Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 157
February 13, 2012
Like totally Exquisite Quartet.
It's true. The endlessly sublime Meg Tuite invited us to participate in the awesomely ongoing Exquisite Quartet series at the also endlessly awesome Used Furniture Review and participate we did, along with the equally sublime Len Kuntz and Linda Hedrick, the final product being "Ask and You Shall Receive," which dare we say is not just awesome, but sublime as well. 
February 11, 2012
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All dead. And De France.
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. We have a new piece What The Dead Know by Stephen De France, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and Washington gay marriage 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, the Giants, what?
February 10, 2012
We are ALL 'LIT' UP. Part Two. We are also McNair.
And big thanks to the James Goertel for that as well. Now how about some excerpt? Word.[image error]
We are ALL 'LIT' UP. Part One.
And big thanks to the James Goertel for that. Now how about some excerpt? Word.JG: When did you think, "I might be pretty darn good at this writing thing?"
BT: I actually didn't know I was allowed to think that. But when I finished that first story, when I finally got started, and I mean literally that first handwritten draft that emerged wholly and in one shot, I knew I wasn't wrong that I wanted to start in the first place.
February 9, 2012
February 8, 2012
February 7, 2012
This Book Will Change Your Life - B-Sides and Broken Hearts by Caryn Rose.
Work. Travel. Read. Repeat. And reading B-Sides and Broken Hearts by Caryn Rose got us thinking about what we project onto books as readers. There's just so much to love about this book, not the least of which is that the story itself is ultimately both a love story and a story about love. The love of the lower East side during the late seventies and eighties. The love of Seattle at the time grunge become something bigger than a bunch of scruffy dudes wailing in small bars. The love of anything New Jersey and Los Angeles, yes people love New Jersey and Los Angeles, they do, for real. And ultimately the love of music, more than love really fandom, intensive freakish loving fandom embodied here in all the real bands who played these scenes from the Ramones to Soundgarden, and one purely fabricated one for the sake of this story, Blue Electric. And it's funny about projection, because we do not love music like the protagonist of this story, nor can we necessarily relate to years lost to lost relationships, or even being quite so fully absorbed in something such as the birth of a band, and yet we found ourselves completely absorbed in the birth of Blue Electric, their fight for attention, their intensity to make it and be something, their fears and awe of what might if this or that were to break in such and such a way. In some ways in fact what we loved most about the book might be another book all together or even an alternate one, as we see all this through the protagonist's eyes and needs and not that of the band itself. It's her story, not theirs, but their story slayed us and her love for all it meant to them and her. We want that too, some of it, any of it, something of it, and rarely have we read something that so well captures that kind of want. 
February 6, 2012
Wherein we riff on death, tonic, research and My Father's House at the Necessary Fiction.
Big thanks to the Necessary Fiction for letting us talk death and My Father's House as part of their "Research Notes" series. Please do enjoy, though we recognize that may so not be the right descriptor. And now for some excerpt. "I suppose one could ask what kind of research one has to do when they write about death, or maybe more accurately, why would they even want to? Where's the gain there? None really. I don't think. Maybe it's even better not to do so. There are other, better milestones to write about and research certainly. Like losing your virginity for example. It may not be pleasurable, or fun, it may even be scary, something you regret, and wish you could take back. But there will be other chances to at least get sex right, or better, or you can even choose not to at all after that. It worked for Morrissey. Initially anyway."
