SCAB is an online literary/art journal for all things twisted, pornographic and queer. And so on.
Without any further to add, first I’d like to present you with the now available second issue which you can read and/or download here: https://scabmag.wordpress.com/issues/
As, obviously, I wouldn’t be anywhere without the generous and super talented contributors who sent their mind-blowing works in, I feel like the least I can do is listing their names and letting everyone know that hey, they are writers/ artists/ persons whose creations are worthy of close attention. So here goes: Alistair McCartney, Daniel Stewart, Dóra Grőber, Douglas Payne, Elytron Frass, fishspit, Fratolish Hiang-Perpeshki, Gale Acuff, Geoffroy C. Dedenis, Gerard Sarnat, Glen Armstrong, Hana Pera Aoake, Howie Good, Jennifer Greidus, Joan De Bona, Josh Ivey, Justin Holliday, Kier Cooke Sandvik, Kristin Garth, Lily Ruban, Mark Ward, Meeni Levi, Mick Rose, Natalie Crick, Nate Lippens, Nicholas Alexander Hayes, Omer Zamir, Paulo Doms, Raymond Luczak, Robert S. Costic, Shane Allison, Sylvia Beato, Thomas Kearnes, Will Stockton.
And now: a tiny collection of actual scabs – as a foreword of sorts. (And it IS a tiny collection because I had to make the surprising and – in this case – unfortunate discovery that it is extremely hard to find satisfying photos of scabs!)
If you’d like to become a part of SCAB, submissions are now open for Issue #3 which comes out in September 2018: https://scabmag.wordpress.com/submissions/
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your interest and support! Really. Truly.
It means the world to me.
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p.s. Hey. ** I’m super happy to be able to employ the blog today to help christen the brand new issue of SCAB, the exciting lit-plus site/mag produced and edited by the awesome Dóra Grőber. Dóra has devised a kind of entryway for DC’s readers. Please do examine it and then rush inside where indicated. And please also give Dóra a shout-out of some kind today in the commenting arena to show that you’re here and care, thank you very much! And thank you gigantically, Dóra! ** JM, Howdy. Ha, that is nice. That inscription. My mom was into Kahlil Gibran. He used to be so big when I was young. He was viral before it was possible to be viral. But this is the first time I’ve seen his name in yonks. So soon on ‘Moonfleece’. Do you get inordinately nervous? You never sound nervous, but prose can be tonally untrustworthy. The work sounds really interesting. I hope you hit everything. Always interested to hear more. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi, Dóra! Hooray for SCAB, and, really, I’m so thrilled to be re: it like that guy at **** hotels who opens the front door for everyone. I don’t know what’s up with my cold. It’s very into teasing me, rushing in and then pulling back, very sneaky. I can’t tell if I’m going to get to semi-skate through it or if its just doing a reconnaissance mission looking for the right place and time to plant the bomb. I did work some, never enough. I went to a reading by Christopher Bollen, visiting American writer whom I’ve mentioning visiting with before. That was nice. I conferred with Zac on biz and other stuff before he went south to visit his mom for a week. Not much else. Well, I hope the spotlight on SCAB helps makes your day a most excellent one! How was it? Is your cold giving you brush off for sure? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. That reminds me I should look and see if your old Chereau post still has enough working components to give it the revival thing. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Yeah, I really don’t know what that guy was referring to. Just trolling, I guess. I think I was over The Cars by the time ‘Heartbeat City’ came out. I don’t remember it. Ever since Ocasek produced GbV and helped give them their one almost hit ‘Teenage FBI’, I’ve been meaning to do a Cars reevaluation. The name Superorganism sounds vaguely familiar. Hm, sounds kooky. I’ll take a dip. Thanks! ** Jamie, Top of it, Jamie! As I told Dora, my cold is sneaking around in me acting schizo and furtive. I’m grateful to be mobile, but I don’t like the suspense. My day was okay, work, talk, listening (to a live reading by a writer), mild business-related drama, sunshine, a lollipop. Oh, damn, I hope you got sleep and that ‘little sick’ has turned out to be misinterpretation of something ephemeral. That is some mom. Had she done that today, she could have been prosecuted for abuse or at least shamed on social media until she committed suicide. The script is inching along waiting for me to put its pedal to the metal. How’s your script going? May your today go triple platinum. Wiggly love, Dennis. ** Wolf, Wolf! No sugar?! No, that’s good. Don’t need sugar. Now bean paste, that I need. Oh, I’ve meaning to say that, if you don’t know, Bene will be in London showing a bunch of her films and videos at Horse Hospital on Thursday, and you maybe should go if you’re free and into it? Info. Yeah, those inscriptions were strangely good, right? Who needs Artaud? Oh, that is spooky. If your mind wasn’t such a non-stop thing of wonder I might say see a doctor. Beckett, no kidding, genius-central that guy. Weird, right? I mean genius is weird, like you said. Weirder than LSD. The snow is so, so gone here. It’s basically spring. Nothing against spring except that it lubricates the arrival of hateful summer. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. Nice, the Anger inscription. I think my fave signed book is a personally signed copy of Robbe-Grillet’s ‘Recollections of the Golden Triangle’ where he wrote, in French, the French equivalent of ‘To Dennis, a writer after my own mind, Alain’. Something like that. Oh, err, about the redundancy payment vs. benefits. Can that be … challenged? Is it worth challenging? There were about six huge shows at Palais de Tokyo, and that was one of them. Yeah, I don’t know, honestly, it left me wanting. It’s fashion week here, and the PdT is always home to a number of related runway shows, and I went to the PdT with Zac, and, until he noticed the wall text for the GHL show, he thought it was just a set for some upcoming fashion presentation, and I have to admit I knew what he meant. But I could easily have missed out on something. ** Bernard, Hi. Ha ha, nice. I have a copy of Foucault’s ‘Madness and Civilisation’ signed by Keanu Reeves, but that’s not nearly as fun. ** Misanthrope, That’s cool. I honestly didn’t remember it until I was fishing in the graveyard looking for zombie candidates. Really big, like Andre the Giant big, additionally crossed fingers for you that the bill for LPS’s transgressions isn’t bigger than a dent. I can imagine you florid. Nobody thought I could be florid until I was. Oh, OMD. They are or were playing here recently, and I generally avoid 80s, etc. band reunions like Celine Dion concerts, but when I saw the poster for the OMD gig, I thought, ‘Huh’. That should be fun. They were honestly a quite interesting band, I think. ** Kyle, Hi, Kyle! How’s it, sir? Glad you dug the post. Well, you can send stuff when you like, but I know it’ll take me a while to get to it. Swamped. That’s weird: when you wrote ‘Doctor Faustus’ I just assumed you meant the Thomas Mann novel, and then I spent a strange amount of time trying to figure out how Marlowe could have read it. Silly me. I’ve never read Marlowe. I’m super weak on the really old stuff. Sounds pretty awesome though. Hm. ** Right. Go back to celebrating the new SCAB and linking yourselves away from here into its nefarious and thrilling realms. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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BRAVO DORA!
You really must read Marlowe, Dennis. He famously said “Those who do not love tobacco and boys are stupid.”
Here’s Derek Jarman’s version of Marlowe’s “Edward II” (hope this link still works)
And here’s a piece on the recently published love letters of Albert Camus and Maria Casares
Thank you!!
Hi!
Dennis, thank you so so so so so so so so so much for this opportunity again!!
Jesus, I hate when a cold does that! I really hope it doesn’t decide to plant the bomb at all!
Otherwise, though, everything sounds pretty nice – especially the reading!
The spotlight on SCAB does make my day an excellent one! I’ve already received the first few submissions for the third issue! I’m also writing a lot today and though the paragraph (or whatever it is) isn’t in its final form yet, I’m pretty satisfied with parts of it.
How is/was the day on your end? I hope you get better ASAP!!
Congrats on Issue 2, so far it looks DISGUSTING. ????
Haha, thank you! I hope it stays that way!
I did some more research on Superorganism, and their lead singer actually is a teenage girl from Tokyo who just graduated high school. Out of their 8 members, one is a Korean-Australian girl who still lives in Sydney, apart from the rest of the group. Their song “Everybody Wants to Be Famous” is currently getting airplay on American “alternative” radio.
I liked the reunion album OMD released last year, so they might be good live, although I’d expect they’ll play the hits.
I will check out SCAB.
Dora – this looks fantastic, can’t wait to have a deeper look.
Dennis, Scott Barley is really interesting, thanks for the intro, and I really enjoyed the inscribed books (for some reason my favorite was “I hate Bill”). But really I wanted to comment on ‘Nobody Likes Them’ which was really masterful I think and reached new heights as far as the visual flow and continuity maybe. I’m so happy when you give us one of these, thrilled about Zac’s Coral Reef
Thank you so much! I hope you’ll like it!!
Hey Dora Grober, I downloaded the latest issue last week and so far have utterly loved every bit of it that I’ve read/looked at. It’s a great journal. Thanks! I love ‘twisted, pornographic and queer’. I did have to scroll through those scab pictures at speed however, as they made me squeamish.
Hey ho, Dennis.
What kind of lollipop did you have?
I loled at your comment about the nice Wild Boys gifting mother being harassed to the point of suicide in today’s environment. But it’s funny cos it’s true.
I’ve hit a strange point with my script, I think possibly due to cross contamination, as I’ve also been working on the proposed web series that I’m going to do with Hannah’s sister. I’ve been imagining the dialogue for the new project being delivered by her, which is cool, but it’s made me worry about all the dialogue written so far for Eddy’s Head, as I’ve not really written it thinking about a solid human speaking it. Do you have any hints or tips for dealing with dialogue? I know every project will be so so different, but any tricks or ways to approach things that you’ve gleaned would be much appreciated, if you feel like sharing. I started looking online but it’s all too shitty and ‘How to Write Great Dialogue!’. I want my characters to sound flatly conversational.
I forgot to say that I thought ‘busseters’ was some quaint old Americana term and liked it a lot. I was reading it as ‘they who bussett’ rather than bus-setters. Nice invention.
I hope your cold has faded into nothingness, as the bad guys in horror films never do but I’d pay ‘good’ money to see that film.
May Thursday feel like that annoying guy with the bongos has just been thrown out of the party.
Papoose (not the rapper) love,
Jamie
Hey,
Thank you so much! I’m really glad you like the issue! I’m sorry about the post, though, haha!
I know a few people who’ve read The Prophet recently, so Kahlil isn’t totally dead! Just read the first issue of SCAB, nice. Totally the type of place for people here to be checking out, I dug almost all of what was in it….
I’ll be nervous in the week leading up to the show, but right now I don’t feel too bad about it. I’ll be nervous when we finish the first show too, we’re still so unsure of what this show is going to ‘be’ for our audiences. Especially given the bans in the UK.
Dennis, D! See, the trick is, no added sugar does not mean no sugar – sometimes they specify ‘naturally occurring sugars only’. You know, like in orange juice, which is basically liquid sugar anyway.
Yeah, I know about Bene’s thing, I will try and go, and I thing Marc too although he’s got the opening of his students’ show that evening.
Summer, hateful? D, my friend, we’re such opposites when it comes to weather, I’ll never be able to understand you. I want very cold winters and very hot summers. Maybe we can make a swap? I’ll send all the mild days your way and you can pass over those extreme mofos. Deal? Meanwhile, tell that cold where to shove it will you? Stare at it in the mirror and say, with no hesitation in your voice ‘oy, mate. fack orf yeah? just fack orf’.
Dora, how super awesome and exciting! I’ve been eavesdropping here on your long labor of love as you put this thing together and holy shit you must be so chuffed! I will definitely check out the first issues; what I’ve seen so far is super promising!
Ah, thank you so much! I’m super proud and happy indeed! I’m really glad you like what you’ve read so far! It means so much to me!
Hi Dora
Gross! But great. Congrats on the journal!
Hey DC
How are you? Sorry I’ve been off grid for a bit. Things have been kind of hectic here. And rainy. We’re you hit by the snow?
Have a good one x
Thank you so much!!
Lovely resurrected post yesterday on inscriptions, will attend to SCAB Another topic of interest for me is “inclusions”, stuff left in used books like letters, train tickets, etc. Nicholas Royle has a blog section about this: Lovely resurrected post. Another topic of interest for me is “inclusions”, stuff left in used books like letters, train tickets, etc. Nicholas Royle has a blog section about this: http://www.nicholasroyle.com/white-spines Doing a presentation on video game photography tomorrow for my uni’s postgrad research conference, spinning off of that post I did for the blog some time ago. Will share when it’s online 🙂
@ Dora, congratulations on the new SCAB, I’ve scanned through the contents of this issue and will be back for a closer look over the coming days. I’m really in awe of what you’ve got going on here.
Thank you so, so much! I hope you’ll like what you find on closer inspection!
Hey Dora – I love this post. An eye-popping collection of scab images and videos. Appreciated how succinct it was and a nice way to introduce the latest issue of SCAB. The contents look impressive and looking forward to reading it over the coming days!
Hey Dennis – I’ve been reading Duras’ The Ravishing of Lol Stein and the opening chapters reminded me so much of how Joan Didion narrates and structures her novels, esp. the later ones. It’s really uncanny. Have you ever read about any influence there?
How’s your work coming? Any updates on the secret project?
Hey, thank you! I’m glad you found the actual scabs great too, haha! I hope you’ll like everything you read later!
Hey Dora – super congrats – great accomplishment! (don’t know that you’ll see this, kind of late here in NYC)
Dennis, don’t want to speak too soon, but what a day I had! Just when I was ready to give up, an agent invited me into her office today – and our meeting (with 2 interns) was so much fun, like a party, lots of laughs. She’s going to give me a definite answer by Monday, but wants to get the rights for film and translation on Secret of the Red Truck, which is already out. She was a big fan of that book. Her intern read the first 100 pages of the new novel and loved it! Just thrilled, though it’s not a fait accompli yet. I should probably shut up for now, haha. Thanks as always for all your encouragement. Love, Happy Kyler (for now anyway)
I see this and I’m super happy! Thank you so much! (It’s mid-morning in Hungary right now.)
great web site but I wish it showed people pulling the scabs off 🙂