Friday, December 9, 2011

The Only Voice He Ever Knew

Found Fiction # 2



Is it really over? is this really goodbye? Maybe I could say something and maybe you change your mind maybe buy a lil more time But I got nothing I’m Just Blank please let me think of something cause I got nothing. maybe I should get down on my knees and Tell you what you want to hear and give you what you need Or + I got nothin no magic words. all I know is that I Love you Alice Harlow!!!
—Brendon Case #5

*
 I have a piece that just went live on the latest shift of trans lit mag, transmutations.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Bringing Everyone and Everything Together Forever and Ever


What follows is a transcription of a texting conversation I had approximately one year ago:

Simon: You may be pleased to learn that I’ve just worked through a particularly difficult part of my novel. Sorry. Needed to tell someone.
Amanda: Haha, good job. I worked on the novella in class instead of actually paying attention.
Simon: Erotica tends to be a good distractor.
Amanda: Yeah, but I look up at doug bennett every once in a while and fantasy turns into twisted nightmare.
Simon: At which point mutant sex demons invade Sam and Alicia’s happy narrative.
Amanda: Haha, that was before I saw doug. Now something much worse has been uneashed.
Simon: The kraken, perhaps?
Amanda: Haha, you know me too well. Couldn’t pass up adding the nautical theme.
Amanda (12 minutes later): And one day you’ll tell me what your current novel is about. You were cryptic.
Simon: One day soon, yes. PS – mariners are salty.
Amanda: Comes with the territory. Salt in every crevice.

The novel referenced in the above conversation has since been completed and abandoned. The erotica was unleashed last week by OC Press in the form of Five Days.

And speaking of coming full circle, I have a piece up at wonderful Specter Magazine, "The Absolute Latest in Alternative Fashion," which includes a part of virtually everything I’ve written and done over the past three years, erotica & punk & the Safety Pin Review & everything. So no biggie. It has a lot of pretty things in it.

I have not yet written the salacious mariner story implied by the above conversation. Although krakens have many tentacles. Stay tuned.


Thursday, December 1, 2011

No RSVP Required

Dear Zero Followers,

Please consider buying my and Amanda's erotic novella Five Days. You can get it for the price of two iTunes songs. Or perhaps a medium-sized coffee of a reputable brand. Either way, it's worth it. Totally. Every cent. Sex. Lots of it. More than in a medium-sized cup of coffee, and most iTunes songs.

At my school, you can buy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for $1.59. Drop that for a day, add $0.40, and you could buy the novella. Really. A little cup of fucking hummus at this place costs more here than the novella.

If you want something free, you could always read my piece at Clean Sheets, which might put you in the mood to give up a small amount (~20 minutes at minimum wage) of your hard-earned for something more substantial.

Just click on the picture to the right. It'll be fun. I Promise. Promise.

Love,
Simon
(Amanda also)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

A Culture Based on Oral Tradition


"Last night the collective we got terrifically drunk and I ended up doing shots off of Kayla’s stomach. I should note, for the record, how firm her abs are. I took the opportunity of having her lying shirtless on the table to rest my cheek on her stomach, and there was absolutely no give at all. Rock hard.
"Rumor has it this chick has some kind of impossible workout schedule. She’s at the gym twice a day Mon – Thurs, then takes it “easy” on Fri – Sat with just one session per day. I’ve seen her lifting in the early mornings when I’m there. She ties her hair back when she works out, and I actually prefer it that way. Kayla’s over with the bars and free weights or doing chin-ups, I just lurk by the cardio equipment, winded. Maybe now I’ll go up to her. The strength imparted by having had my mouth so close to her belly button (even perfect people have them)."

*
The new OC Press website is now live, and my and Amanda’s contribution can be found there: oceroticbooks.com. THE NOVELLA DROPS DECEMBER 1.

There’s also a video of me reading a portion of Five Days re: anal sex in the woods. It was filmed in such a way that David Bowie and I take up approximately the same amount of space on the screen. This is my first non-stationary appearance on the interwebs, and should be treasured for what it’s worth.

Issue Ten of the Safety Pin Review is now being worn around Chicago and its suburbs by Tara Balcerzak. There are Action Shots up alongside the story right now.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Young Buck in Autumn


Last night, I had a shapeless dream in which people I’m friends with on Facebook but have never met before appeared as first and last names in blue bold on a white background, accompanied by thumbnail photos. In the dream, when I pictured their names or spoke to them, the thought was always preceded by an @ symbol.
I also dreamt a few nights ago that a group of kids from my school were intent on murdering another student. They marched—with comical slowness—down the hallway, three of them brandishing kitchen knives. I was in front of them, backing up and waving my hands and trying to make them stop, shouting things like, “This is fucked UP!” and “What the FUCK, guys?!” When they kicked open the door to her room, their target was there, holding a ukelele, apparently ambivalent to her fate. They advanced into the room, and I ran away, screaming again, “This is fucked UP!”
            After that, I went to a restaurant where everyone was barefoot. I thought that was disgusting and I left. I told myself I would drop out of school if they killed that girl.
            In the dreamworld, I don’t know if they did.

*
I have two Twitter-length fictions up at trapeze magazine. For hyperlink purposes I’ve titled them “God-Given Ass” and “Right As (Acid) Rain.”

Thursday, November 10, 2011

**BLOG TITLE REDACTED**

An oozing plastic parfait cup overturned on the ground

her name, something symbolic, like Justice or Hope

a wearer of enormous, dangly earrings, a sweet voice that seems to hinge perpetually on tears

lipstick-smeared pink on the plastic lid of her coffee cup

kneeling on the burgundy carpet, mopping up the glob of spilt yogurt.

her body scrubbing beneath the row of desks in front of me

(floral-print dress, pronounced makeup, furry boots)

The smell of soured milk wafted up in my direction, mingling with the coffee.

It felt obscene.

*
My first short piece of erotic fiction, "The Roommate & the Punk Rocker," has been published on Clean Sheets. It's a touchstone piece, in many ways. I wrote this one in a feverish state over the summer. As these things go.

The Safety Pin Review has some photos up by our first operative at Occupy Wall Street. Bitchin'.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Found Fiction

“Psychology of Women Assignment”


When thinking about which gender norm to violate, I found it hard to think of a simple one that I do not already violate.

…For one day, I wore a short skirt and a pair of opaque tights and sat with my legs spread apart. In class, my feet were on the floor,

[I was wearing heels, and one of my male friends was sitting across from me.]

and elsewhere (Saga, Jazzman’s, Rose Creek Coffee Co-op)

[I reached out my leg and pressed my heel into his crotch. I felt it sink into his softness. His mouth twitched.]

I put my feet on other furniture on occasion. Especially while in class, I was physically quite uncomfortable. It hurt my back and hips to sit so spread out. …

[Sex has always been painful for me. I feel like I am opening up for the world.

Since only the campus community was witnessing me violate this norm, and in general is quite used to gender norm violation, I was not nervous in the way I would have been if I had gone

[ventured]

into Strichmont to collect my data.

[I have been subjected to the hands of several aggressive men.]

For the most part, people didn’t say much of anything to me. … I didn’t receive any treatment different from that given to the men around me who were sitting the same way.

[When he said “Hey,” I dug my heel deeper in, harder until it broke off and he cried.]

It seemed as if people weren’t thinking, “That’s not very ladylike!” but were actually thinking, “That’s not very polite!” When I was

[eating out]

in Jazzman’s, no one said anything to me—no one even looked at me.

[Once, my legs were spread open and I felt compelled to hook my fingers under the left leg of my tights and slide it down my leg, all the way to my ankle.]

… Most people looked longer and more frequently at my lap when talking to me. That reaction was the one that made me most uncomfortable, since I am not at all used to people not looking at my face while we talk. One of my friends exclaimed, “Sammy! Close your legs!”

[I replied by opening them further and then slamming them closed so my thighs were like a gnashing monster.]

and another asked me in all seriousness, “Do you have a groin injury?”

[I said, “Nom nom, it’s going to eat you.” She looked away.]

*
I will be recording a video this weekend of myself reading a sexy section of Five Days to post on the Oysters and Chocolate website nearer the publication date (December 1). Hopefully Amanda will do one as well. Stay tuned. It will be terrific.

Issue Seven of the Safety Pin Review is now live, alongside some action shots. Please note that author Doug Paul Case in no way advocates sexual violence.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Running At Top Speed As Fast As My Little Heart Can Take

So here's a little piece of awesome: Sherman Alexie gave a superfucking cool shout-out to the Safety Pin Review on his website earlier today. "So funny, so terrestrial and so Internetty at the same time,"says he.

Sherman Alexie was an author I first read in an English textbook my senior year in high school (otherwise a miserable time), and whose style has considerably influenced my writing over the years (I've fed off of the considerable energy stores of Flight numerous times), so his words of encouragement are something like a dream come true for me. There's more (along with some fresh action shots of Issue Six, featuring the inimitable David James Keaton) over at the Safety Pin Review site.

I also had a piece accepted at Specter Magazine, so I believe props to mensah demary are in order.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Arterial Spray


This is lit critic Mygüel’s solution to my thinning hair. Ingenious.

In literary news, my first legitimate published short story, “An Open Invitation to That Part of the Heart,” is up at Quick Lucks, so you should read it straightaway and let me know what you think.

A few months ago I had my shortest piece ever (11 words) accepted by PicFic, and then never heard from them again. Trawling through the interwebs this morning, I found their site and perused the archives, only to find that my story had come and gone about a month ago without my being informed, complete with a non-functioning link to my old blog. Lovely. In any case, you can read it smushed in the PicFic backlogs.

There is also a new, somewhat apologetic post up on the Safety Pin Review site, featuring Issue Five Action Photos and some words.

And J. Bradley (who contributed the second issue of the Safety Pin Review) took a sex/dating advice question I sent him and turned it into a piece of flash fiction for his brilliant weekly column at Specter Magazine “I Am Trying to Break Your Sex Laws.”

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Rape Culture and the Assignation of Blame, or: Throwing Everything Out the Window

Old people tend to like me more than young ones. Sometimes I think in part it's because of my hair. Because when they see me they think, "he might (a) vandalize my property, (b) engage in wanton violence to my person, (c) laugh in spite at my advanced age, or (d) mock one of my systematically ingrained habits," but instead I like ask about their grandchildren and whether they like the food at the old folks' home and if they ever used Aquanet like in the 70's to do their hair. Maybe that's why I've decided to become a nurse.

In linky news, Issue Five of the Safety Pin Review (which I edit and am currently wearing), starring Brian Hurley is now live over at the SPR site (which you should visit with regularity verging on obsessiveness).

Brandi Wells posted a picture of my cat on her blog, as well as some fictional words over at the Brandi Wells Review. You should buy her book, Please don't be upset, because it's phenomenal.

I have a new piece up (as of about two weeks ago) at Defenestration. It's billed as "fake non-fiction," but I swear that at least 98% of it is true.

Finished the first round of edits on the novella, a minor victory.

I gave up my Tumblr site for this. You can see my valedictory post.

(The first title of this post I stole from a girl in my dorm who was writing a paper about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Credit her, Rachael.)