Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 159
January 24, 2012
January 22, 2012
Ben Tanzer is the literary equivalent of...a Samurai porn star god - inflicting the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique right to my funny bone!" The Terminator of Love receives some Smashwords love. And likes it. A lot.
Serious and much appreciated Smashwords like. Also, if you have already taken a look at The Terminator of Love, big thanks, if you haven't, please do, and in either cases please consider sharing some Smashwords, and Goodreads, love yourselves. We would much appreciate that as well. Now for some excerpt."OK - I just downloaded "Terminator..." and had to read it immediately! It's a riot! Ben Tanzer is the literary equivalent of Bodhi, Gandalf, Steve mother F'n McQueen, Tarantino, Jerry Maguire, Michael Corleone, the Jedi Master, Jim Henson, Ice Cube, Clubber Lang, and a Samurai porn star god - inflicting the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique right to my funny bone! Great stuff!"
January 21, 2012
This Book Will Change Your Life - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Not unlike Harry Potter we're not so sure we would have read The Hunger Games if not for the boy. The boy wanted it though. And it's not that the boy gets what the boy wants. Not exactly. But if the boy wants to tackle books and if he wants to read and lose himself in literature then we will Hunger Games. Happily. Lovingly. We desperately craved books when we were his age. Books were escape. They were calming. Some times they were triumphant and moving and explosive. Other times they merely ate up masses of time in a fashion we preferred to any other. Reading made sense from the start. We knew how it worked. And like running and now writing it allowed us to make it through the day and night. That hasn't changed, and maybe it doesn't matter that the boy doesn't quite feel the same way. Maybe he doesn't even need to. But when he does, we jump, we have to, because for us books were a lifeline, still are, and he may need someday need lifelines. Reading also remains the single greatest pleasure in our life, and there's no way not to want your children to feel pleasure of any kind, though especially that which you feel, to connect over that and lose yourself in it. And so there is The Hunger Games, a book we would have devoured at his age, and repeatedly at that. It jumps out with a bang, and it runs at you all fraught with power and anxiety, speaks to abuse of power by the state and class, and it is about a girl, a totally bad ass girl, so awesome that, something which may not seem extraordinary to the boy and the world he is growing-up in, but still is for us, books like this didn't happen then, not really, and not if it wasn't written by Judy Blume anyway. If the book ultimately slows down near the end when it inevitably has to focus on romance, we suppose tweens everywhere can more than live with that, as can we, mostly, because it is a lot of fun along the way, the kid is right there with us, and we are moving on to Catching Fire, together, triumphantly. 
January 20, 2012
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
In Those Days We. Us. Many. Massive collective coolness.
Such mass coolness is the In Those Days We and we are geeked to be part of its collective line-up awesomeness. Is that hyperbolic enough? Good. 
January 16, 2012
January 15, 2012
Craig Finn. Clash Music. Literary influences. And Interiew Sundays.
Craig Finn "Clear Heart Full Eyes" from Helms Workshop on Vimeo.
Ah yes, Interview Sundays are back. And today we are Craig Finn interview, yes that Craig Finn, at the Clash Music, talking writing songs and literary influences therein.
Is there a book / author you would view as a parallel to the album, in terms of mood / theme?
I think any of the Raymond Carver stuff would be the most likely parallel. Not that this album in any way holds up to his writing, but in the sense that it often deals with the mundane and normal and the frustrations and terror that we sometimes find in our daily lives.[image error]
