Golems Waiting Redux (redux)

And, of course, Golems Waiting Redux, e-book or print, can be bought here. It is a lovely object, even if I do say so myself.

Kudos to Daniel Duford, Doug Spangle, Heather Watkins - and to Publication Studio, who did the printing and binding.

Golems is also held by 3 libraries: Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR), Multnomah County Library (Portland, OR), and by MOMA (NY).

Golems Waiting Redux

Golems Waiting Redux was published on Sept. 23, 2011, printed and bound by Publication Studio, in Portland.

From the Introduction:

During the last week of September 2002, the first of the public art projects commissioned by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art was installed on a vacant lot in the city, at the corner of SW Taylor & 3rd. On the lot itself Daniel Duford kiln-fired 3 huge crouching figures, golems; on one of the adjacent buildings, on the wall facing 3rd Ave., he painted 2 more figures, large male nudes with the same physique. They stood looking outward, with open hands.

The installation was intended to last a month.

Vandals immediately began smashing the sculptures. By the fourth night they had all been smashed. RV (Branham, founder & editor of Gobshite Quarterly) and I went to photograph them at our first opportunity — caught the MAX into town, scuttled along shopfronts, hurrying because of the very light rain, step, step, shopfront, shopfront –

An empty lot – grass, mud, a liver-red wall – with something flesh-coloured in the corner. In that first split second I felt a great misery; it prickled and numbed at the same time. I heard the sound of a huge and silent lamentation. It seemed like the sound of the Holocaust.

I looked towards the corner because of the colour.

This is GobQ's 3rd hardcopy title. Like El Gato Eficaz / Deathcats, it is also available as an e-book.

Ambrose Gets His Gig

The reading at St. Johns Booksellers on July 30 went very well. Everyone was delighted that Ambrose was not drowned by the Abbot, but got his gig in the monastery library instead.
My next reading will be on Barbara La Morticella's Talking Earth, on KBOO (Portland), 10:00-11:00 pm, Monday, September 19th, 2011. There'll be 3 of us: Barbara La Morticella, Christine Homitsu White, and me. I'll read a few very short poems. Hope you will join us, then, or by podcast.

Writing the Cats

I was in Australia when I began writing these stories to amuse the children a friend of mine was tutoring. Her cats were Signy and Ambrose. A journalist friend had Jemima and JCP. Isshe Tisshe was my cat. Lucinda lived in a block of flats I lived in once. I never knew her name. Fleur (de Mal) belonged to another friend, a playwright.

Quinnia, or the little silver Himalayan-Siamese, belonged to yet another friend who was unemployed. As I heard it later, he had needed the money and began to breed her; she died of an infection he couldn't afford to treat. She was very small, delicate, and sweet. So I gave her a name and a life, and a spectacular rise from poverty.

The cats come with their suburban backgrounds, pretty much, except for Quinnia, whose story was the obverse of her life, and Ambrose, whose deep grey fur suggested a mediaeval thunderstorm. The stories were a joy to write, and, I hope, will be a joy to read.

Cover Illustration for Cataclysms

Cataclysms

This is to introduce GobQ's new e-books, which are being published for Amazon Kindle first. Other editions will follow a little later. We expect to be publishing a new book every two months or so throughout the rest of 2011, and into 2012.

Cataclysms is the first: a book (for wise children of all ages, especially those 7 and up) of very short stories about cats.

We've always had cats and are very fond of them. The book's about what they get up to when we're not looking.

(Below): Satyagraha Shostakovna Stolichnaya, former Office Manager, stalking the rare wild rectangle-bag.