"THING IN HONOR OF BEN TANZER’S BIRTHDAY." Or if you prefer, a view and a yell, a warmly embraced tradition, and some most beautious Tomaloffian Ben Tanzer birthday prose.

There is this and there was that. It is a Tomaloffian birthday tradition now. And it is appreciated. All of it, and endlessly at that. 

"You wake to the sound of your own voice spelling out the officer’s request. “T-A-N-Z-E-R. Ben. That’s B-E-N.” A man with a lampshade on his head—or something that looks like a man with a lampshade for a head, or the silhouette of a full-figured lamp with the periodic foot to foot weight shift of shirtless man—watches quietly over the exchange. There is a slowing of motion; one side of the room is a whirling blur. You: a) check your shirt pockets for an offering of cake, noting your lack of surprise at finding several, or b) pull the remote from the band of your boxers, press “cancel,” & return, complete with stuffed bear, to the scene of the crime."

We are most beautious PACHYDERMINI birthday ode. And the Tomaloff is king. Long live the king.

In fact, we are talking a whole PACHYDERMINI mini book series which you can have in its entirety for a most small donation indeed. Something that is not just beautious, but sure to change your life.

"ON THE MORNING OF BEN TANZER, 2012 (notes from a fortune-telling)." Or if you prefer, a view and a yell, and some most beautious Tomaloffian Ben Tanzer birthday fiction.

Most beautious it is. And something else, more, more than appreciated, more than moving, just more. Thanks bro.

"iii.

In the last photograph from the bottom right-hand corner, a man holds a camera pointed in the direction of the man of the hour. You move your head. The wall behind you appears. On this wall, backwards in your view, is a banner produced using a dot matrix printer in the summer of 1986. You do not recognize anything else on this wall. The banner reads, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEN. YOUR FUTURE IS EVERY POSSIBLE CONNOTATION OF THE WORDS HAND & GRENADE."

Tomaloff. Bradley. You Are Jaguar. Twin Antlers. Pre-order. Hit it.

 Here. Or here. And definitely here.

Wherein the David Tomaloff gets most beautifully Stuck Between Stations and TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer explodes on impact.

David Tomaloff from Connotation Press on Vimeo.

Much explosion. And a most beautifully rought live Connotation rendition of the Tomaloff's totally crackling Stuck Between Stations from the Dogzplot.  

“So it's sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?” We are Dogzplot Flash Fiction - Ben Tanzer issue.

Quite sad. And totally demented. But yes social for sure and very wonderful as well. The always awesome Barry Graham and Dogzplot has gone all Tanzer for its new edition and vast embarrassment aside, it is humbling in its sheer terrificness and we are thrilled about the line-up of contributors, all of whom we find freakishly attractive and sort of love - BL Pawelek, David Tomaloff, Ryan Bradley, Dave Housley, Tom Williams, and yes, even Ben Tanzer himself. Mass appreciations everyone and big love all around.    

These Things We Loved in 2011 Will Change Your Life.

We're not sure we felt especially blown away by much in 2011, but that shouldn't be confused with not endlessly encountering, absorbing and consuming things we loved. Nor should it ignore the fact that there was still much exuberance to be had, case in point, The Artist, and that for us it will always be about exuberance, searching for it, finding it, and reveling in it. We should also add, not surprisingly we suppose, that our search and consumption of art and exuberance is particularly related to and focused on books. Because it is always about books, first and last, and always will be. And yet, it's not only books, just mostly and as always, lovingly so at that.

You may not know it, but people still write novellas, we still read them and this was a quite fine year for them.

The Mimic's Own Voice/Tom Williams, Life After Sleep/Mark Brand, Old Ghosts/Nik Korpon, Nothing or Next to Nothing/Barry Graham, In Great Company/Michael Seidlinger, A Shiny, Unused Heart/J.A. Tyler.

Collections, short stories, flash fiction, absurdist, hyper-fiction, any or all of it.

Sex Dungeon for Sale!/Patrick Wensink, Prize Winners/Ryan Bradley, Carry Each His Burden/James Goertel, Songs of Vagabonds, Misfits, Sinners/Ken Wohlrob, Don't Smell the Floss/Matty Byloos, Normally Special/xTx.

Television shows that got in the way of reading, thinking, and sometimes sleeping, but ultimately made us very happy.

Justified, with a big nod to Margo Martindale, Friday Night Lights, we are still grieving and Louie, painful, and full of fear, isolation and confusion, but always funny, and knowing.

Television shows that have been better at some point, maybe even during their most current season, but still showed moments of awesome pain, humor and terror.

Rescue Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, The Killing and Walking Dead. 

The one benefit to the new season of Mad Men being delayed due to contract disputes.

We started watching Breaking Bad. Most kind that. 

Novels by rock stars, music, not literary, though arguably literary as well.

alt.punk/Lavinia Ludlow and The Failure/James Greer.

Novels by handsome bearded men.

Birch Hills @ World's End/Geoff Hyatt and Freight/Mel Bosworth.

Novels by "daddy-cool" writers near and far.

Fathermucker/Greg Olear, The Bee-Loud Glade/Steve Himmer, Fight For Your Long Day/Alex Kudera and Sophomoric Philosophy/Victor David Giron.

In a maybe not so great year for movies, movies we still dug.

Marcy Martha May Marlene, Moneyball, Young Adult, Margin Call, Drive, The Artist and Hannah.

And movies we still hope to see.

50/50, Take Shelter and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Sports memoirs we read, which were as much about life, as we know it, and as we would like it, as sport.

Cardboard Gods/Josh Wilker and Chasing the Runner's High/Ray Charbonneau.

Book we suspect we did not read because we thought we might get discouraged about our writing, this being an semi-annual category of sorts, with previous selections including Radiant Days by Michael FitzGerald and The Failure by James Greer.

Volt by Alan Heathcock, which we will no questionably read in 2012. Promise.

And other books we intend to finish or start in 2012. For real.

B-Sides and Broken Hearts/Caryn Rose, Solace in So Many Words/Ellen Wade Beals, Nothing/Blake Butler, American Masculine/Shann Ray, Pulphead/John Jeremiah Sullivan, Half a Life/Darrin Strauss, Three Ways of the Saw/Matt Mullins and Out of Touch/Brandon Tietz.  

Indie publishers we are not so objective about overall, but are doing really good things regardless of how we may or not have benefited from said goodness.

Artistically Declined Press, CCLaP Publishing, Atticus Books, HOUSEFIRE Books, Curbside Splendor, Deckfight Press, Mendicant Bookworks and Main Street Rag.

Podcasts both established, and getting there quickly, we obsessively listened to.

WTF with Marc Maron, see Michael Showalter, Christopher Titus, Dave Foley and Laura Kightlinger especially, and Other People with Brad Listi, Darrin Straus, Ben Loory and Edan Lupicki in particular. Total goodness. Totally.

Music, so incomplete, but a lot terrificness nonetheless, for sure.

21/Adele, Undun/The Roots, Bon Iver/Bon Iver, Who Kill/Tuneyards, Sigh No More/Mumford & Sons and Relax/Das Racist. 

Poetry, which we believe we generally do not read enough of, though we probably can't say that's an accurate statement this year.

Emergency Room Wrestling/the dirty poet, A Soft That Touches Down & Removes Itself/David Tomaloff, Piano Rats/Franki Elliot, Haunts/Laura Cherry, Redneck Poems/Rusty Barnes, What I'm On/Luis Humberto Valadez and A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished by Mistakes/J. Bradley.

And most finally, there are many, many people to thank for this most rocking of years, and we are most definitely overlooking some, a lot maybe, and we apologize for that, here, now, but there you go.

Lauryn Allison Lewis, Mason Johnson, Matt Rowan, Jacob Knabb, Dave Housley, Jason Behrends, Leah Tallon, Anna March, Victor David Giron, Jason Pettus, Nathan Holic, Ryan Bradley, Lavinia Ludlow, S. Craig Renfro, Greg Olear, Adam Lawrence, Nick Korpon, Lindsay Hunter, Matty Byloos, David Masciotra, Mel Bosworth, Brenda Brown Browne, Tim Frederick, Hosho McCreesh, Byron Hatfield, Lori Hettler, Patrick Wensink, Gina Frangello, Nick Ostdick, Pete Anderson, Paula Bomer, Brandon Will, J. Bradley and the Knee-Jerk crew.

"Spending time with Keith is more like talking to a familiar friend than reading a book, which, as Craig Finn might say, is 'a pretty good feeling.' Indeed, it feels pretty good." You Can Make Him Like You gets some Goodreads love. And likes it. A lot.

Quite honored to see You Can Make Like You receive some quite kind and most thoughtful Goodreads love from rock star punk poet David Tomaloff. Big thanks man, drinks on us for sure when next we meet, and for everyone else, some excerpt.

"In a perfect world, books would have soundtracks the way movies have soundtracks. In You Can Make Him Like You, Ben Tanzer gets about as close as anyone could hope to in achieving the illusion in the meantime. In fact, the closing chapter, aptly titled Stay Positive, begs for the familiar cut-to-credits and black as the opening chords of its Hold Steady namesake fill the theater." 

This ADP (chap) Book Will Change Your Life - 13 by David Tomaloff.

With ADP's delightfully well-timed, most chilling and quite fun, yes, fun, really, new release 13, a series of thirteen 13-word stories full of horror, monsters and fear, TBWCYL, Inc. David Tomaloff stakes his claim as the punk rock Edward Gorey.

These (Chap) Books Will Change Your Life - The Emperor's Sofa by Greg Santos and A Soft That Touches Down & Removes Itself by David Tomaloff.

We are so poetry this week and so digging it. We have said before that at times, it just feels obligatory, how can you want to write and not read poetry, seems wrong, without poetry where else would we try to figure out how to be sparse and lyrical and say in just a few lines, and sometimes, many times, more beautifully at that, what we say in whole stories, poems being these multicolored explosions of electricity bending their way through and around whatever comes before them in quick blasts, here and gone, but still lingering. Which leads us to The Emperor's Sofa by Greg Santos, a former and soon, quite soon, like this week, contributor to This Zine Will Change Your Life, and yes there is certainly some pluggage going on here, and A Soft That Touches Down & Removes Itself by David Tomaloff who we have yet to meet, but somehow feels like someone we need to spend some time with soon, you hear that Tomaloff? Good. Anyway, the chaps, both of which are great and well-crafted reads, vibrant and focused, eschewing the sweeping, for the here, now, and what's happening in front of you, us, the reader, whoever. With Santos, we get an ongoing commentary about how this may be what poems are supposed to look like, love, mysteries and real life, but with a dose of humor, a dash of pop culture, and a wink, riffing on love, but using the Hulk to communicate it, because he can, and because you will dig it. And then there is the Tomaloff, working the personal, a series of moments and exchanges, witty communications rife with metaphor and imagery between the author and some unidentified woman, who won't take his shit, is not impressed with his verbiage or observations, but stays with him in the thing they are in, this relationship, their discourse, and the omnipresent tug-of-war we call relationships and are always trying to work through, work out and just make work, ideally with a smile and some wry commentary to make it not just bearable, but fun, because there can be fun, right? Of course there can. Both chaps then just may change your life, but even if they don't, they still need to be consumed, because poetry needs to be consumed, explosions all, here for a moment, electric and bound to change something.