Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 50

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Ninety-Four - You Pull From Everything, starring the Ryan Kenealy.

It does, it is, we do, and we podcast, so very much. We also talk The Catcher in the Rye, working for the circus, doormen, LeBron James, Chicago, dildos, writing copy, and just writing, and both animals in peril, and Animals in Peril. Also, and as inspired by Ryan's recent Recommends joint for Poets & Writers, we do all of it, cigars in hand, sun setting in Millenium Park. Quite glorious it is, and quite certain to change your life. 

And then there was that time the luminous Eric Spitznagel and I talked Breaking Bad action figures, parenting, and badassery at the Men's Health and it was sad and wonderful all at once.

For real, here, totally, hit it, it just might change your life, thank you.

In which Lost in Space receives an Honorable Mention in the Chicago Writers Association 2014 Book Awards Traditional Non-Fiction category and we are both quite humbled and quite digging the finalists.

Quite. More here. Really. Go. Now. Thank you.

Erika T. Wurth is Publishers Weekly.

She is also less boring art, and more diversity, so do hit it here, it just might most definitely change your life.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Project Genesis by the Jerry Brennan.

There is the Brennan and Project Genesis from the Tortoise Books and we have read it and blurbed it and we are happy to report that it changed our lives and we believe it may just change your life as well, so please do hit it, like now, well done, thank you.

"If it takes balls to revisit, if not re-imagine, the stories of the Bible, than Jerry Brennan must have the biggest balls in the room. That he does so with enough humor and poignancy to fill both Sodom and Gomorrah is a tribute to his skills as a writer and interpreter."

"If you’ve wondered what it means to be a man and a father in the modern world, Lost in Space is one of the best places to start." Lost in Space. The Geeky Press. Most beautious.

Indeed. And most appreciated. Excerpt? Word.

"The most devastating piece is “Anatomy of a Story,” which rips open what it means to be a man and realize how helpless you are when your child is sick. Bred to protect, life quickly teaches each of us that our powers extend only so far. As one of Tanzer’s children is wheeled into the hospital for surgery, Ben retreats into his writing, the one place where he can exert control over what happens. More to the point, the story illustrated just how badly we handle those emotional experiences when our wires get overloaded and we grasp at anything to make meaning."

"Absolutely brilliant." Lost in Space.

Love. Humbled. Thankful. All of that. Excerpt? Word.

"This should be required reading for any modern-day father of young boys."

This Book Will Change Your Life - Here Comes The New Joy by the John W. Barrios.

The John W. Barrios is ephemera and love, and while biased we are, in so many ways, to read Here Comes The New Joy is to know the pain, and yes, joy of its author, someone we call friend, even if in fact we've never met in person, shared a cup of coffee, or had any actual contact that might otherwise constitute connection. That the Barrios' opening essay The Quick And Sick Of Life, in what is otherwise a poetry collection, will break your heart in 10,000 ways is a given. That we will be drawn to that which is more prose than poem, take The First Time I Lied for example - though do note our most subjective bias, as this lovely, haunting, terrible piece appeared in Daddy Cool - or The Stuffed Version Of Himself, is also mostly always a given, does not minimize the head-butting power of The Poet At The Podium or New Mexico, 1970-Something, much less the fragmented poems that litter both the landscape of Here Comes The New Joy, and what we assume is Barrios' psyche laid-bare for our consumption. Because they are all of a piece, life and its odd mixture of joy and pain, and pain and joy, and how it all becomes mashed together. At least for Barrios there are words, intricate and blown-up, a gift not all have at their disposable when it comes to their need to escape their own vulnerable brains, much less change their life.

In which the Megan Stielstra and Victor David Giron talk Once I Was Cool, Curbside Splendor, and small press lit love at Poets&Writers.

And most beautious it is. Excerpt? Totally.

"Real talk: Independent publishing is not six-figure advances. It’s people who love books, who love stories and ideas and the impossible architecture of language so fiercely and furiously that they back it with blood, with sweat and cash and precious, precious time. Curbside Splendor put everything they had behind this book, and I couldn’t be more proud to count myself among them."

"A parenting book written for fathers raised on Star Wars and Homer Simpson, but implemented with Tanzer’s unique charm, warmth, and brilliance." Lost in Space. The Brian Alan Ellis. Thanks. Endless.

And endlessly at that. Excerpt? Word.

"Despite the fact that I don’t have kids of my own and that I grew up an only child without a dad, I somehow found Lost in Space, Ben Tanzer’s essay collection about (predominately) parenting, both relatable and humorously engaging, which is a true testament to the man’s talent."