semantikon feature literature
Noveber 2007
Matt Briggs
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broadside
Broadside of Matt Briggs
The Strongman: Confessions of a Bacon Smuggler
bio

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

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.