Forums I Like

I'm a regular patron of Horror.com's forums. Frequently very good discussion when we get around to talking about horror and some of the most knowledgeable people on the subject of cult film I've ever encountered. If you're looking to refine your taste in cult cinema, this is a great place to go. Recently a fellow Horror.com member and some friends branched out into a new forum www.thecinemaddicts.com. Catchy title and a smart group, too. I look forward to contributing to the place and having newer, fresher discussions. Drop by, make the place a little bigger and help online film recommendation and grassroots criticism prosper at either of these places. Fans who know something are a force to be reckoned with nowadays and I hope that only becomes more true over time.
If you decide to join cinemaddicts, put GarrettCook as your referrer. No, I am not enough of a whore to pimp something just for a prize, but I like prizes and I like these people.

Review of My Landlady the Lobotomist by Eckhard Gerdes

My Landlady the Lobotomist by Eckhard Gerdes

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Where the hell are my words? There's something truly great to say about this book. Something that nails it down like a Roman soldier would an impertinent messiah. Those words lurk in the head of a wise orangutan shaman in Borneo or something like it. Layers of headspace peel back or rush ahead with new revelations constantly in My Landlady the Lobobotomist, a story about heartbreak, the artistic process and the nature of one man's hell. And Godzilla. And his love for She-sus, the female messiah. And a dragonfly's love for an angelfish, which is a man's love for a woman. And an author's passionate love of language. This fourth great love, not that of one of Gerdes' conceptions but of Gerdes himself drives the book and where does it drive it? Into an uncharted, uncomfortable, occasionally overbearing country that belongs to him completely. My Landlady the Lobotomist is a pleasure to read, a blend of Bizarro and experimental fiction that is sure to leave the reader surprised and impressed. But these aren't quite the words. I've got a feeling an orangutan would know.


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Chicago Center for Literature and Photography Reviews Murderland Part 1: H8...pretty harshly

The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography just reviewed my book Murderland Part 1: H8. The review is pretty harsh, but hopefully those who read it will still be interested or might look further for other opinions. My heartfelt thanks go out to Jason Pettus from CCLAP.
Here's the review:
http://www.cclapcenter.com/2009/04/book_review_murderland_h8_by_g.html

Goodreads Review of Mykle Hansen's the Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere

Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere by Mykle Hansen

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Eminem once said "I am whatever you say I am" and the bold title of Mykle Hansen's book stands out as an unintentional echo of this statement for the Bizarro community. Provocateurs? Yup. Obsessed with sex and poo jokes? So was Dali. There is a triumphant shamelessness to the title of the book that resounds through its pages. If Mykle Hansen needed to eat puppies for breakfast to be himself, he would rap the table and scream "waiter, more puppy sauce!" These three novellas in the same place combine like robot lions into a samurai of glorious filth. The first of the three and my favorite, Monster Cocks, explores manhood, porn, self image and our emasculating modern world while at the same time presenting a tragic love story. Imagine Little Shop of Horrors with a sentient penis in a world of corporate tedium. Even if you can, you still haven't gotten a handle on what Hansen's voice and humor can do with the premise. The second Journey to the Center of Agnes Cuddlebottom, and my least favorite of the three concerns the colonization (or should I say colon-ization...spelled too similar! Doesn't work in print. Way to kill the joke, English language!) and exploration of an 80 year old prostitute's ass and the travails and triumphs of an eager scientist, a mercenary chimp and a plucky, very opportunistic Starbucks. A great exploration of greed, opportunism and our unbeatable desire for enterprise. Lastly, but certainly not least comes the delightfully chaotic and painfully visceral Crazy Shitting Planet. This story concerns a race of filthy, poverty stricken survivors on a planet covered in the excrement and garbage of a race of floating fat people. In part, it's reminiscent of Jeunet and Caro's Delicatessen with some South Park and straight, old school surrealism thrown in. It's a surprisingly cutting and very timely look at poverty, love, hope and ambition that defies description. Fantastic stuff all around. Hansen is dark, funny, smart and willing to defy our culture's perceptions of mature art in favor of the hard stuff. Humorless robots and lit fic loving schoolmarms need not apply.


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Anomalous Appetites now available!

The speculative poetry anthology Anomalous Appetites edited by John Irvine is now available and features my very unsettling poem "the Bruise". Check it out here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/anomalous-appetites/3236199

Goodreads Review of Sabre's Call by Troy Chambers

Sabre's Call by Troy Chambers

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
So Pasolini and Kenneth Anger walk into a bar. I don't have a punchline, but at its best Sabre's Call would reflect a meeting of these minds. Were Sabre's Call the book it thinks it is, it would be a revelation, a mature argument in favor of an ideology that seldom in this day and age presents mature arguments for itself. It would be a Promethean instead of a Luciferean endeavor and Chambers would convince several people to shed the yokes of one social topdog or another. Sabre's Call is bold, full of fairly transgressive (though occasionally uninspired) imagery and utterly devoid of shame or fear. For these things, Chambers has earned the third star in the review. Were the characters stronger, the book less of a mouthpiece and the plot better developed, it might have earned a fourth, which would be damn impressive for a book written by a Satanist conservative, since I'm a Gnostic Anarchist with a pretty wide socialist streak and a lot of concerns over declining ethics and widespread inhumanity. Chambers has a lot of literary and rhetorical growing to do and hopefully in the future, will extend into greater philosophical depth and go beyond proselytizing into revelation, which might not be altogether beyond him considering the fervor of his convictions and the brutal potential he exhibits.


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My Goodreads review of the 27s by Eric Segalstad

The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll by Eric Segalstad

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rock and roll can grab you in its teeth, gnash your heart to bits, open your mind so wide you can't keep cultural debris out, change your way of thinking and dressing, make you reconsider the flowers mother says are poisonous. The great voices and minds of rock and roll wield a cultural power that is shamanic at its highest resonances. But to walk with these spirits, is to dance with death, to become an icon of your generation sometimes means staying there forever, being remembered in a bathtub in Paris or a plaid 90s sepulcher with syringes strewn about. Eric Segalstad' s the 27s unabashedly, unashamedly and unrepentantly tells the story of these tragedies with sparkling language and beautiful illustrations. He uses insights into astrology and numerology to look into the roots and consequences of one of rock's black magic numbers. This is a book like no other. While there are any number of books about Jim, Jimi, Janis and Curt, there are few that place them in the company of the other casualties of their age, others who did not get to step through the gates into adulthood. I found myself really thinking about my upcoming 27th birthday, about the trials artists go through and about the sort of person who would sing lyrics like "I wish I was like you, easily amused..." and "hey, wait, I got a new complaint". This book shines, cuts and illuminates, all without saying that Jim Morrison was a six foot penis that penetrated the world til it went soft or turning into transparent DARE propaganda. That's a true accomplishment. This book covers everyone from Robert Johnson, to Canned Heat's Alan Wilson to Jeremy Ward of the Mars Volta. A must for any rock fan's shelf. The upcoming hardcover will be a must for their coffee table too.


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