Good evening!
I read a bunch of all new weird fiction and bizarro books and pondered what it meant to write weird fiction in the increasingly strange times we live. Next week I’ll be discussing the oldest weird fiction.
Books mentioned:
Year’s Best Weird Fiction Vol. 4 (various)
More Bizarro Than Bizarro (various)
Who Cares, Nothing Matters (Julia Platz-Halter)
Lovecraftian Micro Fiction/Challenge From Beyond (various)
Welcome To Night Vale: It Devours (Joseph Fink/Jeffrey Cranor)
Merry birthday to me! I hope all my little bits of confetti littering the streets are OK?
I’ve been trying to settle on a creative project which is purely for fun for a while now, and finally my friend Steve and I have settled on DADAkitten. I can only explain it as ‘imagine if David Lynch did comedy sketches. Sort of. Not quite, but a bit. Also Welcome To Night Vale.’ Follow our channel for more delights and daftness.
Anyway here are a couple of mine, from a series called The Drama Farmer which relates YouTube drama on people who don’t exist:
And here’s my favourite one of Steve’s:
Bonjour, como ca va? Bien!
I hope you’ve been having wonderful, liberated fun out in the corn fields of happiness. Now that summer is approaching it’s time to think about cool clothes and ice cream. However, I don’t think you’ve seen adverts like this before, though it definitely made me want ice cream.
This company’s web ads have introduced a kind of Welcome To Night Vale horrific nightmare surrealist poetry to their frozen products and I urge you to watch them all. Because I love you I’ve also added the making of and frequently asked questions at the end. Ta dah!
This Is A Special Time:
Lick Lovers:
Check Out Our New Package:
Eyes Scream:
Doug Garth Williams Answers Your Frequently Asked Questions:
Hello my little Sugar Packets!
An arty type by the name of Sean Stubbs asked Bill and I if we fancied doing something towards a video for an arty event in London. Of course we said yes and wept and agonised for several years over our pieces. No, we were given a day to do it. So, yes, I suppose there was some weeping.
The event, if you feel so inclined to show your bright button faces, is here and the video is below. Our brief was ‘The apocalypse is coming but turns out not to be so bad after all.’ The end result is a bit Chris Morris, a bit Warp Records/Planet Mu and a bit Welcome To Night Vale, if I do say so myself.
When I get the full track list I’ll edit this post but for the time being here’s The Center Parcs Fun Time Gang episode 2:
Bill’s animation is at the 1.40 mark
My audio ‘Finding A Date After The Apocalypse Without Losing Your Skin Or Worse’ is at 13.20. Enjoy!
Before going to see the fantastic live show of Welcome to Night Vale my friends and I popped into Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities. Gaze upon the marvels within and, if you like, head down to 11 Mare Street, London, nearest tube Bethnal Green, to have a look for yourself. All pictures taken by Bill Purnell.
A friend of mine played me a podcast (oh, those things of the future) yesterday which I knew I had to share.
Ostensibly a town community radio broadcast, this is an imaginary desert town that seems to have more in common with Twin Peaks and background music reminiscent of Chris Morris’ Blue Jam. The weather report is a song by an independent artist which has apparently included Tom Waits.
Created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, voiced by Cecil Baldwin and published by Commonplace Books, this is a slice of weird I urge you to join.
First here’s the link to listen to them all: http://commonplacebooks.com/welcome-to-night-vale/
And here is an audio clip of the pilot episode I found on youtube:
Madeleine Swann 