Arcade noir with Ms Pac-Man!

Today, on this greyish Saturday, we're going to add some colour and noise to your life with Arcade noir! We are chatting to A.G. Pasquella, publisher of PAC ‘N HEAT, a Ms. Pac-Man-inspired noir chapbook of poems and short stories, co-edited by Terri Favro, and we’ll be looking at what I am (currently!) characterizing as Arcade noir but it could also be called game-inspired noir or retro noir.

Ms Pac-Man Don't Love Me No More is my contribution to the anthology and I thank A.G. and Terri for liking it! Below that, I chat with A.G. about the selection process worked and what they were looking for, in terms of the perfect noir for the book. 

Ms Pac-Man Don’t Love Me No More

I’ve taken so many drugs that I can’t possibly be awake but I am.

I am downstairs on the cracked sofa and with Ms. Pac-Man for company. Chomp chomp, chew chew.

What do you call a train that can’t stop eating? A chew chew.

Me and Ms. Pac-Man, we can’t stop eating.

NyQuil, zoplicone, clonazepam, codeine and spiced rum on a school night. I understand those who died in search of a single nights sleep.

I’m temping at a job and I swear to god they all hate me. I’ve been paranoid in the past, too much hashish for breakfast and all that, but this time my fears are real. The one girl at work, I know she thinks about stabbing me with a butcher knife and I’m okay with it because I’ll have go to hospital and they’ll sedate me and I’ll finally get some sleep. I want to shout at her, bring it on, bitch, do it already why don’t you, can’t you see I am exhausted?

Like Ms. Pac-Man, all I can eat are white dots, pills baby, pills. But unlike Ms. Pac-Man, there are no strawberries, bananas or pears for me, because there are spiders in my food. At first they were just in the vegetables, long-legged spiders with bulbous eyes, lurking in the cauliflower and hiding in the butternut, and then there they were in the bread, with bulbous staring two-eyed heads, and oh, when I held a baggie to the light, electric neon green spiders crawled through my stash across like the special effects on a northern lights sky.

So, no more veg. And definitely nothing from the origins of beasts of blood and bones. I turned to the safety of chemical foods, chomp chomp, chew chew, but then dust-crumbly spiders infiltrated potato chips and infested innocent bars of chocolate — every where I turned there were spiders, eating me.

I’m as hungry as a rabid dog but I can’t bear to see food, much less put it in my mouth. There’s nothing left that I can eat and I hoped the pills and booze would numb the hunger but I’m starving and Ms. Pac-Man laughs at me, haha, look at you, I eat dots and I eat fruit and now I’m coming for you, watch me come for you.

She jumps out from that screen, leaving a confetti wake of pill dots behind and she snaps her sharp teeth at me, chew chew, and her lips are thick and shiny and pink and her cheeks are pink to match and I want to scratch at that thick pink gunge on her face but she climbs on me with her big fat yellow balloon head and her tiny legs, those legs are oh so strong.

I scream and she sits on my chest and she’s wearing blue eye shadow and high-heeled blue shoes that dig into me, and her bow is pink and yellow on that big fat yellow balloon head. She burps and a pile of cherries fall onto my chest and then a banana and a handful of strawberries. Her breath is sweet like lemons and she grins and then she snaps at me, chew chew.

I scream again as I lie on that cracked sofa and I wish the girl from work with the butcher knife was here now, end it, end me, please god, I’m so hungry and Ms. PacMan knows and she comes at me and I can’t stop staring at her big big mouth, that gaping yellow maw, I’m watching it and it grows bigger and bigger and, chew chew, her jaws expand wider and wider like a big yellow condom that’s going to eat me up and I think thank you, thank you, sweet baby Jesus, I’m finally going to get some rest.

LDN: Hi A.G., thank you for being with us today! You put me onto a great article and I love this quote: “A noir hero is the embodiment of powerlessness. They are the little hope. A noir hero opens the door to a man with a knife and offers him whisky as they are stabbed. The point is that you expected to have to deal with the knife sooner or later. Discomfort is the only real thing in a noir universe. Endurance is a noir hero's only important virtue.” – Cara Ellison in the online article, Cara Ellison: The search for noir.

Would you agree that endurance is a noir hero’s only important virtue?

A.G.: Endurance is definitely key, but I would say moral endurance counts just as much as physical endurance.  Most great noir protagonists have a strong moral center—an “honor among thieves”-- which brings them into conflict with the amoral environment in which they operate. Massimo Carlotto’s Alligator books are a great example of this.

LDN: What kind of noir characterization would you guys give PAC ‘N HEAT?  

A.G.: Arcade Noir works! PAC’N HEAT has a funny premise but the stories for the most part play it straight… which of course only compounds the strangeness of having Ms. Pac-Man as a noir protagonist.

LDN: The idea of an arcade game-inspired chapbook is fantastic and I know all the contributors (and I was extremely excited to be one) just loved writing for it! How did you come with the idea of PAC ‘N HEAT?

A.G.: I had one of those weird 3 AM thoughts that I wrote down in my notebook: “If Ms. Pac-Man were real, what would she smell like?” The next morning, I put that up on Facebook. People were saying cherries, marshmallows… which makes sense. Then Terri Favro said, “Chanel No. 5 with a bass note of gunpowder.” That turned the tide and we started talking about Ms. Pac-Man Noir. I thought the idea was amazing and said, hey, we should do an anthology!

LDN: What did you look for, when you were considering the submissions?

A.G.: What we didn’t want were straight-up noir pastiches or parodies . We wanted writers who were wiling to embrace this oddball concept and really commit. Luckily for us, we received tons of great submissions!

LDN: Who are some for your favourite Canadian noir writers?

A.G.: Nathaniel G. Moore’s ‘Wrong Bar’ is fantastic. It’s Hallucinogenic Noir, unlike anything else I’ve ever read.  If you liked the movie ‘Brick’, you’ll like this book.

LDN: Do you think that noir writers were born to be noir or can anyone find their inner noir? If you think they can, would you give us a couple of pointers – a very brief How to Find Your Inner Noir for Dummies!

A.G.: To write noir, you must read noir! Start with the classics, like The Hunter by Richard Stark. Read the books, watch the movies. Immerse yourself in noir!

LDN: Will you be doing another noir chapbook? I know a bunch of writers out there who would be extremely delighted to start putting pen to paper!

A.G.: I would love to work with Terri again in any capacity! She was an amazing co-editor on this project and she made it about 1000% better. She was also the one who came up with the title, which is so incredibly perfect it makes me want to fall down and weep.

LDN: Can you each name three of the most noir songs you know or love to write to?

A.G.: Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg: Je T'aime,... Moi Non Plus

Tom Waits: The Piano Has Been Drinking

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with P.J. Harvey—Henry LeeAnd here’s a bonus song: Lana Del Ray—Summertime Sadness

LDN: Thank you very much for joining us today!

A.G.: Thank YOU, Lisa!

PS Readers, here's how you can order a copy of PAC'N HEAT: Please send $20 via PayPal or E-Transfer to agpasquella [-at-] yahoo [d-o-t] com. Except, you know-- please change into standard email formatting before sending! Please include your mailing address.

 The pic was taken at Canzine Toronto 2016 which was PAC'N HEAT's debut.

https://www.inanna.ca/catalog/no-fury/

http://www.lisadenikolitswriter.com

https://49thshelf.com/Books/N/No-Fury-Like-That