A Surreal, Absurdist Fiction Genius – Frank Key And Hooting Yard

Last night, while listening to the Drabblecast fiction podcast, I stumbled across British author, blogger and podcaster Frank Key, the Max Ernst of silly.

One of the most outsider of independent weird writers, his website Hooting Yard is a magical land of absurdist nonsense where his prose tumbles forth in an increasingly hilarious manner. He reads his fiction on the groovy London arts online channel Resonance FM and his fiction is available in paperback and an ebook called By Aerostat To Hooting Yard, which I just bought.

Here’s a story of Frank’s on Drabblecast, Boiled Black Broth and Cornets. It mentions legendary jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke which gets a thumbs up from me. I recommend listening to the show in it’s entirety as the host is very funny and they also feature hundred word stories by listeners.

 

This one, A Plague of Boils, was the one I listened to last night. I had to find out more about this weirdo. Frank’s story is the last of three and begins around the 18:34 mark.

 

This one isn’t so much science fiction as a bowl of madness.

 

Weekend With The Owl God begins at 18.30

 

And lastly here’s Frank himself reading on Resonance FM:

Maddie’s bizarre book club 2, plus porn stars reading aloud

Haunted Air by Ossian Brown

Merry Spring! Tis the time for daffodils, blue skies and wildly raging hormones. But wait, get that poor nude fellow down from the Wicker Man, you can burn him later. First on the agenda is a new pile of extremely odd books.

1. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. One of the surrealist crowd and lover of Max Ernst, Leonora’s life seems as bizarre as any of her work. The book itself is intriguing and oddly refreshing – the main characters are all women in their 90s, an age group usually included in fiction to generate sympathy or to hilariously utter a swear word at the wrong moment. However these are real characters featured among the increasingly bizarre carryings on.

Haunted Air by Ossian Brown

2. People With Holes by Heather Fowler.  The nominal first story in this collection made my brain crackle, which is my way of saying I found the thoughts it induced exciting. I will say there were perhaps one too many ‘people turning into animal’ stories but that’s my own opinion obviously, and there are plenty of other varieties of story. For any fans of magic realism or anything a bit different this is for you, and the way she writes pulled me right in.

3. A Million Versions of Right by Matthew Revert. Definitely an odd’un, this is also very funny. If your mind can take the battering from this surreal short story collection (one character’s job is to insult walls) I promise you chuckles a plenty.

That nice actress lady Stoya

4. Haunted Air: ‘A Collection of Anonymous Hallowe’en Photographs America c. 1875 – 1955‘ by Ossian Brown. Haunting, weird, fascinating and a little disturbing, this is literally a bunch of photos from various sources on Halloween, and yet it’s much more than that. Who are they? What did they do just seconds afterwards? With photos reminiscent of Diane Arbus, needless to say the foreword is by David Lynch.

Well, there we are! A few books to be going on with until next time. In the meantime here is a post about some lovely pornographic actresses, including that nice Stoya Doll, reading poetry and prose aloud. NSFW, kind of.

From street to surreal: a mini bag of artistic joy

I don’t claim to be down with the hip cats daddio, you dig (what is with these outbreaks of Kerouacism?)? But during my occasional work as a life model I’m exposed to art from the old Masters to more recent fare like Jenny Saville, and I like to nudge the pickle jar of artistic interest now and then. Here are a few things that have aroused my eyes lately.

First off you should skip over to Slinkachu’s website. You may have seen his Little People before – he does do other things but Little People became quite popular and I love them; miniture vignettes of tiny plastic people left around cities such as this entitled “They’re not pets, Susan:”

And this, “I can’t actually graffiti:”

Next up blog Bizarro Central are continuing their countdown to Christmas with a new post on a different weird artist each month, today being Oleg Dou.

Finally (I said it was a mini bag, I got painkillers to take and The League of Gentlemen to watch Goddammit) are two films I recently saw of a surrealist or dada nature.

Dreams That Money Can Buy, directed by Hans Richter and featuring the visual work of artists such as Man Ray, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp, is a surprisingly sweet and very pretty journey through the dreams sold by a young man who just wants to pay the rent.

Finally is Luis Bunuel‘s The Exterminating Angel. The premise is so simple and the ending got him into quite a lot of trouble with the Vatican (you’ll have to watch it to find out why, I’m giving nothing away), and it’s fascinating. Guests at a lavish, upper class dinner party find themselves unable to leave, sinking into desperation and degredation as the days wear on.

Well, that’s it! I’m going to have a cup of tea now, have fun putting your eyes on all the art and that. Byee!