This Tour Makes No Sense: Stay Tuned!

My dear Nonsensettes,

Tune in to this station as I blog my latest Indian adventures... all in support of my new book, This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse, which features the delightful talents of many...  I'll begin Friday, November 16 and end around December 1st.  Here we go!

Yours nonsense nubbin,

MBH, Esq., DDS, SFPS

Scrabble of the Gods

This Book Makes No Sense! Out now, brown cow.

The book just called you a grouch!
It stuck its toe in your ear!
It just waved its pants at you!
It threw a protopappadum at you!

Yes, it's here!  Or, well, it's there! It all depends on whether you're standing here or there, I suppose, but as long as you're on your feet, chances are you're one or the other.  After so much time, so many promises of bountiful baskets of bosh, after teasings and queasings, I give you:

This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse, edited by Michael Heyman, with Illustrations by Priya Kuriyan.

---Out from Scholastic (India) right... now!

It features a tumble of oddball superheroes (and their superdog), mudpie masters, tree-climbing buffalos, a galloping Wollop, and pesky disobedient pants.  The Old Masters are here, like Sukumar Ray, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mangesh Padgavkar, but also the shiny new voices of contemporary nonsense writers: Anushka Ravishankar (whose Just Like a Bug has also just arrived), Sampurna Chattarji, Samit Basu (he of the recent Turbulence fame! Swoon, ye flighty and Despair!), and even a special guest appearance of JonArno Lawson, the Canadian poet of extraordinary vim and vichtenstein (whose new Old MacDonald Had Her Farm continues in lipogrammatical lunacy).  Kaushik Viswanath adds a hilarious short story about disobedient pants, and I also hucked a few pieces in there, in addition to a brief introduction that defines nonsense by way of juggling--and an Appendix that teaches all the little peepers how to write nonsense (and you too!)--through a mash-up Alice in Wonder(out)landish tale that includes nonsense heroes from around the world.  Wrap that up in masterful illustrations by Priya Kuriyan, and you're got a real hum-dinger, bum-swinger, numb-finger-flipping book!

If all goes to plan, I'll be at Bookaroo in New Delhi in November, and then a tour of schools in a few other cities.  Details to follow...

Here is the link to it on the Scholastic website.  You lucky Indian souls with soles and souls in India, you can order directly from Scholastic.  More sellers in India will join soon.  As for those outside of India, you're out of luck for the moment, but I'll let you know when it will be available.

Hold on to your hornswagglers---new book of nonsense commeth!

My dear, long-suffering sausages, I come to you with good tidings.  You have waited patiently since the 2007 release of The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense for the newest nonsense newt to make an appearance, and I have teased you with visions of world anthologies, anthologies for children, ant anthologies (now, with less itch!), Anthologies of a Certain Seemly Character, and anthologies of anthropological asymptomatic anthrax.  But it’s time to get serious.

Announcing, the newest kid on the block:

This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse

(edited, stuffed, and sauced by Michael Heyman (he (that is, I) of the famed Berklee College of Formica in Boston), forthcoming 2012 from Scholastic)

Brimming with illustrations by the Perfectly Pre- and Post-posterous Priya Kuriyan, this book will include nonsense by old favorites like Sukumar Ray, Rabindranath Tagore (who, despite doing pretty much everything at an astonishing level, really wanted to write nonsense as well as Sukumar Ray but admitted he couldn’t!), Mangesh Padgavkar, Sarita Padki, Edward Lear (no smarmy owls or cats though) and fresh new nonsense noodles by Anushka Ravishankar, Sampurna Chattarji, and Samit Basu (he of the superhero fame, among many other ferocious fernicious fames), JonArno Lawson (Canadian Master of Nonsaster), and even yours truly.  Plus, there will be an Appendix, in the form of an Alice in Wonderland mash-up, that will teach all the wee wonky wieners how to write nonsense.  This tuition will be at the hands of none other than a cast of the world’s most numinous nonsense notables, including Humpty Dumpty, Edward Lear himself, Graven Raven, Pumpkin-Grumpkin (both from Sukumar Ray), the Potato-Face Blind Man (from Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories), and Korf (Christian Morganstern’s nutty musical inventor).  The book is aimed at all ages… and rumor has it that I will be going back to India later this year to squawk and hawk the book to any who would be so squawked upon.  I don't know the exact release date, but it should be some time in the later half of the year.  Stay tuned!

The Alleged Second Printing and other mews

It's 2011 and you're not sure where you left the can of whatsit. Don't worry, though, because Indian nonsense will always be there for you--and now with added whatsit!

It has certainly been a long slime since my last update, and while I won't bore you with pulling out every item stuck in my slime, I should inform you of two flings:

Fling One:

I am hoping to create a children's nonsense anthology that will include material from The Tenth Rasa but also (hopefully) a few new things (depending on whether the folks whom I've commissioned will actually write something--you know who you are!!), including a guide for children on how to write nonsense.  It will be fully illustrated and sanctified by the Nine Vestal Vultures.  I'm currently talking to the folks at Scholastic about this... and I shall certainly keep you informed on developments.

Fling Two:

I recently had to replenish my stock of The Tenth Rasa (aside from providing "pure reading pleasure,"™they also serve as analgesics, fodder, and bituminous bumf), and so yesterday I received a brimming boxfull.  When I inspected the included volumes, I immediately noticed a change on the back cover.  The ISBN patch is all tricked out now, and lo and behold, the price has gone up from Rs 295 to Rs 399! This in itself is not so extraordinary (for the volume is worth its weight in bumf), but what IS extraordinary is that it seems we are now into a second printing!

The new printing (left) and the old (right).  Also, for sake of scale, a ruler and a lollipop.

Upon closer inspection, I also discovered that the volume is now printed in Navi Mumbai, rather than Noida (where it was originally done)--also now noted on the page that notes such things in the beginning.  Of course, you are witnessing my clever deduction from the presented evidence.  I have heard no word from Penguin about such printerly activities.  Regardless, though, I'd say it's high time that all of you fans out there order an edition from the alleged second printing, because even though the content is exactly the same, there is that highly collectible new ISBN patch on the back.  Also, when do you ever get a chance to buy an "alleged reprinting"?  It's worth every paise of that extra 104 rupees!  Don't miss out!

Vinda Karandikar's passing

A sad note today in the Authoritative Annals of Nonsensifaction: Vinda Karandikar, a celebrated Marathi poet, critic, translator, and, of course, occasional nonsense writer, passed away yesterday. I met him years ago when I was doing research for The Tenth Rasa, when he was kind enough to receive me and Anushka Ravishankar to talk about his work. I recall one amusing and telling moment from our visit... After being seated in his parlor, we told him we were there to discuss the nonsense verse he had written. He immediately made a face and told us, to our surprise, that he didn't write any. When he left the room briefly his wife leaned in, conspiratorily, and told us that of course he wrote nonsense verse. That day, we learned a thing or two not just about him, but about how nonsense literature is perceived, even by practitioners of it. When he returned he became much more cheerful, and he even waved to us from the balcony as we walked away from his building--something I learned later was not a common occurrence. He was happy to have several of his pieces translated (masterfully, by Anita Vaccharajani) and included in our anthology.

Tonight, the Nuppiter Pifkins will murble in mouring...

Storytelling Night in New Delhi

Hello all in Nonsensabad! I write to you from the bosom of Gurgaon, where I have been ensconced for nigh two plus weeks. I've been checking the nonsense gauges and baubles here, twiddling and tweaking the twoddlemeters...strictly procedural, you understand. I can safely report that the underground reserves of nonsense are still burbling blatantly, and that there will indeed be a gusher coming soon to a well near you. As long as you live near New Delhi. That is to say, I will be participating in the Scholastic India Storytelling Night this coming Friday, to read from "The Moustache Maharishi" and other nonsensical nodes. If anyone is around, please do stop by! Info below!


Scholastic India is happy to announce that Storytelling night will now be held in ten cities every quarter!

The ten cities where these fantastic sessions will be organised are New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, Pune, Jaipur and Chandigarh.

Schedule for the first storytelling night in your city!

New Delhi - Friday, February 19, 2010
Storytellers: Samina Mishra, Anita Roy, Bubbles Sabharwal, Michael Heyman & Devika Rangachari
Venue: The HUB, DLF Promenade, 3 Vasant Kunj Malls, Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi - 70

The Further Travels of Nonsense...

Hello to all!

I write to you from a wee hotel on top of a restaurant in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a city with a nonsensical name and a heart of hamhock. As you all should know by now, I have for some time been working on the next anthology of nonsense--the Anthology of World Nonsense, which will of course include India (both some texts from the Tenth Rasa, but also some new developments in the world of Indian nonsense!). Right now I'm traveling with my co-editor, Kevin Shortsleeve (with whom I work not solely because of his last name), combing Eastern and Northern Europe for nonsense... including Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, and Holland. Whew!

We are keeping a blog of our adventures in nonsense hunting... which you can follow here:
http://jabberwokabout.blogspot.com

Meanwhile, much of my blogging energy will be directed thataways... please forgive this poor sinner!

Yours in Nonsensical Everitude,
M