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I can’t not smirk even when I look at the cover: how tongue-in-cheek the design is, recalling something like the 1870-whatever edition of Paradise Lost I found in my hometown library in high school, This is what a distinguished piece of literature looks like. There’s even a multitude of date stamps on the inside cover’s checkout card.
I think that’s why I find this collection so endearing, not just for the quality of writing but how through so many details the Anthology of Etiquette and Terrifying Angels With Many Heads, the new free e-chapbook from NAP, calls attention to its own unlikeliness of existing, and the absurdity that it actually does, reveling in it with total sincerity one second then riffing on its own ridiculousness the next. And please don’t think by “ridiculousness” I mean “stupid.” This thing is smart. I just mean the kind of ridiculousness James Tadd Adcox mentions in his Editor’s Note:
I want to thank as well all of the writers who were willing to contribute work to this anthology, taking it on faith that such a strange book would ever exist.
Matt Bell’s “When Taking a Terrifying Angel With Many Heads As Your Lover” reads like a sex ed manual for Mormon teenagers from an alternate universe, or a flawlessly proper yet strangely sensually comfortable governess administering a heavenly rite of passage into adulthood, at times boxing your ears for your gross impertinence. It’s kind of brutal and totally hilarious. The reader gets constantly reminded of their own childish inexperience and insignificance before their lover:
If asked where you would like to sit at the pre-coital dinner, do not reply smartly: “At the right hand.” But if you do say this, do not also giggle and try to slide the terrifying angel’s own right hand into the drop of your lap. The terrifying angel with many heads is deadly serious about his duties, and will not enjoy your casual nature.
Another one of my favorites here is Joseph Scapellato’s “Thomas Jefferson,” in which said president lives through some dream-within-a-dream mash-up of one of Aesop’s fables and Jesus’ forty days of temptation in the wilderness. Throughout the story, Jefferson repeatedly “wakes up” from a progression of dreams in which he is taking part in typically Jeffersonian pursuits—reading books on a variety of subjects, inventing new machines, etc.—hoping to meet the morning as he does every day, only to find the morning absent:
Always they had shared an understanding, matching roles they donned each dawn like masquerade halfmasks, costumes that enhanced rather than concealed their character. Always he had woken into morning and met it with patience, contemplation, and productivity, qualities that came from and were homage to the morning, qualities that when given returned threefold. He headed for the highest hill, his beaded moccasins turning water, the trim of his smoking robe sweeping tips of grass, his ivory hair-queue loosening with every step. Behind their old clear understanding he began to sense a darker and still older etiquette, artfully opaque, something like a dream that the morning had woken the world into, a dream that for however senseless it seemed was shackled to its own chilly iron logic.
Eventually Jefferson encounters a series of surreal temptations to betray his faith, not in any god but man’s ability and desire for fairness and enlightenment. He repeatedly rebuffs his tempter, the Redcoat, but their exchanges become surreal and unhinged to the point that it seems hard to think that even Jefferson’s genuine love of reason and orderliness could ever overcome the increasingly nightmarish world around him. Disorder claws at him, including in the form of a terrifying angel with many heads of his lovers, and we pretty much get that Thomas Jefferson is screwed. Here, absurdity is not out for laughs, it’s trying to kill the third U.S. President. Scapellato handles this fucked up morality tale or Bible story or whatever you want to call it with clarity and efficient description—there are just enough monsters present to imagine how many more might be lurking around the corner.
Also check out Vouched contributor Amber Sparks’ reflection about being a terrifying angel with many heads’ long-term platonic, silent companion waiting eons to hear it speak, and Colin Winnette’s story about a terrifying angel with many heads who is also the mother of an uneasy child with rumbling blood, and this chapbook’s many other lovely and unsettling and terrifying heads, - vouchedbooks.com/
James Tadd Adcox does not nap. Throughout the night, for many nights he was visited by ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future. Since he didn’t learn about the meaning of Christmas a couple of polite but firm ghosts met him. When this failed to teach James anything a couple of terrifying angels visited him and scared the hell out of him. For thanks (and to avoid retribution) James created this collection based off of those experiences. Each piece, whether poem, story, or illustration, uses proper etiquette and pays respects to terrifying angels with many heads.
Megan M. Garr orbits a foreign city, taking samples. Her life as an internet angel is admirable. Plucking people from obscurity and analyzing them is a beautiful, wonderful thing to do. From afar one can see everything. Up close vision can be obscured.
Caroline Crew instructs one how to live. Rather than end days, she extends them. God is the light, angel believe this strong. Some get touched by angels. Everyone is holy precisely once in life. When that happens varies from person to person.
Russ Woods paints the portrait of a terrifying angel as a sad employee of a combination Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins. There is a reason Das Racist never wrote a song about that place. People who go there go there to ease pain. Here the terrifying angel is sad, hating its job, hating its life. At least it is blessed; at least it is an angel with a car.
Matt Rowan stays in a law firm. This law firm protects him from evil. One side etiquette, the other side terrifying angels with many heads, the two work together. For some reason etiquette took him to an amusement park. Both sides have worked together since 1976 to prevent further evil from befalling the world.
Colin Winnette has an unusual family. On one hand there is the thoughtful, caring father who loves gravy. The other parent is a multi-headed, heat-bearing beast known as ‘mother’ to Colin. Unfortunately family eating time is ruined by a need to see. Poor Colin doesn’t want to see his lovely, hideous, caring terrifying mother.
Poncho Peligroso slows down time to the pace of molasses. An entire moment takes three single seconds. Yet everything happens in those three seconds. Baklava gets ripped a new asshole in this highly riveting tale. Too bad Baklava has no outlet to defend itself, condemned to be consumed by a girl with little interest in it.
Michael Czyzniejewski recalls a life of the sick and twisted angels. There they wait for something to happen. A note has been sent. Nobody ever reads the note. Rather they decide to eat pieces of wood with a blond haired man. Eventually they are totally doomed due to their ability to consume and process wood.
Joseph Scapellato knows a lot about Thomas Jefferson. The guy did a lot for America. Chilling down in Virginia he read all these books and built chairs. Often objects transformed into naked ladies for Jefferson. That’s because he was so eloquent. Much of the story deals with Jefferson trying and failing to grasp onto reality, onto the morning, to believe in something, anything.
Davis Schneiderman explains etiquette the only way he can: through the wisdom George Washington referred to in his greatest days. Here Washington’s copy is occasionally changed or edited to Terrifying Angels with Many Heads. This deconstruction of civility appears to be most foul and impolite. Whatever though, Davis is no George Washington.
M Kitchell wants a love, a love beyond nostalgia, of the here and now. Here he lies next to someone on a bed, on a beach, for some people the two are one of the same. Sadly the angel no longer flies. Up does not exist for fallen angels. To soar is no longer an option for those who want to stay here on Earth with the beloved living. Zero holds everything and holds nothing. Used latex condoms are the new balloon animals thanks to the recession.
Matt Bell discusses the proper etiquette is wooing terrifying, multi-headed angels. Apparently they are not the best of lovers. However they are trying. They still have time. Perhaps before all that is known and unknown ends they may make sufficient sweet lovers.
Prepare for the finale, the heavens on high to fall upon the Earth in a dramatic, literary fashion for this overwhelming spectacle. - beachsloth.blogspot.com/
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