What strange paradise is this? (at Mission Hills San Diego)
Casual fridays arent allowed in the office after last weeks ‘incident’
Casual fridays arent allowed in the office after last weeks ‘incident’
Casual fridays arent allowed in the office after last weeks ‘incident’
Casual fridays arent allowed in the office after last weeks ‘incident’
Casual fridays arent allowed in the office after last weeks ‘incident’
Casual fridays arent allowed in the office after last weeks ‘incident’
Sleeping Ghost: Portrait of Procrastination
Forest of Fortune Paperback April 2015
Tyrus Books will be releasing Forest of Fortune as a trade paperback on April 3, 2015. I’ll be doing a bunch of events beginning with the AWP conference in Minneapolis April 8-12. But you don’t have to wait until April, you can pre-order Forest of Fortune at your favorite bookseller:
Adams Media
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Indiebound
Powell’s
Reblogging because I’m listening to The Cure.
Highly fucking recommended.
A Year in Books: 2014
As in years past, and with the help of my Goodreads account, I’ve made a list of all 56 of the books that I read in 2014. It’s interesting to put these lists together because it illuminates things that I hadn’t given much thought to over the course of the year. For instance, I didn’t read much in the way of history or historical fiction – with one notable exception. I also didn’t read any of the expensive art books hogging my shelves, which I explicitly resolved to do last year.
That wasn’t the only thing I failed to do. Last year, exactly half the books I read were by female writers. This year the numbers skew more heavily toward men: 34 vs. 22. That’s “only” a six-book swing; but I strive for equity. I need to do better and will do better in 2015.
For this year’s list, I did away with a few categories and added some new ones. I’m reading a lot more books by musicians mainly because I’m working on one. I also added a category for books about sailors because there will always be room for nautical adventure in my life.
Remember, this isn’t a ranking but a record of my reading for the year and if I reviewed a title in The Floating Library or Los Angeles Times, I included the link. I reviewed a bit more than I have in the past and I hope that trend continues. In fact, my final installment of 2014 for The Floating Library will be my fiftieth column. Keep in mind these books weren’t all published in 2014 (though many of them were) they are simply the books I read during the 2014 calendar year. So here it is:
Books That Made Me Question the Worthiness of the Human Project
Canicule by Louis Armand
Mira Corpora by Jeff Jackson
The Last Illusion by Porochista Khakpour
Newtown: An American Tragedy by Matthew Lysiak
Rivers by Michael Farris Smith
It was a year of big bleak books and The Kills and 300,000,000 were the bleakest by far. It’s interesting that they both look to Roberto Bolano’s 2666 for inspiration. Louis Armand may be unfamiliar to many American readers – he’s an Australian living in Prague – but he’s published three novels over the last three years and they’re all excellent.
Books That Reaffirmed It
Made to Break by D. Foy
Books About Sailors
Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush by Geoff Dyer
One thought occurred to me over and over again while reading Otessa Moshfegh’s mini-masterpiece about a drunken sailor: Why the hell didn’t I write this book? (Perhaps because I lived it?) McGlue, to my mind, is just as good as The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje, a book that is never very far from my thoughts. I suspect I’ll be reading McGlue again soon.
Books About Music & Musicians
The Dirty Version: On Stage, in the Studio, and in the Streets with Ol’ Dirty Bastard by Buddha Monk
Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone by Marky Ramone
The Cure: Ten Imaginary Years by Steve Sutherland
Books That Zapped Me Into the Past
Sweetness #9 by Stephan Eirik Clark
Books That Anticipate the Future
Cairo by Louis Armand
Lock In by John Scalzi
Books That Don’t Rhyme
Scare Crone by Melissa Broder
Piano Rats by Franki Elliot
Dear Lil Wayne by Lauren Ireland
Death-Defying Acts by Erin Keane
If I Falter at the Gallows by Edward Mullany
I picked up almost all of these poetry collections at AWP and they were all memorable. I especially enjoyed the despairing humor in Ireland’s collection, which is somewhat reminiscent of Wenderoth’s Letter’s to Wendy’s and Mullany’s aphorisms are genius. Melissa Broder’s Scare Crone is really something else. There are poets and there are people who write poetry. What does that mean? I don’t know but when I read Broder’s work regions of my brain light up that would otherwise remain dark.
Books That Make Me Wanna Commit Some Crimes
The White Van by Patrick Hoffman
The Point by Gerard Brennan
The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
Not for Nothing by Stephen Graham Jones
Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark
Books Bursting with Sex
Spent: A Memoir by Antonia Crane
The Shimmering Go-Between by Lee Klein
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa
Excavation: A Memoir by Wendy C. Ortiz
Books That Were Even Stranger Than I Thought They’d Be
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
The Diving Pool: Three Novellas by Yoko Ogawa
Goodis: A Life in Black and White by Philippe Garnier
Yoko Ogawa’s short story collection Revenge was one of the my favorite books in 2013 and I loved the two books I read this year. I’m saving one more for next year and then I’m going to have to start hunting down stories to read on the Internet. Sadly, most of her books have not been translated into English.
Books with Beautiful/Ugly Pictures in Them
Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
I Think I Am in Friend Love with You by Yumi Sakugawa
Books That Are Difficult to Classify
The Cat Inside by William S. Burroughs
Young God by Katherine Morris Faw
Binary Star by Sarah Gerard
How to Get into the Twin Palms by Karolina Waclawiak
Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend by Erika Wurth
Books With Short Stories in Them
Black Candies: See Through edited by Ryan Bradford
Esther Stories by Peter Orner
What Happened Here by Bonnie ZoBell
Books I Recommend Without Reservation
Novel: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Short Story Collection: Karate Chop by Dorothe Nors
Poetry: The Yearning Feed by Paul Lopez
Nonfiction: Call Me Burroughs: A Life by Barry Miles
Book That Had the Biggest Impact
Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s Dream America by Damien Ober
For most of the year I thought Brandon Hobson’s Deep Ellum would be the one. His haunting look at a family in crisis has stayed with me in a way that most books don’t. Then I got my hands on Ober’s amazing novel. Hugely ambitious and mind-bendingly high concept, the book tells the story of every signer of the Declaration of Independence at the moment of his death. That’s over 50 narratives spread out over 60 years. But wait there’s more. The America these Founding Father’s inhabit is not our own: they’ve battled three iterations of a plague spread by the Internet, interference from alien species, and a sea monster. That sounds like a farcical comic book of a novel. It’s not. It’s strangely moving and hugely compelling. Usually, the novel that makes the biggest impact is one that shows me a way forward in my own work. Not this time. While Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s Dream America shattered my thinking as to what a novel can be and do, I’m content to admire it and marvel at how it was put together. (Ober offers some clues in this interview we conducted at The Rumpus.) Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s Dream America, was published by Equus Press, a publishing company based in the UK that also publishes Louis Armand’s novels. They’re beautiful books, but they’re hard to find. If I were an enterprising American indie publisher, I’d look for a way to get Ober and Armand’s books published over here…
In 2015 I’m looking forward to reading more crime, mysteries and noir. I’m also going to be reading more memoirs by musicians (please send me your recommendations). At the moment, I’m reading new a novel by Barry Gifford, a writer who had an enormous influence on me, both in his work and in the work he championed when he put so many out-of-print pulp writers back in circulation with Black Lizard.
10 Raddest Records of 2014
As in years past (2013, 2012, 2011), I present for you the 10 Raddest Records of the Year. It’s not a best of list by any means but a record of the new music that rattled around my brainpan in 2014 for a variety of reasons, most of them deeply personal. For this reason I indicate how I experienced the music (LP, digital, etc.) For the first time ever, this list features a song I commissioned and two bands with singers with ridiculous dreadlocks. That will never happen again…
10. The Bots “Pink Palms” Video/LP
Two super talented kids from L.A. What’s not to love about this incredible video?
9. La Luz “It’s Alive” CD
This record came out in the fall of 2013 but when your tour gets cancelled because your van got hit by a semi-truck, exceptions are allowed. Anyway, I didn’t start listening to the record until 2014. Sweet, slow, surf rock. Atmosphere for days. Check out this super tight in-studio performance.
8. Shenxian “II” Digital
Shenxian is Sean Doyle, my punk rock sailor blood brother in Brooklyn. People had been trying to introduce us for months before we finally met last spring and we clicked. He makes these jams and puts them out on bandcamp and they’re excellent. No vocals, just icy guitar riffs over jumping bass lines. They’re like what Tones on Tail might have sounded like if they’d gone in a funkier direction. My favorite on this track is “The Second Law of Thermodynamics.” The music is great for driving, writing, thinking, moving forward.
7. Soulside “Trigger + Bass/103” Digital
No, Soulside didn’t release new material this year, but the alternative rock band from D.C. put out a remastered reissue of “Trigger” and “Bass/103,” the EP and single the band originally released with Dischord in 1988 and 1989. The reissue preceded some reunion shows in New York and Washington D.C and triggered all kinds of intense nostalgia for Hot Bodi Gram, the 1989 album the band recorded in Holland while touring. (That alone makes it worthy of a 33 1/3-style monograph.) Soulside was one of those bands a few years ahead of the curve, somewhere between Minor Threat and Fugazi. The late ‘80s are something of a musical wasteland, but they didn’t have to be. Soulside was there to show us the way. A bit slower and more melodic than its hardcore forebears but every bit as impassioned in their creation of sonic sculptures, Soulside could hold it down. Here’s the complete audio from two reunion shows.
6. Meatbodies “S/T” Digital
I was turned on to this band when my friend Jason saw them open up for Ty Segall and they promptly blew the doors off the place. They’re psychedelic, but rock way harder than most garage bands. The Meatbodies describe their sound as “heavy groovy” and it’s a perfect description. Fast, massive and hypnotically melodic.
5. Total Control “Typical System” Digital
Joy Division dance mix with four guitars. That’s all I’ve got, but it rules pretty hard. Check out this live video for “Systematic Fuck.”
4. OFF! “Wasted Years” LP
Another 20-minute blast of SoCal hardcore from Keith Morris, Dmitri Coates, Steven McDonald and Mario Rubalcaba. I’m not going to belabor this because as most of you know I’m working on a book with Keith, but I think that song-for-song OFF! is better than Circle Jerks and every bit as good as Black Flag. Go ahead and disagree, just about everyone does. As this hilarious video with Jack Black proves, we can all agree that they don’t take themselves too seriously.
3. Mind Spiders “The Haunted Casino” Video
You won’t find “The Haunted Casino” on any Mind Spiders full length or 7”. It’s not tucked away on a High Tension Wires or Radioactivity record. When I asked Mark Ryan if he’d write a song that I could use for the book trailer of Forest of Fortune, I thought it was a long shot. But when I heard what he came up with, I was beyond stoked. I must have listened to it a hundred times through iTunes, but the first time I played the song for some friends through a PA system, I got chills. It sounds exactly like what it is: a haunted casino. It starts off spooky and slow, gets a little frenetic with the sounds of the slot machines crashing through the background, and then takes a hard right turn into the deeply weird with a bone-chilling howl from another time and place. It took me 300 pages to do what the song achieves in 90 seconds. Fun fact: “The Haunted Casino” was my book’s working title.
2. Babymetal S/T Video/Digital/Live
If you read my Razorcake column, or The Rumpus Letters in the Mail that I did, you know I love this album. (If you haven’t heard about Babymetal, you’ll have 90% of what you need to know after watching the first minute of their video for “Gimme Chocolate,” which has more than 20 million views. Try tearing your eyes away. It’s impossible.) What you are hearing is the perfect synthesis of pop and metal. But I didn’t start to really love this band until I bought the record on iTunes and listened to it on my drives between San Diego and Los Angeles. I won’t get into the songs, the choreography, the costumes, the cosmology. It’s all out there waiting for you to discover. Just picture me, driving 80 miles per hour while singing along to songs like “Suki Suki Midnight” in terrible Japanese while banging my head. I dragged Nuvia out to Hollywood go see them for my birthday, which you can read all about at The Weeklings. This was gearing up to be the year of Babymetal until….
1. Neighborhood Brats “Recovery” Digital/LP
Fucking whoa. My teen years were in the 1980s, which means I grew up on ‘80s movies, ‘80s videos, ‘80s punk. My values have been shaped by theatrical responses to questions like, “When are you going to grow up?” Kicks over table. “Never!” Cue scorching guitar licks… At 46, well into my fifth decade on this ball of confusion, my response is slightly more nuanced: if I can’t get my motor running to records like “Recovery,” it’s time to put a down payment on a headstone that reads, “He used to rip shit up but then he got tired and he died.” “Recovery” is the closest thing I’ve found to the way my brains feels that exists outside my body. It might as well have, “Jim’s Fuck You Mix” stamped on the wax. The confrontational lyrics, the ridiculously rad guitar, the manic rhythm section. This record makes me wanna run through walls. This record brings me to tears. This record is everything. It’s available here. Go put it in your earhole now.
Big wood. (at Cabot’s Pueblo Museum)
Merry Christmas from Sedona, Arizona. (at Chapel of the Holy Cross)