Carlton Mellick III

Last night, some authors from the Portland bizarro scene went up to Olympia, WA for a reading event at the Tortoise Butler Arts Hotel. The Arts Hotel is also known as a Black House. In Olympia, there is a Satanic dentist who owns a lot of property, all which he has painted completely black. It was pretty fun to read in one of these Satanic dentist houses. A perfect place for a bizarro event.

In the Portland bizarro crew we had: Daniel Scott Buck, author of the bizarro children’s book “The Kissing Bug,” Cameron Pierce, author of “Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden,” Jeff Burk, editor of “The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction,” Eraserhead Press publisher Rose Okeefe, bizarro artist Angela Molinar, and myself.

From Seattle, Afterbirth Books editor Karen Townsend was there as well as Gina Ranalli, author of “Sky Tongues.”

We also met Olympia resident and bizarro newcomer Kevin Shamel.

Jeff, Cameron, and I did a lot of drinking in the woods:

Then we did some readings. Closing the performance was the second installment in Cameron Pierce’s Meat Magick series.

The Meat Magick shows are completely bizarre, disgusting, hilarious, and very uncomfortable to watch. They are also difficult to explain. The closest explanation I can come up with is a deranged puppet show that uses meat/food products instead of puppets.

This is what the floor looked like after the performance:
(but imagine this covering the entire room)

Here is a picture of a pancake with a face:

The Meat Magick shows always have a raffle and the winner gets something totally awesome like a free book. Well, this time the winner got a can of pork and beans. And two eggs.

The winner, bizarro newcomer Kevin Shamel, is pictured here at home the next morning, getting ready to enjoy a breakfast of two eggs and beans.

In the end, I learned that burritos with mashed potatoes and bacon are pretty good.

This entry was posted on May 17, 2009 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Bizarro Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.