The Glimmer and The Gloss in Medulla Review

“This time, the fluid did not return to a restful state. Instead, the surface writhed and churned. Some great upheaval was being born out in the impossible space below the floorboards. Reptilian shapes breached the surface. A long slithering spine cut through the liquid only to disappear into the impossible depths.”

Ballroom dancing, Victorian etiquette and self replicating ultra-dimensional reptiles, these are the major components of my new short fiction, The Glimmer and The Gloss, in the current issue of the excellent Medulla Review.

The story took its initial inspiration from the work of visual artist Ray Caesar. I wanted to set a story inside one of Caesar’s surreal scenes, wanted to employ one of his unsettling precocious heroines as its protagonist, and then of course I wanted to fuck shit up. The end result is an irreverent piece that plays fast and loose with the boundaries between past and present, reality and dream-stuff. It inhabits a liminal space at the edges of classic lit, horror, and SF/F. A sense-bender of a story as the editors describe it.

A Rope Let Down From Heaven

“I close my eyes and again try to run back the events of the previous night.  Just as before, the images are crisp but where the names of people and places should be there is only confusion and noise.  I must be nomenclature impaired I think.  I laugh gently at the idea that I can remember a term like nomenclature but not my own name.  Then I cringe at the reality of my situation.  I do not remember my own name.”

My new story, A Rope Let Down From Heaven, is up at the mighty Rotten Leaves. It is my surreal twist on the classic pulp amnesia story. It is a bit steamy up front, more than a little disturbing on the back end and if, like me, your sense of humor runs dark and twisted there could be a few knowing snickers along the way.  The original idea rose a rather arresting lucid dream and I am really interested to see how readers react to it.

If you have not visited Rotten Leaves since its relaunch a few months back, I highly recommend a look around. A number of extremely talented writers are breaking ground over there.  In the current landscape, I cannot think of a better source for your fresh uncut fix of the dark stuff than RL.

   

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VII

"A patch of lightening rolls its way through the fog and across the water’s surface. The air pressure is dropping. My ears fill with echoing Latin. My knees buckle as gravity goes fluid for a brief moment. Best guess, this is the time. "

The damp and dramatic conclusion of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

Full moon, Saturday night. Dick crashes a Meridian orgone siphoning ritual and brings his own pyrotechnics. BJ plays the heavy, Jonesy drives the getaway car and the cat returns to life on the run. And, it all goes down with a swagger.

There is one more multi-chapter story in the Swingshift trilogy. It should kick off in January.

Thank you all for the support.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VII

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VI

"Three flights down through narrow stairwells lit by flickering fluorescents. Then, we cross a dark empty sub-basement. The speed surges in my veins from the exercise. The immersive silence fills my ears with malicious insectiod whispers and twists my thoughts into intricate knots of paranoia."

Babes of the Abyss - Part VI is live at T21.

In the penultimate chapter of  Babes of the Abyss, Swingshift proves the old adage that you can find anything in Chintown, including an orgone vacuum/bomb. 

I once heard a member of the NYPD's Trademark Infringement Unit tell the story of chasing an old woman, and knock-off watch salesperson, through a labyrinth of basement tunnels several stories beneath Chinatown.  Since then, I have had a fascination with Canal Street's bootleg culture and the secret architecture of Chinatown.  On more than one occasion my curiosity has gotten me chewed out in Chinese by ladies like the older lady in this piece.

Next time: the suspense filled, soaking wet climax of Babes of the Abyss. (I wonder if that phrase will bump my google ranking.)

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VI

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part V

"That sorted, I got down to work banging together a binding ritual to capture and incapacitate my girlfriend. It is not the sort of thing my old man touched on when he explained the birds & bees. However, I would be lying if I told you this was the first time it had come up. "

Part V of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.
 

This chapter is a personal favorite.  All the peculiar elements of the series, dark humor, occult elements, horror tropes, intoxicated shenanigans are all at work her in the service of some complex personal ideas and emotions.  When I revisited this chapter for a last round of edits, I had one of those moments of estrangement from the text.  The words felt new to me, as if they had been written by someone else.  It is always a strange sensation and this is first time I experienced it writing this series.

 
Thanks, as always, for all of your support.





Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part V

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV

 






"I tilt my head in an attempt to keep the steady stream of blood from pooling in my eye sockets. I see BJ’s Glock lying amongst the pile of denim at his feet. I consider making a dive for it.  I am not planning to pull it on anyone. I am planning to shoot myself in the head. Death may be the only way out of this wretched hallway. I wonder if I can get the gun into my mouth quick enough or whether I should just take a fast but dirty slug to the temple."
 
Part IV of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.
 
This time out, Dick manages to infiltrate the mysterious club El Cambion only to spend most of teh night trapped in a maintenance corridor.  He is rescued by the dashing Samael who then gives him a personal tour of the clubs exclusive grotto of love.
 
 

 
 
Swinghshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV
 
Swingshift Archive
 



What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 1)

Despite efforts, the blog has fallen into a classic summer lull. Oddly, the lull was not borne of my annual “I’m too drunk in the sun to type” excuse. The oppressive heat and lack of funds moderated my summer shenanigans somewhat this year. That doesn’t mean there weren’t great times and enlightening cultural experiences but these things were less frequent and more intimate then in summers past.

This being the first day of autumn, I thought I would play catch up and hash together a random list of cultural morsels that nourished me through the summer heat.

If summer 2010 had a recurring iconography it was cephalopodic in nature. The cultural interest in all things tentacled transcended the previous subcultural preoccupations with Tentacle Hentai (yeah, I’m unwilling to dig for link there) and Lovecraft's Great Old One Cthulhu into a quirk of the zeitgeist more abstract and harder to pin down.

Personally the main agent of this tentacular assault was China Mieville’s excellent novel Kraken. Kraken is an immersive work of urban fantastic. Set in modern day London, it’s plot centers around the theft of the preserved specimen of a giant squid from the British Museum an act that exposes a hidden culture of peculiar cults and practitioners of esoteric arts that thrives beneath the city’s surface. My absolute favorite moment in the novel is an argument that breaks out between an evil animate back tattoo and The Sea (minor spoilers: The Sea always wins). Appropriately, I read the novel on the beach and with plenty of The Kraken: Black Spiced Rum. Kraken Rum is tasty tar-flavored (in a good way I swear) liquor that awakens a peculiar form of nautical madness in he who dare partake of the sweet black liquid (also it makes a wicked Dark & Stormy).

I’m not usually one for summer movies, but I thought Inception was as good, if not better than, the hype. You couldn't say that about a lot of movies this year. I also really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I think both films re-purpose the classic big Hollywood thriller. Inception brings the metaphysical subtext to the forefront and uses CGI shock and awe to find new methods of insight into the internal life of its characters. Dragon Tattoo takes the exhausted 1990s suspense thriller (think cleverly titled Morgan Freeman / Ashley Judd vehicle based on novel by famous author) and scrubs it clean of cliche and patronizing sentimentality. The film actively works against your generic preconceptions, thereby knocking the viewer off guard and opening up space for her to be thrilled and terrified again.

On Netflix, I was recently hypnotized by The Red Riding Trilogy. The pace and texture are absolutely engrossing but it is so very bleak. I feel like I haven’t quite figured out what makes it such an enthralling experience yet. I’m trying to get up the bottle to watch it all again.

The best thing on television this summer has yet to come to the US. Moffat and Gattis Holmes for the 21st century, Sherlock, is one of the most intelligent and exhilarating pieces of television in recent memory There is a wonderful mix of original Holmes spirit and mythology with invigorating modern narrative and visual styles. The acting is first rate, you cannot take your yes off of Cumberbatch’s Holmes for fear of missing some lovely nuance and yet Martin Freeman, as an Afghanistan veteran Dr. Watson, more than holds his own, adding depth to a show that could easily become one dimensional and shticky. Sherlock premieres on PBS in the US end of October. I cannot recommend it enough.

I also love Brian Cox’s new science series Wonders of the Solar System. Cox’s excitement for science is wickedly contagious. The show does a amazing job of moving from the very small, personal and even mundane to the unfathomably large. Wonders is the perfect title for the series. When at it’s best, it instills in you a palpable feeling of wonder for the immensity of the universe that you may not have experienced since you were a child.

I don’t read many comics these days. The shelf space for non-super hero, original pulp comics has shrunk considerably but there are still a few wonderful gems to be discovered. Best of the lot as far as I’m concerned is Brandon Graham’s King City. Graham’s world building vision and attention to minute detail generate a thoroughly immersive alternate reality. There is an energy and a surreal flavor to KC that reminds me of classic Milligan and McCarthy books from the 80s. While the visual style re-purposes manga and European influences into something totally unique.

Ba and Moon’s Daytripper is personal favorite as well. Daytripper manages to be both narratively light and nimble and still pack a very powerful and personal emotional punch. I think this is the product of both the creators unique visual storytelling abilities and the ingenious narrative device that hinges the individual stories together (I’m not going to spoil it for you, you’re going to have to read it yourself)

The full color, Marvel published, return of Casanova has been a joy. If possible, i may love the book more now than the first time around. My friend J.B. Love’s Boondock Saints two-parter with BS’s creator Troy Duffy, In Nomini Patris is a filthy, fast paced, romp, that takes the condensed essence of what makes the films so much fun and adds a fine layer of depth to the Bros. MacManus mythos (the title returns with another limited series, The Head of the Snake,next month . Some serious grime and grit can also be found in Kody Chamberlain’s Sweets, an atmospheric crime procedural set in New Orleans. With two issues out so far Sweets lured me in with gorgeous art and a subtle narrative pace and then left me wanting more. Thankfully the next issue is due out in a few weeks.

[I’m going to put a pin in here and pick up tomorrow with the summers best music.]

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

"As best I can tell, through the bad in browser translation, HandiMandi is a forum for Eastern European transsexuals who are also home improvement enthusiasts. Even by .ru standards, it seems a little too obscure to be for real. Judging by the jarring amount of unintelligible grammar in the posts, either the site is the world’s greatest spam-bot magnet or most of the traffic is shady bastards like me leaving obscured covert messages."


Part III of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

In this chapter, we venture to the dark backwaters of the internets where Dick flexes his best spam-bot impersonation. MacEndroe re-emerges at the end of the sordid paper trail surrounding the El Cambion nightclub. The cat steals a few more scenes and both Ed/Lou and the L-Girls make appearances.

My apologies for the spacing and formatting glitches. They should be sorted out shortly.



Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part II

“Meeting a girl’s friends is a tricky tight rope act. A little flirting never hurts but too much flirting will yield you enemies for life. I quickly decide that my best strategy, as is often the case in awkward social situations, is to throw a ludicrous amount of charm and booze at the situation. By the time I order the third round of shots and run through my greatest hits of self-deprecating stories, it is as if we are all old friends.”


Part II of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

The Allied bennies come on cool and slow. We discover the reason behind Rodriguez’s surprise social call and the NYPD detective and the charmed feline form a sinister alliance.

Then Dick settles in to his new role as the boyfriend. He meets the lovely L-Girls and glimpses a well-chiseled shadow from Qarin’s past from across a crowded room.

I'm thinking of assembling a Swingshift playlist. Zola Jesus v. LA Vampires is definetly the soundtrack for this chapter.




Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part II

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss

"I wake to the familiar sensation of my brain trying to burst its way out of my skull. I manage to turn the AC to full blast and pull a sheet over my head to hold back the day a few more minutes. I close my eyes and let frantic images of the previous night’s debauchery scroll by. Glimpses of fevered copulations, teasing, taunting, bordering on violence and ending, as has become common, with me handcuffed to the headboard."


Babes of the Abyss a new storyline in the Swingshift series is live at T21.

The story picks up a few weeks after the events of Dog Days' Nights. It is built so that a reader could jump in to the series now with minimal confusion. However, it also fits within a larger narrative for the series.

Babes of the Abyss should be a little sexier and a touch more surreal than the previous story. It will see our man Dick operating out on his own in a bizarre underworld, pushing himself well beyond the break of sanity. I you enjoy it.




Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part I

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VII

“In my own sudden moment of action, I slam the study door shut and bolt the lock. This leaves me alone in the small room with a near catatonic Murzim, moaning and clutching his balls, and a massive, sinister demon dog. It is perhaps the dumbest decision I have ever made but I have an irrational faith in my secret weapon.”


Part VII of Dog Days’ Nights is live at T21. This is it, the frantic conclusion. This installment is a twisted riff on a classic mystery cliche, where all the players assemble in the study for the big reveal. Only here, the players include a demon, a pack of street dogs and an enchanted cat.

Dog Days’ Nights is the first of three interconnected story lines in the series. The next story, Babes of the Abyss, will go live in a couple weeks.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VII

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VI

Things are tense in the interrogation room. My story has run out of yarn but the promised revelations and actionable conclusions have not materialized. I am convinced there is something more, that the timeline is incomplete.


After a small delay, my bad, Part VI of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. In this installment our battered hero commits the unpardonable sin of sobering up and getting some sleep. A respite he pays dearly for. Also, our story returns full circle to the beginning and we discover a little bit about what is up with the cat.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VI

Swingshft Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part V

The Loft turned out to be an old two-story warehouse. A massive open common area comprised the front half of the first floor. It was sparsely furnished with junk store relics and curbside cast offs. A number of strung out party people were sprawled around the room or wandering about with a lack of focus specific to afternoon intoxication. Somewhere, unseen, someone was playing Victrola era pop standards on a ukulele.


Part V of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. Things are starting to come together. Swingshift gets a peek inside the Pop Magus study and re-affirms his distaste for rich men and automobiles. One more chapter before Part VII's high flying finally.



Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part V

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part IV

“What do you think I’m running here, CSI Bushwick?”

Rube eked out the sarcastic barb through smoke filled lungs. He handed me the smoldering ends of a once massive spliff. I slid it between my fingers gingerly, careful not to drop ash into the cooler that took pride of place on the table between us. I had brought the spliff and a couple of out-sized coffees as gifts of conciliation for showing up at Rube’s door so early in the day with such grisly luggage in tow.

“I didn’t know what the fuck else to do. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. I just knew it was evidence to something and that if The Heat got a hold of it I’d never know its secrets.”

“Well do you know its secrets now?”

“Well no. But that’s why I brought it to you. I thought you would Quincy this shit out for me.”

“OK, maybe I should clarify further. My apartment is not the morgue from the set of any forensic procedural on television now, or at any time in the history of the genre.”


Part IV of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. It is the procedure heavy investigation portion of the story. However, since it's our man Swingshift he is mainly sitting around, drinking rye, getting stoned and generally shooting the shit with a cast of characters

It is my favorite episode of the story so far.




Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part IV

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part III

"Rex steadied himself with one hand on the doorjamb, traced an intricate sigil in the grime above the dog’s head and muttered a short incantation that sounded like a Welshman learning Yiddish. It took him a few attempts to get his numbed tongue around the unforgiving syllables but eventually the door did not so much open as simply dissipate into the air. As we crossed the threshold, a rush of crowd heat, incense smoke and loud music enveloped us."


Part III of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. It's a party/club scene. You knew there would be at least one. In this instalment we get the low down on Jimmy The Pop Magus, discover that our damsel in distress may not be so distressed and learn that The Muppet Show did in fact reach the shores of Norway.

This was the most difficult part of the story to write. There are a lot of moving parts and events in this section are essential to not only this story but those that follow. Keeping the action moving and the pace lively was a challenge. In the end I am pleased with the results.





Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part III

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part II

"Monday lost to weekend residue, I arrived Tuesday afternoon just in time for happy hour at the Thirsty Serpent. I settled in at the bar hoping to nurse a few whiskeys and read the paper. My hopes were promptly dashed when Tracey the bartender brought me a line of trouble with my rye. "


Part II of Dog Days' Nights is up at T21.

In this episode our man Swingshift begins to lay the tale out from the beginning. We meet our girl Tracey the bartender. We also meet a self-named man called Rube and get a glimpse into a peculiarly feline byproduct of the real estate collapse.

Part III should be up in two weeks.

Swingshift: Dogs Days' Nights - Part II

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: The Series

The familiar double chime of the subway doors stirs me. My head enveloped in a chemical fog, my eyes refuse to focus. I lean in through the blurred surroundings trying to decipher the warbled string of syllables running from the overhead PA.

“Avenue X / McDonald, next stop”


So begins my new black humor occult-noir series, Swingshift, for T21. It is going to be a woozy rawkus ride with our man Dick Swingshift at the controls. Dick is an old school shamus, straight out of grainy black & white films and dusty pulp novels. Dick is also a practitioner of the arcane and the occult. The series follows Dick as he stumbles his way through a complicated twenty first century reality hyper-saturated in technicolor and pop magick.

The first episode, Dog Days' Nights - Part I, is now live and new instalments will follow every two weeks. I am essentially making it up as I go along. To that end any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Please drop your thoughts and reactions in the comments here or feel free to shoot me an e-mail if your too polite to slag me off in public.

Also, if you missed the early Swingshift story Cheer, T21 has re-posted it as a nice introduction to the series.



Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part I

Swingshfift: Cheer

Swingshift Archive

The Daughters of Erzulie

"I reach the corner of Washington Square Park and my feet freeze up short of the curb. My ears draw whispers from the bushes. My mind populates the shadows with darting figures. The small patch of artificial wild appears alive with menace. I gaze up at a towering elm with the moon nestled in its high branches. The Hangman’s Elm, as they call it on the walking tours."

My new story, The Daughters of Erzulie, is up at Troubadour 21. It's my contribution to the excellent T21 horror series and is paired with another cracking essay by Chris Deal. You can find the previous installments of the horror series here. I recommend each of them highly.

Erzulie is my take on the classic ghost story, set in my old Greenwich Village stomping grounds. It owes a debt to Pete Hamill's brilliant novel Forever for it's initial inspiration and to Carly's exhaustive research into paranormal NYC.

I hope it's as much fun to read as it was to write.

Cheer - Troubadour 21

"The blistering sinus burn cuts briskly through the haze of afternoon cocktails. The new sense of clarity reconciles the sordid scene around me. A semi-posh men’s room, three lads wearing crumpled wool suits and inebriated expressions, all of us zipped up and jawing around the mirrors and inlaid marble. A horrific Lite FM version of The Most Wonderful Time of The Year wafts from the ceiling speakers, putting a tidy bow on the moment for me."

My new short story, Cheer, is live at the excellent Troubadour 21. It's a condensed slab of midnight black, holiday travel themed, humor. I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever written.

Rotten Leaves - Proud Music After The Storm

"I surrender my eyesight to the darkness and the engulfing low end rush. As my focus fades my gaze is locked deep within one of the dark obsidian walls. All definition of the world around me dissipates and the ethereal beings beyond the dark glass gain detail and distinction. Eventually I can make out each digit on each hand and the subtlest nuance of each facial expression. A nervous energy runs through the crowd as the music reaches a physical and emotional peak and one by one the ethereal spirits glide across the dark glass plane and into the three dimensional world of flesh and stone."


Rotten Leaves, a new literary outlet for the darker side of fiction and poetry, launched over the weekend. Co-founder Christopher Dwyer refers to RL as "A place where the cold meets the dark meets the fantastic." and their first issue delivers. The quality and variety of work is impressive. I like that they are using "dark" as a rather fluid editorial yardstick allowing them to play fast and loose with genre definitions.

My story, Proud Music After The Storm, is part of the inaugural issue. It's a taught little piece of atmospheric occult-noir set in a haunted Brooklyn after a series of hurricanes. It began as a test drive for some of the stranger ideas I'm working with in the current novel in progress, but quickly developed it's own frostbitten late night reality.

I would love some feedback, so if you have any questions, insights or gut reactions please drop them in the comments over at Rotten Leaves or right here. And check out the rest of the issue. It is chock full of night black wonders.