Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 202
January 26, 2011
We are so Metazen. And Taking Flight. Wonderbar.
Quite geeked we are to have our new joint "Taking Flight" up at the Metazen. "Taking Flight" is the first of a series of pieces we have been working on that are set in Chicago and were referenced to and dissected in 99 Problems. We hope you dig it. We also hope, no think, it could change your life, so for a literary appetizer of sorts please do enjoy the brief excerpt below."It starts on Facebook, and why does everything start there now? You suppose you're too old to understand it, just as you have no idea why you signed-up in the first place. You're not actually interested in what anyone from high school is doing, how many kids they have or how much they love Jesus. You don't want their gifts or care about the farm they're building. There is a reason why you live nowhere near home and haven't, there was a bigger world out there, a world where new memories could be made and the old ones could be left behind and packed away."
January 25, 2011
January 24, 2011
"Bravo." Cool, Not Removed gets Lavinia Ludlow'd. And likes it. A lot.
Big thanks to TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Lavinia Ludlow for her kind words on "Cool, Not Removed" at the Goodreads. Drinks on us for sure when next we meet."I liked the page by page story-telling. Ben has an amazing ability to convey a lot of information and emotion through very few lines. Bravo."
January 23, 2011
This Book Will Change Your Life - Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron.
Small town life. Parties. Drugs. Listening to music. Hooking-up. Getting out. Coming back. Coming of age. These are stories we know. Stories we live. And stories that writers, not to mention filmmakers, hello Dazed and Confused, are inevitably drawn to as they mine what they know in attempt to create art and find their voice. Into this universe comes the latest edition to this genre, Sophomoric Philosophy by Chicago's own Victor David Giron, a recent podcastee over at the This Podcast Will Change Your Life division. Victor knows small towns, and definitely knows drugs and chicks. He also knows what we listened to, watched and read in the eighties and nineties, adding a layer of time and place that is both uniquely Chicagoland and full of pop culture awareness. All of this is done with wit and nuance, but what allows Victor and this novel to transcend, and expand, on the genre is not only the exploration of the immigrant experience, specifically being first generation Americans navigating American culture, and frankly the sense that this is where literature is heading, because this is where the world is heading, but the idea that all of these kids are dropped into these small towns and even as they try to determine what their relationship will be to their parent's places of origin they still chase girls, take drugs and behave like total idiots, in essence like everyone else, imagine. 
January 21, 2011
The Bat Segundo Show. Yes.
There is probably nothing remotely unique about hyping something you already know about, but we have been listening to The Bat Segundo Show all day at work and it is all that, and that, and yes what drew us today was the new episode featuring one of our newest BFFs, the author and co-publisher of Artistically Declined Paul Bomer, but we haven't stopped there, we have immersed in it, which leaves us with two thoughts, first, you may want to do so as well and when you do, it just may change your life, and two, who do we need to talk to to, and what do we need to do, to get on the show ourselves, because we will talk to them, and we will certainly do anything they ask, anything.
January 20, 2011
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, very David Mac and still full of birds. Huh.
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live and still full of birds. Huh. We have a new poem Perch from old friend David Mac, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and repeal veto 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, and art, and video, yes, video, and combinations there of. And most finally, mass hugs all around.
January 19, 2011
January 18, 2011
The CCLaP podcast for An Evening with Nathan Rabin is live, so very live , and ready for consumption, yours, ours, everyone's.
This is a quasi-lengthy and very entertaining podcast with Nathan Rabin the zen master of all things AV Club, that just happens to include an opening bad-movie inspired monologue by TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer titled "Notes From the Honorary Oscar Speech I'll Never Give," which we would add might be perceived as inappropriate, even offensive, in some quarters, just none we tend to frequent. Enjoy. And big thanks to CCLaP for the opportunity, much fun for all, especially us.
January 17, 2011
January 16, 2011
This (chap) Book Will Change Your Life - to the river by Rose Hunter.
We suppose it's impossible not to project one's own stuff onto the poems from to the river by Rose Hunter, poems about location, travel, escape and memories, poems that focus on the feeling of now even as they look back to touchstones from the past, and yes, we know, this is about one woman's journey and all the things such journey's might entail, work, discovery, relationships, and so on, but as you read it, as we read it anyway, you can't help but think, is she running from something or to something, what is the state of her past relationships, be they with her mother, men or home, what do the threads of violence mean, and then you pause and you think, is this reaction about the author, who's out their grabbing nuggets and spinning them into something new and complicated and beautiful, or is about you, us, and all the things you, we, have run from, and continue to run from, and the wonder you, we, have about what it would look like to just go, here, there, everywhere, now, always on a journey and always capturing whatever is going on around you, we, on paper and in words, endlessly cascading words, no longer at home, even as we reach back to it in everything new thing we see and do. 
