Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 41

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All New Year. Malinenko. And full of Alcoholics.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem, Alcoholics are considered mentally weak people. To be one means you have spanned the label of social outcasts that can’t self-manage., by old friend Ally Malinenko, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and slightly less than productive most recent congress 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, seriously, Jay Cutler, the end, yes, when, what, maybe? Well that, and Happy New Year!

These Things We Loved in 2014 Will Change Your Life.

In an otherwise terrible year in so many ways, for so many people, at least there are books, and television, music, and movies. Though not enough, never enough. But here we are anyway, ignoring the rest of the year if only for a moment to share what there is, and what there was, with you, now, totally.

Memoirs that read like essays that read like memoirs and essay collections that read like memoirs.

I Was a Fat Drunk Catholic School Insomniac/Jamie Iredell, Slouching Towards Bethlehem/Joan Didion, No Man's Land/Eula Biss, Bad Feminist/Roxane Gay, Excavation/Wendy C. Ortiz 
 
Books by handsome men with facial hair, bearded, and otherwise.

Badge/Art Edwards, Deep Ellum/Brandon Hobson, Apocalypticon/Clayton Smith, Two Small Birds/Dave Newman, Where Alligators Sleep/Sheldon Lee Compton, Annihilation/Jeff Vandermeer

Books by authors with three names starting with Brian and followed by a derivation of Allen. Or Alan. Something.

King Shit, 33 Fragments of Sick-Living, The Mustache He's Always Wanted But Could Never Grow/Brian Alan Ellis, Vampire Conditions/Brian Allen Carr



The movies we are happy we got to see during a year where we did better than last year, though still didn't see enough to satisfy our movie Jones.

Snowpiercer, Skeleton Twins, Love is Strange, Boyhood, Whiplash, Gone Girl, Top 5, Birdman, Wild, Still Alice, 22 Jump Street

Movies we are happy we got to see because our children wanted us to.

Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lego Movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Movies we still hope to see.

Foxcatcher, A Most Violent Year, Interstellar, Selma, Citizen Four, Life Itself

The movie we need to see again because people apparently like it more than we did.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

And the single greatest scene from maybe any superhero movie ever. For real.



The one best seller we read so we could do so before we saw the movie.

Gone Girl/Gillian Flynn

Books published by Curbside Splendor that we quite dug and may have only been partially biased towards as we read them. 

Once I Was Cool/Megan Stielstra, The Game We Play/Susan Hope Lanier, Does Not Love/James Tadd Adcox, Animals in Peril/Ryan Kenealy, If I Would Leave Myself Behind/Lauren Becker

Books we had the pleasure to blurb and hope you have the pleasure to read.

Man of Clay/CL Bledsoe, Project Genesis/Jerry Brennan, Don't Ask Me to Spell it Out/Robert James Russell

Music which we yet again listened to not much of this year, but we still listened to these.

Run the Jewels 2/Run the Jewels, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now/Justin Townes Earl, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music/Sturgill Simpson, The Voyager/Jenny Lewis

Music we got to listen to live, which was way more than last year, and that we quite dug, though may imply we are merely repeating ourselves. 

Peekaboos/Empty Bottle, The Hold Steady/Concord Music Hall, Wilco/The Riviera



As well as, something new, and somewhat different.

21 Pilots/The Aragon

Television shows we kept on watching, and we watched a lot of television this year, that got in the way of reading, thinking, and sometimes sleeping, but ultimately made us very happy.

Game of Thrones, Justified, Girls, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, The Killing, Orange is the New Black, Homeland, Breaking Bad, Louis 

Television shows we lovingly consumed because our older son said it must be so.

Freaks and Geeks

Television shows we lovingly consumed because our younger son said it must be so.

Blackish

Television shows we finally started watching and consumed whole.  
  
Orphan Black, Rectify, Transparent, Sons of Anarchy

New television shows we happily consumed, even if they slightly lost their steam after phenomenal starts. 

True Detective, The Affair

New shows we watched, and loved, that no one else seemed to watch.

You're The Worst, Married



Anthologies we gladly contributed to.

Solarcidal Tendencies, Anthology of Chicago: The Collection 

Sometimes sexy, and sometimes searing, always soaring debuts.

Every Kiss A War/Leesa Cross-Smith, Doll Palace/Sara Lippmann, Made to Break/D. Foy

An anthology, and some collections, including comix.

When I First Held You/Edited by Brian Gresko, The Olive Stain and Rampart & Toulouse/ Kristin Fouquet, Let's Be Awkward Together/Elaine Short

Podcasts we still listen to again and again.

WTF with Marc Maron, Other People, This American Life, The Slate Culture Gabfest

And new ones we added, and will be happy to listen to again and again.

SERIAL, StartUp, All Write Already!

Poetry, which we never quite read enough of.

The Dark Cave Between My Ribs/Loren Kleinman, Rabbit Punch!/Greg Santos, Here Comes The New Joy/John W. Barrios 

Books by handsome men without facial hair, bearded, and otherwise.

Bald New World/Peter Tieryas Liu, Nagging Wives, Foolish Husbands/Nate Tower, Conquistador of the Useless/Joshua Isard, Gideon's Confession/Joseph G. Peterson, I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying/Matthew Salesses, Zinsky the Obscure/Ilan Mochari, Understudies/Ravi Mangla

Books we just didn't quite finish by year's end. But we will. Soon. Promise.

Drinking from a Bitter Cup/Angela Jackson-Brown, Idle Feet Do the Devil's Work/Ray Charbonneau


And most finally, there are many people to thank for making this a good year in spite of all that has been going on and feels like still will be. And we are most definitely overlooking some, a lot maybe, and we apologize for that, but there you go.

Matt Rowan, Jacob Knabb, Dave Housley, Jason Behrends, Leah Tallon, Anna March, Victor David Giron, Jason Pettus, Moeses Soulright, Nathan Holic, Ryan W. Bradley, Steve Lafler, Lavinia Ludlow, Rob Funderburk, Greg Olear, William Walsh, J.A. Tyler, Ryan Singleton, John Barrios, Joseph G. Peterson, Michael Seidlinger, Gabino Iglesias, Adam Lawrence, Jayme Karales, Dave McNamara, Peter Tieryas Liu, Mike Smolarek, Jeffrey Barken, Nik Korpon, Andrew Keating, Joseph Bates, Paul Luikart, Justin Lawrence Daugherty, Matty Byloos, Naomi Huffman, Brad Listi, Loren Kleinman, Michael Czyzniejewski, Ken Wohlrob, Myles and Noah Tanzer, David Masciotra, Mel Bosworth, Benoit Lelievre, Emma Mae Brown, Tim Frederick, Todd Summar, Megan Stielstra, Hosho McCreesh, Catherine Eves, David S. Atkinson, Debbie Pritzker, Peter Schwartz, BL Pawelek, James Yates, Brian Allen Carr, Kristin Fouquet, Seth Berg, James Goertel, Amber Sparks, Dan Coxon, Robert Vaughan, Jillian Lauren, Meg Tuite, Robert Duffer, Brian Alan Ellis, Joseph Michael Owens, Carrie Lorig, Angela Jackson-Brown, Keir Graff, Joana Topor MacKenzie, Joanna Shroeder, Johnny Misfit, The Book Cellar, Michael Paige Glover, Jennifer Banash, City Lit Books, Judith Tanzer, Samuel Sattin, Susan Hope Lanier, Kimberly Ann Southwick, Erika T. Wurth, Leesa Cross-Smith, Brian Gresko, Chris L. Terry, Mark Heineke, Mike Bushnell, Richard Thomas, Adam Tanzer, Patricia Ann McNair, xTx, James Tadd Adcox, Chris Oxley, Mellow Pages Library, John Reed, Jerry Brennan, Robert James Russell, Brian Gresko, Lori Hettler, Bill Hillmann, Brad King, Don DeGrazia, Shawn Syms, Steve Karas, Cort Bledsoe, Barry Graham, Matt Micheli, Willy Nast, D. Foy, Robyn Pennacchia, Cari Luna, The Mooney's, Cyn Vargas, Sara June Woods, Steve Himmer, Sara Lippman, Mikaela Shea Fowler, Giano Cromley, Zoe Zolbrod, Karen Shimmin, Tom Williams, Joshua Mohr, Patrick Wensink, Mark Cronin, BJ Hollars, Davis Schneiderman, Elaine Short, Ray Charbonneau, Gina Frangello, Rachel Hyman, Nick Ostdick, Scott McClanahan, Pete Anderson, the Tomaloff's, Paula Bomer, Wyl Vilacres, Brandon Will, J. Bradley, Jason Fisk

"Oh so real." Lost in Space goodness.

And quite appreciated it is. Excerpt? Word.

"But Lost in Space is bigger than being a Dad. Facing new worlds while slaying real, imagined and/or inherited dragons of our past is universal."

"He addresses life and death and everything in between with a surgeon's precision." Lost in Space goodness.

So much goodness. And endless appreciations. Excerpt? Word.

"Tanzer allows the reader an intimate look into his life, and as a result, the reader feels like (s)he has been taken on a journey through the land of honest and raw emotions."

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Ninety-Nine - Caught Up In Something, starring the James Tadd Adcox.

So Adcox we are. And so podcast. We are also not quite brand or blog tours or photos, or even quite Does Not Love. And yet we are all of that, and names, New Orleans, chat rooms, and selling books. We are also sure to change your life, if only for a moment.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Doll Palace by the Sara Lippmann.

The kids aren't alright. This is what we thought when we read Doll Palace by the Sara Lippmann. Which is not to say the adults are alright. Because they're not. They're fucked too. But how couldn't they be? What we also learned, is that "The Kids Aren't Alright," is a song by The Offspring. Which we might have known? So not clear. Still, check out these sample lyrics:


"When we were young the future was so brightThe old neighborhood was so aliveAnd every kid on the whole damn streetWas gonna make it big and not be beat"
The song goes on to talk about shattered dreams, and having children, and what not, and while we be may talking different neighborhoods, different kids, and even different social strata, this is the thing about Lippmann's tragic characters, and they're all tragic, which should not be confused with to be avoided. Well, maybe avoided in real life. You might even want to run from them. But Lippmann's writing is much too rich to run from the pages themselves, and way too absorbing, with her shifting time frames, attention to detail, near, but not quite there moments of raunch, and her knowingness about class, especially the middle class, particularly of the Jewish and quasi-urban variety. And has anyone recently written so eloquently about the dashed dreams of the middle class? How little it can all mean when you marry the wrong person, get cancer, and all the rest of the modern day ills that will trip us up when we should otherwise be happy in the supposedly more advanced world we live in today? But dreams will be dashed, people will suck, children will be sick, drugs will take hold of old friends, the mistakes we made in our youth will linger like shadows, and we will get old. It's unavoidable, all of it, and what we we're left with, outside of the lingering vibrations from having this electric book in our hands, is two-fold. First, how well can we hope to function as adults, or at least how likely are we to find some fucking happiness, regardless of class, when our childhoods and families of origin, are so fucked and lacking in care? And second, how can anyone with any knowledge about what our children may be up to, want to raise children in the first place? Maybe we need to avoid knowing anything at all? Which we suppose is one of Lippmann's points, even if she's not consciously seeking to jam it in our faces: we will fuck our children up, and they will become fucked-up adults, and while happiness, if any, may only come in the cracks between the pages, we just may be able to change our lives. We just shouldn't count on it. 

And now (following a most necessary break in 2013) we pause for our (semi-) annual New Year's wishes from faux TBWCYL, Inc. celebrity spokesman Steve Martin.

If we at TBWCYL, Inc. had one wish that we could wish this holiday season, it would be that all the children to join hands and sing together in the spirit of harmony and peace. If we had two wishes we could make this holiday season, the first would be for all the children of the world to join hands and sing in the spirit of harmony and peace. And the second would be for 30 million dollars a month to be given to us, tax-free in a Swiss bank account. You know, if we had three wishes we could make this holiday season, the first, of course, would be for all the children of the world to get together and sing, the second would be for the 30 million dollars every month to us, and the third would be for even more encompassing power over every living being in the entire universe. And if we had four wishes that we could make this holiday season, the first would be the crap about the kids definitely, the second would be for the 30 million, the third would be for all the power, and the fourth would be to set aside one month each year to have an extended staff-wide 31-day orgasm, to be brought out slowly by Rosanna Arquette and that model Paulina-somebody, we can't think of her name. Of course our lovely wives, and husbands, can come too and they are all behind us one hundred percent here, we guarantee it. Wait a minute, maybe the sex thing should be the first wish, so if we made that the first wish, because it could all go boom tomorrow, then what do you got, y'know? No, no, the kids, the kids singing would be great, that would be nice. But wait a minute, who are we kidding? They're not going to be able to get all those kids together. We mean, the logistics of the thing is impossible, more trouble than it's worth! So -- we reorganize! Here we go. First, the sex thing. We go with that. Second, the money. No, we got with the power second, then the money. And then the kids. Oh wait, oh jeez, we forgot about revenge against my enemies! Okay, we need revenge against all of our enemies, they should die like pigs in hell! That would be our fourth wish. And, of course, our fifth wish would be for all the children of the world to join hands and sing together in the spirit of harmony and peace. Thank you everybody. 
(Borrowed (and slightly tweaked) from Steve Martin's monologue on the 1991 Saturday Night Live Christmas Special).

Does Not Love the state of marriage Big Pharma CIA spheres of control James Tadd Adcox the TNB interview.

All of that. And more. Excerpt? Word.

BT: What I was struck by was that within this exercising of control, especially between the FBI agent and Viola, it is tantamount to how torturers deal, and how the FBI agent later deals with Robert. There seems to be a commentary on torture, but how consciously were you making that commentary?

JTA: Pretty conscious. I was trying at all points to walk a fine line between coercion and desire and trying to muddy that. There are a number of scenes in the book where Viola and the FBI agent are having sex and its consensual masochistic sex, but then those are sort of mirrored later in the books in scenes with the FBI agent and Robert and interrogation where it’s definitely not consensual, but it takes a lot of the same forms. It’s an interesting question about Sadomasochism and desire in general. There is always that question about how much is our consent our own? How much agency do we have over our own desire I guess would be another way of putting it. Which is not to say that the current focus on consent as the bright shining line in sexuality and other things is a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but there is a sort of future question of how much are our desires our own, how much agency do we have over our desire? That’s not by any means a legal point, but it is a thing that is worth asking for each of us. But also, and this is only tangentially connected to the question you asked, but with the torture report having come out, just the number of times I have heard people say, the U.S. engaged in torture and it didn’t even produce any useful information. Can we just stop that entirely? It isn’t a fucking question about production, it’s a question about ethics. I do not care if it produced useful information. There’s no world in which it producing useful information makes it okay. And maybe it’s just because I’m becoming more and more Kantian in my old age, but the ends in this case cannot justify the means under any circumstances.

That time Erica Jong started Tweeting at us and we did not know how it started, or why it was happening, so we just smiled and embraced the wonderful Jongness of it all.

@BenTanzer send me yr favorite book!
— Erica Jong (@EricaJong) December 22, 2014

In which City Lit Rag reprints our Orphans interview with Loren Kleinman and we in turn share it with you.

For real. Both the reprint and the sharing. Feels good, right? Indeed. Excerpt? Word.

LK: Do you ever run into someone who says, “You write WHAT?”

BT: I have several lives. Writer. Office worker dude. And parent. All of which I keep fairly separate, though people I work with know I write, even if I don’t talk about it much. As parent, however, I am engaged in things like drop-offs and fundraisers, and parent gatherings, and in that world, while people know about my day job, I’m mostly not known as a writer. Still people occasionally find out about the books, and sometimes they even read them, and when they do, they usually say things like, whoa, what, the drugs, and the violence, and the blow jobs, is that fiction, because you, that so doesn’t seem like you worker, dad, guy, right?