Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 55

"This book is troubling and intense, and I highly recommend it." A Lucky Man resurrection there is. Too strong? Well, there is a rediscovery anyway.

And most appreciative we are for that. Excerpt? Word.

"My favorite thing about Lucky Man is the straightforward, easy voice Tanzer uses. I quickly found myself compelled to turn each page and also terrified to turn it. I both wanted to know what would happen next and dreaded it."

In which we write about the awesomely terrible Columbia women's cycling team uniform fail only to see it edited to include the word vagina, twice, and subsequently receive more Facebook likes than any previous Men's Health piece ever. So there's that.

No really, and you may check it out here.

The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review needs your support. Workshops. Bookstore. Awards. All of it. Do it. Thank you.

Like now. Details more here. Nice.

These Books Will Change Your Life - King Shit, 33 Fragments of Sick-Sad Living, and The Mustache He's Always Wanted But Could Never Grow by the Brian Alan Ellis.

So we are travel and read and compulsion. We are also completist, which may have something to do with any author willing to pose in a bathtub, but may just as well have as much to do with availability and length of said books, and the ultimately unique slice sick-sad life said author aspires to capture and elevate into a literature all their own. Not that the collected works of Brian Alan Ellis - King Shit, 33 Fragments of Sick-Sad Living, and The Mustache He's Always Wanted But Could Never Grow - a novel, flash fictions, and a short story collection respectively, are wholly unique. There is a distinct Bukowski vibe to them, which cannot be ignored. But that is not intended as a criticism, it is instead an effort to create some context for work that speaks to a people that normally get so little attention: the blue collar, under-employed denizens who haunt grim, dead-end neighborhoods, bars, and couches, as they try to figure out how to get laid, fix there fucked-up relationships, find work, or care for their damaged family members, all of whom exist in some near dank netherworld, that so many of us scurry by on the way to somewhere else. But there is no scurry here, there is love and affection, because these are Ellis' people, and he cares about them, and whether as in King Shit, he is following them on a night long journey of drugs and violence going nowhere fast, albeit as humorously as possible; The Mustache He's Always Wanted But Could Never Grow, and its longing and fucked relationships, any and all of which, are also going nowhere fast; or 33 Fragments of Sick-Sad Living, and its protagonist's lonely, piecemeal, going nowhere fast life, Ellis knows these characters like few others writing right now, they deserve their stage, and they have been gifted with an able chronicler, who is sure to change your life, just as he has changed theirs.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All Clickbait. Full of Santos. And celebrating the Rabbit Punch!

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem, Clickbait, by old friend Greg Santos, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and mayoral and gubernatorial race 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, da Bears,ughhh.

"This non-fiction collection of essays surprises me, in all the best ways possible." Lost in Space. Goodreads. Love. Endless. And most appreciative.

So appreciative. And a big thank you to the quite lovely, and yes, quite handsome, Robert Vaughan for that. Excerpt? Word.

"But here is what drew me in: Tanzer does not shy away from content- the constant anxiety of how to explain oneself to offspring, his effortless and self-deprecating humor, how/ when to communicate about a homeless woman at The Jewel grocery, or the alcoholic that lives in the same building, or anything about sex, sports, or books and movies. An endless list. The deeper topics of family, or marriage with raising kids in a backdrop of 9/11 or Newtown, or any other tragedy makes this salient, smart and touching without being saccharine."

In which we are so totally geeked to be Four Fathers read at City Lit on the Booked. podcast in support of the Brandon Tietz and Good Sex, Great Prayers.

Like totally. We are also much appreciative.

In which we are so totally Four Fathers read at City Lit, not to mention most geeked, on the Booked. podcast in support of the Brandon Tietz and Good Sex, Great Prayers.

Like totally. We are also much appreciative.

The Leah Tallon is How to Rebuild a House at The Manifest-Station.

She is also grief and healing, and love, and you should hit it now, it just might change your life. Now, how about some excerpt? Word.

"Something, something, something about how this world is so big and we only think about that largeness in relation to people in other towns, cities, states or countries. Geographic space becoming the point. There are always life-altering events happening to someone else, somewhere else. We never leave our own house and then, 3 hours later, wonder what’s occurring inside its empty walls, as if it’s tucked away into some gigantic gap in time and space and simply doesn’t exist when we aren’t around to fill it. We are only going to the grocery store. Nothing to see here. Destruction does not need a witness."

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Ninety-Two - Fantastic Orphans, starring the Mike Joyce.

Quite Mike Joyce we are. Not to mention  Chicago journalism, Literary Orphans, bars, podcast sandwich eating etiquette, Adbusters, punk music, American Skin, bookbinding, Nelson Algren, and our current obsessions with being Jewey and Dan Sinker. So do hit it, it just might change your life.