Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 101

The Beaudoin. Long may he reign.

We are The Honest Parent Series.

Well, technically we are not, TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer is, but let's not quibble, let's just enjoy it yes, yes, who knows, it just might change our life, right? Sure. Excerpt? Word.

If someone gave you a letter grade for your current parenting, what would it be?
Is that someone one of my children? Because that grade would be low. Maybe a B+ otherwise. Assuming that person had been drinking or finds me attractive. 

Where You Should Be line edits yo.

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Sixty-Six - Sto Lat, starring the Michael Czyzniejewski.

We are definitely Sto lat. We are also the Lemonhead Lady, driving in cars, Chicago stories(and Chicago Stories), Flannery O'Connor, red light on, and podcast. So do hit it. It just might change your life.

And then there was the time Artistically Declined Press said let there be Little Books, Big Stories all bundled and the like and there was.

More here totally yes here thank you.

"This book could've been written in my voice." You Can Make Him Like You gets some Goodreads love. And likes it. A lot.

Truly. So many thanks to Adam, and drinks brother, many, on us, somewhere, some time, for sure. Excerpt? Word.

"The book's one of those books that makes for compulsive reading and that rarely if ever seems like great, or even very good, literary art, but that ends up smacking you in the face with the fact that it's pretty goddamn good. It seems so simple, so low-key, so far from a literary challenge, that I never realized entirely how much I liked it, or how sophisticated it was until I was done reading it."

"The End is the Beginning is The End - For Oak." Daddy Cool. The Seth Berg.

Daniel Clowes Chicago.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Salvatore Pane.

In our heart of hearts we would have some cogent, yet, pithy, 140 character commentary on Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Sal Pane, that would somehow channel Patrick Ewing's stoic awesomeness, John Starks dogged, one-balled fearlessness, or possibly Kanye West's massive sense of self and all things Kanye. But maybe that wouldn't do the Sal Pane justice? We could also reflect on other recent coming of age debut novels by young male writers that struck as saying something meaningful in a space that actually doing so makes the work meaningful in and of itself. And here, The Slide by Kyle Beachy or Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron come to mind. We could reference these things. Seeking to infuse this riff with some kind of pop culture shorthand, and we probably already have based on the mere fact that we have mentioned them at all. So we could do all that, and yes, have done so, but let's not totally do so. Instead let's focus on something else. Or something's else. First, the writing itself, because in the Last Call, the writing is tight. Not tight like the shorts Larry Bird wore in his heyday. It's not about restriction, or the inability to breathe, because Last Call breaths. The wordplay and dialogue is alive and dynamic. It's that the craftmanship itself is tight. Sal Pane knows how to construct story, and we think the importance of this sometimes gets lost until you see it right in front of you, pulsating and beckoning. Second, the debut novel can be a trap, there will be sex, drinking, and search. There will also be tragedy, friends die, maybe siblings, or both, and then there are the work woes and relationships and how anyone anywhere can possibly communicate, much less connect with anyone anywhere. And so the question becomes, how does the author do this differently and new? It's about freshness, and new angles, and so it is with Last Call, which is about sex, drinking, death, and alienation as it has to be, but spun through a generation that has grown-up in the internet. Not as guests or travelers like those who came before them, but in it. Everything saturated with social media. Every conversation filtered through how it will ultimately translate to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. And everyone wondering whether they should be trying to escape something they are so totally immersed in when they don't quite know what alternatives exist because they've never truly been exposed to them. Sal Pane has brought us this generation laid bare, with tightness, humor, and pathos. Will it change your life? We think so. It probably already has.

This seems right.