Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 83

January 5, 2014

These Books Will Change Your Life - Vampire Conditions by the Brian Allen Carr and I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying by the Matthew Salesses.

Do books hang together, or do we make them hang together? It's true that we know the Brian Allen Carr and the Matthew Salesses in a small press, internet sort of way, emails, Likes, cyberstalking, the usual stuff. And that we admire their work, their ongoing productivity, and the quality they bring to it. It's also true that we solicited them to submit work to the Daddy Cool and cool they were. We even set out for AWP in 2013 seeking copies of Vampire Conditions by Carr and I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying by Salesses, but didn't do so with the sense that they had to be consumed at the same time. And yet we have consumed them together, and now have to ask: do they hang together? We suppose they do for all the reasons we sought them out in the first place. They are written by peers, if not outright colleagues, of a piece and time period, small press, dad authors who are carving out a place in a field of clutter. Quality clutter certainly, and there's that word quality again, but clutter none-the-less. There are just so many books, and please don't tell us publishing is dead, ridiculous that, and so many good books at that. But it's more than all this, or at least an extension of it. Both writers are creating worlds all their own, which may be the same as finding their voices, but they are distinct, and it is exciting, and they surely hang together for this reason alone. 


Meanwhile, Carr may be visiting the same terrain as Cormac McCarthy, and it may be lazy to draw that comparison, but place is place is place. Still, Carr is creating his own version of it, and arguably represents a new generation chronicler of this already well-tread territory. A world where there is the violence and desperation we know, but also one all its own. One filled with teachers and life on the fringes, special needs children, and dead babies. It is gothic and it is dusty and the culture South of the Border endlessly mingles with the world of Southwest Texas. But it is also Carr's world, and it is continually expanding, with each sentence, each story, and each new book. Salesses exists in a whole other world, one focused on identity, bastard children, family, mixed-race relationships, and culture, old, new, foreign, and domestic, seeking connection, battling confusion, and trying to create a new, cohesive world all its own. Salesses goes even further though with I'm Not Saying, which via its novel as flash fiction approach, seems to come from a twisty, whirring, whole other world entirely. Which it may be, because what else should we expect from this many intersecting influences? Ultimately, we find ourselves in worlds both old and new, that are as unique as the authors themselves, and sure to change your life.
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Published on January 05, 2014 19:02

January 4, 2014

Hollars. Bates. Tanzer. Winter Small Press Night. Boswell Book Company. Milwaukee. January 17th. 7:00 pm. Yo.

Truth. We will be this. So do hit it. It just might change your life.
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Published on January 04, 2014 08:22

January 3, 2014

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All chicken. And full of Bradley.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem, Chicken Little, from old friend J. Bradley, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and surging enrollment numbers 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, Jay Cutler, again, yes, seven years, what?
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Published on January 03, 2014 12:16

January 1, 2014

These Things We Loved in 2013 Will Change Your Life.


It always starts with books, these posts, the year, our day, everything. And there other things, television, music, and movies. Though not enough, never enough. There are never even enough books. But here we are anyway, taking a moment to share what there is, and what there was, with you, now, totally.

Books by handsome men with facial hair, bearded, and otherwise.

The Map of the System of Human Knowledge/James Tadd Adcox, This Isn't Who We Are/Barry Graham, Here is How is Happened/Spencer Dew, League of Somebody's/Samuel Sattin, The Cost of Living/Rob Roberge, Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children/Dave Newman, Gripped/Jason Donnelly, Sightings/B.J. Hollars, We the Animals/Justin Torres, Gigantic Failures/Mark Cronin

Movies we are happy we got to see during a year that we did better than last year, but still didn't see enough to satisfy our movie Jones.

Before Midnight, Mud, Fruitvale Station, World War Z, Gravity, Dallas Buyer's Club, 12 Years A Slave, The Immigrant, American Hustle, Frances Ha

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

Catching Fire, Iron Man III

And those we still hope to see.

Her, Stories We Tell, Nebraska, The Wolf of Wall Street, Captain Phillips, Springbreakers

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

MEATY/Samantha Irby, Zero Fade/Chris L. Terry, Tomorrowland/Joseph Bates

Books published by Artistically Declined Press that we quite dug and may have only been partially biased towards as we read them. 

Border Run/Shya Scanlon and A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst/Hosho McCreesh  

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

Participants/Andrew Keating, Bad Kids from Good Schools/Michael Wayne Hampton, Why God Why/Matt Rowan, Commercial Fiction/Dave Housley, Blood a Cold Blue/James Claffey, sleep/David Tomaloff, The Last Great Halloween/Giano Cromley

Music, which we apparently listened to not much of this year, but we still listened to this.

Southeastern/Jason Isbell   


Music, we got to listen to live, which was way more than last year, that we quite dug. 

Ike Reilly/Schubas, Peekaboos/Empty Bottle, Killer Mike/Pitchfork 

Books by Chicago author Pete Anderson, because well, it's the Pete Anderson.

Wheatyard

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, Happy Endings, Mad Men, The Killing

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

LOST

Television shows we finally started watching and consumed whole. 
 
Homeland, Breaking Bad

New television shows we happily consumed.

Orange is the New Black

Television shows from abroad that were not Downtown Abbey.

Top of the Lake, The Fall

Anthologies we gladly contributed to, and at times may have even edited.

Daddy Cool, Hairlit, Vol. 1, The 27th Mile, Multifesto: A Henri D' Mescan Reader (The Remix), Fried.Follow.Text., barcode

Collections, Short Story, and otherwise, by Chicagoans. And a novel.

The Temple of Air/Patricia Ann McNair, Decisions/Neil Kitterlin, Such Phantom/Rachel Hyman, The Blue Kind/Kathryn Born

Collections, Short Story, and otherwise, by non-Chicagoans. And a novel.

Shenanigans/Joseph Michael Owens, All the Roads That Lead From Home/Anne Leigh Parrish, Goodnight Nobody/Ethel Rohan, The Girlfriend Game/Nick Antosca, Understories/Tim Horvath, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe/Charles Yu

Memoir, or at least, Memoiresque, work.

Overthinking the Marathon/Ray Charbonneau, Crapalachia/Scott McClanahan 

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

The Infects/Sean Beaudoin, Fight Song/Joshua Mohr, Bones Buried in the Dirt/David S. Atkinson, Watering Heavan/Peter Tieryas Liu, Whiskey Pike and Turbo Tan/Jeff Phillips, Last Call in the City of Bridges/Salvatore Pane, [SIC]/Davis Schneiderman, Sad Robot Stories/Mason Johnson, Transubstantiate/Richard Thomas 


And most finally, there are many, many people to thank for this most rocking of years, and we are most definitely overlooking some, a lot maybe, and we apologize for that, here, now, but there you go.

Lauryn Allison, Mason Johnson, Matt Rowan, Jacob Knabb, Dave Housley, Jason Behrends, Leah Tallon, Anna March, Victor David Giron, Jason Pettus, Moeses Soulright, James Claffey, Nathan Holic, Ryan Bradley, Steve Lafler, Lavinia Ludlow, Rob Funderburk, Greg Olear,  William Walsh, J.A. Tyler, Ryan Singleton, John Barrios, Joseph G. Peterson, Tim Horvath, Cassandra Gillig, Michael Seidlinger, Adam Lawrence, Dave McNamara, Robert Martin, Mike Smolarek, Nik Korpon, Andrew Keating, Joseph Bates, Justin Lawrence Daugherty, Matty Byloos, Naomi Huffman, Brad Listi, Loren Kleinman, Michael Czyzniejewski, Myles and Noah Tanzer, Mel Bosworth, Benoit Lelievre, Emma Mae Brown, Tim Frederick, Todd Summar, Megan Stielstra, Hosho McCreesh, Kathryn Born, David S. Atkinson, Debbie Pritzker, Peter Schwartz, Jason Donnelly, Catherine Eves, BL Pawelek, James Yates, Brian Allen Carr, Seth Berg, James Goertel, Amber Sparks, Dan Coxon, Robert Vaughan, Jillian Lauren, Meg Tuite, Robert Duffer, Joseph Michael Owens, Carrie Lorig, Salvatore Pane, Sam Irby, Johnny Misfit, The Book Cellar, Michael Paige Glover, Jennifer Banash, City Lit Books, Judith Tanzer, Samuel Sattin, Kimberly Ann Southwick, Chris L. Terry, Ross McMeekin, Samuel Snoek-Brown, Mark Heineke, Mike Bushnell, Richard Thomas, Adam Tanzer, Patricia Ann McNair, xTx, James Tadd Adcox, Chris Oxley, Mellow Pages Library, Julia Borcherts, John Reed, NIU Press, Brian Gresko, Lori Hettler, Bill Hillmann, Don DeGrazia, Shawn Syms, Steve Karas, Cort Bledsoe, Barry Graham, Matt Micheli, Robyn Pennacchia, Jessi Lee Narducci, Matt Potter, Cari Luna, The Mooney's, Cyn Vargas, Russ Woods, Jeff Phillips, Steve Himmer, Sarah Lippman, Mikaela Shea Fowler, Giano Cromley, Zoe Zolbrod, Tom Williams, Joshua Mohr, Patrick Wensink, Mark Cronin, Davis Schneiderman, Ray Charbonneau, Gina Frangello, Rachel Hyman, Nick Ostdick, Scott McClanahan, Pete Anderson, the Tomaloff's, Paula Bomer, Wyl Vilacres, Brandon Will, the Knee-Jerk crew, J. Bradley, Jason Fisk, Pamela Erens
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Published on January 01, 2014 17:50

Shameless, albeit much appreciated, AudioBiblioPhile "favorite novel of the year" Orphans Tweet hype. And big thanks to the AudioBiblioPhile for that.

My favorite novel of the year: Orphans by @BenTanzer I hope there's an audiobook one day.
— AudioBiblioPhile (@audiobkphile) December 31, 2013
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Published on January 01, 2014 07:53

December 31, 2013

These Books from Artistically Declined Press Will Change Your Life - Border Run from the Shya Scanlon and A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst by the Hosho McCreesh.

Read. Read. Read. Holidays. End of the year. Compulsions. Escape. Read. And enough of that. We suppose we could mention our clear bias and endless subjectivity regarding the work of Artistically Decline Press, but what's the point in that? They have been very good to us and we love them, a lot, yes, done. But that would overshadow the fact that present company aside, the authors they've worked with are among our most gifted, diverse, and beloved. Ken Sparling? Roxane Gay? Fuck yes. And yes, we're using the word fuck a lot this week, but we're worked-up, yo, holidays, sleep, and so much good reading. It's da lovely really. Which we also suppose brings us to Border Run from the Shya Scanlon and A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst by the Hosho McCreesh. More gifted. More diverse. More beloved. All of it. And in both cases, work that drifts a foot from our normal reading head space - speculative fiction and poetry respectively - and places maybe we should vow, or resolve as it may be, to read more of in the new year? Yes? Yes. Because we've done not enough of either this year and it is rapidly coming to an end. So, looking forward, terrific, we will, and back, yes, we will soon as well, tomorrow. But for now there is the Border Run, a story of clones and government, and how things get corrupted. Maybe more so on the border, where so much is hidden and space is so expansive. And yet despite, or is it inspite, of all of this, the Border Run still comes back to family and love, and trying to discern what we really know about either, and how much we are willing to give of ourselves to make either work, when it is so much easier, to hide from these things, and ourselves. Something else that the border and the west and the space allows for if that is our wont. 
Then there is the A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst, which is so deep and so gorgeous, and also about love and family. But as memory piece. And drenched in alcohol. Always, saturated, and a celebration of sorts. Which is one of McCreesh's gifts as a poet, to be in motion and exultant at all times about all things. And the Thirst is about all things funny and sad, the dark edges always lingering, but never quite enveloping the moments. Or the life. His work too is about escape, into a glass, a bottle, or a bar, but even within that it celebrates life, and love, constantly, and lovingly, even if at confusingly at times, because life is confusing, whether you are inside, or outside, a bottle. And these are things that McCreesh and Scanlon share in their work. Escape may be a pattern, a trope, and a need, but there is love, could be love, will be love, and even when it's all so confusing, that possibility makes life worth living for. All of which is to say that we are biased towards love as well, and living, with pain, and escape and all the messiness contained therein. And with that, Happy New Year, yo, live it, fully, and with joy, knowing sorrow and darkness and confusion are there, always, waiting, but can be held at bay when we are watching for them, conscious, and living it, all of it. It being life, changed and otherwise, or more accurately, knowing what life is, so we can embrace all that it throws at us.
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Published on December 31, 2013 08:15

December 30, 2013

"Orphans is Tanzer at his best." Orphans gets some Goodreads love. And likes it. A lot.

Like totally. And big thanks to the Matt Micheli for that. Drinks too, many, yes, on us, cool? Cool. Excerpt? Word.

"His minimalism shines through his characters' subtle yet deep everyday problems most of us have faced or will face at some point... Real thoughts, real insecurities. And oh yeah, it's Sci-Fi, so take your family, neighbors, co-workers, and friends, travel to the future and interchange some of them with robots and send the others off to Mars... and then you might almost have it."
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Published on December 30, 2013 13:32

December 29, 2013

These Books Will Change Your Life - How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by the Charles Yu and Transubstantiate by the Richard Thomas.

Travel. Snow. Pools. Beer. Sleep. Read. Read. Read. And holy mind fucks, Batman! Which is not erudite we know, or academic, or probably an appropriate way to discuss books at all. Yet both How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by the Charles Yu and Transubstantiate by the Richard Thomas are just that, total, fucking mind fucks, yo. Maybe it's the fact that we are talking science fiction and neo-noir respectively in the first place, and all the speculative, twisty, dystopian futureness inevitably captured therein. But it's not just that. It's also their respective abilities to bend narrative, to build, even morph, towards the slow reveal, and to create graphic imagery. Mostly though, it's the telling of stories that are fractured and discursive, while still being immersive reads, that beg you to read the next page and the one after that. 
Further, while it's true that Thomas' work is more violent and sad, a narrow slice of a universe and experiment gone terribly wrong, LOST meets Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp, high praise yo, and Yu's is more gentle, seeking to somehow explain the origins of time travel in all its fucked-upedness, though ultimately a story of how families lose one another when they forget how to communicate, and obsessiveness and mental illness, skew the dynamics at hand, they are of piece. Alternative, yet complete worlds, that fuck with the reader in ways we want to be fucked with, challenging our perceptions of place and self. And yes, that's a lot of fuck, but there was also a lot of beer, sleep, snow, kid, and pool. And so here we are. And here you are. And you can hit these books as we did. They just might change your life. And this regardless of how much snow is afoot, or how much you sleep, or drink, or kid.
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Published on December 29, 2013 10:31

December 26, 2013

Wherein we talk our Top Three Books of the year with TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog and quite pleasantly encounter some Orphans love as well.

Great writers. Lovely lists. And sublime books.  It's all quite pleasant really. Big thanks to the TNBBC for asking, our choices are below, and there is a much more robust list to come. For real. And totally so.

We the Animals by Justin Torres

Near feral in its intense bursts of family instability.

Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children by Dave Newman

Newman knows true.

The Temple of Air by Patricia Ann McNair

What it means to live, and mostly cope, with things missing in our lives, hands, parents, children, breasts, love, that are at times violently taken from us, and other times more subtly so.
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Published on December 26, 2013 09:38

December 25, 2013