Model from The Monroe Moosnick Medical and Science Museum, Transylvania University in Lexington, KY; by Merkin J. Pus-Tart, Kingdom of Fife blog.
An Illustrated Lecture and Book Signing with Richard Faulk, with Music and Cocktails by Friese Undine
Date: **** Thursday, October 11 (NOTE DATE CHANGE)
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Produced by Morbid Anatomy
*** Copies of Gross America will be available for sale and signing
Don’t judge a book by its cover. And don’t judge this collection of American oddities solely by their gross exterior. With wit and insight backed up by meticulous research, Gross America, the debut book by genial polymath Richard Faulk, takes you places you thought you never wanted to see, to unearth stories you’d never imagined.
What is Gross America?
Gross America is toothsome concoction of science and nature trivia, served with a side of sagacity and wit, and delivered in an irresistibly putrescent bundle.
No, really: What is Gross America?
Ok, it’s a travel guide to the grossest sites our 50 states have to offer. Sniff out the chemical secrets of the celebrated “sperm tree” of Los Angeles; gaze into the innards of North America’s sole surviving anatomical Venus; thumb the pages of a prison memoir bound in the memoirist’s own skin; or sneak a peek into the chamber pot used by the real-life Uncle Sam.
And those are just a fraction of the potential verb-object parings made possible by this nasty little book.
On top of being a sheer joy to read (he wrote modestly), Gross America offers an introduction to the wild nature of our 50 states and a window into some of the more perplexing moments of science, past and present. It will answer questions you might never have realized you had, and change the way you think about things you never wanted to think about in the first place.
You may never look at toxic waste the same way again.
Why should I come to the release party?
Well, at the very least, you’ll probably get drunk. There will be music, too. There will also be a discussion, and you will be able to ask the author impertinent questions about his book, and you will become intrigued enough to buy it. Which you will also be able to do.
RICHARD FAULK is a writer, editor, and Observatory habitué. A onetime time-travel columnist and occasional education reporter, he has also written about Vikings for Australian tweens, covered academic conferences for Columbia University, and celebrated the films of Pam Grier in Penthouse. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he thinks deeply about trivial matters.