News

Illustrator/genius Janet George has completed the cover to Injury & Aftermath precisely as we had requested it, with one notable exception: she made it about ten times better than we had ever imagined. Above you will see a tiny preview of her work, which is fantastic, and which is deserving of eternal praise. The likeness is uncanny, isn’t it? Though we will concede that Ms. George has taken God’s work and made it better, which is to say Ryan looks more like Ryan here than he does in real life. Imagine that!

Janet is also working on a dozen or so illustrations that will be included in the book. Maybe we’ll post a preview or two as she finishes them.

After this book is done, for God’s sake, someone please hire this girl! She’s damn good, and we’re happy to have her on board. Thanks for everything, Janet.

Over the summer, John Blacksher had the good fortune of being assigned to review the first album of a lo-fi rock outfit recently spawned out of the psychedelic nether of independent Canadian music. The band is Dusted, the album is Total Dust. It is the solo project of Brian Borcherdt (one of the fine gentlemen from anti-programming electronica group Holy Fuck), and it is about as close-to-home as anything so out-there can be.

A revised excerpt from John Blacksher’s initial review of the record is reproduced below. Note his inability to describe the soundscape without resorting to superfluous metaphor—that means he likes it a lot.

This record is a foggy nighttime boat ride with forest fires on either bank. It is smooth, warm, and quiet, conjuring sparks in the deep, brushed by the apocalyptic. Dusted cradles the ear in a swelling ocean of soft fuzz guitar and moving vocal melodies, subdued as if heard through a wall of foam. The album unfolds with faith in its own simplicity, as lo-fi beats and distorted harmonies echo freely in musical space.

John first heard the album on a summer night, sitting on the back porch of a small house in central Virginia, under the bright stars of a moonless sky. He realized he’d been waiting for quite a while to hear something like this. It has become his soundtrack of choice for long nocturnal drives. He recommends it to everyone for all occasions, including but not limited to: lonesome contemplation, trucking, bachelor parties, meditation, baby showers, funerals, weddings, and arson.

Melville House is a publishing company based in Brooklyn. They put out great books. They also have a fantastic blog called MobyLives, which we read all the damn time. Really, there’s nothing they do that we don’t like.

So when Melville House announced they were starting a subscription service based entirely around novellas, we couldn’t sign up fast enough. It’s called The Art of the Novella. Each month, they ship out two novellas (a full month-by-month list can be found here). The novellas, some of them well known, others obscure as hell, arrive at your door, and then all you have to do is read them. Authors of note include Anton Chekhov, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy and, of course, Herman Melville. And on and on. There’s a whole mess of them in there, but these are our favorite.

We called Melville House a few weeks ago and told them how excited we were to read some great literature and support our favorite publishing house in the process. The man on the phone was overjoyed to hear this. He even asked for our name—so we told him. He said he would pay special attention to our order. God only knows what he meant by that, but hey, hopefully that was some auspicious foreshadowing.

The first novellas go out today, so we expect to receive them sometime this week. We’re even getting a t-shirt and a tote bag out of it. Who could possibly complain about that?

You should sign up! It’s a great idea. Plus, there’s a referral program. Help us get a free book out of it! We’re currently eyeing Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview and Other Conversations . . .

At midnight on December 3rd, VIII Nothing’s first fundraiser ended. Uproarious celebration was heard for miles in the People’s Republic of Austin. The sound was coming from the bedroom of Ryan Starsailor, who was very excited indeed. He knew that, thanks to the generous donations from his friends and family (and even a large number of total strangers), he would be putting out his very first novel, Injury & Aftermath.

Yes, and we are thrilled to tell you, whoever you are, that we reached our fundraising goal of $3,500—and then some. In total we were able to collect $3,900, which is astounding. Now we’ll be able to pay Ms. George for all the illustrations she’s working on, cover printing costs, and have the necessary funds to purchase a glue gun for purposes we can’t immediately reveal. (That last part is, yes, the most exciting part.)

We are humbled by the amount of support we received, and thank all of our many donors for funding our newest endeavor. A special thanks to the following contributors, whose enormous pledges make us thankful to be alive:

$200+:

• R. Benedict
• A. Heifetz
• Ryan’s mother

$500+:

• Sir D. Barisas
• (Anonymous)
• C. America

Unfortunately, no one was insane/rich enough to shoot for the $1,800 award, which would have called for John and Ryan to travel to the contributor’s city and drink a few beers with him or her. And sleep on their couch. And use their shower.

Injury & Aftermath is scheduled for release in February 2013. That’s not so far away. In the meantime, Ryan will continue to write and edit, and Janet will continue to draw. We’ll keep you updated as things progress. Thanks again!

The airport was crowded when I landed—unusually so. I had figured no one would be traveling on Thanksgiving, but that didn’t end up being true. There were, in fact, hundreds and hundreds of people at SFO that day, all of them headed somewhere or another. Some were coming, some were going. I was coming, had come for the food and the sunshine and the pleasant bay air. There had been an invitation to return to Virginia (and the promise of a free flight), but I turned it down. No, I said, I’m going to go someplace else.

So I went to the city of Saint Francis and then onward to the Oak Kingdom, just across the blue water, where the rent is cheaper and the food is better. The people, I reckoned, were a hair less crazy, too. Tim and Delicious McCune were there, too. Why anyone would ever go anywhere else was a total mystery. The Oak Kingdom had everything any reasonable human could ever need.

A now a journal of (relatively (un)noteworthy) incidents:

Day 01: With my help, Tim prepared three “corn cakes” (named thusly because they were baked in cake tins). Tim said he loved cornbread, said he wanted to make as much as possible. After I glanced at the box, I realized there was not one, but three kinds of lard inside: the regular kind, the partially hydrogenated kind, and the full-on hydrogenated kind. “Tim,” (said I), “there’s lard in this.” Lard ain’t the best thing to be eating when you want nothing to do with the business of eating animal-anything. Tim scoffed. He thought that was disgusting. So we decided to offer the cakes to our hosts. And then: dinner at Mr. Burbank’s house. Met the wife, met the kid, met the baby. The kid loved the corn cakes. He ate a few stacked pieces of the damn things with honey. The rest of us had salad and stuffing and some sort of casserole. It was a vegetarian Thanksgiving paradise. Afterwards we went to Target and watched the spectacle of Black Friday, which, yes, now begins (sadly) on Thursday. Bought an electronic device that plays interactive simulations. Burbank bought another. Last two in the store; last two for some time. Ms. Wang showed up later. She purchased something one puts in their hair—something decorative. Can’t remember the name. At five in the a.m., we slept.

Day 02: Delirium. Not enough sleep. Tim was ready to go around nine. Got off the couch (I had slept on Tim’s red couch), waited for Delicious McCune to show up on his motorcycle. Took him awhile. Showed up around eleven. We walked downtown to a barbershop that has no phone, takes no reservations, and serves whisky while you wait. It ended up being closed. “Be back Tuesday!” the sign had said. A coffee shop across the way was empty, the doors open. A man inside said, “Hey, how about some coffee?!” McCune, the saint that he is, bought everyone a cup. He said he hadn’t seen us in a while, and wanted to treat his friends. I had a latte (I rather like the foam). Didn’t add any sugar or cream. Prefer it black. (It was unanimously agreed that the coffee was bad.) We made our way over to the BART, rode it into the city of Saint Francis. The place was teeming mad—people everywhere, holding up the Almighty Dollar (“I want to buy this and that.”). Went to the new Uniqlo on Powell Street. I bought some flannel shirts and a whole mess of socks. Ate at Del Taco (the food was good; the restaurant was dingy and full of vagrants). Later: The Departed. “Do you want some coke?” Throws a fistful of cocaine somewhere off-camera. “There it is.” Sleep came easy at McCune’s fortress in Alameda Isle, off the coast of the Oak Kingdom. Closed our eyes. Drifted. No dreams.

Day 03: Discussed Dune with McCune on the way to the Fruitvale BART station. Hopped on the first train we could and changed gears—talked about women instead. Ended up taking the wrong train and got off at the West Oakland station. Caught the next train headed in the right direction, then transferred at Lake Merritt. Went to 12th Street. Tim was waiting for us at Golden Lotus (and had been for an hour or more). Had some noodle dish I’d had many times before. Lots of shredded tofu and grilled vegetables. It even came with a little cup of vegetable broth, which I poured over the whole damn thing. Afterwards, at the 12th Street BART, McCune went back to Alameda Isle while we accompanied Tim into the city of Saint Francis so that we might help a young woman in the Mission build a teepee in her living room. Tim rented a car near 14th Street. We picked up Amy (whose living room would soon become a teepee zone) and drove to a hardware store. There were boards made out of redwoods. Tim and I thought that was rather depressing. At Amy’s, we were treated with grilled cheese sandwiches made with apple slices and truffle oil. The whole place was white—furniture and all. Fluorescent lights shining down. Amy got to work and I prattled on with Tim about this and that. Eventually Rae joined us. She was wearing a corduroy coat and I told her it looked nice. Later: vegetarian burritos in the Mission. Later still: running half a mile to catch the midnight bus back to the Oak Kingdom. I gave a girl three dollars so she could get home. A man on the bus was talking to himself and another man tried to sell us “purple” (Tim said it was probably a variety of marijuana). Exhaustion on the walk home. Fear. Sleep.

Day 04: Breakfast at Pebbles Donut Farm with Tim and Delicious. I had cornmeal banana pancakes with orange juice and tempeh “bacon”. The atomic-blonde-haired woman who rang me up was pretty. I gave her a nice tip (which I assumed would be shared with our server). Went to a flea market across the street. Everything was waterlogged and useless. Saw a plastic bin full of corroded batteries. Couldn’t imagine who would purchase (or even sell) such a thing. Got depressed and left. Went back to Tim’s and waited for Rae to take the BART from the city to the Oak Kingdom. When she got there, we went and saw Lincoln (★★ (out of four)). Didn’t like the ending too much. Mastered Daniel Day-Lewis’ Abraham Lincoln voice pretty quickly. Rae left, Tim went home, and I went with McCune back to Alameda Isle. Got lifted and watched Speed Racer in high definition. There was nothing left to do afterwards but pass out.

Day 05: Woke at eleven. Tim had me meet him at Golden Lotus again—across from the Oakland Tribune building. The temperature of the Earth in that place was perfect. When I ascended from the 12th Street BART, a man asked everyone in his vicinity for money: “Y’ALL GOT ANY MONEY? GIMME SOME MONEY. I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.” Had the same lunch from two days before. Got on the BART afterwards and returned to Uniqlo to buy a few more flannel shirts (I had decided they were perfect and wanted to own a few more). Bought some postcards and a Clipper card at a Walgreens nearby. Tim saluted me as I prepared to enter the subterranean world where the trains lived. I said, “Be back soon. I am moving here, after all.” Toward the end of the train ride to SFO, I was alone. No one else, it seemed, needed to go to the airport. So I propped my feet up, listened to music, looked out at the brown-green hills rising out of the ground miles away. California hills. At the airport I wrote letters to most everyone I loved and read a few pages from Gravity’s Rainbow. Plane ride was OK. Mixed nuts (gourmet, don’t you know) and a few cups of coffee. Mistake. Had to urinate maybe five times. Had the window seat, so I had to bother the couple to my right several times, told them, eventually (to explain my freakish nature): “I’m diabetic.” (Not true.) Sat in darkness for the entire ride home while everyone else watched television. Mostly ads. Made me sad. Took a bus from the airport. Walked two miles home. Felt weird. Slept.

—Ryan Starsailor

One year ago today, VIII Nothing went live. It has existed every day since that day, without cease. It is and has been a drifting cloud of digital machinery in cyberspace. Through this finely-tuned dynamo we churned out our schemes and threw our deepest thoughts and feelings and prayers into the sky for all to see. We gathered a few more writers around us, huddling close to share our hearts and minds with one another. Be assured, we will churn out more schemes, throw out more thoughts and feelings, and gather new hearts and minds around us in the coming months.

One year ago, VIII Nothing printed publications were a nebulous dream. Now, with our kickstarter well over its goal and Ryan Starsailor’s Injury & Aftermath dangerously close to completion, the second phase of our project has become inevitable. For better or worse, we will make books. Hell or high water, we will be an independent publishing company.

Welcome to VIII Nothing Press.

Thank you all.