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Kids, we’re happy to announce that the City has approved Space Squid to unleash– I mean, unveil — unveil its latest and greatest weapon of feckless fun to Austinites on December 31st as part of the Austin’s New Year event.

Austin’s New Year is the spiritual successor to the late great First Night Austin. Like First Night, Austin’s New Year is a free, family-friendly celebration of the arts that’ll take place in the afternoon and evening of December 31. This year, the event will run from 5p to 10:30p at Auditorium Shores (South 1st Street and Riverside) and feature films, food, music from artists like Carolyn Wonderland and the inimitable Lavelle White… and of course Space Squid!

Our activity will be the Self-Transmogrifier, and I don’t want to give too much away, but… we’re offering you and your friends and fam the chance to be transformed and transported. And you’ll walk away with a digital keepsake of the night that you can treasure forever. Or not. It’s your call.

Whatever the case, we hope to see you at Auditorium Shores, and happy holidays!

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Today we bring you an office recuperative called the Ostrich Nap Pillow, which is an upholstered headbag that will be sure to trigger active discussion and probably mockery in any breakroom.

Manufacturer Kawamura-Ganjavian says it engenders “a micro environment in which to take a warm and comfortable power nap at ease. It is neither a pillow nor a cushion, nor a bed, nor a garment, but a bit of each at the same time. Its soothing cave-like interior shelters and isolates our head and hands (mind, senses and body) for a few minutes, without needing to leave our desk.”

If you drag this thing on to your holiday flight back home, just make sure to run it by the plane crew before you put your head down on the tray table. They might think you’re making a bomb in there.

And in unrelated news, we’ll probably be reworking our mailing list a bit soon. We understand that some of you want email every time we put up a new post, and others just want to be notified when there’s major news like a new issue. Don’t unsubscribe! We’ll provide a “low-impact” mailing list soon!

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Squid fans, this Sunday is a choice story reading squidtivity at Austin’s Salvage Vanguard Theater. We’ll be reading very short stories and the Church of the Friendly Ghost folks will be showing the new documentary LINT THE MOVIE, about the life and work of cult SF author Jeff Lint. I’m still trying to wrap my head around Lint’s trippy work, but he is a funny dude who Alan Moore likes, and that’s pretty good by me.

Also on tap are musical entertainments by Abigail und Hansel and 7 inch Stitch, plus visual stimulants by Paul Baker. $5-15 sliding scale, doors at 7, music at 7:30, flick at 9.

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The stickers are 3 inches in diameter and boast a rad 4-color design.

Measuring 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″, the official Space Squid greeting postcards feature squidgrrl Megan at her Mesopotamean correspondence table (not shown, but you can see her rapidly-marking stylus) and a variety of chaos from a number of different Space Squid covers. (Can you name them all?) The tagline reads, “It’s business as usual around here… what’s new with you?” Perfect for any occasion or non-occasion!

The flipside of the postcard is blank and ready for your message. Fits perfectly in an A2-sized envelope (A2 envelopes are 4 3/8″ by 5 3/4″), or you can simply slap a stamp on the blank side, address it, and let ‘er fly.

Let’s face it: in this day and age, the best way to show you care is to put actual writing instrument to medium! Celebrate the dying art of correspondence while you’re still literate!

How to Get Your Funny Sticker and Postcard

Funny you should ask, ha ha! Just donate any amount (any amount!*) to the Squid using the Support the Squid button at the bottom of the page to get a sticker and postcard. During checkout, just click on the “Comments for the squid folk” link (under the Space Squid line item) and type in “freebies!” That’s it!

While supplies last. And you don’t even need a PayPal account**! We’re happy to send the freebies to international readers, but just make sure your donation at least covers the cost of postage to your particular nation.

* Note that our fulfillment editor may be less than appreciative of donations that ring in at the sub-$1 mark. Donate in that range at your own risk! Good thing the sticker isn’t a lick-and-stick, ha ha…!

** To donate without embracing the entity known as PayPal, simply click on the Donate button, and at the first PayPal screen, look at the bottom left. Yeah, there. Click on that link right above the MasterCard and Visa logos.

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That’s why we have made a reasonably downloadable version of Space Squid #10 in a Portable Document Format (PDF). Just click this hyperlinked anchor text, and your net browser will do the rest.

All of our issues are amazing of course, but this might be the best one yet. Celebrating the bizarro literary movement, this issue features the works of Karl A. Fischer, J. M. McDermott, and our cover model, Fred Stanton.

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However, after the panels and networking were complete, everybody unwound at suite parties, including us Space Squid folk. These parties involved booze, food, friendly people, wacky antics, and free copies of the latest issue of Space Squid. Although editor Matthew did not drunkenly launch spinning juggling clubs eight stories up into the vast lobby space of the Arboretum Renaissance Hotel, as we’d hoped he would, we did entrance dozens of poor, innocent partygoers with mind-numbing and bizarro videos accompanied by appropriately mind-numbing music. Hotel security was only summoned once, which we consider a success on all accounts. All four Space Squid editors were in attendance, and a good time was had by all, or at least that’s what they told us. Even the Swedes, who understand better than most what a con party should be.

If you’re interested in attending one of our legendary Space Squid parties next year, make sure to join our mailing list!

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I got a few queries recently about stories submitted around April that didn’t get a response. We didn’t have a record of them so it’s possible that the form submit wasn’t working.

If you submitted a story prior to August 1st and haven’t heard from us, please send us a query, and we’ll take care of it right away.

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Just now I took a sip of bourbon on the rocks, with the rocks long since melted, the solution long since tepid. That’s just part of the Space Squid creative effort.

Our plan is to get the final draft of Space Squid Issue #10 together by this weekend, then spend the next week printing up the physical copies on Sanjay2 our photocopier that rarely works (although it does seem to run a little better when it’s over 90 degrees), and then I will take the fruit of our labors to distribute by hand and on the free tables at WorldCon Reno, aka RenoVation.

As of this moment it seems like it might actually happen. Nearly all of the contributor contracts are signed and returned, nearly all of the stories are illustrated, nearly all of the layout is pieced together, and the Squid Grrrl photoshoot has already happened.

So plan to see me at WorldCon toting more piles of zines than a lesser man could carry.

Cheers.

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Luckily, Bizzarofic is silly in a way that the collective voice of Wikipedia can stomach. And it has been brought to our attention that Space Squid is one of only five publications cited as sources for bizarro fiction.

So, whomever put us on the entry and got us past the censors, the Space Squid salutes you.