Click through for a review of SLEEPINGFISH 0.75, the fourteenth in this full-press review series of Calamari books.

What is so interesting to me about reading / reviewing these SLEEPINGFISH volumes is how clearly I feel like I’m seeing the growth of Calamari Press through its pages. SLEEPING FISH 0.75 is a new level of text & art, the first perfect-bound edition, & the one that seems to me the most closely connected with what I know from the most recent online incarnations of SLEEPINGFISH.

What is inside SLEEPINGFISH 0.75 is Michael Kimball & Mike Topp & Selah & Noah Saterstrom & Joshua Cohen & Kevin Sampsell & Christian Peet alongside a host of others. But you know these names right? They ring a clearer bell than previous issues – they call on more of the authors who have now become standards in the indie publishing world. & this is not to say that it is nepotism or mere internet popularity – no – it is just the earlier evidence of the strength of these writers & their words.

from Michael Kimball’s ‘This Story Was never Written’:

It was going to be about a man whose wife died and who was going to find parts of her body that she had left behind in their house—toenail clippings at the foot of the bed, a glass in the kitchen sink with a lip print around the rim, a depressed cushion on the chair where she used to sit, strands of hair in the drain catch of the sink, etcetera.

from Joshua Cohen’s ‘Two Images for Unfinished Essays’:

A the point—decided by Me, the ultimate authority—when all four survivors and the ends of their lines are significantly far from the point of intersection, from the apex or juncture that makes a K a K, I God shall array Myself in workers’ overalls and comport Myself to the K’s point of meeting, its point of K-ness and there—with rash paint with which I once swathed the sky—I shall efface, or, better (I haven’t done this yet), erase the mating of the four prongs.

from James Grinwis’ ‘The News from Rome, New York’:

It was an unruly system, the way we were living. Fingers were being chopped all around us, thick swatches of them piling up like hunks of snow. Someone shrugged somebody else’s shoulders. An unsung girl squeezed her knees. To be dazed, a kid stuck his head in a giant jar. A long line of animals climbed a gleaming, steely device.

Nice right?

What you will also find inside of SLEEPINGFISH 0.75 (if you are lucky enough to have or get a copy, it is currently out of print) is a wealth of excerpts from books that are now available from Calamari Press including pieces by Michael Peters, James Wagner, Michael Boyko, & George Belden (edited by Norman Lock). A great intro to so many of the Calamari family of authors.

SLEEPINGFISH 0.75 is a vibrant step in the evolution of Calamari’s journal – heightened production values, a sharper layout, a more succinct use of art, & a much tighter textual presence. Overall, for me, the texts & art are in their greatest communication in this volume – speaking to one another, resounding in one another, echoing each other’s shores. This issue, more than any of the others, make me look forward to reading the rest of the SLEEPINGFISH catalog. If you can find a copy, buy it.

Next up, these chapbooks: 23 TEXT TILES, TRAPAZOIDAL JUGGERNAUT, & SPIRITUAL TURKEY BEGGAR BASTE MECHANISM. Like a two-fer, only there are three. Stop by then.