The Little Book of Bitchy Thoughts
by Elizabeth Fairlight
The Pongid Press
Copyright © October 2011
ASIN: B005YUD5D0
272 KB
Amazon Kindle $2.99

ABOUT:

The Little Book of Bitchy of Thoughts is medicine for the Modern Age, straight from the cauldron of Elizabeth Fairlight. The author serves up a stinging philtre of pithy observations, acrid humor, and even the occasional honest aphorism.

Quotes from the book:

If your child says, “Hey, lady,” to get the attention of a sales clerk, you’re lower-class. If your child says, “Excuse me, Ma’am,” then you’re middle-class, or higher. This is an infallible indicator.

‘Washington, D.C. is the third-world capital of a first-world country.’

‘Opera is only vaudeville with attitude.’

‘I’m always amazed by admonitions to love thy neighbor. Once God wises up to the fact that not everything on this Earth is worth loving, he would become a smarter God. It would be better to say, ‘love thy neighbor, if thy neighbor is worthy of it.’

REVIEW:

Anyone who has enjoyed the wit and sarcasm of such greats as Oscar Wilde or Groucho Marx will definitely enjoy Elizabeth Fairlight’s The Little Book of Bitchy Thoughts.  It takes a certain intellect and, of course, a smart sense of humor to be able to read it and appreciate it the way it was intended.

There are numerous quotes divided by such subjects as youth, class, fools, adulthood, marriage, children, lawyers, arguing, the arts, places, makeup, science, sports, drugs, and age. Enough to keep your toasts at parties witty or your email signatures baffling.

Rather than being rude and untactful, almost all of the quotes make you stop and really think about it, long enough to want to reread it a few times or even commit it to memory.

My favorite is a longer quote about writing: Writers who do what they’re expected to do–namely get their MFA, then stay in the university system to teach and produce literary fiction–will always write timidly. If you’re a writer, supporting yourself with odd jobs is better for you, but not just because you acquire more interesting source material. It’s important because what it indicates about your personality. Independent writers live and write with greater courage, and they create greater works of art because of that courage.

Only available on Kindle at the time of this review, Fairlight’s Bitchy Thoughts is worthy of a look if you need some laughs or even some enlightenment.

Having read and reviewed James Hutchings’s Two Fisted Tweets I have to say that Mr. Hutchings is a master at microfiction. Able to tell a story in 172 characters or less in order to meet the Twitter guideline in TFT, Hutchings now treats his readers to longer pieces of work (but not too long) and poems in his new book called The New Death and Others.

Hutchings relies heavily on the use of anthropomorphism (look that one up!) and personification, giving human qualities and voices to abstract states and inanimate objects which presents many of his stories in almost a fable-like storytale feel that relies heavily on tongue-in-cheek humor and irony.

You’ll stop and scratch your head and ponder the meaning of many of his twisted little tales, or laugh out loud at the silliness which is exactly what Hutchings intended.  Here is an author that enjoys puns and jokes, and obviously enjoys entertaining others.  There are even foot notes in some of the stories which actually turn out to be additional jokes.

There are numerous poems throughout the book, many of which were inspired by other famous authors’ writings.  Definitely good reason to seek out the works he’s cited so that you can compare them and discover Hutchings’s meanings and reason for inspiration.

Here is one of my favorite short poems:

If My Life Was Filmed

If my life was filmed, it would
go straight to DVD
and someone who was famous once
would have the role of me
and if five stars meant ‘excellent’
you’d give it two or three
and most of those who rented it
would watch ironically.

Years later they would track me down
and do an interview.
They say “I heard you died,” and I’d
say “Yeah, I heard that too.”
“Is any of it fictional?”
“Perhaps a scene or two.
There weren’t as many ninjas, but
the rest is mostly true.”
If you are looking for some light, interesting reading and wish to be entertained (and don’t mind a lot of cats), The New Death and Others is worth a look and worth the buck!

Kanapolis Fog Publishing Emporium (October 2009)
$ 5.95 Paperback
$ 1.99 eBook
146 pages

Reviewed by Linda Welch, author of Along Came a Demon and The Demon Hunters

When Henry watches news of a coup in the small territory of Jartanzia and sees (what could be) the picture of a hedgehog, he knows the end is near. He dispassionately murders his mother and takes off for a secret rendezvous. After all, when the world as we know it is in ruins, she’ll be dead anyway, because when the dust settles only members of the Underground Hedgehog Revolution Network will survive. Via their website, Henry—a member for 15 years—has been providing information to the Grand Hedgehog. He’s pretty sure he’ll get a Captaincy, or even governorship of one of the new states.

So begins Elmore Hammes’ Not Fit For Human Consumption, with a cast of fully-fleshed-out characters, each with their own story and personal agenda, in some way involved in the fate of life as we know it on good old planet Earth.

We meet Henry again as he flies to his destination and follow his obsession with a beautiful fellow passenger as he becomes convinced she is his soul-mate. I enjoyed Henry’s imagination as he endows her with glowing attributes and schemes to meet her. Unbelievably, his plan actually works, and I waited for him to tell her about the Hedgehog Network and ruin his chances. But that conclusion would be obvious, and Hammes does not do “obvious.”

Hammes calls his book a comedic farce, and it is indeed funny; but farce is often associated with the superficial, while the human characters engage you and have depth. I can’t say the non-humans have quite the same depth, but it’s a close thing. They do have history and personality, which makes them real, and not as far down the food chain as we like to think.

Mr. Jamison is a dedicated teacher of 25 years, musing on his life past and present and trying to figure out what motivates his students. Alice mourns her dead husband, but discovers she was not the only woman in his life. Morgan Stanwyck is a survivalist who knows something bad is coming.

Some are bystanders dragged in from the sidelines. You won’t want to miss the fate of t-shirt guy.

Then there is the ironic tale of young Brandon and Jacob, who concoct and implement a plan to convince two girls that the world is coming to an end and they must go into the family’s shelter (built by Dad for when the clock struck 2000 and everything would stop working) They just want to get laid. The irony is, the story the boys tell is not far-fetched.

Peter the cockroach calls his fellow roaches together to tell them they should rule the world. Unfortunately, only Sarah joins him in his quest for world domination, and that’s because she fancies him. Loretta the rabbit escapes her cage and forms an unlikely friendship with Mittens the cat. Lazarus the super-rat was abandoned in a laboratory.

And Arax the Annihilator, who is NOT a nice guy. Arax comes to Earth from another dimension with one objective, to destroy our world. Nothing can stand against him. Or so it seems.

This is well-written, well-crafted storytelling, a really fun read with a clever finale. Believe me, when you finish this book, cockroaches with aspirations will not seem bizarre. Read it. You won’t be disappointed.

Preview Not Fit For Human Consumption

Paperback Cover

T’Aragam
By Jack W. Regan
CreateSpace (April 2009)
ISBN: 978-1442114593
252 pages
$11.95 Paperback
$ 0.99 Amazon Kindle

Jack Regan captured me from the get go with his young adult fantasy T’Aragam, which is aimed at the tween age group (9-13). What was it that captured me and made me want to keep turning the pages? A cheese obsessed medgekin, named Gramkin Truly. I am a cheese lover, and couldn’t resist phrases such as: “I have a high cheese requirement.” and “In the name of Gouda.”

T’Aragam opens with the medgekin, Gramkin, running through the woods toward Ransome Hall on an important mission to obtain cheese to supply for the annual medgekin games. It is the first time he has been in charge of supplying the cheese, and because of the aforementioned cheese requirement, Gramkin had eaten the medgekin supply. He was hoping to acquire some cheese from Ransome Hall as the medgekin games had been played for a millennium with no lack of cheese and he would be disgraced should he fail to provide. While he is running through the woods, and being laughed at by chucklebugs when he falls, he becomes alarmed as it appears that someone is following him. On the verge of panicking, Gramkin runs in to Zohar, a great wizard, who is also on the way to Ransome Hall to deliver news of disaster which approaches T’Aragam.

Kindle Cover

T’Aragam takes the reader on a fast paced adventure beginning with Ransome Hall being attacked by phantors. During the attack, thirteen-year-old Max Ransome, watches his father, Lord Ransome, die because Max disobeyed his father’s instructions to stay in the armory. Orphaned and a pawn in a game whose stakes he did not fully understand, Max has to save T’Aragam from destruction. Assisted by the wizard, Zohar, and the medgekin, Gramkin, Max travels beyond the confines of Ransome Hall for the first time in his life. He finds himself in battle against Zohar’s evil wizard brother, Zadok, who was behind the phantor attack on Ransome Hall. Zadok is determined not to stop until the kingdom and all it contains is his.

Regan pens an adventuresome tale sure to capture a reader’s imagination. I laughed out loud through much of the book, as the action is interspersed with humor. What tween could resist such names as Lord Stench from Dankwater, or the pirate Captain Baggywrinkle? Or how about monsters named Gloom and Doom? We also meet the viscious equuraptor named, Dresden, and the sea monster named, Bob. In fact, the humor in the piece is taken to such a degree that I would classify this book as a fantasy parody or spoof. A prime example of this is the following, which takes place at the Luscious Lemur:

    Leading the way inside, Zohar shut the door behind them and bolted it. A hat rack stood left of the door and the wizard leaned his staff against it. To Max’s surprise, he then removed his beard and also hung it on the hat rack.
    “I don’t really have a flowing, white beard,” he explained, seeing their curious faces, “but it seems most people expect wizards to have them and without it people refuse to take me seriously. So I put it on whenever there’s a chance I may need to perform wizardly deeds.”

Regan’s main goal is to Get Kids Hooked On Reading by making books exciting and attractive. He believes that a “fluency in reading” is vital to a young person’s development and success, while “a love of books is one of the most valuable gifts anyone could give a child.” With T’Aragam, the first book in the Max Ransome Chronicles series, Jack W. Regan achieves his goal. A delightful, fast paced read, with enough humor to entice the most reluctant of readers, T’Aragam hits the mark.

Preview T’Aragam on Amazon.com

I do not remember the last time I read a comic book or graphic novel.  I wasn’t much of a comic geek back in the day, although I did enjoy my Garfield and Far Side collections in between classes in junior high, and occasionally read Archie just because my best friend did.  But when Ellen Lindner queried us with her graphic novel, Undertow, I jumped at the chance to read it because it was something different.

The description of the book on Lulu reads as follows: Undertow by Ellen Lindner gives us a close-up view through the back door of Brooklyn in the sixties—with all the delinquency, drugs, and trips to Coney Island that implies. Beautifully drawn in sinuous, sharp style, Lindner’s characters, and their fight to do more than survive, are unforgettable.

This description is also printed on the back of the book as a quote from Jessica Abel, author of La Perdida and Artbabe.  The quote is a good sell, but is correct in stating that much of these themes are only implied.  The delinquency and drugs portion are only briefly explored or mentioned, and were not issues that I drew out of the theme on my own.  The story follows a girl named Rhonda who seems a bit bored with the events life has recently handed her.  Her mother is an alcoholic, her best friend has just drowned, and her brother is not very sympathetic.

Like many comics, the storyline plays out as if you are overhearing a conversation from another room.  You are only treated to the important parts and must fill in the gaps in between for yourself.  The visual appeal of drawings definitely helps and entertains, but I felt some of the characters lacked introductions and overall substance.  For instance, there’s a social worker who wants to help Rhonda, but his storyline doesn’t seem very important to Rhonda’s conflict until the very end.  Also, Rhonda is present when her friend, Estelle, goes missing but does not seem too upset about it in the next chapter. Instead, she acts a bit like a zombie and is distracted with textbooks and choosing a career. Unfortunately, I didn’t really embrace Rhonda as a heroin in the story.

However, I did embrace Lindner’s vision of a 1950′s New York.  Coney Island is a magnificent setting for parts of the story, and my only regret is that I couldn’t see Lindner’s work in color.  The entire book is in black and white. The scenes on the beach when Estelle goes missing and later when Rhonda is hanging out with her friends and playing cards are quite beautiful and Lindner has done an excellent job of portraying emotion in her characters. Throughout the book Rhonda occupies herself by practicing the Cha Cha, and there is a nighclub scene full of vivid attention to detail.

It is obvious from reading Undertow and from looking at   Lindner’s website that she is a genious when it comes to her talent, and I definitely look forward to seeing and reading more from her. She is a brilliant illustrator and deserves much success.  If you can appreciate a good classic comic, then Undertow is definitely worth a look.

You can view a preview of Undertow at WebComics Nation.

Or leave a comment on this review if you’d like to win a copy of Undertow.  One lucky reader will be drawn at random.  The winner will be announced on August 8th. U.S. residents only.

It’s interesting that Life’s a Gas was published on the 25th Anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because it will appeal to the same, slightly ‘off’ sense of humor as the Guide but it includes more modern innovations as cell phones and Eminem. It also has a bit more implied (and actual) sex, usually with holograms or shape shifting aliens, so don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

You’ll probably even recognize the premise, chronically repressed Englishman caught up in an inter-Galactic adventure to save Earth from destruction. However, it’s not like a cover band playing a Led Zeppelin classic, Life’s a Gas is its own story. In this case, the main character is named Colin instead of Arthur, so that’s different right there. For me, the humor isn’t in the slapstick situations as much as the clever turn of a phrase such as this gem:

It was a warmish Friday night – the birds had just sung their last song, put away their hymn sheets and were now tucked up in the trees with a nice hot cup of cocoa.

I also liked this bit of philosophy regarding Colin’s boss:

Now, lest you think Colin was being a bit cruel, it should be pointed out that Neil was a crap employer, a very crap employer… He was bored and boring. He was a hippie. He was also a hippie who had made money, the worst kind. Just look at Richard Branson.

Colin gets whisked away from his mundane existence by his roommate who isn’t really a bad comedian named Gregg but is in actuality a space traveler named Syd who hasn’t traveled through space much. However, he has a nice spaceship that one accesses by getting a keycard to the local port-a-potty.

The door slid open and there was a narrow walkway about a hundred yards long which ended up at a shimmering silver grey ship – the third most beautiful thing Colin had ever seen. The ugliest thing Colin had ever seen was the walkway.

When they enter the ship, Colin discovers that Syd has configured his room to be exactly like his room on earth, complete with his dirty clothes and his goldfish, Eddie.

Colin arrived at the door and noticed Syd had installed a doorbell just like the one at home. Colin pressed it, it sounded liked the home one too – like a bee caught in a pensioner’s colostomy bag.

Other interesting characters include Blossom, another earth woman with an uncanny knack for getting hired for desk jobs, her best friend (and Colin’s love interest) Sally, and Scatter, the onboard computer from a spaceship Colin and Syd use to escape from the Bureaucracy Robots seeking to make the Galaxy conform to the code book. There is also Komfort, the shape shifting nymphomaniac alien whom we meet with this description:

‘Oh really! Do be careful there, I’ve just had these manicured.’ The disgruntled alien pointed to his feet. Manicured was probably a bit strong, unless the manicurist had been a blind lumberjack. There was pink nail polish there, but most of it was over his toes. A small proportion had made its way onto the actual nails, but more by luck than judgment.

It is descriptions like these scattered throughout the book that give it the charm and feel reminiscent of The Hitchhiker’s Guide. If you’ve read the whole series of books by Douglas Adams, Dave Holland’s book will have the comfortable feel of a favorite sweater to you, or perhaps a well traveled towel. While it’s not the same, it FEELS the same, and from my perspective that’s a huge compliment to Dave Holland and his writing style.

I also enjoyed the differences. There is a soundtrack to this book, an ebb and flow of music from the ubiquitous Beatles to T. Rex to Randy Tinglebush. What? You don’t recognize that name? Randy is another character that stops by for a cameo, think of Tom Jones but more willing to get out of Las Vegas to see the rest of the galaxy. And possibly the President of a planet.

My only complaint about Life’s a Gas is the pace. The first 100 pages or so serenely meander from English pub to charmless flat to space and back again. The last 70 pages get in a hurry and drive towards the finish more like the Enterprise going to warp speed, complete with the descriptions of the stars turning into lines on the view screen. I guess my complaint is more of a compliment, the book left me wanting more. More time spent at the space station, more time spent on the red tape capital planet of Cowncil, and more time hanging out with my new friends, Colin and co. However, based on the ending, I suspect more will be forthcoming.

If you enjoy English humor with some sci fi thrown in for good measure, if you enjoy going along for a journey where the ride is more important than the destination, or if you’re a Randy Tinglebush fan, you will enjoy Life’s a Gas by Dave Holland as thoroughly as I did.

I’ve always been a fan of the single panel cartoon ever since the days of Larson’s The Far Side.  As a child, along with reading the Sunday comics, the three single panel cartoons in the back of the Parade magazine were also required reading.  Nigel Sutherland, one of the UK’s top cartoonists, is a master at such humor and has collected over 200 of his cartoons in this book published this year through Lulu.

Most of Nigel’s cartoons focus on the baby-boomer generation of married couples….wives going to the beauty salon or out to a restaurant with their husbands.  There are quite a few involving marriage counselors or couples standing at the alter.  A wife and her best friend make sly comments while standing over the husband sleeping in his recliner.  Customers stand at the the complaint desk or in the grocery store making dumb comments…”Is it two for the price of one or buy one get one free?”

Nigel has captured quite a few of those “Duh!” moments that each of us has probably experienced or thought of at some point in our lives, like standing at the ATM machine only to have it laugh at us and say “You want how much?!” or “Don’t spend it all on beer this week!”

Even better, there are some of Nigel’s cartoons that don’t even require words to get the joke across…a clown with over sized shoes waiting in line for a shoe shine, astronauts in space watching mail being dropped in through the mail slot on the door, someone in a theatrical supply store picking up a container of “canned laughter,” an elevator packed full of people in a sardine packing company.

The book is printed in a 6 x 9 size with two panels on each page.  I would have like to have seen this book in more of a square size with only one panel per page.  While the two cartoons on each page don’t relate to one another, I can see where there might be some confusion among some.  Even printing the book side ways as a 6 x 9 with the pages having to be flipped up might add some unique style to the book as opposed to the traditional 6 x 9 format.  But no matter what, the physical book itself does not distract from Sutherland’s classic cartoon style and humor.

Sutherland’s humor is both clean and adult.  There’s quite a bit of “across the big pond” humor that you might find yourself Googling to get his point, but overall Loads of Cartoons is a nice collection of comics for adults who need a laugh. There’s a bit of everything here for everyone to enjoy passing around in the office or to just pass some time on a long trip.

Well done!

The stressful thing about a recession is this, you and I can’t do much about it. When crying and hand wringing have run their course, there is only one other option – laughter. Jungmin Joo’s second cartoon book on Lulu is called Need a Bailout and it reflects the world around us in wickedly clever cartoons.

You will find all the themes of the day here, the housing bubble, the bailout, job loss, corporate greed, and the relentless pursuit of the dollar. The cartoons rival those you’ve seen in the newspaper and it’s a given that one or two will end up tacked to the walls of your cubical.

Joo’s work has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Sun, Women’s World and other prestigious publications. As I read through his book, I wondered what the next page would bring and found myself laughing on a number of occasions and thinking on many others. If you enjoy his book, you can also check out his website at to see some more samples. I especially liked the car salesman telling his client that the car was ‘packed chock-full with anti-accidents.’

The price of this collection can’t be beat, it’s especially cost effective as a download. I appreciate Joo’s approach to the recession and life. If you can’t ignore it and can’t fix it… laugh at it.

For a camera enthusiast like me, there’s just something about the feel of that magic black box with lense and flash in hand.  In college, I spent my loan refund on a $400 35mm Canon Rebel SG and a love of photography was born.  Last year, I snatched up a digital Canon Powershot on sale at a Circuit City that was going under.  I love it because it still has that big bulky feel of my old 35mm.

Most people these days are all about convenience.  They prefer the palm sized snapshot matchbox cameras with only two or three buttons.  Heck, even cell phones have cameras now.  But not me.  I’ll take my two handed SLR and a tripod anyday!  There’s just something about it.  Susan Littlefield knows what I’m talking about.

Susan was an office manager for her local cable company for 32 years.  Always the first into work each day, she went into the kitchen to make the morning coffee when she slipped on a spill on the floor one day.  She fell forward and hit her head on the sink and was knocked unconscious for six hours.  This resulted in a brain injury causing Susan to have to retire from her job exactly 32 years from her date of hire.  Despite her family taking a financial hit by now having to rely on only the income of her husband, Susan also suffered from speech problems, depression, and memory loss.

Susan’s husband presented her with a DSLR camera one Christmas, but mastering photo taking was not an easy process for her.  Three major issues that Susan still deals with because of the accident are short term memory loss, difficulty multi-tasking, and hardships with trying to learn new things.  Susan would dutifully sit for hours listening to CD’s on camera operation, lighting, settings, focus, etc. only to forget everything when she picked up the camera.  Obviously, Susan becomes frustrated easily but fell in love with the camera despite all the difficulties.  It was the advice of her youngest son which led to a new hobby.  Her son suggested that she photograph the miniature 1/2 inch people from her husband’s model railroad.

She began with sight gags: a man fighting waves in a Cherrio raft or hikers climbing boulders of dog kibble.  Soon, she began adding witty puns to the photographs.  After posting several photographs at www.jpgmagazine.com, someone commented that Susan should put her photographs in a book.  Susan was pointed in the direction of Lulu and her book, It Doesn’t Hurt to Laugh, was born.

The book is a collection of 34 of Susan’s best snapshots. At first glance, you definitely appreciate Susan’s clever photos of “little people” interacting with large everyday objects like spools of thread and fruit, but you might miss the tongue-in-cheek play on words that accompany each photo.  There are often two or three puns in each phrase, some more obvious than others, such as a couple standing between a few giant mushrooms with the caption, “After a hallucinogenic trip through the wood, Psylla sighs, “been fun, Gus.”  My favorite is of a few people seated on top of one of those cans of air used to clean your keyboard, riding “Can A Da Air.”

The sharpness and clarity of each picture is very in-depth.  While Susan calls herself a novice with the camera, it is obvious that she applies great care and attention to detail and lighting when shooting her subject matter.  The railroad people also seem to be naturally reacting to what is taking place in the photo, such as a man hunched over in one photo and pulling a rope attached to a large clam shell.  He has “pulled a muscle.”

Another of my favorites is not even available in the book, but was posted to the JPG Magazine website by Susan on New Years Day.

Jim and Susan spent New Year’s Eve in the darkroom but nothing ever developed.

Another, published to the site late last year, pretty much sums up my thoughts on Susan’s hobby and her book.

Sam strived to take unique and different photographs; this time he was really on a roll.

Susan Littlefield is definitely on a roll!  Despite JPG Magazine falling on hard times and shutting down just 5 days ago, I know there is a photographic outlet somewhere out there just waiting for Susan’s talent.  Whether it be greeting cards or morale boosting posters for office walls, Susan has potential to accomplish great things.  Her Lulu book has barely scratched the surface!