We have a rule in my house that whenever we want new books we have to take back the same number of old ones to the used bookstore. This is hard. Because some books we want to keep–to read again, for some sort of perceived prestige (I guess), to read for the first time (hey D.H. Lawrence), and because we…like books? But it creates a stasis somewhat equivalent to the amount of bookshelf space we have, but I’m able to […]
Lexicon Devils: What Exactly is Alt Lit? A Conversation With Frank Hinton, Noah Cicero and Stephen Tully Dierks
What does it mean to affix the “alt” tag to something? Is it a reaction? A sign of the changing times? That’s the very question we’re asking about alt lit.
My Ten Bold Mad Men Season Finale Predictions Bound to Be Wrong
While my colleagues here at Vol.1 Brooklyn have been keeping a close eye on Girls, I’ve been following a different set of New Yorkers. The latest season of Mad Men wraps up this Sunday, so here are my guesses for what’s gonna go down:
Little Moments of Vileness: “Grow Up” by Ben Brooks, Reviewed
Grow Up by Ben Brooks Penguin, 272 p. The high school story is an odd thing. Most of the ones I think of come from movies—whether it be Project X, Can’t Hardly Wait, American Pie, or Sixteen Candles, and the billion beyond those. What are constant are the clear societal lines—who’s in and who’s out. In those stories, there’s usually at least one sympathetic character that we hope succeeds through whatever antics fall their way. But Brooks refuses to play […]
Unlikely Gods And “Post-Pop-Fiction”: On Mark Leyner’s “The Sugar Frosted Nutsack”
The Sugar Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner Little, Brown and Company; 256 p. Mark Leyner. Once grouped with heavyweights like David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen, he became more of a third wheel discarded on the side of the highway. This was my first Leyner story, though I will probably pick up Et Tu Babe next, based solely on the reviews and critical appreciation of that book and not really on anything I see in The Sugar Frosted Nutsack.
The Motivational Flarf Of An SEO-Poet : An Interview With Steve Roggenbuck
The SEO-poet-disruptor Steve Roggenbuck combines flarf and motivational speaking techniques to create a unique brand of videos, poems, and image macros to expand poetry into the craziest of realms. Through livemylief.com, he mixes everyday topics into anachronistic phrases that somehow make perfect sense in all manner of status updates. He was a purveyor of madness at the recent AWP conference (or the after-parties at least) and his newest chapbook, Crunk Juice, is recently released. He answers a few questions below.
Notes On Riding Waves With THE OCTOPUS & SWAMPLANDIA
Growing up on the coast of Florida and living for a while on the coast of North Carolina, I’ve associated “skimming” with something more like this. (Or I usually call it “skimboarding” because “skimming” in the context of water sounds like something a lost fisherman would do; see the related: “skiff” and somewhat tangentially: “skip”.).
Hardcore Fiction: Tyler McMahon on “How The Mistakes Were Made”
Posted by Josh Spilker I read Tyler McMahon’s How The Mistakes Were Made (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) with some anticipation: I’m a sucker for (most) rock music-related fiction. The world of bands in fiction always seems under-served to me and you would think there would be more natural overlap with how many music critics there are. How The Mistakes Were Made steps in quite nicely thank you, with a rise-from-obscurity 90s Seattle tale and a congruent one set in grittier […]