These are popular times for novels set in a dystopic near-future America. This setting has understandably become a reflection of our collective disaffection as citizens, our anxieties, our angst, the society’s hypocrisies and contradictions. In Zazen, Vanessa Veselka’s first novel, the crumbling America is as frail as the tofu scramble her twenty-seven year old protagonist Della slings at the vegan-friendly diner. The President plans numerous wars, protestors self-combust, bombs explode in our cities, and people die easily. And there’s very little Della’s tattooed, hair-dyed, vegan, sex-party-loving friends can do to stem the tide of the American corporate war machine.
I consider myself a big believer in good stories on screen. Give me a plot that makes sense and characters that change and I’ll watch it whether it’s a film, a television show, or a web series. Put it on a shiny screen and I’ll watch it like the pop culture veal I am.
But why do I, like so many other people, enjoy the ubiquitous genre of reality TV? In reality television, there are no real plots. Often, the characters don’t change. Only occasionally do they show glimpses of vulnerability while their misanthropic leanings, Machiavellian manipulations, addictions, compulsions, flagrant greed, and general dysfunction get overexposed in a debauched light. Do I only watch because I enjoy being a spectator to the misery of others and feeling superior to those who struggle with poor life choices?
So this is it. Borders has officially filed for bankruptcy. They have released a list of 200 stores they will be closing over the next several weeks, and it is expected that they will close at least another 75. How should we be feeling about this? As booksellers, as book lovers? Personally, I am afraid, delighted, and saddened. The part of me that works in a bookstore across the street from a Borders that is closing down is delighted. The part of me that works in a bookstore in a city that is losing two bookstores this month (only one of them a Borders) is saddened . . . but also hopeful we will get their business. The part of me that recognizes the impact of a major chain closing down that owes the six major publishing houses around $40 million each is actually freaked the fuck out. This is a big deal.
ART CAN’T HURT YOU BY LAURA M. BROWNING: A trip to the Print Room of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum
A preview of this year’s “Print <3 Digital” Chicago Printers’ Ball, and the work of Delicious Design League
PRESSING ISSUES BY LAURA PEARSON: W.S. Merwin, Lynda Barry, I Write Like, the Tin House controversy, Chicago’s Printers Ball, and more
MOONY HABITATIONS BY LEILANI CLARK: David Shields’ Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and deliberate unartiness
PRESSING ISSUES BY LAURA PEARSON: News and notes on small presses, periodicals, and literary goings-on
BY LAURA PEARSON: News and notes on small presses, periodicals, and literary goings-on
A NEW COLUMN BY LAURA PEARSON: News and notes on small presses, periodicals, and literary goings-on
MOONY HABITATIONS BY LEILANI CLARK: Working hard to construct a life as a writer
MOONY HABITATIONS BY LEILANI CLARK: Eliminating publishing’s gate-keeper mentality
BY LELAND CHEUK: A review of Tony DuShane’s Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk
VALUE ADDED BY PAUL M. DAVIS: A roundup of culture of note, including the Tank Riot podcast, Wormwood, Nevada, For All Mankind, and Sleigh Bells
MOONY HABITATIONS, A COLUMN BY LEILANI CLARK: “I have a retained the pure, unadulterated joy in hearing a new album, in reading a perfect sentence, the same joy I felt in my teens and twenties.”
The slow media publishing house that emphasizes “underdressed intelligence”
Two up-and-coming independent arts and culture magazines emerging out of Chicago
A glimpse into how the theorist dissected and taxonomized his interests
Forged in response to post-9/11 rhetoric, Melville House Publishing maintains an independent stance
Kevin Coval breathes the rhythms of his native Chicago
Paul M Davis