Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 116
March 10, 2013
March 7, 2013
March 5, 2013
March 4, 2013
Mile Zero. Bradley. Love. Yo.
Yes, that Ryan Bradley. So do hit that yo, here, now, it just might change your life.
March 3, 2013
This Book Will Change Your Life - The Blue Kind by Kathryn Born.
There are drug tales where the stories are fueled by binge, violence, and desperation, sordid, and sad, and filled with characters who will do anything for their next high. Some are cautionary tales. Others a celebration of what it means to exist at bottom, all hand to mouth, yet still romantic and full of color. The Blue Kind by Kathryn Born has some of all of this in its Requiem for Dream-like shadings. But it something else as well. More than something. Some things maybe. First, it spins its tale through a druggy Sci Fi dreamscape that would make Darren Aronofsky smile. And second, The Blue Kind speaks to how the drug trade works and feels, the trade-offs and misogyny, the endless enabling and co-dependance, and the willingness to kill that which we love for one more chance to make a killing, even as you unsuccessfully, and repeatedly, try to avoid using your own stuff. The Blue Kind is knowing in these ways, even if we don't know quite what's real, what's drug-induced, or what's going to ultimately change the lives of the characters, or the choices they make.
March 2, 2013
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All Drunk. And full of McCreesh.
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. We have new piece, One bourbon, one Scotch, & one beer... 3 drunk poems by Hosho McCreesh, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and sequestration prose love from Pete Anderson. We hope you enjoy this edition and we appreciate all shout-outs and links. Finally, please note, we are hoping more of you will submit comix, and music, novel excerpts, and art, and video, yes, video, and combinations there of. And most finally, go Hawks, wow.
March 1, 2013
New joint. Moving. At the decomP.
Quite excited about this we are and big thanks to the Jason Jordan and the decomP crew for that. We are also excited to let you know that this joint is part of a series of pieces from our contribution to a new collection titled WHERE YOU SHOULD BE: Four (Aging, Uncertain, Often Confused, Frequently Terrified) Contemporary Writers on Fatherhood that we collaborated on with stellar dad writers dudes and friends Dave Housley, Tom Williams, and BL Pawelek, and will be released by the Andrew Keating and Cobalt. So there's that as well. Excerpt? Word."He’s just walking down the street in front of you. It’s what they do of course, walk and breathe, and all those things people engage in when they’re alive and they grow.
He’s in front of you though, and he’s not holding your hand, or looking at you, and that’s different, new.
You’re not even on his radar.
Did you see when she kicked him at recess? your older son says to his friend all mock serious.
Yeah, she replies, he got treated.
Treated, your son says laughing, that’s not how you use the word treated.
No, she says, what’s treated?
It’s like when you say, your mom is so fat, that when she stands in front of the sun it’s like a total eclipse. That’s getting treated, he says.
And they both laugh."
February 28, 2013
"I'm happy to report that the stories in Hair Lit Vol.1, deliver the goods." Hair Lit Vol. One gets some Goodreads love. And likes it. A lot.
And big thanks to the inestimable Joey Poole for that. Excerpt? Word."I'm happy to report that the stories in Hair Lit Vol.1, deliver the goods. Some of them, like Chip Cheek's deceptively light-hearted "Twisted Sister Makes a Comeback" and Ben Tanzer's Bon Jovi-hating "Dead or Alive" examine the ethos of the era. Others, like Nick Ostdick's "True Hair" and Ryan W. Bradley's "The Truth About Fingering" find inspiration in loosely fictionalizing song lyrics. Still others, like Megan Stielstra's devastating "Heart's Not Metal" and Susannah Felts' "Training" tell stories from the era with the music thumping away in the background as a soundtrack."
February 27, 2013
These Books Will Change Your Life - Participants by Andrew Keating and Bad Kids from Good Schools by Michael Wayne Hampton.
What a treat it is to get home and walk into books. Books just waiting there to be consumed. Though in this case, the books awaiting us - Participants by Andrew Keating and Bad Kids from Good Schools by Michael Wayne Hampton - are books we have already had the pleasure to blurb. Books from new authors, bringing their fresh voices to the table. Books that speak to what life looks like today. Where hope and happiness are in sight, somewhere, sort of, maybe, yet not quite attainable. Not now anyway, and maybe not so much at all. In other words, books that just might just change your life. Blurb? Word. Or if you prefer, words.
On Participants:
"A group of smart, self-assured and knowing stories, with touches of humor... portraits of characters who know where happiness lies, but seem to grasp it is somewhere just beyond their reach. An apt description of the world today, as I see it."
On Bad Kids from Good Schools:
"The kids are definitely not alright. They are wander and smoke. Sitting on the side of empty pools, getting high, and never getting out. Not if the Adderall doesn't wear off. Or they cannot climb out of bed. And Michael Wayne Hampton knows these bad kids all too well, as he sings their songs, and tells their tales, and achingly wrenches something meaningful out of their already lost and drifting lives."
