Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 188

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Thirty-Eight - Timbre. Or tamber.

Yo, there is new This Podcast Will Change Your Life, and in said podcast we talk to TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Joseph G. Peterson, author of the terrifical swirling noir Beautiful Piece. The conversation is most beautiful to say the least. It is also full of timbre. So please do hit it, now, or soon anyway, as it is sure to change some life, maybe even yours.

"Tanzer writes his characters... with incredibly depth and honesty." You Can Make Him Like You gets Vouched. And likes it. A lot. Also, photo action.

Really thrilled by these kind words for You Can Make Him Like You from the Vouched and recent TBWCYL, Inc. favorite, and now bestest BFF ever Amber Sparks. Drinks on us for sure when next we meet. As for the rest of you, how about some excerpt, and some photo from the terrific You Can Make Him Like You discussion we had last week with always easy on the eyes pop culture critic and long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite David Masciotra at The Book Cellar, who we also owe big thanks to, and will also be buying drinks for soon. And yes we know its a book store, The Book Cellar that is, not David, though we are happy to buy drinks for both.

"What makes the book work so well is the way that Tanzer writes his characters, particularly Keith, with incredibly depth and honesty. Like all of us, they are diffuse and distracted and shaped not only by important events (babies, elections) but also by pop culture, by music and movies and sports trivia and TMZ. Tanzer is willing to acknowledge that sometimes, even during the most difficult moments of our lives, we may be thinking about the most trivial things imaginable–and that it doesn't mean WE are trivial. It merely reflects our culture, our methods of coping, our way of floating out of the world even while fully immersed in it."

A Dr. Abraham Makofsky Memorial Day thing.

We haven't done this before, and we can't even find a photo to jpeg, but as we sit here during the waning hours of Memorial Day our thoughts are drifting to TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer's grandfather Dr. Abraham Makofsky who not only served in World War II, but led a long and varied life as an activist for peace, community organizer, academic and finally, and near the end, short story writer. He was one of a kind. He is missed. And if you are so inclined please feel free to read an interview Ben conducted with him and Ben's mother Judith Tanzer back during another time not so different from this one, as well as, his obituary. He should be remembered. He is here and we appreciate the indulgence.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All Kenneth Pobo. Aunt. And Crawford.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. We have a new poem AUNT GWEN TOLD ME, IN CONFIDENCE by Kenneth Pobo, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and diplomatic relations 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, have good Memorial Day.

A Faster Than Forty 99 Problems thing.

We are loving our new friends at Faster Than Forty and we hope you will spend some time on their site and check out all the cool things they are trying to do around the Mark Gomes, his masters running career and the sheer joy and wonderment, is that a word, that is running itself, over 40 or not. Meanwhile, one thing they're doing, self-absorption alert, is hyping the work of TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer and the CCLaP published 99 Problems, big appreciation that, and we not only look forward to watching Faster Than Forty blow-up in all the ways we expect it soon will, but playing some, any, role in said explosion.

Short Story Month 2011. Or, how it is that Caleb J. Ross and Jim Ruland came to punch us in the gut.

It is so Short Story Month and that is a wonderful thing indeed. It also comes with a modicum of pain and dread, and this too is a wonderful thing. All of which is to say it got us thinking about short stories that have punched us in the gut, which us got us thinking about the stories "An Optimist is the Human Personification of Spring" and "Brains for Bengo" by Caleb J. Ross and Jim Ruland respectively, which also led us to penning a joint for the Matt Bell led Short Story Month lovefest on his website, which we hope you will take a look at, though if we had to choose what you might look at with your limited time, we encourage you to take a look at these stories in particular, because they are sure to change your life, if only briefly at that.

We are June 5th Cousins Reading Series.

Big thanks to TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Zine Will Change Your Life contributor William Walsh and the whole crew at the Cousins Reading Series for inviting TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer to read on June 5th as part of the super fine Cousins Reading Series at Abe's Bar in Providence, RI. The line-up is stellar, there is mass excitement and we even have some Cousins interview action which we think you will enjoy and have excerpted here.

Can you name one person—living or dead, famous or unknown—who is unassailable? If so, who and why?

Laura Cherry: I don't think anyone is unassailable, really, but nonetheless I'll pick Leonard Cohen for his humility and passion and kickass lyrics.

Susan Scarlata: My Italian grandfather, my father's father, comes to mind. He largely raised himself on the streets of Pittsburgh, where I am from, and worked many odd, liminally-legal "jobs," which I am sure were as often about being scammed as doing the scamming himself. But in my own memory of him, when he was in his late seventies and eighties, when approached with anything he would rather not engage with he feigned bad hearing. His ability to hear lessened when he was attacked or even questioned, but this was clearly not due to infirmity or a weakened mind. Instead, he was sternly refusing to hear –looking up at the ceiling as if nothing had been said. Watching my grandfather as a ten-year old it was not that he, like a politician, would give you the answer he thought you wanted to hear, if he did not like it he just didn't entertain that a question or comment had appeared at all. Re-reading this, I realize that on a macro level I could be describing China's Communist party, which living in Hong Kong, I have had glimpses of so far, but seems to be also, largely unassailable.

Michael Stewart: The only unassailable people, I imagine, are the imagined ones. Holmes' deductive magic in Doyle's clockwork London; Daisy dressed in Fitzgerald's svelte, flattering sentences, money in her voice; Colette's Claudine; etc.

Ben Tanzer: I am very tempted to say William Walsh, though not entirely because of the potential brownie points and book sales, okay, mostly because of that, and I feel fairly obligated to say Nelson Mandela, because I suppose there isn't a better candidate, anywhere, but the first name that came to mind when I read this was Luke Skywalker, who didn't cross over to the dark side despite every opportunity to do so, which is pretty cool I think, and then maybe Johnny Cash, who sort of did cross over, but arguably made it work for him, which was also pretty cool.
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Artistically Declined Press is going Pop-Up. And Experimental.

So hit it. Here. There. No here. Sweet.
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"You can run but you can't hide. At least not from your own life." You Can Make Him Like You gets Ken Wohlrob'd. And likes it. A lot.

Long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Ken Wohlrob has some most kind things to say about You Can Make Him Like You and we are most appreciative. Drinks, and Thai food, on us sir when next we meet.

"Tanzer's love of writing pop stories, that reveling in what can be new and poignant in oft-tread ground, wins the day. His greatest skill — and it's been this way through all of his novels and short stories — is to take the normal, the everyday we all know and live through, and to turn that into great tragicomedy." [image error]

Some most generous The Nervous Breakdown self-interview and excerpt.

The fine crew at The Nervous Breakdown has already been most kind to You Can Make Him Like You with a much appreciated review by TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Nik Korpon, and they are now running both an excerpt and a Self-Interview, and yes, that does mean Interview Sundays are back. It also means big thanks to the sublime Gina Frangello for pulling all this together. Now, what does it mean for you though? It means enjoyment. We hope. And excerpt. For sure. So please do enjoy, and please do excerpt, and please do keep being you, because we love that about you.

Is it true that you have an amazingly small carbon footprint?

It is if that's not an euphemism for something else.

No, never, this is a family site.

Word. Why do you bring this up then?

I think its good to open with some humor, and maybe even empathy, its more endearing and draws the reader into the conversation. More than that though, I was thinking about some of the commentary on my new book You Can Make Him Like You, which I am supposed to hype, yes?

Totally. Be subtle maybe, don't look desperate or sad and don't be too grandiose despite the initial reviews, but yes hype, must hype.

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