Ben Bush's Blog, page 3

“I invariably begin to feel that I am one of the objects of study”

I interviewed T. Geronimo Johnson for Los Angeles Review of Books. In his novel Welcome to Braggsville, UC Berkeley students’ protest of a Civil War Reenactment leads to an accidental lynching. It’s a novel that’s funnier, weirder, and more multi-vocal than plot synopsis suggests. In our conversation, he discussed how the novel’s use of citation reflected the dissociative aspects of being black in academia.

“’The people of the book’ is the cliché. What happens to a people when books disappear?”

I did a pair of interviews with Joshua Cohen about his novel Book of Numbers. For Los Angeles Review of Books we talked about computer code, puns, the “enkitschment” of the Holocaust, and his novel’s often uncomfortable engagement with race. At The Rumpus, I spoke with him about his job translating product copy for porn CD-ROMs while living in Eastern Europe. For Flavorwire, I wrote a listicle: Book of Numbers explained, if not through animated GIFs, at least adjacent to them.

Two interviews with Joshua Cohen

I talked to Joshua Cohen about computer code, puns, the Holocaust as a template for suffering, and the deployment of race in his new novel Book of Numbers at the Los Angeles Review of Books. In the second part of this, I spoke with him about his job translating product copy for porn CD-ROMs while living in Eastern Europe over at The Rumpus.

Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers Explained in GIFs

I wrote a listicle about Joshua Cohen for Flavorwire. It’s his novel Book of Numbers explained, if not through animated GIFs, at least adjacent to them.

Short story “The Overseer” in The Literary Review

In “The Overseer”, globalized markets deliver a comeuppance to Vic Graburn, director of The Leverage Point and A Man Above. How is art designed for export–whether it’s Transformers 3 or trinkets sold to tourists–deformed by the needs of the market? How do intellectual property and de-industrialization intersect? Shameless cultural ventriloquism is also involved.

An earlier version of this story appeared in The Fanzine as “In the Blink of An All-Seeing Eye” a few years back and complete with “illustrations” I made for Junc Gallery’s “Zine Show” exhibit, which included Ron Rege Jr., Sammy Harkham, John Porcellino, and Souther Salazar.

Two Intros for The Believer’s The Organist Podcast

I wrote a pair of super short intros for McSweeney’s The Believer’s The Organist podcast (affiliated with LA’s public radio station KCRW)

One is about a series prospective business texts which leads the episode in which whole chapters of Tao Lin’s novel Taipei is rapped. The other is about binaural recording and Arthur Rimbaud which leads an episode about director Mike Mills’ documentary on the children of Silicon Valley.

National Book Award Winner and Unabomber Suspect William Vollmann on Fossil Fuels, Death, and Cross-Dressing

I interviewed National Book Award winner and Unabomber suspect William Vollmann for Bookforum about his new book Last Stories and Other Stories.

National Book Award winner and Unabomber suspect William Vollmann on Fossil Fuels, Death, and Cross-Dressing

I interviewed National Book Award winner and Unabomber suspect William Vollmann for Bookforum about his new book Last Stories and Other Stories.

A Hundred Syncopated Pacemakers: An Evening with Adam Wilson and Darius James

I got to read with Darius James, Adam Wilson, and Daniel Hamilton at Mellow Pages Library in Bushwick back on Oct.17th. Adam read a very new short story–more recent even than the ones in his forthcoming story collection What’s Important is Feeling. The stock market, hard drugs and the angular kinks in human anatomy were involved. Over the years, Darius has written a series of Christmas stories for an ex-pat magazine in Berlin, one of which, the hilarious  “Froggy Chocolates’ Christmas” was anthologized in Paul Beatty’s Hokum. Darius read a piece from that serious about one very drunk Christmas in the LES. I read from “The Unloading” about an IMF worker’s visit to Paraguay. More information below.

A HUNDRED SYNCOPATED PACEMAKERS:

AN EVENING WITH DARIUS JAMES,

ADAM WILSON AND MORE

October 17 7:30 pm

Two paragons of poor taste—two offensive linemen known for crossing the line—team up on the gridiron of Mellow Pages Library for an evening of filmic appropriation and stealth assaults on language. Darius James and Adam Wilson will be joined by musical guest Island Boy as well as Daniel Hamilton and Ben Bush.

 

Darius James reading at Mellow Pages

Darius James is the author of Negrophobia: An Urban Parable and That’s Blaxploitation: Roots of the Baadasssss ‘Tude (Rated X by an All’Whyte Jury). He co-wrote and appeared in the 2013 documentary The United States of Hoodoo. James also wrote the Ask Dr. Snakeskin column for Penthouse magazine.

Adam Wilson is the author of Flatscreen and the forthcoming

collection of short stories What’s Important is Feeling. His writing has appeared in Paris Review, Tin House, and New York Tyrant.

Island Boy’s electro-pop songcraft is the the work of Richard Hunter-Rivera. Mixing tender vocals, eerie synths, and ambient guitar washes with drum and bass loops composed on an AKAI MPC, Hunter-Rivera’s music pays homage to the art of modern songwriting while at the same time exploring new recording processes that result in dense, cinematic, and surreal soundscapes. Island Boy’s debut, a self-titled EP was released in late 2012 on Rita Records (ritarecords.com)

Daniel Hamilton is a writer, graduate student, and teacher from Brooklyn by way of Los Angeles by way of Massachusetts. He’s a reader,, but secretly prefers to watch movies. Daniel is an active social media user who maintains relevant accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and most recently, Vine. All of his accounts are anonymous.

Ben Bush’s fiction has appeared in or is forthcoming in Yeti, The Literary Review, and The Fanzine. He has contributed to The Believer, San Francisco Chronicle, Poets & Writers, and Bitch.

Mellow Pages Library

56 Bogart St. Brooklyn, NY 11206

(near the Morgan stop on the L train.

Like Trenton, But Without the Thrills

I’ve got an essay about poster artist / rock novelist / baseball historian / narco-troubador Camden Joy / Tom Adelman up over at the Los Angeles Review of Books. “I always thought of Camden Joy as something that would carry you through the darkest times.” A portion of this essay was presented as a talk at the 2013 Midwest Modern Language Association conference. My co-panelists included Adam Wilson, Trinie Dalton, and David. N. Meyer. The panel was moderated by Prof. Samuel Cohen (University of Missouri). Tom Adelman served as keynote speaker for the conference.