So then what about the author?  How the hell do I introduce Matthew Revert in a way that offers meaningful insight on his indescribable work? Bizarre, unusual, hilarious, and disturbed???   After all, anyone whose mind can generate such stories surely qualifies to have his name designate some new mental disorder in the latest version of the DSM, right?

Alas, Matthew can’t bank on any pity inducing freak-factor; despite all expectations, these stories are in fact the product of an overly sane mind.

Indeed, Matthew would be a worthy poster-boy for that scarce and paradoxical crowd I playfully label as rebelliously un-rebelling rebels—those whose still fully-functioning sensibility fills them with disgust in the face of the world we are forced to passively accept, but whose razor-sharp acuity allows them to discern the futility and inevitable despair behind wanting to function outside of certain societal constructs,  while  a profound sense of identity enables them to reach for the ‘meaningful’ and scorn the ‘prosaic’ knowing full well that their version of Happiness relies on the acceptance that their non-conformist goals are dependent on conventions and conformity.

Understanding this about Matthew Revert doesn‘t make describing his book any easier, but it certainly should make it clear to you that this book aims to fall well outside  of that weird-only-for-the-sake-of-goofy-novelty mess that festers the mainstream bowels of Bizarro and Absurdist fiction in much the same way that love songs were soiled by Air Supply.   Rather, this book offers a crucial and refreshing difference that should instantly establish it as a prototype of the Bizarro genre (perhaps New Absurdist?  Subject for a debate no doubt).  That difference is: in these stories, the nonsensical actually makes sense and the illogical is firmly grounded on logic, i.e. they have a raison-d’être.

And it is for that reason that I am reluctant to present  A Million Versions of Right as Bizarro fiction and why I want to avoid ‘bizarre’, ‘hilarious’, and ‘disturbing’.   All true, but this unjustly limits the book’s potential audience which really ought to be as broad as broad goes; these stories should appeal to anyone who enjoys well-constructed, well-written tales that have the ability to expertly whisk you into new mental realms—I’m guessing that’s anyone who enjoys fiction (yes, I’m an idealist).

Granted, perhaps testicular annihilation and scrotum aesthetics shouldn’t be appreciated by all.  And the paralysing fear that one or more of the ‘men’ contained in ‘semen’ may be what decides to burst forth at that next toe-curling moment is rarely a popular water-cooler topic.  Ditto for power blinks, malfunctioning bookmarks, and one particular comb-jar deep in the Hair District…  But all these things fill the pages for a reason, brilliantly described and brought to life to reveal the shocking silliness that exists in those things we call conventions.

Which brings me back to the beginning… how then, do I introduce this book?

I had the opportunity to ask  Matthew a few questions; here’s the result.

PDL:  How do you qualify yourself as a writer?  Is there a certain genre label you feel describes your writing best?

MR:  Wherever possible, I’ve tried not to qualify myself as a writer. I’m really against the idea of backing myself into a corner and reproducing endless facsimiles of my first book. I began writing in a very natural way, without any intention of sharing my work beyond a small circle of friends. I didn’t have to worry about where it fit and this suited me just fine. Since my writing has become available, others have happily placed it into categories for me. The most common genre it gets labelled with is Bizarro fiction, which I guess is an adequate way of describing it inasmuch as the writing is quite bizarre. I have more of an affinity with absurdist writing, which I personally think is a more accurate way of describing what I do. Ultimately though, I just write unusual fiction, which is probably the best way to describe it.

PDL: I myself tend to qualify A Million Versions of Right as Bizarro fiction for several reasons.  We can arm-wrestle for it if you wish, but your previous answer leads me to think you just don’t care?  However, are you not confusing “formula” with “ideal”?  Does the goal of writing works aiming to fit a literary or philosophical framework, according to you, entail a fair amount of eventual, self-imposed limitations?  Should “genre” emerge or can it also be a goal?  In good writing, is one separable from the other?    

MR: That’s a fantastic question! I went into this whole writing game naively, and to an extent, I still carry around a lot of this naivety. When I write, as far as I’m aware, I don’t take classification into account. I don’t write and think to myself, “Well, it appears this is a Bizarro story” and I never consider where a certain story may fall before writing occurs. I agree that idealism plays a role in that and I have a tendency to be a fairly idealistic person.  As for formula, I’m still discovering what my writing formula is.

Your comment about the framework of a story leading to self-imposed limitation is also fantastic. I find myself caught in a situation where on the one hand, I dislike the idea of limitation, and on the other, certain levels of limitation is obviously necessary. Anything that you wrap into a cohesive, narrative shell is the result of limitation. Aesthetic limitation also has a large role to play, especially in much of the music I enjoy. When I started writing this book, I hadn’t read any Bizarro fiction so I really didn’t know what Bizarro entailed. The reason I never considered myself Bizarro was because none of my influences came from that camp. My influences are a mess of different things, some that I’ve carried around since childhood. Having now read a fair bit of Bizarro, I’m interested to see if it ends up consciously working its way into my writing.

Genre can most definitely be a goal and there are many fantastic genre writers out there. Personally, I never read a book based on its genre; I just read books that sound interesting. That’s the same way I approach writing. I write a story if the idea interests me and hope that I’ve touched upon an idea that interests others. So in this respect, for my writing, genre emerges. The pulpy, noir-like overtones that permeate the first part of “Meeting Max” weren’t planned for instance.    

PDL:  Back to your “unusual fiction” description.  Yes, indeed!  But is that a departure or an adherence to the ol’ “write what you know“ adage?  In other words, and sarcasm aside, what motivates this propensity towards the unusual?  You mentioned that you originally wrote for yourself and for a few friends; did your desire to write unusual fiction initially come about purely as a desire to entertain acquaintances, no doubt with a fair degree of success, which led you to realize a talent?  Or did you always write about the bizarre, too disgusted by reality to ever be able to write seriously about real-life events and situations?  Neither?  Both? Other?  How?  Why?  Please expand.

MR: The ‘unusual’ has always been an enormous part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a child, it was always the jokes that didn’t make sense or that were told poorly that I laughed the hardest at. The absurd, bizarre, unusual, nonsensical side of life is something I embrace with near-religious fervour. So for me, the adage is correct. This is what I know. This is how I communicate. This is what I see value in. For me, it goes beyond mere entertainment (although that is definitely a part of it). It was the purest way for me to express myself. I’ve always been the kind of person to see the humour in a situation, even if my version of humour doesn’t translate to anyone else. Combining this inclination toward humour with the inclination toward the nonsensical, and you’re left with the material I write. Life is something I find largely disgusting, redundant and ultimately depressing.  The best way for me to approach a serious topic, or the “reality” of life is to expose the underlying absurdity behind it. I don’t know what this says about me personally, but this is how I’ve always related to the world. How could I write in any other way?

With that said, I do think all of my stories have a serious aspect underlining the overt insanity. Recently I’ve had people telling me that they believe I write horror. To me there is a certain horror bubbling through it all.

I touched a little upon influences in an earlier question but I want to expand upon that a bit. If I were to be honest about my influences, I’d have to say that they’re based in British comedy. The British have a knack for humour that no other country even comes close to. British comedy also possesses such an amazing flair for the absurd. The work of Chris Morris has probably influenced my writing more than any single book I’ve read. Anyone unfamiliar with Chris Morris should rectify that immediately.  I’d also add Armando Iannucci to that list.

PDL: Obviously, as anyone who reads your book can attest to,  you don’t pander to popular expectations, but nor can the writing in A Million Versions of Right be considered experimental; the situations and events described certainly fall outside of real-world conventions—thus the “unusual”—but the stories themselves are concise, well-written accounts that follow standard narrative forms.  No doubt this allows you to emphasize “the underlying absurdity” of life, but is this also a conscious method of marrying sellable with unsellable?  In other words, producing original, independent writing that still has commercial viability due to its readability and accessibility, for surely, you do hope to sell books?

MR: No, I’m not an experimental writer at all. My goal was always to write stories that entertained. This writing style personally entertains me and allows the internal logic to come through with conviction. It’s also the most natural way for me to integrate my type of humour into the writing. There’s a bit of subversion involved too, in that I’m using standard narrative to convey highly unusual ideas, almost like I’m trying to sneak the content through. The goal was to win readers over with the writing and hope that they’d accept the subject matter as a result. I’m not naïve enough to assume that my, admittedly odd, sensibilities and interests are going to appeal to that many people. So by writing in an accessible way, my conviction may win converts. Obviously I want people to pick up my book and ultimately buy it. I also want them to get something out of the experience. This is the first time my name has ever been attached to a ‘product’ and I don’t want that product to represent a waste of time or money for the reader. It still completely blows me away when someone displays enough faith to lay down money on my writing. I hope it continues to blow me away because I never want to take that for granted.

PDL: What do you qualify as “good writing”?  What features or characteristics must be present, or not?

MR: For me, good writing begins with an author’s passion for the material. The passion bleeds into the prose and as a reader, you can sense it. The sense that someone is writing by rote can also be felt, which can make for a depressingly by the numbers read. I personally get excited when an author makes me care about something seemingly banal or think in a new way about something I’d previously taken for granted. Ultimately though, I find it really hard to qualify good writing. Writing and reading is such a deeply personal thing, which is something I really value. The act of qualifying the value of a piece of writing almost goes against what I find valuable about it. It seems to suggest a checklist of sorts that as a reader, you mentally tick off in order to ascertain merit. To a degree, I’m sure this occurs unconsciously with all readers. I’d rather keep this unconscious so as not to remove the mystique. You could ask a question like, “What constitutes an author’s passion?” and I wouldn’t be able to define it. As trite as it may seem, when you encounter a good piece of writing, you know it.   

PDL: Artistic movements (not just literary ones)?  Good or bad?  Vague question, I know; I just want to get your brief, overall thoughts on the subject.

MR: It’s hard to have a real perspective of any literary movements because I haven’t yet become a part of one. Sure, I may write in a way that suggests Bizarro, but am I really a Bizarro author unless the ‘movement’ accepts me into their fold? If I am ‘accepted’ will that change my approach to writing? Movements as a whole are obviously an extremely important part of artistic history. The word itself suggests a nebulous entity shifting from point to point. The very nature of ‘movement’ implies that whatever it is that forms a movement will ultimately move away to the next check point. If a movement can avoid stifling dogma, I’m all for it. If a movement can evolve, I’m for it even more.

PDL:  The following is off your Myspace page, “And now I write. I write about nothing and I write about everything, all in an attempt to recreate the unfulfilling circumstances in which I was conceived.”   A very Freudian statement!  Keeping in mind what you’ve said so far, care to discuss this further?  A bit of Revertian humour or the basis for a personal, Revert-esque philosophy? 

MR: This is going to come across as slightly perverse, but I’ve always had this theory that my conception was the result of an unsatisfactory sexual encounter between my parents. Of course, I don’t know if this is true and I have no plans of asking them – it’s just a fun thing to think about. I do often wonder if the satisfaction, or lack thereof, during conception affects the resultant child. Would a mind-blowing sexual encounter result in a more dynamic child? Would an encounter between two people, too familiar in their relationship to experience spontaneity or passion, result in something opposite? It’s a concept I plan on exploring further in my writing at some point. The write-up on my MySpace page has more to do with my version of humour than anything else. It’s all about self-deprecation, which is something I get a kick out of. I don’t suppose it instils confidence in potential readers though. “Selling” myself is a skill I definitely have to learn, no matter how begrudgingly.

PDL:  Other than in biology textbooks, I’ve never read any other non-erotic work that contained as many references to penises, scrotums, or masturbation, all in a very non-erotic fashion.  Is this a personal obsession?  A desire to take toilet humour to new heights?  Or perhaps a personal f*ck you to the overly serious, out-of-a-cast, pompous literary types who seem to exercise totalitarian control over what is and isn’t publishable?  Or am I reading too much in every scrotum?

MR: To me this is actually a pretty complex question. It’s not so much that I’m obsessed with genitalia per se but I am utterly intrigued by the reaction to genitalia. The ubiquity of genitalia in no way gels with the obscenity associated with it. I definitely don’t use sex to tantalise in my writing, as you pointed out. I approach sex almost from a post-sexual perspective, where all that’s left is an instinctual urge for orgasmic release or mindless intimacy. Sex in my writing is used more to examine the relationships between the characters. These relationships are typically dysfunctional, dying or dead to begin with. I can’t write normal, healthy relationships because I’m not convinced they exist.

Regarding toilet humour and notions of what is and isn’t publishable; I admit to falling into this trap myself. When I was first approached by a friend who was interested in publishing my writing, my first reactions was, “this can’t be published.” I find it interesting and slightly sad that I had been conditioned to feel that way. Sure, knowing that a story like, ‘The Bricolage Scrotum’ was getting printed did fill me with a certain naughty glee but I also felt a sense of shame. Thankfully I worked through this rather quickly and now it’s a simple case of if you don’t like it, don’t read it. As an unknown author with an unknown book, there’s a wonderful liberation involved. If and when I gain a readership, there will always be a fear that I’ll fill future books with similar material because it’s expected and not because it feels natural. I’ll cross this bridge if I come to it.

Ultimately though, if I ever stop finding farts funny, that’s the day I’ll have to end it all. If this mindset detracts from my credibility, so be it.

PDL: Out of curiosity, in the first story, “A Million Version of Right”, the moustachioed tiler?  How much of that was inspired by the Super Mario Bros. video game?   Given what you write, are video games and/or cartoons in any way an influence for your writing?

MR: When I wrote that story (one of the first stories I ever wrote that I was happy with), Super Mario wasn’t a conscious inspiration. It’s a pretty slight difference, but Mario is a plumber whereas my little guys are tilers. I’ve had several people tell me that they couldn’t shake the image of Mario from their mind while reading that story. I think it may have warped their perception of Mario from that point onward. I think I’ve corrupted minds!

My childhood in the 80s corresponded with the explosion of the first Nintendo system (NES). The Nintendo was an enormous part of my life and I played it obsessively. The majesty of this 8bit universe is something that definitely still flows through my blood. Despite the barrage of new gaming systems that have been released, it’s still the original Nintendo that I return to. I’m one of those pathetic guys who purchases replacement parts to ensure their antiquated gaming consoles never die. I’m also enamoured with the Chiptune genre of music, which uses the original technology to create modern, nostalgia-spackled music. Interested parties should check out the work by the 8BITPEOPLES label. All free. So it would be absurd for me to claim that this doesn’t find a way into my writing. It’s not something I set out to do deliberately but it’s something that went into shaping who I am.

This same logic applies to cartoons. My childhood was stuffed with them and I’m not opposed to long cartoon binges these days. I find the increasing rise of adult cartoons interesting. I like a good amount of the work places like Adultswim produce and I respect what they’re doing a lot but I find it a little too self-conscious to be genuinely strange. It’s the cartoons aimed at kids that often manage to be genuinely warped, existing on their own terms.

PDL: Here’s one of those inane but revealing  questions – if you had to describe your writing by means of a musical genre label, which would it be? Why?  Does music play a role in your writing in any way?   You’ve mentioned in an earlier answer that, “Aesthetic limitation also has a large role to play, especially in much of the music I enjoy.”  Is there a parallel between this and how, when writing, you conceive the structure of a piece?

MR: Now we’re getting into dangerous territory. I’m an utter music geek and could go on and on… First of all, and I know this is a question a lot of writers ask each other, I never write to music. I become far too distracted. If I had to apply a single musical genre to my writing, I couldn’t. I’m sure I could apply several though. First, electro-acoustic improv because it contains both elements of the strange and familiar. There’s the terror and ultimate of absurdity of extreme metal (especially doom, death and black). The cold, clinical nature of the sexuality I write about has overtones of the Raster-Noton school of electronics. The synapse overload of noise. There’s a rhythmic quality I try to insert into my prose that has touches of hip hop cadence. The raw emotion of American Primitive music. The “fuck you” attitude of Miles Davis in jazz fusion mode. I love so many different styles of music that I’m sure I could find a way to relate all of them to my writing somehow.

Regarding aesthetic limitations in music, I’m going to use electro-acoustic improv as an example. Consider an artist such as Toshimaru Nakamura, who has been involved in some of my favourite albums over the last decade. His ‘instrument’ is the no-input mixing board. This is a standard mixing board with the input connected to the output. Anyone who has done this will be aware of the vast array of feedbacks that result. Using this very limited framework, Toshi  creates some of the most amazing music I’ve ever heard. With the years spent perfecting the use of a no-input mixing board, Toshi has become something of a virtuoso. This aesthetic limitation has been utilised superbly and I can’t imagine the music being so successful if this limitation hadn’t occurred. Other artists in this area of music who have actively limited themselves are Sachiko M, Keith Rowe and Ami Yoshida (to name some of the more popular practitioners). As I mentioned earlier, I don’t limit myself anywhere near as much but I’m still finding my voice and I don’t believe limitations of that nature would benefit me – at least not yet. The ways I limit myself at the moment are much broader than that. In ‘The Bookmark That Didn’t Work’, for example, I came up with an idea wherein the common bookmark had only been invented recently. This had to dictate everything that followed. Not a great example because all writers are confined by their narratives but that’s all I really have at this stage.

PDL: Beyond the Vegemite and the obvious idiomatic expressions, is there anything in your writing that you feel classifies you as an Australian writer?  Is there one defining aspect that distinguishes modern Australian literature from the rest?   I like to describe Canadian culture as:  we don’t know what we are, but we know we’re not Americans.  Care to come up with your own to describe Australian culture?

MR: This is a tricky question and one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I don’t believe I write stories related to Australia. This isn’t a deliberate thing by any means, just the way my writing has developed. Both my parents are English, which I think has shaped what I do in a more noticeable way. Having lived my whole life here, there’s no way that Australia doesn’t seep into what I do – I just don’t know how. Australian art, specifically literature and cinema, tends toward social realism. There seems to exist this theory that Australian audiences only desire specifically Australian content. The reality doesn’t really support this theory. Our top selling books are never books written by Australians. Australian films very rarely make it into mainstream cinemas. In my opinion, the Australian artistic landscape doesn’t give the bulk of Australians what they seem to want. If you walked up to an average person in the street and asked them to name five Australian authors, I’m sure many of them would struggle.  I like a lot of the social realist films and books that come out here, but it would be nice to occasionally watch some Aussie films or read some books that weren’t enslaved to it.

Australian culture: one that doesn’t really know what it wants and imports other cultures as a result. Or, Australian culture: something that most Australians aren’t very interested in unless it pertains to sport.

PDL: Have you had any difficulties finding local publicity or promotional support, such as book signings, etc., due to what can be classified as graphic content in your book?  Have you received any backlash for this in any way?  Do you feel that the writing community takes you less seriously as an author because of your content?   

MR: Finding ways to publicise or promote my book with Australia has essentially been impossible. There’s been love from some independent bookstores but my book is even more unknown here than it is overseas. As I mentioned earlier, the Australian literary landscape is a pretty tricky one, especially if you don’t follow any established conventions in the subject matter you choose to explore. I believe there is a local audience for my work but if I want to tap into that, I’ll have to find each individual person myself. Short of a miracle, I don’t see this situation changing. It’s more likely that local audiences will discover me via international outlets, such as this.

As for backlash resulting from the content; personally I haven’t been at the receiving end of this. It may be a component of a general dismissal of the book but I’ve never had anyone attack me for the content itself. I’m sure there are many, many people (not just in the writing community) who don’t take me seriously because of what I choose to write about. Hell, even among friends and family who’ll buy it to support me personally but will never actually read it. Hopefully the conviction I have in my own work will eventually speak for itself. If I had to contort myself into something that the writing community viewed as ‘acceptable’, I wouldn’t be able to take myself seriously. I can think of nothing worse than compromising my own integrity just to ‘fit in’. This is what I do; take it or leave it (if a couple of people choose to ‘take it’, I’d be most grateful).

PDL: The Australian government is currently under attack for heading the way of China and Iran in regards to controlling the Internet content it makes available to its citizens.   You are strongly opposed to this, yet the aims purported by many for such measures are positive.  Do you fear or mistrust your own government’s utilisation of such a filtering tool in the application of its laws with Australian service providers?  It seems that the motivation behind such measures is unlike those in China and Iran.  Rather, can it not be said that Australia is a progressive leader in the fight against child-pornography, fraud, violence, etc?  Shouldn’t the world aim towards implementing this kind of international system providing a neutral regulatory body can be established?  Possibility or fantasy?  Should there be some limitations or liability measures linked to the publication of certain Web content?

MR: I don’t think I’ve personally likened the situation to China and Iran as extreme hyperbole of that nature can detract from what’s really happening. For those who aren’t aware, the Australian government is set to enact a plan to introduce mandatory filtering on all internet connections. According to our communications minister, Stephen Conroy, this is intended to protect children from damaging content and ultimately stop the proliferation of child pornography. Looking at those intentions, how could anyone possibly disagree with such a plan? Well, an estimated 95% of those surveyed in Australia seem to disagree and here’s why:

First consider the concept of protecting children and filtering in general. A few years ago, the Australian government made available free internet filters to anyone who wanted one. These proved to be very effective filters and enabled worried parents a genuine opportunity to rightly control their children’s internet experience. This also enabled adults to decide for themselves what was suitable. Now consider child pornography and those who partake in this practice. No one with any amount of decency would ever claim that child pornography isn’t a despicable, repugnant thing. BUT filtering the internet to stop this content simply won’t work. It has been suggested that most people involved in child porn utilise encrypted networks and peer to peer software that isn’t picked up by this filter. Google don’t index anything related to child porn and I’m sure many other search engines are the same.  We’re talking about an extremely closed circle of people who operate behind more curtains than any filter could possibly dream of pulling aside. The filters will be incredibly easy to bypass with proxies and VPN clients and it will drive things further underground, making it hard to track.

Now Australia has a dedicated police taskforce whose job it is to combat online child pornography. They have been successful in bringing down numerous child pornography rings in the past. What many people don’t know is that this taskforce was recently slashed by 50%. In a country purporting to care about the welfare of children, how could this be?

If these filters were only targeting child pornography, I doubt anyone would have a problem with it and if a single child could be saved from this, I’d be more inclined to take it seriously. What most people are concerned about is the extreme ambiguity in the proposal. These filters are also aimed to stop RC (refused classification) material. Australia is a very ban-happy country. Our classification board refuses to classify a lot of films, which makes them illegal to distribute within Australia. However, with the exception of a few states and territories) it’s not illegal to personally own and view most RC material. It is claimed that over 90% of all adult content on the internet is RC. This doesn’t just encompass pornographic material, far from it. Anyone interested is encouraged to view the following site, which examines this in more detail: http://libertus.net/censor/ispfiltering-au-govplan.html#RC

The government’s refusal to clearly describe what they aim to filter is very worrying and it’s not difficult to imagine special interest groups trying to exploit this. I could dedicate the whole interview to this topic but it would be wiser to direct people here: http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/ this site gives a fantastic overview of the whole situation.

A neutral regulatory body would be fantastic in theory but I do believe this to be a fantasy. We’d still be subject to the morality of others and ultimately told what we could and couldn’t view. To claim that there’s no liability on what is published on the internet strikes me as false. Barely a day goes by where we don’t hear of someone who has been held accountable (whether by legal means or otherwise) for what they do on the internet. We have record companies suing teenagers. Dominos employees getting sacked for the web content they upload. Countless Facebook users coming under fire from bosses, co-workers, friends and families. The internet community as a whole has a moral code and they will persecute whomever falls foul of this code. It’s also false to claim that Australia could be viewed as ‘progressive  leaders’ in this area. You may be interested to note that one of the countries oft quoted by Conroy as a benchmark for the Australian filter is Canada. In fact we’ve been adamantly informed that no fewer than 19 other countries have adopted similar methods. What other countries have really adopted is a black list of 1000 or so child pornography websites, not a blanket filter for RC material. It should also be noted that this filter has no plans of stopping internet fraud. It’s a very slippery slope we’re heading down. International community, weep for our souls.

PDL: How do you feel about Internet pseudonyms?

MR: In general, I have no issue with internet pseudonyms but there are some major exceptions to this. If a pseudonym is used in order to defame or break the law, it can be very damaging. There’s something especially low about an individual snaking out of accountability by hiding behind a persona. If you feel the need to speak ill of someone, at least have the gumption to put your name to it. But how do you police this? On a whole, the internet is founded upon assumed guises without issue. I don’t care if you use a fake name on a forum or social network; if we have enough in common, I’ll learn who you are eventually. It’s a very complex issue because you want to somehow control the pernicious aspects of pseudonyms without thwarting individual freedom. Internet fraud units operate with success in most countries but this is a lot of hands on work. I don’t think an automated approach could ever be used to solve the problem (hello, internet filtering!). The issue of international law also looms large. If someone in America tries to defame me, as an Australian citizen, what avenues do I have to combat it? So an international agreement would be a good first step. But it’s the sort of thing that needs to be stopped before it happens, which I doubt is possible. So yeah, on a whole they’re fun and erroneous but pseudonyms have a very dark side. Finding a balance between controlling that dark side and maintaining individual freedom is a concept too difficult for me to contemplate. 

PDL: Matthew Revert, thank you for your time and honesty.  Wishing you much success.

MR: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. It’s appreciated in ways you’d find plain creepy.

PDL: Final words: Taste.  Experiment.  Learn.  Grow.  This author’s work may not be your thing, however, this is one of those rare cases where experience is everything and comparisons are useless.  What have you got to lose?

For those who realize they can’t go wrong, A Million Versions of Right is published by LegumeMan Books. It can  be ordered through their website and on Amazon.com.

Pascal-Denis Lussier is a linguist and freelance writer. His obsessions include music (the good kind!), The Simpsons, and unearthing structure in all things. He’s written countless articles on jazz, theoretical linguistics, and on semiotic theory for numerous academic journals, newspapers, and magazines, but these days he mostly earns his living by copywriting for large corporations and tech writing for small software firms – a  temporary “phase” he’s trying hard to get away from…
He currently lives in Montreal, Canada.

PS: You’ve done a lot of stuff in your thirty-nine years, Mr. Beatty.  Maybe you could start off by telling our good readers about some of your interests and accomplishments in this life cycle of you as an intelligent, handsome, bearded gentleman?

BB: My interests are varied, but mostly I’m into writing, comedy, music and the visual arts. I spend a lot of time hiking and camping with my girlfriend and our dog. I’ve never tried my hand at painting or sculpture, but I’ve given everything else I’m interested in at least a cursory go because I’ve always considered hands-on experience the best way to learn.

I’ve written and published articles, book and music reviews, humor pieces, one-liner jokes, poems, scholarly articles and short stories. In college I played in a frightening basement band that had to be heard to be truly feared. I accidentally appeared for a few seconds in the Michael Moore film that no one’s seen (The Big One). I spent an incredible day with Ken Kesey, who taught me a lot about life that I didn’t agree with at the time. I got to meet my original literary hero, Barry Hannah, long after it didn’t matter as much. Which was for the best, I’m certain. For several years now I’ve performed stand-up comedy and turned reading opportunities into impromptu comedy gigs.

I’m not sure how much intelligence or my hirsute appearance had to do with any of this. Really I’m just easily bored. So I’m always looking for the next way to entertain myself. That I’ve done any of it fascinates me. It seems impossible when I sit down and think about it at all. Maybe that’s the dementia of my forties sneaking up on me.

PS: Which interest interests you the most these days?

BB: I can’t narrow it down to just one, but some weird combination of writing and comedy, I suppose. From a Joseph Campell/C.G. Jung point-of-view, making people laugh always interested me more than narrative structure or characterization or prosody or other formal elements of traditional literary writing. This was a late realization as these things go, so I always feel like I’m making up for important lost time. Lately I’ve been figuring out how to be funny in front of audiences like I am in front of people I know. Because, for whatever reason, I need the approval of drunken strangers. It’s probably my parents’ fault.

PS: Ah yes, I sense you take this business of being funny very seriously.  Let’s hear more about your

comedy.  What’s your process for coming up with new material?  What do you consider your best performance?  Your worst?

BB: I’ve ended up taking my comedy a lot more seriously than I thought was possible. I don’t have a set-in-stone process for generating material, but what typically happens is that I hear about something on the news or I think of a word or mental image and a simple one-liner comes to mind. Over time I build upon that one-liner with more one-liners, or I develop a larger story that sets up the original one-liner in a way that will create a fulfilling payoff for the audience. Or at least complete the first thought for me.

I’ve probably ruined a lot of perfectly decent jokes trying to justify what I think about the world. So it goes, to quote Vonnegut. I’m not doing stand-up to become famous. I only started telling jokes because of a magazine article that nobody remembers. I took a four-week comedy class, wrote about the experience and was instantly addicted to the immediate response of a live audience. I’d never gotten that kind of feedback as a writer. Now it’s about figuring out new ways to exploit the limits of the stand-up genre. That’s why I sometimes perform in a bear suit.

I think my best performance ever was a fifteen minute set I did a couple of years ago at a coffee shop in Minneapolis. It was a big deal at the time because it represented the direction I’ve been taking on stage since, combining tight one-liners (or written pieces I’ve been invited to read) with an ongoing commentary as my set unfolds, completely dismantling the distance and expectations of professional performance. The emotional honesty of what I’m feeling on stage adds something to the prepared material, I think. The last thing in the world I look like is an entertainer, so I’ve decided to use that to my advantage. If audience expectations are low, I don’t see any reason to heighten them.

I’ve survived plenty of awful gigs, but the worst had to be opening for Louie Anderson in front of 5,000 of his hometown fans one New Year’s Eve. Those people had paid too much money to sit through my clever and decidedly dark one-liners. Louie had warned me that material about slavery and transvestites and child abduction was going to require some work on my part — and he was right. But rather than support my material with a strong, focused performance, I trudged onto stage and withdrew into myself, literally mumbling my jokes into the mic. I didn’t perk up until somebody in the expensive seats down in the front of this enormous theater farted in the silence between two of my jokes and I stopped everything to say that I would’ve thought for sure that rich people paid minorities to fart for them. Things went further downhill from there.

PS: Pretend I’m Louie Anderson, talk to me.

BB: Hey, Louie. Remember when that shitty classic rock radio station ran that reality TV-ish contest a few years ago, to open for you in front of a shit-ton of people who had no idea what was going on? And were too drunk to care? Thank you for allowing me to be one of the finalists sacrificed like a witch or a comedy virgin before your big show that night. Thank you, too, for being so honest about how I have a special talent for alienating audiences by making them think too much. I should try harder not to do that, yes. Anyway, you have no idea how much I appreciate your time and trouble, even if you don’t remember me at all.

PS: Okay, I’m just plain old Peter again.  Now I understand you were a bit of a prodigy as a youth.  Did you feel a lot of pressure from the expectations of those around you at the time?  How much of that do you still feel?

BB: The first draft of the first short story I ever wrote won a scholarship that paid for four years of college, then I started publishing poems and book reviews in mid-level literary journals as a freshman. Three years later — the day after my twenty-first birthday, I remember, because I went out and got drunk to celebrate — I sold a short story to Seventeen magazine. That was the fifth or sixth story I’d ever finished from beginning to end. Gordon Lish and I wrote back and forth for years before he finally published a prose poem-y thing in one of the last issues of The Quarterly. That was my proudest literary moment. I was also fortunate to have as mentors some incredible poets and fiction writers at a handful of summer workshops: Lynda Hull, Larrys Levis and Brown, Bob Shacochis.

I was the first person in my family to attend college, and nobody was much of a reader, so only the story in Seventeen mattered. Because there was money involved and because the story was a fictionalized account of my parents’ ugly divorce nearly two decades earlier. My college professors, undergrad classmates and fellow MFA victims were supportive of my dumb experiments until I started following my muse down stinky, dead-end rabbit burrows. Half the time, I had no idea why or what, exactly, I was doing in a poem or story — and everybody else wanted to know why I couldn’t write another piece like one they’d enjoyed before. Fuck if I knew why. Eventually that nagging question crippled me. So I quit for more than a year. Then I started freelancing book and music reviews again, because I had connections able to provide product and the little bit of cash reviews brought in helped cover my rent.

What other people think about what I do doesn’t matter to me now. That’s as much the result of hacking out ad copy for a living as anything that’s occurred in my own work. I’m not precious about my writing. It doesn’t cure cancer. It’s also not going to last in that vain literary sense. So what? I just write to entertain myself. That’s difficult enough.

PS: Amen, the process is more important than the result and spiritually entertaining yourself is more important than fame which is out of our hands anyway.  I’m entertaining myself right now by picturing you in your bear suit.  No question here, just wanted you to know that.

BB: Just because I had a bear suit made to wear when I perform stand-up doesn’t mean that I’m a furry. I didn’t know about those freak perverts until I’d done several sets in my costume. Not that I’m calling you a freak pervert.

PS: Oh, I’d just fess up if you called me a pervert.  So.  Oh yeah, what’s the closest you’ve ever come to killing someone?  Don’t say this interview, I’m already intimidated.

BB: I’m quick to anger, but I’m even quicker to turn that anger back on myself, which means I contemplate unlikely suicide scenarios probably a dozen or so times each day. Sure, I’m getting long-in-the-tooth for such thoughts, but comforting habits are the hardest to break. Despite my considerable size (6′ 3″, 280 lbs.) and a stare I’ve been told is either unnerving or deadpan, depending on my mood, I’m just not interested enough in other people to consider them worth the time and trouble killing them would entail. In other words, you’re safe — for now.

PS: Phew.  Okay, let’s put on our magic hats.  What would you like to see happen in your life?  I actually had a dream that you had your own late night talk show but there were a lot of commercials even in my dream so all I saw was your musical guest, Sting.

BB: I would take my own late night talk show, if folks were giving them out, though I worry that my disinterest in other people may make me a less-than-stellar interviewer. And celebrities interest me even less than people I know. The only way you would see Sting on my show would be if Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers were playing, too. Man was I a huge Police fan in my youth. I’m not ashamed to say so. I’m also not ashamed to admit that my career ambitions aren’t even as lofty (or lucrative) as late night TV. I’d much rather host an overnight radio show that crossed Art Bell’s call-in craziness and Joe Frank’s dark storytelling brilliance. My other secret fantasy is to pen a satirical advice column called “Badvice by Brian Beatty.” But I’d settle for the fourteen people who read this far each mailing me a dollar. That would buy my lunch for a couple of days.

PS: Well there you have it, folks.  Fourteen people, a dollar each.  Thirteen of you can send your money to the fourteenth and then he/she can just mail in a check or money order, or, you can each send a dollar bill inside a cute card to:

Full of Crow

c/o Brian Beatty

PO Box 1082

Beacon, NY 12508

That radio show does sound pretty awesome.  I know I’d listen.  I loved Coast to Coast back in the day.  So let’s pretend we’re on the radio right now.  Okay.  I also love your bad advice idea so in your best radio voice, please, let’s end by you giving us your best advice…

BB: I know it’s not considered “cool” or “hip” or “happening” to believe everything you read in the pages of The Reader’s Digest, but laughter really is the best medicine — unless you’re a Christian Scientist. Then it’s pretty much the only medicine you’ve got. So best of luck against the cancer.

J.M. Reinbold interviews Delaware author Greg Smith, author of “Final Price”.

JMR: Hi, Greg! Please tell us a bit about yourself.

GS: I was born and raised in Washington, DC. I have a BA in English from Skidmore College and an MBA from the College of William & Mary. I worked in public relations in DC and moved to Delaware to get married. I also worked in PR in Wilmington and Philadelphia before committing to fiction writing full time.

JMR: How did you get started in writing?

GS: I’ve always wanted to be a writer and it eventually dawned on me one day that in order to make it happen I had to…write! Sit down, come up with an idea and start typing, or filling legal pads with scribbles. When I finished my first novel, it was a great sense of accomplishment, but I look back on that VERY unpublished story and realize it was merely an important first step.

JMR: Your book, Final Price, was a quarter-finalist this year in the Amazon.com “Break Through Novel Award” competition and was published by CreateSpace. What is your book about?

Final Price pits a psychotic car salesman, Shamus Ryan, against a culturally conflicted Chinese-American homicide detective, Paul Chang. The story is set in Northern Delaware where Shamus takes out his murderous revenge on customers who waste his time and reject him. In the “small town” atmosphere of Wilmington, the seemingly random killings baffle the cops until Chang and his emotionally fragile ex-partner, Nelson Rogers, step in to find the common thread.

JMR: Can you tell us a little about the history of Final Price and your experience writing this particular book?

GS: I think this book has changed more than any other that I’ve written. Actually, in a lot of ways I think of it as my informal “graduate thesis.” It went through no fewer than ten drafts and years of intensive group critique led by a professional editor who improved my writing and craft exponentially. With her help we tried to find a home through conventional publisher routes but that is always a daunting path for an unknown. I got some good feedback but no offers.

I took a shot with the Amazon contest and got some more good feedback and even though it didn’t finish at the top, I was very pleased with the whole contest experience. After that, I decided to follow through and release the book as a self published work.

JMR: Final Price has been described as a thriller, a novel of suspense and a mystery — is Final Price a cross genre novel, and if so why did you decide to combine these three genres?

GS: I don’t know about that, I think it stands as a thriller certainly, but within the mystery framework it is not so much of a “whodunit?” as a “Howtheygonnacatchhim?” I wanted to show the action from two distinctly different perspectives so the reader gets to be in the head of both the hero and the killer.

JMR: To a greater or lesser degree all authors write from personal experience, how much of Final Price is from your personal experience and how much research did you have to do in order to write this book?

GS: This book started from a simple premise that occurred to me during a long shift selling cars during a snowy day with few customers. What if, instead of sharing war stories with co-workers in the break room, a salesman totally snapped and lashed out against his most aggravating customers? Shamus Ryan was born. To play the other side of the equation I wanted to create an edgy hero who has plenty of dark demons of his own.

Paul Chang is an amalgam of people I’ve met throughout my life, as well as a bunch of stuff I simply made up (one of the beauties of writing!)

JMR: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had related to the writing of “Final Price“?

GS: Sometimes when I tell people about the book and that I sold cars myself they get a funny look in their eye that always prompts me to remind them that it is fiction!

JMR: Can you tell us a few funny or unusual “facts” about Final Price?

GS: Of course all the characters are fictitious even if they were inspired by real people. More often than not, several people actually. Likewise, some of the annoying customer traits I gave the victims had some basis in fact. In particular, there’s a scene where the customers devour Shamus’s lunch then leave without buying. That happened once.

JMR: Do you have a favorite author and if so, who and why?

GS: Hard to pin down but since we’re talking about thrillers, Stephen King, Thomas Harris, Dean Koontz.

JMR: What other authors have significantly influenced your writing?

GS: James Frey, author of How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, (No connection to the disgraced autobiographer!)

JMR: Could you tell us a little about your other writing projects – past, present, future?

GS: Sure, I have two other complete novels, one a young adult fantasy and a second thriller based on a mind control conspiracy. I’m still looking for representation or publishers for those and have several new books in mind.

I have a short story, Street Smarts, published in Stories from The Inkslingers (Gryphonwood Press, 2007.)

The launch of Final Price has kept me pretty busy but the writing itch won’t be denied for long!

JMR: What has been your experience of the publishing world and what advice would you give writers, especially new writers seeking publication?

GS: It’s a marathon, and even for every “overnight” success if you look more closely you’ll see plenty of struggling.


Whether it’s writing, re-writing, polishing and marketing, take everything one step at a time.


Personally, so far it’s been a great experience. Since I’m doing it myself it’s certainly different than a big splashy marketing campaign. I liken it to forcing the proverbial tree in the forest to make a sound. Or to put it another way, each reader represents a spark, I never know which one will catch on.


So far most of the folks who have read the book like it, and word of mouth is the best marketing of all.

Additional Information about Greg Smith and “Final Price”

Check out Final Price on : Amazon.com

Read a review of Final Price on : Pick of the Literate

J.M. Reinbold at Written Remains

Tim Gaze is the publisher of Asemic Magazine, a publication dedicated to the presentation of Asemic writing. Interviewed by Lynn Alexander.

By Tim Gaze

ASEMIC:
It looks like writing, but we can’t quite read it.
I call works like this “asemic writing”.

LA: Starting off with asemic writing, how did you become interested? Do you find yourself explaining what it is, only to be asked why you do it? Not to say that there even has to be a reason for art or writing, but people often want one or feel entitled to one, to some kind of justification. Do people ask about your objectives with asemic work?

Do you find that people easily misunderstand?

TG: I used to write quirky fiction & poetry. somehow, after a holiday in Indonesia, talking in Bahasa Indonesia for 2 months, I started to make wordless squiggles of symbols.

After a few years of research, I became convinced that my squiggles can be considered to be part of a stream of culture, which is widely known now as asemic writing.

I see my own works as emerging from literature, & in particular visual poetry.

for some reason, visual poetry remains the neglected cousin of better-known forms of poetry. however, if you begin to explore, you can find hundreds of examples of visually skewed poems (which don’t rely so heavily on the meanings of words), from around the world.

LA: Recently, Michael Jacobson interviewed you for Dogmatika. You stated:

“A short definition of “asemic writing” is: something which looks like a form of writing, but which you can’t read.”

Do you find that such a definition obliges you, in some way, to speak to interpretation? Do you expect that a reader’s sense of meaning will be derived at intuitively?

TG:on interpretation:

often, I’m trying to create things which are totally open in meaning, suggestive to a viewer, but without a privileged meaning, injected there by me. I might aim for a particular atmosphere or feeling, but whether a viewer feels the same way isn’t important.

I believe that it’s possible to create rich pieces, which work on a number of levels, without using words. sometimes, they look like illegible writing; other times, they’re abstract, unidentifiable shapes. or combinations of those 2, with recognisable things.

LA:When you speak of “etymological fallacy” and asemic writing or symbolic script, are you saying that asemic writing is in defiance of text, or even regressive text? That, like words that are thought to evolve from their roots and remain static despite our clear understanding that this is not always the case, symbolic text can be detached from strict meaning?

Would you say that asemic writing is symbolic text, intuitive text? Regressive, deconstructed? Pre-literate, or departure… post-literate?

Is there something different about the experience on paper, compared to digital? Do you feel conflicted about that sense of white paper and the contrast of black on white, and the variety associated with color?Can you talk about the differences between asemic writing and abstract art? Between abstract comics, and graphic asemics? Asemic writing, and gallery art?

TG: etymological fallacy is just a technical term used by linguists, to describe the belief held by many people that words “really” or “truly” mean what their roots mean. we humans use words as we like, forbetter or worse. to a person who tried to convince me that “asemic writing” is an inaccurate term for the stuff which I call asemic writing, I’d reply that hundreds of people already use the term in that sense.

I still consider myself to be a writer. paper feels like the true home for writing. maybe I’m conservative! paper was invented in ancient China (by the eunuch Cai Lun, according to legend). it was traded along the Silk Road to the Middle East, & eventually adopted by Europeans. a truly international medium, with a long history.

unlike an art gallery, which is only open for a few hours a day, with exhibitions of limited duration, a book is portable, relatively cheap, & personal. a book can sit on a shelf untouched for years, but sits in readiness, without the need to pay an annual subscription or monthly internet access fees. it feels important to me, to compose asemic or abstract works into physical books, magazines & other publications.

there are at least 2 levels to creating asemic works. many people make imitation writing, often in flowing cursive. this is expressive. both physical & psychic (or psychological) energy can be read in it.

however, there’s a deeper level, of inventing your own family of symbols, & perhaps combining them with pre-existing symbols. only a few people enter this domain. Lettristes such as Alain Satié & Roland Sabatier create in this difficult area.

Michael Jacobson’s novel The Giant’s Fence is a journey into a land of symbols entirely invented by the author. his work is difficult to read: it takes mental effort for me to read through his lines of symbols. repeated readings make me more familiar with it. his book is a huge act of imagination, much more futuristic than most science fiction. plunging the reader into a completely unfamiliar world. I can’t think of anything else which strongly resembles Mike’s symbols. really original.

LA: What are you involved with now, what are you interested in, creatively?

Do you see cohesion and community among the artists who have a special interest in symbolic or asemic script?

What’s next for Tim Gaze?

the publication of Abstract Comics: The Anthology (Fantagraphics, 2009), which I’m proud to be in, & the ongoing, very active blog, are both inspiring me & distracting me from working on purely asemic writing. on the one hand, I have a sketchy knowledge of the world of comics, & wonder whether I should even stick my oar in. on the other hand, I’m aware of some amazing works with a relationship to abstract comics, which nobody else is talking about, so I post about them at the blog.

political aspects of going beyond English & the Roman letters:

the English language is an impure, cross-bred mongrel of a language. it astounds me that people have such strong beliefs about proper English or correct English. we could describe English as a super-Creole: Low German roots, with large amounts of Norman French DNA spliced in, with a lexicon of borrowed words from all over the place.

the global economic situation is pushing English everywhere. we could sum it up as:

speak English, you bastards, or we won’t pay you!

so, I see a moral dimension to the use of English. is it desirable for writers & poets whose first language is English to continue creating works just in English?

& then there’s a question about function or efficiency. I’ve never seen a comparative study between languages, claiming that English has superior expressive capabilities.

if English isn’t widely believed to be “better” than all other languages, what is the rationale for it becoming the new, global lingua franca?

if a writer is serious about the use of language, she or he needs to weigh up the moral issues of writing in English.

the Roman alphabet is a collection of symbols without a theoretical basis. each letter has its own history. the uppercase & lowercase letters are completely different symbol sets, with only a few common elements.

unlike the Korean Hangul alphabet, which was designed specifically to represent the shape of the mouth of a person speaking Korean, the Roman alphabet is a haphazard bunch of symbols.

the letter “o” is the only letter with a clear meaning: a mouth making an o shape, & the resulting o sound made by the human voice.

more loosely, we could say that an “s” resembles a snake, & by extension, the sibilance of a snake sliding along. but I wouldn’t say that letter s means snake or hissing.

capital “A” is supposed to be descended from a Phoenician ox-head shaped symbol, but you wouldn’t guess that from looking at an A in its current form.

what I’m saying is that the letters don’t have any logical basis. their meaning (the sounds they represent) is based on convention, pure & simple.

the only thing going for them is that they’re easy for children to learn, & are in use over large areas of the planet. computers & the internet are pushing Roman letters onto just about everyone.

& don’t forget that a slightly different Roman alphabet is used by every language which uses Roman orthography: different numbers of letters, & different diacritical marks (accents, umlauts, & so on).

my impression is that humans haven’t delved into visual communication, & the meanings of symbols, with the same thoroughness with which we’ve dissected languages.

the current activity in asemic writing, the creations & theory behind the Brazilian process/poem movement, some aspects of Lettrisme, & books such as James Elkins’ The Domain of Images, are all steps towards deeper understanding of visual communication.

our current approach to knowledge is logocentric. everything is expressed in words, & sorted & catalogued into verbal categories. some of us believe that there’s another way to proceed.

to escape English & the Roman letters is exciting. it’s possible that we can help to assemble a truly international method of communication, not tied to particular countries, cultures, languages or ethnic groups.

as well as asemic writing, abstract art & short essays, I create simple sound recordings, of electronic music, sound poetry & field recordings. some of the sound poetry could be described as asemic: non-verbal vocals. the sound recordings are more casual & fun than the visuals I do. I’m less of a pioneer in this area. just another bedroom (or living room) recording artist.

LA: What’s constant? In other words, is there anything that seems consistent for you right now?

RC: Unfortunately, the only constant in my life is my continued marginalization, living on the fringes of society. I used to think that I could still at some point work hard and fight my way back towards some degree of normalcy or the everyday domestication that most people experience. I don’t any longer. I am too old to spend my time at menial, backbreaking labour that leaves me with no time or energy to pursue the things that really mean anything to me and never get me ahead anyway. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll probably be destitute and homeless, living in shelters and whatnot, for the rest of my days. I plan on making the best of it, however.

LA: When I think about what I know of you, your life, the difficulties, the ugly side of living- I am often struck by the way truly beautiful sections of text seem to weave right through descriptions that are otherwise, very much “street” in their tone and anxieties. An example comes to mind, a piece I love from Counterexample Poetics, called “At The Beginning Again”:

Striation paradox, minutes stretched across the sky’s ceiling, then falling onto the city below. Motion becomes labyrinthine and beautiful, too beautiful to even approach our understanding.

All cartographies seem to freeze, new faces lost hopelessly in laughter and play, the dazzling hues of pink leaping from the concrete before returning to their song.

I get the sense that inside your head is a completely different world in contrast to your circumstances, that while you remain rooted in your struggles, in the moment, that you are engaged with these escapes.

Where are these places, do they reflect anything about your frustrations?

RC: The fact that I write the way I do , in a sometimes lyrical, imaginative, surreal fashion, is a pretty conscious choice on my part.

Some people have encouraged me to write about my personal experiences living in poverty and dealing with alcoholism and drug addiction in a more “honest way”, that is either to take a more journalistic approach, or to use my actual experiences as a base or springboard for straight-ahead linear fictions.

But honestly, I find all that pretty uninteresting and maybe even banal. It may be because I’ve actually lived through these things, but I personally find the vast majority of “working-class” life to be utterly and completely boring. People from other social classes may have their ideas about how it is, they may still have a tendency to romanticize it, I don’t know. The fact of the matter is, though, that whether it’s standing in line for an hour at a soup-kitchen waiting for supper, sitting in a holding-cell for 7 hours waiting to go before a judge, or trying to nurse a coffee in a doughnut shop for 4 hours waiting for a dealer, a good deal of proletarian life involves waiting around doing nothing much at all.

So yeah, escapism has always been important for me. A a kid growing up in Regent Park (Canada’s oldest housing projects), the fantastic visionary worlds I could access via my beloved public library offered obvious relief from the harshness of my surroundings. And even now that Iam involved in writing as well as reading, I can’t deny that some of my best stuff was written when I was the most down and out. I think taking refuge in my own imaginary realms and writing has actually contributed to keeping me somewhat sane and reminded me that Iam a part of something bigger than myself.

LA: What are you working on? Where is your energy going?

RC: I’m always working on longer pieces of text. As many know, Iam a huge fan of William Bokelund’s “Art Set Free” self-publishing project (link), and, to be honest, I would like to bite his style a bit and have my own constantly updated surrealist writing project that I could share with people via a PDF file they could access online. But I always wind up giving up on longer projects, just taking the longer pieces and re-editing them into shorter prose poems. So I will probably just continue to self-publish relatively short PDF file chapbooks of my surreal prose-poetry.

Don’t completely count out the possibility of a never-ending surrealist novel appearing somewhere online before too long, though. I’m unpredictable.

LA:What do you have against the sick government labia?

RC: Given the current social and political climate of corporate labiacratic neo-fascism, it probably wouldn’t be wise to answer that question. Sorry.

LA: If poetry is generated, created by a non human process, is it still poetry?

RC: Yes. Poetry can be many things. Why would we want to limit our creativity and our possibilities with definitions that are too iron-clad concerning what it is and isn’t? Not that I care very much if someone argues that machinic poetry isn’t poetry. I occasionally utilize automatic techniques in conjunction with an internet-based cut-up machine. If I didn’t go around telling people I did that, however, it isn’t likely they would know. But Iam quite willing to concede that I may not be a poet. Somehow I continue doing what I do and enjoying it.

“What they struggle with is what they feel or don’t feel, the inability to communicate what they are feeling and how it is we connect with others.” Ben Tanzer, interviewed for PRATE by Peter Schwartz

P.S.: Ben Tanzer is one of those guys you meet and like within seconds.  He’s agreed to talk to me here and I’ve agreed to use my big boy voice.  Welcome Ben, why don’t you tell our good readers a little about yourself and how you can change their lives?

B.T.: You are very generous, and it’s clear you have picked-up on one of my worst not so hidden traits – I love flattery, both giving and receiving.  I would add here that I appreciate your interest in interviewing me and I think you look great today.  Is that a new shirt?  In terms of myself, I used to tell people that I was a founding member of Wham!, but they soon realized that was maybe not entirely accurate.  I blame Wikipedia for that and now I tell them I used to be Ric Astley.  Beyond that I went to the same high school as Rod Serling, albeit after he did, and if you forced me to pick whether I am a Star Trek person or a Twilight Zone person, I would choose the latter.  I also went to high school with Lisa Baylor who you probably don’t know, but wish you did.  I was interviewed on the debut episode of the now long defunct MTV Sports show.  Sadly, I did not get to meet host Dan Cortese, which is something that still haunts me, though not nearly as much as the one time I watched Veronica’s Closet. Much beyond that is fairly bland I suspect, though I am proud to say that I am a father of two, husband of only one, though not for lack of trying, the Director of Communications at a nonprofit and a writer, the last of which is always weird to write or say out loud, because it still seems hard to believe.  You also asked me how I change lives and while I think I may be doing so right now, my main means for accomplishing this are through the products – my novels, short story collection and zine – and lifestyle choices – reading indie literature, blogging about the Elizabeth Crane, eating Peeps – I purvey via TBWCYL, Inc, my vast yet faux media empire.  For more insight into my methods please refer to the monorail episode of The Simpsons.  All the answers lie there.

P.S.: And there you have it, I told you this guy was likable.  Hey, I once murdered someone to get into a lit journal called Porcupine.  What’s the crummiest thing you feel like you’ve ever done to survive?

B.T.: Despite your reference to Porcupine, my sense is that what you really want me to do is go all Sophie’s Choice here or relate some kind of parable about how I had to steal bread to feed my children and whether I believe it was truly justified on some kind of moral or ethical level.  Then again, maybe you just want me to tell an elaborate lie.  I could do any of that, and I of course would do anything for you, but instead, like you, I will discuss artistic survival because really, outside of cash flow problems, this odd rash I have and the general state of the world, everything else is going just swimmingly for me. So, caveats aside, in my recent novel Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine I totally and unabashedly plagiarized both The DaVinci Code and The Time Traveler’s Wife then tried to pass it all off as a nonfiction tale rife with family pain, substance abuse, hubris, and an epic fall from grace that initially leads to profound disillusionment, but ultimately ends in triumph.  This was done of course because I was desperate.  My kids were hungry.  I wanted to boost sales.  And I really wanted to get on Oprah.  I’m not sure that your readers were aware of any of this, but I suggest that they go buy the book and read it as a means for verifying these fairly incendiary disclosures.  After that they should feel free to blog about how reading Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine changed their lives, link to my blog and publisher, and maybe even give the book a freakishly positive shout-out on Goodreads and Amazon.

P.S.: You had me at elaborate lie.  Please, tell a lie, a secret, and a little known fact and then we’ll just invite our kind readers to jot down which they think is which.  At the end of this interview, we’ll reveal the real answers and those of you with all three correct answers will WIN A FREE PRIZE that will both literally and figuratively blow your mind.

B.T.: Great question, and very Zellweger of you. Here you go:

(1)     I once wrote Parker Stevenson a fan letter and asked him his advice on how one goes about becoming an actor.  I sent it to Teen Beat where he had a column during the 70’s. He never responded and years later when Kirstie Alley left him I felt vindicated.
(2)     I auditioned for the role of the son in The Shining.  They told me I didn’t seem creepy enough, something a number of women I dated in high school would later strongly disagree with.
(3)    When I was kid my parents would leave my brother and I at movie theaters to watch movies two even three times in a row.  Between showings I would eat the popcorn that people left behind and to this day I have an intense craving for stale popcorn every time I watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

P.S.: Thought you’d appreciate that.  Okay.  Enough flirting, let’s do this.  Every story depicts the world a certain way.  Describe the world in your novels.  Feel free to talk about how some specific characters might see their lives and situations.

B.T.: I did appreciate that and I have appreciated the flirting as well.  I would add that I think this is a very good question and that you sir are a fine interviewer.  Was that also flirting?  Anyway, the world I am drawn to is one where the inhabitants are confused.  Confused about how they find themselves wherever they are and about why things happen to them, anything really.  Why they make or don’t make certain decisions, how to think through what they’re feeling and more than anything why the world and their place in it doesn’t make more sense to them.  This is not a world where people necessarily struggle with good and evil or issues of morality or spirituality, honor or bravery, though they could.  What they struggle with is what they feel or don’t feel, the inability to communicate what they are feeling and how it is we connect with others.  And as they struggle with these things they turn to drugs and violence, video games, and running; they hurt themselves and they lose themselves in conversations about pop culture, anything to avoid discussing, or even thinking, about what’s going on for them or how they should they feel about it.

In my first book Lucky Man the character of Sammy is surrounded by a bunch of self-destructive guys, one is suicidal, another is a cutter, a third is really into drugs, and he never quite gets what’s going on around him or really even asks.  He is detached from everything: his friends, the world, himself, much of the time existing as an observer, and rarely self-reflective.  His detachment in some ways probably saves him, he doesn’t feel anything deeply enough to explode until in a burst violence he is finally confronted with his own sense of disconnection and inertia.  Now will that be enough to move him in some way?  Hard to say.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  In Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine the main characters Geoff and Jen don’t try to avoid getting into relationships, but they do assume that all relationships are doomed to implode, that something, somehow will break whatever’s good and when something breaks that’s it, there’s no fixing it.  They don’t understand why this is though or how to address it, so they constantly avoid trying to talk about it and feint at all times in all conversations, until maybe they don’t, again hard to say what will happen for them.  In my new book You Can Make Him Like You we have a guy named Keith who knows enough to know that he does not want to sleep with his intern, or any number of other people; kill his neighbors or allow himself to be overwhelmed by the idea of having a baby, and yet all of these things have the potential to happen and he isn’t exactly sure why they are happening even as he consciously recognizes he’s creating the situations.  His problem, among many, is that he refuses, almost reflexively, to try and better understand why this is.  He could almost get some insight if he tried, but he won’t, or can’t, and there he is caught again and again in untenable and confusing situations of his own making.

P.S.: Wow, struggling with feelings and numbness and not having a language to express either, getting lost in pop culture, that’s the new great American pastime, for sure.  Alright, out of all your characters who’s your least favorite and why?  Describe in detail how you might physically assault that character.

B.T.: This is a tough question for a variety of reasons.  First off, like the cheesy parent I am, I have a lot of affection for all of my characters, and while I should maybe be more comfortable disliking them, it’s a weird feeling to me and so I realize I risk copping-out on this question.  Second, I must admit, that the question makes me a little uncomfortable, which is good, I need to be uncomfortable, but while I write about violence, and I’m fascinated with violence, and even get a certain kick out of the more cartoonish violent movies, violence for the sake of violence, gratuitous, nihilistic violence, Fight Club-type violence, is very upsetting to me, which means in reacting to this question, I also risk coming off like kind of pussy, which frankly, is embarrassing in all its own way.

Still, I’m all in. So, a two-part answer.

First, if I need to identify a character I like least, I will say Keith in my new novel You Can Make Him Like You.  Many of my characters lack a needed level of curiosity to get a better handle on what it is they struggle with and why, but Keith is more aware of this lack of curiosity than any of my other characters which just makes me mad.  Keith’s reactions to various situations, as well as his political views, are initially more reflexive than other characters I’ve written, meaning he’s more reactive than thoughtful because that’s how he’s always been, and so that’s that, it must be right.  I can’t stand that.

Second, fighting to me is like sex in some ways, okay, many ways.  I haven’t slept with everyone I might have slept with, almost all of them to be honest, and there are moments when those people, or those situations, will cross my mind, mostly at work, but also when I’m writing for sure.  Fighting is like that to me as well.  I fought a lot as a kid, but I didn’t fight everyone who bullied me or my friends, or who taunted me, and I have those moments as well, flashing back to the kids or situations and how I may have acted differently.

This is especially the case following being assaulted in New York City several years ago.  It was quick and out of left field and I never knew why it happened or what prompted it.  It just happened.  And so I think about fighting when I feel threatened, and when I am writing, and when I do I tend to flash back to childhood when fighting was the norm, not the exception.

There was one kid in particular who terrorized us in middle school and I never challenged him, but I can still picture him, and can still think of moments when I might have, and when I needed a bully in my first book Lucky Man I used him as a reference, though unlike in my real life, two of the characters kick the shit out of him:

“We kick back in the car for a couple of hours, not saying much, and killing the twelve-pack. We wait and wait, the moon hovering somewhere off above us, The Dark Side of the Moon playing endlessly on my tape deck – “How I wish, how I wish you were here.” We know Pat will appear eventually and when he does all the pain will go away.

And then he appears. He looks a little nervous as he leaves his house, his shiny face glistening in the moonlight. We let him get a block or so away before confronting him with what we know. He tries to deny it, but it’s pointless, we don’t care and we don’t hear him. We are angry, we are lost, and he has to get what’s his.

We converge on him and he has little chance. He lands maybe a punch or two, but I don’t even feel them, I am oblivious to pain, and oblivious to Pat. He is not a person to me anymore, just the object of my rage and despair. Sammy does a lot more watching than participating, but when Pat is finally down, heaving and crying, bloody and beaten, Sammy does the most amazing thing – he kicks Pat in the balls and says this is for Gabe.

Our work is done. We leave Pat there on the sidewalk and head to the Pine for Jack and Gingers. Summer has officially begun.”

So there you go.

P.S.:  Thanks for digging that deep.  I too think violence can be surreal.  I once had about ten guys invade my home in ski masks and shove a gun in my face.  After taking a few valuables they tried to hustle me outside and I thought I was dead for sure.  I won’t tell you how it ended but I will tell you that for years I’ve actually been thankful for this experience because I’ve felt like it forced me to deal with my own mortality.  A little more honest with myself these days, I’ve been thinking about another side to what happened that day: what it did to my sense of trust.

I forgot to ask a question.

B.T.: One time I was in a very crowded bar and this very drunken guy got upset that I was trying to order a drink by leaning in behind him.  I imagine he felt that I was in his space, that it was somehow rude of me to try and get the bartender’s attention at his expense.  He was enormous, drunk and sweaty, and he made some kind of threatening comment to me and for a moment I wondered what it would be like to hit him in the face with a glass.  Back then whenever I felt threatened, and that might mean a sudden loud voice in the middle of the night, or someone suddenly coming up on me on the sidewalk, I would always visualize hitting them as hard as I could.  This has faded with time, but not entirely. Similarly, I once had a panic attack after a multi-day drug binge and for years whenever I felt stressed my chest muscles would spasm and constrict.  This faded as well, though recently I got very stressed at work and at home and with my writing and one day I had to rush to pick up my son at school and I felt my chest constrict.  It lingered for about a month, and now it’s a subtle ache, more dormant than anything, a reminder of sorts.  So, what am I saying?  It’s not clear to me why someone decides to hit you or why one drug binge goes fine and another doesn’t.  Or how you get your hand caught in the moving blades of a lawnmower when you’ve cleaned one a million times.  It’s also not clear to me why a parent may move out or not, or why your kid is born with some ridiculous form of colic and someone else’s is not.  So, I write about these things, because if I cannot make sense of them at least I can try to get some control over them.  This is also why I invoke humor, even pop culture, into my writing, my interviews, even my conversations.  I don’t want everything to feel bleak and unbearable, because that isn’t how I view the world, or at least how I prefer not to view the world.  How’s that?

P.S.: Perfect.  You’re right, no matter how much shit we go through, we do have the power to joke about anything that happens to us.  What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen?

B.T.: I really want to say something about Vanilla Ice here.  But I won’t.  And it’s funny because the funniest thing I’ve ever seen is probably some video on YouTube I don’t even remember or more cheesily, something one of my kids did that has since blended into some massively happy, but somewhat indistinguishable memory of them during another time in their life.  I was also thinking that I could reflect on the first time I saw Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip or Raw, Animal House or Slap Shot; or maybe the first time I read Mad magazine, National Lampoon or Mr. Natural as a kid and found myself absolutely floored by them.  I could tell you that the hardest I’ve ever heard any group of people collectively laugh was when we saw Swingers one night here in Chicago before anyone had really heard about it.  Or, that I recently re-watched the Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley Chippendale’s skit from Saturday Night Live and nearly spit out my drink.  But as I sorted through these memories I found myself flashing back to a really late night when I was up with my dad and we watched Andy Kauffman doing a show at some club where he came out very serious, stayed serious, didn’t make any jokes and berated the crowd.  The crowd grew increasingly furious but he didn’t care, he stayed in character throughout, lecturing and pontificating and never wavering.  When they heckled them he fought back and we just kept waiting for some kind of joke, or a wink or something, but it never came. It was tense and uncomfortable, and funny.  He was so incredibly committed to that tension and that performance and it was so singular.  I would like to do something like that some time.  Create something so tense and funny and painful that it makes some kind of long-lasting impression on someone.  Anyone.  That I think would be pretty cool and well worth the endless rejections, misfires and doubt that can plague me even on a good day.

P.S.: Ah yes, your dad’s a painter, right?  How do you think his art might have influenced your writing?

B.T.: My dad.  Yeah.  It’s funny, no one ever asks about him despite how much fathers, both those present and not so present, loom in my novels and stories.  I think I’m mostly appreciative that no one has asked, but I’m glad you have, so there you go.  I’m acting all Gemini on this question.  Or maybe I’m just nervous?  Either way, even though my dad was clearly a painter and we knew this and I spent a lot of time at galleries and art fairs when I was a kid.  I realize now that I never quite thought about what he was working on or what it all meant to him.  But then he passed away.  It was nine years ago this month and about a year after he died there was this retrospective of his work at this museum, and as I walked around the show and saw all of these paintings, how good they were and how well they all “hung” together, it really hit me, he was a painter, and he had all these ideas and themes going on.  He was really interested in the “other” – sideshow freaks, circus performers, jugglers, Tai Chi practitioners, Palestinian protestors, the tattooed, Kafka – all outsiders, all people who are without a voice and looking for a community.  And when I saw this, I saw him differently.  He was this Bronx-born, high school dropout, activist, Jewish artist in upstate New York who felt like the other and was also always searching for a community.  My characters are not the other and they have a community, as I always have, but they haven’t found their voice.  Of course, that’s just the top line stuff, so let me try and go a little more Totem and Taboo for you.  My dad really struggled with being a painter, creating work, selling work, obtaining success, finding community, and especially living as both an artist and a parent, because he was unwilling not to embrace the latter even if doing so would have enhanced the former. Being an artist was hard for him, he suffered, and I never wanted to be like that or feel like that.  I didn’t start writing until I was 30 for the simple reason that I couldn’t avoid not writing any more, but I also couldn’t do it like he did.  I have stayed focused on having a day job, and not just because I need one or because I enjoy what I do, but because I have felt like I need to temper the insanity of wanting to create and protect myself better than he did from the inevitable disappointments.  Ironically though, the more I’ve gotten into writing and the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve become like him.  I want more time to write and I want to expand upon how I think about myself as an artist, which I think will require building more flow and flexibility into my day and fighting against the very restraints I have embraced. I’m not actually sure I know what this would look like, I just know that I want it to be different than it is now.

P.S.: And how do you think your job as Director of Communications has influenced your writing?

B.T.: I think there are two ways that my job as a Director of Communications has influenced my writing.  I now write all the time.  And I worry about words all the time.  I’m endlessly trying to capture the right tone and flavor, always seeking to be sparse and punchy.  It’s like cross-training.  I am always working my writing muscles and I am getting to work on things I’m into, and I want to believe that makes me a better, more focused, more limber writer and thinker in general.  Along with that though, doing the kind of work I do now is different than what I did for a long time when I focused on strategic planning, board development, credentialing, and work that involved long days facilitating other people’s creative processes.  It was structured and driven by time frames and agendas, and dependent on other people’s time, needs and ideas.  I like doing that kind of work a lot and yet here I’ve wanted to figure out how there could be more flow during my day, more time to think and be creative.  I was also ready to welcome more overlap between my work and writing life because I had been really rigid about that and I began to wonder how that might potentially be stifling me in ways I didn’t recognize.  I still have deadlines, but I’m paid now to think and write and be creative as much as I can and so while the whole day is still structured, it is much less so in the moment.  It’s definitely cool and makes me want to figure out how I could achieve even more balance between my work like and writing life.  Do you have any suggestions?

P.S.: Heh, wish I did.  I’m unemployed and about three seconds from being homeless so unfortunately I don’t have any suggestions, sorry.  What I do have is the prize for our readers who guessed correctly about your lie, secret, and little known fact!  So if you’d please do the honors…

B.T.: Thank you any way, I know you would help if you could.  And now some answers:

(1)     I once wrote Parker Stevenson a fan letter and asked him his advice on how one goes about becoming an actor.  I sent it to Teen Beat where he had a column during the 70’s. Like I said, he never responded.

Quite true.  Quite wrong, but true.

(2)     I auditioned for the role of the son in The Shining.  They told me I didn’t seem creepy enough, something a number of women I dated in high school would later strongly disagree with.

A blatant lie, this was a friend of mine.  That said the women I went to high school with were not as into the whole Wiccan thing as Parker Stevenson led me to believe.

(3)    When I was kid my parents would leave my brother and I at movie theaters to watch movies two even three times in a row. Between showings I would eat the popcorn that people left behind and to this day I have an intense craving for stale popcorn every time I watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

This is a little known fact.  Well, it was.  That said, sharing it with the world has been cleansing for me, so thank you for that.

And thank you for doing this as well, it was a lot of fun.

P.S.: Thank you, Ben.  This sure was fun, much more so than the mind-numbing excuses for interviews I usually do on my self.  You’re not only a great writer but a great person and I encourage everyone reading this to order themselves a copy of  Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine on sale for $10 through Orange Alert Press at: http://www.orangealert.bigcartel.com/product/most-likely-you-go-your-way-and-ill-go-mine-by-ben-tanzer.
And now, the moment of truth.  I’m using the honor system here so anyone who incorrectly guessed Ben’s answers regarding his lie, secret and little known fact, please stop reading this.
Okay, now that it’s just us, here is the prize as described in my third question.  I offer you the wisdom of my 39 years on this planet.  I do apologize for not being able to offer you more, but the limitations of text on a computer screen are vast, and true wisdom is pretty hard to come by.  So here it is…
1. Floss.  Yeah it’s boring, slightly irritating, and totally unglamorous, but when you’re old and still have your teeth you will be able to attract far better looking specimens of our species.
2. Drink plenty of water.  Come on, do I even have to mention this?  87.9% of the world population is dehydrated to some degree at any given moment.
3. Don’t be afraid of your emotions.  Being totally cerebral is really in vogue right now, but deep in your heart you know thinking isn’t living.  Pain does suck, but it also leaves you open to feel pleasure.
4. Try to love everyone.

Ben Tanzer: This Blog Will Change Your Life

Tim Hall is a writer and multimedia artist, also a journalist, editor, and publisher.  He is the author of two novels,

LA:      Talk about the “Grandiose Failure”. You describe characters who have a sense of entitlement about success, perhaps a disconnect concerning their own practical limits. In addition to those limits, there is also the problem of numbers, which don’t really work in a would-be big shot’s favor. How did you develop an interest in exploring this theme, the ideas of grandiosity, entitlement?

TH: It comes out of my own upbringing, growing up with two very theatrical parents who despised each other so much that they were willing to sacrifice us, their kids, to satisfy their sadistic hatred. Neither was suited for any kind of business life, and certainly not parenting, but they were playing roles imposed on them by society and family pressures, and it destroyed them and damn near us. So that’s the basis for my morbid fascination with such people.

LA:    Do you think that there were times in your personal or professional life- perhaps as a musician or writer or publisher- when you were sucked into those patterns of thinking? Was there a time when you wrestled with grandiose aspirations?

TH: Absolutely, but ironically it was mostly in reverse so I didn’t recognize it. I never thought I was too good for something, as my parents always did, but rather that I wasn’t good enough-which ultimately came off as a kind of aloofness and/or superiority. I never, ever felt I was too good, but I would get discouraged very easily and walk away from opportunities because I just assumed that I would never live up to the increasing expectations and demands that success would require. That came directly from the constant cutting and belittling from my parents. So for many years I lived like that Warhol title: from A to B and back again.

LA:  Speaking now specifically about the “literary underground”- What factors do you think account for such pervasive “hope”, in light of what is often a pretty terrible reality? Many people who are struggling to build something, to go places with their creative work- I mean, many of them have pretty difficult lives. Something keeps them believing and seeing fame as more than a myth. Something keeps people believing that great things, despite the arguments against this thinking, are right around the corner.Why? What perpetuates this?

TH: We all need healthy egos, and the human brain is pretty remarkable in how it creates coping mechanisms. Striving towards excellence isn’t grandiosity, it’s the opposite. The grandiose failure is someone who expects something for nothing, or who rages at perceived victimhood without doing that tough humbling work all real artists do. In the literary world it comes out most obviously in what I call the “persona pimps”–people who have adopted the “tough guy” or “angry womyn” role or whatever to sell themselves. That type of grandiosity usually comes from men, but not entirely.

LA:  Do you think that the “underground” literary world is a place of community, a place where writers eat their own, or a mixed bag of ocassionals and bastards?

TH: It’s a mix, like everything, but because persuasion and perception play such bigger roles in our world than, say, profits, I think it does tend to attract a lot of vampires and persona pimps. People like you and Pat King and Caleb Ross, and my friend Dean Haspiel of Act-i-vate.com, you’ve got the spirit of community, the Force is strong in you all and you back it up with hard work and remain deeply invested in your craft. But you are truly an oasis in the desert.

LA:   Talk about your books for a minute, particularly your new book and how you would characterize your intentions. Unapologetically lampooning, political?  You have something to say- if you could distill it down, how would you characterize the gist of your thinking there? What does Tim Hall want me, the reader, to really “get” about this book?

TH: I now believe without a doubt that Control itself is a virus. It’s no longer a poetical or metaphorical idea; medical research is backing it up. It’s spread via trauma, whether physical abuse, aural hypnosis like Fox News does, or else through gruesome images like mushroom clouds or 9/11 or the crucifixion, etc. Repeated exposure to such trauma changes the actual size and shape of the brain, as well as the brain chemistry. This infection eventually makes them want to control others, which is why you now see people carrying assault rifles to President Obama’s speeches, just as their were Wanted posters for JFK in Dallas. I believe the collective psychopathologies of both Weimar Germany and America today can only be explained as massive outbreaks of the Control virus, which I call the Vyron. I also spend a long time on the concept of Zero Tolerance and why it’s killing us.

LA:  “Contagion Heuristics”. Is this partly the product of the 24-hour news cycle, the infotainment nature, the repetitive imagery? The product of propaganda, not by our government necessarily- but rather the consumption oriented machine that has not only sucessfully seized government (policies and the doctrines of material protectionism) but literally bombards a willing culture with imagery that skews our sense of what matters, even down to our core selves?

Are we being herded?

Where are we being taken?

TH: All I can say is Yes, and I Don’t Know. I wrote the book because you don’t ever even hear the word “corporatism” on television, you never hear the word “control” unless it’s a psychopath like Glenn Beck sobbing about the fascistic imagery on old pennies. He’s a clown, yes, but he’s a millionaire, highly-paid clown with a specific message of hate to infect the American people with. That’s his job, as I explain in How America Died.

LA:  Where you are now, at this point in your life- how optimistic are you about it?  Are you an irreversible cynic?

TH: I’m fighting for my life. Protest is a form of life, it mean’s you’re willing to go on the record and put the Rupert Murdochs of the world on notice that despite their wealth and power they are still nothing but the gray and frightened vampires of this world, hiding in shadows and feeding on the blood of the poor and the weak.  That is literally Rupert Murdoch’s only job, to destroy the powerless. His only sexual satisfaction is seeing death and pain in the world. But he was made that way, he wasn’t born like that. In my fiction and nonfiction alike I’m trying to figure out the formula for why people like Rupert Murdoch are made, how anybody can come to be sexually aroused by millions dead in the Middle East, or who pump their fists in excitement when children are denied healthcare, as the Michelle Malkins and Bill O’Reillys and Diane Sawyers of the world do. They’re monsters, and writing is the only way I know how to stand completely apart from them. I don’t hate them, I just reject everything they stand for with every cell in my body and every word I write.

Tim Hall On The Web

At Act-I-Vate Comics

Uplift The Positivicals

On Amazon

P.S.: I’d like to start out by thanking you, Michael Kimball, for agreeing to do this interview.  My first question is when did you become so interested in other people and their stories?  I think your life story on a postcard project is brilliant, I’d love to know exactly how that came about and what you’ve learned from what you’ve done so far.

M.K.: I’ve always been interested in other people and their stories.  My older brother used to get annoyed with me for asking so many questions, so did my father.  But the postcard life story project came about because my friend Adam Robinson (#45) was curating a performance art festival, the Transmodern in Baltimore, and he asked me if I wanted to participate.  We joked about what a writer could do as performance and I suggested that I could write people’s life stories for them as they waited.  The idea was absurd, but it was also fascinating, and it seemed oddly possible if it were contained to a postcard.  Adam insisted that I give it a try and that’s how the postcard life story project started.  I thought it would be fun and funny, that I would ask a few questions and write on the backs of a few postcards and that would be it.  The first postcard life story I wrote was for a painter, Bart O’Reilly (#1).  When I finished writing his postcard and looked up, a line had formed.  For the rest of the night, I interviewed dozens of people and wrote their postcard life stories.  It was intense and intimate.  I remember being struck by how earnest and forthcoming most people were, how eager they were to share their life stories, how grateful they were for their postcard.  It was later that I started the blog and opened the project up to everybody.

What I have learned, well, writing these postcard life stories has changed me.  I am a different person.  I feel bigger.  I feel wider.  I have more empathy.  I see how broken and scared and flawed all of us are. I see how hard everybody is trying.  Sometimes, I feel as if anybody can tell me anything and that I can carry that thing, that weight, whatever it is.  It is so difficult to be alive and so wonderful too.

P.S.: In your trailer for I WILL SMASH YOU, you talk intensely about deciding, finalizing, that you would never go back to the office world.  What jobs have you done to survive?  My longest job was as a marketing researcher, so if smashing me would clear something important in you then sledgehammer away, my new friend.  Is this world a bad place?

M.K.: Growing up, I worked in a family business and did everything from running the cash register to taking inventory to cleaning up to bookkeeping.  I had paper routes.  I was fired from a campaign job and from a fast food job.  I was a high school English teacher, a substitute teacher (any subject), and a track coach.  After I dropped out of graduate school, I was an editorial assistant, then an editor.  I still edit and rewrite other people’s books sometimes, but I don’t do it in an office.  That is to say that this world is not a bad place—in fact, it is often a wonderful place—but it could be a better place.  And I would never use the sledgehammer on you, but I might lend it to you.

P.S.: Thanks for saying you might lend me your sledgehammer.  Most likely, I’d take it and pretend I was Thor for a ridiculously long time.  I mean so long that you’d somehow feel the vibe and be like hey man, are you pretending you’re Thor, and I’d shrug like I do and be like well, sorta.  My oldest fantasy (of the ones I can talk about) is of becoming a superhero, do you think that’s possible?  I remember reading somewhere that you felt like you could do anything, and I think that’s true.  I would say the way you give voice to so many, including a Red Delicious Apple, that that makes you a hero of sorts.  Which reminds me, what’s your next project?  If I gave you a limitless checkbook, is there any project in the back of your mind this would free you to finally tackle?

M.K.: I WILL SMASH YOU — http://www.littleburnfilms.com/IWillSmashYou.html — is kind of next. We (I do the films with my friend Luca Dipierro) have the first screening for it at the PPOW Gallery in NYC on September 24th.  We also have screenings set up in Baltimore and people helping us set up screenings in Los Angeles, Toronto, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Rochester, etc.  We’re sending the DVD free to anybody with a projector, a screen, and a willingness to help put together an event.  And we’re finishing up the shooting for 60 WRITERS/60 PLACES — http://www.littleburnfilms.com/60Writers60Places.html — which we hope to have done by the end of September.  As to the limitless checkbook, I’m not sure that it would change things for me.  I’ve been able to do what I want to do.

P.S.: Please tell a random story, one nobody has heard you tell before.

M.K.: I don’t really tell stories like that, so here’s the best I can do: I know a guy who ate lunch in a bathroom stall for every single day of his junior year in high school.

P.S.: Wow, I love that image, but please say he didn’t like mustard!  I lived away from home my junior year of high school to avoid a similar situation.  Was he new to your school at the time?  What became of him?  Does he blog?

M.K.: He wasn’t my friend at the time, but is now.  He’s doing quite well, has a book coming out soon, and he does blog.  I’d give you the addy, but then the secret would be revealed.  Also, I made up part of that story.

P.S.: If the essence of being a poet is to give voice to the voiceless, I’d say you are pretty much the poet of all poets (or at the very least the most organized).  What will you be when you write a postcard for everyone on Earth?

M.K.: I have been trying to think about the course of the postcard life story project.  For instance, is there a point at which it should end or should I write them for the rest of life, for as many people as I possibly can?  I don’t know the answer yet.  Regardless, if I did write a postcard life story for everybody, I think that I would pretty much be much the same person, but, hopefully, a better version of me.

P.S.: I absolutely believe that the key to the success of your writing is your ability to be so honest with yourself and with your subjects.  Personally, I think we’re only really honest on the deep levels when we’re forced to be.  So what forced, or motivated you to be so honest?

M.K.: I don’t think that people have to be forced to be honest. I think that most people want to be honest and try to be honest.  I think it’s more of an issue of giving people the opportunity to be honest. With something like the postcard life story project, or even I WILL SMASH YOU, the questions give people that opportunity to be honest.  That is, we’re living in a culture where people put themselves out there in all sorts of ways—blogs, status updates, tweets, etc.—but there aren’t so many people asking each other real and meaningful questions.  And with my fiction, I have, in a sense, given myself the opportunity to be honest—or, since it is fiction, to at least seem honest.

P.S.: Ooh, I see two points.  What you said about giving people the opportunity to be honest was spot on.  People react; treat them a certain way, approach them on a certain level, say with respect and kindness and then that’s what you’ll see in them because that’s how they’ll relate to you.  People are how you treat them.

As far as the quest to be honest, that’s a quest for awareness too.  You probably can get to awareness through soft nurturing to some extent but I think most folks would agree: there’s a lot to learn in the dark.  There had to be some defining moment when you summoned all your bravery for a project and realized your mission.  What has your proudest moment as a writer/artist been so far?

M.K.: There have been a few moments that might be considered brave in an artistic sense.  In my mid-20s, I threw away everything that I had written up to that point, having realized that I needed to start over as a writer.  Years later, I persevered through 119 rejections before finding a publisher for my first novel (which was then published in the UK, US, Canada, and translated into a bunch of languages).  After that, I had a rough 5+ years where I didn’t like anything that I wrote, but somehow I kept on and found my way to my second novel, How Much of Us There Was.  It was after that that I began to feel as if I could do whatever I wanted to do as a writer (not that that makes the actual doing any easier).

P.S.: Well thank God you held on.  Some people have this bright, shiny, clean idea of success, but it’s actually the opposite, the winner is the one who is willing to get the most dirty.  Just in terms of ratios, I emailed probably close to a thousand art galleries before I was invited to participate in a group show.

You’re only as good as your standards.  That’s a superhuman accomplishment, saying  “Not good enough” for five plus years.  That’s also quite a Siberia to endure for your art.  When I think about setting my standards high for a piece, I think of the work I’ve done with other poets and visual artists.  I’d love to hear about your relationship with Luca, and with anyone else you’ve collaborated with, as well as your thoughts on collaboration in general.

M.K.: As a novelist, I never imagined that I would collaborate on anything, but working with Luca on the films has been so much fun.  The fascinating thing to me is that we approach the films from pretty different perspectives.  Luca is more visual and I’m more narrative.  Luca likes to put everything in and I like to take everything out.  But the miraculous thing, for us anyway, is that we always end up agreeing on what the finished thing should be, what the solution to a problem is, etc.  We each have ideas that the other loves.  It makes collaboration pretty easy.

P.S.: That is miraculous, matching aesthetics are a beautiful thing.  Want to just give shout-outs to some of our friends right now and then high-five each other?

M.K.: This is going out to A-Rob, Double D, the Moose Man, El Duque, Eminence, Digital, and Wulf Girl.

P.S.: Word up, big shout to Barry G, Lady Lynn, The Vampire, Bennito, and anyone who cooks good biscuits.  Speaking of biscuits, can you please explain how philosophical or even psychological of a film, I WILL SMASH YOU is?  Talk about the catharsis and purpose of your smashing process, if you would.

M.K.: The smashing is the obvious part of the process, but the more significant part is the narrative that each participant created for their object.  It is the interaction of those two events that provides the catharsis.  A friend of mine who is a psychologist described it as smashing therapy and suggested we work up a paper on the idea.  And others have referenced Arthur Janov’s work.

P.S.: Ah, primal therapy, smashing therapy, ways to get in touch with our primal selves.  Freedom is such a big concept in so much of your work, so where do you see this all going?  What’s your ultimate dream project?

M.K.: It is always the same: to do exactly what I want to do, whatever that is at the time.

P.S.: And what do you feel like doing right now?

M.K.:  This.

P.S.: Perfect.  Thanks again for this.  This was fun.

Michael Kimball’s Website

Michael Kimball’s third novel, DEAR EVERYBODY, was recently published in the US, UK, and Canada. The Believer calls it “a curatorial masterpiece.” Time Out New York calls the writing “stunning.” And the Los Angeles Times says the book is “funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking.” His first two novels are THE WAY THE FAMILY GOT AWAY (2000) and HOW MUCH OF US THERE WAS (2005), both of which have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages. He is also responsible for the ongoing art project—Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard)—and the documentary films, I WILL SMASH YOU and 60 WRITERS/60 PLACES (2010).

LA: You say that ‘philosophy’s vast history and rich language enhances the mind’s ability to articulate and think critically’.  You connect this to your practice of writing poetry. Do you mean in the sense of process, or the ways by which elements are incorporated into the construction of the poem?

FAS: The construction of a poem I am writing is never predetermined in the facet of existential idea, nor from the vantage point of isolated symmetry, meaning the connected balance between idea and language.  Philosophically, my endeavor is to examine surroundings, objects, colors, sounds, etc., through the metaphysical aspirations of ascertaining what is not readily seen.  This practice is performed through a conscious and concentrated effort into writing without the use of cliché.  When approaching a poem as I do life [existentially], the philosophy of the self is determined to promote the poem through critically thinking about what is in direct line with natural observation.  Observation is imperative; as is interpretation.  These realities must be in abundance when writing a poem, but too, can predict one’s life within the spectrum of success, when implementing these skills within a practical method.  Beyond the multitude of poetic metaphors available for say, a cliché subject as the sun, the authentic poet can write about this cliché, but unveil it to a reader as if it is a neoteric idea.  This is my intention, my scheme while writing a poem regardless of subject matter.   

Vis-à-vis attempting this intention with my painters’ poems, the interpretation is the basis for needing to find life which parallels but also differs from the painters’ naturalized objective.  This is actually quite simple, for although a painting may be easy to describe through its various tones and shapes, and also through factoring in its title, I do not have an idea of the artists’ intent or burgeoning idea into why the painting began and ended as it did.  I find this intriguing regardless of the paintings’ posit of subject.  A person leaning can be defined quite easily in a painting.  But, I can also see a person leaning within an abstract painting, one without the tangible lean of the body’s perfect stillness.

LA: Can you give an example of a poem and share how the writing of it seems reflective of this belief?

FAS: The belief or, much better a description, the methodology of writing in this fashion is my intent with each created piece of writing.  The function of writing a poem includes discovery of what is here, the evident, though not readily seen without appropriate investigation.  An example is any poem from the painters’ series, in that what is seen is obvious, but the unseen, the alive beneath structured color collocated with visual intent is another attribute of understanding found when the study of the painting exposes the interpretational device.

LA: Jazz presents complexity by way of the vernacular. Does poetry?

FAS: Answering this question is dependent upon the definitional differences in describing ‘complexity’.  Definitions such as these are personal affirmations which create a language of dispositional beliefs.  Complexity in a poem deals with function of the language, —how does the image shape itself within the scope of the language being used?  Complexity can be understood and misunderstood.  The poet though, should not write their poem in wanting to create a definition of complexity in accordance with how they feel a reader will perceive their language.  A poet should examine the purpose of the poem.  In this examination of multiple exertions, the task, ideas, images—within this all the poem will be a natural designation of how the mind designs an esoteric belief delivered within the outcome of the poem’s conclusion.

LA:You are often inspired directly by visual art, by images that you observe. Your poems often provide a narrative that includes part perception, part conjecture. You are both sharing aspects of the work, but combining it with your subjective experience.

When did you start writing poetry inspired by art, and what were some of the first pieces in that vein?

FAS: I will begin with poems prior to my current state of interpreting paintings, which were poems written after jazz recordings with trumpeters as the group leaders, or recordings including trumpet solos that I admired greatly.  This series of poems were entitled “Trumpet’s Many Tongues” which included 32 poems.  The poems were based on interpretation of language I ascertained through listening to the dialogical components of the various recordings.

The trumpet poems were inspired after attending a concert featuring Poncho Sanchez.  His trumpeter played marvelously, and while listening to one of his solos during the show, the thought burgeoned to write poetry after various trumpeter-lead recordings.

Following the trumpet poems, I focused solely on writing after an entire album, which was Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”.  The poem finished itself as an eleven page suite of poems, which each section written after each track from that marvelous album.

Regarding my writing after paintings, this process began on 1/9/09.  Since a child, I’ve enjoyed looking at paintings, and enjoyed from an early age, the transformation of myself after viewing a particular piece of art.  I wrote the first poem in January for my “Painters’ Exhalations” series, and thus far have completed 509 poems.

LA: I have had similar jobs in the past, working with adults with physical and psychiatric disabilities. These were jobs that I loved, but often my work took place in systems that were dysfunctional, or disjointed. Do you succumb to cynicism?

FAS: Cynicism is an important part of my daily existence.  Philosophy has birthed this important trait within me, and I now am able to follow patterns of independent thought, instead of being lead by another’s function of positing truth of the unexamined proclamation.  Within our culture of commonalities revolving around ‘of one mind’ an imperative lies within my wish to think beyond topographical layers about what is presented before me.  Ideology shapes thought, shapes personal worth, shapes the purpose and directional desires of one’s life.  I disagree with this manifestation of being lead by a personal degree of limitation.  This focus of ideology has shown ineffective and dangerous within the realm of political divergence.  As the large spectrum of thought drives a person to deliver ideas that do not fit with another’s definition, need or want, it has become evident that power augmenting thought will survive most and yell loudest, which through influence plays a role in forming the like-mindedness found most prevalent today.

Regarding cynicism in the field of which I work, this lies solely through finding solutions to services being found again, after they have been cut.  Monetary abandonment for appropriate causes has become the focal point for my state of residence, California.  I have great passion for those I work with and for, and I have a passion for the population of persons that have been affected through negligent spending of causational calamities that are evident at this time.  A grander system of support needs to be implemented.

LA: Do you see areas where some changes are needed, where the systems are failing?

FAS: As I posited earlier, the state is failing its residents whom need adequate assistance.  As a case manager, I see directly the hardships being experienced at this time.  Those that I work with and for have abilities to offer towards what is not sufficiently respected, and have a myriad of wonderful gifts that are not being experienced on a much larger scale.

LA: Some people would consider the study of philosophy to be impractical, indulgent, disconnected from task and vocationally oriented “training” that matches people with income.  I suspect that we both think there is more to study, beyond education as some means to an end. What factored into your decision to make that choice, to commit those resources?

FAS: Regardless of an esoteric belief regarding the study of philosophy, my own engagement with this vast subject has improved my life radically.  My poetry has become enhanced since first delving into metaphysics, and applying my learning to what I interpret and suggest within my writings.  Observational abilities have improved; too has my ability to think through various impositions given through the dialectic of associational constructs that disallow camaraderie.

Regarding philosophical attributes involved in my current employment, I am able to think about what is presented from multiple angles.  This allows better support, as I am functioning through comprehending a specific need, and assisting in ways to meet that need on the basis of importance though understanding why I am so passionate about my work.

LA:You have been doing a lot of interviews, answering questions on everything from your work in the video games industry to vampire fatigue. Is there something people are missing, something you’d like to go off about but it doesn’t seem to come up in the process?

M.P.    Is there something You The People are missing? Well, yes. Everything. Fact: You The People are stuck in a consumer loop from which you’re gonna find it very difficult to extricate yourselves in coming years of Obama-enforced austerity. You The People is the name of a novel I’m working on that will show just how asleep the majority of the general public are. It’s not a pitying book nor an admonishing book. It’s a work of genreclectic fiction in the same way that 1984 and Brave New World were works of genreclectic fiction. You The People projects contemporary complacency several microseconds into the future to show what happened to mankind as it languished in its societal slumber. It’s a stark warning to all 6.66 billion corporate persons of this cowed planet.

L.A.It seems like a particular challenge to make surreal horror, to push the boundaries of genre fiction, “genreclectic” fiction- and to also make it uniquely disturbing, distinct for the reader. Do you find yourself having to really work at staying away from some of the gimmicks and traps, do you ever start to fall into those grooves, or even into marketing grooves, then have to shake yourself out of it?
M.P.    I think calling it ’surreal horror’ is a bit of a misnomer. Surreal horror implies a subset of horror. And those who’ve read my interviews over the last decade know I don’t have the greatest admiration for the ‘dull grey horror product’. Genreclectic fiction is something that allows me to steer clear of the horror writer tag (and its legion of negative connotation) and simply write about all the horrors that haunt us when we have down time or when the demands of the world leave us staring into the middle distance with a high-pitched ringing sound in our ears. As far as marketing goes, you realise that ‘the reader is the enemy of creativity’ and kow-towing to his demands is like career suicide? How best to explain this, creative people never work to order, never tailor to audience, never truly ascend to the corporate-sponsored suck-top of bland popularity. Good for them.

L.A. Some of the art you seem to admire seems not to be necessarily or conspicuously twisted, but actually seems hyper-realist. For example, some of what I find unsettling is the way that some of the human figures in some of the artwork you are into are grotesquely natural- not distorted. Death-as we know but seem to forget when we are confronted by a realistic, albeit nasty element- is actually a pretty disgusting affair replete with fluids and strange positions. Can you talk about what draws you into a work, what kinds of qualities you seem to respond to more readily?
Vaginas, and back hair dripping with lamb butter. I mean, what did you want me to say, that art is the only thing that keeps us sane? That there’s a morality beyond our understanding that no law or dictat will ever be able to tame? Art, and creativity in general, is a way for modern man to proclaim the kills he can no longer make in his anodyne society. The ‘writer is a serial killer with a physical off switch’ is a very potent metaphor for the way a work of art should be approached. And it’s not all about gore. It’s mostly about expectations. As Sun Tsu would say, “Have your expectations been shattered with your first contact with the artwork?” If you can answer “Yes” to such a question, you’ve stood before a HYPER-REAL piece of art. That’s why I hate Picasso so much, tedium beyond infantile.

L.A. The song “I Feel Love” …. Orgasmic? Evocative?
M.P.   You’re talking about the editorial piece I did about Gucci’s FLORA perfume advert, right? That advert was created by music video director Chris Cunningham. I’ve been a BIG FAN of Chris Cunningham’s work with Aphex Twin (Come to Daddy, Windowlicker, Monkey Drummer, Rubber Johnny) and found he’d also worked with Bjork (All is Full of Love), Leftfield (Afrika Shox), Squarepusher (Come on my Selector) and Portishead (Only You). Chris has done other stand-out commercials for BMW, Sony’s PSP campaign, Nissan, Sony’s Mental Wealth Campaign, Orange… I used music as a central motif in the conversation between a man and his owl-angel inmate in a recent novel called Planet of the Owls.

L.A. Do you have any plans at all of becoming a bon vivant Brit?
M.P.   You mean, do I intend to over-indulge with food and booze as the years roll around my waistline? Probably not. I’m a living person, not the product of my warped imagination. My first ever book Red Hedz (1989 Creation Press) dealt with this cliché of the drunken self-absorbed artist confronted by the red-haired girl that haunted his paintings. Being an egotistical drunk like that, where inspiration is found at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, was a bit of literary fun but not a career move. For that you need heroine – ask William S Burroughs.

L.A. Do you have a fixation with apocalyptica?
M.P. Who doesn’t?

L.A. Our angels don’t care. Are we striated, are there rungs on the path to the dust bowl?
M.P.  You realise I’m an atheist, agnostic, non-believer in the moral afterlife and creator, right? Sure, I wrote about angels but they were Death Angels, a hierarchy of the blighters brought into existence by the varied and creative manners of human death over the centuries. The Death Angels can’t exist without humans, we are their fathers and mothers, by our deeds we give them life. And what a life. Why should Death Angels care about us, we are nothing to them. And by this I mean we are separated from them by dimensional factors, it’s the ultimate ‘never the twain shall meet’. There’s no reason for them to be even aware of us, we are to them, as they are to us; INVISIBLE. When they abandon this planet, it’s because they’ve got itchy feet, and there’s nothing less faithful than a Death Angel with itchy feet.

L.A. Can a writer make a living without The Corporation? Should they?
M.P.  There is no real shame in being a corporate whore – you do what you can within your cultural remit, your allowed budget, your directed moral compass. You can convince yourself that you’re producing, you’re making the thing, the content, the stuff. You don’t know why you’re making that stuff, you don’t have any personal connection with it, you don’t even believe in it, but it’s paying for your gadgets you think you need, it’s helping you up the ladder of success (whatever that is), it’s your immersion in the world of genre knowledge and how to play the game. But such knowledge is a lie, such games fabrication; corporate sponsorship is a choking shackle around the creative urge, tempering, negating – obfuscating the real visceral drive. The corporation is something that strips the MAN from his NAME; only the chattle-like asset value of debt interests the corporation. All this is covered in my anti-corporate slap-in-the-face Bukkakeworld.

L.A. What can you say about your publishers, at Silverthought? Generally good things, probably, but what about their specific support for what YOU do? Their view of emerging, experimental, speculative fiction writers?
M.P.  Wow, you sound like you wanna submit a novel to them… Silverthought Press did dabble with the more violent end of the splatter market with their OFFENSE MECHANISM imprint, and that’s why I approached them in the first place. Offense Mechanism – yeah, sounds like my sorta stuff. They liked both books I submitted. But there’s no money in offending the reader, as much fun as it is, and they discontinued the line, brought out my two short novels Bukkakeworld and Planet of the Owls in July of 2008 under their sci-fi banner Silverthought Press. I don’t know what’s happening to horror or contentious fiction let’s call it. I don’t know what’s happening to people – they seem more and more removed from the essential spark of life, it’s like the majority of the population is quite willing to commit suicide before their digital masters. Talent shows prove that anyone will piss on themselves to be shine in the corporate spotlight.

L.A. When did you decide to stop using pseudonyms? Did you have concerns about a presence, a unified identity?
M.P.   I’ve played around with a lot of pseudonyms (Michael Paul Peter, Vierland Brecke, Jane Louxis and Hertzan Chimera) and it was the latter ‘keyboard entity’ that finally weened me off this stupid fetish. I was at a writer convention in Birmingham some years ago and this guy comes over to our group, starts chatting. After a while, he glares at my writer nametag and goes, “Wow, Hertzan Chimera,” shakes hand, “I always thought you were an American.” I’m actually a northern lad from near Liverpool in England. And from that moment on, I decided to scrap all arty pretence and simply create as me, write as me, be me; Mike Philbin.

L.A. Can you talk about the next Chimeraworld anthology?
M.P.    Well, only a few spaces remain in Chimeraworld 6 THE WORLD AFTER THE COMING REVOLUTION so get your stories in quickly. I’m looking to release Chimeraworld 6 through Chimericana Books at the end of 2009, the perfect Christmas gift for all the family, LOL. In this year’s literary exposition, mankind returns to a life stripped of Capitalism and Mass Media Propaganda. I want Chimeraworld 6 to be a testament to the awakening of mankind, stories about immersion in the galactic melting pot – hard-core experimentation, dimensional travel, body-swapping with alien races, DNA bartering, galactic superheroes, real cultural exchange. Everything is permitted. Nothing is a crime. Surrealism is your mentor. Currently, that’s all I’m accepting submissions for. I’ve no idea yet what Chimeraworld 7’s theme might be.