Tag: Bizarro

The Story of the Y by Ben Arzate – Book Review

by Zakary McGaha

Up until now, Ben Arzate has only written shorter works of fiction and poetry. Now, his first novella-length work has been unleashed into the wilds of the small press scene. Although still rather short, The Story of the Y is written in a minimalistic, to-the-point way that makes it play out like a full-length, road trip comedy movie.

The Story of the Y will touch the hearts of all those who have ever collected stuff…in particular, rare/obscure stuff. In this book’s case, there is an album by one Y. Bhekhirst. Said album and artist are actually real…and completely unknown/obscure…but the book’s plot is a fictionalized account of a music writer setting out on an adventure in hopes of interviewing the “real” Y. Bhekhirst.

If that brief synopsis doesn’t make you want to read the book, then you’re probably lame.

The “adventure of the open road” aspect is where The Story of the Y shines, because the road in this case is surreal. Literally anything can happen in this bizarro sort of world, so you never know what to expect. Strangeness is thrown at you a mile a minute…yes, that was a road trip pun…but none of it ever feels annoying or tacky.

Instead, the effect makes you think you’re watching one of those trippy ass cartoons from the late 90s or early 2000s. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson also came to mind, and not just because someone mentioned it in one of the books’ blurbs.

The action, comedy, and forward-moving momentum all conspire to make it hard to stop reading The Story of the Y. I, for one, finished in two sittings (which is saying something because I started it late at night while already running on little sleep).

The characters were another strong point for this book. They were just as funny and memorable as the surreal aspects of the plot. There’s a ghost trapped in a record (my favorite character), a lovable conman/small-time drug dealer dude with a lobster claw for a hand, a couple anarchists, etc.

Some of the prose was a little deadpan (and, as mentioned before, minimalistic) in terms of dialogue, action, etc., but that isn’t necessarily a complaint considering it was a stylistic choice on Arzate’s part.

Overall, the book was a fun, short read that had the same effect on me that most of Arzate’s stories have: they make me want to stay in the universe longer. This one, in particular, could lay the groundwork for a surreal universe of books; we’ll have to wait and see. The characters and situations are interesting and unique enough to easily offer up more material.

Another thing I feel I should note is that Arzate walks the line between seriousness and silliness. Everything going on is insane, yet it’s all believable, compelling, and entertaining. In other words, he’s not writing for gags despite the silly aspects (I, of course, don’t use the word “silly” in a derogatory sense).

I give The Story of the Y 4/5 stars. I’m eager to read more of Arzate’s lengthier work.

by Silent Motorist Media

You Dirty Rat! An Interview with Editor, Author, Musician, and Artist Ira Rat

by Ben Arzate

Ira Rat is a fellow Iowan and a jack-of-all-trades in the arts. Here, I pick his brain to see what he’s all about. A quick disclaimer: I had a story published in his zine Fucked Up Stories to Tell in the Daytime and I’m very grateful he featured it.

Ben Arzate: Let’s just jump right into it. Can you give us a brief introduction? Who is Ira Rat?

Ira Rat: That’s the question I ask myself everyday. Without getting too existential or pretentious about it, I’m just a person who makes things. I get ideas and then I have to figure out what the best way of getting it out is. Over the course of all that, I make music, design, and write. I also like getting things out there for other people so I’ve run the record label Drug Arts and just started the press Filthy Loot.

Ben: Filthy Loot just put out its first zine, Fucked Up Stories to Tell in the Daytime. Obviously a riff on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. What was your inspiration to create it? Is this the first zine you’ve created or curated?

Ira: Making little publications is something I’ve done going all the way back to high school. I was making chapbooks and zines for the poetry and music writing that my friends and myself were constantly churning out. Really the three things that got me thinking I should make this was sitting at work binge listening to Bizzong, then appearing in Ben Fitt’s The Rock n’ Roll Horror Zine with one of my stories, and finally finding a few copies of Freak Tension that I bought from Emma Johnson years ago in the bottom of a box of books. There is no real eureka about the idea, basically the name popped into my head and it was a “duh, of course I’m going to do this” moment.

 

Ben: You also just put out a limited edition chapbook called Learned Animals. Can you tell us a little about that?

Ira: That’s a chapbook of one of my stories, it’s kind of a stand alone idea that was a tribute an odd fever-dream tribute to Shirley Jackson. After working with a few people editing it, I just didn’t feel like submitting it anywhere — so I just made a cover and printed up some copies.

Ben: You’re also currently taking submissions for another zine called No. What is the concept behind that one?

Ira: No. is pretty nebulous, the original idea was for it to be something that Lazy Fascist would have put out, because I don’t really see many presses covering that literary bizarro area. Though, I’ve learned from years of trying to force expectations that nothing is set in stone until it’s done, so it’s still open to interpretation from the people who submit. Fucked Up Stories… definitely was one of those projects that the submissions ended up defining what it ended up being. So I’m trying to learn not to push my own agenda on these zines and just let them be what gels together.

Ben: You also do music. What kind of music do you make? How long have you been doing that?

Ira: I’ve been making music since about 2000. Though much of the early stuff is mercifully lost. The music that I’ve made for the past few years is mostly focused on experimental, inspired by musicians like Brian Eno and Throbbing Gristle who really push the idea of actually learning your instrument can be detrimental to creativity. Everything that I make other than design has an element of purposeful naivete, because when I start taking things too seriously it gets boring. Though with my writing, I hire editors to make it sound like I know the proper way to use a semicolon.

Ben: Ha! I know how that feels. You design as well. Do you do all your own art? What do you enjoy most, writing, making music, or making visual art?

Ira: What I do is closer to collage than to illustration, but I do illustration here and there as well. Like the cover to Fucked Up Stories… is based off of a stock image I bought from a website years ago that I always liked. I then illustrated it to look like something that would have been on the cover of a Scary Stories book. I went to art school, so I come from the idea that everything is appropriation, but the idea is to pull enough randomness in there that it’s not just regurgitating the same things over and over. Or you know, blatantly stealing something and claiming it as your own — though some artists have done that and done really well. I weirdly compartmentalize and so I don’t have a preference what medium I’m doing. Like my short stories come from a place of my interest in odd conspiracy theories and other things that if I were to explore in other formats it might be considered taboo for someone like me to be exploring.

Ben: What are some your biggest inspirations in the different fields of art that you’re involved with?

Ira: Oh god. Francis Bacon, Kurt Vonnegut, Throbbing Gristle, Stephen King, Daniel Clowes, William Burroughs, Tomato Design, DEVO, Harmony Korine, Charles Bukowski, Jay Reatard, Angus Oblong, David Lynch, Marcel Duchamp, Neil Gaiman, Chip Kidd, Clive Barker, Sam Pink, Andy Warhol, Crispin Glover, Cindy Sherman, Aaron Draplin, Hannah Höch… I’m sure I’m missing some big ones in there. The first album I ever owned was a dubbed copy of The White Album when I was 6, so I’m sure that’s where my eclecticism comes from. I spent days in a creative process class just making lists of things that interest me and people who influence me so that’s far from comprehensive.

Ben: Besides the No zine, what are some other projects that you’re currently working on?

Ira: I’m also working on a zine called Drag Drugs Death that will be a weird fiction tribute to Warhol and The Factory, Fucked Up Stories #2, and I’m at the early stages of trying to figure out a good name for a splatterpunk zine. I’m always working on other stuff, like “Spektorvisions” by my band Neon Lushell is turning into our version of Guns N’ Roses’s Chinese Democracy. I’ve been telling people it’s going to come out “any time now” for 5 years.

Ben: What are your goals with Filthy Loot? Do you want to keep it a zine and chapbook press, or are you interested in putting out full length books at some point?

Ira: I’m seeing where things take me. Right now I’m doing zines and chapbooks because I can do them myself and not have to tie up a lot of money in one project. Though I’m not against anything.

Ben: Zines seem to be making a bit of a comeback recently. What do you think is the appeal of zines over, say, publishing online or with an ebook?

Ira: Zines have always been bubbling under the surface. One of the things I guess would be an appeal is that you can sit there at a copy shop and make a few copies and not have to get too invested in making 1k perfect bound books. Personally I’ve always just like cool little objects that even if they sit on a shelf or in a box that you can take it out later and appreciate. That’s one of the reasons why I put a few different bobbles in with the zine to just put cool things out into the world. The problem with digital publishing is that I literally have 100 books in my Kindle that I got for free or next to nothing, but I’m going to grab a book because there’s a physical presence there to remind you to read it. I know the argument that you’re killing trees, etc. but the world as it is we need less screen time. Or at least I do.

Ben: Last question, why did you choose Ira Rat as your pen name? Or is that your real name and I’m a fucking idiot?

Ira: To confirm the person who harassed me online a couple weeks ago. It’s because I used to snitch on the Irish Republican Army. There was thought behind the name, but more interesting than that is that I recently discovered that “irarat” in Latin is a congregation of “I become angry, I fly off into a rage” which is a good enough reason as any to keep using it.

Ben: Where can our readers find your angry, snitching ass online?

Ira: Filthyloot.com and Irarat.com

Ben: Thanks so much for the interview!

Ira: No, thank you. And thanks for the support and being in the zine and what not.

by Silent Motorist Media

Mr. Sucky by Duncan P. Bradshaw – Book Review

Review by Bob Freville

Duncan P. Bradshaw’s Mr. Sucky is very funny and very British. From its first paragraphs, we are graced with a scenario straight out of a Monty Python episode. By that, I mean that Bradshaw takes familiar imagery and subverts expectations with hilariously matter-of-fact horror that’s at once bust-a-gut funny and uber-cringey.

Few writers could manage to wring laughs out of child abuse. Bradshaw not only succeeds on the very first page but keeps us hoping he’ll up the ante. Like hearing a comedian riff on The Aristocrats gag, the reader latches on to this devilishly irreverent read and waits in jubilant anticipation for the next groty detail to emerge.

Bradshaw doesn’t disappoint, skillfully one-upping himself in each successive sequence. The design of the book is itself a masterfully-executed joke; Mr. Sucky doesn’t have the outward appearance of a novel or novella. It is over-sized, oddly thin and specifically designed to resemble a poorly photocopied user manual.

It is so convincing in this regard that my better half actually stuck it in the box with a shitty vacuum cleaner we had recently purchased at Target, mistaking it for the actual manual that came with the piece of shit. Had it not been for me catching her in time, Mr. Sucky would have been going back to the store before I’d even had a chance to read it…and that would have sucked.

This kind of Andy Kaufman-esque gag might draw an exasperated yawn from some jaded millennial reader, but for those of us who were alive during the years of National Lampoon and the Theater of the Absurd, it’s a warm and welcome return to interactive and impish humor.

That’s right, get off my fucking lawn!

Mr. Sucky concerns the playful and putrid mishaps of a serial killer, his latest would-be “victim” and the killer’s dim-witted “acolyte”. But then that is like saying Mel Brooks’ The Producers is about two desperate men trying to stage a play; the description is far too simple and doesn’t do it any justice.

Without spoiling all of the surprises that this “manual” has in store for you, I can safely say that Mr. Sucky is meant for people who relish clever twists, colorful colloquialisms and dastardly denouements that don’t exactly go the way you’d expect them to.

While reading this charming book, one gets the nagging sense that they are talking to a familiar voice, perhaps the demented id or superego of their own private brain nugget. Bradshaw handles dialogue in much the same way that maverick crime writer George V. Higgins or controversial playwright-cum-filmmaker Martin McDonagh employs it; the conversations are the action and fucked if they’re not a full-on assault of the imagination.

I should confess to being a hardcore Anglophile who was weaned on the comical wonders of Benny Hill, The Young Ones, Fawlty Towers and The Dangerous Brothers. As such, I may be predisposed to Mr. Bradshaw’s particular brand of comedy. But I trust that anyone who reads this will agree that it’s an absurdly awesome tome that offers all the wit, cringe and reward of the best ripping yarn.

Mr. Sucky is billed as a Gore Com publication and I have to say that “gorecom” pretty well describes the book’s blend of the macabre and the mundane. A perfect example of the ghoulish comedy that Bradshaw has in store for you can be found on page 22 when our befuddled villain, Clive Beauchamp, reminds himself of his personal mantra.

Instead of WWJD or YOLO, Beauchamp’s acronym is the hilariously and arbitrarily long PFAETCHWUTTKS, or Prepare For Any Eventuality That Could Happen When You Try To Kill Someone. Remember, it works better with a Welsh lilt. ; )

The best thing that I can say about Mr. Sucky is that it has few peers in literature or, really, any other artistic medium. The closest you’ll probably get is Quentin Dupieux’s 2011 film Rubber, but even that highly meta exercise in deconstructured horror-comedy pales in comparison to what Bradshaw has attempted and achieved with this one.

If you’re anything like me, this waggish novella will leave an idiot grin on your face akin to the adorable smiley face illustration on its back jacket. As the author’s official website declares, Mr. Sucky is ready to come out of the cleaning closet. Snatch him up today.

Like and share this page or we’ll light you up like a Vietnamese jungle.

by Silent Motorist Media

The Unreprinted: “Throat Sprockets” by Tim Lucas

By Ben Arzate

Welcome to the first installment of “The Unreprinted,” wherein I discuss out-of-print books of every genre. For this initial discussion, we’ll be taking a look at the cult erotic horror novel by author and film critic Tim Lucas, Throat Sprockets.

“A city without theaters is a guilty city; it is a place where dreams have become too terrible to share, not least of all in darkness, among strangers in the vortex of the same material.”

The unnamed narrator of Throat Sprockets likes to spend his lunch break in adult movie theaters. One day, he catches a very unusual film called Throat Sprockets. It has even less plot than most porn films and no sex, just close ups of women’s throats. Despite that, he finds it more erotic than any other porn film he’s ever seen.

He develops an obsession with both the film and with women’s throats. It affects his life for better and for worse, ending his marriage and frustrating his sex life but, eventually, leading him to a more passionate relationship and improving his creativity as an adman.

Throat Sprockets is a primarily a psychological horror novel about obsession. Everything that the narrator does after he sees the film revolves around the film and women’s throats. Even his taste in music changes exclusively to female opera singers.

His fixation leaks into his work at the ad agency he’s employed at. Rather than diminishing his work, it enhances it, leading him to climb the ladder of his company faster than he anticipated. His obsession has liberated him as much as it has enslaved him.

Vampirism is a recurring theme. Biting his lover’s throat and drinking their blood becomes the equivalent of an orgasm to the narrator. At one point, he watches a version of Throat Sprockets which has been retitled Transylvania Mon Amour. He also contemplates the psychosexual meaning of Dracula after first watching a full version of the film. Watching the film seems to “infect” a lot of the people who watch it. Throughout the book, Throat Sprockets becomes more and more well-known and causes a widespread fixation on the throat as a fetish object.

For the most part, the book doesn’t have any explicit supernatural elements. The effect that Throat Sprockets has on its viewers is hinted at being due a dark power within it, especially when the narrator learns of its origins, but he never truly finds out.

Likewise, while he’s trying to track down a home video version of the film, he learns of another one that, according to a sleazy underground video distributor, kills the person who watches it. The distributor sends him a copy of the killer tape along with Throat Sprockets, but he discards it, deciding not to take the risk.

Initially, Throat Sprockets is an obscure film known only to few people, the narrator and his new girlfriend after his divorce included. However, to the surprise of the narrator, the film gradually becomes more and more well-known, eventually becoming a phenomenon that starts a new movement of throat fetishists. He becomes worried that the widespread popularity will eventually destroy his relationship. The throat fixation is no longer a special secret between them.

Throat Sprockets is an excellently crafted and fascinating work of psychological horror. It’s an insightful look at how film and images in general can influence us and even infect us. This is a book well worth tracking down and I hope it comes back into print.

by Silent Motorist Media