David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 121

TOMORROW!!!!!

Tomorrow! The FBOMB Borderland! Come on out! Tuesday June 20 7:30PM at the Mercury Café 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205.

We think of borders as lines, but nothing in life is that simple and neat. Borders are not sharp edges where one thing ends and another begins, but places where different ways of being mix. This coming together of difference shakes up life, and spawns conflict, change, and innovation. It is often where we as writers have the chance to work up something new.

Cultures mix at borders, languages and life views. The FBOMB Borderland is all about that. Gabino Iglesias will visit us from Austin, Texas to read from his barrio noir novel, Zero Saints. Zero Saints involves many borders, the mixing of English and Spanish, the mixing of gritty crime drama with literary style writing, and the borders between this world and the next.

So come on out Tuesday June 20 7:30PM at the Mercury Café 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205. Bring your own mixed language flash fiction or other pieces (or other border exploration, genre borders, cultural borders, and so on) to read for the four minute open mic slots, or just come to listen. Check out the Facebook page for the event to let us know you’re coming.

Hopefully Santa Muerte will be kindly disposed to us.

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, and book reviewer living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gutmouth, Hungry Darkness, and Zero Saints, which was nominated for the Wonderland Book Award and optioned for film in 2016. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Verbicide, Electric Literature, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, Marginalia, Entropy Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Out of the Gutter, HorrorTalk, Red Fez, Flash Fiction Offensive, Drunk Monkeys, and many other print and online venues as well as in a bunch of anthologies. He is the book reviews editor for PANK Magazine and a columnist for LitReactor. He’s addicted to books, music, and tacos.

Let’s Celebrate The Spam On Here

I’ve noticed an uptick in the spam comments on here. It used to be a few a week, but has recently been about 5-20 a day. I moderate comments, so it doesn’t come through, but I do notice it. It’s all immediately apparent junk too, not even something someone has worked enough on to be questionable (junk meds, pornography, SEO services, and others of the usual garbage). I thought we should recognize that, so I’ll just post this since I won’t let the actual comments through:

SPAM!

The Worst Home Depot Ever

My wife and I found the worst Home Depot ever this last weekend. We were out at one of the reservoirs near the city, I forget which one. We planned to swim, but it wasn’t staying as warm as it had been predicted to be. It went back and forth temperature-wise, with the sun coming out from behind and going back behind clouds all day, so we mostly just sat out on a towel on the sand. On the way home, we needed to stop at a Home Depot to get wood glue and spring doorstops to replace the one our devil kitten keeps taking the rubber ends off of. That was our ostensible purpose, but our driving motivation was the hot dog cart outside.

Home Depots always have a hot dog cart outside on the weekend. We’ve been going to them for years in various cities and the hot dog cart is always there. We went to one near the reservoir this time though and were shocked to see no hot dog cart.

There is no way to describe the disappointment we felt.

Not only was a cart not operating, it was clear one was not set up to be there. It was the only Home Depot we’d ever run into that didn’t have a hot dog cart there on the weekend. There was no time to go anywhere else, so we just got the couple items we needed and left. We’ll never go back.

We felt so betrayed.

The Internet Is Always Helpful

I had another wondering moment this morning. I wondered “How easy would I find an animated gif of a bear eating hot dogs in a google images search?” Pretty easy, man. Pretty easy.

The Internet is always so helpful.

The Problem In My Brain

The display in the elevator of my office building displayed some kind of schlock business message this morning. It asserted that (paraphrasing):

33% of businesses are increasing their budget for professional development this year whereas only 11% are decreasing it.

My brain immediately appended:

5% are doing both. We have no idea what the hell is up with them.

There’s something wrong with me.

Have You Been Bewaring Appropriately?

Have you all been bewaring appropriately? Most people are familiar enough with Julius Caesar, either the Roman or the play, to beware the Ides of March. But, what about the other months?

For instance, the Ides of June was on the 13th.Were you bewaring?

Yup, the Ides of June was on the 13th and not the 15th. There is an Ides in each month and some fall on the 15th of the respective month while others fall on the 13th. Were you aware of that?

Gotta be bewaring appropriately. Forewarned is forearmed.

ONE WEEK!!!!!

Only one week until The FBOMB Borderland! Time to get excited!

Tuesday June 20 7:30PM at the Mercury Café 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205.

We think of borders as lines, but nothing in life is that simple and neat. Borders are not sharp edges where one thing ends and another begins, but places where different ways of being mix. This coming together of difference shakes up life, and spawns conflict, change, and innovation. It is often where we as writers have the chance to work up something new.

Cultures mix at borders, languages and life views. The FBOMB Borderland is all about that. Gabino Iglesias will visit us from Austin, Texas to read from his barrio noir novel, Zero Saints. Zero Saints involves many borders, the mixing of English and Spanish, the mixing of gritty crime drama with literary style writing, and the borders between this world and the next.

So come on out Tuesday June 20 7:30PM at the Mercury Café 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205. Bring your own mixed language flash fiction or other pieces (or other border exploration, genre borders, cultural borders, and so on) to read for the four minute open mic slots, or just come to listen. Check out the Facebook page for the event to let us know you’re coming.

Hopefully Santa Muerte will be kindly disposed to us.

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, and book reviewer living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gutmouth, Hungry Darkness, and Zero Saints, which was nominated for the Wonderland Book Award and optioned for film in 2016. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Verbicide, Electric Literature, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, Marginalia, Entropy Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Out of the Gutter, HorrorTalk, Red Fez, Flash Fiction Offensive, Drunk Monkeys, and many other print and online venues as well as in a bunch of anthologies. He is the book reviews editor for PANK Magazine and a columnist for LitReactor. He’s addicted to books, music, and tacos.

I’m Not Sure 80s MCD Commercials Were Any Less Disturbing Than The 70s

We all make fun of how disturbing McDonald’s commercials were in the 70s (though I wish they’d paid instead of having to kill off all those characters), but I don’t think the 80s were much better.

Maybe I just remember them better. Still kind of disturbing stuff.

Attention!

Attention! I still think the Babadook sounds like a baby talk name for lamb excrement.

Think about it.

Baa! Baa!

Dook (dookie).

That is all. (I never did see the movie.)

I’ve Been Doing This Blog Daily For Almost Seven Years

I’ve been doing this blog for a while, posting daily. I decided to look to see how long it’d been. It’s been almost seven years.

I first posted July 25, 2010. I started posting every day on July 30, 2010. I’ve kept up that to date, except for one day (August 15, 2011) when I was unable to post. Other than that, every day.

To quote Arlo Guthrie, “I’m not proud… or tired.” It was just something I was thinking about. Plus, as some might be suspecting, it kept me from having to come up with another post.