According to Factual Science Magazine, bugs outnumber other types of animals on planet Earth by a ratio of 842,738 to 1. And yet if you see a movie or read a book with animal characters in it, chances are the story’s about adorable mammals, or wacky fish, or wise-cracking birds. If the story does happen to involve bugs, they’re probably portrayed as disgusting villains.
So in the interest of species equality, we have devised the FLAPPERHOUSE Bug Test, which asks: In any story involving animalian characters, are there multiple insectoid or arachnid characters? And if so, do these bugs do more than just ooze slime everywhere and otherwise terrify the non-bug characters?
In our preliminary research, we have discovered very few stories that ace the Bug Test; this short list includes Aesop’s “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” the 1996 MTV-produced film Joe’s Apartment, the Jerry Seinfeld vehicle Bee Movie, and the three films from 1998’s Cartoon Bug Craze (Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, Dreamworks’ Antz, and 20th Century Fox’s Buggin’ Out!!!). Regrettably, far more stories do not pass the Bug Test, including renowned works such as The Metamorphosis, Starship Troopers, The Fly, Charlotte’s Web, Babe: Pig In The City, and The Adventures Of Milo and Otis, to name but a few.
Henceforth, we will apply the FLAPPERHOUSE Bug Test to all works submitted to us for publication. Although we will continue to publish works which fail the Bug Test, we will limit such stories to two (2) per issue; after we hit that limit, we will only publish animal-based stories if they portray our spindly-legged friends in a respectful manner.
FLAPPERHOUSE does not want unsolicited submissions right now. We are, however, still currently open to pre-elicited transmissions.
We’ll probably change our mind someday. After all, as the brilliant M. Wolfram Powell famously said: “To change one’s mind is to embark upon a journey into what must be; never to change one’s mind is to fly upon the back of a cranky pterodactyl.”
When we want unsolicited submissions we’ll want stories that are relatively short, ideal for subway & bathroom reading. We’re primarily interested in the genres of Psycho-Mythology, Biographical Mystery, Historical Rebus, Quantum Leap Fan Fiction*, Dystopian Southern Gothic Young Adult, Erotic Political Satire, and Culinary Espionage.
* Remember, FLAPPERHOUSE will be published once per Earth season, so avoid making any Quantum Leap Fan Fiction too “current-eventy.”
The Fall-Back Hour is one of the most magical hours in the entire 4th dimension, and yet so many people seem to sleep right through it. If you’re still awake when we repeat 1 – 1:59 AM at the end of Daylight Savings Time, look at all the amazing things you can do and see!
1. If you perform a palindromic act during the Fall-Back Hour– for example, writing in pencil for 30 minutes, then spending the next 30 minutes erasing everything you just wrote, moving backward from the end– you will open a wormhole that leads to a Möbius Strip Museum.
2. If you fall asleep during the Fall-Back Hour, you will dream you’re in a labyrinth filled with flying jellyfish.
3. All TV broadcasts aired live during the Fall-Back Hour will appear on DVR recordings as old PM Dawn videos.
4. Analog timepieces cannot melt during the Fall-Back Hour, no matter how long you burn them.
5. If you get 2 copies of The Flaming Lips’ ZAIREEKA and play all 8 discs simultaneously during Fall-Back Hour, you’ll create a 4.3-magnitude Timequake.
6. If, during Fall-Back Hour, you stand between two mirrors that are facing each other and you don’t look into them, the ghost of a pineapple farmer will tell you a joke about fleas.
Dorothy Parker, Jorge Luis Borges, and HP Lovecraft walk into a speakeasy. Louis Armstrong sings “St. James Infirmary Blues” over a rusty phonograph. Behind the bar, Salvador Dalí pours absinthe into a hubcap full of peanut butter and raw macaroni, and he stirs the mixture with the antler of a live moose.
“Four martinis, Sally,” says Parker. “Plus whatever the boys want.”
Borges excuses himself to the basement in search of the restroom. He must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere because before long he’s lost himself in an infinite labyrinth full of shelves with mirror-spined books. He starts to imagine what stories these books contain, and how he might review them.
Back upstairs, Josephine Baker dances in sensual ecstasy on Fritz Lang’s table while he peeks at her sideways through his monocle and pretends he’s not aroused. René Magritte paints himself painting them both through a castle’s window. Apples hover before their faces.
The ghost of Franz Kafka’s in a corner, leaning sharply against the wall. Lovecraft spots him and approaches, timid yet determined, as if helpless to confront his most horrifying fear. ”What’s it like?” Lovecraft asks, referring to death. Kafka’s ghost replies only with facial expressions: First with what seems like laughter, then a grimace like he might cry instead, and finally he shakes his head to say no, I really shouldn’t tell you, no. Lovecraft sits and stares at the floor for a while.
“We are neither living nor dead!” shouts TS Eliot, raising a glass of gin. “And we know nothing, looking into the heart of light, the silence!“
Parker’s sipping her second drink when she finally notices the ants crawling from the stem of her martini glass and onto her hand. Fucking Dalí, she thinks, as she swats and squashes as many bugs as she can. Kafka’s ghost can hear their screams.
She holds her cameraphone in front of her face: bemused, rankled, heartsick, yet almost drunk enough to be tickled by it all. Once she’s got enough good madness framed in the background, she sips, clicks a picture, and posts it to Instagram, caption, “Just another night at the Flapperhouse… #thirsty”
At the request of our readers, we are herewith presenting our “definition of a Flapper”:
FLAPPERHOUSE 