STRAIGHT FACTS ABOUT FLAPPING

Myth: Flapping is a relatively new phenomenon.
Fact: The fossil record indicates that people have been flapping since the advent of agriculture. Ancient texts abound with oblique references to flapping. However, it is only recently that people have begun flapping publicly and discussing it on the talk show circuit.

Myth: People who flap can stop flapping any time they want.
Fact: Flappers regard flapping as a viable lifestyle, almost a religion in some cases. Having flapped once, people tend to flap their lives away.

Myth: There is nothing you can do about flapping.
Fact: Put tin foil around your windows and a pan of water under your bed. They will absorb ambient flap.

Myth: Most people who flap tried flipping or flopping, or both, before they began flapping.
Fact: Many do experiment with flipping, flopping, or even flip-flopping, before progressing to flapping, but there is no proven causal relationship between them. Some people are just born to flap.

Myth: Flapping is endemic to humans.
Fact: Not so, the experts say. Plants, trees, animals and bugs flap. Rocks flap. Oceans flap. Planets flap. Stars flap. The universe flaps.

The Origin of Flapping

One morning many many years ago, Knox stopped off at a San Francisco saloon as he walked from the bus terminal to the printing company where he worked as a shipping clerk. He had his usual quick couple coffee-and-brandies while reading Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle. He was astonished, angered (by jealousy), and saddened (by the certainty that the universe held no such break in store for his most-deserving self) to learn that a local writer had gotten a $100K deal for the paperback rights and movie option for a 68 page book about a DUCK. Sixty-eight pages about a duck!

He had long been diligently researching—certain aspects of which effort are better left for another time—the phenomenon of Flapping and he knew that he could write a much better 68-page book—filled with the arcana and lore he had uncovered through his travails. Hell, he had already sent out two loving and subtly encoded missives to those nearest and dearest to him, for their edification and, nay, their very protection: Straight Facts About Flapping and Bulboscity in Stasis—upon which he could build for that phat 100K bling bling …

Knox smoked another Camel, contemplating the arc of the Story, who might direct the movie (Lynch or Speilberg?), possible color schemes for the cover, and how he would use the 100K to finance a number of large-scale art projects he had been planning for some time.

He hopped off the barstool, strode to work enjoying the bright south-of-Market morning, as well as the caffeine-sugar-and-booze rush, walked into the plant, sat down at his desk, threaded some paper into the old manual typewriter normally used for shipping labels, and wrote the introduction and the first three chapters of Flapping as they exist today, word for word. It would take another excruciating 11 years of sacrifice, self-discipline, and delusion to finish the opus.

Sadly for the guy who wrote duck story, George Lucas’s egomania and alcoholism had by the mid-eighties advanced to a sufficient degree so as to engender his making of the movie “Howard the Duck,” which bombed bombed BOMBED, shelving all duck movies in Hollywood for at least a generation.

The Origin of Flapping

One morning many many years ago, Knox stopped off at a San Francisco saloon as he walked from the bus terminal to the printing company where he worked as a shipping clerk. He had his usual quick couple coffee-and-brandies while reading Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle. He was astonished, angered (by jealousy), and saddened (by the certainty that the universe held no such break in store for his most-deserving self) to learn that a local writer had gotten a $100K deal for the paperback rights and movie option for a 68 page book about a DUCK. Sixty-eight pages about a duck!

He had long been diligently researching—certain aspects of which effort are better left for another time—the phenomenon of Flapping and he knew that he could write a much better 68-page book—filled with the arcana and lore he had uncovered through his travails. Hell, he had already sent out two loving and subtly encoded missives to those nearest and dearest to him, for their edification and, nay, their very protection: Straight Facts About Flapping and Bulboscity in Stasis—upon which he could build for that phat 100K bling bling …

Knox smoked another Camel, contemplating the arc of the Story, who might direct the movie (Lynch or Speilberg?), possible color schemes for the cover, and how he would use the 100K to finance a number of large-scale art projects he had been planning for some time.

He hopped off the barstool, strode to work enjoying the bright south-of-Market morning, as well as the caffeine-sugar-and-booze rush, walked into the plant, sat down at his desk, threaded some paper into the old manual typewriter normally used for shipping labels, and wrote the introduction and the first three chapters of Flapping as they exist today, word for word. It would take another excruciating 11 years of sacrifice, self-discipline, and delusion to finish the opus.

Sadly for the guy who wrote duck story, George Lucas’s egomania and alcoholism had by the mid-eighties advanced to a sufficient degree so as to engender his making of the movie “Howard the Duck,” which bombed bombed BOMBED, shelving all duck movies in Hollywood for at least a generation.

Here is the original publishing information for Flapping. I used to be able to buy copies of it for $4 on Amazon. I lost about seven-hundred copies while on the lamb in LA, but that is a story for another day. Now I can only find copies online for three or four-hundred dollars. Well, it’s an honor to be so collectible!

I think I must put a reissue of some kind on the to-do list.

FLAPPING—a novel—with its very own cd soundtrack “Flight of the Atom Bee”
Written by Knox Bronson
Illustrated by Roy Sablosky
Published by xONk zoetic structural art
Paperback, 192 pages
ISBN: 0-9724499-0-6
Publication date: December 18, 2002
Retail Price: $15.95 US (includes cd) regular edtion

FLAPPING, Limited Editon Series One, 100 in series, with Hand-Screened Dust-jacket, signed and numbered: $79.95 US (includes cd) regular edtion. Includes mini-cd (and access code to download) original unedited “Flight of the Atom Bee” as well as the missing song from the original cd: “The Big Shimmer,” “The Blue Man Wept.” and “World’s Night.”

Song titles from Flight of the Atom Bee:

  1. 3 Seconds Before Maia Smiled (download mp3)
  2. Wild Pink Yonder
  3. Stay
  4. Ubi Mel Ibi Apes (Where there is honey, there are bees)
  5. Serenity Applicator
  6. March of the Molecule Men
  7. It took that much love to carry them that far
  8. Flight of the Atom Bee
  9. When We Were Machines
  10. Boolean Nights
  11. Sex Party aka HoneyBun Overture (download at www.spankingcream.com.)
  12. Fountain of You
  13. The Quark and the Jaguar

Here is the original publishing information for Flapping. I used to be able to buy copies of it for $4 on Amazon. I lost about seven-hundred copies while on the lamb in LA, but that is a story for another day. Now I can only find copies online for three or four-hundred dollars. Well, it’s an honor to be so collectible!

I think I must put a reissue of some kind on the to-do list.

FLAPPING—a novel—with its very own cd soundtrack “Flight of the Atom Bee”
Written by Knox Bronson
Illustrated by Roy Sablosky
Published by xONk zoetic structural art
Paperback, 192 pages
ISBN: 0-9724499-0-6
Publication date: December 18, 2002
Retail Price: $15.95 US (includes cd) regular edtion

FLAPPING, Limited Editon Series One, 100 in series, with Hand-Screened Dust-jacket, signed and numbered: $79.95 US (includes cd) regular edtion. Includes mini-cd (and access code to download) original unedited “Flight of the Atom Bee” as well as the missing song from the original cd: “The Big Shimmer,” “The Blue Man Wept.” and “World’s Night.”

Song titles from Flight of the Atom Bee:

  1. 3 Seconds Before Maia Smiled (download mp3)
  2. Wild Pink Yonder
  3. Stay
  4. Ubi Mel Ibi Apes (Where there is honey, there are bees)
  5. Serenity Applicator
  6. March of the Molecule Men
  7. It took that much love to carry them that far
  8. Flight of the Atom Bee
  9. When We Were Machines
  10. Boolean Nights
  11. Sex Party aka HoneyBun Overture (download at www.spankingcream.com.)
  12. Fountain of You
  13. The Quark and the Jaguar