The Drill Press

publishers aiming to get in your head: As of now, we intend to publish e-books. There are a number of reasons for this decision, none of them worth listing here in detail except to say that the 19th century model for publishing houses printing books on paper is antiquated and doomed. We are considering the move to PDF soon, however.; We intend our catalog to grow as books are published and remain in print. We're looking for original work that transcends the bounds of 19th century standards set by the major houses and will only publish when we find writing that meets our standards.; Our ebooks will be available from the online ebook retailer ebookmall.com.; Meanwhile, we are reading other interesting work. We actively seek submissions, but not pulp fiction or crassly commerical bilge. Work with a purpose beyond the counterfeit notion of unengaged entertainment best served by the dual tediums television and film which have converged to the point they are largely interchangeable.

Now available:: WHEN PACINO’S HOT, I’M HOT A Miscellany of Stories & Commentary by Robert Levin; "A writer from whom I always learn something." – Nat Hentoff; Go directly to The Drill Press Catalog; Or order now as a print copy and a pdf download from PRINT, or else from as an ebook from E-BOOK in pdf and prc format. We suggest the pdf format for this work if ordered as an ebook.

A Broca Literária: Saudanções, internauta.; A partir de novembro, a Drill Press concede espaço para autores e leitores da lingua portuguesa com sua nova revista digital "A Broca Literária". Serão quatro trabalhos de prosa expostos mensalmente seguindo linhas similares às adotadas pela editora em suas outras revistas. Publicaremos crônicas, artigos, estórias curtas, romances de ficção e não-ficção, tudo em lingua portuguesa. Queremos textos originais, criativos, que instiguem a reflexão no leitor, que lhe agucem o espírito crítico sem comprometer-lhe a doçura e a espontaneidade, que matem sua sede de arte, talento e verdade.; Produções óbvias como tantas que transbordam na rede escondendo trabalhos valiosos são dispensáveis para nós, mesmo que bem apresentadas. Nossos lemas são criatividade, originalidade, qualidade e ousadia. A "Broca" não teme novidades. Não ostenta barreiras quanto à temática apresentada. O importante é que se respeite essas quatro prerrogativas.; Você, leitor e autor da língua portuguesa, agora tem um espaço só seu.; Para saber mais sobre a proposta da Broca ou sobre como ser um de nossos autores, acesse a revista.; A Broca Literária

We're new, we're vicious and we're hungry.: We seek a few good readers. Terrestrial intelligences seeking pleasure in engaging the brain, eschewing the standard television-aping pap presented by the major houses as literature. Readers relishing the English language, prose that realizes its potential, and tales that exploit the marvels of reality wherever it is found.; We seek a few good writers. Authors renouncing cliché with tales outside the mainstream, explicit in setting and detail to transport the reader, trusting rather than bludgeoning the reader. Creators of convincing creatures in unique settings.; You can eat off our prose.

Manifesto In Five Easy Movements: This work simultaneously appeared on the computers of our three founding editors as they made plans to start this publishing house. Investigation revealed slight variations in text which over time merged into this version; under the properties were three different comments, though the title and author were as given. One comment stated CHANCE: Computer enHANced, another CHANCE: Computer Hosted AlieN intelligenCE. In the third a longer description: A work by silicon life forms created by information and inhabiting the web. Later one of us got an email with no address simply stating Collective intelligence from bits to words.; Click To Read the Full Manifesto

The Big Stupid Review
A Pleasure Jaunt with One of the Sex Workers Who Don’t Exist in the People’s Republic of China: By Tom Bradley; Sam Edwine and his presumably contagion free rent-a-date were being Red Flag Limousined through the very mountain forests where, in times gone by, Coxinga the Pirate once paused to hold a funeral for his baby, knowing he’d be overtaken and wiped out.; It was impossible to tell whether the chauffeur was smiling unkindly through the rearview mirror at Sam’s cramped knees and low pigmentation. Despite the sweat guzzling heat and humidity, the guy had covered the lower half of his face with one of those white surgical masks affected by Asians with colds or halitosis, real or imagined.; How could this operator of heavy machinery have known in advance that the whore was bringing her little greasy balls of poppy tar? And, if he had known, why hadn’t he felt compelled, in his capacity as the joy-ride’s on-board representative of the provincial government, to blow the whistle on the tart, instead of merely taking passive measures to protect his own mouth and nose from the seductive fumes? And why hadn’t he brought a mask for Sam? more...
Making the Switch: By George Sparling I'd read, "tear the mask from error is to establish truth," something a minor Enlightenment philosopher named Maurice Falconet pronounced, quoted in Peter Gay's The Rise of Modern Paganism. Not a required book, but I was a procrastinator. I'd read a solid overview of the Enlightment, the era named by Kant. I relished stray pieces of information, unable to link them except when drunk or on a caffeine high. No amount of Red Bull would push me through college. more...

Journal Of Precognitive Memories
At the Airport: By Tom Bradley. There was no ready explanation for such a star's presence anywhere near our hopelessly benighted corner of the continent. It's not like our cow-shitty airstrip was a hub for Delta Airlines or anything. I was surprised to see no entourage fawning and fussing over this National Book Award winner. I was also curious as to why he wasn't scarfing the camembert hors d'oeuvres and champagne in the newly-built VIP Lounge, which would be otherwise deserted but for the members of the local Uncompahgre tribe, who'd recently gotten filthy rich building casinos on their reservation. more...

Spooky Action At A Distance
Report from Brazil: Can they spin it?: By Dani Nedal. So, the best we can say about intelligence estimates is that they are right 50% of the time. The worst we can say is that they’re just as biased as any other government document and serve a policy purpose; they’re as much a cause of policy as a consequence of it. more...
Photographic Essay: Communal Bathing
Ensaio fotográfico: Banho coletivo
Ensayo fotográfico: Baños Comunales
Reading Comprehension Quiz: By the editors. Of course you've graduated from high school or college or whatever, and now when you see letters arranged in a semantically correct sequence in some variant of the English langauge you can read the words they spell, hopefully without moving your lips. But can you grasp the semantic content of the symbolic sequence? That is, assuming the author had something to communicate and the facility to string together words with senamtic intent, can you ascertain that intention? Note that often it seems many journalists are unable to work either side of this process effectively, so considering yourself some kind of writer or intellectual may not be of any significance here. (An interesting example was a news person on the Lehrer News Hour recently confusing the string rate with the sense implied by the string total.); At any rate, read the following simple paragraphs written in common English and then answer the questions. It should test your reading ability at about a fifth grade level (in a developed foreign country where English is a second language, like Germany or France). more...
Science in Contemporary Fiction: Variations on a Theme of Richard Powers: By Jim Chaffee. If I contend mathematics is the purest form of conceptual art, created without regard to the material world and realized only within the biochemical process that generates conceptualization, you would likely consider me daft. If I further contend physics (and science in general) is philosophy guided by aesthetic principles to answer questions arising from (possibly extended) perceptual experience within constraints often misleadingly termed the "scientific method," chances are my ideas would be at odds with yours. Not necessarily, but with probability increasing in proportion to your training in an art, social science (which is not science by the definition above) or engineering. more...
Free Jazz: The Jazz Revolution of the '60s: By Robert Levin. Four musicians (a saxophonist, trumpeter, bassist and drummer) abruptly began to play - with an apoplectic intensity and at a bone-rattling volume - four simultaneous solos that had no perceptible shared references or point of departure. Even unto themselves the solos, to the extent that they could be isolated as such in the density of sound that was being produced, were without any fixed melodic or rhythmic structure. Consisting, by turns, of short, jagged bursts and long meandering lines unmindful of bar divisions and chorus measures they were, moreover, laced with squeaks, squeals, bleats and strident honks. A number ended and another began - or was it the same one again? How were you to tell? No. No way this madness could possibly have a method. more...