December 17, 2024

The Magpie #010: Kung Fu Jesus

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Magpie, a wire service for the weird compiled from the open tabs of writer Alex de Campi. Here’s what’s going on:

In this issue: Snake watersports! Horny whales! Subscriber only signed book sales! Also, Christmas playlists!

First up: I have 1) too many comp copies filling up my bookcase and 2) a big money shortage thanks to $5.5k of royalty payments being delayed indefinitely due to publisher cash flow! Delightful, happy holidays to me! So if you are interested in buying signed/personalized books from me, respond to this email and we will make that happen! Price will be cover plus shipping, and I’ll even Xmas-wrap them if you want.

I have: The cased version and the softcover of Smoke/Ashes, both the paperback and subscriber hardback of Scottish Boy, both editions of Heartbreak Incorporated, some old No Mercy trades, the old Mayday trade, Parasocial, Dracula Motherf**ker!, Bad Karma, Scrapper, The Backups, some Bad Girls softcovers, and MAYBE a couple spare copies of Twisted Romance. Plus, ugh, lots of floppies and other flotsam and jetsam.

If you don’t know me at all, I’d suggest starting with Bad Karma (action/comedy, think Die Hard) and/or Parasocial (weird psych-horror, think Misery), and Dracula, Motherf**ker! (super stylish reimagining of Dracula, novella). For kids, The Backups (skews more towards girls) and/or Scrapper (works for all kids).

In the US, 2-3 books will fit in a Priority envelope ($10.45); more than that and it’s a small box ($20) OR I can send it media mail which is cheaper and slow.

Non-US, shipping will be VERY EXPENSIVE, I would advise you let me personalize a bookplate ($5) and send it to you letter rate (~$2), and you order the book from a local bookseller.

If you don’t want a book but do want to support me, you can go to the HTML version of this email and make a subscription donation there where the buttons actually show up, UNLIKE IN THE DAMN EMAIL, UGH, WHYYYY.

TABS

I shouldn’t have to say this but do not lick the ice sculptures!!!

Putting the hump in humpback: whale so horny he crossed three oceans for booty

So if you have spent a lot of time around any sort of death, you know it tends to come with a release of bladder and bowels. Yes, it all comes out at the end. Which is why you have to appreciate these snakes’ method-esque commitment to accuracy when playing dead. Look at their silly little faces!

Speaking of accurately faking your death, here is how not to do it.

Ukranian man fleeing the war is kept alive by his kitten and vice versa. (Includes photo of kitten, who is 1. unharmed/fine and 2. adorable)

New, free Nnedi Okorafor short story!!!

I am pleased to inform you that Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s incredibly inept and corrupt lieutenant governor (aka the Nude Africa guy), is at it again.

When people ask me if I want a Netflix show or film made from my work and I’m like “errr, well…”, this is why. (We watch so little Netflix now, I should probably cancel it—the only thing keeping us on there is the anime).

Sex work as a feat of endurance is unsurprisingly emotional. (Article is written by a sex worker about another sex worker). Although I read Phillips’ plans for her next feat I audibly said “girl no!!!”…

Rest in power, Lorraine O’Grady, one of America’s greatest conceptual artists.

Nothing is more 100% my shit than turn of the century (1899) book design.

Two fascinating and interrelated articles on the current horrific state of academia, from female professors—the first on the disproportionate toll of administrative labor on female professors thanks to ever-increasing use of adjuncts and male professors doing that thing where they unload the dishwasher with so much deliberate incompetence that they never get asked to do it again. The second one is on Western Europe medieval history professors increasingly being asked to teach “World Middle Ages” instead of, y’know, hiring (and therefore fostering) specific expertise in Islamic, Asian, African history in that era. In other words, DEI but make it benefit tenured white men only.

I, for one, welcome our shaolin Christian priests. (Honestly anything to get the evangelicals away from guns…)

On comfort, its weaponization in fandom, and its enduring appeal in gaming.

Speaking of comfort gaming, free hand-drawn cat trolley game you can play in browser!

Gwen Stafani is a tradwife now. I know, you’re shocked, ol’ Gwen has never before jumped on the tail end of a fetish-adjacent trend in a shameless bid for attention and continued relevance.

Bay Area food bank plan blocked because it would involve digging up a historic… parking lot. (That Joni Mitchell song was 55 years ago and I guess a lot has changed, huh)

“The longer you write, I think, the more inevitable your confrontation with the limitations of language—not just your language, but the whole enterprise. Of course my failures and struggles are at the forefront for me, but I worry I’m asking something of my writing or imagining my writing can accomplish something that no writing can achieve. This is an existential inquiry that goes well beyond style or craft, into larger questions about human behavior and communication, our responsibility to one another and so on.” Damn.

Wordpress CEO remains sad little pissbaby.

Cool: Dark comets.

Not cool: OpenAI whistleblower mysteriously dead. Sam Altman: “oh no, he died”

Yikes: “Mirror life” sounds like a bad sci-fi plot but alas it’s real

From an anthropological point of view I am low-key obsessed with the sorority and fraternity rush/system at big Southern US universities, and Anne Helen Petersen (amazing, in small doses) did a great four-part series on #Rushtok, Bama Rush, the Machine (secret but actually kind of incompetent University of Alabama society), and hazing. Starts here.

Lots of great CEO murder ballads going around (Jesse Welles’ below is probably my favourite) so on that note, here’s an anthology of Great Depression labor poetry and also my (surprisingly popular) playlist of labor and union work songs.

In actually good Christmas playlist news, I give you “Jeezus fuck, it’s Christmas!!!”aka a downloadable version of the Christmas mixtape made by the Cramps’ Lux Interior. Also a huge shoutout to the best Christmas playlist ever, Matt “Fluxblog” Perpetua’s “Have Yourself A Funky Little Christmas.”

Meanwhile, have two not-Christmas songs that go WAY harder than they have any right to:

RECIPES

I have a confession to make: I suck at pancakes. Why? I don’t know!!! I can cook many very complicated things, but a simple staple like pancakes? Woof, I’m a failure. So instead I make crêpes which are somehow so much easier—and fill them with homemade blackberry jam, or a mix of nutella and diced strawberries.

I also made this braised neckbone stew on Sunday—beef neckbones are so cheap, $5 got me over 3 lbs of them, and stew remains a great way to use up celery, parsnips, carrots etc that might be getting a wee bit bendy. I used sweet vermouth instead of red wine, as that’s what I had. Four hours in a Dutch oven/Le Creuset in the oven and the meat fell off the bone. A definite hit as a recipe, will make again.

That’s it! Until next week…

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