"My Old Suburban Home" - A Late Halloween Miniature

Just as regular as a clock can tick you reach up for the old pigskin high on a dusty shelf as the sun is setting and the light is becoming gray and pointillist and your hand brushes an old Halloween mask. You pick up the mask, but it's slippery and brittle at the same time and you realize it's an actual face. As you drop it and collapse to your knees little songbirds jet up from the wrinkly folds and warble to you with outdated pre-recorded answering machine voices. Your mother calls to you downstairs that dinner's ready, but she's been dead for five years now.

Your brother used to be able to imitate your grandmother's voice perfectly, breaking your heart when you came home from school to what you thought was an empty house, but then there was what you thought was the treasured voice of granny. Your brother could never imitate your mother, though, and the last anyone heard he's currently hiding in a polar grotto below the visible pattern of the natural world going by the name Red Reflectors On a Tree Stump. The manifesto he issued to the press, which now consists of a bunch of slightly above average intelligence junior high students sending out a bunch of emails grading events or personages either "stinky", "not stinky" or "chill", states simply "Ouch".

The scene on the small street outside does nothing to calm the beating of your heart or settle your emotions. Everyone is sitting outside their homes, it is a beautiful early fall evening after all, but they are so still and their eyes are all covered over with lid flesh and sloppy hand-stitching. No one seems bothered by this state, in fact no one is moving or saying anything all.

Shattered Wig Press Blog Nominated For a Mobbie And Normal's In the Web News

Not sure how this happened (well maybe I am) or how it works (definitely not), but Shattered Wig Press got nominated for a DIY blog Mobbie Award by the Sun Paper. Voting runs from November 2nd through the 12th, so please perhaps cast a vote or two or three for us so that we don't look really pathetic in the standings. Not even sure who runs the tissue paper thin Sun anymore now that they've sent their writers packing. But at any rate, here is the link:
http://data.baltimoresun.com/mobbies/2010/nominations/

In other cultural and financial news, Normal's Books and Records got written up as part of a piece about a trio of Waverly businesses fighting the Grim Reaper in these dire economic times. I got asked to pose in the awkward "casual lean against the doorway with arms crossed" pose, but at least my head does not appear too ginormous. Kind of comforting to be in agreement and the same wave tossed vessel as our landlord though.

Here is the link to the article in Bmore Media: http://www.bmoremedia.com

Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #11 - Artwork by Roy Green

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The art of Roy Green is like finding an old Halloween mask on a high up dusty shelf in your room when you have the lights out and the sun is almost down. You pick up the mask, but it's slippery and brittle at the same time and you realize it's an actual face. As you drop it and collapse to your knees little songbirds jet up from the wrinkly folds and warble to you with outdated pre-recorded answering machine robotic voices. Your mother calls to you downstairs that dinner's ready, but she's been dead for five years now.

These black and white pieces, which are pen and brown paint on what seem to be elementary school project papers, will be in Shattered Wig Review #28, but you can go to his website to see some of his stuff in full color glory:
http://roygreenart.blogspot.com/

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Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #10 - An untitled piece by Megan McShea

Spends the whole future drying the dampness made from years of humid suitors. An old way of talking or of being. Sneaks around the shadowy halls while we blank the blank blank house at the what what road, but we had to admit, over our dead bodies might take too long. Inching towards catharsis, brainy moods overtook our lazy hearts ambling up a narrow path towards our goals: a tree, from the past, still there, no matter what. Then: a dirigible. However unlikely. Stomach contents revealed a nurtured life. And then, look here, say it's blue, say it's worn out, beautiful, say it's new today and noisy, say mighty things. Make fly, leave waste. Sound it out: di-ri-gi-ble. Stony glares from the media gallery. But our spirits were buttressed by the hair and makeup treatment and our new fruit. No native poise too great that it cannot be improved by a mango. Another day, a beach date: walk walk walk walk splash splash flop down quiet then hot and lean in, smooth around the ankle area. Then: hot dogs.



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Megan McShea lives in Baltimore. She has two chapbooks, Recipes for Greatness and Yarn! (Thingy Press). Her writing has appeared in the i.e. reader (Narrow House Press), the forthcoming Topograph (Novello Press), the Shattered Wig Review (Shattered Wig Press), and online at Everyday Genius blog, Baltimore Is Reads (Publishing Genius), and Rock Heals blog.

Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #9 - "Ghost" by Amelia Gray

          "I'm of two minds," the man said, neatly bisecting a strawberry with a knife. "I'd be happy if you left, and happy if you stayed here, but you can't leave and stay at the same time."

           The ghost of his wife seemed unhappy. She glossed over a steaming cup of coffee, disrupting the bubbles.

          "I can't tell you which would make me more happy," he said. "For one, I haven't truly experienced either state. You keep shimmering and not saying anything." He glanced at her for confirmation. One edge of her gave off an extra shine. "Coy," he said. "Furthermore, you haven't tried truly leaving yet. We both always know you'll be back."

          He finished cutting the strawberries and placed them in a bowl, sprinkling sugar over top. The ghost shivered and dropped into his coffee cup, navigating the escaping steam to bolt into the scalding liquid. The cup jostled and was still. He put a piece of bread in the toaster. Outside, the birds were flapping so loud it sounded like a man slapping his thigh.

          "In the end it's about what makes you more happy," he said to the cup. "You don't seem particularly happy in this moment." A ripple in the coffee caressed the ceramic. He thought about how his wife would hold a mug with both hands.

          He tapped the mug with his fingernail. "Get out of there. Quit messing around." The coffee swirled and she emerged again, settling around his shoulders like a scarf. She smelled like nothing.



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Amelia Gray is the author of AM/PM (Featherproof Books) and Museum of the Weird (FC2).

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Shattered Wig 28 Preview #8 - Some "Slancys" by Derrick Buisch

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Buisch was born in Washington D.C. in the mid-late 1960’s, grew up in the suburbs (saw Minor Threat, Trouble Funk, 9353, Fugazi, etc). Attended art school (MICA)in Baltimore (saw Reptile House, Grey March, Lungfish, etc). Upon receiving a BFA helped form (and played bass) for the Baltimore ensemble Candy Machine from 1989-92. MFA from the University of Minnesota with a concentration in painting 1996. Since 1997 he is a Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.