By Faith Alone

ZYZZYVA reading and more

2012-03-03T16:30:00.005-08:00

So last minute I had to cancel my trip to Chicago and didn't end up getting to do any AWPness like I'd been so looking forward to. Family emergency type stuff. Super important. I had to stay behind to help. But I hope someday I get to attend and meet all the fancies and be a part of fun writerly festivities. Maybe Boston. Definitely LA.

In the meantime, I will be reading at Mrs. Dalloway's in Berkeley this Thursday, March 8th with two other fabulous ZYZZYVA contributors. It starts at 7PM. If you're in the Bay, please come!

Best of the Net 2011

2012-02-29T09:52:00.003-08:00

Apparently my story "Window Woman," published last year in decomP, was chosen as the Editor's Choice piece for the 2011 Best of the Net Anthology. This means it will be reprinted along with three other stories and showcased for the next year on the Best of the Net website.

Unbelievable! Thank you Jason Jordan, decomP, and the judges at Best of the Net -- I'm truly honored.

AWPness

2012-02-26T12:39:00.005-08:00

I'm going to AWP in Chicago this next week. I'm scared. Never been to a writerly conference. Fancies everywhere. Registrations sold out before I could purchase mine. Bummer. I do enjoy lollygagging in hotel rooms. My best friend in the world is coming and she makes everything better. Going to Amtrak it to Milwaukee for a day trip to see some awesome people. I'm reading at this on Thursday and this on Friday. These will be my first not-school-related readings. Chicago is going to be cold and I have no real jackets. I'm excited to meet online people offline though. Twitter grows faces. Facebook embodied.

See you in Chicago, maybe? Let's make some awkward conversation. I'll be the one with the bright-ass hair.

1 Hour Song #4: "Mean Machine"

2012-02-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

This is 1 hour song #4. Does that mean the song is an hour long? Hell no. It just means I spent an hour writing it, videoing it and uploading it to the YouTubes.

I wrote this after reading this fabulous story by Delaney Nolan.

All kinds of stories

2012-02-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

Louise Gluck yelps

2012-02-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

This is how a former Poet Laureate yelps:

Happy VD

2012-02-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Why do you

2012-02-11T21:05:00.001-08:00

Dear Disaster

2012-02-06T17:57:00.001-08:00

Here's my third 1 Hour Song. No, that doesn't mean it's an hour long. That would be crazy. It just means I had one hour's time to write it, video it and upload to YouTube. It's called "Dear Disaster."

Google Obsession

2012-02-03T12:46:00.001-08:00

Peculiar Paper Dolls

2012-02-02T19:00:00.001-08:00

I've always been skeptical of paper dolls. As a kid I liked the idea of them but then found them boring as shit in practice. Does anyone actually play with them? What can you do with a bunch of flimsy 2 dimensional people whose clothes keep falling off? Anyway, I found some real beauties while putzing around Google images that I thought I would share with you, the invisible internet person.

The world

2012-02-01T00:34:00.000-08:00

I am I am I am

2012-01-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from ZYZZYVA

2012-01-27T11:08:00.001-08:00

An excerpt from my story "Get Lost," featured in ZYZZYVA's Winter Issue, is up on their website if you care to sneak a peek.

Here's an excerpt of their excerpt:

Homeless Dude living in the alley across the street has found a creative way to keep warm. It involves a blowdryer and an industrial outlet near the dumpster. Dude spends half his day blowdrying himself. His dirt-gray tennis shoes with the toes sticking out, his shredded MC Hammer pants revealing a scabby pair of knees, his torn Hawaii sweatshirt with what I hope are ketchup stains all over the front. Being the friendless clinically depressed loser I am, I spend most of my free time watching him from my breakfast table three stories up.

“Dude,” I tell him on my walk to the bus stop Monday morning. “You’re seriously going to kill yourself if you don’t stop it with the blowdryer.”

“Why’d I kill misself?” he asks with a gap-toothed grin as he blowdries his armpits. The alley stinks like singed clothes and ancient sweat and the garbage bins he calls Home.

“Because it’s October, and the rain starts soon—” “Gotta cigarette?”

“No.” A lie.

“Gotta quarter?”

“No.” Another lie. I clutch my messenger bag tighter.

“I ain’t gonna kill misself.” He points the blowdryer at me, hot and nasty.

“Stop,” I say, pulling back my hair, which is everywhere.

“Warm, ain’t it?”

“Smells like burning.”

“I ain’t gonna kill misself,” he shouts louder. I hear someone from my building slam a window shut. “Wanna know why?”

“I need to get to work,” I tell him. I turn and walk up the street and regret the conversation.

“Cause I’m invincible!” he screams after me. “I’ll be invincible ’til I die!”

“Sure thing, Dude,” I say under my breath.

I like how on this page they describe the story as "appealingly downbeat." Etch it on my tombstone.

It's ...

2012-01-24T23:41:00.000-08:00

Who Cares About Pluto

2012-01-22T15:51:00.000-08:00

Here's my second 1 Hour Song. No, that doesn't mean it's an hour long. That would be crazy. It just means I had one hour's time to write it, video it and upload to YouTube.

The Truly Astounding Success Story of Mr. Julius Nipper

2012-01-21T11:38:00.001-08:00

Almost ten years ago, I started trying to write short stories and "The Truly Astounding Success Story of Mr. Julius Nipper" is one of the earliest I ever finished. I'm not very proud of it craftwise, but it still amuses me. It's up at Necessary Fiction today as a part of their January "Origin Stories," a really awesome project. Check out the archives to see early work by other much fancier authors.

Googling things that have never been googled before

2012-01-20T22:33:00.000-08:00

Very scary dolls

2012-01-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl I wanted a Betty Wetty doll that peed all over itself. My parents, both sane, refused to grant my wish. I don't know why I wanted Betty Wetty so bad, especially since I had two younger siblings who peed all over themselves and needed diapers changed. Fake things are always more fun, I guess. Anyway, the weirdness of Betty Wetty is nothing compared to these gems I found thanks to my dear friend Google images:

YOU CAN SHAVE THE BABY

The look on this girl's face is just classic. "Magic of motherhood" indeed.

In case, you know, your little girl's really into the idea of shaving a miniature grown man.

Yuck. Just ... yuck.

No comment.

Why are we

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Stage Name Game: Punk Rock Edition

2012-01-14T16:12:00.001-08:00

James Newell "Jim" Osterberg, Jr.
AKA Iggy Pop
Eric Reed Boucher
AKA Jello Biafra
Jan Paul Beahm
AKA Darby Crash
Erick Lee Purkhiser
AKA Lux Interior
Mary Simms
AKA Dinah Cancer
Glenn Allen Anzalone
AKA Danzig
John Simon Ritchie
AKA Sid Vicious
Kristy Marlana Wallace
AKA Poison Ivy
Jesus Christ Allin
AKA GG Allin
Vincent Damon Furnier
AKA Alice Cooper
Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr.
AKA Jay Reatard

Probablys

2012-01-13T01:11:00.001-08:00

1 Hour Song #1: "You are the One"

2012-01-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

For years I did a project called 3 hour songs. This involved writing and recording and uploading a song to the internet in 3 hours or less. Well, my 8 track hasn't worked in a long time so I decided to start doing a different project called 1 hour songs. This means I have 1 hour to write a song, video myself playing it and upload it online. Plus, this way I can feel like I'm performing without leaving my bedroom! Which is great because I hate performing solo. Anyway, this is the first 1 hour song I'm doing and it's called "You are the One." I hope you like it.

Metazen

2012-01-09T09:54:00.000-08:00

A little thing of mine called "Memo for the Eyes of the Congressman's Staff Only" is up at the fabulous Metazen.

Never seen before Barbies

2012-01-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

I love you, Google images.

Bighands strikes again

2012-01-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

This blog is very popular with hand fetishists these days, and it's all my fault. I'm not a hand fetishist. Not my thing. But I've written several open letters about a big-hand fetishist out there and, I believe at this point, it has attracted more hand fetishists than I ever knew existed. I used to think it was one person, one handloving dude—how naive I was. Each day, dozens of hand-fetishists are checking out my blog via hand-related search terms. From this past week alone I've got people googling: "big hands," "huge hands," "huge hands short girl," "female hand fetish" and "girl with big hands," and that's not an exhaustive list there, friends. I mean ... what can I say? It's weird. You hand googlers baffle me. As I type this, three hand googlers are on my blog. One of them is German. The way you say "big hands" in German is große Hände.

Anyway, I know what you're thinking. You're like, "Geez, Faith, stop blogging about hand people if you don't like the hand people." But that's where you, the hypothetical second person I imagine as some kind of middle-aged balding man with glasses probably because I just listened to a Woody Allen record, are wrong; I am so joyfully bewildered (there should be a German word for that, ja?) by these visitors I wish I had some something to offer them. Because I'm pretty sure this post I'm writing now ain't exactly what they were looking for when they typed "sexy big hands" into their search engine.

Hand people, I love you all. I want to write a story about you. Maybe it will be called "Girl with Huge Hands," I don't know. Anyway, all this gets me to thinking about SEO shit I've never thought about. I guess I don't type long blog posts very often, but for whatever reason, some things stick in people's google-machines and some things don't.

I never wanted to be the big hand lady, or the hand-fetishist blog; but here I am. Googlers sometimes get here via "jesus on a motorcycle" and that always makes my day. Today I got "crazy horse motorcycle mama female vocals," which was wondrous. I guess I have to blog more about things that don't have to do with hands from now on to get a little variety going here. Okay, fine. Okay maybe.

I wonder if sign language turns hand fetishists on?

Apparently I have a "fetching snarl"

2012-01-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Cory Frye and the Entertainer for putting HFE's split with Angries on the year-end list. From the Entertainer:

Angries/Hooray for Everything (split 7-inch EP) — “Let me arrange your face!” Caitlin Garets explodes on “Arrange Your Face,” but it’s no mere cosmetic suggestion. She’s seconds from throwing down, mitts clenched and drawn, shouting across fellow Angries Robb Vancil’s game bass grumble, Justin Groft’s come-and-get-some guitar and Mike Thomas’ jackrabbit drums. “Face” is just one of two storms the Corvallis quartet whipped across vinyl with Oakland, Calif.’s Hooray for Everything (featuring former zip-coder/Lazyboy legend Pete Deegan, the fetching snarl of Faith Gardner and that most-excellent dive-bomb, “Solipsist”). All four songs are suitable for sending spindles into breathless punk lathers. They’re fast, they’re hard, and they’ll clear your ear-ways like buzzsaws through butter. (http://angries.net or http://hoorayforeverything1.bandcamp.com/album/angries-hooray-for-everything-split-ep)

Read more: http://www.gazettetimes.com/entertainment/the-year-in-spin/article_67a0073a-3260-11e1-9153-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1idOlojwY

Read the whole thing here.

Listen to/order the record here.

Sea Beast Movies: Day of the Dolphin

2012-01-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

So, obviously, when I found out there was a movie about a dolphin who tried to kill the president I was thrilled. I mean ... there are no words for exactly how favorably that plot, and the promise of this movie poster, struck me. When I found out it was on Netflix instant I popped the corns, settled my butt in its familiar sofa-divot and pressed play.

Right away though I knew something was horribly awry with this alleged sea beast film. Paul Sorvino was in this movie. He had silly boxy 70s hair, but still. Paul fucking Sorvino. George C. Scott, for Christ's sake. What are these seriousheads doing in a campy sea beast movie? Answer: this movie is not campy, at least not ha-ha entertaining campy in the way I had hoped. It took itself so seriously I got tired of watching a grown grumpy man bond with a pair of dolphins and shut the movie off before the damn dolphin attached the bomb to the president's yacht. Also the dolphins' voices were like grownups imitating creepy babies.

How a movie about a dolphin who tried to kill the president could bore me to the point of being unwatchable, I do not know, but Day of the Dolphin was just that. Wikipedia told me it was nominated for Academy Awards and shit. Not cool. Other than Jaws, I don't really want any class in my sea beast films, thankyouverymuch.

Day of the Dolphin: not recommended. However, the Simpsons parody of it in the "Night of the Dolphin" segment of their Treehouse of Horror XI is.

Red Lightbulbs

2012-01-03T10:02:00.001-08:00

New issue up, looks awesome, can't wait to read it. My little story "Model" is there.

2011-12-26T20:21:00.001-08:00

2011-12-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

Some seriously weird holiday cards

2011-12-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

"I am ..."

2011-12-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

ZYZZYVA

2011-12-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

I'm thrilled my story "Get Lost" is in the new issue of ZYZZYVA, one of the first literary magazines I ever knew and loved. You can order an issue online or find it at certain bookstores. The whole issue looks amazing and I can't wait to read it cover to cover!

2011-12-07T16:22:00.000-08:00

Listen to/download the whole Dark Beach album free here.

Blogspotlight #7: A plethora of life-changing blogs

2011-12-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

It's been so long since I've been blogspotting that I almost forgot about my favorite internet pastime: typing random words to precede blogspot.com and finding people's random, mostly abandoned, blogs. I spent a shameful amount of time on this recently with delightful results:

*I'm Famous, You Are Not. Ah, I love this. If only it spanned more than the month of January in 2004. This guy is, supposedly, some kind of reality TV star (strange that such a thing exists) complaining about how horrible it is to be famous:

sometimes i hate being a celebrity. i'm famous. you are not. you have no idea what i have to go through. people like you, constantly harping on me when i'm in public. i wish i could go to the post office, but i can't. because of people like you. it's not my fault, either, that i'm famous, it's your fault.

The blog goes on to document a few sad, obnoxious run-ins with people who recognize this alleged celebrity:

been traveling a lot. wish i had a computer on the road. was on a ski lift last week in utah. somebody threw a snowball at me because i refused an autograph. its hard to sign something when you have big gloves on and nothing to sign.

Poor baby!

*This blog only has two puzzling entries: a strange cartoon of Schnappi, a possibly German crocodile, and some kind of abstract photoshopped picture of Avril Lavigne. That is all.

*Yes! A ten-year-old blogger who thinks he's going to be famous! The tagline of the epic one-entry blog, My Triple Threat Years:

Hi im Jesse miller im 10 years old and this is my adventure to my triple threat years.for those of you who dont know what that is its a mixture of acting, dancing and singing i want this and i have for 7 years im so exited to start read all about me

Unusual for a blogspotting find, this blog was started in 2011. Where are you, Jesse Miller? Update us on your "carere" please!

*Meet Jayme, a teenager posting about her love problems:

Monday, July 11, 2005
I love to hate
I hate this. I can't even stand looking at your face. I hate the things you say to me. I hate the promises you make. I'm far from perfect, but boy so are you. I don't know if I even wish for us to work. I just wish you were out of my life forever.

Two days later:

Wednesday, July 13, 2005
He's back
ahh I love him! He makes me feel so whole. Whenever I'm with him or just talking to him it makes me so happy. I feel like a little kid again with butterflies in my stomach as if he was my first crush. I don't know what happened with us there but it's all better now. Better than ever!

Ah, young love. Must say, don't miss that part of youth at all.

*THIS BLOG, CELEBRITY DREAMS, IS AMAZING. Someone calling themselves "Mercury Vague" (pronounced like "Prague"), described as a "re-knowned French psychic, emancipated thinker and dream interpreter interprets dreams about celebrities." Yes!! Examples of Mercury's responses:

Exploding bombs in dreams often refer to moving location/ moving houses and with the strong Scottish element I believe this means a move North. Be careful though because Rod Stewart in dreams is thought to be symbolic of decay, maybe dry rot.

A delightful dream with a clear reading. Seeing yourself as a detective indicates personal troubles ahead. Bald men, like Duncan Goodhew, are usually indicative of swindlers and chiselers.

A kangaroo means travel by aeroplane. A knife in a dream is a bad sign indicating grief in the future. Skippy usually is a sign of carefree happiness but this reading must be balanced by the extremely bad combination of symbols that is a knife wielding kangaroo. My advice to you would be to not travel by plane.

Amazing! Where are you, Mercury Vague? The celebrity dream posts stopped in 2007, but this intriguing post from October 2011 gives me hope that one day Mercury will make a comeback:

Tester12
Hygv vgvgb ggg hhh fffvfc vfvfcfc vfvfcf vv tggv fcfc fvgvv vggv gvv gvggvcgc hhyredy you bastard drew

*Okay, and this last one is seriously just rad. A lady working at a bar in DCA writes about all her celebrity spottings (mostly politicians) and more. She's been blogging since 2004 at scarlettohara.blogspot.com and her entries are fun to read.

Bizarre how-tos

2011-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

"I want a ..."

2011-12-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Indiana Jones answers spam email

2011-12-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

Sea Beast Movies: The Monster that Challenged the World

2011-12-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

The title of this one really enticed me. Then I found out it was about oversized mollusks in the Salton Sea and I was like, how can this not be fucking awesome? Actually, it wasn't that awesome, although more respectable than some sea beast films in its execution. It's black and white, made in 1957, and not cinematically gorgeous at all. It won't scare you, except maybe for the stock footage of a film featuring close ups of real-life snails. That was fucking disgusting. One thing I did like about Piranha was the quirky editing style and the fun the editor had from cut to cut (and actually, there was a point in Piranha where The Monster that Challenged the World was on a TV, a little hat tip to this very film). None of that quirky editing fun here. But mollusks! Large mollusks!

Does that look like a mollusk to you? In the first shot I thought it looked like if R2D2 was some kind of evil insect-owl. Later on I privately renamed it the Glistening Turd Monster. Anywho, it's 1957, so can't expect much from the special effects crew. The marine growths and egg sacs they find throughout the film look like straight-up jumbo-sized garbage bags.

So as far as the sea beast genre goes, I buy the plot -- the Salton Sea has a couple earthquakes, emerging a legion of oversized human-killing sea beasts that emit "simple marine secretions." Ha. Anyway, the plot was actually pretty solid in this film. The writers, god bless them, really tried to make sense out of this story. The dialogue wasn't awful. I found myself a little surprised at the decent acting at times. This movie rode somewhere in the middle of so-bad-it's-campy-fun and wow-this-is-actually-an-impressive film.

Basically, every character in this movie is a dude in uniform. Navy dudes. Scientist dudes in lab coats. Deputies. Sheriffs. The main character (played by Tim Holt, best known from Treasure of the Sierra Madre) is Navy Lieutenant Commander John Twillinger, or, as he is known affectionately to some, The Man with Three Titles. He has a secretary, Gail (Audrey Dalton), who is his sidekick/lady friend throughout the movie. The love story is grosstown. It's just, like, why? Get to the fucking sea beasts already. I really wish sea beast movies didn't insert unnecessary romances, by which I mean any romances at all.

Gail seems bored all the time and kind of bummed out. Maybe that's because she has a little girl named Sandy who tries so hard to be cute you want to puke every time she speaks. When her character first came onscreen oozing with corn syrupy little kid cuteness I had high hopes that she would perhaps fall victim to the mollusk's ... whatever mollusks eat people with. Gail and Sandy are the only real female characters in the film. I didn't have much hopes for strong females in this one, considering one of the first lines I remember a lady uttering in the film was "Just consider me a piece of furniture!"

All right, so basically this movie is a race for the Navy dudes to find where the giant bloodhungry mollusks' eggs are before they hatch. They search the bottom of the Salton Sea. They search wells. They have some run ins with the mollusks, who claim some victims. Favorite victims of the film: teen Jody and bad boy Morty, forbidden lovers sneaking out for a swim. Moral of their story is, don't disobey your mom or sea beasts will eat you. But overall, not that many victims. No bloodbaths. However, the climax of the film involves a faceoff between the mollusk and Gail and Sandy that for a moment reminded me of the infamous "Heeere's Johnny!" Shining scene.

Sadly, Sandy lives. Apparently fire extinguishers can kill giant human-eating mollusks. You learn something new every day! And the makeshift family walks into the sunset again for another ho-hum shove-domesticity-down-your-throat-even-after-giant-sea-snails-almost-took-over-the-world kind of ending.

2011-12-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

2011-11-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

"Is there a ... ?"

2011-11-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sea Beast Movies: Piranha

2011-11-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

I heart monster movies, especially those that miss the mark and end up more campy than scary. The bad dialogue, strained acting and the abundance of cliches are simply irresistible. Hello Trog, hello Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, I'm talking to you. But nothing scratches the itch like a good/bad sea beast movie. Give me some sort of monster, a body of water and I'm hooked (so to speak).

Warning: spoilers n shit.

Roger Corman's Piranha delivers the goods. First, it was made in 1978. This avoids bad CGI stuff, which is the biggest disappointment of many modern-day sea beast films. It also provides for a lot of amazing fashion choices that make me wonder what on earth my parents' generation was thinking.

Let me set the scene: A teen couple on an unexplained midnight backpacking trip decide, hey, let's go past that NO TRESPASSING sign and see what's up at that creepy military site! They find a big dark pool surrounded by electric fence and barbed wire, and, like anyone would do, immediately begin skinnydipping in it. Piranhas eat them, making sounds reminiscent of frantic pigeons and/ or a sewing machines.

I've decided that most horror movies are about what happens to stupid people, people, I mean, who lack all common sense. These characters make such bad decisions it becomes impossible for the audience to really care for them or root for them as human beings. Empathy is impossible here. In turn, the audience gets slight satisfaction out of watching these fictional people die bloody deaths. A little part of each of us roots for the piranhas because the humans are so damn thoughtless. Well, I wouldn't do that, we think. This movie, in particular, features bad decision after bad decision on everyone's parts, beginning with the skinnydipping teens.

The film's main character is a young female detective named Maggie McKeown. The insurance company she works for sends her off to find the missing teens. A woman leading the investigation struck me as unusual. My first reaction was, huh, maybe this movie won't be so reliant on the usual man/woman stereotypes. Maybe since the film was made in 1978, some of that good-old-70s feminism had somehow opened up the possibility for a different kind of woman in a horror film. But this movie was made by Roger Corman. So no deal.

At first, Maggie works alone. We first see her at the airport, young, blond, chatty, confident, assuring her doubtful man-superior that she'll find the teens, that she can sniff anybody out because she's "part bloodhound." She believes in herself, hey, cool. But her speech and independent-woman schtick is immediately undermined when she turns around and frantically tells her boss man that ohmygod ohmygod she lost her plane ticket! Boss-man hands her the ticket that he, smart stoic man that he is, had all along. Silly female! As she boards the plane, Boss-man looks at her like, you are so going to fuck this up. Boss-man is right. Like I said, this movie is a series of badly made decisions on every character's part. Even Boss-man. Yes, you, Boss-man. You hired this inept woman and sent her on this job.

Anyway, so Maggie offroads her Jeep up into the mountains all by herself, but, silly female, overheats the vehicle and then just stares at the smoking engine like some kind of moron. Maggie seems to set out to work alone but, of course, soon stumbles upon a backwoods cabin and meets mountain man Paul. Paul is drunk all the time. Paul wears flannel shirts and is brooding and manly. Suddenly Maggie adopts Paul for help in her investigation. This happens in the most contrived dialogue exchanges imaginable. Paul, naturally, is annoyed by Maggie at first. She's annoying. But he follows her lead anyway. He's drunk. She drives the Jeep, he sits shotgun. She traces the case back to the abandoned military site and the pool and he follows her up there. Paul does a lot of silent eye-rolling at her decisions, but complies. Until Maggie does the stupidest dumbshit move of the movie and drains the entire pool of piranhas into the river. Oopsiedaisies!

Let me back up for a second and just say that the scene where Maggie and Paul stumble upon the laboratory next to the piranha pool (the lab where the Drain the Mutant Piranhas into the River lever exists) is the weirdest in the movie. The lab belongs to Dr. Robert Hoak, mad scientist who developed the piranhas. Whatever, he's just your run-of-the-mill mad scientist, nothing to see here. Except in the lab there are the weirdest, creepiest creatures that he's been creating. One of them looks like a tiny dinosaur alien that runs around, unseen by Maggie and Paul. I thought we were going somewhere with these land-piranha experiments since the camera focused on the creatures for a few minutes. But then Maggie and Paul just leave the laboratory and we never hear about the little dinosaur piranha alien again.

This was an overall problem of the movie: many, many things were left unexplained. Like why the hell keep the piranhas? Why have a switch that drains them into the goddamn river in the first place? Why violently attack the mad scientist, knock him out and basically kidnap him? Why do these creatures exist? Etc, etc, etc.

Anyway, once shit really starts to go down and the piranhas are now swimming fast towards Paul's daughter's summercamp, Paul stops drinking and mans up and takes the driver's seat. Stereotypical gender roles are restored. Maggie sits shotgun. Paul gets them a raft and leads them up the river. Mad Scientist makes his own stupid decision and dives into the piranha-infested river. Bye, Mad Scientist guy. We get cuts to lots of summercamp scenes, where Paul's daughter is, conveniently, scared of swimming but her asshole camp director keeps trying to make her get in the lake anyway. This creates a whole ticking-timebomb element as Paul tries to get to the camp to save his daughter. Lots of happy, splashy water scenes with kids and bikinied camp counselors, and a resort on the lake with tons of super 70s-looking beach crowds. Ah, the tension builds. Just can't wait for those piranha attacks.

The cool thing about Piranha, when compared to quality sea beast movies like Jaws that it was imitating, is that Piranha goes there. You keep seeing these splashy, laughing scenes at the summercamp or the resort and you're thinking, Corman won't let the piranhas eat the kids, will he? I mean, kids? Maybe a nip at the most, right?

Delightfully, Corman spares no one. By the end of the resort scene the shore is covered in victims, men, women, children. And the camp director who was such a dick to Paul's kid? Bitten in the face. So satisfying.

The movie's ending is just moronic. Paul, now off the booze, has apparently acquired some superhuman powers and can hold his breath for like five minutes underwater as he goes to find that switch that pollutes the lake and will kill the piranhas. Not like the other times they tried to poison the piranhas, no no -- this is entirely different. This is a pollution switch. What is a pollution switch? Why do the piranhas take forever to attack Paul? Why is Paul not killed by the pollution blast underwater? Who the hell is this evil scientist ex-lover of other mad scientist and why do we care? Who knows. But as Maggie holds the canteen of booze to Paul's lips at the end, when they are safely ashore, he parts his mouth and emits a little "ehhh" or something that I believe is supposed to indicate that he's going to be okay. And, who knows, maybe the embrace hints some sort of romance to come. Paul's kid is there with them, so the man+woman+kid thing forms a neat little family at the end. All's well! Oh yeah, except for the fact the piranhas are probably in the ocean now because they can swim in both fresh and saltwater and the river drains to the sea. Hello, Piranha II: The Spawning (um, directed by James Cameron, and the piranhas fuckin fly).

Hungry, anyone?

2011-11-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

"art"

2011-11-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

What if you googled "what if the world..."?

2011-11-16T15:56:00.001-08:00

Fender Stitch

2011-11-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

New story of mine is up on a new awesome site called Fender Stitch.

Cleverbot not so clever after all

2011-11-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

An open letter to the guy googling "faith gardner should stop blogging about the guy searching..." and ending up here

2011-11-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

Dear dissatisfied googler,

Apparently my silly posts have offended you. I apologize, I was just trying to have a little fun on my infrequently visited blog, and I didn't mean for it to be at your expense. Truth be told, I'm intrigued by your love of large hands and I find nothing wrong with it. Everyone has their unique eccentricities and fondnesses for things outside "the norm." That's what makes people interesting. In fact, I just read this amazing advice column that I think says everything better than I ever could.

Farewell, friend! I appreciate your visits. But, per your request, I won't blog about you anymore.

Happy googling,

Faith

An open letter to the person now googling “girl bigger hands” and somehow arriving at my blog

2011-11-07T20:09:00.001-08:00

Dear "girl bigger hands" person,

Your sudden arrival at my blog yesterday, and then again today, both tickles and puzzles me. Naturally, I'm wondering, are you the same gentle googler who often finds me via "girl with huge hands"? If so, have the usual search results grown blasé to you, now leaving you wanting images of even more enormous female hands? Is there an end to this ever-expanding love of yours?

Perhaps you are only one of many google-efficient big handlovers out there. Perhaps there are legions of you, sitting at your screens, gazing at all the expansive feminine palms and elongated girlish fingers the internet has to offer. In any case, be you one or be you many, I strive to make the visit here worth your while. I searched long and hard through the unsightliest pages of the internet (seriously, check out these dudes) to try to find something that might delight you.

Well, I found this very strange video of a lady named Solene's large hands striking poses with a smaller pair of hairy man hands. Why the man hands, I don't know. Maybe for contrast? Maybe it's supposed to be titillating? I'm out of my area of expertise here, Bigger Handlover, so fill in the blanks yourself. Anywho, Big-Handed Solene's video seems to be a trailer leading to a site called "Macro Women" which may be something of interest to you. I, exhausted, lazy, and apathetic when it comes to the subject of ample female appendages, ended my journey at the Solene video, but perhaps your journey has only just begun, like that Carpenters song or that bank commercial once said.

Thank you for visiting, mysterious stranger. Until we meet again ...

Pushcart Prize nomination

2011-11-06T10:21:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it, but my story "Window Woman" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Thank you to editor Jason Jordan and decomP, it's truly an honor. You can read all about the other fabulous nominees here.

Dark Beach demo!

2011-11-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

Dark Beach Demo by Dark Beach
I'm in a new band I'm really excited about. We're called Dark Beach and you can download our 8-song demo for free!

Holy shit this is gonna be awesome

2011-11-01T12:40:00.001-07:00

An open letter to the person frequently googling “girl with huge hands” and somehow arriving at my blog

2011-10-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

Dear “girl with huge hands” person,

Greetings. I’m glad, somehow, your fetish for enormous female phalanges has brought you here. Although I myself don’t have huge hands, I find your interest in this subject both curious and amusing, and so have taken the liberty of pasting random photos of grotesquely large hands in hopes I might please you.

Please enjoy the following that I googled in your honor:

And, in my google images journey, I was led to a blog dedicated solely to the passion for large female hands.

Godspeed, big handlover.

Best,

Faith

Recording in LA

2011-10-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

I wrote a blog post about the recent trip to LA to record with Dark Beach and you can read it here.

Best of the Net!

2011-10-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

My story "Window Woman" published earlier this year in decomP has been nominated for Best of the Net! What an honor! I absolutely love decomP. Check out all their other fabulous nominees.

Dark Beach

2011-10-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

I'm in a new band called Dark Beach. We have a website that has fancy photos and less fancy videos. You can also find us on the Facebook and on the Twitter.

Here's a teaser:

Gender Questions

2011-10-10T12:55:00.001-07:00

2011-10-05T16:23:00.001-07:00

Video Footage of Anne Sexton Reading

2011-10-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Today is the 37th anniversary of Anne Sexton's death.

Anne Sexton's unapologetic poetry, her preoccupation with femininity and the macabre, her use of poetry as a channel for mental illness, made me want to write when I was a teenager. Discovering The Awful Rowing Toward God made me want to make beautiful things out of ugly feelings. Her book Transitions renewed my love of fairy tales. Her book of complete poems is one of the only entire collections by a poet I've read cover-to-cover.

Here's a video of Anne reading "Her Kind." The biography it mentions by Diane Middlebrook is a really interesting book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about her life, her many affairs and relationships with other writers of the time, her sickness and how it fueled her poetry.

Like many, I can't help but be drawn to self-destructive artists, poets and musicians. But I so wish she had survived her illness and continued to share her voice with the world. Anne would have been 83 this year.

"Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard." -Anne Sexton

The Things People Ask Their Google-Machines: Why

2011-10-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Google,

I love you.

Sincerely, me.

The Good Men Project

2011-09-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

"Sandwichboy"

Housefire

2011-09-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

"Secret Dinner"

The Stage Name Game

2011-09-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Do you think the following celebrities would have made it to stardom had they used their birth names?

Harlean Harlow Carpenter

Cornelius Crane Chase

David Robert Hayward-Jones

Edda Kathleen van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston

Allen Stewart Konigsberg

Frances Ethel Gumm

Gordon Sumner

Leslie Hornby

Farouk Bulsara

Archibald Alexander Leach

Freaky Faces

2011-09-17T15:39:00.001-07:00

Peggy Jo: The Cross-Dressing Bank-Robbing Cowboy

2011-09-15T23:46:00.000-07:00

One of my many dream vocations, along with snake charmer and mad scientist, is bank robber. This article from Texas Monthly spins the tale of real-life Peggy Jo Tallas, the badass Texan who lived everyday life as a quiet, doting woman and secretly doubled as a bank robber disguised as a cowboy. She was so good at it, in fact, she never needed a weapon and wasn't caught for years.

I love stories about women criminals, partly because people suspect them less and thus they're able to get away with so much more than typical male criminals. I love the challenge female criminals pose to stereotypical women's roles. But Peggy Jo is even more interesting because she cross-dressed to perform her crimes -- she padded her figure, glued a fake beard on her chin and spoke in a low voice to disguise herself. And it worked. No one looked past the facade and suspected a woman beneath the man.

After reading this, I did some quick research to find more stories of cross-dressing female criminals, but was surprised there was really nothing else that could compare to Peggy Jo's adventure. It was interesting that so many results came up featuring criminal men who dressed as women, or women who dressed like military personnel in order to fight in past wars. Sadly, many results that came up were women executed for their "crimes" in the past: impersonating men and serving in the military, and charges of fraud and homosexuality for marrying other women and leading lives as men.

The only other cross-dressing female-to-male criminals I found were pirates like Mary Read and Ann Bonny, and all info concerning these ladies seems shrouded in mythology. There was a woman in Modesto who drew a not-so-great beard on her face when attempting to rob a gas station and another fake bearded lady who has been robbing Alabama banks recently. Tip of the day: if you're a lady looking to dress up as a man and rob a bank or store, it seems fake beards are the way to go.

Peggy Jo is a fascinating character, even besides the odd nature of her bank robberies. I loved the idea that even the tamest-seeming folk burn with something the article dubs "wild at heart," that while we have one identity, often we long for something completely the opposite. Fiction can't compete with stories like these.

Kafka's Metamorphosis

2011-09-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

Random Religion of the Day

2011-09-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

It's a fusion of animism and Catholicism called Mama Tata and, like most things, all I know about it comes from a questionably reliable corner of the internets.

Wikipedia says this is a religion that "began in the second half of the twentieth century, after prophetess Little Mama had a vision of Jesus riding up to her on a motorcycle."

I don't know what to believe on Wikipedia, but I'm glad this exists.

The Man Who Mistook His Hat for a Wife

2011-09-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Have You Ever Noticed Hitchcock and Nabokov Look Exactly Alike?

2011-09-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

Just sayin'.

tgifml

2011-09-09T11:05:00.001-07:00

Things I Read and Liked This Summer

2011-09-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

The end of summer is always disappointing because of all my plans that forgot to happen. The road trips and camping weekends that weren't. The writing that didn't, the unread books. My free-range monkey zoo that remains sadly unfounded. I have been reading Infinite Jest for what feels like an infinity and I am not proud of how much RuPaul's Drag Race I watched this summer.

However, I have read some amazing books and stories online in the past month or so. I don't write reviews, that's for the fancy people to do. But I can recommend.

* Lovely, Raspberry by Aaron Belz. This is a poetry collection. I don't read many poetry collections, especially start to finish. I read this one twice in a row. Belz's poems are so delightfully random, filled with non sequitors and puns and word play, but manage to balance the quirkiness with real spiritual questions and a bright sense of hope. For some reason, although I know it's stylistically and chronologically worlds away, I was reminded of the bighearted playfulness in John Donne's earlier poems.

* Strange Weather by Becky Hagenston. I first read Becky Hagenston's dark and lovely story "Midnight, Licorice, Shadow" in Crazyhorse's 50th Anniversary Issue. Hagenston's style has a subtle, accessible quality that reminded me of A.M. Homes or even Julie Orringer at times, but Hagenston dares to dip further into the surreal and the haunting than either Homes or Orringer. Hagenston also works with her settings to create a unique backdrop that colors each story differently. After enjoying all the stories in this collection, I'm excited to read more of her work.

* Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler. Butler's an undeniable rockstar of a writer. I really love his use of language, the surprises offered in his sentences and careful vocabulary, and I think his story endings are especially strong, often offering some sort of unpredictable dareisay twist without being at all gimmicky (I first noticed this in his story "Utah Snow Globe" published last year in Significant Objects). Scorch Atlas is, firstly, a beautiful book. The colors, the page patterns, the layout is just gorgeous. And thematically, the collection is tight. The stories coexist in the same postapocalyptic plane, a world where gravel and bugs rain from the sky, where TV has turned to static, where radiation has swollen the heads of offspring. While I like the uniformity of these pieces, it was a hard book to sit with and read straight through because of the dismal and similar nature of the stories. I took a lot of breaks while reading this brilliant book.

* Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting. This was one of my favorite collections I've read this year. Nutting's stories are fabulously bizarre: porn stars on the moon, cryogenically frozen psychotic mothers, sexually attractive garden gnomes -- but Nutting treats each bizarre premise with the care and breeziness of reality. The world she creates is one that feels surreal, but not necessarily impossible -- like the not-too-distant future, maybe. I love the premise of "jobs" that weave these stories and characters together and her sense of humor balanced with the dark and grotesque world her women live in.

* Stories V! by Scott McClanahan. I really enjoyed this collection, and what stood out to me was the anecdotal tone carrying readers through the stories. There is a compelling sense of intimacy in McClanahan's casual style, a recognizable voice, almost like you're sitting down and listening to a friend. Beneath the ease and readablility of his prose, however, these stories grapple with questions of morality, quiet desire and the possibility of human connection.

* Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter. I've been wanting to read this book for a while, and having read reviews and recommendations, I knew beforehand that I would probably like it. And I did. The publication itself, put out by featherproof books, is very aesthetically pleasing and -- bonus -- I somehow accidentally bought one that seems to have been signed by the author. Score! Hunter's dry prose, the lack of emotion, the slack delivery of gross situations and characters, the understated comedy of these pieces, make me look forward to reading more of her work.

* Ethel Rohan's Hard to Say. Rohan's stories mostly feature children, and most of these children are mired in hopeless, diseased domestic situations. Rohan's language is so sharp that certain sentences literally made me gasp. I really liked how the protagonists of these stories felt almost interchangeable at times, and yet the arrangement of the stories allows the protagonist(s) to age and mature a bit throughout, so that by the end of this very short collection, an insidious development and different perspective seems to have been achieved out of stories with similar characters and settings.

* Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. This book deserves all the good reviews I've read about it. It blew me away. So fucking inspiring. Yuknavitch bares herself and her unique look at life, suffering and art and braids her experiences together with the water metaphor. Side note: I love that when my book came the boob on the cover was covered with a modest scrap of paper. Just in case, you know, an artful picture of a tit offended me or something.

* This story "only in retrospect could the island become real" by Frank Hinton is possibly my favorite of hers.

* And this story "Slow Summer" by Jessica Hollander, has stuck with me since I read it.

* "My Life in Stories," an article about the process of becoming a short story writer.

There was so much more I was going to say, but I'm boring myself and I want to smoke.

Bluestem Magazine

2011-09-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

"Five Missed Connections"

7" Review

2011-08-17T13:13:00.001-07:00

My band's split 7" was written up in the East Bay Express.

DOGZPLOT

2011-08-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

"Ride"

HFE on YouTube

2011-07-22T14:03:00.001-07:00

Thank you Melissa and Practice Space for having us!

Bartleby Snopes

2011-07-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

"Adverse Reaction" is in Issue 6, available in print or via free PDF

Verbicide Magazine

2011-07-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

"Alison Aleister, Party Planner"

It's Linky Time Again

2011-07-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

*Roxane Gay's book Ayiti is now available for pre-order through the Artistically Declined Press website. Really looking forward to this collection. I ordered mine for only five bucks.
*New issue of jmww is dope, yo.
*Turn your name into a face
*Voting for storySouth Million Writers award ends tomorrow! Lots of superb stories up this year.
*Someone put a bow on a mural of an octopus

Linky Time

2011-06-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm too lazy to pretend to blog lately. Here are some amusing and delightful things to instead click:

*Sarah Palin's emails as found poems
*McSweeney's releases the first new issue of their foodie magazine Lucky Peach
*Yale is giving away an assload of $ for creative writing
*The Lit Pub is a new radical place where literary conversations are happening
*A Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post writer reveals he's an undocumented immigrant
*Thrift Store Dolls, spectacular random blog of the week
*
*Oh Dolly Mixture, you're my new favorite band! Album to be reissued on vinyl soon and is available for pre-order!!

Buy This Record

2011-06-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

Buy this record! Two bands, four songs, shipped anywhere for $5! It's my first time on vinyl, we put it out, only 500 exist, and the vinyl is PURPLE SPLATTER! Need I say more?

Emprise Review

2011-06-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

"XOXOXO"

Alchemist Weekly Review

2011-05-25T17:05:00.002-07:00

My band Hooray for Everything is doing a split 7" with the very awesome Oregon band Angries. The record's coming out next month, and the first review is in!

Upcoming Pacific northwest shows:

5/25 in Salem, OR: w/ FECE, Rictus & Indecisive Hooligans @ Cafe Noir, 610 Marion St. NE, $3, 6PM
5/26 in Seattle, WA: w/ Shakes, So Pitted & Wet Nightmare @ 222 15th Ave, 8:30PM
5/27 in Corvallis, OR: w/ Angries, Latch-Hook Robot, Old Age & Outraged Flounders @ Oddfellows Hall, 223 SW 2nd St, $5, 8:30PM
5/28 in Portland, OR: w/ Angries & Social Graces @ The Know, 2026 Northeast Alberta Street, 8PM

Hooray.

Necessary Fiction

2011-05-18T10:52:00.001-07:00

"Mada's Debut"

PANK

2011-05-13T14:24:00.001-07:00

Interview

Foundling Review

2011-05-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

"There Was A Clatter"

Ira Glass on Storytelling

2011-04-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit."

(Reposted from kottke.org)

Staccato Fiction

2011-04-25T09:23:00.001-07:00

"Prepared"

PANK

2011-04-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

"I Wear a Leather Jacket in My Head"

Twelve Stories

2011-04-08T07:40:00.001-07:00

"Behind the Silver Window"

jmww

2011-04-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

"Sublet"

Blogspotlight #6

2011-04-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

Check it: some hand-fetishist dude's fab blogspot blog called Amazing Hands. He posts photos of big-handed, long-fingered female hands he finds sexy. In his words: "Huge Hands on a girl does not sound very attractive to most. Too bad they don't know what they are missing."

'Nuff said.

decomP

2011-04-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

"Window Woman"

Corium Magazine

2011-03-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

"The Deciduous Man"

Masochistic Inscription Seeker

2011-03-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

This guy Bill enjoys going to literary readings, waiting in line with a book, and then asking the author to write him an insulting autograph. He documents this strange hobby on his blog Insulted by Authors. Insults by prestigious authors such as Karen Russell, Tao Lin and Amy Sedaris.

Blogspotlight #5

2011-03-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

May I introduce to you Juicy Fruiter's blog named Juicy Fruiter, spanning years 2005-2008. Juicy Fruiter is very enthusiastic about his favorite kind of gum. Juicy Fruiter is a park ranger who posts about how mad it makes him when he catches people drinking in the park and how funny it is when he catches people having sex in parked cars. Juicy Fruiter chronicles his proposal, then cold feet, then eventual marriage, to the woman he calls Mrs. Juicy Fruiter. Juicy Fruiter is amazing.

Some Bright Things Recently Encountered

2011-03-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

Bartleby Snopes!

2011-03-14T12:35:00.001-07:00

"Adverse Reaction," by me.

By Faith Alone

ZYZZYVA reading and more

Best of the Net 2011

AWPness

1 Hour Song #4: "Mean Machine"

All kinds of stories

Louise Gluck yelps

Happy VD

Why do you

Dear Disaster

Google Obsession

Peculiar Paper Dolls

The world

I am I am I am

Excerpt from ZYZZYVA

It's ...

Who Cares About Pluto

The Truly Astounding Success Story of Mr. Julius Nipper

Googling things that have never been googled before

Very scary dolls

Why are we

The Stage Name Game: Punk Rock Edition

Probablys

1 Hour Song #1: "You are the One"

Metazen

Never seen before Barbies

Bighands strikes again

Apparently I have a "fetching snarl"

Sea Beast Movies: Day of the Dolphin

Red Lightbulbs

Some seriously weird holiday cards

"I am ..."

ZYZZYVA

Blogspotlight #7: A plethora of life-changing blogs

Bizarre how-tos

"I want a ..."

Indiana Jones answers spam email

Sea Beast Movies: The Monster that Challenged the World

"Is there a ... ?"

Sea Beast Movies: Piranha

Hungry, anyone?

Recommended reads

"art"

What if you googled "what if the world..."?

Fender Stitch

Cleverbot not so clever after all

An open letter to the guy googling "faith gardner should stop blogging about the guy searching..." and ending up here

An open letter to the person now googling “girl bigger hands” and somehow arriving at my blog

Pushcart Prize nomination

Dark Beach demo!

Holy shit this is gonna be awesome

An open letter to the person frequently googling “girl with huge hands” and somehow arriving at my blog

Recording in LA

Best of the Net!

Dark Beach

Gender Questions

Video Footage of Anne Sexton Reading

The Things People Ask Their Google-Machines: Why

The Good Men Project

Housefire

The Stage Name Game

Freaky Faces

Peggy Jo: The Cross-Dressing Bank-Robbing Cowboy

Kafka's Metamorphosis

Random Religion of the Day

The Man Who Mistook His Hat for a Wife

Have You Ever Noticed Hitchcock and Nabokov Look Exactly Alike?

tgifml

Things I Read and Liked This Summer

Bluestem Magazine

7" Review

DOGZPLOT

HFE on YouTube

Bartleby Snopes

Verbicide Magazine

It's Linky Time Again

Linky Time

Buy This Record

Emprise Review

Alchemist Weekly Review