Withersin’s Damned Interview with:

David Bain

David Bain has published more than 100 pieces. He is the editor of Whispering Worlds, a large free e-book of speculative poetry which received an "Internet Hot Spot" nod from Ellen Datlow and was named the most impressive such online collection by Black Gate magazine. It’s available free via his website. Bain has an MFA from Columbia College Chicago.

List published works: Poetry and fiction in Poems and Plays, Blue Unicorn, The Columbia College Chicago Story Week Reader, Weird Tales, Mythic Delirium and Strange Horizons and many other publications.

List website: http://www.geocities.com/davidbainaa

How can we contact you? cyberbain@hotmail.com

In your own words, define Withersin.

A) A sin so iniquitous that your soul and body shrivel even considering it.

B) A magazine which will kick your butt harder than habanero tequila.

If you were a sideshow act, what would you be?

Always the chicken, never the geek. Sigh.

What is your greatest non-literary influence?

He wouldn’t like me calling him non-literary. So let’s just say “music.”

Describe your most irrational fear.

Paisleys.

How about your most guilty pleasure?

I have every album Jimmy Buffett ever made (30+?) ripped to my computer, so pretty much every other song that comes up when I have my WMP set on random is one of his.

Name the most disturbing nursery rhyme/fairy tale you can recall.

I lived mostly in Germany until I was almost five. There’s a German “children’s book” called “Struwwelpeter,” complete with graphic (and I do mean *graphic*) illustrations. As a child, thanks to this instructive tome, I learned that, should I suck my thumb, a long-haired freak will leap out of the closet and cut off my thumbs with a gigantic pair of scissors, leaving only bloody stumps; should I not eat my soup I will literally shrivel up, becoming bone-thin, and die within five short days as my parents stand by weeping; and should I go outside during a storm the wind shall waft me away like a stray kite from everything I know and hold dear, hurling me headlong to what is presumably my doom or at least a Very Bad Place. The book also features a sweet little drawing of a young girl who played with matches and is in the midst of burning to death. The full subtitle, incidentally, is “Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3-6 Jahren,” which translates as “Funny Stories and Droll Pictures with 15 Pretty Illustrations for Children Ages 3-6.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

Do you eat meat?

Yes, but only that of non-humans, to the best of my knowledge.

What were the skies like when you were young?

Beautiful.

Name your favorite garden tool.

That was a garden? Damn. Too bad this is a lawnmower.

Name your least favorite color, first job and worst job.

Puke. Cerulean. Burger King. Janitor, though it really wasn’t as bad as all that.

Favorite:  Author, Movie, Music Group, Song, and Quote.

Joyce Carol Oates. Pulp Fiction. Buffett. “Riders on the Storm.” My favorite quote is a bit of glossolalia which would translate roughly as “Aaaaabadabaddahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeliada T’raaaam vuh; kweeeq-pashah roop roop utund fweex – gung gung gung – tnir Mamu klaatu.”

If you were a loaf of bread what kind would you be?

A gently buttered (chives in the butter, please, if at all possible) and nicely toasted bakery-made ciabatta roll, preferably with some onion, sesame, poppy seed and garlic sprinkled on top.

Weirdest news you have read in your local newspaper:

Cows broke out of a field and swarmed the streets at 3 a.m., the mooing causing a sleepless night for many of the town’s 200 residents. (I can’t believe someone hasn’t claimed that as the title for their horror novel – “The Mooing.” Imagine the cover art!)

Why horror?

“Struwwelpeter.”

Here's a photo. (seen on Interview main page)

“INEDIBLE NOT INTENDED FOR HUMAN FOOD”

You have 112 words. Go.

So what exactly is in there that would confuse a human to the point where they might think it *is* food? And if it’s not “human food,” for what sort of creature *is* it food? And why does this trucker have a Withersin bumper sticker? And, yes, what sort of creature *is* driving? Or is the warning about the truck itself -- perhaps it’s an alien invasion in which the aliens wrongly thought we get in our vehicles every day and eat them from the inside out, and they’re now trying to communicate they’re finally hip – “Hey, we know this truck ain’t food!” Now, what should I do with these last ten words?

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