Each new version of Flash I pirate takes me longer to master; this must be what old age feels like. After sloshing my Ensure into the laptop, nonservi.am/002, “Underfoot,” now exists online, as you can see above, with Erin Wilson art making it oh so easy on the eyes!

I have been handing out the print copies piecemeal the last six weeks or so, but will shortly be distributing the final full numbered run of 200 to a list of locations TBD… Faubourg Art & Books at Chartres & Frenchmen, the Iron Rail on Barracks near Decatur… Watch this space!

For those who complain about nonservi.am‘s superior print version (on gorgeous, pale-rose specialty cardstock from Marco’s Paper) being available only in a single half-mile diameter piece of downtown New Orleans, please be reminded that I also carry copies on my person and give them away wherever I go… and I travel widely across the 3rd through 9th wards of New Orleans, as well as the upriver portion of St. Bernard Parish… so who are YOU calling parochial?

PLUS! I’m proud to announce copies are available (while they last) at the legendary Page & Palette of Fairhope, AL. One love Gulf Coast!

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Take care & spike your hair…

What’s six months? The blink of an eye, surely. Nevertheless, it is time the second issue of nonservi.am was, to quote the estimable Bolt Thrower, “Unleashed… Upon Mankind.”

This second issue looks gorgeous, thanks to Erin Wilson’s art, and contains the meticulously unpleasant prose that’s the Jules Bentley hallmark.

It will get its own post, but if you’d like a copy– as with the first number, there will be an extremely limited but beautiful print run– please hie thine hindquarters to the Zeitgeist theatre/arts-space on Oretha Castle Haley Tuesday night, where I shall be sweatily declaiming the new installment’s contents and then passing out… copies.

Hope to see you there: June 28th, the day before Giacomo Leopardi’s birthday! There is also a dauntingly awesome lineup of other ‘zinesters and some cracking music from Slow Danger. I don’t DO dull events.

Beginning later this week, there will be copies of 002 available at a few select spots downtown or via running into me personally, my preferred distro method.

The reading went very well.  I was going to read from nonservi.am/002 but didn’t feel the material was good enough yet, so I just went with an excerpt from my novel. My bellowing histrionics kept the crowd awake and people seemed to feel what I was puttin’ down. The other readers were excellent… a broad diversity of styles and presentation, from Enola accompanying herself on ukelele to Osa’s photographic slideshow to Robb’s stream-of-consciousness ‘zine-history show-and-tell to Tiara’s interpretive-dance performance.

The Sweet Street Symphony tore it the fuck up as well…  jaysus, looking at that rundown it’s fortunate I’m a lively reader and a passable showman in my shambling-clown way, else I’d-a been dusted by the rest of the lineup.

Thanks to a hellacious flyering campaign, the built-in fanbase of the readers & the promise of live music, it was standing room only. Packed to the gills; we couldn’t have fit another person or another dog in there without seating folks on the ceiling. In short it was an out-the-ballpark homerun of an event and a joy to participate in.

But WHERE oh WHERE is nonservi.am/002 ? And what is that gorgeous artwork above? The second issue is in the works, and the artwork above is by the brilliant ERROAR, who has generously agreed to illustrate the second issue! I’m over the moon at the prospect; she’s an artist I’ve admired for years and her personal style is so suited to the subject matter of the second issue.

The real difficulty will be making sure my writing measures up or at least holds its own vs. ERROAR’s incredible linework. Stay tuned, compadres.

Tuesday 1/11/11 at 7pm I have the privilege of joining the awesome Enola Dismay (author of the ‘zine No Gods, No Mattress) and Osa Atoe (among many things, author of the ‘zine Shotgun Seamstress) for an evening of ‘zine reading… and live music courtesy of New Orleans’ own superb Sweet Street Symphony (see video).

This will take place at or near the Iron Rail and is part of Enola’s ‘Zine Reading Tour Oh Eleven. I am a fan of both these vastly more accomplished ‘zinesters and stoked to be on the bill. I haven’t read my writing aloud to an audience in roughly fifteen years– not into being the centre of attention– so this will be quite a little comin’ out for yours truly, although it is alas unlikely to feature “a gazebo completely covered in white feathers with a plume-orb encrusted with twinkle lights hanging above piles of shrimp, stone crab claws and gravlax.”

Meanwhile, I am fucking away at nonservi.am/002 and will (I hope) have it ready by then. There will also be reprints of 001 on hand Tuesday, so get at me dogg.

UPDATE: aesthetically different-from-this-blog flyer; more local artisan ‘zinecrafterz added

It’s printed, it’s folded (with a significant assist from one Severe, esq.) and nonservi.am/001 is ready to be distributed.

To the left, you may enjoy it in Flash. For those who rightly shun such technology, “Alex on the Rug” can also be downloaded in PDF and printed up on 11×14″ legal-sized paper:

Download Alex on the Rug, nonservi.am/001

For information on how to assemble these nifty booklets, check out these assembly instructions.

And, because my marketing consultants assure me a multimedia approach is crucial to maintaining audience engagement, please enjoy the accompanying audio track, taken from the Sisters of Mercy’s “Some Girls Wander by Mistake”

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See you at the parties…

Later today I am going to print out & assemble nonservi.am/001 …an illustrated short fiction piece titled “Alex on the Rug.”

There will be a limited edtion of 75 printed on some gorgeous heavy cardstock that Pauline found on the side of the road in the 7th Ward.  They will be available exclusively at the Iron Rail and at the Hypothetical Development Organization‘s December 10 Preview Party at Beckham’s Bookstore in the French Quarter… or from Jules himself, who will be swanning self-importantly about town with a li’l satchelful.  (update: only a few of the run left, & I have ‘em… find me to get one)

A subsequent less fancily-printed edition will be available more broadly downtown.

If you want a copy and have the gross, almost insurmountable misfortune not to be in New Orleans, I will shortly be uploading a printable PDF edition, so anyone with access to 11×14″ paper and a printer can make their own. It won’t have my or Pauline’s grimy residual finger-oil soaked into the folds, but will be otherwise identical.

Besos,

Julezzzz