Posted in April 2009

The Skinny: Leaping Launches!

Steve Almond, Sloan Crosley, Linda Gregg, Phillip Lopate, Ben Greenman, Ilya Kaminsky, J.R. Solonche, Karol Nielsen, Esom Kim, Tria Andrews, Peter Kahn, Jay Kauffman, F. Daniel Rzizcznek, Carla Gericke, M.R.B. Chelko, Kerry Krouse, Paul Gibbons, Leora S. Fridman, Michael Hemery, Jeff Simpson, Peter Moore, Jon Irwin, Kate Johnson, Paul K. Tunis, Autumn Giles.Capital News!  The literary magazine Lumina just launched its eighth issue yesterday.  Quite impressive content and a pretty snazzy look to boot.  It contains a number of talented contributors (please refer to the pink names above), including myself.  I can’t thank the editors enough for choosing to include one of my comic poems in the issue as well as approaching me to design a promotional postcard (the thing with the pink names) for the book, it was quite an honor.  They are for sale on the line.

 

In other launch news, the good folks at At Large have also dropped their newest and very boss installment, At Large Magazine’s Mixtape: A-Sides!  Give it a peek, you’re sure to find something to tickle your fancy, it never disappoints.

 

More as the swine flu epidemic develops.

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My Sister Texts Like William Carlos Williams

By Samantha A. Tunis edited by Paul K. Tunis

Vikings stuck their coin loot to their chest and armpit hair with wax

It fell off when they fought

 

Your mom’s lame

My mom can take your mom

My mom was raised with the Indians

My mom rode dirt bikes in the desert barefooted

I’m telling the truth too

 

I’m sorry you made me hit you

 

I smell like diaper rash ointment

Everything I touch is greasy

And snap peas are the greatest thing ever invented

 

I think you give me too much credit

 

What if I had a lazy eye?

Would I cover it with a post-it eye patch

It’s self-stick if you cut it right

They come in all colors and you can draw on it with crayon

post-it eye-patch

 

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The Little Book of Malarkey

I have made new Malarkey chapbooks! 

 

Malarkey Chapbook

Full-color and pop-up, but best of all they are free!  I didn’t have to pay for them so why should you?  Plus if you gave me money for it, you’d probably be disappointed (it ain’t fancy).

16 pages of words and doodles.

Negative Monsters

You+Me=AntsIf anyone wants one, email “Gimme” and your address to octopusumbrella@gmail.com, but I only have a handful so don’t dawdle.

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Color Theory

color-warBlue blew on his brand new brass bassoon while Red read of the violent violets. 
The two sat akimbo in their studio flat, fat as cats fed on babies in limbo.
It was Blue who let toot a noisy c-note thus breaking Red’s quiet silence. 
Red said that should such crude tunes be so rudely reproduced she might be reduced to a mighty chartreuse.
In a half-cocked half-cough Blue scoffed enough at Red’s hollow mocks and thought he must call this haughty bluff. 
So Blue let blast two fast paced blusters, causing as amorous a clamor as the old master could muster or stammer. 
Then Red begged that that droll fellow take his sloppy solo and go outdoors so as though not to trouble so sensitive a soul as she.
But Blue just pushed another loud crowd of sour sounds that pound by pound ground the now shattering smattering of that small sum of some silence that Red had had that morning of mournings. 
This is why Red took her thick book like a crooked right hook and struck the shmuck so quick his head shook.  Blue then threw a total low blow and struck Red on her big toe. 
It wasn’t a minute past noon and such a skirmish ensued that everyone who knew the two would wonder who had first brandished the bludgeoning tool that led straight away to the awful fray. 
When the spit and muss and fuss and cuss not to mention dust had finally shushed there was Red who bled from the bassoon that protruded from a fatal wound.  And Blue, who dead, strangled by his own leg with nothing to show but some violet violence.

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Preparing for “Pastel Monday”

Easter approaches which means that Pastel Monday is not far off.  For those of you that I haven’t told yet, Pastel Monday is the day after Easter when the candy hits the sale bin (They need the space for the extra-early Depression-inspired Christmas displays, get your shopping done early this year).  Each April the…. Day After Easter looters and bargain hunters all across the nation hit a sugar-induced fever pitch. 

 

As far as vaguely religious holiday candy goes Easter wins against all comers.  Better than the best candy cane or sugarplum and superior to the Pepto-Bismol flavored message heart, the jellybean reigns supreme.

 

What does this mean for you? 

It means you’ll be calling in sick Monday, which will be literally true because you have gorged yourself stupid on chocolate bunnies, Peeps, and egg-shaped Reese’s.  Your blue lips will have chapped and bleeding fissures from where you repeatedly licked Robin’s Eggs to apply like lipstick.  What an illuminating exercise in self-control this will prove to be.

 

To encourage you not to risk the dangers of Pastel Monday, I offer up this corporate recipe you can make at home:

 

THE CADBURY EGG 

 


1.  Chocolate
2.  Wax
3.  Wax Paper
4.  Fortune – This year to save money Cadbury Inc. and Sleepy Panda Cookies have halved manufacturing costs by including vague proverbs in every egg.  This also means that you can soon expect Cadbury eggs to end your meal at your favorite Chinese restaurants year round.
5.  Albumen – Protects the yolk.  Formed shortly after fertilization.
6.  High Fructose Corn Syrup
7.  Food – The only part of the egg with any identifiable nutritional value.  Protein: 1 g.
8.  High Fructose Corn Syrup with Yellow #6
9.  Jesus-spot – It is his re-birthday after all.  Nearly undetectable to the naked eye, each chocolate egg contains a speck of the lord’s DNA collected and cloned from blood scraped off the Shroud of Turin.
10.  Endoplasmic Reticulum (Rough) – A lacey membrane covered in ribosomes.
11.  Endoplasmic Reticulum (Smooth) – A lacey membrane lacking ribosomes
12.  Gerrymanderane – An imaginary membrane established to separate the white part of the egg from everything else.
13.  Fortune: Side B – Lucky numbers & Learn Chinese.
14.  Air Pocket – To cut corners.  It gets bigger every year because no one ever notices.
15.  Foil Wrapper – You can eat it, but the likelihood of enjoyment is in inverse relation to the number of your fillings.

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