That’s right! Vincent Scotti Eirene’s book, The Day The Empire Fell, has never received a proper launch. In order to rectify this gross injustice, we are inviting all of our friends (including YOU) to celebrate the release of the second, expanded edition. The Day The Empire Fell: Expanded Edition includes the original book, his Iraq diaries (previously published as Night Flight to Baghdad), and his work fighting mountain top removal in West Virginia.
The party will be on Saturday, October 15 at Lilli Coffee Shop and Restaurant in Polish Hill. Featuring readings by Vincent, Robert Isenberg (The Arhipelago, The Iron Mountain, and more) and local legend Nathan Kukulski, this is one event that is not to be missed. Who knows? Maybe Lenny will even read something! If not, there is always Vince’s world famous vegan spaghetti dinner to look forward to…
October 15, 2011; 6-8 PM
at Lilli Coffee*Shop
3138 Dobson St. Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (map it)
A confession: I have been depressed lately. Not in my private life, but in those hours I spend every couple weeks or so attending events where people read their poetry aloud. Usually they’re reading to the same fifteen people that always attend these things, and often it’s the same stuff I’ve heard a dozen times before.
That’s why I am excited to say that the cure for this particular, specialized depression of mine just might be in this ninety-plus page document right here. endo (poems and sketches 2007-2011) is the third book by Pittsburgh author John Thomas Menesini, and I am glad to say that he’s grown quite a bit as a poet in the years since I reviewed his first collection, The Last Great Glass Meat Million. This work is a terrific illustration of what really excites me about the medium: it contains heartbreak (what doesn’t?) but it also contains humor — maybe even a little vaudeville. (“the longest year I spent / was a month in Cleveland,” hey-o!) A good belly laugh now and again is essential to a person’s well being, and it is something that is something that is sorely missing from most poet’s repertoire. With this latest collection, that is most certainly not the case.
Most poets put their heart into their work, but very few put their whole body into it. Johnny does, and you can sure as shit see that reflected in this volume. It’s an accomplishment.
Laura June (known by numberless aliases, including but not limited to Laura June Dxiubin and Laura June Topolsky) doesn’t back down from exploring the hard topics. In this, her first work of poetry since 1986’s “Why Am I So Ugly, and When Will I Grow Front Teeth?” Laura’s upbeat, positive nature shines through in short, pithy fragments such as “Fuck the Internet, I’m Going to Bed” and “Why Yes, You’re Correct: I’m Wrong” — one of which has been shortlisted for the next Inauguration of the next US president (whoever that will be). Never one to shy away from her feelings and shroud them in a silly (yet exceedingly clever) and entertaining pack of lies, Laura can, as usual, be counted on to shock and overuse the comma, at the very least. Sure to be a hit this holiday season with all the best Pulitzer Prize candidate elites.
This book has been produced in a limited, numbered edition. Handmade with love and care in the factories of Shenzhen, the cover is an original hand-printed… print by famed ukelele player Jody Perigo.
Available now! For $5.00 plus $1.50 shipping and handling: just paypal your hard earned cash to: barbary.shore@gmail.com
Inspired (a little) by Nicole by Morgan St. Michel and (a little more) by Roland Barthes, the author reflects on an affair through such concepts as memory, desire, and definitions. A real ice-breaker at parties, and a very quick read. Available now for $5.00: here. OUT OF PRINT
One spring night in Western Pennsylvania, the usually dreamless sleep of a resentful man on the cusp of middle age is suddenly infested by a profound symbolism, inspiring him to take pen to paper. His vampish ex-wife soon appears in a red spandex dress and subsequently stalks him with the intention of obtaining a Protection From Abuse (PFA) order; he has recently filed his own lawsuit regarding some shared real estate. In this work, the cast of Miami Vice, CHiPS, The A-Team, the Lone Ranger, and even one Ms. Scarlett Johansson volunteer to help the hero on his quest — but they can only do so much. Something like hilarity ensues when a subpoena arrives for Tubbs: his past (and some profitable corporate espionage) has finally caught up to him.
Kirk “Mad Dog” Cooke (April 30, 1975) is a computer programmer and motorcycle enthusiast. He enjoys kayaking and fly fishing and anything, really, involving the great outdoors. He was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, where he lives with his constitutionally protected firearms and his irascible mixed-breed canine Patton. Barbary Shore is proud to bring him into the fold, even if he is no longer invited to any of our staff parties.
Kirk “Mad Dog” Cooke’s Zelda in Spandex is a 26 page long poem that I found intelligent, multi-layered, and laugh-out-loud funny. In fact, the only book that has given me more honest-to-goodness belly laughs in recent memory was Shoplifting From American Apparel by Tao Lin.
- Jonathan Messinger, Time Out Chicago
Available for $6.00: here.
Local authors reading aloud their essays, poetry, rants, fiction…
Featuring:
——- Che Elias, Daniel McCloskey, Vincent Scotti Eirene, Joseph L. Flatley, Kirk “Mad Dog” Cooke, Nate Kukulski
Mark your calendars!
——- Where: Lili Coffee*Shop and Copacetic Comics // Polish Hill
——- When: October 9, 2010 // 7PM
For more information, keep your eyes locked on:
——- http://www.barbaryshore.com
Special thanks to Cyberpunk Apocalypse Writers Cooperative and Six Gallery Press
The gang at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse writers coop (or is it co-op?) have another issue out, curated by Barbary Shore’s very own Joseph L. Flatley (Lenny) and we have to say that it’s outta sight! Also on board for this issue are Matt Stroud, Jesse Hicks, the eXiled’s Yasha Levine and more! Check out: http://cyberpunkapocalypse.com/
Original Falcon has just released an interview with the late Christopher Hyatt, PhD and — believe it or not — Barbary Shore had a crucial role in the process!
You see, Jesse Hicks (editor and author of several articles in the Deek magazine anthology The Final Incident) interviewed the late doctor for an article that was never released. After years of hectoring Jesse gave me a copy, which we put in the hands of Nick Tharcher — and it is now available as an audio CD from Original Falcon Press.
Intrigued? Undoubtedly. Want to own a copy yourself? Of course you do! Click here to order.
The Terrorist’s Novena by Joseph L. Flatley
The author of In Our Place of Quarantine as well as several Newbery Award-winning children’s books is back with a slim volume of verse that deals with the themes that make him such a hit with the ABC Family channel crowd, including: Gnosticism and mysticism, the “unfreedom” of capitalist society, and the impulse towards extremism. Available for $6.00: here.
