LET’S OPEN UP THIS PIT!!!!!!!!
The Black Laser
I cannot stop talking about this book. Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen is one of the most moving, masterful collections of short stories I’ve ever read. I literally (read: figuratively) cannot believe how good it is. Reading it even upset me because I am fairly certain that I will never in my life be able to write something this good. It is so good.
I picked up the book one afternoon last summer at Word here in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It’s a lovely independent book store and if you’re ever in the neighborhood, you should go there and give them your money in exchange for books. Who doesn’t need more books? It was with that thought in mind that I entered Word and browsed through their well-curated selection. Stranger Things Happen was one of the four or five books I bought that day and as soon as it got home it went directly onto my bookshelf and was forgotten. Such is the fate of many books languishing upon my shelves.
After putting down The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second of the dragon tattoo books, which was entirely unremarkable and didn’t warrant my continued attention, I pulled Link’s book off my shelf, dusted it off, and threw it into my bag for the train. I swear I nearly missed my stop because I had my face buried in the book. I didn’t want to get off the train. And I always want to get off the train. I hate the train.
The book contains 11 short stories on all sorts of topics with all sorts of characters (and a lot of cats). They are magical without being ridiculous, difficult without being abstract, feminine without being saccharine, fantastical yet completely real. (Isa, I wrote yours first.) She has managed to blend the real and the unreal into a wholly believable tapestry. The stories are full of mystery and sadness and love and death. I can’t believe you have not already purchased the book. It is SO good.
The quote by Jonathan Lethem on the cover sums the whole thing up quite nicely.
Kelly Link is the exact best and strangest and funniest short story writer on earth that you have never heard of at the exact moment you are reading these words and making them slightly inexact. Now pay for the book.
And guess what? You don’t have to pay for the book! You can download it for free at her website. But I think you should pay for the book because it is amazing and you would be a fool not to support her efforts. I ordered her second collection of short stories yesterday (which is also available for free) directly from their website. Read the book and then come back here and tell me how much you loved it. I loved it. I am sad it is done. However, I intend to do a TBLR of one of the stories. Look out for that.
Thanks for kicking ass, Kelly Link.
Dear Buffalo Wings,
Do you mind if I call you Buffy? Wingies? B-wings? Is that last one too Star Wars? Whatever. You need a nick name, but I am not sure any of those are sticking, Buffs. Wingers. Bwangs. Bwangs??? Where did the A come from? Regardless, Buffles, we need to work this out.
But the real point of this letter is to talk to you about your deliciousness. You are, even when you are not, one of my favorite things to eat in the whole world. There are few things I find as pleasurable as getting sweaty and having my nose run from your spicy, buttery sauce. I dare not touch my telephone or eyes or light colored clothing while tearing meat free from your delicious bones. When I’ve finished, I walk directly to a sink with my hand held out so as not to spread your delicious sauce on things and people and then I wash my hands with tremendous sadness. Come back, buffalo wing sauce! Come back! And when my ritual is finished, I always want more.
The bar next to my house has ¢25 wings on Sunday nights. It is a rare Sunday I do not stop in and spend 3 dollars. One Sunday I spent 6. I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point down the road, I spent 9. I just can’t help myself, but, then again, I don’t see the issue. There is no issue. I love you, Bwingerz. I love you a lot.
I remember once upon a time, Juli and I were on vacation up in the Finger Lakes. We stopped into a local brewpub for dinner one night after a long day of hiking around. I scanned the menu and saw that they had wings in the appetizers in four heats: mild, medium, hot, and nuclear. I asked our server, a young man of dubious sobriety, how hot the nuclear wings were. Were they really as hot as they wanted to seem or were they just tooting their own proverbial horn? He replied that he didn’t really like spicy things and that he had never tried them. Of course, he was not quite so eloquent. I cocked an eyebrow, decided to throw caution to the wind, and ordered the nuclear wings. That’s just the kind of guy I am. When they arrived at the table, they were pink and black and covered in pepper seeds, not unlike the merciless peppers of Quetzalacatenango. Juli took a single bite of a wing and put it down unable to take the heat. I ate 9 of the 10 wings on the plate.
Let me tell you, B-Ws, these things were fucking hot. Hot enough, in fact, that I got high on endorphins. Literally high. I was tripping balls on neurotransmitters released by my pituitary gland because IT THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE. That is awesome. I’d never gotten high on food before. I hope to achieve that success again, Wing Beezies, and you will help me get there.
Until Sunday (or perhaps sooner),
The Black Laser
Now that it is embeddable, here is Huoratron’s new track from his forthcoming album Cryptocracy. And it totally rules. Charles described this video best, I think, when he wrote, “so much danish forest bloodrave zombies”. I don’t think I even need to say anything else about this, except that they are probably Finnish forest bloodrave zombie, not Danish forest bloodrave zombies. Watch the video. If you have epilepsy, don’t watch the video. The warning up front is accurate. Lots and lots of flashing things.
Firmly at the top of my “Am I Secretly a Lesbian” playlist in Spotify, Austra is a Canadian group that I sort of stumbled on somehow but that I really dig. They’ve written an excellent record of dark electro-pop that is kind of Bat For Lashes, kind of Fever Ray, kind of old school Ladytron, but still totally their own thing. I’ve been listening to it a lot on my commute.
As far as the video goes, I have no damned idea what’s going on. Probably some super cool, next level, Canadian artsy lesbian shit that I don’t know about. Whatever it is, they seem to having a very earnest time. Good for them.
This is Huoratron’s other single. The video for this thing is highly work unsafe, so go ahead and heed the warning at the beginning.
I don’t have anything terrible smart to say about this except that it is an awesome track with an equally awesome, terrifying video. Get pumped for the release of Huoratron’s Cryptocracy in April. Doesn’t that sound like a super metal name? Maybe it’s just how close it sounds to Cryptopsy, but Cryptocracy could easily be the title of some old school death metal record and 12 year old Joe would have been all, “Damn, that is fucking metal, dude.”