A farmer has found six dead sheep with broken necks and eyeballs removed. Daniel Alford, of Devon, found four corpses laid out in a square. Two others were near stones and apparently arranged to make a pagan symbol. Mr Alford said he believed occultists could be responsible. Devon and Cornwall Police said the incident is being investigated.

Mr Alford found seven sheep killed and left in a circle less than half a mile away near Tavistock in January…

The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of the pragmatic system known as Tactical Magic. A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts…

Two new songs by Curiosity Valentine, for free streaming or mp3-buying.

Melissa Gira

“The orgasm is not the destination. Orgasm is the origin.”

My old friend, the comics publisher and historian/ambassador/curator Paul Gravett, has launched a personal site to host his writings on the form. This will quickly become essential.

I love the end of the film version of NAKED LUNCH. When Peter Weller, as William Burroughs, is crossing the Interzone border, he’s stopped by guards, who ask him his occupation. He tells them he’s a writer, and they ask him to prove it. So he draws a gun and turns to Judy Davis, in the back seat, telling her it’s time for their William Tell act.

Because, in Faulkner’s words, writers must kill all their darlings.

– W

posted on
THE ENGINE

For most people, self publishing is an expensive hobby. More power to you. But don’t pretend or promote the idea that it is a wise economic decision, because it is not. Almost everyone who self publishes in print loses money. It is highly speculative, and much of your chance for financial success does not rest with you.

It is fortunate for those who began self publishing with their first mover advantage in the 1970′s and early 1980′s, when the market was growing, because then a creator could earn enough money to build inventory for GN publication and financial capital to finance it. But almost every book in print was taking severe sales losses by the mid-1990′s, and comics that once sold 60,000 copies were selling 6,000 copies. The party was over. Even old stalwarts of self publishing were finding big time publishers to protect them from the financial fallout.

My biggest mistakes were, ultimately, my final decision, but to me, self publishing is simply a choice about the market, not a choice that has a whole heck of a lot to do with the work itself. I am publishing at Image, and I prefer it. I get paid when I am supposed to. I don’t make much money, but the book gets done. That’s all I care about…

Matt Fraction
goes to the sumo

While more discerning Sumo snobs might scoff at a fight-card with but three native Japanese combatants surrounded by the pudgiest pugilists the Former Soviet Bloc Countries have to offer, the mood on the street crackles with electricity scented more of crispy, crispy bacon than of the usual ozone and urine.

All of New York’s ironic obscuro-sports aficionados will testify that tensions outside the Garden feel more taut than a wrapped thong diaper as Torsten “Der Todespringer” Scheibler, Gold Medal winner in last week’s Osaka Sumo Tourney and 418-pound flab of fettesau fury and Deszo Libor, the Hugongous Hungarian and Osaka silver-taker, prepare kick the sacred sand and slap the sacred man-teets, twin towers of power not even the ladyboys of the Taliban can knock down.

Unfounded and debunked rumors claiming that Levan Altunashvili, Jondo Dabrundashvili, and Levan Ebanoidze do not hail from the Republic of Georgia but rather from the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, spread like wildfire this afternoon before the truth shone through…

Tropical storm Alpha has formed in the Caribbean, making 2005 the busiest hurricane season on record.

A parrot that died from bird flu in UK quarantine did have the H5N1 strain that has killed at least 60 people in Asia, the government has confirmed.

Just a reminder: if you’re making music, and you’d like me to listen to your work with regard to being included on an Apparat Programme, you can email me mp3s at warrenellis@gmail.com. I’m listening to everything I’m getting, and, with the intent to produce a Programme every Friday, I’m going to be burning through stuff pretty quickly…

Theory Anesthetic strikes again, with a new piece of gorgeously warm and langourous experimental ambient called “Alpha Waves.” Stream it or buy it for one Yanqui dollar.

(Remember; if you’ve got a PayPal account, doing the Bitpass thing to buy music on Mperia is dead easy. It also takes credit cards. The smallest Bitpass token you can buy is something like $3, and it’s pretty easy to use up on Mperia alone.)

A parrot that died in quarantine in the UK has tested positive for avian flu, the government has said.

The Apparat Programme broadcast at ninety-six kilobits per second in broadband 2: sleepbotulism or: I got sent a lot of ambient music

(34.11mins) (22.7MB) (direct download)
Pick up The Apparat Programme automatically via podcasty thing or fucking iTunes using this address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Apparat

All music donated to the Programme by the artists. The running order for Programme 2 is:

“Kolminaisuus” – Älymystö
“Wat13″ – djk
“I Am a Broken Bank Vault” – Glossolalia
“The Static Of Thought” – Maciej Stankiewicz
“Pre-Emption” – Antiguru

As of today, the Apparat Programme has 314 subscribers. Programme 1 was also direct-downloaded 1,623 times. Direct downloads of previous Programmes: 1

In Harlan Ellison’s GLASS TEAT, he records a time (1969? My copy’s in the attic library and I’m not going up there right now) when a Los Angeles police chief, Tom Reddin, became a news anchorman on LA television. Which is, in and of itself, a bizarre enough notion to throw at you tonight. But there’s more.

Within the format of this news show, according to Ellison, was located a segment entitled THE REDDIN REPORT. And, from memory, I believe Ellison notes that the graphic for this segment was a screaming American eagle.

Now, anyone who’s stolen from the interweb watched THE COLBERT REPORT will have noted a screaming eagle within the title sequence.

Impossible request: has anyone got any images from this antique tv show, industry videotape copies of which would probably have dissolved by now? In particular, that eagle graphic?

The US military has launched a criminal investigation into alleged misconduct by its troops in Afghanistan, including burning the bodies of Taleban fighters. The move came after an Australian TV station ran footage of what appeared to be US soldiers burning the remains.

The act of burning corpses is regarded as a sacrilege in Islam.

The SBS television footage begins with a warning of disturbing scenes, particularly for Muslim viewers.

It opens with shots of an American PsyOps unit using loud pop music to try to flush out the Taleban – who banned music when they ruled the country.

The most shocking footage in the film shows the corpses of two presumed Taleban fighters laid out facing Mecca and then being burned in what the reporter, John Martinkus, describes as a “deliberate desecration of Muslim beliefs”.

Later footage shows two US soldiers reading from a notebook messages which they said had already been broadcast to villagers.

“Attention Taleban you are cowardly dogs,” the message reads. “You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing West and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the ladyboys we always believed you to be.”

A Pentagon spokesman said that, if true, the claims would be “very troublesome”…

People are now emailing me to request more bums.

I don’t know why I let your utter moral turpitude continue to surprise me.

I have no more bums.

Queries in relation to the motion picture, television and new media industries should be directed to:

AGENT: Angela Cheng Caplan, Cheng Caplan Company, angela@chengcaplanco.com

MANAGER: Aaron Michiel at aaron1050@aol.com

Queries in relation to publishing should be directed to:

AGENT: Lydia Wills at Paradigm
19 West 44th Street
Suite 1410
NewYork
NY 10036

212-391-1112

lwills@paradigmny.com

– W