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​Pup Pup blog

5/18/2021

I would like to swipe right on your book: Trying to get in with Las Vegas Bootlegger by Noah Cicero

It's like the Dating Game, only about your book. I'm Janie and I'm trying to date your new book. In this case, I'm trying to get in with Las Vegas Bootlegger: Empire of Self-Importance by Noah Cicero and available through the always wonderful Trident. According to Las Vegas Bootlegger bio, they're all about [how]"Ryan Neroni is a lonely lawyer with bad breath. All his life he's had everything handed to him on a silver platter, but after winning what should have been a career-defining lawsuit, he discovers that what he really wants is to drive contraband across state lines in a fast car with tinted windows. With the help of Theresa Barahona, an innocent and aspiring multi-level marketing entrepreneur, nothing can get in his way. Not social expectations, not the emptiness of the western U.S., and certainly not a string of surreal experiences orchestrated by a shadow organization known only as 'the Committee.'" 
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Getting to know Las Vegas Bootlegger: Empire of Self-Importance

Q. When your book was a preteen what items did it steal from CVS? 

A. Las Vegas Bootlegger stole lipstick and junior mints
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Q. How does your book take its coffee?

A. grande iced twp pumps of classic sweetener creamer

Q. In terms of furtive hopefulness, what does your book wish on and what for? (I.e.: does it wish on times of day, shooting stars, birthday candles, the tides coming in, etc etc)

​A. It hopes that everyone stops caring about things that hurt them
Q. Your book is preparing a sacrifice to appease the hoarsely voiced king of demons, Bael. What is the sacrifice and what does the ceremony look like? 
​
A. It would sacrifice expectations, it would take place in a court house. There would be 9 day trial, the lawyers and their paralegals would work all night eating great meals. The jury would give a preponderance of liability to expectations.

Q. Your book is putting together its resume, what skills does it lie about having?

A. Works well with coworkers, above average skills in Excel, enjoys work.

Q. What is your book’s favorite movie monster? 

A. A desert hitchhiker.

Q. When going out on a blind date (do those still exist? Okay, like, when going out on a Tinder date is probably a better example), where does your book take the person they’re out with if they ended up not liking that person and want to get rid of them?

​A. They go to a bar, but the book leaves in the middle of the date because it just knows this is stupid.
It would sacrifice expectations, it would take place in a court house. There would be 9 day trial, the lawyers and their paralegals would work all night eating great meals. The jury would give a preponderance of liability to expectations.
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Q. Who does your book play as in Mario Kart?

A. I don't know what Mario Kart is? I'm sorry.


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Q. Does your book use a bookmark or dogear the page?

A. Dogear is against the law in my home.
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Q. When confronted with a coven of witches is your book welcomed into the fold or do the witches cast a spell to entomb book in an old tree by the swamp in a remote and cursed location? Why?
​
A.  Las Vegas Bootlegger gets along with everyone. ​
This all sounds rad to me. Go support words and wisdom and desert bootlegging and pick up Las Vegas Bootlegger. Go support this title and by extension all bossin' indie lit making a difference in this big bad world. 
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Las Vegas Bootlegger is available for purchase on Amazon and through Trident's website.

And here's a little bit about Trident: "Our publishing interests are as varied as the books we sell in the Trident Bookstore: punk rock travelogues, occult spiritual texts, weirdo fiction, anarchist political philosophy, and vertiginous poetry, among others. However, the releases from Trident Press are more alike than they are different. They are all half-funny, half-heartbreaking, and always beautiful and inspiring. "
Noah Cicero is an American novelist and short-story writer. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is the author of six books of fiction and two ebooks.

Cicero's stories, poetry, and essays have been published in magazines such as Scarecrow, Brittle Star, Retort, Nth Position, Black Ice, Identity Theory, Prague Literary Review, and many others. His fiction is anthologized in The Edgier Waters, published by 3:AM Magazine in 2006. 
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6/19/2019

I would like to swipe right on your book: Trying to bang down with Cactus by Nathaniel Kennon Perkins

It's like the Dating Game, only way hotter. I'm Janie and I'm trying to date your new book. In this case, I'm trying to get in with Cactus by Nathaniel Kennon Perkins and published by the gorgeous and world-shakin' Trident Press. According to Cactus' Hinge bio, it's all about [how] "In Cactus, correctional officer and ex-punk rocker Will Stephens works guarding prisoners who pick up trash on the side of the highway. One of them, a hardened inmate with a tattoo right beneath his eye, seems oddly familiar, but Will can't quite place him. When he realizes that the inmate is none other than the former lead singer of his favorite punk band, he must navigate an emotional desert landscape populated by neo-Nazis, asshole cops, guilt, student loans, and a double dose of mescaline tea."  

Since I love punk rock and really really love mescaline, I feel pretty confident that the book and I are on a one way trip to bang town. But for the sake of the game, let's Dating Game the shit out of this book: 
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Q1. What was the last Netflix show that your book binged? If not on Netflix, why does your book hate capitalism? 

A. 
Oh Cactus hates capitalism all right. Capitalism is a big ol’ problem for Cactus. However, after years of wearing black bandannas, living in failed polyamorous intentional farmstead communities, and eating out of dumpsters, the book has resigned to a sort of existential depression that centers, conveniently enough, around having its sister’s Netflix login. The last show Cactus binged was Sex Education. This is because all the characters at least TRY to be kind to each other, which is something Cactus needs to believe in. Also, Asa Butterfield was in that movie Ten Thousand Saints (Dir. Bergman & Pulcini, 2015), which is about punk rock, and Cactus all about punk rock. Or at least it used to be.
Q2. How does your book take its coffee after a one-night stand? Why is your book having one-night stands? Is it a commitment thing? Does your book fear commitment? 

A. Cactus fears even committing to answering this question. Cactus fears expectations. Cactus fears letting everyone down. Cactus is having one-night stands in a last-ditch attempt to resurrect the ghost of a feeling of self-worth. This is why Cactus doesn’t drink coffee the next morning. Cocaine wakes it up just as well and is more effective for temporarily prolonging the ego boost provided by mediocre sex. Coffee is for later in the day.

​
Q3. How would your book introduce itself to my parents? 
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A. Cactus would be a little self-conscious about its face tattoo (it’s only a small face tattoo), but it would still look your parents straight in the eyes and give them firm handshakes.

Q4. Let's say your book and I are going to our favorite chain restaurant, what chain restaurant would we be going to? What drink with an unnecessary (or necessary) amount of candy in it would we get? 

A. It’s a first date. You’ve been talking to Cactus at the record store it works at, and after a few weeks you’ve started messaging each other on Instagram. You meet it after work and walk to In-N-Out because it’s by the park and Cactus is broke. You don’t get drinks because Cactus has forties and a flask in its backpack. You sit in the park and eat and drink, and Cactus talks for almost a full hour about how it used to be vegan.

Q5. Does book have any creepy discrete collections in its home? Like porcelain miniatures or bottle caps or nail clippings? 
 
A. Cactus isn’t sure if its collections are creepy, though it is worried that they might be. Covered in dust are a bunch of powerviolence and grindcore records that have disturbing and violent cover art. It has a bunch of early 20th Century French erotic novels (translated into English. It doesn’t speak French). It has stacks of horror VHS tapes. It has a folder on an external hard drive full of a collection of nude photos of all its exes. It feels incredible guilt about this folder, but can’t bring itself to delete it. It only looks through it when it is really, really drunk, and hates itself later. The folder is password protected so you won’t stumble across it.
 You meet it after work and walk to In-N-Out because it’s by the park and Cactus is broke. You don’t get drinks because Cactus has forties and a flask in its backpack. You sit in the park and eat and drink, and Cactus talks for almost a full hour about how it used to be vegan.
Q6. When your book was in high school why did it get in school suspension? 
 
A. In high school, Cactus had slightly different tastes. It got ISS for tagging “Ska Rulez!” in all the bathroom stalls. It’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend turned it in for the reward money, which was offered daily on the morning announcements. The next day, Cactus’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend walked around with a new pair of Adidas, saying, “Cactus bought me some new shoes.”
 
Q7. What is your book's sun sign / rising sign/ moon sign? And for fun, what is your book's sign in Venus because I wanna make sure that the bang-down is compatible, book knows how it is. 
 
A. Venus in Aires, dude.

Q8. Sometimes I sit in my bed and rock and cry, would your book understand that compulsion? 
 
A. Cactus didn’t think it was going to live to be 30. Then it went into the desert, took a bunch of mescaline, and everything changed. Cactus would understand. Cactus would recommend trying mescaline.
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Q9. What are book's motivations? Did book birth itself like Athena jumping out of Zeus's head or did book come to life some other way? 
 
A. Not unlike Mithra born out of the rock, Cactus was born from a bucket of dirty mop water left over from the cleanup of a previous, failed attempt at a novel about being a Mormon Missionary.
 
Q10. What does book prefer: WCW or WWF (wrestling not world wildlife)? Why?
 
A. Here’s a confession: Cactus doesn’t really know anything about wrestling, which makes it feel incredibly uncool in the indie lit community right now. But Cactus has very vivid memories of one particular WWF trading card it somehow acquired in its youth: Chyna. If not for Chyna, Cactus might not have become what it is.
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Q11. Has your book ever gotten into a fight with a professional sports mascot? If so, which? If not, why not? 
 
A. It’s a little bit more complicated than that. Cactus tried to take a selfie of it kissing Gritty on the mouth, and got its ass beat by security. Cactus is no stranger to ass beating. Who doesn’t want to kiss Gritty on the mouth though?
 
Q12. What movie makes your book cry? 
 
A. The movie that MOST RECENTLY made Cactus cry was Big (Dir. Marshall, 1988). That scene when Tom Hanks’s character is all sweet and innocent and sleeps on the top bunk and gives Elizabeth Perkins’s character the glow-in-the-dark compass so she won’t get lost. Goddamn.
Q13. If your book was to date any Mortal Kombat character who would it be and why isn't it Johnny Cage? (will accept Sonya as a secondary answer)
 
A. Cactus is only interested in dating Street Fighter II characters, Chun Li specifically. That upside-down spin kick. Those legs. It might like to hook up with Blanka, too. Seems electric.
 
Q14. What song does your book perform at karaoke when its pretty drunk and shouldn't be making this sort of public spectacle but does anyway because sometimes you just have to belt it out to a crowd full of grimacing strangers? 
 
A. “Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard. Cactus knows prison. Merle Haggard knows prison. “[Cactus] turned 21 in prison doing life without parole.”

Go support innovative and prose and poetry and pick up Cactus. Go support our boy and by extension all bossin' indie lit making a difference in this big bad world. ​
​Nathaniel Kennon Perkins is the author of Cactus (Trident Press, 2018) and the ongoing literary zine, Ultimate Gospel. He lives in Boulder, CO, where he works as a bookseller. His creative work has appeared in Triquarterly, Maudlin House, Keep This Bag Away From Children, decomP magazinE, Pithead Chapel, Timber Journal, the Philadelphia Secret Admirer, and others. He is the recipient of the High Country News’s 2014 Bell Prize and has gone on two US reading tours, one with the sound artist Braeyden Jae in 2015 and another with the emo band Tall Boys in 2018. nathanielkennonperkins.wordpress.com

Cactus is available for purchase on Amazon and through Trident Press's website.

And here's a little bit about Trident Press: "Our publishing interests are as varied as the books we sell in the Trident Bookstore: punk rock travelogues, occult spiritual texts, weirdo fiction, anarchist political philosophy, and vertiginous poetry, among others. However, the releases from Trident Press are more alike than they are different. They are all half-funny, half-heartbreaking, and always beautiful and inspiring. "
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10/10/2018

I would like to swipe right on your book: Trying to get in with Sad Laughter by Brian Alan Ellis

It's like the Dating Game, only way hotter. I'm Janie and I'm trying to date your new book. In this case, I'm trying to get in with Sad Laughter: A Totally Unessential and Demotivational Guide to Reading, Writing, and Publishing by Brian Alan Ellis and published by the always brilliant Civil Coping Mechanisms. According to Sad Laughter's Tinder bio, it's all about [how] "Writing is like trying to make sense of an inside joke you have with yourself but haha joke’s on you ’cause the joke is more sad than funny." 

Since I love a sense of humor coupled with a futile sense of despair, I'm basically already about this book (along with most of the author's other work). Let's Dating Game this motherfucker: 
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Q. If your book was trying to seduce someone in an underground blood orgy, what song would it put on the jukebox?

A. *googles “underground blood orgy music”* A YouTube video of the Dead Milkmen song “Theme from Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern” came up. Sad Laughter is satisfied with that result.

* as representatives of Philadelphia, we're hyped on this answer 
Q.  If your book was one of the seven deadly sins, what Spice Girl would it kill?

A. ​Is that what the seven deadly sins do, they kill Spice Girls?? That’s horrible. Sad Laughter says, “♫ If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my chronic emotional emptiness ♫”

Q. What is the color of your book’s aura? Why? Get into this, it’s important. 

A. I am only interested in the color of my book’s Oreo, which is Double Stuff Halloween orange.

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Q.  If your book was a reality television show, what would its premise be?

A.  A writers retreat where instead of writing, the writers just sit around eating different flavors of Doritos while listlessly watching each other take turns trying to beat really hard NES games like Contra 2 and Kid Icarus.  


Q.  Speaking of reality television, what is your book’s Real Housewives tagline? 

A. The Real Housewives of a Constant and Pervading Existential Void.

Q.  What is the crux of your book’s intimacy issues?

A. Sad Laughter says, “How can you be upset that your short stories get rejected when you’re constantly rejecting love?”
How can you be upset that your short stories get rejected when you’re constantly rejecting love?
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Q.  If your book was to make a podcast, how badly was Bret “the Hitman” Hart cheated during the Montreal Screwjob?

A. ​Sad Laughter wholeheartedly agrees that the Hitman was legit wronged at the 1997 Survivor Series. Vince McMahon was a liar—Bret did not screw Bret! Hart Foundation 4 Life! 

Q.  What songs does your book sing when it’s drunk in the middle of the night on a Tuesday trying not to text its ex but does anyway? 

A. Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone
The worst is over
You can have the best of me
We got older but we’re still young
We never grew out of this feeling that we won’t give up
 
—The Starting Line, “Best of Me”
Q.  If your book was an appetizer, which one would it be? 

A. Sad Laughter would be an Applebee’s Classic Combo Platter.

Q.  Sun sign? Moon sign? Rising sign? 

​A. Johnny Cage / Scorpion / Sub-Zero 

Q.  If your book was an Olympian what would it be for? Would it medal? 

​A. Like WWE legend Kurt Angle, Sad Laughter would win a gold medal with a “broken freakin’ neck!”
Q. What is your book’s state dog? 

A. Dog the Bounty Hunter.
 
Q. What is the last book that your book got really into? 

A. Sad Laughter
only pretends to read books by Haruki Murakami and Joan Didion so as to impress smart people.
 
Q. What drugs does your book do to unwind? 

​A. Whippets.
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Q. We love you, Sad Laughter, no question period the end. 

A. Sad Laughter loves you back. *wink*
Go support innovative and prose and poetry and pick up Sad Laughter. Go support our boy and by extension all bossin' indie lit making a difference in this big bad world. 
BRIAN ALAN ELLIS is the author of several books, including Sad Laughter (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018) and Something to Do with Self-Hate (House of Vlad Productions/Talking Book, 2017). His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Fanzine, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad. 

​You can also find him living over at brianalanellis.tumblr.com



Civil Coping Mechanisms (CCM) is a DIY kind of press. We take the same level of angst as our colleagues in shunning those that would be in the immediate position of neglecting our efforts as artisans. We take the sentiment of doing it ourselves while stating to the tired publishing process, “To hell with it.” Why not do it our way? What only matters: Offering a space for the innovation so sorely shamed and disregarded as unmarketable by the major and indie presses too busy selling the next celebrity memoir, paper-thin creative nonfiction spine of lies, the wax-intellectual pursuits of yet-again the same vision wrapped in newer trim, or the same regurgitated genre-fiction and prose you’d expect would have become stale by now. Oh yes, we rant. This is our place. We’ll do as we damn well please.​

The above was taken from their home over at: http://copingmechanisms.net/ 
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