Big Pinch World
A chapbook/zine made with scissors, paste, staples and now (whoo, check it out) pixels
Charles Bukowski once described himself as “story-naked in a big-pinch world.” As fate would have it, “Pinch” is my nickname among those in the family who recall a personality-forming childhood incident that took place while my grandmother was dressing me for school. I don’t want to talk about it.
“Pinch!” my favorite uncle screeches today when he sees me at gatherings, chance meetings in public places – anywhere, really. He delivers the greeting in a falsetto voice almost identical to my grandmother’s, and almost as high pitched as my outcry, when she snagged an important part of me in the teeth of that zipper on a long-ago morning. “Pinch!” the old lady trilled. Then she put her hand over her mouth and wheezed with laughter. Beware the grandmother.
Thus, Big Pinch World seems right for an amateurishly produced, poorly focused, stapled mess of pages recounting the glories, defeats and wonderments of my life now and in bygone days. Theme? Nothing overt. You might say “childhood” or “family” but you’d be talking about pretty much everybody’s theme, day in and day out, the background music of each person’s life. And some of the stories wouldn’t fit.
Maybe the next one will have a theme. Next issue of BPW, I mean, not the next life. Or maybe, if this one turns out painful, tedious and hardly worth repeating, there won’t be a next one. Issue of BPW, I mean, and maybe life too. Which brings us, as you knew it would – we’re almost done with the intro! Thank God – to why I’m doing the chapbook, zine or whatever it is. I do have a reason, kind of.
Like most things in life, there’s more desire in it than reason. I want to tell a few stories, mostly true if not factual unless otherwise indicated. Self-indulgent? Obviously. But I think some of the tales might turn out to be stencils of a sort, albeit imperfect ones. While the details of my life vary from yours, a good story might offer “some aspect of the writer’s relation to the world: a metaphor that can be potentially re-experienced and become meaningful to the reader,” as Stephen Dobyns put it. Maybe. It’s what I’ve gained from other peoples’ stories, anyhow.
In the hard copy of BPW you get essays, one piece of fiction, even a “found” poem on the back cover. Some of it’s cobbled together from a journal and some I just sat down and wrote like I’m always doing. The whole project was great fun. Oh yeah, especially the part where you fold an 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper in half and then try to figure out which of the four resulting two-sided pages will end up at which positions in the completed product. I’m no good at math. I still think I might have screwed it up.
Should you have anything nice to say – or a story to tell – please write. Should you have only bad things to say (such as, “Man, if you wanted to reduce the painful-and-tedious quotient, you could have left out the intro”), don’t bother. Have mercy. A kid who gets his gender-signifying member stuck in a yanked zipper at age six pays most of his dues at that moment, in my opinion, laughing grandmother and all. Of course, it only got worse.
Randy Osborne
“A landmark collection of fierce truth and humor.” – Kim Stafford, director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Ore.; author of The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft, and many more
“Powerful and direct.” – Phillip Lopate, author of The Art of the Personal Essay, Bachelorhood and many others
“Autobiography at its self-mocking, human-foible-embracing best.” – Ayun Halliday, author of No Touch Monkey and Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late, in East Village Inky
“One of my favorite writers of all time, and I do mean throughout the history of the universe. Utterly brilliant.” – Hollis Gillespie, author of Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch, at her website: www.hollisgillespie.com
“Fills you up with a warm open humor and then breaks your heart with completely understated sadness or beauty, but usually both.” – Ellen Adams, in Xerography Debt
“The prose is pared down and carefully plotted. Brain tumors, divorce, cremation, mental illness . . . I can't wait to see the next one.” – Marc Parker, at www.zinethug.com
“The perfect mix of sad, funny, honest, written perfectly.” – Maria Robinson, Secret Mystery Love Shoes
“One of my favorite zines from [the year]. I think it’s magic and it makes me want to write.” – Daine Mold, in Xerography Debt
“Incredibly affecting … disarming sense of humor … I feel better connected to myself and to the human race in general.” – Susan Boren, Clip Tart
“If only all first issues were this good! Written in a warm and confident voice.” – Sean Stewart, at www.newpages.com
“Personal essays, almost Japanese-y in their ambiguity, which makes them worth re-reading.” – Brant Kresovich, in For the Clerisy
"Raw, almost surreal ... " -- Taylor Ball, at www.newpages.com
"This first issue is better than it has any right to be ... juxtapositions are startling ... metaphors are exquisite." -- Vincent Romano, in Off-Line
"Absurd ... nothing cute about his writing. Very worthwhile. I devoured it in one sitting." -- Christopher Robbins, in Zen Baby
"An engaging selection." -- artnoose, in Zine World
''That first story almost fucking killed me." – R. Lee, Underworld Crawl
Many thanks to all the people who encouraged me and who continue to provide regular doses of inspiration and kindness. But where is the money? I understood there would be a great deal of money.
Thanks also to the faithful who wrote asking for any moldering copies of BPW#1 that I might have stored on the attic. I have neither attic nor remaining copies, but am toiling mightily on a new work. Not self published this time, if the gods allow, but an actual book brought out in the regular way. You know, where others are involved. (Scary!) "Got an agent?" people ask. Why, yes. Yes, I do. In the meanwhile, if you feel like writing to me dreckly, this can be done. Try randyosborne at ye olde gmail.com or, if you are the paper-oriented sort and you are moved to write the sort of missive that ends up inside an envelope, you can send that baby to my [recently changed!] address: 240 N. Highland Ave. #2207, Atlanta, GA 30307. Cookies accepted as well.
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Newsweek publishes me! Thanks, guys.
If you enjoy my stories, check out MothUP Atlanta for more like 'em! And be my friend on Facebook, please. :)
LEXUS MAGAZINE gave me an honorable mention for an ending I wrote to a fiction story about two lovers, a dog and their car. Here's a link to my honorably mentioned but ultimately rejected (wah!) contribution, which you might as well not bother reading, since the link to the other nine chapters no longer works. Dang.
A book, yeah baby, I'm in an actual book! The Customer Is Always Wrong ... it's an anthology of adventures in retail hell. For once I am in good company. Publisher's Weekly liked it, too, and mentioned my essay in the review. The book reached position 8 , something like that, on Powell's indie bestseller list! Buy it, read it, send me mail! Please?
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I'm in another book. It's all stories about hair, collected by the amazing Cary Tennis from students, past and present, in his writing workshops And it's here.
