Reading Experimental Literature: Surreal Horror, Poetry, and Outsider Anthologies

[00:00:00]H well, I don't know how many years on this earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it.

[00:00:07]>> Hello, my darlings and welcome to a get real weird with it blog where I read weird fringe or just less mainstream books. So, let's get straight into it.

[00:00:16]The first book I read was called In Dreams We Rot by Betty Rocksteady. This is a surreal horror weird fiction splatterpunk collection of short stories. It is a feral, feverish horror collection with bodies, sex, and rot.

[00:00:34]I'll just give you a hint of all of the stories. I think there was 21 different stories in this. So, we've got stories about how love decays, how cat colonies recruit new members, catching up with gal pals while being watched, very disturbing violent sex, plant [ __ ] getting wood. I will say if you are an animal lover, the story postpartum might not be for you. Domestic prison breaks, mud pies, inshed romance, stray kitties, sour candy vibes, insects, baby, creepy art, a whole lot of ants, seaside romance, grief labyrinths, and birds and bots. This to me felt like surreal horror, eating splatterpunk whilst having dirty dirty sex and then crawling onto an island to hallucinate insects and gods while petting stray cats.

[00:01:25]Across this collection, motherhood goes mad, voyers get reverse unoed, bodies become wrong in inventive ways, bugs evolve, personal vendettas, ancient sex gods clock back in for orgy overtime, and cats are on a frenzy bender. It is a bit dreily unhinged as it splashes into nightmare logic, where horror becomes as sensual as it is repulsive. Some stories are wet, loud, and splattery, while others are quiet, melancholy, and emotionally corrosive. What ties them together is transformation of bodies, language, power dynamics, and even genres. There's also illustrations in this that kind of ruined elephants for me. Some of the themes in this are of grief and trauma, bodily transformation and decay, madness, and just please check all the trigger warnings you can.

[00:02:18]I ended up giving this collection as a whole a 3.5, which is fantastic for a short story collection for me personally. My favorite story, which I gave 4.5, was Tiny Bones Beneath Their Feet, which did include uh Pussycats.

[00:02:34]Who else would like this book? I would say readers who like weird experimental horror in general, or ones who enjoy horror that is hot, gross, poetic, and destabilizing. I would also say readers who like finishing a story and then staring at the wall afterwards. Similar books or films for me, the ones that I would say are most similar would be I Know a Place by Nat Cassidy, which is also a collection of horror short stories, and Hellbound Heart, which also straddles that line between sexual and horrific. Now, the next two books I was kindly sent by Jack Skellyy, so thank you, Jack. We'll start with Anxiety. I actually really love this cover. If I had this color shade, I would have gone with this color. But uh I do not have that color in eye makeup, so I went with the dark purple. So this is a collection of poems and short stories as well as an interview. It features it features the artists Koko Gordon Moore, Nate Lippens, Jimmy Cooper, Danielle Chilowski, Matthew Kinland, Thomas Moore, Lydia Civato, Slavski, Jack Skellyy. the photographs uh by David Catalano and it is edited by Ira Rat. So this is an intimate brain buzz anthology of poems, short stories, interviews and photographs. I will show you a few of the photographs first.

[00:03:59]That's just a little little snippet of them. Um this reads like a late night conversation at a party. It is fragmented, confessional, funny in a bleak way and kind of TMI. I found it very easy to consume and I really enjoyed the photographic elements. There is the interview at the back and that is between Jack and Lydia and in it they discuss Jack's book Myth Labs: Theories of Plastic Love. And reading it kind of made me feel like a very awkward or struck interopera because these two people have their own language that is both super cool and intimidating. their brains are just working on a high frequency, folks. And I can just all I can do is like stare in in wonder and try to pass the meaning myself, but also at the same time admire admire them ping ponging off each other. I'm going to read something in here. I'll read one of the short Let me find a short poem rather than one of the longer stories.

[00:04:56]So So I'm reading one of the poems by Coco Gordon Moore. Curiosity is a job.

[00:05:04]Or I read my boyfriend a porn story, but I don't think he liked it very much.

[00:05:09]After variety, anywhere you walk, men are staged, lifting heavy boxes, staring at your body, and thinking about porn.

[00:05:17]Not sex. Porn. The act of porn.

[00:05:21]Christine sells tickets down at the porn theater. The tickets only cost $2. There are men in suits having important conversations. I think about their hearts. I spy on them. I spy on porn. I follow it. I need to be stopped.

[00:05:38]Christine loves to tell porn stories.

[00:05:40]She's really good at them. She sits all day in a glass booth. She trades a pack of cigarettes for a break. I take a long walk through a maze of boxes. It's a threat to be here. I think Christine should hang out with the women at the bar. They all want pleasure, too. I'm waiting to find a time to call this boy back. It's dramatic on the floor, curled around my record player, staring at the phone. I should really call my mom back.

[00:06:06]Christine is eating food. She's talking about porn with her mouthful. She's talking about John's with her mouthful.

[00:06:12]Bright lights fill the streets. An older John took Christine to a ball game once.

[00:06:17]He left halfway through for a porn emergency. She's obsessed with him. I'm still trying to figure out what I like about sex. On the street, I see lots of dead fish. Gutted, gutless, no heads, pink inside. I think readers who would like this book are ones who are fans of indie lit mags, zi and experimental presses and for people who think time is just being a weirdo. The next book I picked up was Interstellar Theme Park, New and Selected Writing by Jack Skellyy. This is a psychedelic popnostic funhouse where capitalism, religion, celebrity, sex, myth, and desire are all on the same ride and nobody's wearing a seat belt or pants. The book is separated into separate motifs. So, we have Planet of Toys, product placement, artificial heart, toxic assets, Athena del Rey, Disneyland, Rock, and selections from Kathy Aka.

[00:07:18]They also have collage art for each section, which I absolutely loved. I'll just show you a few of those once again.

[00:07:25]So, we have this one and this one here. This is a kaleidoscopic collection of poems, pros, and excerpts from previous books where Jack hunts transcendence in trash, revelation in branding.

[00:07:46]>> Why are you like yourself >> cuz I'm doing get real weird with a vlog where I look weird and holiness in pop iconography. There are pop hymns, erotic manifestos, allergies and cultural hallucinations. Jack treats consumer culture as modern mythology. Some of the themes in this are celebrity as saintthood, sex as apocalypse and communion, technology as both god and demon, religious imagery versus consumer worship, America as spectacle, nightmare, joke and horny ruin. As usual, I find Jack's style to be erotic but funny, blasphemous but with affection, playful and maximalist in a really fun neon way. This book seduces, overloads, baptizes, and glitches your brain. Let me read you a poem from it.

[00:08:36]I'm just going to choose a random one.

[00:08:39]Emoad. Mamalian instincts concoct life-changing foolishness with testosterone, dopamine, and serotonin, juicing animal lust into obsessive yearning and the rituals of romance, all to grease the gears of attachment and keep the species churning. This generational trickery continues in the offspring who come out so darn cute he disarms resentment over sleepless nights and dirty diapers and whose resemblance to his parents so flatters their natural narcissism that they excuse his bad behavior. And yet, even the most cynical father, raised on existentialism and punk rock, feels something more powerful than hormones and evolution surging through him when his 5-year-old gazes up and says, "Daddy, can we listen to the Ramones again?" I also particularly liked the poem Toxic Assets, which was this relentless dead pan litany of denial that lists everything we were told wasn't responsible for collapse.

[00:09:36]So, banks, brands, suburbs, consumer comforts, financial tricks until the poem reveals the real poison. A system designed to never feel consequences.

[00:09:47]It's failure without accountability, folks. A modern anti-sarm exposing capitalism's holiest sin, consequence-free living. I had an absolute blast reading this. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think who would like this? I think if you're a fan of, you know, more alternative authors like Dennis Cooper or Kathy Aka, but also anyone who just likes their poetry, weird, sexy, political, and unhinged with pop culture obsessiveness. So, let me sum up the three books that I read for this Get Real Weird With It vlog. We had In Dreams We Rot by Betty Rocksteady, which I gave a 3.5. Creepy Kitties, Plants, and Insects. Anxiety volume 1, which I gave 3.75.

[00:10:33]A bunch of talented people write hot, smart, and weird tidbits. And my favorite read, Interstellar Theme Park by Jack Skellyy, which I gave a 4.5.

[00:10:43]Forgive me, Botox Jesus, for I am horny and popnostic. That's everything for this get real weird with it vlog. Tell me, if you had to worship a celebrity as a saint, who would be your pick? For me, I would bow down and kiss the feet of Monica Belaluchcci. Until next time, stay weird, star child.

[00:11:05]>> We are the weirdos, mister.