This Book Will Change Your Life - Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Salvatore Pane.

In our heart of hearts we would have some cogent, yet, pithy, 140 character commentary on Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Sal Pane, that would somehow channel Patrick Ewing's stoic awesomeness, John Starks dogged, one-balled fearlessness, or possibly Kanye West's massive sense of self and all things Kanye. But maybe that wouldn't do the Sal Pane justice? We could also reflect on other recent coming of age debut novels by young male writers that struck us as saying something meaningful in a space filled with so much clutter that actually doing so makes the work meaningful in and of itself. And here, The Slide by Kyle Beachy or Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron come to mind. We could reference these things. Seeking to infuse this riff with some kind of pop culture shorthand, and we probably already have based on the mere fact that we have mentioned them at all. So we could do all that, and yes, have done so, but let's not totally do so. Instead let's focus on something else. Or something's else. First, the writing itself, because in the Last Call, the writing is tight. Not tight like the shorts Larry Bird wore in his heyday. It's not about restriction, or the inability to breathe, because Last Call breaths. The wordplay and dialogue is alive and dynamic. It's that the craftmanship itself is tight. Sal Pane knows how to construct story, and we think the importance of this sometimes gets lost until you see it right in front of you, pulsating and beckoning. Second, the debut novel can be a trap, there will be sex, drinking, and search. There will also be tragedy, friends die, maybe siblings, or both, and then there are the work woes and relationships and how anyone anywhere can possibly communicate, much less connect with anyone anywhere. And so the question becomes, how does the author do this differently and new? It's about freshness, and new angles, and so it is with Last Call, which is about sex, drinking, death, and alienation as it has to be, but spun through a generation that has grown-up in the internet. Not as guests or travelers like those who came before them, but in it. Everything saturated with social media. Every conversation filtered through how it will ultimately translate to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. And everyone wondering whether they should be trying to escape something they are so totally immersed in when they don't quite know what alternatives exist because they've never truly been exposed to them. Sal Pane has brought us this generation laid bare, with tightness, humor, and pathos. Will it change your life? We think so. It probably already has.

These Curbside Splendor Chapbooks Will Change Your Life - The Chapbook: Poems by Charles Bane, Jr. and Piano Rats by Franki Elliot.

We suppose we could have done separate posts on the current Curbside Splendor releases, Piano Rats by Franki Elliot and The Chapbook: Poems by Charles Bane, Jr., but there is something inherently fascinating to us about diving into work from a single source and trying to ascertain what the thinking or philosophy might be behind a growing body of work. What does it say about the press and can we ascribe some kind approach or method of selection to the decisionmaking before us? When asked then to read and blurb Piano Rats and its array of oozy, electric poems, we were struck by the transitions at play and how the writer and her characters had places to go, but really had no idea how to get there, so she kept looking back, for clues or guidance, better less confusing times maybe, something. Mainly though she is stuck in her all druggy, hopeful messiness and what has passed may be all that makes sense to her now, though even that is questionable. In The Chapbook the beautiful poems we encounter reflect a different kind of looking back, the looking back of someone who has lived a life, full of love and family, and there are no bridges to somewhere here, nor any transitions, those days and challenges, the messiness that youth is comprised of has become something else, the ability to clearly look back on what once was and has made us what we are now as we settle in and review a life still full of life but also moving along towards some kind of endpoint. All of which leads us back to where we started as well, but in reading these chaps, what does that it say about Curbside Splendor and what it has and will wrought? There is no doubt Curbside Splendor is about the urban and the cool, and yes we mean this is in a good, non-ironic way, see Sophomoric Philosophy by Curbside founder Victor David Giron, but as we mushed Sophomoric Philosophy in with Piano Rats and The Chapbook, we couldn't help but think Curbside is about something else as well, reflection, and taking measure of who we are, wherever we are, and how we try to figure out not how we got here as much as what happened along the way and what the meaning of those events and feelings are to the person we are right now.   

      

Sophomoric Philosophy and TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog. Most beautious.

Quite happy we are to see this most beautious review of TBWYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Victor David Giron's Sophomoric Philosophy from TBWYL, Inc. favorite and killer supporter TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog.

"Filled with a lifetime worth of drug use, sex, partying, and havoc-wreaking, Sophomoric Philosophy is going to speak loudest to those of us who have reluctantly given up our 20's and firmly refuse to stare our rapidly approaching 40's in the eye. Giron is not afraid to make his narrator look like an asshole, openly admits his fear of making the first move on the fairer sex, and dispels the whole opposite-sex-being-friends myth by exposing it for what it really is."

All hail the Curbside Splendor. And all day at that.

You ever feel like you're having a Curbside Splendor kind of week? Us too. So we're going to do a day of Curbside Splendoring starting with our Writer on Writer interview at Orange Alert with Curbside Splendor founder, This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee and daddy-cool author of Sophomoric Philosophy Victor David Giron. Please check it out. Please enjoy some excerpt. And more to come. Much, much more.

Only somewhat switching gears, I know you published Sophomoric Philosophy through your publishing arm Curbside Splendor and I was wondering what you want us to know about Curbside Splendor, well, you know besides that fact that all authors you publish get free drinks and manicures at Beauty Bar for life?

Well, sure, but only Curbside authors that write nice reviews and publish an interview with me get free drinks and manicures, just to clarify. Curbside Splendor was the name of a band that me and my friend Brian talked about starting when I was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I could never play an instrument so the dream quickly went up in smoke. However, the name stuck with me. When I thinking of how to publish my book, I decided to start a small press when I learned one could do such a thing and I immediately thought of calling it CS. In the process of working with the editor, the designer, my friend Gabriel Hurier who did the artwork, I really dug the whole publishing process. So now we publish short stories and poetry online, and will also in print starting with our first semi-annual print journal coming out in March. We’ll also publish more books. Our focus is urban-themed work, but we publish other stuff. In fact we’re publishing a chap book of poems by Chicago native Charles Bane Jr. this May. He’s retired, now lives in Florida, writes these fleeting romance poems and though it’s something I never thought I’d want to publish, I quite literally fell in love reading his work. I also co-host with my friends Amy & Becca of Two With Water a bi-monthly reading series at Beauty Bar Chicago that is getting better and better. I’m in the process of organizing more a literary-friendly events at the Beauty Bar that will be quite killer, and I’m now selling books and journals by local presses and authors at the Logan Square Farmer’s market here in Chicago. To my pleasant surprise, I’ve just now discovered all the great lit-stuff going on here these days. Do I have a prior time period to compare against? No. But, it’s fun, now, and I guess for me that’s what matters and I’m eager to support it.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron.

Small town life. Parties. Drugs. Listening to music. Hooking-up. Getting out. Coming back. Coming of age. These are stories we know. Stories we live. And stories that writers, not to mention filmmakers, hello Dazed and Confused, are inevitably drawn to as they mine what they know in attempt to create art and find their voice. Into this universe comes the latest edition to this genre, Sophomoric Philosophy by Chicago's own Victor David Giron, a recent podcastee over at the This Podcast Will Change Your Life division. Victor knows small towns, and definitely knows drugs and chicks. He also knows what we listened to, watched and read in the eighties and nineties, adding a layer of time and place that is both uniquely Chicagoland and full of pop culture awareness. All of this is done with wit and nuance, but what allows Victor and this novel to transcend, and expand, on the genre is not only the exploration of the immigrant experience, specifically being first generation Americans navigating American culture, and frankly the sense that this is where literature is heading, because this is where the world is heading, but the idea that all of these kids are dropped into these small towns and even as they try to determine what their relationship will be to their parent's places of origin they still chase girls, take drugs and behave like total idiots, in essence like everyone else, imagine.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker.

When Jason Pettus at CCLaP expressed interest in publishing 99 Problems he said he was particularly struck by how many writers were also runners. As we read Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker what we were initially struck by was how many writers seemed to have offbeat, if not outright strained childhoods, filled with all sorts of funky family dynamics, struggles with self-confidence and the inability to find their way, both as a writer and in life. But then we thought, maybe that's everybody in some form or another, and what we're really encountering here is the writer's ability to translate that pain and strife into words and image and narrative that transcend mere description and turn them into something powerful, engaging and even beautiful. Which then got us thinking that if any of this is remotely true, the real challenge may be how the writer accomplishes this in a way that sounds vibrant and different and brings new perspective and language to the discussion, continuing an ongoing dialogue in fresh and exciting new ways. Which brings us back to Cardboard Gods and Josh Wilker's moving exploration of his childhood, pop culture, the last third of the last century, and the start of the new one, rooting for the Boston Red Sox and the birth of the writer through his youthful obsession with all things baseball card, the players, both obscure and star, their stats and back stories, and the endless hopes, needs, and anxieties we can project onto an object of desire. Why do all writers seem to know pain, because we all do, everyone, but writers labor to describe it, because they, we, have no other choice.

We would add here, that as part of TBWCYL, Inc.'s 2010 Top Ten Book List, we wrote about the morass of books that have landed here at headquarters during the past several months, and our inability to read them at the rate we prefer to due to the endless end of the year responsibilities that come with running a massive, yet faux, media empire. That said, we have taken some vacation time, a new year of work travel is rapidly approaching, and we are pleased to announce that Cardboard Gods represents the first book to be scratched off of the list. Next up, Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron. Nice.

Sophomoric Philosophy. Victor David Giron. Curbside Splendor. Coming soon.

New friend and Chicago writer Victor David Giron's debut novel Sophomoric Philosophy is coming soon from his publishing joint Curbside Splendor. We are quite excited indeed and quite digging the first trailer for the book which you can watch below, so please do, there you go, and why not order the book as well, cool, great, you rock.

An excerpt from Sophomoric Philosophy | Part 1 from Garett Holden on Vimeo.