Date: November 19th 2008

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SOFT SKULL NEWSLETTER Vol. 3 October 2008

Soft Skull in the Fall--

Keep up to date on all the latest goings on at Soft Skull on our blog.

Bad Habits by Cristy C. Road is starting to receive buzz. Young Manhattanite said, “It’s like Bukowski and Cometbus blowing each other on the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island. The Illustrations are pretty fantastic, too. If you need MORE convincing, I am certain she could beat the living crap out of Tucker Max and paint his face with it.” The author was recently interviewed in Bookslut’s “Indie Heatthrob” series; topics included Bad Habits, Green Day, and why, if she were to create a new illustrated biography of Sarah Palin, it would have to feature “a classy full color piece showing her severed head inside of a giant condom, encircled by a montage illustrating the outcomes (STDs, pregnancies by way of abuse, dead polar bears) of some of her proposed VP policies.” The official release party for Bad Habits will be Saturday, November 22^nd at Death By Audio in Williamsburg, at 8pm. Expect readings, DJs, and performances by several bands, including Cristy’s own HOMEWRECKERS. Dates for her upcoming bi-coastal book tour include:

Dec. 10 at Word bookstore in Greenpoint

Dec. 17 at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library

Jan. 18 with Rhiannon Argo and Nicole Georges at Powell’s in Portland

Jan. 20 at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco

Jan. 25 at the San Francisco Public Library

Feb. 6 at Skylight books in Los Angeles

As dates are added, and to see our other author appearances and readings, check out the Soft Skull Calendar.

Excellent reviews for The Pisstown Chaos, the latest weird and creepy and hilarious installment from cult author David Ohle continue to pour in. Publisher’s Weekly remarked: “Fans will rejoice—in their own dystopian way—at the arrival of this mesmerizing installment... Ohle’s creation of a vivid world, both familiar and foreign, dark and slyly humorous, makes the book a grim delight.” From Bookforum: “One could thumbnail The Pisstown Chaos, David Ohle’s third novel in thirty-odd years, as a dark-comic fantasia, and the author himself as a long-term toiler in the fields of postwar American experimentalism. And yet he remains elusive, far more obscure than he deserves to be, and the book, like the rest of Ohle’s small oeuvre, is a bit hard to account for... Ohle’s rich black comedy becomes, as you go on, a bit harder to laugh at.” And The Believer wrote, “No amount of description will prepare you for the icky, cavernous, taboo places in your mind to which he’ll lead you, hand in hand, Virgil to your Dante. You’ll recognize some of these places, of course. The question is, how did he get in there?”

The indie rock cookbook Lost in the Supermarket, which is now being sold at Urban Outfitters nationwide and was recently #68 on Martha Stewarts, “100 Reasons to Learn Something”, recieved a mention in Playboy of all places: “It’s quite enjoyable. The dishes we tried—Belle and Sebastian’s Thai Sweet Potato Soup and Animal Collective’s Geologist’s Greek Style Shrimp—were both delicious. And there is something cool about serving meals that our favorite bands eat.” The San Francisco Bay Guardian observed, “You won't find Alice Waters or Thomas Keller level cooking in Lost, but fans of, say, starving college student cookbooks or quirky compendiums of Spam or ramen recipes will find plenty of tasty notions here... As the Rae-monster might roar, ‘Yummo.’” Largehearted boy remarked that, “The authors' conversational style pulls the book together smoothly, and their introductions to the recipes and musicians are often as interesting as the recipes. True fans of both food and music, Lynn and Kay Bozich Owens will not only introduce you to new food, but possibly a new band or two.” And from the Washington City Paper, “I know practically nothing about cooking, and I’d be pretty careful about ingesting anything prepared by a former member of Spacemen 3. But Guy Picciotto’s recipe for rhubarb crumble does sound appealing.”

The Customer is Always Wrong was recently #4 on the Powells.com Best Seller List And check out the amazing review this hilarious book about working retail received in Shelf Awareness (John McFarland wrote, “The results are uniformly sardonic, touching, hilarious, uplifting and bizarre; in short: terrific! ...one really original take on retailing after another.... Kudos to Jeff Martin for compiling essays that so consistently fly readers to the moon.”) Jeff Martin will be going on a mini-tour this fall and winter, so check him out at Full Circle Books in Oklahoma on Dec 18 (7pm). Chances are he’ll be making stops at Watermark books in Kansas and also in Mississippi and possibly Texas as well, so stay tuned and check out our calendar.

So...are you planning your post-election elegies for the Bush regime yet?

David Rees, creator of the infamous Get Your War On cartoon, has appearances scheduled all over the country. The cartoon has been serialized in Rolling Stone, adapted for the stage, and animated. It isn't just a caustic analysis of American foreign policy. It's also an emotional kaleidoscope of American life and absurdity, from October 9th, 2001, when American bombs first fell in the poverty-stricken, terrorist safe haven of Afghanistan, to 2008, when bombs continue to fall in the poverty-stricken, terrorist safe haven of Afghanistan. (There's some stuff about Iraq in the middle, too.) Get Your War On illustrates better than any artist, politician, or pundit the true state of America's soul--its violence and its compassion.

And it's f***ing hilarious.

"Riotous and principled."--Washington Post

"Brilliant."--USA Today

"[T]he Thomas Nast of the internet."--Comedy Central

"[H]ilariously deadpan fatalism . . . a surprisingly articulate expression of our anxieties."--Newsweek

"Rees [is] a phenomenal cult hero."--Variety

"A glorious excoriation of our post-9/11 loony bin."--New York Times

"The most original cartoon to emerge since . . . well ever. Raw, enraged, sardonic, hilarious, despairing, and impossible to pigeonhole."--Rolling Stone

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

Nov. 11 at Paradise City Tavern, 1 Bridge Street, Northampton, Mass (7:30pm)

Nov. 15 at the Brooklyn Public Library for “How Doomed is America?” with Matt Taibbi

Nov. 23 at Busboys and Poets, 1025 5th St (5th and K), Washington D.C. (6pm)

Dec. 4 at Melville House Books, 145 Plymouth St, Dumbo, Brooklyn (7pm)

And check out the latest animated strip of Get Your War On at the Huffington Post blog:

http://www.236.com/video/2008/get_your_war_on_jump_off_the_r_9773.php

Print and internet media abound with praise for Alex Cox’s career autobiography, X Films: The True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker. Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review, saying “Cox’s at-times bizarre perspective is reigned in with a funny, conversational style and eye for detail that propel all ten of these fascinating nuts-and-bolts essays.” It was a Critics’ Pick for Salon.com, where they noted the “inspiring sense of possibility to the story of [Cox’s] years in the trenches as an independent filmmaker's independent filmmaker: Armed with no money, little support from producers, a practically feral aesthetic, and an antagonistic relationship to promotion and income, he still made some terrific movies.” Powell’s Books was impressed, saying his “steadfast subversiveness makes Cox's films and this book so enjoyable. Cox's writing in X Films is loose and conversational, informative without being overly technical.” Time Out New York was quick to note, “Alex Cox’s highly readable career diary is—like his output—inspiring, cheeky and maddeningly brief… We are lucky to have this book.” The Los Angeles Times applauds Cox’s “breezy good humor and flashes of radical outrage,” which is sort of echoed by the San Francisco Guardian’s assessment that, “Off-kilter humor and polemical tendencies are both the key to Cox's originality.” Finally, American Cinematographer Magazine heartily enjoys the book: “Cox is a witty raconteur and an articulate advocate for movies as art, not commerce… X-Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, is one of the best books ever written by a film director, a revealing and passionate celebration of a life in the cinema.”

Publisher’s Weekly recently released their Best Books of the Year (2008), which included two Soft Skull offerings: The Solitary Vice: Against Reading by Mikita Brottman and How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet. The Solitary Vice is a critical look at the act of reading as a tool of elf-exploration. Publisher’s Weekly remarked, “with sharp observations, a brisk style and a wide range of topics, Brottman’s is a rare feat: a crowd-pleaser that could make converts out of readers and nonreaders alike,” and from USA Today: “Here’s a book, from a professor no less, that asks the heretical question: Is readng as great as all those preachy public service campaigns would have us believe? But as Mikita Brottman ...acknowledges, she’s not against reading. She’s for thinking about reading in more complex ways… The Solitary Vice will help.”

How the Dead Dream, Millet’s subtle missive on environmentalism and greed, has ridden the wave of good press this year. The Believer gushed on Millet’s ability “to write fiction that confronts social issues without falling into shrill hectoring or dill didacticism. No easy trick.” The Chicago Sun Times calls the book, “both lyric and wonderfully schizophrenic.” From The Los Angeles Times, “Millet achieves a balance of humor and seriousness… In How the Dead Dream, Millet has hit on a wonderfully unique formula: To write engaging fiction about serious matters, it helps to mix in the plain dumb seriousness of goldfish poop.” Publisher’s Weekly also greatly admired the book, calling it, “brilliant… while redolent of Heart of Darkness and Don Quixote, takes readers to a place entirely Millet’s own, leavened by very funny asides… unfolds like a beautiful, disturbing dream.” And finally, from the Village Voice, “She has pulled off her funniest, most shrewdly thoughtful and touching novel. If Kurt Vonnegut were still alive, he would be extremely jealous.”

For fellow NYCers, several autographed copies of offbeat indie filmmaker Hal Hartly’s True Fiction Pictures and Possible Films are available at St. Marks Bookshop. He’s been called, “Long Island’s answer to Jean-Luc Godard,” and In True Fiction Pictures, Hartley discusses the development and collapse of the American indie film culture of the 90's and reflects upon his experiences as an independent creative artist trying to exist within the commercial film culture business.

And finally, Tim Wise, author of the best-selling White Like Me and his most recent Speaking Treason Fluently, has a couple new essays available online, “This is Your Nation on White Privilege,” and “Racism as Reflex: Reflections on Conservative Scapegoating.”

That’s all for the fall, folks!

Soft Skull Press

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