Winners

And the winner is:

Tao Lin!

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No.

No, not really.

The winners are Eli, who sent this photo:



And Sabra Embury, who sent a multimedia blitz, including a video and these images:







UPDATE

Here's the video:

sportzabar from Sabra Embury on Vimeo.

There are some fine, fine other entries, too, including John Synco's really remarkable, really faithful cover of Lonnie Irving's Pinball Machine, and Ryan Bradley's Shockabilly-esque cover of the same song.

Another good one is this drawing of Street Fighter's Blanka playing a Rocky and Bullwinkle pinball machine. It's by my friend Griffin:



And this video, sent by Laura Ellen Scott, of her spouse's high score dance:



All four will be receiving runner-up prizes.

Finally, here's an image from a coworker:



She's playing pinball at The College Inn Pub in Seattle's University District. I will be reading at said establishment on Tuesday, June 16. After the reading, I am hoping people will play some pinball with me and the other reading attendees. High score gets the last of the hardcover copies of the book.

Thank you to everyone who entered. I was really touched with the time and care put into the entries. All of them.

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A story of mine is in the upcoming issue of Keyhole.

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I reviewed Mathias Svalina's chapbook Play here. SPOILER ALERT: I liked it a lot.

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Next week I will actually write something for this blog! No more tedious self-promotion!

Well.

Not as much tedious self-promotion!

Also, buy my book before it sells out!

What people on Goodreads are saying about it:

Blake Baby: "It's been since certain modes of David Foster Wallace that the sincere-turned-weird felt this fresh. Memory as a map meets roadtrip as a hallway, all in Simmons's singular and truly heartening, funny, moving ways of phrase. Loved."

Mary Miller: "I read this book about a week ago on a bus from Ann Arbor to Chicago. It made the trip a whole lot better. I keep remembering certain things, like how the narrator calls himself a "carcinogen to women." I love that. The book is really cute, too, and I like that Matthew signed mine. I wish it were longer, but that's only because I would have liked more."

Evelyn Hampton: "I finished the book at work and loaned it to a co-worker and said, Read this!"

Justin Dobbs: "I learned about Jackalopes."

Pinball

In mid-May, my novella A Jello Horse will be published by Publishing Genius Press. This, once again, is the cover:



Those telephones were drawn by Adam Robinson, the man behind Publishing Genius Press. There is a scene in the story that involves a roadside attraction/museum filled with telephones. It was inspired by this place and a place in Kansas called The House of Telephones. The House of Telephones, apparently, is not around anymore.

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I used to live in Iowa City, and when I lived there I spent a lot of my evenings with my friend Eli having a beer or two. Sometimes Eli would order a Jameson Irish Whiskey with just a few rocks. Sometimes when he did that, I would do it, too. Iowa City gets hot in the summer, and sometimes this would happen in the afternoon. We'd go to this bar that had a lot of tables and lots of cold air blowing around. I had a lot of thin, short-sleeved, button up shirts that I wore during the summer. People cut the legs off their old jeans, right in the middle of the thigh, and left the longish white threads dangling.

Eli held it all together better than me. I've always been fond of indulgence. One night, though, Eli and I both got lit, and on the walk home, Eli repeatedly bumped into me in a way that was aggressively friendly, and I woke up the next day with bruises on my legs. He apologized but I didn't ask for the apology. I sort of liked that the bruises represented that Eli was comfortable with me like a person is comfortable with a sibling. Comfortable enough to be rough with them.

I also sort of like bruises. I have a couple on my forearms right now.

While we were having a beer or two, Eli and I would play a lot of pinball. I never got great, but I played pinball and enjoyed it. I started out just hacking at the ball, just doing everything I could to keep it in play, just reacting to the table. I got better when I watched Eli play and mimicked what he did: catching the ball on the flipper to slow the momentum. Directing shots at ramps and targets by figuring out when to shoot. Putting my hips into it a little. Sometimes a lot. I stand on one leg, and spin and kick at the tables legs now and then. A gentle kick, just to make the ball hop or spin to the flipper.

There's some pinball in A Jello Horse. I dated a girl who liked to stand very close behind me when I played. We were sort of dancing. And sort of not.

When the book comes out, I will be getting a very, very small number of hardcovers made. I will not be selling them, though. I will be giving them away. Let's have a contest.

SEND ME IMAGES OF YOURSELF PLAYING PINBALL. Or someone playing pinball. A pinball image of some sort. Just one of your own. I am going to collect them, rate the quality and ingenuity of the photo and create a sort of lottery. My favorite photos will receive higher scores and more chances to win the lottery and win a hardcover copy of A Jello Horse. I will post the photos (or whatever you do...an image, you know? Drawings are acceptable. Little movies, too) on the blog unless you don't want me to. I will pick winners the last week in May. So send them before that. Provide links to huge files if you have huge files.

There will probably be two winners. I may add other prizes, too, for photos I really, really like. Honorable mentions

That's it. Send them to

happy cobra books

at

g

mail

dot

com

(Remove the spaces from happy cobra books. Just one word.)

UPDATE

Also a possibility: Sing me a version of Lonnie Irving's Pinball Machine. Here are the lyrics

I'm an old hog-hauler, I drove a big truck
I shot the pinball machine, but it caused me bad luck.

Put all I ever made in a pinball machine
I'd get four catty-corners, then I'd miss the 16.

I wish they'd outlaw them old pinball machines
Many weeks they have caused me to live on sardines.

Last time I called my wife on the phone
The first thing she says, "John, when can you come home?"

"I got a load of hogs and they've got to go
I'll see you when I get back from Chicago."

She says, "John, you know I love you, I wish you wouldn't go
Send your babies some money, they are hungry and cold."

The last thing she said and then she hung up
"John, you give up my lovin', just to drive an old truck."

I made my trip on to Chicago
I was gone two months, 'cause I shot up my dough.

When I got home my family was gone
The best friend I had, rung my telephone.

He said, "John, I guess you wonder about your babies and wife?
Pneumonia got your babies and your wife took her life!"

I lost all my friends, I can't sleep for bad dreams
I dream about an old truck and a pinball machine.

***

BTRMLK MTN by Gene Morgan available for a little while for free.

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I like bright stupid confetti a lot.