Monkeybicycle 6
October 3rd, 2009edited by Steven Seighman
ISSN: 15470504
It seems sensationalist to mention sex, twins, and midgets… but I just did. Yes, they are all mentioned, and two out of three are star characters and a recurring story topic. It may seem even more strange to say the stories in this issue really aren’t lurid, but really they aren’t. Not even the story where the guy’s wang wants to be an astronaut.
Well, not lurid in a bad way.
You probably just figured out whether or not Monkeybicycle is for you. I hope it is, because it has lots of good stories in it. The sort that are painful in a good way, with things that made me wince, that I couldn’t believe but of course believed and kept turning pages.
The writers in Monkeybicycle were all new to me. I’ll certainly be on the lookout for more work from many of them. My favorites were:
- The opening story, “Gum Gutter” by Martha Clarkson. It’s about going for a walk on Thanksgiving, family bullshit, and a fake cop.
- Corey Mesler’s “From the Desk of Jojo Self” defines resistentialism, includes disappearing manuscripts, an eccentric shut-in and his blonde sexy neighbor, improbable events, amazing success… and yet.
- “Valentine” by Mike Czyzniejewski reveals the insane thinking of a guy whose wife’s annual gynecologist appointment is on February 14th.
- Drew Jackson’s “After Spaulding” evokes Gatsby, and is full of something-is-not-right here humid jungle wickedness.
- “The Girls of Channel 2112” by Matt Bell has, in the unlikely event you can’t guess from the title, the twins, sex, and a midget reference in the opening line. The unlikely part isn’t the webcam, but the high school crush revisited, the heartbreak, and how real these impossible people are.
I’m looking forward to the next issue.
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Note
Lucky me: PANK magazine gave me a two-issue subscription to Monkeybicyle, this is the first issue. I follow them on twitter, and if you are into this kind of thing, I recommend following them, and of course Monkeybicycle too.
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