The madness continues in this tome of mesmerism and bad manners. Here’s a sampling:

“The resurrectionists approach the back door of the Royal College of Surgeons, giving wide berth to the paid-off bobbie who stands in their path, very obviously paying no attention.

A white-coated surgeon admits the resurrectionists with their load, whispering, “Make haste, make haste, you two–er three.”

An entity slides out of the shadows and slips unnoticed into the college on the resurrectionists’ heels. Before the door can close, he glances back over his shoulder, revealing himself to be….”

Who? Springheels Jack?

This novel should appear as a modern-day penny dreadful slab by slab in consecutive issues of Fortean Times! In fact, what I was mentally reaching for was illustrations by Hunt Emerson of Phenomenomix, and wishing that somehow wishing would make it more than a wish–in fact, true.

But alas, we have to console ourselves with some rather nice cover art of a lady with a lightningbolt between her breasts.

It’s that kind of book, folks.

Available for $15.50 CDN/ 13.95 USA
from www.crossingchaos.com

And it’s small enough to hide in your back pocket.

Check it out on this site under “downloads” or “e-books”. Enjoy! Jesse

Two new ahadada e-chaps “After Lolita,” by Cassandra Atherton and “the meh of zzzz” by Pam Brown are up and ready for your reading. Enjoy! Jess

E-ratio is a fine e-maga edited by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino. A wide-ranging, illuminating interview, which includes a fine color vispo piece by Alan. Google up the latest incarnation, kids. Jess

If you’re interested in my opinion re: books and magazines, please do not send pdf files (not that I’m personally against pdf files as such, but simply because I’m engaged in collecting literary artifacts, most of which eventually go to my papers in the special collections of the University of Maryland). If the work is of interest I’ll do a review here on the blog, or–if sufficiently enthused–I’ll transfer the review to Amazon.

Happy to announce that Geoffrey Gatza’s great press Blazevox Books will be bringing out my Four Plays this year. Most of the work was written 25 or more years ago and dates from a time when I thought that perhaps I could write my way out of debt (vain hope!). The plays waited out my transition from America to Japan in a friend’s attic in Westminster, Maryland, and somehow survived the silverfish, mold and mice for a decade before I rediscovered them. The end of an Incredible journey for these plays to be published in a year I never thought I’d live to see. More about these things later, but many thanks to Geoffrey and that friend!

Just learned from Jack Foley that Jim passed away in January of this year. I visited him back in ‘94, with students, and then in ‘95 with my future wife. At the first meeting Jim read from his chapbook to the students. Maya and I had pizza with he and his wife in ‘95. It was a great meeting and one that I will always remember. Rest in Peace James Schevill, author of the fine collection of poems, The American Fantasies, some fine plays, and a kind man.

We’ve gotten some great comments on our books over the past several years and they are due, in large part, to the efforts of Joe Z. of Printed Matter Press, Tokyo. Joe is one of the most gifted book designers and printers around, as many of our authors can attest. We wish Joe and family a great and prosperous New Year. Jess

Phil Davenport’s Haptic Teaparty is now in progress. We have a great issue of new Flash Fiction (curated by “Big World” Mary Miller and featuring the wonderful pix of Margaret) and an eye-popping all-Paris (Fancypants) issure edited by Alexander Dickow (just arrived this morning!), with issues edited by Pam Brown, Eileen Tabios, Dayana Stetco, and many others in the works for early to mid 2010 publication. The Prague issue has hung-fire a bit due to the slowness of authors providing bio information to the editor. We hope they hurry up. Boston, New York, and “New Chicago School” issues eagerly awaited. We have plans for a teacher/mentor-student issue, a Native-American issue, and many other schemes to fight back oblivion. Jess the oblivious

The late Judith Hoffberg of Umbrella fame was indeed a memorable person. She stayed with us at ahadada central several years back on her first (and unfortunately last) trip here. Judith had just turned 70 (I believe) and was already boning up on Japanese. She was determined to find her own way around Kyoto and Tokyo totally without help. “Don’t worry about me,” she assured us. “I’m good with languages.”

I took her at her word and proceeded with what I had to do. I would come back from work and find the formidable Judith at home or Judith away exploring over the next two weeks.

Later, Judith recounted one of her adventures to us in support of the fact that she had pretty much mastered the local lingo.

One afternoon she decided to make the trip to a rather nice museum of contemporary art in Urawa–pronounced OOO La-wa in Japanese. However, Judith insisted that the town was called OOO WA WA, and would correct us if we happened to mention that the town’s name wasn’t quite pronounced the way that she was pronouncing it.

One evening, after I returned home, I found Judith recounting some of her adventures to my wife. She included me in the conversation right away, and said: “You know, I went out to Uwawa a few days ago, and I was sitting on the train, trying to see the signs at the different stops. Finally, I asked an elderly Japanese man sitting near me–’Is this U-WAWA? U-WAWA?’ and he shook his head and said ‘Yes, U-WAWA,’ and I thanked him and got out.

And you know what, Jess? It WAS U-WAWA!”

I can only wonder what the old man must have thought on that train, with the inimitable Judith Hoffberg aboard!