Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 63
June 25, 2014
"An unflinching, cerebral look in the mirror." Orphans. Fanboy Comics. Love.
Quite love. And endlessly appreciated. Excerpt? Word."Orphans is a powerful read, thoughtful and penetrating, less ferocious than caustically inquisitive. And, while it takes place in the future, the questions it provokes are for us to answer now. What is the country we are building? Where are we heading, and who is taking us there? Like Orwell filtered through Philip K. Dick, Ben Tanzer’s Orphans is an unflinching, cerebral look in the mirror, and you won’t like what you see."
June 24, 2014
June 23, 2014
This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All Dice. And full of Berriozabal.
The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem, The Dice, by old friend Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and Eric Cantor primary 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, Ronaldo, no.
June 22, 2014
This Book Will Change Your Life - Every Kiss A War by the Leesa Cross-Smith.
As always there is travel and read, but sometimes there is crushing as well, and to loosely paraphrase ourselves - and how obnoxious is that - just about the sexiest thing we've ever read. Though to be clear, Every Kiss A War, the debut story collection from the Leesa Cross-Smith, is more than that: parenting, dating, stalking, broken relationships and broken people, not to mention, longing and fantasy, sadness and loss, and so much kissing and touching, and wanting to kiss and touch, all of which is ultimately a fantastically rich exploration of just how desperate our need can be to connect with someone, anyone, in any fashion we can. And yet, and yes, we suppose there is always an "and yet," it is really fucking sexy, terribly, and endlessly, and you can read Every Kiss A War for any number of reasons, the language and joy seeping off of the pages, or merely for the quite triumphant Whiskey & Ribbons, which will knock you on your ass, but the sexiness is reason enough, and for that you need look no further then the trifecta of interlocking stories - What The Fireworks Are For, Hold on, Hold on, and Cheap Beer & Sparklers - because they are sure to change your life.
June 21, 2014
June 20, 2014
This Book Will Change Your Life - Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.
We are so travel and so read and there are so many books to riff on, but this week it all starts, and ends, with Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. What we think we know is that this is an essay collection about place, California specifically, but also our place in the world, where we're from, and where we land, how we make sense of our history and roots, and how this history drips into the present, twisting itself around a life. What we also think we know is that we are supposed to finally read this collection, here, now, as we go to California, and Los Angeles in particular, for the first time in so many years. It is a place from our youth, summers spent away from New York and back east, slouching on the beach in Santa Monica, watching Blade Runner and Stripes, chasing girls in bikinis, despite having no idea what we would do if we caught one, and reading so many books for the first time, Carrie and Catcher in the Rye. All things that impacted who we are today. All formative and nostalgic. It is a trip about memory, and an essay collection about the same. Early on Didion writes about Lucille Marie Maxwell Miller, a woman who may just have murdered her husband, "Of course she came from somewhere else, came off the prairie in search of something she had seen in a movie or heard on the radio, for this is a Southern California story." And this is our story too we realize. We are searching for something as well, a place that feel different, that moves us, and invites the sense that a new life is right there, waiting, if we can just find it. But despite the sand, tacos, donuts, books, and sun, all things we love as much as we love anything, this isn't our experience. We aren't moved. We are vacation and we are happy, but we do not find, or feel anything. It isn't the place we wanted. Now, this may be the children we have to chase around, or the fact that we don't make it to Venice Beach until our last day in town, but something is not happening. Later in writing about leaving New York, Didion writes, "It never occurred to me that I was living a real life there. In my imagination I was always there for just another few months," followed even later by "There were years when I called Los Angeles 'the coast,' but they seem a long time ago." And maybe that's what it really is, place is home, Chicago may be where we live, and California may represent an idea, nostalgia, and memory, but home is home, and we are so not there, and haven't been in so very long.
June 18, 2014
June 17, 2014
"What a great read so far." Lost in Space. Tweet hype. Shameless we are.
No better day than today to start @BenTanzer's Lost In Space. What a great read so far. Happy Father's Day Ben!
— Danaë Aurora Fuentes (@wnDEEctyprtty) June 16, 2014
June 15, 2014
"The world's best book on fatherhood, and that is no exaggeration." Lost in Space. Amazon. Cough, cough. And done.
Maybe not totally done. Because we are most appreciative to the Nate Tower indeed. We are also hoping that you too will post your reviews, ratings, and comments. Because it helps a lot, and so we want to thank you in advance for that. Sincerely. And now we're really done. Excerpt? Word."For new fathers, this book honestly contains all the truths you need to know about the road ahead (just be aware that many of the answers are that you can only find out the answers when you get there). Experienced fathers will marvel at the eerily similar tales that Tanzer shares. Everyone will laugh, cry, and panic while reading about Tanzer's own experiences."
