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Noveber
2007
Matt Briggs
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AUDIO
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Broadside
of Matt Briggs
The Strongman: Confessions of a Bacon
Smuggler
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Matt
Briggs is a Seattle, Washington native. Previous to the
publication of his first book by Black Heron Press, Matt
was a reservist who served in Desert Shield and Desert
Storm. Active in small press and independent publishing
since 1990's, Matt has been involved with The Anchovy Review
and The Raven Chronicles. He has also given workshops on
independent publishing.
In 1999, a collection of linked stories called "The Remains of River Names" was
published Black Heron Press. In 2002, he published "Misplaced Alice" with
String Town Press who would also publish "The Moss Gatherers" in 2005.
September of 2005 seen Matt's first publication on semantikon, his piece "A
Fifth of July", part of our American
Canons edition. His first novel, "Shoot
the Buffalo", was published by Clear Cut Press in the same year, a work
selected for a American Book Award in 2006. In Spring of 2008, Final State will
publish Matt’s new short story collection, "The End is the Beginning" In
Fall 2008, they will also publish "The Strong Man: Confessions of a Bacon
Smuggler". Featured here, exclusive excerpts from both forthcoming books,
plus, an unabridged version of Matt's essay "Pacific Highway South: Best
American Strip City" along with audio of Matt reading from his short story
collection.
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Matt
Briggs, seattle, washington, novelist, essayists, journalist,
educator, the remains of river names, misplaced alice, the
moss gatherers, the stranger |
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Excerpt
from New Short Story Collection: The End is the Beginning
"The Ribbit-powered Float"
available from Final State Press in Fall 2008
On quiet summer afternoons, before my father left for work
at the kitchen where he was a cook, the house filled with
the odor of incense and the buzzing of a stray housefly.
Dad spent long afternoons puttering in his greenhouse, filled
with orchids, rare ferns, a tank with terrapin turtles, and
the sound of hundreds of tiny frogs. The moist air and pools
of water attracted the frogs from the forest. After he finished
work in his greenhouse, my father stretched out on the mossy
stone behind our house to stare at the sky.
My father talked about his flying dream. He didn’t
want to fly in an airplane, but he wanted his body to sail
in the air just above the top of the trees. “This is
the big dream, isn’t it?” he said, “to
just float.” One day he decided to build a body suit
from the plastic gallon water bags we used to haul water
from the river. He would fill them with a lighter-than-air
gas, and then he would be able to fly. “I’ll
just soar into the sky,” he said.
He began to research gas. He found he could create hydrogen
by passing a current through water and separating the single
oxygen atom from the two hydrogen atoms. Although helium
would seem to be the safe choice, my father didn’t
know how to make helium. After constructing an elaborate
mechanism he managed to fill a jug with hydrogen. But, he
was unhappy with the result. The hydrogen could barely lift
the balloon. He was afraid, too, of repeating the Hindenburg,
which had been a hydrogen blimp. He imagined himself falling
out of the sky on fire.
He learned, though, that bilious cows emit a steady supply
of the methane, another lighter-than-air-gas. He began to
talk about hooking up a pipe to the cows in the field next-door
and filling sacks full of methane. The farmer wouldn’t
let him. Lying on his rock dreaming the next afternoon, my
father thought about the frogs that filled his greenhouse.
He would use them to fill his bags. Like cows, frogs emit
gas. They discharge methane in frog burps. Only frog methane
wouldn’t smell. “I will create,” Dad told
me, “a ribbit powered float.”
He captured the frogs and hooked straws and tiny
bags to their bodies. For a week the frogs hopped around and then
one morning, the frogs all floated to the ceiling attached
to tiny lighter than air bags. My father removed the bags,
tied them off and stuffed the bags into his suit. Within
a month, his suit was floating on the ceiling.
In the morning, he drank his coffee. He walked out into the
already warm air. The sky was a blue dome over us. He patted
me on my head, and then put on his suit. He didn’t
ask me to fly with him, and even if he had, I didn’t
want to intrude. He strapped it on, and then my father was
floating like a balloon. “I’m almost flying,” he
said. “Untie me.”
I untied the length of rope. He floated above the trees.
He was laughing and crying. “This is flight!” He
soared into the blue sky.
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