And then my poor meatball / was nothing but mush.

Posted by Jeff on Sep 30th, 2010 in News | 0 comments

Hey, I’m always one to admit when I’m wrong.

Or almost always. Like, 97% of the time. As in, when I’m absolutely sure I cannot refute anybody else’s arguments.

I thought I had completely sold out of all copies of Guilt Pasta, my 2007 chapbook. I had no immediate plans to reprint it, which implied that they were, in the sing-songy words of every two-year-old, “Aw gawn!”

But then, Burning Effigy Press editor-in-chief Monica S. Kuebler found four unsold copies somewhere at the bottom of her suitcase or something. She brought them to Word on the Street this week… and sold two of them.

That leaves two. I have them. And they’re still for sale. If you hurry, you can buy one of them.

Right now.

Don’t all rush at once now, people.

Here’s the official description, from the Burning Effigy website:

Recipe for Guilt Pasta:
Mix equal portions of Spiderman, Roger Ebert and Ernest Hemingway. Stir in a pinch of the Ugly Duckling and a dash of the girl who broke your heart. Now add a sadistic army brat who clobbers mice with hammers, a jailed sex killer who feels bad about neglecting a parakeet, and an obnoxious co-worker who won’t shut up about his fantasies of turning Canada into a fascist regime. Blend well. Serve immediately.

Result: The third chapbook by Toronto’s notorious spoken-word satirist, Jeff Cottrill. This new collection of short stories and monologues combines quirky characterizations, black humour and offbeat cultural references in a way you won’t soon forget. Exploding nerds, bad cockney accents, a journey to the afterlife, lots of very good beer… Guilt Pasta has something for everyone. (Best recommended with lots of parmesan cheese.)

Not only that, but it has a really funky blue-and-yellow cover designed by Brett Bakker.

A certain J. Blackmore of Broken Pencil magazine wrote that Guilt Pasta was nothing but angry, pretentious, arty garbage, and that I was an a—–e for having written it. I was amazed that he could give such a strong opinion of the chapbook without actually having read it.
(Seriously, there was absolutely no evidence in the review that the dude had read more than two pages of the book. The only specific reference he made from its contents was to a silly, throwaway Hemingway parody stuck somewhere in the middle — and he completely missed the joke. And it’s not like it was a subtle joke. That’s the effort you’re getting from your neighbourhood book critics, kids.)

On the other hand — here’s what a couple of people who actually read the chapbook thought of it…
U.K.-based novelist/poet John Stiles
Toronto writer/critic Carolina Smart (scroll down to near the bottom)

So there.
You can buy a copy of Guilt Pasta by going to my page at Coffeehouse.ca and clicking the little orange button under the cover thumbnail that says “Buy Now”. Or… you can just wait until the next Toronto Small Press Book Fair. But they may be gone by then.

And now, to close, I’m going to post another goofy Alfred Hitchcock video. Because I can.

Best. Trailer. Ever.