2015 was a Kingdom of Bullshit. We were assaulted by a relentless barrage of bullets and bile from real-world terrorists & political hate-mongers, all while media-trolls across the spectrum stoked the blazes for revenue clicks. It all fed our frenzy so hard we became indignation wendigos, our frothy jaws devouring each other’s fury and spewing it back so forcefully we even hated those we should’ve considered comrades. South Park killed it this year with its satire of the Outrage Industrial Complex, but the most 2015 show by a hair has to be Mr. Robot. It captured the zeitgeist perfectly without ever quite snagging the zeitgeist’s attention, but something tells me (even if it’s just wishful thinking) it’ll have a much bigger cult by the time Season 2 starts in 2016. Yeah, in a lot of ways Mr. Robot is just picking up where Fight Club left off 16 years ago— but goddammit, it’s about time somebody picked up where Fight Club left off.
This here’s a paperback anthology of the first four issues of the zine I’ve been editing, but I guess it was less “editing” than it was “picking very cool pieces of literature and arranging in them in a way that would flow like a kick-ass double-album, like ‘London Calling’ or ‘The White Album.'”
There’s something in here for everyone– horror, humor, romance, sci-fi, western, crime, fairy tale, fantasy, memoir, poetry. But by “something for everyone” I don’t mean middle-of-the-road; most of these pieces are very much to the side of the road, and some are even off the road entirely, having skidded through a ditch and crashed into a tree at the edge of a dark forest. (I mean that in the best possible way.) And it’s now on sale for $18 US.
Haven’t been posting here much lately because I’ve been busy editing the 1st issue of FLAPPERHOUSE, which is finally ready for public consumption. If you like what goes on here at Popular Fiction, there’s a good chance you’ll dig the surreal, shadowy, sensual, and satirical lit in FLAPPERHOUSE #1. You can sample some excerpts for free at flapperhouse.com, and buy the entire issue as a PDF for just $3 US.
Remember those TV commercials from the early 1980s that were like bouncy slabs of bourgeois absurdity flecked with the occasional menacing dystopian undertones, as if the director had just finished watching Terry Gilliam’s Brazil? I think they were all produced by an agency called Ally & Gargano? There was the one with the Fast-Talking Fed Ex guy (who later became the Fast-Talking Micro Machines Guy)? And also there was “Where’s The Beef?” and maybe “Time to Make the Donuts”? A bunch of them were compiled for a Mattel party game called “Commercial Crazies,” but it was never much fun to actually play the game, it was way more fun to just watch the commercials? Well whether you remember these or not, here they all are in one magnificent YouTube playlist.
As we’ve mentioned before, FLAPPERHOUSE is intensely devoted to promoting the fading pastime of bathroom reading. And today we’re proud to present our first advertisement for this campaign, featuring our lovely spokesmodel, Alibi Jones.
Please pardon the brief commercial interruption, but Now through December 3rd if you donate at least $1 to FLAPPERHOUSE you shall receive a digital copy of the premiere issue in Spring 2014!
Here atFLAPPERHOUSE, we understand that the global economy is perched precariously on the brink of catastrophe, and as a result, most publications can’t afford to pay their writers anymore. But that doesn’t mean we want to settle for being one of those publications.
So for as long as there’s such a thing as money, we’d like to obtain some of that money from generous, beautiful people like you. We will then distribute said money among our talented writers and editors, not only to reward them for their hard work, but also to ensure that we’re able to publish our brand of wry, sexy, twisted, mischievous, poignant, brain-squishing literature for years to come.
Interviewer:FLAPPERHOUSE has described itself as “Dragging the future back through the past, like a rotting donkey on a grand piano.”
FLAPPERHOUSE: Chien! Andalusia! We are un!
Interviewer:Precisely. And by “the past,” more specifically you mean circa the 1920′s?
FLAPPERHOUSE:Yes and no. Mostly yes. We do think the future should have much more futurism. But with much less fascism. We’d also like to see more surrealism, expressionism, dadaism, psychological horror, and, of course, modernism.
FLAPPERHOUSE does not want unsolicited submissions right now. We are, however, still currently open to pre-elicited transmissions.
We’ll probably change our mind someday. After all, as the brilliant M. Wolfram Powell famously said: “To change one’s mind is to embark upon a journey into what must be; never to change one’s mind is to fly upon the back of a cranky pterodactyl.”
When we want unsolicited submissions we’ll want stories that are relatively short, ideal for subway & bathroom reading. We’re primarily interested in the genres of Psycho-Mythology, Biographical Mystery, Historical Rebus, Quantum Leap Fan Fiction*, Dystopian Southern Gothic Young Adult, Erotic Political Satire, and Culinary Espionage.
* Remember, FLAPPERHOUSE will be published once per Earth season, so avoid making any Quantum Leap Fan Fiction too “current-eventy.”
Next Spring I will launch a publication called FLAPPERHOUSE. I’d like to tell you about it, though I’m not really the type to write mission statements or manifestos. So I’ll say this instead:
Dorothy Parker, Jorge Luis Borges, and HP Lovecraft walk into a speakeasy. Louis Armstrong sings “St. James Infirmary Blues” over a rusty phonograph. Behind the bar, Salvador Dalí pours absinthe into a hubcap full of peanut butter and raw macaroni, and he stirs the mixture with the antler of a live moose.
“Four martinis, Sally,” says Parker. “Plus whatever the boys want.”
Borges excuses himself to the basement in search of the restroom. He must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere because before long he’s lost himself in an infinite labyrinth full of shelves with mirror-spined books. He starts to imagine what stories these books contain, and how he might review them.
Back upstairs, Josephine Baker dances in sensual ecstasy on Fritz Lang’s table while he peeks at her sideways through his monocle and pretends he’s not aroused. René Magritte paints himself painting them both through a castle’s window. Apples hover before their faces.
The ghost of Franz Kafka’s in a corner, leaning sharply against the wall. Lovecraft spots him and approaches, timid yet determined, as if helpless to confront his most horrifying fear. “What’s it like?” Lovecraft asks, referring to death. Kafka’s ghost replies only with facial expressions: First with what seems like laughter, then a grimace like he might cry instead, and finally he shakes his head to say no, I really shouldn’t tell you, no. Lovecraft sits and stares at the floor for a while.
“We are neither living nor dead!” shouts TS Eliot, raising a glass of gin. “And we know nothing, looking into the heart of light, the silence!”
Parker’s sipping her second drink when she finally notices the ants crawling from the stem of her martini glass and onto her hand. Fucking Dalí, she thinks, as she swats and squashes as many bugs as she can. Kafka’s ghost can hear their screams.
She holds her cameraphone in front of her face: bemused, rankled, heartsick, yet almost drunk enough to be tickled by it all. Once she’s got enough good madness framed in the background, she sips, clicks a picture, and posts it to Instagram, caption, “Just another night at the Flapperhouse… #thirsty”
Popular Fiction 