Tag Archives: Review

Abortion Arcade by Cameron Pierce (Eraserhead Press; 2011)

25 May

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I realize, yes, the title of this collection of three novellas may be slightly off-putting, but, rest assured, this is a terrific kaleidoscope of candy-flavored-surreal psychedelia.

First off we have an original-in-concept zombie tale (sort of a sci-fi zombie work) entitled “No Children” that is pretty eerie and Phillip K. Dick-like, although even more pulpy (yes, that is possible); the doomed/grotesque love story at its center is very Carlton Mellick III-esque (I was reminded, at times, of The Cannibals of Candyland(which this does not surpass(in terms of greatness)).

Then we turn to our next tale: “The Roadkill Quarterback of Heavy Metal High”–which is my favorite of the collection. In a dystopian future flavored with the perversity of J.G. Ballard’s Crash, students studying heavy metal 24/7 must stage accidents; our hero, a werewolf, manages to stage a magnificent accident–the aftereffects of which lead to one of the most baffling/hilarious scenes I have ever read. Long live Dio.

“The Destroyed Room” was also fantastic. I especially loved how casually these little blue elephants just wandered in through the walls. The shark head in the sky visual is also one of incendiary power.

Step in to Cameron Pierce’s dreams or nightmares. Step inside today.

Buy Abortion Arcade

Eraserhead Press

You Are Sloth! by Steve Lowe (Eraserhead Press; 2013)

24 May

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This book, written in the 2nd person, is a hilarious send-up of our online, email-obsessive-checking culture. For what resides mostly in our inboxes: spam.

What if your job was to edit terrible self-help books and your current project was a cliched, bumbling mess about harnessing your spirit animal. The narrator’s battle against being a sloth (despite the fact that it is OBVIOUSLY his spirit animal, even if you believe in this spirit animal theory only slightly)–for that is what this surreal piece forces him to become–is hilarious. Yes, you will joyfully be reminded of “The Metamorphosis,” but in the same way, say, that you were reminded of Wilder’s The Apartment when watching some modern sitcom or RomCom about a failing relationship or hilarious but inconvenient roommate situation–but, ahem, that is not to degrade this excellent, and incredibly entertaining, new work of modern fiction in any sense. And have you ever wondered what it is exactly that dogs are saying? If so, look no further than this excellent work about a couple of Jonah Hill-esque slackers simply minding their own business when the supernatural occurrence strikes our slothy hero like a bold of surreal lightning.

I might as well admit: I LOL’ed. You might too. Then again, there are certain sequences that may scar you for life. But would a landlady really do that? When under the reign of the true spirit animal lord with a hatred of linking verbs, apparently yes.

Buy You Are Sloth!
Eraserhead Press

Pus Junkies by Shane McKenzie (Eraserhead Press; 2014) Review

24 May

pusjunkies

This is possibly one of the grossest books you will ever read–if, that is, you can make it to the surreal and violent conclusion without burning the book with flammable hand sanitizer and running to the shower with a two gallon tub of soap and a three gallon bottle of shampoo. I read it in about two days.

The writing is precise and direct and the voice feels authentic, even though the premise is nightmarish and disturbingly disgusting: you see this kid Kip’s numerous zits contain a pus substance that is a highly addictive drug. And his blood? Well, I won’t spoil that surprise…but if you dig the imagery of Lovecraft at his most body-horror-ish, you will love this.

Reading it feels like watching a b-movie (as many books of the bizarro genre); so, while it is not exactly a literary masterpiece, it is pulpy, fast, and fun.

So what’s different about this bizarro stuff than your ordinary, run-of-the-mill police-procedural drivel that you can pick up at your local drugstore? Originality. This weird fever dream has never been written before.

Eraserhead Press
Buy Pus Junkies

Thoughts on Breaking Bad (the last song)

9 Oct

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Tonight I watched the last one. Boy, was it a gem! Welcome to the goldmine! And who sung that last classic song? I’d heard it before. Now let me just try a little something that all you wiki-heads with sweaty iphones forgot some years ago–let me: recall.

Was it The Raspberries? No, somehow that doesn’t seem right. Definitely a power-pop classic band. Hmmmm. Getting an itchy smartphone-trigger finger, aren’t we? Don’t give up on me just yet. Hmmm. Dwight Twilley? Perhaps. Seems I’m getting warmer. Or there was that faux power-pop band from the early 90s. What were they called again? Hmmmm. Nope. Completely stuck. (EDIT: wait…wait a second…Teenage…um…Grand Prix?(no no, that definitely was not a band!))

While I did appreciate the Marty Robbins ref. and the oh so heavenly irony of playing him in a snowy car (he was a Texan, wasn’t he? (go on, you Wiki-heads!)), I truly enjoyed Walter’s…I’ll say…transformation during the last few episodes. It made me feel my time invested was validated and worthwhile.

Goodbye Walt. Goodbye Jesse.

(re-edit: Wait, I think I finally got it: The Groovie Ghoulies! Go on you wiki-heads! Okay, no, scratch that: The Flamin’ Groovies…and if I got that right, I honestly didn’t look it up. So don’t go quoting me in your research paper, y’hear?)

(video game image via newgrounds)

Haim – Days Are Gone (Columbia / Polydor; 2013)

1 Oct

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Ever want to give up hope on the entire music industry and wonder if all your years passionately poured into spinning vinyls, glinting cds, crackling tapes, and red-eyed reflections on the computer screens had been dead, dead, dead times and of no use to anyone?

When I heard “Forever” last year, I thought: wow, a new band can actually write a bigger hook than Pat Benatar while re-appropriating her sleek big big/brash guitar tone? And, all the while, the intricate and layered night-club-70’s-super-fun-MJ-Off-The-Wall-era/Chic-hybrid-beast beats led you back to simply gasp and smile and tear your very heart while admitting: yes and it might be true that no other band really matters currently at all, really not at this particular second.

I can’t even bear to write another word about it. And so I will not spoil it with another from this poisoned pen; I’ll leave that to the charlatans, the gum-shoe geeks, and the auto-tuned screamers begging for one last gasp of rediscovery. Well, here it is. Are you here to hear and herd it across your balcony with a herd of tiny cats (no bigger than ants)?

MGMT – S/T (Columbia; 2013)

20 Sep

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Impressions Impressions First Impressions Always to Make You Bluish:

1. A lone kid’s voice hovers in some psychedelic oasis or tangerine dream of a wonderland just before the alien spacecraft is commandeered and its glammed-out pilot decides IT’S A FINE TIME TO DIE.

2. Whip that finger around, shall we? No, we simply SHANT! Downer, boogie keyboards. Ever want to shake uglies with a haunted house of endless fear?

3. Badasssss drums make the sound go shake in the autumn of a breathing being (wide as a trampoline but 43x as evil) beneath a pile of leaves. Bees are growing angry and the wasps are sick of being preserved in cubes of antifreeze; it’s time they had their way…before the scarecrow nods and the hatchet falls.

4. Almost as if the nails were rising by themselves from the structure housing the ladybug, large as a watermelon, who has been controlling us of late; she shivers because of the slivers, but she has her appetites…and that is what is wading…left far behind, down in the murk of a drumbeat trapped inside a synthesizer.

5. Having not listened to the album whatsoever before this instant (other than a terribly shoddy phone recording of “Alien Days”), I feel a bit alarmed at reaching this track (“Your Life is A Lie”) as this is (and I’m probably (hopefully) mistaken) the debut single. Could be what the gentlemen with the wandering wig at the local record store used to call “a grower.” Yeah, but the second Stone Roses album NEVER GREW.

6. Then, as entangle with a snake yet again, the sand pit relaxes and massages us…giving us our chocolate figurines of glam boys and gals with glowing green goo just boiling right up and over their tongues and hanging and swayin’ from their chins.

7. Okay. Boo. Yes. This one is definitely grooven’. Lost in the mix. He. Him. You don’t want to be found? I had trouble sleeping last night too (I did (honestly) and this could be tainting my entire perception of the album, so please virtually rip this synthetic and abstracted page into cyber-chip-projected pieces to blow away in the wilds and prairies of the internet deserts).

8. Very Nico. Ah, and now we’re encountering basically the only contemporary band capable of producing both smash hits and utterly off-the-wall experimentation (oh yes, there’s also that mastercraft of a hovering personality: Ariel Pinky; and we shant forget about him…we just shant!). Wow, and it actually evolves into quite a powerful and emotional hook. Who does this? MGMT…and nobody else would ever even dare!

9. Definitely a reference to Lady Chatterley’s Lover. And this sounds like a wacky but much catchier single than the one about lives being lies, although that one could expand and reshape itself into a more profound experience while the simplicity of this ditty could begin to splinter and divide an evil influence in a storm of gangrenous amongst the toes and toads.

10. It bangs some severe hammers as the ghosts escape, but how I miss steel drums and tragic island tales amidst congratulatory slaps on the back, roses in hand and switchblades visible beneath the belts.

So, in the end, did I “like” it? Ummmmm…Ok!!!!!!! WAY TOO BORED by that question. Bye.

Night Film by Marisha Pessl – A Review

19 Sep

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It makes me sad that I will probably never read Night Film again. Never be wrapped up in its intricate mystery, coiled within its specific flavor of suspicious magic and the living/throbbing rumors spider-webbing outward from a genius artist of the dark’s glorious offspring: in this case, fictitious films. But I will not reveal any aspect of its deftly executed plot, filled with surprises until the very last sentence. I may as well admit that I have started many thrillers during my life but finished few. Why? The mystery usually withers too early on, becomes too convoluted, or the hero is imbued with unrealistic buoyancy and shackled to wisecracking-but-tiresomely-clever dialogue while strapped with an increasingly redundant dilemma/dangerous foes until the suspense predictably ratchets to a boiling point of a ready-to-pop climax, leaving this reader to sigh in apathy at its lack of lurid shocks and basic invisibility. But this novel lives on until its very end, blowing smoke at the mind’s conclusions while confuscating our very perception as to what it means to take part in a living, breathing work of art as it unfolds and generates meaning. So maybe I shouldn’t be so sad; maybe I can one day read this magnificent diamond-cut tomb once again and be equally as transfixed and romanced; to make it be like a Madeleine cookie wherein I will someday retrieve who I once was these last few weeks: becoming one of those timeless works that, for a moment, opened a world of infinite possibility—because: we will always be in need of stories to shape our present and throw us back to what has passed—and is still passing—somewhere close.