Fernando Pessoa (died 1935)

My Heartfelt Thoughts

A Double-Take on The New Uncanny

Last year's Shirley Jackson Award winner for "Best Anthology" -- The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease, edited by Sarah Eyre and Rah Page (Comma Press, 2008) -- is a knockout example of genre renewal. The book features some of the best British horror authors alive, including Ramsey Campbell, Nicholas Royle, A.S. Byatt, Christopher Priest and many more...even Matthew Holness (whose comedic double from the BBC, Garth Merenghi, is echoed here). The book definitely deserved the Jackson Award for its ambition, because it makes for an interesting literary experiment. The book, essentially, was an assignment. All its contributors were challenged to…

gavage

Tap-tap-tap. Class, pay attention. I'm going to teach you a new word today. It's called "gavage." Say it out loud. No, not like "savage," Little Jimmy. It's pronounced like "garage." That's right, Mary: guhvahzh. Really resonate that last syllable in your mouth. What? No Patty, "garvage" is not a word. Gavage. Do any of you know what it means? No, Jimmy, it's not the trash you run over in your garage. No, Mary, it's not a battlefield dressing invented during the French revolution. What's that, Patty? No. Absolutely not. That's not even humanly possible. Take notes, class. "Gavage" is a…

ALL CHOCOLATE IS CHOCULA

all chocolate is Chocula -- it seduces with its riches, wraps your desire in the cape of your mouth, and invites the sink of teeth. we never bite gently; we always suck it to vapor, feeding on its potency until we are left only with the empty pang for more and more and more. we are undead with diabetes, obese with our obsession, unquietly unquenched while we dwell upon the mortality of the melt.