art by Mattthew Skenandore
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 39
Reviewed by Tantra Bensko May 25 2011
JEF Books has teamed up with Civil Coping Mechanisms to bring a very high quality issue out of one of the core journals of Innovative Writing. This thick tome excited me as soon as I saw the table of contents, with some of my favorite writers presenting their rare short stories. Editor Eckhard Gerdes's personal style of fiction doesn't leave the reader feeling he has sketched out a plot and colored it in for us with dutiful pencils, reciting a story already dead in his head. His writing is full of life force streaming out of the creative present, moment by moment. He has chosen writing that also is enlivening and surprising.
Shane Roeschiein's “Warsplicing” captures the frustration when we know the truth such as “Sandoz is now Novartis!” in a world in which truth is hidden by the media which, instead says “YOU MUST BUY! IT IS THE ONLY WAY WE CAN INSURE VICTORY AGAINST THE TERROR.” The Post-Modernist effect shakes us up and takes over, as “It has broken our collective narrative into non-linear from.” What can we do with such frustration? At least we can write, and read.
Brian Cole has translated Denis Emorine's “A Venetian Trilogy.” about the heightened intensity of myth, of love that we can feel, interacting with another especially that we barely know and don't trust. The narrator becomes like “a dislocated spinning top”
I was happy to see political fact referred to in “The National Summit on Election Rigging” by Erik Belgum. This aggressive transgressive story cuts up the audience nicely. “Election guilt rigging is a thing of the past” could well be true.
The emotions of require the experimental form to express themselves. Even the text saturation in “32 ft/sec {squared}” by Jonathan Lyons goes in and out of normalicy.
Multiple award winning author Tom Bradley's “Bachelor Biff and His Foo-Chow Whore Get a Crypto-Missionary in Big Trouble with the Chi-Coms” is Cringe-Humor. It's a lucid story about a topic considered transgressive to write about in our society. Absurd but real religion. This enjoyable reading is leading me to seek out even more of his work. He certainly has plenty of it out there, bursting with wildness.
“Metafarm” I think is a wonderful story, by Kane Faucher. The meta elements provide a great way to present this new grammar based pharmaceutical product in context. The narrative provides a chilling, bizarre, and suspenseful commentary on society, very appropriately. The trend in these stories altogether is the ridiculous nature of the reality we have to put up with. Or do we?
I wasn't surprised that Andrew Poland's “Lament of a Rock” is a beautifully poetic, profoundly moving tale. In it, a male reluctant detective uses the word “dulcet.” Adorable. “I tell Claudie I think humans have ceilings built into themselves. And now the ceilings inside of humans are so low they are cramped and cannot speak. I do not think humans have floors, though. If you looked down a human's throat, you might see China.” This astute man with delicate sensibilities must face the inhumanity of man. You have to root for a guy like that.
“Surviving the Recession” by Dave Lordon is also poetic, with a dark humor, creatively playing in the face of possibly immanent and real non-survival. Lordon has won many awards, himself, and sounds to live a charmed life.
Kyle Muntz, in “Birdman,” once again shines through his text, about confinement and boundaries, and reaching or wanting to reach beyond, a core theme for his writing. This story explores how humans handle, and don't handle, loss. As with Voices and Sunshine in the Valley, the scenes are hard to picture because of their transcendent abstraction. This adds to the suspenseful mystery of trying to understand. “Utilizing rays of light, he decides to compose a memory,
filling it with trilling and music.
It doesn't work.
He has never been good
with color.”
“One Man's Fetus is Another Man's Secretary” by Jonathan Plombon ----I doubt I'm alone in this: the title made me read it first in the journal. And the story made me laugh out loud. Just what I was looking for by chasing down that title like a pouncing tiger. It presents a very practical perspective on God, and what's said to comfort people, especially by priests. The timing is masterful, more what I would expect of a stand up comedian than a wrestling journalist. Yep.
Lyzette Wanser kept me interested in her “Seasons,” which drew me to the mirror in the story. “She retreated from the mirror, her heart pounding a little faster. The scene was fecund, sensory overload, almost. What did it mean? What had any of them meant?”
Using an innovative method of telling through lists of phrases, Xavier Serrano in “S614” brilliantly presents certain references from Institute Benjamenta to the Columbine School in a highly unique way that only reading it yourself will allow you to understand. As a connoisseur of such, I recommend you do. In fact, I hope he submits something similar to Exclusive Magazine.
There are other stories here, continuations of novels, and reviews by Gerdes himself, and by others , and obviously this is a solid source for discovering non-traditional writers. The journal is quite an accomplishment. We see characters throughout whose world goes awry in amusing ways. Because that seems to be the an amusing way we can cope with how our world is really going awry—by not looking away from it.
http://www.experimentalfiction.com/
Some sites that go in very new territory with Experimental Literature interactively:
http://twitterphonicon.com/ Sydney artist Warren Armstrong’s Twitterphonicon you can see more about at ElectroFringe. http://electrofringe.net/2010/electroonline/
and the beautiful http://www.henrygwiazda.com/main.aspx
and the beautiful http://www.henrygwiazda.com/main.aspx
30 Under 30, An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers
Reviewed by Tantra Bensko June 2, 2011
Starcherone Books has brought us a treat in the form of an anthology edited by Blake Butler and Lily Hoang. 30 Under 30, An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers due out July1, and I'm excited to mention the stories that most got under my skin, and laid eggs there, to give birth to tiny winged creatures who, with the sheer force of numbers and brilliant lineage, are already starting to lift me up into the air.
So, as my body lifts a bit now and then, more and more, with the light breezes, I hold myself down with my pen on the paper which is writing There are some great stories in this important book which defines the current state of fresh minds exploring new approaches to narration. I feel the editor's choices represent well the qualities many writers share now, as they avoid the heaviness we once found so often in fiction. More often now, each word lifts off the page playfully instead, with shining immediacy. Space and light let the words breath the gift of flight into our souls.
Evelyn Hampton wrote a brilliant Escher-like story about “Mr. Gray” and the anomalous house he built to live in with his wife, which gives the reader a ride on the mobius strip of the one of a kind relationship we build with what we love, and live inside of so thoroughly that losing that shared reality, or irreality, can turn the mind inside out.
The fabulous“Jumpman VS the Ape” creates its own version of High Concept, with Matt Bell's signature bigger-than-lifestyle scenario. I thoroughly enjoyed this Expressionistic exaggeration of malleability of reality and perception that comes from having “the girl” and then losing her to someone else, who becomes the nemesis in the archetypal movie in our minds.
Angi Becker Stevens, in “Blood. Not Sap,” also explores how relationships change our world, in this case, the relationship between human and human, and human and nature, the magical feeling of resonance between things. I particularly enjoy how this story leaves questions unanswered, mysteries unsolved, doesn't tie up all the loose ends, because it's much more true to life than that, though a tree can turn into a man—or something.
Michael Stewert's lovely tale “Sister” also explores the bizarre intensity of relationship, this time between siblings and their unique communication, which is strange, yet grows familiar. It begins “Our sister is covered in glances. We watch her bud.” It creates a feeling tone that's new, which is an accomplishment.
Rebecca Jean Kraft's whimsical “Kiddie Land” graphically portrays the “anti-baby” effect that occurs due to a girl who takes too many birth control pills.
“We wash our hands in anti-matter. We laugh at air running through our fingers.” Ah, we are exploring the anti-world deeply in this book, and that beautiful quote hails from Kristina Born's “The Defining Work of Your Career,” about a world that doesn't make any sense, once you look at things like nuclear policy.
Shane Jones' “Black Kids in Lemon Trees” triggers the imagination darkly.”Our handcuffs are the stitching between clouds.” “Our cop heads explode across the night sky, our blood spots stars. Our uniforms become origami birds that can't fly because the corners of their wings are burning.
Children grow up in a very odd world in this book. Christina Kloess' “The Hardest Button” contains one of most mysterious characters-- Tiger, and one of the most memorable images: “'Shut it, Kelly Graham,” Mother tells the baby, and tosses the umbilical cord over her right shoulder for luck.”
Rachael B. Glaser's clever “Infections” is very real, an intimate experience to read about personal thoughts that many could identify in themselves or those around them. “He considered starting up a fake profile and using it to flirt with Justin. Only if things go boring. Or stressful. If things go so boring or stressful that William got suicidal, then he would instead set up this fake profile. As a gift to himself.” I care about William, who turned into his stodgy medical professors the ill fated essay, “The Illness as Interesting Life Experience.”
The book escapes traditional presentation of text in various stories such as Todd Seabrook's matter-of-factly gruesome “When Robin Hood Fell with an Arrow through his Heart.” It shuffles up word placement, spelling, legibility, and even ancient geometrical notation.
Devin Gribbons' “A Short Story” is a classic Experimental Fiction meta-story which allows the narrative to be told authentically. Some of these offerings in the book, such as this one in particular, would provide instruction to students learning how to cast off rules and approach the page naked. It would also teach students about why the rules are there. “Later in the story, when Rafa's soul was destroyed, Gabriel felt a strange sensation, like something inside him was trying to fight its way out. That tugging feeling was Gabriel's soul trying to follow its mate into nonexistence.”
Brian Oliu's “C:\ping Scopuli.Com” concerns identity, using the computer as a medium. “This self that knows itself as a particle of nothing larger is launched against jet streams to recognize places with recognizable people with no pins to snap into place; no room for expansion.” “There is nothing between us but interchanges, gaps to jump, the need to swing from cable to cable.”
Michael J. Lee's “Last Seen” follows the slipstream effect of trauma on the psyche, especially without the bond of empathy that we only find in certain relationships.“They, the mother and son, channel different frequencies of pain. Neither knows exactly what the other is feeling. This is a condition invented long ago by a pervert. To each his own private horror, the pervert says. Grief will be unending and barely endurable. Lay all your troubles on you know who.” I love the perfect timing and tone in this summation of the pain of the world. If there is a theme that runs through a lot of stories here, it may be the perils of close relationships with people we mesh with, but not totally.
Joanna Ruocco's “Frog” plays with that theme in the relationship between two girls, the spaces between people, between moments, perceptions, pulsations of reality, and the interpretations of continuity we still manage –or attempt—to form. The girls symbolically make a message in a bottle out of words they cut out, and leave it to the finder to put the words in order. Charlotte could be called clingy, as she tries to nearly merge the two of them, which is masterfully described: “I'm going to move now, Charlotte,” I said. “Don't fall down.” I took a step forward and her body came with me, arcing.”
The other girl, the inventor of the controversial Inflatable Justine, has a conversation with her boyfriend that stands out strongly to me. '“Everything is vibrating towards perfection.”' “Sometimes I'd catch him squinting down at me. I knew he had glimpsed it, then, my completed being. He needed to shield his eyes against the radiance.” Of course, it's hard to say such a thing seriously in literature, and irony is generally a necessary context. But I appreciate that this time, the sentiment doesn't really get the rug pulled out from under it too much. Thank you, Justine, for expressing that.
This is a radiant book, and to catch the completed being, you have to read all 30 stories yourself. I'd recommend it.
Starcherone Books has brought us a treat in the form of an anthology edited by Blake Butler and Lily Hoang. 30 Under 30, An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers due out July1, and I'm excited to mention the stories that most got under my skin, and laid eggs there, to give birth to tiny winged creatures who, with the sheer force of numbers and brilliant lineage, are already starting to lift me up into the air.
So, as my body lifts a bit now and then, more and more, with the light breezes, I hold myself down with my pen on the paper which is writing There are some great stories in this important book which defines the current state of fresh minds exploring new approaches to narration. I feel the editor's choices represent well the qualities many writers share now, as they avoid the heaviness we once found so often in fiction. More often now, each word lifts off the page playfully instead, with shining immediacy. Space and light let the words breath the gift of flight into our souls.
Evelyn Hampton wrote a brilliant Escher-like story about “Mr. Gray” and the anomalous house he built to live in with his wife, which gives the reader a ride on the mobius strip of the one of a kind relationship we build with what we love, and live inside of so thoroughly that losing that shared reality, or irreality, can turn the mind inside out.
The fabulous“Jumpman VS the Ape” creates its own version of High Concept, with Matt Bell's signature bigger-than-lifestyle scenario. I thoroughly enjoyed this Expressionistic exaggeration of malleability of reality and perception that comes from having “the girl” and then losing her to someone else, who becomes the nemesis in the archetypal movie in our minds.
Angi Becker Stevens, in “Blood. Not Sap,” also explores how relationships change our world, in this case, the relationship between human and human, and human and nature, the magical feeling of resonance between things. I particularly enjoy how this story leaves questions unanswered, mysteries unsolved, doesn't tie up all the loose ends, because it's much more true to life than that, though a tree can turn into a man—or something.
Michael Stewert's lovely tale “Sister” also explores the bizarre intensity of relationship, this time between siblings and their unique communication, which is strange, yet grows familiar. It begins “Our sister is covered in glances. We watch her bud.” It creates a feeling tone that's new, which is an accomplishment.
Rebecca Jean Kraft's whimsical “Kiddie Land” graphically portrays the “anti-baby” effect that occurs due to a girl who takes too many birth control pills.
“We wash our hands in anti-matter. We laugh at air running through our fingers.” Ah, we are exploring the anti-world deeply in this book, and that beautiful quote hails from Kristina Born's “The Defining Work of Your Career,” about a world that doesn't make any sense, once you look at things like nuclear policy.
Shane Jones' “Black Kids in Lemon Trees” triggers the imagination darkly.”Our handcuffs are the stitching between clouds.” “Our cop heads explode across the night sky, our blood spots stars. Our uniforms become origami birds that can't fly because the corners of their wings are burning.
Children grow up in a very odd world in this book. Christina Kloess' “The Hardest Button” contains one of most mysterious characters-- Tiger, and one of the most memorable images: “'Shut it, Kelly Graham,” Mother tells the baby, and tosses the umbilical cord over her right shoulder for luck.”
Rachael B. Glaser's clever “Infections” is very real, an intimate experience to read about personal thoughts that many could identify in themselves or those around them. “He considered starting up a fake profile and using it to flirt with Justin. Only if things go boring. Or stressful. If things go so boring or stressful that William got suicidal, then he would instead set up this fake profile. As a gift to himself.” I care about William, who turned into his stodgy medical professors the ill fated essay, “The Illness as Interesting Life Experience.”
The book escapes traditional presentation of text in various stories such as Todd Seabrook's matter-of-factly gruesome “When Robin Hood Fell with an Arrow through his Heart.” It shuffles up word placement, spelling, legibility, and even ancient geometrical notation.
Devin Gribbons' “A Short Story” is a classic Experimental Fiction meta-story which allows the narrative to be told authentically. Some of these offerings in the book, such as this one in particular, would provide instruction to students learning how to cast off rules and approach the page naked. It would also teach students about why the rules are there. “Later in the story, when Rafa's soul was destroyed, Gabriel felt a strange sensation, like something inside him was trying to fight its way out. That tugging feeling was Gabriel's soul trying to follow its mate into nonexistence.”
Brian Oliu's “C:\ping Scopuli.Com” concerns identity, using the computer as a medium. “This self that knows itself as a particle of nothing larger is launched against jet streams to recognize places with recognizable people with no pins to snap into place; no room for expansion.” “There is nothing between us but interchanges, gaps to jump, the need to swing from cable to cable.”
Michael J. Lee's “Last Seen” follows the slipstream effect of trauma on the psyche, especially without the bond of empathy that we only find in certain relationships.“They, the mother and son, channel different frequencies of pain. Neither knows exactly what the other is feeling. This is a condition invented long ago by a pervert. To each his own private horror, the pervert says. Grief will be unending and barely endurable. Lay all your troubles on you know who.” I love the perfect timing and tone in this summation of the pain of the world. If there is a theme that runs through a lot of stories here, it may be the perils of close relationships with people we mesh with, but not totally.
Joanna Ruocco's “Frog” plays with that theme in the relationship between two girls, the spaces between people, between moments, perceptions, pulsations of reality, and the interpretations of continuity we still manage –or attempt—to form. The girls symbolically make a message in a bottle out of words they cut out, and leave it to the finder to put the words in order. Charlotte could be called clingy, as she tries to nearly merge the two of them, which is masterfully described: “I'm going to move now, Charlotte,” I said. “Don't fall down.” I took a step forward and her body came with me, arcing.”
The other girl, the inventor of the controversial Inflatable Justine, has a conversation with her boyfriend that stands out strongly to me. '“Everything is vibrating towards perfection.”' “Sometimes I'd catch him squinting down at me. I knew he had glimpsed it, then, my completed being. He needed to shield his eyes against the radiance.” Of course, it's hard to say such a thing seriously in literature, and irony is generally a necessary context. But I appreciate that this time, the sentiment doesn't really get the rug pulled out from under it too much. Thank you, Justine, for expressing that.
This is a radiant book, and to catch the completed being, you have to read all 30 stories yourself. I'd recommend it.
Some noticeable things happening in the Literary world
A Rascal with Words:
Meg Pokrass puts up freewriting words on her Facebook "wall" regularly. It's great fun to write and see what others make out of those words. The effect can be very intense, seeing such convolutions and juxtapositions that can happen in a small space. (Some people have trouble with the stories sticking to her wall on those, so try adding an extra keystroke at the end to make it stick.)
Her own, on Sept. 12 2011 is:
"He was preoccupied with his dog. He'd heard about the dog at Burning Man, this dog sounded really quick. He liked quick things. Quick women, quick cars, quick dogs. He wanted a dog that could shimmy, pole dance, that was not afraid to get a good tan. New age intrigued him, the thought it was all about the way a place felt, the way a person levitated in the night, the way the stars fell quiet around a face. He owned a chair and a bed. A permanent squint lived there, in his apartment. A permanent dog bed, without a dog. He said he'd never have a long term bet, but he was looking. When they say "no pet" they are looking. Nakedness was all around him these days, his own, and the nakedness of shiny thoughts. The kind he wanted to hold next to his ear like shells. the kind with pretty thoughts, and nice lips. An American dog, a sympathetic face. He bought a baton at a yard sale, didn't know why. The city was full of yard sales, nobody had money now, and sold their things. Someone was selling a daughter's baton, and it had daughter written all over it. The man didn't have much to say to a woman with frames. The man didn't need to display anything, men held all the cards. The man didn't need a dog, but maybe it was time to slip and get one, to take care of something and to be licked on the nose. To own a snakeskin belt. To jump around and not make anyone annoyed. To bounce a million checks and not care."
She also puts up humorous animations as well. And on Fictionaut, check out her popular rejections: you'll be glad you did.
She's the author of Damn Sure Right (Press 53).
Others
Matt Bell did posts every day for Short Story Month, and shows his insightful appreciation of true innovation, and there were lots of guest posts as well. He's made an ebook, which currently can be dowloaded for a tweet.
The Underground Press Wiki is taking off.
and so is Lit Pub.
Chris Higg's The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney performs avant-garde literary theory in the form of a transmedia novel, which includes an audio book, out now from Sator Press.
This is amazing. Henrik Aeshna.
Book People's Staff Selections Clint says, if you like Lost in the Funhouse, by John Barth, you'll like Girl with Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace.
Two others of their staff, Brian and Jen, have been reviewing Experimental Fiction following HTML Giant's lead with Chris Higg's series of interviews (including mine, much appreciated.) Amelia Gray's Museum of the Weird is the first one, and Ava, by Carole Maso are up now, with this being their tentative list after:
Notable American Women, Ben Marcus
Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson
The Art of Asking Your Boss For a Raise, Georges Perec
Great Expectations, Kathy Acker
Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
Mortara: a proposal for a new literary subgenre based on hypertext and electronic literature by Juan Pablo Plata
Meg Pokrass puts up freewriting words on her Facebook "wall" regularly. It's great fun to write and see what others make out of those words. The effect can be very intense, seeing such convolutions and juxtapositions that can happen in a small space. (Some people have trouble with the stories sticking to her wall on those, so try adding an extra keystroke at the end to make it stick.)
Her own, on Sept. 12 2011 is:
"He was preoccupied with his dog. He'd heard about the dog at Burning Man, this dog sounded really quick. He liked quick things. Quick women, quick cars, quick dogs. He wanted a dog that could shimmy, pole dance, that was not afraid to get a good tan. New age intrigued him, the thought it was all about the way a place felt, the way a person levitated in the night, the way the stars fell quiet around a face. He owned a chair and a bed. A permanent squint lived there, in his apartment. A permanent dog bed, without a dog. He said he'd never have a long term bet, but he was looking. When they say "no pet" they are looking. Nakedness was all around him these days, his own, and the nakedness of shiny thoughts. The kind he wanted to hold next to his ear like shells. the kind with pretty thoughts, and nice lips. An American dog, a sympathetic face. He bought a baton at a yard sale, didn't know why. The city was full of yard sales, nobody had money now, and sold their things. Someone was selling a daughter's baton, and it had daughter written all over it. The man didn't have much to say to a woman with frames. The man didn't need to display anything, men held all the cards. The man didn't need a dog, but maybe it was time to slip and get one, to take care of something and to be licked on the nose. To own a snakeskin belt. To jump around and not make anyone annoyed. To bounce a million checks and not care."
She also puts up humorous animations as well. And on Fictionaut, check out her popular rejections: you'll be glad you did.
She's the author of Damn Sure Right (Press 53).
Others
Matt Bell did posts every day for Short Story Month, and shows his insightful appreciation of true innovation, and there were lots of guest posts as well. He's made an ebook, which currently can be dowloaded for a tweet.
The Underground Press Wiki is taking off.
and so is Lit Pub.
Chris Higg's The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney performs avant-garde literary theory in the form of a transmedia novel, which includes an audio book, out now from Sator Press.
This is amazing. Henrik Aeshna.
Book People's Staff Selections Clint says, if you like Lost in the Funhouse, by John Barth, you'll like Girl with Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace.
Two others of their staff, Brian and Jen, have been reviewing Experimental Fiction following HTML Giant's lead with Chris Higg's series of interviews (including mine, much appreciated.) Amelia Gray's Museum of the Weird is the first one, and Ava, by Carole Maso are up now, with this being their tentative list after:
Notable American Women, Ben Marcus
Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson
The Art of Asking Your Boss For a Raise, Georges Perec
Great Expectations, Kathy Acker
Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
Mortara: a proposal for a new literary subgenre based on hypertext and electronic literature by Juan Pablo Plata