Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 34

This Book Will Change Your Life - Idle Feet Do The Devil's Work by the Ray Charbonneau.

We have gladly riffed here before on the Ray Charbonneau and how his compulsions are our compulsions. And you need look no further than our posts on Overthinking the Marathon and Chasing the Runner's High for proof of that. As we read Idle Feet Do The Devil's Work, however, we thought we would give Charbonneau and his obsessive awesomeness a break, or more accurately, we would instead celebrate said awesomeness for the great pleasure it brings us. We run, and outside of writing, there is little we spend more time trying to make time for, while simultaneously recognizing that our mood, even our stability rests on our ability to makes these things real. Take today for example. We wrote and ran by 7:15 am, and sharing this with you is not about bragging, or it's not intended to be anyway. It's about knowing we have to work, and get children up for school, but still having a need, and well-knowing what feeding that need produces: happiness and equilibrium, energy, reduced stress, any and all of it. And yet, stress reduction aside, not to mention watching Game of Thrones, and yes, our children we suppose, there is little that gives us more pleasure than reading, our first great love, compulsion, and escape. Before running, and writing, drugs, and sex, there was book, and there was read, and so to be able to lie on the couch and read about running as written by someone who knows, the known known as it were, is pleasure multiplied, or personified, or something quite like it. And the Charbonneau brings it, and over and over again at that. So we thank him for doing so, and we recognize that if he isn't actually changing our life with his words, he is certainly making it better.

The Dan Sinker knows things.

Artistically Declined Press is all 2015 Deerbird Novella and Twin Antlers Prize for Collaborative Poetry and you only have until March 9th to submit, yo, so do get on it.

For real. Here, and here, and even here.

Badass.

Hollywood Notebook by the Wendy C. Ortiz there is. Which is most awesome when you stop to think about it.

Right? Totally, yes, and more here there is.

"This clever collection will make any short story reader sit up and take notice." All Post, all of the time.

It is just that kind of week. Excerpt? Word.

"Star Wars, parenting, movies, television and pop culture galore. This clever collection will make any short story reader sit up and take notice."

Dave Housley is Steph Post interview.

And like right here at that. Excerpt? Word.


SP: If I Knew the Way, I Would Take You Home has much in common with Commercial Fiction- your style is immediately visible on the page- but there is a seriousness bubbling under the surface of these stories, a bittersweet nostalgia, that lends weight to the stories. How was your mindset different in writing this collection?
DH: Thanks for saying that! I think the best compliment I ever got was from Steve Almond, who said “I bet people tell you all the time how funny these stories are, but they’re really sad.” I like to think I can make anything really sad, even a Wiggles concert or a Budweiser ad. The stories in If I Knew the Way have a lot of what a friend called “father/son shit” happening in them, a lot of reckoning with getting older and the disappointments and limitations that might bring. I tend to write maybe five years behind where I am in my life. I guess I process things slowly.

The Peter Tieryas Liu is so totally Rain Taxi Review of Books interview.

And right here at that. Excerpt? Word.

BE: In Bald New World democracies like Europe and the U.S. aren't doing very well, dictatorships like China and North Korea seem to be doing much better, and market forces control everything. Do you see this hyper-consumerism as a bad or a good thing?

PTL: First off, North Korea is pretty horrible in Bald New World. The NK spies that hide in Beijing have it better just because their job is to kidnap people for enslavement to North Korea by luring them with the promise of beauty and bliss. But, without delving into plot spoilers, what happens to one of the spies later in the book makes it clear they live under brutally savage conditions. On a deeper level though, this is a fascinating question because it gets back to a question of identity. While I’m ethnically Asian, I view myself as an American. I grew up here, am indebted for all the opportunities I received, and I love the culture of e pluribus unum (I might also point out that in Asia, they all viewed me as a Westerner). In that sense, it may seem like I’m more critical of aspects of America I don’t like, but it’s only because I want to see change for the better (in Bald New World’s case, rampant gun violence and obesity being two issues I specifically target). Because I’m a foreigner in Asian countries and I’m mainly there as a tourist, I don’t feel as comfortable making broader judgments, especially without being aware of the full social and cultural context (why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your neighbor’s eye?). That’s why I often cringe when I read non-Asian accounts of Asia because, even if well-intentioned, they’re so full of broad generalizations aimed at caricaturing and mocking things they don’t understand, they feed a stereotype that, unfortunately, has ramifications for Asians living in America who are globbed together. In terms of hyper-consumerism, I don’t think I’ve ever met one person who thinks it’s a good thing, not even marketing people I know. Consumerism itself isn’t bad, but when it becomes the end-all of anyone’s existence, the dehumanizing cycle that ensues makes life one dreary hell. To quote Fight Club, “The things you own end up owning you.”

That time (the ARC) of The New York Stories was all L&L Tavern.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All santa rosa. And full of pawelek.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem, santa rosa/larkfield by old friend bl pawelek, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and threatened government shutdown 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, Selma, shortly.