Finally, you can hold FLAPPERHOUSE in your tender little hands, flip our pages, and smell our pulp!
Our first four issues have been collected in the paperback anthology FLAPPERHOUSE – Year One, available for $18 US:
You can also purchase single issue paperbacks for $6 US each:
FLAPPERHOUSE # 6 (Summer 2015)
FLAPPERHOUSE # 5 (Spring 2015)
The very first paper copy of FLAPPERHOUSE #1 is now for sale in a silent auction!
Email your bid to FLAPPERHOUSE at gmail dot com. Highest bidder as of the stroke of midnight on August 1, 2014, will be mailed this historic piece of Flappricana.
Shortly after we first read Mariev Finnegan‘s “CRYONICS,” we knew this story had to be the grand finale of our premiere issue. It throbs with so much of what we want in FLAPPERHOUSE: surrealism, shadow, sensuality, satire– not to mention added bonuses like psychosis, psychedelia, silliness, sci-fi, and sexual metamorphosis– all blown up to glorious, apocalyptic proportions. (Apocalyptic not as in death & destruction, but from the Greek meaning “uncovering” or “revelation.”) We hope it opens a door or two in your mind, or at the very least, takes you for a spin on a delightfully bizarre trip.
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THE FIRST DEAD HEAD TO BE THAWED from Cryopreservation was a rich guy, big ego, big head. Bob Nowatchick (Ick, for short) was an autogynephilic transsexual, a narcissistic disorder in which a man is erotically obsessed with himself as a woman. Krystal did not exist, but Krystal was the only woman that could satisfy Bob. He/She were the ultimate evil: Complete unto themselves. Loved no one. Screwed each other.
Krystal, a dark wisp of a girl, developed an ego, became judgmental about that slob, Bob. His diet of fast food, his drug-use, his constant anger– directed mostly at women– all disgusted her. Also, his conservative fashion sense made her real edgy: Their wardrobe consisted of pressed tan slacks and casual sweaters. Because of him, that prick– he had no vagina, no womb– she would never have a child.
So one Labor Day, Krystal murdered Bob. She committed suicide by cop when he tried to have her arrested for raping him. From up in the bell tower, Krystal shot badge number 911 dead. The return barrage of bullets destroyed their heart, but left the head intact.
Bob had paid a huge amount of money to preserve the head, which was removed from the grossly-overweight body, and frozen with the hope that resuscitation and healing would be possible using highly-advanced future technology.
Then, in all probability, Bob would get the death penalty for murdering a cop.
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Now, 16 years later, the large head, wrapped in foil, is removed from a holographic space chamber and placed on a laboratory table to thaw, because it can now be cured of brain death and brought back to life. A team of professionals attach an artificial heart and lungs, as well as electrodes and monitors. Never before has anyone been brought back after being cryogenically frozen. There had been discussion about Larry King being first, but they decided to begin with the last one frozen, because it’s the freshest. And if they mess up, who’s going to complain? It’s the head of a condemned man.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar goes public with many spiritual questions concerning the reanimation of life to a head: “Does the mind need the brain? Is our consciousness simply the result of brain function, the firing of neurons within a nonlocal consciousness? What happens when we die? Is the mind separate from the body, having its own eternal existence?”
The head scientist on the project, Dr. Franklyn, tells the public, “We are about to present scientific proof that life is a physical component of the brain, that identity can be restored by contemporary medicine, by restoring life to this head, this brain!”
{ X } Continue reading “CRYONICS” – Fiction by Mariev Finnegan
J. Bradley is as talented as he is prolific: His surreal yet poignant work has appeared in scores of publications, and we were immensely flattered to include four of his poems in our Spring 2014 Issue. We posted one of those poems (“No More Poems About Resolutions”) back in January; now we’re very flappy to present “A Highly Magnified History,” “When a Poet Wants to Date You,” and “Yelp Review – Total Wine.”
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“A Highly Magnified History”
Chairs strain to support
the weight of want.
Mannequins shed felt
and wood, leaving sundresses,
blouses on skeletons;
they refuse to flap against
the artificial air.
“When a Poet Wants to Date You”
The mortuary sits on the coffee table,
nondescript. You think the cover
would be made of his skin, her skin.
He slaps your hand for accusing
his love of hemophilia;
the wine never clots.
“Yelp Review – Total Wine”
There are shelves of organs waiting to be pickled with special occasions. Pick a name like a rose to clench or to cast into fire, water, or wind. Pick how you will revise a memory, what desert to costume your tongue with; forgiveness is something you can never drown in, no matter how hard your lungs want it.
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J. BRADLEY is the author of the graphic poetry collection, The Bones of Us (YesYes Books, 2014). He lives at iheartfailure.net.
The spiel of a dotty, highly-caffeinated, eerily chipper employee at an absurdly morbid vacation ranch is the basis for Phyllis Green‘s “The Thrill of a Lifetime,” one of the many flappery lits in our Spring 2014 Issue.
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WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST DAY OF VACATION! You’ll have the thrill of a lifetime. We have 36 acres to explore and there are yes, 36 of you SOOOOOOooooo you each begin with a whole acre to yourselves. Just you and those gorgeous gleaming yellow backhoes! Yes you will be trained to drive a backhoe, first thing we’ll do. Now you all look great in your hazmat get-ups! All I can see are little men in white coats-oh oh! And white pants and white foot coverings! Of course the ladies are all in white too. And let’s not forget the little tikes on vacation. All right! Now, you all okay with those plastic helmets? Remember, ask one of my assistants if you are the least bit unsure of the fit or feel. We want everyone comfortable. There is pure mountain air filtered into those protective headgears and rest assured we have not had one accident over someone not being able to breathe or getting hysterical or anything like that. They are perfectly safe. There will be no odor for you to worry about, just pure fresh mountain clean air going into your precious lungs because that’s how we do things here at the Rocky’s Ranch, your ultimate vacation. We promise big results, a truly happy week of exploration and lots of fun party things planned for the evenings. You’ll love this unique vacation and want to come back every summer! Guaranteed!
Now let’s get down to business and not waste another minute. Hope you all had a delicious breakfast? Good! Wasn’t that bacon crisp and tasty? During the morning you’ll have a coffee thermos in case you are a coffee addict like me. And you little kids who look so excited to be driving those huge and I mean huge yellow backhoes– well we have a lemonade thermos for you tikes. So everyone will be hydrated, right?
Let’s take a look at your graphs. Everyone pull out the graphs. See the 36 acres, and can you all see where your own particular acre is? If not, hold up your retriever (make sure the sharp point is not pointed at yourself!) and my assistants will come by and show you your specific acre.
Now we have marked what you may locate on your acre. Besides the usual cantaloupe rinds and peach pits and other things folks throw away in their garbage cans, there are treasures here. In Acre 1 for instance, that is where the darling little Tacy Jones’ body was tossed in a dumpster and deposited. Now most of Tacy has been found, all except for her two eyeballs. And her parents are willing to pay big bucks for either one or two eyeballs, and then there are the collectors and they really have big bucks and don’t forget the horror museums that are popping up everywhere, they have millions to spend. So who is on Acre 1? Raise your long-handled spike, that’s your retriever. Okay, that looks like Johnny Kacinski. Johnny, you find an eyeball or two and if they belong to little Tacy– oh and we do have a DNA lab right on the grounds here– then Johnny, you are going to be rich! Yes, folks, let’s give a cheer for Johnny! Continue reading “The Thrill of a Lifetime” – Fiction by Phyllis Green
A cloud of “unspoken violence” hangs in the air above Tom Stephan‘s “Reach,” a poem which resides in that alluring and mysterious locale known as the hotel room. “Reach” is just one of 19 very flappery works of literature that you can read in our Spring 2014 Issue, now on sale for 3 measly American dollars.
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I REACH ACROSS THE BED
And keep reaching
Sheets like virgin dunes
To where you should have been on the shore I could not see.
The hum of guitar strings
Or violins
Or sympathetic sitars
with a bit of wounded care
I strain across vastness and you are never there.
Is there some key that unlocks you?
In the golden light of cheap curtains
In plastic hotels and crunchy pillows
Some hidden lever to move our lives together?
I packed the room today
Sat at the edge of the bed
Listened to the shower drone overlong.
And you are naked and wet, and at my side, saying are you ready—
Yes, I’m ready.
The air is thick
Industrial cleaner and bleach
And unspoken violence
You dress for the execution; I will fire point blank into your heart.
We toss the keycards on the floor
and shut the door behind us.
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TOM STEPHAN is a Texas native who has spent a little time being a bit of everything: teacher, actor, playwright, writer, traveler. When he’s not doing any of those things he’s living in Austin and eating well. He has a BA in English, an MFA in Acting and has a curious collection of hats and suspenders.
Another day of uncanny happenings at the Flapperhouse bathroom:
Today at the Flapperhouse, we discovered something peculiar in our basket of bathroom reading:
“Angels Howling in the Trees” is a sketch from an American girlhood in the disco era, from the barbed yet soulful pen of Misti Rainwater-Lites. It reminds us of a clip from some punk rock Wonder Years where bitterness & nostalgia roll around on the carpet pulling each other’s hair. It’s also one of the many multi-flavored literaries you can read in our Spring 2014 Issue, available in full for 3 bucks.
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IN THE HOUSE IN THE TOWN THAT WASN’T SEYMOUR or Bridgeport but somewhere in between, somewhere forgettable, another ugly bump in the Texas road, Merissa slept or did not sleep in a canopy bed in a bedroom she shared with her baby sister. One night Maternal Grandmother was visiting and she was sleeping with Merissa in the canopy bed but Merissa kept getting out of the canopy bed and tiptoeing down the hallway and getting into bed with the mother and the father. Maternal Grandmother would come get Merissa and bring her back to the canopy bed and Merissa was restless and unhappy but didn’t know why. Merissa looked out the window from the canopy bed and saw the trees in the backyard and she could hear angels howling tangled in the black branches. The angels voiced the despair she was too young and mute to name.
“Will the angels always howl, Ava? Will I always be searching for the warmest, most hospitable bed?”
“You are cursed, niece. I hate to be the one to tell you the truth.”
Buddy Holly was on the stereo and The Newlywed Game was on the television and Merissa was in love with John Travolta as Tony in Saturday Night Fever and when she played house with her least favorite cousin, Sonny’s big sister, she learned what it was to be female because the cousin pretended to be talking to John Travolta, Merissa’s husband. Continue reading “Angels Howling in the Trees” – Fiction by Misti Rainwater-Lites
Luis Galindo‘s “The Puddle of Romeo’s Tears” is our favorite kind of heartbreak poem: bitter yet playful, melancholy yet comic, graceful yet naughty. And it’s but one of the many savory slices of lit you can read in our Spring 2014 Issue, on sale for just $3.
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WHY DIDN’T YOU RETURN MY HOWLS
Last night
Under the moon’s silver chains
And pink undergarments?
Were you busy? Were you washing
Your hair in the tears
Of half-assed Romeos
In the unrequited evening?
I was there
Under your balcony
Wearing a green snake-skin
suit that I bought
from the Our Mother of Holy Agony
Thrift store on the corner of
Mistake and Trust.
While standing there
And howling, I could see
The sign of the manufacturer
Of the fire escape under your window.
Stamped into the cold dark steel:
Dirtyfuckinglie, Inc.
I stood there for hours with
A love poem I had written
The night before on a napkin
From our favorite Chinese restaurant.
I had planned on reciting it
To you, at midnight
But it was too late.
You were
Not There
You were
Elsewhere.
Continue reading “The Puddle of Romeo’s Tears” – Poetry by Luis Galindo
FLAPPERHOUSE 