Ben Bush's Blog, page 5

John Haskell! Matthew Derby! Camden Joy! Lonely Christopher!

Four Remarkable Writers Join Forces at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn, NY

Sunday October 23, 2011 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

John Haskell is the author of a pair of novels, most recently Out of My Skin (FSG) about the spiritual journey of a Steve Martin impersonator and the collection of short stories, I’m Not Jackson Pollock. His work has been praised by Nick Cave, A.M. Homes, Geoff Dyer and Ben Marcus.

Matthew Derby is the author of Super Flat Times: Stories (Back Bay Books, 2003).  His writing has appeared in Fence, Conjunctions, McSweeney’s, and The Believer, where he served in various editing capacities from 2003 to 2007.

Tom Adelman / Camden Joy – Tom Adelman is the author of a pair of unusual, thoughtful, literate baseball books, including the best-selling Long Ball about the 1975 World Series. Under the pseudonym Camden Joy, he wrote five books that transformed his obsession with rock music into novels and rants about rock icons such as Frank Black, Liz Phair, David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven, The Eagles and Al Green. These beautifully hand-printed books presaged the Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. His work has been praised by Ira Glass, Dave Eggers, Jonathon Lethem and Dennis Cooper. He will perform a series of songs from his recently released concept album about the government’s controversial presidential coin program.

Lonely Christopher is an American poet, fiction writer, dramatist, and filmmaker. He is the author of the poetry volume Into (with Christopher Sweeney and Robert Snyderman) and the fiction collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse from Little House on the Bowery, Dennis Cooper’s imprint on Akashic. Currently he is directing his first feature length film, MOM, which he also wrote. His latest chapbook, Poems in June, is newly released from The Corresponding Society.

For More Information Contact:

Ben Bush (benjaminhbush@yahoo.com)

Unnameable Books

600 Vanderbilt Ave.

(between Dean St. and St. Mark’s)

Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

(718) 789-1534

Trains 2, 3, 4 to Grand Army Plaza or B, Q to 7th Ave.

John Haskell! Monica Youn! Matthew Derby! Camden Joy! Lonely Christopher!

Five Remarkable Writers Join Forces at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn, NY

Sunday October 23, 2011 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

John Haskell is the author of a pair of novels, most recently Out of My Skin (FSG) about the spiritual journey of a Steve Martin impersonator and the collection of short stories, I’m Not Jackson Pollock. His work has been praised by Nick Cave, A.M. Homes, Geoff Dyer and Ben Marcus.

Monica Youn is the author of the National Book Award finalist Ignatz, a collection of poetry themed around George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comic strips series, which ran from 1913 to 1944 and featured a love triangle between a police officer dog, a good-hearted cat and an anarchist mouse. She is also the author of Barter, active as a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice and has appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Matthew Derby is the author of Super Flat Times: Stories (Back Bay Books, 2003).  His writing has appeared in Fence, Conjunctions, McSweeney’s, and The Believer, where he served in various editing capacities from 2003 to 2007.

Tom Adelman / Camden Joy – Tom Adelman is the author of a pair of unusual, thoughtful, literate baseball books, including the best-selling Long Ball about the 1975 World Series. Under the pseudonym Camden Joy, he wrote five books that transformed his obsession with rock music into novels and rants about rock icons such as Frank Black, Liz Phair, David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven, The Eagles and Al Green. These beautifully hand-printed books presaged the Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. His work has been praised by Ira Glass, Dave Eggers, Jonathon Lethem and Dennis Cooper. He will perform a series of songs from his recently released concept album about the government’s controversial presidential coin program.

Lonely Christopher is an American poet, fiction writer, dramatist, and filmmaker. He is the author of the poetry volume Into (with Christopher Sweeney and Robert Snyderman) and the fiction collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse from Little House on the Bowery, Dennis Cooper’s imprint on Akashic. Currently he is directing his first feature length film, MOM, which he also wrote. His latest chapbook, Poems in June, is newly released from The Corresponding Society.

For More Information Contact:

Ben Bush (benjaminhbush@yahoo.com)

Unnameable Books

600 Vanderbilt Ave.

(between Dean St. and St. Mark’s)

Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

(718) 789-1534

Trains 2, 3, 4 to Grand Army Plaza or B, Q to 7th Ave.

Solex reviews her own Pandora station, Aimee Bender, Tom Bissell, Spalding Gray

I’ve been working as managing editor at The Fanzine and  wanted to pass along some links to some interesting pieces that are up at The Fanzine right now.

I am a longtime fan of Dutch cut’n’paste pop-star Solex, a.k.a. Elisabeth Esselink. Here she reviews the Solex Pandora station. It’s interesting to read a musician’s opinion of the Pandora playlist that typifies their style.

Also, Matthew Simmons did a great interview with Tom Bissell about his recent book, Extra Lives, which sets out to apply something a bit like literary criticism to video games. Also, an interview with Aimee Bender about food, fiction and her recent novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

Also, a review of the new Steven Soderbergh’s recent documentary on actor and monologist Spalding Gray, who committed suicide in January 2004. The review is written by Theresa Smalec, who was the last person to interview Gray before his death.

Louis Chude-Sokei delivers a fascinating review of Alain Mabanckou’s Broken Glass delving into the importance of self-loathing as an authorial tool and the ways it’s traditionally been off limits for black writers.

Great fiction from Jimmy Chen of HTMLGiant and Andrew Leland.

Kaya Oakes brings a thoughtful piece on the radical anarcho-socialism of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Workers. Oakes presents a real different vision of the possibilities for Catholicism, after the ongoing bad news about priest abuse scandals.

Finally, here’s a blog I wrote about fiber optics and the difficulty of visualizing internet infrastructure.

Trinie Dalton, Kevin Sampsell, Joanna Ruocco, Louis Chude-Sokei

Just wanted to pass along some links to some of my favorite new pieces up on the Fanzine.

“Sex and Micro-Prose” — Trinie Dalton on Kevin Sampsell’s A Common Pornography and Joanna Ruocco’s Man’s Companions. Trinie makes a lot of interesting connections between the two works.

“Pottymouth” — Kevin Sampsell talks dirty in his piece on the conversations that occur in bed.

“Knowing Me, Knowing You, Knowing Them” — Louis Chude-Sokei reviews Shameem Black’s Fiction Across Borders but perhaps more importantly tangles with the echoes of Edward Said’s Orientalism and the way it has inhibited fiction writers from imagining and/or speaking as characters who are culturally, racially, sexually different than the writers themselves. He aptly describes the way that disdain has become indistinguishable from respect. I always find Louis’s work to be pretty incredible but here he says quite a few things that seem long overdue. The accompanying collages are from Berlin-based artist Paul Tyree-Francis, who has done quite a bit of graphic design for the Luaka Bop record label.