Inexpensive Promotion Opportunity from dada east

ok, this is a rare opportunity for self publishing / self promoting experimental artists. If you burn your own albums, print your owns books and zines (even through vanity press's like lulu.com) and print your own arts - please consider this opportunity to inexpensively promoting yourself.

experimental artists (of any kind), editors, website owners and makers.

for $1 - three lines of text
=====================
great for: website address and description
great for: book and zine description and address
great for: performance description and address etc etc

for $5 - 7m x 9m square
great for: album cover and website
great for: book zine cover and website
great for: your head and website etc etc

please ask questions
Don't worry about space I'll add another page if needed

http://www.dadaeast.blogspot.com

A New Absurdist Update

Hello again. Nothing to report on the The New Absurdist website at this point. It seems as though it will be back but I've had no communication from The Polycarp and no one knows anything.

You can of course use this site to post your Absurdist stories, but you have to become a member first. Send me an e-mail at headsfromspace @ yahoo dot com and I will get you on the memberlist.

Nobody (including me) has posted at the TNA board for a while so it seems everyone is in hiding for the present. Send me news if you have any, or post to this blog.

Web Death Anthology is Finished And Awesome

Yes, the anthology is finished and will be IS available at Bust Down The Door shortly NOW!

As I predicted, this anthology is A W E S O M E and extremely gnarly.

Also it appears that The New Absurdist will be back at some point, probably when we least expect it. Stay tuned for more rock n' roll.

Last Call For Web Death Anthology

This is the last call for submissions to the Web Death 2007 New Absurdist Anthology. What does this mean? It means that in another weeks time I will be sending it out to be formatted and e-booked, and then it will be too late for YOU to get into the anthology.

Assuming you want to get into the anthology.

We have 24 pieces in the anthology, and the anthology is becoming AWESOME! I predicted that the anthology would be awesome, and I was right.

Also, the TNA message board has migrated to Yuku. You need to bookmark the new address, though you will be redirected using the old one for a while.

The Justynn Tyme Cover

Here is the proposed cover for the New Absurdist Web Death Anthology. It's beautiful and I love it. Justynn has done a great job:

DAILY CHILLS CALENDAR

365 DAYS… 365 STORIES… UNDER 365 WORDS…

I am collecting dark, twisted, surreal, and/or bizarre flash fiction, poetry, humour and images. 365 pieces will be selected and placed in a daily “inspiration” style calendar. The submissions I’ve taken so far have been incredible. Some would make Wes Craven cry. They’re coming in from a broad range of sources including, of course, horror writers, experimentalists, absurdists, surrealists, and more.

I’ve moved the book up a few levels from my first vision and have refined the details.

This sucker seems to want to be a hot item. My goal is to see this for sale on big chain bookshelves. I want to bring a taste of some of the worlds most creative fringe writers and artists to the general public. The big stores don’t normally take collections of any kind but they love daybooks and calendars and other “novelty” type items. People eat that stuff up.

-Submissions must be in by late September but RSVP now to show interest.
-All contributors with seven pieces in the book will get 1% of royalties and a short bio at the back.
-All contributors with three pieces will get copy.
-All contributors with one piece get a smile, a handshake, and potential publicity.
-Copyrights remain in artists name and will be printed with each piece.
-Reprints are fine. We're aiming at unexplored audiences where evrything is new.
-When the book is complete I will hand it over to an agent in New York to make the sale.
I am meticulous so will not forward the book until it is perfect, but I do hope to have it together within two months.
-This is not aimed only at current fans and readers of dark fiction, it is to be marketed for everyone.
-This is not going to be an online daily email. This is not to be POD.
-This is not a project aimed at generating money for myself. It would be faster and easier to write 365 one liners myself.
-Consider that some person might read your strange and twisted prose and be so enthralled that they will look your name up and order a copy of your own novel(s)

E-mail submissoins to D.W.Green@rogers.com

Web Death Anthology Status

I've received several more submissions for the Web Death anthology as well as an essay by AD MacDonald. I hope to get more essays. I am waiting for more Absurdists to check in and send their stories. I really have no idea how many I might receive.

At some point I will probably try to hunt down more e-mail addresses and do another mailing. I've also posted about the anthology at the Bizarro Central Forum. Several Absurdists hang out there. I had no idea.

I've done a redesign of this site. Still quirky in Internet Explorer. Not too bad though. Less absurd, more understated.

Justynn Tyme Weighs In

Justynn Tyme has posted some thoughts about the upcoming Web Death 2007 New Absurdist Anthology at his weblog He is a nice person. I recommended him for membership in The Legion of Death. Membership is pending.

We have three submissions for the Anthology so far. I hope to get at least thirty. I want this thing to be MASSIVE. I want it to be so mindblowingly huge that Donald Trump will look at it and say

"this is huge!"

That's how huge I want it to be.

Ray Fracolossy was caught lurking at the TNA Message Board yesterday. He failed to reply to my post. This is less than optimum. Et tu, Ray?

Web Death 2007 New Absurdist Anthology

Hello Everyone ::

To celebrate the death of TNA, I'm planning an e-book anthology featuring one story from everyone who's a member of The New Absurdist.

Rules for submission to the anthology:

1) Everyone gets in. That is, everyone who has posted at least one story on
The New Absurdist website.

2) Do not send a story that has been published in ANOTHER TNA anthology. That would not make sense.

3) No story will be rejected. Some minimal editing for punctuation and clarity may be needed, but that's it. But please, please send your BEST!

4) Don't send something really long. Try to keep it to a few hundred words.

YOU CAN HELP!

I have a few e-mails for people, but since TNA is down as of this writing (aug 9) and few people are visiting the forum, I need people like Ray and Justynn to contact absurdists and tell them about the anthology.

YES WE NEED ARTWORK FOR THE COVER!

YES WE ARE LOOKING FOR ESSAYS!

This anthology will be HUGE!

TNA @ Archive.Org

You can access some older content on TNA by going to this page.

Yes, We Have No Absurdism Today

The New Absurdist is down for the second day. Ray managed to find his way to the message board and post, so at least some people are aware.

I did a post there letting people know that TTA is active again. Perhaps some people will find their way here. The purpose of this site is to provide temporary shelter to Absurdists who want to post and comment on stories. Everyone is welcome. You will need to have a Blogger ID to become a member.

To become a member, e-mail me at headsfromspace at yahoo dot com and I will add you to the list of members, and you will be a member, and you will be happy.

TNA Is Freaking Gone

TNA Offline on July 31 2007.

I just checked in at The New Absurdist and it is gone. You may access the message board here.

Don't know if this means Polycarp has pulled the plug, or not.

IT'S BACK!!

The New Absurdist is Back online.

I am screaming like a little girl. The forum is gone so we had better keep the temporary Absurdist for that but its back. Holy shite! Why wasn't I told about this... Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY

Algae Number Four

The wall outside is glowing golden. A bird is standing in the air, right in front of her window. It is carrying two yellow straw sticks. She reaches for her watch. A quarter to eight. Sunrise has happened without her, even though it is Sunday. But then, Sundays are different, and thus the hour feels right and wrong at the same time. She thinks of simply drifting back to sleep again. It is tempting, the bed so warm, still carrying the imprint of her night body.

Outside, the grass is wet when she walks through the leaves. It hasn’t rained, the drops of water are dew, or are due to the sprinkling machines. She can’t tell the difference, and there is no one around to ask. Everyone else seems to be asleep still. Sunday, she remembers. Even the wind hasn’t woken up yet. The ocean lays still, the water seems thicker, heavier, almost like liquid metal. Above it, the sun, not golden, but blinding white. The shore is black, and the water close by is black, too. Oil, she thinks. But it isn’t, it is algae, dead algae. The waves must have carried them to the beach in the night. It looks disturbing.

A bus passes by, it doesn’t stop in front of the bungalows. Seeing it, she remembers the start of the journey that brought her here. She had been in a city, walking to the bus station. The place, she knew it, had crossed through it before. Yet, there was another woman waiting at the bus station already, wearing the same coat as she did. They both had tickets for line number eight. A bus arrived, and they stored their bags away. Then they drove through streets, on and on. “It will take hours to get out of the city,” the other woman said. “I don’t mind, I like to be moving,” she answered. When they reached the next stop, she realized that they had caught the wrong bus. The number of it was four. There was something else that was wrong. She tries to remember it, while she watches the oily algae waves sip against the black beach.

Her breath is turning into a hazy little cloud, as she stands there. This can’t be, she thinks, and tries again. Another cloud appears. She tries once more. Again, the warm air she exhales turns to white, even though it isn’t cold enough for it. On the way back, she keeps watching her breath. It stays invisible. Maybe it was a string of cold air, or the humidity of the ocean, she thinks.

Back in her bungalow, she sees the bird again, standing in the air, on the other side of the window, looking in the way she is looking out.

When she returns to the ocean, later in the day, all the algae is gone.

Superficial Orange

She walks in a perfunctory manner toward the bank, her purse hanging on her shoulder, her shoes clicking on the just-swept, white-squared sidewalk that leads in a winding manner from the adjacent parking lot to the glass entrance doors, the pleats in her variegated dress symmetric in their vertical creases, the bank itself far enough away from the sewage plant so the banking customers are not aware of the stench emanating night and day, day and night, the olfactory presence malodorous in its threat.

Inside, the two on-duty tellers are occupied; there are two customers in line: one, a young but tall blonde girl with short hair, the length sufficient for a ponytail, her shirt a smoky gray color bearing a pro sports team logo on the front in the direct center of her chest, which does not show evidence of large breasts. She is wearing tight-fitting denim jeans. The second patron, the one next to the woman who just walked in, is a very old man with cropped white hair and eyes that bulge and a jaw that appears crooked. He is unshaven and looks as though he just woke up from too long a nap.

She stands motionless beside the man and notices that the blonde girl is holding a white pen in her left hand. She does not carry a purse, the pockets of her jeans hold nothing that protrudes. The woman wonders why the girl is here with only a pen and nothing else. This is a bank, a place to make transactions, so shouldn’t she have some papers, a checkbook, something else in her hands besides only a pen? Anxious to see what happens when the girl is called by the next available teller, the woman ponders the pen-only issue pensively.

One of the tellers wishes a good afternoon to the customer she just helped and verbalizes the young but tall blonde to approach. The woman in line beside the old man watches the girl from a left angle as the girl positions herself before the teller. The conversation ensues, but is too low a volume for the woman to hear; all she can do is watch the movements of the girl and the teller in order to attempt in deciphering why the girl is at a bank and in possession of only a pen.

The teller says something and the girl nods and responds with a brief utterance, the pen now in her right hand, which rests on the chest-high ledge before the teller. The teller looks down and to her left, grabbing a slip of paper; it appears she is writing something on it, but since the ledge blocks the view, the woman cannot be certain this is happening. After a moment the teller hands the girl the slip of paper and the girl looks at it. The teller’s eyes are not on the girl.

Handing the slip of paper back to the teller, the girl says something and the teller smiles. The girl turns to her left, exposing her face to the woman, walks past and exits the bank. The woman looks back at the teller’s ledge and sees that the pen has been left. The old man has been called to the other teller, leaving the former open for the woman to approach. When she is called, she lifts the pen from the ledge and reads in cursive lettering just below the cap: EXCUSE ME, BUT I DON’T CARE.

The woman looks at the teller, who is also looking at her. The woman realizes the teller knows the pen was left by the blonde girl and that it doesn’t belong to the woman. Reaching into her purse, the woman brings out a roll of bills and tells the teller she wants to deposit the cash into an account. The teller performs the transaction, watching the woman write her information with the pen that the blonde girl left.

The woman exits the bank as the heavy glass door shuts in silence, hoping that one day she’ll see her daughter again and tell her that she left her favorite pen behind.

Copyright © 2004 by Jeffrey S. Callico