glambourine

I totally like the idea of there being sleeping bag items/tarps/whatever that degrade after an hour or so, so people can be all walking through an area and see your character hanging out playing a lute or somesuch, stop to chat, form temporary encampments against wandering monsters, etc. Like travel kids sitting under overpasses, but more SCAed up.

I mean obviously referring to Mieville and Darger sharing a grand slipstream tradition is a fanciful joke, but it's a true joke. The only real explanation I can give you, short of like an academic essay tracing patterns and thematic correspondences between the two and between SHARING--which idk sounds like a fool's errand kinda--is an ostensive one: read SHARING?

But I want to answer this question legitimately, ugh, so let's do an academic precis at least? Short essay: Mieville's vision of the world is a crowded, changing network of social institutions, individuals, and high-concept set pieces with a huge debt to "canonical literature." This is Sharing (and more properly its sequel, Shifting, which we're doing in the hopefully near future.) Darger's vision of the world is as a hostile, neverending war between two forces who're ultimately aspects of the same controlling intelligence, with an eerie mix of kid fantasia and really scary, unacceptable aspects of reality crashing in. This is ALSO Sharing. The imagination and vision, at whatever level of like "workability" you desire, are the common factor.

Really I can't explain it better without your reading it? There's a PDF of the first chapter on the site: http://www.instarbooks.com/books/Sharing%20preview.pdf

Regarding the site graphics: nope never! There are two kinds of book websites: gentle evocation of the gentle experience of reading (lots of white space and soft serif fonts), or Efficient Warehouse. Our graphics--in my opinion anyway, and in the opinion of people who've read our first titles--evoke the creepy fecund experience of reading certain kinds of books, Burroughs and Borges over Mieville maybe, books that end up crowding out and rubbing up against whatever thoughts you had before. They are gaudy and wonderful and I personally love them. I feel it is important for graphics to let you know what you are in for with a "read."

This is a really strange genie, imposing conditions but not really granting wishes? I would pretty much go

Shopping cart Giraffe Hang glider (but only recreationally) Motorized toilet Monster truck Hitchhiking with murderer Burrowing machine

They are ranked this way because I want to use the least obtrusive means of transportation possible at all times and shopping cart seems pretty low-key and practical.

I'm into finding a way to facilitate this

i think it is important for you to spell out the exact reasons you made this inference and what they maybe mean w/r/t yr ideas about women, black people, and large people? Like I think that this is a joke that contra EB White will only become actually funny if you dismantle it and see how risible its guts are