Talk Show 28 with Thomas Beller, Joshua Furst, Elizabeth Graver, Dave King, and Binnie Kirshenbaum
Jaime Clarke07.29.09
Long buried in a trash heap in Georgia are most of the presidential physical fitness awards I won as a kid during the Reagan administration. Learned back then while trying to run the mile part of the test that I had asthma; still I managed to eek it out for the Gipper. When older and "punk", and a bit smashed, I took some of these and other trophies and hit them with a baseball bat over the backyard fence into the rear lot of the A & P grocery store. Ah… awards. Well in this episode of Talk Show, # 28, host Jaime Clarke talks to authors Thomas Beller, Joshua Furst, Elizabeth Graver, Dave King, and Binnie Kirshenbaum about their memories of awards, more specifically blue ribbons. Art by Danny Jock. -CM
Talk Show 27 with Daphne Beal, Charles Bock, Emily Chenoweth, John McNally, Irina Reyn and Peter Trachtenberg
Jaime Clarke07.02.09
Jaime Clarke talks to authors Daphne Beal, Charles Bock, Emily Chenoweth, John McNally, Irina Reyn and Peter Trachtenberg about things from the past they might like to see return to the present (in some form or fashion) and why – from manual typewriters, to wooly mammoths, to classic Woody Allen dinner parties, to something akin to the workers movement known as The Wobblies…the answers in this episode are as varied as anyone might be expected to produce. Art By Danny Jock.
Stay Busy Line
Dallas Hudgens06.27.09
Okay true it’s summer, and the Stanley Cup is firmly in Penguin hands till next year, but we got one more hockey story for you, some new fiction from Dallas Hudgens – the tale of a down on his luck semi-pro from Ontario who never quite learned his half and whole steps on the piano is battling to keep it together, at turns giving piano lessons to a young lady, stocking shelves in a Rite AID, while hallucinating the horrors of his father and body checking everyone who might breathe at him funny. Meet Serge in ‘Stay Busy Line.’ Art by Danny Jock.
First Signs of Life in the Desert Outside of Las Vegas
Kevin Paul Giordano06.19.09
If you’ve ever driven to Vegas on a wild itch to burn some money, raise hell, or…cough…take the family for a good wholesome time, you may have witnessed the grandeur of some of the sites that surround it, the desert in all its glory at sunset, the jackrabbits, cacti and purple silhouettes of mountains, or a little project from the Depression days known as the Hoover Dam. Vegas teems with desperation, and so does that which surrounds it. Here’s a story from Kevin Paul Giordano, art by Danny Jock.
Talk Show 26 with Aimee Bender, David Leavitt, Dennis Lehane, Sam Lipsyte, Peter Rock, Dana Spiotta, A.J. Verdelle
Jaime Clarke06.16.09
Long before buying a record myself, there were a couple of LPs I took on as my own (besides Urban Chipmunk, Tom T. Hall and yes, Peter Rock, the K-Tel stuff); 1) the first Kiss LP I convinced my dad to buy around the time their solo albums were coming out, and 2) Funkadelic’s One Nation Under A Groove (that was the one that folded out with the naked lady on the inside right?). Well I was obsessed with the art, the nakedness, the makeup (in Kiss’s case) as much as the music, and while not always a good rule of thumb (think Insane Clown Posse) often if the art or makeup is wild, then the music (your ass) follows. Here in Talk Show 26, host Jaime Clarke chats with authors Aimee Bender, David Leavitt, Dennis Lehane, Sam Lipsyte, Peter Rock, Dana Spiotta, and A.J. Verdelle about their first favorite albums. Art by Danny Jock. -CM
100 Percent Handsome
Robyn Weisman06.14.09
"Did you get my profile?" I get in an email and a couple of surprise chats, and I’m like oh hell I am so behind with Ms. Weisman because the other piece she sent in was like 25 pages and I am thinking – profile, oh no, it could be longer – and I’m about ready for adderol therapy, but then breathe and then fall into that tunnel, you know that vortex of clarity and focus that means something’s good and realize we have a bona fide gem of hallucinatory gonzo style profilage on Fanzine’s hands, lizards and all, but just a taste now, like a lemon biscuit for tea. And heck I have a half chihuahua thing too, a dog, albeit!…but so you have to read this…NOW!
Bury My Heart at Tataouine
Brian Joseph Davis06.11.09
Who here recalls Westworld? – in which a robotic Yul Brenner made the bald-guy-in-cowboy-hat look hip long before today’s slew of Hair Club, Stetson-glued-on, Nashville stars? Well, that’s neither here nor there for this story, except that it’s a loosely cloaked sci-fi western. Brian Joseph Davis, author of the novels I, Tanya and Portable Altamont, and one of the editors at the esteemed lit site Joyland, puts Star Wars fanatics into a faux journalistic, Jodorowsky style western that’s dry and crisp like a fine Chianti washing down a spaghetti shoot-em-up. Enjoy a taste here. Art by Danny Jock.
Talk Show 25 with Brian Evenson, Lev Grossman, Elizabeth McCracken, Karen Shepard, & Gary Shteyngart
Jaime Clarke05.20.09
A treat and a milestone, TS#25 came in on my birthday, May Day, but is just now going up as we’re a little ahead of ourselves in the Talk Show arena. Danny’s gone bat shit prolific with the drawings and Jaime’s ever surprising with the authors he brings in, like Brian Evenson, a fave, and the amazing rest, including Lev Grossman, Elizabeth McCracken, Karen Shepard, and Absurdistan author Gary Shteyngart. The focus of the chat is a blast too, a sort of Rorschach sans the drippy subterfuge – Clarke simply asks: what’s the big "irrational fear?" So get prepped to laugh, relate or cringe along. Woody Allen’s sold the spiel that all writers are neurotic as hell, so see for yourself with this Whitman Sampler…
Talk Show 24 with Leah Hager Cohen, Joshua Ferris, Alice Mattison, and Ann Packer
Jaime Clarke04.30.09
Hate to set these blurbs up with the personal (CM here), but when I think of first apartments not sure whether to count the one at the New School I dropped out of after the first semester (four of us in the dorm, each with their own addiction- booze, coke, pot and heroin, made for nice company, nobody messing with each others stuff really, except the booze…and the pot, oh and sometimes the…). Or the next in LA that I paid $200 a month for with a murphy bed, splitting the space with a friend sleeping next to me on the floor on a futon, a couch separating. Writing table in the closet was a good hideout for when the other had a date. Ah the good old days! Anyway, host Jaime Clarke talks here in TS24 to authors Leah Hager Cohen, Joshua Ferris, Alice Mattison, and Ann Packer about their first apartments. Enjoy. Art by Danny Jock
Talk Show 23: with Jenna Blum, Julia Glass, Nellie Hermann and Matthew Pearl
Jaime Clarke04.04.09
In Talk Show 23, that magical number, host Jaime Clarke gives authors Jenna Blum, Julia Glass, Nellie Hermann and Matthew Pearl a forum to bitch a little about something that they think is overrated currently, be it oh…what’s the big buzz these days? Twittering? Or how about good old fashioned Facebook? or maybe it’s the still hottest Eastern fitness trend (hmm what could that be?) that makes a certain writer’s skin crawl. And what about text messaging? Isn’t that some rotten thing we’ve all gotten snookered into? Then there’s iThis and iThat… Answers, complaints and suggestions are all filed here. Art by Danny Jock.
