MARDI GRAS/CARNIVAL REPORT 2012

So, among other things, I found time to go online and catch the coverage of Mardi Gras and Carnival.

It looks like Mardi Gras has been helping the economy:

Mardi Gras Big Business Along Gulf Coast by associatedpress

And the tradition of king cake is alive and well:

And folks were wild as ever:

New Orleans Mardi Gras 2012 from Dave Hotstream on Vimeo.

As for Carnival down in Brazil, I found two YouTube channels that provide more Carnival coverage than I'm going to have time to watch: Carnaval Completo, and Desfile Completo.

In Rio, it was all about Brazil's African heritage, and even the horrors of slavery were made to look dazzling:

Beauty and the monstrous marched down the Sambadrome:

It mixed with usual feather-festooned PreColumbianoid fantasies into a vision that could have been Atlantis, Lemuria, or what the world is coming to in the 21^st century:

And now that it's Lent, I'll have to settle to amusing myself with videos of bullfights and riots until the crucifixion season begins.

CORTEZ ON JUPITER EBOOK LAUCHED

Look out, civilization-as-we-know-it, Cortez on Jupiter is finally available as an ebook!

Kindle users can get it from Amazon for a mere $.99.

Those of you with iPads, iBooks, Nooks, Sony Readers, Kobos, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital editions, and others, can get it from Smashwords. Also for that smoking deal of $.99.

Psst! For just one month at Smashwords, the coupon code LH74B will allow you to get it for $.00, to get this ball rolling and encourage reviews, discussions, and general hysteria.

I'm also available for interviews, guest blogs, and other acts of shameless self-promotion.

Buy the way, the picture of the Great Red Spot on the cover behind my graffiti-lettering is a public domain image taken on July 8, 2008, and part of a HubbleSite news release from July 17, 2008. Thank you to NASA, ESA, and A. Simon-Miller of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – your technical work is more mind-blowing than my artistic rampages.

CHICANONAUTICA RIDES THE TRAIL OF TEARS

Chicanonautica goes 21st century Cherokee this time over at La Bloga, with a review of Blake M. Hausman's fantastic novel Riding the Trail of Tears.

Here are some video extras:

First, let's have a Cherokee take on the subject:

Next, something from the fabled rock 'n' roll era:

Did you know that these days, people ride the Trail of Tears on motorcycles?

Finally, let's lighten up with a nice, uplifting song about the battle of Little Big Horn:

FINGER'S BREADTH AMPUTATION MADNESS

The things a writer has to do to get people to buy a book these days! According to a press release I just received, "In what is clearly an act of pure desperation," M. Christian has threatened to have part of one of his fingers amputated to publicized his novel Finger's Breadth. I guess I shouldn't be surprised with bookstores vanishing from the face of the earth, and with everybody who can type an email message putting out an ebook. I guess it's a wonder that it hasn't happened before.

Yeah, William Burroughs cut off part of one his pinkies, but that was a Van Gogh bid for love, not to hawk any books.

In a sane world (is that even possible?) this sort of thing shouldn't be necessary. Finger's Breadth is a sensational read "about a mysterious figure cutting off the tips of little fingers in a near-future noir San Francisco." It's packed with more thrills than you can shake a detached body part at. It should be selling like hotcakes. Filmmakers should be fighting duels over the rights to make a blockbuster movie of it.

So buy and read Finger's Breadth now, before we see missing fingertips all over the place.

I only hope that this doesn't mean that Christian has made some kind of deal with the yakuza.

THE FRANKENSTEIN PENIS: THE MOVIE(S), AND MORE

It seems that things are always happening with The Frankenstein Penis – my most infamous short story, for those of you aren't aware of the worldwide phenomenon. M. Christian, editor of the upcoming anthology, The Love that Never Dies: Undead Erotica, asked me for a digital file, and I sent it to him, so we are closer to seeing my bold assault on Puritan sensibilities (or was it a gross exercise in crass commercialism?) back in print.

Think the world can stand it?

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Nick Lyon has posted Phal-O-Krat, his student film of The Frankenstein Penis on Vimeo for all the world to see:

You may want to compare it to the more recent Brazilian student film:

There just seems to be something about that story that inspires film students.

And I have wondered . . . are these two the only student films made of my notorious story? Could there be others out there? I do wonder – hell, I wanna know!

I'm not out to sue anybody. Beside satisfying my morbid curiosity, I'd like to have the facts down for the record, and to see what my work has inspired. And it would give me material to use in publicizing The Love that Never Dies. So don't be shy. If you know about a film (or video) of The Frankenstein Penis, let me know.

You can put a comment on this blog, or contact me through Facebook or Twitter.

I can see it now . . . “Step right up folks! See The Frankenstein Penis Film Festival!”

Think the world can stand it?

CHICANONAUTICA DREAMS OCOTILLO DREAMS

I review Melinda Palacio's Ocotillo Dreams this time in Chicanonautica over at La Bloga. Here's some video extras:

Melinda reads from her novel:

Some information about the ocotillo:

Meanwhile, the sweeps just keep on coming:

ZEN AND THE ART OF EBOOK COVERS

Hey, everybody! My wife, the fabulous Emily Devenport, has a new ebook out. It's called Pale Lady, and takes place in an afterlife like no other. And if you go to her posting about it you can get the coupon code that will allow you to get it for $0.00.

What a deal!

Another reason you may want it is because I did the cover.

Not bad if I do say so myself, though I'm still learning the art of ebook cover design.

This is my first solo attempt; the first cover I did was a collaboration with Em for her novel Broken Time (originally published under the pseudonym Maggy Thomas).

Again, pretty good, but since it was part of the learning process, I see things that could have been done differently, and better. I'd go back and redo, but that would eat up a lot of my valuable time. It's better to go on to the next cover, not look back -- do better next time.

Currently, I'm struggling with a cover for the e-edition of Obsidian Harvest, a novella I wrote with Rick Cook. I've done some drawings, scanned them, and am using GIMP to combine them with lettering to make a eyeball-snagging cover.

The problem is, I'm still struggling with the intricacies of GIMP. For this I have to do more than the diddling around I do for my on-the-run, straight-from-the-sketchbook, slam-dunk blog illustrations. Still, I would like for these covers to have the same instant impact.

The problem is, I'm just plain thinking too much. I need to forget about all the technicalities and just do it.

In the words of that American master, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, “I never spent any time thinking about art, I just did things.”

ERNESTO TO JUDGE THE BLACK MARKS LITERARY AWARD

A black robe, powdered wig, and gavel may be in order – I'm going to be a judge . . . of the first Black Marks Literary Award that is. It'll be for a perviously unpublished science fiction novel. There will be a cash prize of $500, plus the option of publication.

So, if you have a virgin science fiction novel manuscript kicking around that you think is a winner, check out the guidelines, and read them carefully, because they warn:

Any guidelines that aren't expressly followed are grounds for automatic disqualification.

What will I be looking for in picking the winner? What I usually look for in the genre – I hope to get my mind blown. Give me daring feats of the imagination!

I like my sci-fi psychedelic rather than narcotic.

Or, to use a bullfighting metaphor: For me, science fiction should be a burladero rather than a querencia.

For those of you non-aficonados out there, here are the definitions from Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon:

Burladero: a shelter of planks set close together and a little out from the corral or barrera behind which the bullfighters and herders can dodge if pursued.

Querencia: part of the ring that the bull prefers to be in; where he feels at home.

These days, too much science fiction is hunkered down in a querencia rather than surviving close calls in a burladero.

So, go ahead, leave the safe zone, try to blow my mind. It'll make my day. But it won't be easy, I've been soaking my brain in all kinds of weirdness since my Atomic Age childhood. It's made me a bit jaded.

But what's life without challenges?

CHICANONAUTICA LOOKS AT SHERIFF JOE

Yep, amigos, the latest Chicanonautica over yonder at La Bloga is about good ol' Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, in the great state of Arizona. Here are some extras:

First, let's set a spaghetti western mood:

And, it's only fair to let the man speak for himself:

And acknowledge that he made a feminist breakthrough:

Let's sign off with a song that for some reason always reminds me of him:

ACROSS THE BRIDGE TO NOLLYWOOD

I first discovered Nollywood back in 2008, while killing time after we had finished packing for the World Science Fiction Convention/National Parks road trip that inspired my wife Emily to become a geologist – but that's another story. Clicking on the TV, I channel surfed into the farthest reaches of our cable service, and landed in a documentary called This is Nollywood. It blew my mind.

Already being a fan of the works of Nigerians like Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Amos Tutuola, as well as low-budget filmmaking from places beyond Hollywood, my curiosity was inflamed. I got online, did some searches, and found some trailers that also blew my mind.

I've shared these trailers on Facebook, and blogged about them more than once. When I need my emotions uplifted, I seek them out. They have a rapid-fire style that makes the movies seem even more outrageous. I hope to someday write short stories that pack that kind of a punch.

(Awk! I just found out that the trailers I embedded on those posts are no longer available on YouTube. Guess I'll have to do some more searching. But that's life in the Information Age . . . Meanwhile, dig the funkadelic digital fuzz!)

One movie that seem especially bizarre, and interesting, was Across the Bridge.

The trailers (at the time I found several) were incredible. It looked like blaxsploitation in Africa gone stark raving sci-fi. The laser-eyed giant-breasted goddess/devil is one of the most remarkable creations in fantasy film. Sure, her breasts are like something out of a cheapo Fifties Hollywood monster movie – Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman comes to mind – and her other special effects are examples of video primitivism, but she comes through with a power that today's CGI spectaculars can't match.

And the glimpses of Nigerian life – the clothes, neighborhoods, and curious practice of money spraying that I had heard about, but never seen, all promised an exciting new backdrop for the wild fantasy.

When I finally realized that entire movies could be found on YouTube (these last few years have been kind of hectic) I searched and found Across the Bridge. At first I thought the original had spawned a pair of sequels – I was thinking Hollywood structure and marketing – but to my surprise, Parts One, Two, and Three were sections of one long movie. It, like a lot of movies from other parts of the planet, has a slower pace than the manic trailers, and most of the first two parts deal with character development and motivation to want to “suck the breast of everlasting milk.”

I was a bit confused, but I was not disappointed.

The life in the Nigerian town, isolated, with tantalizing glimpses and tastes of a lavish consumer society just out of reach, was as fascinating as any science fiction or fantasy world. Everyone's jealous of those who seem more successful – but, of course, things aren't what they seem. It's the Nigerian Dream rather than the American Dream. Europe is the place where all the wonderful products come from. There it is: the reason for the upheaval and protests all over the world – including Nigeria.

Most of the wonderful cheap thrills of the trailer are concentrated in Part Three. I would recommend just watching that for most of you who are used to contemporary Hollywood's condensed storytelling, but you would miss out on a genuine chance to experience something outside the corporate-generated consumer reality of your pre-packaged life.

It's why I like to watch movies from other cultures without any Mystery Science Theater 3000-style buffering. You shouldn't face the alien with all your defenses up, hurling wisecracks to prove you are smarter than something you don't understand. How smart can you be if you aren't even trying to understand it?

If you cross the bridge, and let the alien weirdness sink into your brain, it just may expand your mind a little -- then you'll see things in the absurdity of it all that will make your laughter something greater.

You may also realize how much you have in common with the guys kneeling down before the tremendous breasts of the devil/goddess.