THE GORELETTER:

Arnzen's Weird Newsletter

http://www.gorelets.com

+++ Vol 1 #12, July 5, 2003 +++

**Some Hypnotic Suggestions**

----

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

You're Not Getting Sleepy

You're not getting sleepy. Why not?
I've tried every trick in the hypnotist's
handbook. From the swinging gold
watch to the spinning spiral top to the
repetitious patterning of my deep,
monotone voice...and nothing works.

How dare you test my mental
dominance? I have degrees in
parapsychology AND television
advertising. I have studied ancient
unbound manuscripts in libraries that
are kept secret from even the real
magicians, like Doug Henning. But I
have gone farther into the mysteries of
the mind than most; there is no
hypnotic method I have not mastered. I
have memorized trade secrets from
how-to books by used car salesmen
and I know all the tricks from every
"How to Get a Person in Bed" book
ever published. Yet you seem
impenetrable to every mind-bending
technique.

You think you're so smart. You believe
that no one can bend your freewill,
except, perhaps, brain surgeons who
know how to trigger reactions by
prodding the scarlet sponge with their
cold instruments. Uncivil brutes! I can
manipulate your nerve endings without
even touching flesh. I can seduce you
with my eyes in a stare that puts Bela
Lugosi to shame. I can lull you into a
waking dream state with my voice in a
way that makes nursing mothers and
day care workers jealous. When I pull
and your aura with my electric fingers,
you will feel me in every way. I can
seduce your optic nerves into seeing
things that aren't there -- indeed,
Hollywood wishes they could market
me. When it comes to the trance state,
I'm more potent than a pill or a history
book. My methods of persuasion
require no technology. My power is
genuine.

So why do you still resist? Why do you
not succumb to my charm?

Don't you understand?

I will not simply put you to sleep. I will
make you dream that which is not
possible within your puny perception of
the world.

But still you resist.

I will not make you cockle-doodle-doo
like a chicken whilst flopping your
elbows. I will serve you a fricassee of
air that you can taste and swallow and
actually feel hot in your gullet. In fact, I
could even get you to cannibalize other
people who I >have< transformed into
a chicken, and relish the taste of their
meat. My powers are that strong.

But still you resist.

Enough.

Look into my eyes. Deeply. See the
vast expanse of the universe -- the
galaxies of sparkling stars, spiraling
into the center of two blacker-than-
black black holes. Feel them pulling
you into their vacuum, gently -- like a
raft of driftwood pulling slowly away
from shore. Feel the genuine release
of your worries as you cascade around
the swirling shower of light. Your mind
is free from the bindings of your heavy
body. Your eyelids are losing their
power as you swirl in the vortex of my
abyss. Freedom waits around every
turn and twist. You are getting sleepy,
sleepy....

When I snap my fingers, you will
believe that this job interview was the
best you have ever conducted. You will
not only want to hire me, you will give
me the maximum salary and benefits
and turn the other way when I seduce
secretaries and charm accountants
and beat the boss at golf.

One. Two...

Oh, come on! Please?

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

Where the Bodies Are Buried

Dig it Deep
<del>bbc.co.uk/beasts/fossilfun/burial/</del>

Paint it Black
<del>memorialart.com/index.html</del>

Clean it Up
<del>cadaverinc.com/</del>

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

+ Feeling generous? Add a link to
gorelets.com on your website with
these new clickable graphic banners
and buttons. All the code is provided
and there's nothing to download: just
copy and paste into your HTML!

http://www.gorelets.com/demos/goreletbuttons.htm

+ I get a lot of requests for my out of
print horror novel, Grave Markings --
and I'm no longer selling them from my
private stock. There are now two ways
I recommend to hunt them down: 1)
get GMX -- the Extreme Edition --
coming out in hand-tooled leather from
Double-Dragon Publishing in
November 2004 (YES! I don't mean to
brag, but this is the epitome of a COOL
BOOK. Only 13 copies will be printed!);
or, 2) use the handy-dandy new page
I've added to gorelets.com for a "Super
Quick Search of Bookstores for New
and Used Arnzen Titles" (you can
always get there via the
"writing/demos" page, too).

<del>gorelets.com/demos/arnzenbookscan.html</del>

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

+ Dramatize a pet turning on its owner
with deadly intentions.

+ Torture a character who has been
falsely accused of a crime.

+ Describe the journey of an
earthworm as it writhes its way through
a recently buried carcass.

Instigation is now a WEEKLY
department in Hellnotes newsletter:

http://www.hellnotes.com

[ Look for a discount code elsewhere in
this issue of The Goreletter! ]

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

"Bic Sticks"

For your next movie night, rent:\\
The Bourne Identity (2002)\\
Casino (1995)\\
Grosse Point Blank (1997)\\

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

Maybe you've read medical thrillers by
the likes of Robin Cook or Tess
Gerritsen. Sure, they're good nail-
biters, but they're also a little too
mainstream for my taste. The life-and-
death nightmares get blended down
into a something of a dark smoothie for
mass consumption. They're high on
suspense thrills and medical ethics, but
otherwise low on imagination and
fantasy, often written with a desire to
educate or impress rather than
confront taboos or horrify you in the
gut. After all, most of the writers are
doctors -- people with a clinically
detached, observational viewpoint on
the body -- who have learned to port
their bedside manner into profitable
fiction but refuse to entertain the
fancies of the supernatural or the
madness of unreason. The narratives
are all ultimately about salvation
through science and the re-institution of
comfortable domestic bliss.

But If you're looking for a >real<
nightmare in the operating room, you
might have to snoop around in the
small press, where genuine horrors
can still be found. To get your feet wet
in the extreme creativity of the horror
genre operating on the margins of
publishing, I recommend a recent book
called "PAIN and Other Petty Plots to
Keep you in Stitches" by Alan M. Clark
and several collaborators. PAIN is part
of a relatively new genre which might
be termed "medical dark fantasy" --
stories that stare in hallucinatory
wonder at the agony of the operating
room, the icky-ness of illness, and the
surrealism of surgery. If such a genre
exists, then Clark's PAIN is a classic of
its kind.

Although it's actually an anthology of
stories and art, PAIN is centered
around a novella and most of the work
in the book is collaborative in some
way. The opening novella -- "PAIN and
Other Petty Plots" -- is a collaboration
between Clark and writer Randy Fox
set in the Facility -- an imaginary
hospital where nightmares are probed
via the body in search of emotional
truths, ranging from the absurd to the
profound. The tale is essentially an
"escape from the madhouse" narrative,
with many interesting twists and turns
as sick doctors do sick things to not-
so-sick patients. Laced with an IV drip
of humor as black as a body bag, this
novella is a carnival ride through a
surreal series of sick surgeries,
banking off Clark's gloriously bizarre
full-page pieces of art -- a series of
paintings which inspired the writing.

It's a crazy collection -- disturbing but
also funny. And even though much of
the art is reprinted from various
sources (esp. the rare collection, The
Pain Doctors of Suture Self General, a
progenitor of sorts to this later project),
PAIN is highly original. You just don't
find books like this on the shelf and
Barnes and Noble. While the narrative
vacillates a little unevenly between the
existential angst-ridden mood of
Kafka's The Trial to the splatterpunk
silliness of Peter Jackson's Dead Alive,
the sheer imaginative risk that this
novella takes makes for compelling
reading. Reading through the stories
and perusing the art makes every page
of PAIN a page of demented pleasure.

PAIN not only dramatizes hospital
room anxiety like no other book I can
think of, it's also an art book (the sort
you might toss on the coffee table in a
waiting room in Hell). Clark -- a
renowned, multiple award-winning
artist of the outr‚ -- not only designed
this full-sized (8-1/2 x 11") book for his
own press (IFD Publishing) but also
created all of the dark and disturbing
illustrations that are copiously
scattered throughout the book -- about
30 total, from my count. Even the
borders and frames and dingbats
throughout the book -- mini-drawings of
scissors or scalpels or rib-spreaders --
are fun to look at. Since the art inspired
the stories, the art has been "literated"
as opposed to stories being
"illustrated" (see Fairwood Press'
brand new book, Imagination Fully
Dilated: Science Fiction to get an idea
of what this means at
http://www.fairwoodpress.com).

The wrap-around cover (featuring the
grim reaper standing above a body on
the table, surrounded by twisted
demonic-looking "surgeons" in an
operating theater of the damned) is the
only rich color image; the interiors are
a monochromatic black-and-white that
really delivers -- each of Clark's
paintings is a marvel to behold. From
an extreme close-up rendering of a
virus in action to an apocalyptic image
of the medical "Facility" towering in a
sky full of bleeding clouds, Clark's
creative range knows no bounds, no
limits. Indeed, PAIN is a testament to
this artist's lifework, as many of these
images come from a variety of sources
that he's kindly reprinted here.

After Clark & Fox's novella, the second
half of the book consists of three short
stories "To Keep You in Stitches" by
Clark collaborating with writers like
Mark Edwards, Jeremy Robert
Johnson and Troy Guinn. These are all
good gross-out stories which go way
over the top in depicting bodily excess,
terrifying transformation, and
phantasmagoric torture. There's a
wicked glee that these writers take in
diving into Clark's dark imaginative
universe of catheter tubes and body
fluids. But as Dr. F. Paul Wilson (MD)
puts it in his introduction, "This is not
fiction -- this is what really happens"
psychologically when you enter into the
terror of any hospital visit. You give
your body over to some alien system
where your life and identity are at risk.

The only disappointment with PAIN --
aside from the b/w art which makes
you want to see it all in color -- is a
minor one: the book's readily apparent
reliance on reprints. There's enough
credits to fill the 8-1/2x11
acknowledgements page. The art
pieces are from everything from
biology textbooks to limited edition
hardbound books -- and two of the
stories are reprinted from hard-to-find
sources. But this is not really a fault;
unless you're a Clarkophile, most of
this book will be new to you -- and if
you are already a fan of Clark, then
you'll get to see some work you never
knew he created. Besides, Clark
created at least five brand new
paintings just for this book -- what
more can you want?

In addition to the fantastically imagined
novella, the closing memoir by Alan
Clark makes the collection well worth
the price of admission ($16). "The
Unseen and Unknowable" is an
autobiographical piece as shocking as
anything else in this already very
shocking book -- and perhaps it's the
most memorable entry. Here Clark
talks frankly about a near-death
experience that in some ways
accounts for his aesthetic as a well-
spring of inspiration. It's an honest
report about a very scary hospital
experience involving brain abscesses
and a wrestling match with alcoholism
that you'll not easily forget. Reading
this memoir makes you turn back
through the pages, lending a new level
of appreciation to the artwork, which
seems to purge his demons while
sharing Clark's unflinching curiosity
about the mysteries beyond everyday
life.

PAIN and Other Petty Plots
to Keep You in Stitches:
http://www.ifdpublishing.com

Buy Clark's artwork, personalized:
http://www.shocklines.com

====GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems====

Demon of Hendrix

these six strings distort time into a red\\
chiaroscuro of hallucinatory painsound,\\
a pink crisp and blue crackle under\\
the warlock's conjuring bonefinger blur,\\
gasolined heat muffling voices that\\
drown in their wooden orchestral pit of\\
despair; the shriek of soundsputter\\
as he hammer-pulls an agony of souls\\
from the beast before lifting lambent\\
instrument over his head, high enough\\
to pick at the fiery wires on its neck\\
with the tines of his own metal teeth\\

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

"The Virtual Autopsy"

Sure, there are plenty of "virtual" body
dissection and mutilation kits on the
internet. But this one from the UK
makes a serious challenge out of it.
You cut up the limbs, you weigh the
organs, you probe and poke and YOU
get to choose the cause of death.
Featuring real world case studies! It's
like CSI for the common man and
woman.

http://www.le.ac.uk/pathology/teach/va/titlpag1.html

====ARNZEN NEWS====

+ Several of my poetry books will be
coming into print as the summer winds
down. My publisher promises me that
Freakcidents will be available within
the next ninety days (probably less)
and apologizes for all unforeseen
delays. My new e-book, Sportuary, has
been tentatively slotted for an August
15th release from Cyber Pulp. And the
long-awaited Gorelets: Unpleasant
Poetry series is destined for a late
October publication from both
Fairwood Press (print) and Double-
Dragon Publishing (e-book with bonus
section!).

<del>darkvesperpublishing.com/freakcidents.html</del>
<del>gorelets.com/demos/sportuarysampler.htm</del>
<del>gorelets.com/gorelets/retro/retro.htm</del>

+ Self help for the strange: Two weird
"how-to" guides are now published and
available for free online. A sad memoir
of sorts, called "How to put a Cat to
Sleep," is at Literary Potpourri. And a
much less depressing -- but far more
morbid -- piece called "How to Grow a
Man-Eating Plant" just went online at
The Eternal Night. Follow the
directions closely.

<del>literarypotpourri.com/</del>

http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/

+ I was humbled by Ed Bryant's kind
review of my Martha parody, Michael
Arnzen's Dying, in a recent issue of
Locus. He wrote: "Arnzen's a
crackerjack poet of the dark
fantastic...[his poetry] whipsaws the
reader from giggling to guffawing to
cringing, often all on the same page."
Yes -- I like to saw people and make
them cringe! It's a good thing. Dying is
just $5.95+postage from Tachyon
Publications; inquire via e-mail at
jw@tachyonpublishing.com if the book isn't
listed on the website at:

http://www.tachyonpublishing.com

+ My fun game show parody, "Who
Wants to be a Killionaire?" will appear
on Horrorfind.com within the next
month. Your final answer indeed.
[Note that I'll also be attending the
Horrorfind Weekend in August (my
reading is on Sunday)].

<del>horrorfind.com/fiction/</del>

http://www.horrorfindweekend.com

+ The reason this issue is a teensy bit
late is because I just wrapped up a
week of intensive teaching in the MA in
Writing Popular Fiction program at
Seton Hill University. If you're a writer
of any genre and thinking about
working toward an advanced degree,
you might want to look at our web site:

http://fiction.setonhill.edu

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

Studies in Decomposition

"Each specimen at Skulls Unlimited
International is carefully prepared with
dermestid beetles, also known as
carrion beetles...With over 25 years
experience you can be confident that
we will prepare your specimens worry-
free without shrinkage of bone, teeth
cracking, or falling out, softening of the
bone or damage from over-boiling."
-- skullcleaning.com

"The priest first made a small incision
down on the left side of the abdomen.
The organs were then removed
through this aperture to be washed,
salted, and bandaged in the same way
as the rest of the body. The brain was
removed through the nose. A metal
probe and small chisel were used to
break through to the cranial cavity
through the nostril. A long, thin bronze
hook was used to liquefy the brain so
that it could be poured out through the
nose."
-- ukm.uio.no/utstillinger/mumien_lever/english.html

"Well-sealed caskets EXPLODE daily
in mausoleums throughout the U.S.,
blowing the liquefied body parts out of
the caskets -- explosions so strong that
they sometimes blow the heavy crypt
fronts off the crypts, with the danger of
killing persons who are in front of or
below the crypts. Families need to be
warned not to picnic beneath outdoor
crypts, as families are frequently seen
doing."
-- funerals-ripoffs.org

====DATA + ERRATA = DRATTA====

Last issue, I mentioned that horror
writer Tanya Twombly was conducting
a survey of "Top Ten Fears" for her
graduate research. Here are the
overall results of 300 people surveyed:

1. Death of a family member\\
2. Living an insignificant life\\
3. Snakes\\
4. Death/The Dark (tie)\\
5. Spiders\\
6. Drowning\\
7. Fatal car accident\\
8. Slow death/long illness\\
9. Being alone\\
10. Harm to a family member\\

Given the distance between #1 and
#10, I conclude that we don't mind
harming our family members to the
brink of death so much.

====BOO COUPONS====

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

NEW FICTIONWISE EXCLUSIVE

Enter the info below at check out and
receive 20% off any Arnzen e-books in
you order at Fictionwise.com:

Coupon Code: Arnzen2003
One time only. Expires 9/29.

Otherwise, continue to shop for e-
books at this special 15% off page for
Goreletter subscribers, which is
updated weekly:

<del>fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/</del>

NEW HELLNOTES OFFER

Because you subscribe to The
Goreletter, you can get a one year's
subscription to the e-mail version of
Hellnotes -- the Insider's Guide to the
Horror Industry -- for just $18. Use the
code GORELETS in your order by
August 31. You can subscribe via
Paypal (payable to JRohrig@aol.com);
otherwise, check the website for more
information:

http://www.hellnotes.com

FLESH AND BLOOD

Get all available back issues of Flesh &
Blood magazine for 30% off and any of
the F&B book titles for 35% off. Free
shipping and handling on all
purchases. Please send payment
made out to Jack Fisher with a note
mentioning the "Goreletter discount" to:
Jack Fisher, 121 Joseph St., Bayville,
NJ 08721 NOTE: Jack Fisher also
has a new e-mail address, effective
immediately: HorrorJackF@aol.com

<del>fleshandbloodpress.com</del>

DARK ANIMUS MAGAZINE
One of the best new horror magazine's
of the year -- Dark Animus -- will give
you $3 off a postage paid subscription
(from Australia). That means a year's
worth of dread for only $15! DA
contributors have included myself,
Graham Masterton, Mark McLaughlin,
Tim Curran, and others. You can begin
your sub with back issues, too. To get
your discount, include the phrase
"goreletter" in your correspondence or
the order form available at:

http://darkanimus.com/

====COLOPHON====
All material in The Goreletter is:
c 2003 Michael A. Arnzen, unless
otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to forward the
entire contents as a whole, without
alterations or excisions. For reprint
permissions of individual pieces,
please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

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====PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS====

"Our fear of death is like our fear that
summer will be short, but when we
have had our swing of pleasure, our fill
of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say
we have had our day."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (died 1882)

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