Since its founding in 2006, the Michigan-based press Dzanc Books has released a number of worthwhile reads, including Roy Kesey’s All Over and Kyle Minor’s In the Devil’s Territory. In the years since then, they’ve also acted as distributor for a number of other presses and journals (including Monkeybicycle and OV Books) and, more recently, announced the creation of an online journal called The Collagist, to be edited by writer and previous Agitation interviewee Matt Bell. Dzanc founder Steven Gillis is also the author of three novels, most recently Temporary People, a novel about a sort of meta-revolution that occurs on an island nation off the coast of Europe. (It also, it should be said, made for a fine back-to-back read with China Miéville’s The City & The City — politically resonant novels set in painstakingly created countries.) Temporary People and The Collagist were among the topics Gillis and I discussed via email for this interview.
Temporary People is subtitled “a fable”. I’ll admit that, initially, this threw me; given the extent to which you’ve created a distinct country and given it a visible, viable history– a degree of realism I don’t generally associate with fables. Did you know from the start that you’d be using this terminology? And if not, at what point did the book shift from Temporary People: a novel to Temporary People: a fable?
The idea to actually call Temporary People a fable came very late in the game, though the sense that what I was writing was indeed exactly that seemed to resonate within me for some time. I purposely called TP a fable as, to me, it is precisely that, though as you note, not in the traditional way people think of a fable. For me, TP has a moral center, it is a wild story of the quixotic turned on its head, with characters large and small, and I wanted there to be this sense of telling a tale. I could, of course, have left the fable reference off, but I like the association, the idea that here is a tale, modernly set yes, with factual and historical references, and yet completely separate and timeless like – well – a fable.
How much of the history of Bamerita had you worked out before you began writing the novel?
Again, like my use of the word ‘fable’ the idea of having Bamerita be this unique floating space in the world was there from the start, but the actual historical context evolved as the novel went through its many drafts.
Was Bamerita specifically based on any countries? Given its dictator’s obsession with films and filmmaking, I found myself thinking of North Korea more than once while reading the novel.
Not one specific country, no, though my vision has always been a Latin/Central American flavor, a bit of Marquez’s vision, and then with traces of Spain under Franco thrown in. There are so many countries today with madmen and despots at the helm, and as I read obsessively about all of them, Bamerita became a composite.
The novel’s treatment of revolution kept anticipating my comments on it: you’d mention popular music in the context of the novel’s revolution, I’d think “Czechoslovakia”, and within a few pages, you’d mention the unrest there in 1968; the same was true in the discussion of general strikes, which both called to mind and explicitly referenced Poland in the early 1980s. The events of Temporary People, then, seem like a kind of meta-revolution. To what extent have you found that revolutions tend to (or don’t tend to) build on what has come before?
If you mean the repetition in a single country as happens in Bamerita, the cycle is almost unavoidable because it becomes part of the culture, the fabric of the nation, sadly enough. If you mean revolutions in general, certainly there are aspects of revolution that are endemic to the process, regardless of where they take place. The eternal push and shove between powers, the internal struggle as it comes to a head, and then those cast to the outside after a revolution, begin to seed the same process again and again.
On the Dzanc side, you’ve recently announced the launch of online literary journal The Collagist. What prompted this? Do you consider it a part of Dzanc, or something distinct?
The Collagist is most definitely a part of Dzanc. We – Dan Wickett and myself – had discussed doing a journal for a while, and when we landed Matt Bell as our editor, we decided to take the jump. We simply want to use our platform to continue to bring the best writing to a large audience. The Collagist will have fiction, nonfiction, poetry, reviews, novel excerpts, editorials and feature some of the best new and established writers working today. Our first issue will be out Aug 15 and when you see the material we have lined up, and the writers, I think you will be blown away.
One: I recently finished reading Brian Evenson’s unsettling collection Fugue State. It was my first interaction — after a number of recommendations — with Evenson’s fiction, but I doubt it will be my last. Presently, I’m making my way through Blake Butler’s series of essays on the stories of Fugue State. Fine stuff…
Two: At io9, the esteemed Graeme McMillan talks comics and genre with Grant Morrison.
Interesting post from Patrick at Vroman’s looking at Sam Jones’s film I Am Trying To Break Your Heart and how its subject — the recording and release of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — relates to many current debates on the evolution of media. I’m glad to see someone raising the subject of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, because I do think that the issues surrounding its release are worth revisiting — though my angle on things is more in line with the argument that the YHF debate, along with a number of copyright and distribution issues currently up for debate, long predate the popularity of digital formats for music.
Where I find myself disagreeing with the post comes towards the end, where Patrick argues:
…the film stands as a testament to how flawed many media conglomerates are at selling content, and how other, smarter companies (or even the artists themselves) might be able to replace them. It doesn’t seem to me to matter very much whether those comanies are selling CDs or books.
While I do think that there are more similarities than differences between popular music and creative writing, I don’t feel that a one-to-one correlation between the promotion and distribution of both makes sense. The example given begins with a touring band; Wilco spend an impressive amount of time on the road, and singer/guitarist Jeff Tweedy has done a fair amount of solo tours as well. Generally, touring musicians are going to have the opportunity to try out new songs in a live setting. They’ll have an opportunity to see how an audience reacts and to explore the dynamics of a song long before they head into a studio to record that same song.
An example: when I interviewed Oxford Collapse for Death+Taxes last year, they commented that the Daytrotter session that they had done a few months prior to recording their album Bits had given them the ability to hear some of their songs-in-progress committed to tape. And if the artist in question is working with a producer, that’s yet another layer of feedback that’s introduced into the process. Writing fiction, by comparison, is a relatively solitary act, and I don’t think a writing group is a direct analogue to playing new songs repeatedly onstage.
All of which suggests to me that, for all that there’s an attempt to set up a correlation between large record labels and large publishing houses, there’s one key difference: the editorial aspect is in place for a musician in a place (in theory) separate from the institution charged with promoting and distributing their work, while on the publishing side, the editorial component is not. Also worth mentioning might be the fact that a number of novelists whose recent work I’ve admired (including John Wray and Joe Meno) have made the case for the importance of editors in the context of their work.
One: Stephen Elliott on the ethics of writing for free.
Two: Conor Friedersdorf (and, via block-quote, Lawrence Wechsler) on removing the fiction/nonfiction divide in bookstores.
Three: Blake Butler interviews Peter Cole, editor of the generally excellent literary magazine Keyhole. One passage that should spark some debate:
…word appreciation is probably a reaction to the lack of appreciation for the language in religious and philosophy texts, which I studied in college. I guess reading any amount of technical text could make any story enjoyable in comparison, but religious texts and the books about them are supposed to convey some deep sense of meaning, yet to me they are probably the blandest language there is.
One: Following my earlier reference to Christopher Weingarten’s discussion of Twitter and criticism, Michaelangelo Matos and Nicholas Minichino offer their thoughts on the matter as well.
Two: Carl Wilson offers his thoughts on recent Canadian music via his ballot for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. Carey Mercer is discussed at length.
Three: Trevor Kelley delves into his archives for this history of Gravity Records. Because listening to the upcoming Talbot Tagora album for a review I’m working on is conjuring memories of mid-90s San Diego hardcore.
In the vein of Christopher Orr’s review of 21 based solely on the trailer: note the points of overlap between Brian Lynch’s “How to Survive Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen“ and David Edelstein’s review of the film in question. Also worth a read for Edelstein’s discussion of the careers of Michael Bay and Ridley Scott, and because Lynch’s proposed Transformers Minus Transformers sounds hilarious.
This Warren Ellis piece on Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan, and live recordings is excellent reading, and the song that accompanies it damn well gave me chills.
Some thoughts on Eugenius, and their 1992 album Oomalama, can be found at Tiny Mix Tapes.
My short story “Dulcimers Played, Strings Played” is now up at Vol.1.
Sharp-eyed and/or longtime readers may note that it shares a character with my earlier “Every Night is Bluegrass Night”.
(A tip of the hat to Shannon Garland for the North Carolinian weather advice.)
As I write this, I’m somewhat pressed for time, and thus don’t have the ability to write up an amazing line of thought connecting the three pieces linked below. However, I suspect that one could be created; were I more professorial, I would write this post up in the form of an essay question.
One: Christopher R. Weingarten on Twitter and music criticism.
Two: Warren Ellis on criticism, word counts, and media.
Three: Michael Antman on media evolution and how it will affect creative work.
For the second time this year, I’ll be taking part in the generally kickass Vol. 1 reading series at Matchless in Greenpoint. Details follow:
June 19th, 2009
Chris Leo (writer/musician in The Van Pelt)
Tom Shillue (comedian)
Tobias Carroll (writer)
Maggie Serota (freelance writer/A.V Club)
Justin Maurer (writer)
Isaac Ramon (Comedian)
Each give their best shot at telling a story about a vacation at Vol. 1 Brooklyn. There is a five dollar suggested donation to go to our friends at 826NYC, but you can donate more if you’d like.
@ Bar Matchless
557 Manhattan Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
Jason Diamond interviews Chris Leo, a conversation that covers both Leo’s new novel and the reunion of The Van Pelt. It’s also worth mentioning that Leo will be reading at Matchless as part of the Vol. 1 series next Friday, 6/19. (And so will I.)
Earlier this year, news came that the longstanding Chicago post-punk band Chin Up Chin Up would be playing their final show. Chin Up Chin Up’s particular skill, for me, came from their ability to balance a relentless sense of rhythmic drive with vocals that were restrained, almost reassuring. Around the same time of that announcement came word of a new group, Vacations, comprised of Chin Up Chin Up’s Jeremy Bolen and Greg Sharp, and Make Believe’s Bobby Burg. Their first EP (or EPs — this is a question explored in the interview below), I Was Bikini/But Rain Afraid, expands on Chin Up Chin Up’s sense of rhythmic exploration while increasing the melodic sensibilities on display. The group has been experimenting with a sliding-scale payment method for their debut; there’s also a vinyl version in which one EP can be heard via tried-and-true analog methods, with both being downloadable. Bolen and I discussed distribution, the nature of this EP (or EPs), and the current state of indie rock in Chicago.
[Previous interviews in this series can be found here.]
The digital version of the I Was Bikini 7″ comes with an additional EP, But Rain Afraid. The file I downloaded from Flameshovel, though, was organized as one thirteen-track album. Do you consider the two EPs as halves of a larger work or as distinct entities?
The whole thing is really just a collection of all the early songs we have worked out, the idea is it is one record with many options of how to obtain it. We thought about a ton of ideas of how to get the music out there, and we thought a 7″with codes for the rest of the record was perfect, as it has an actual product with art and everything; most people are just putting music onto iPods and computers, CDs just seem like a waste at this point.
Were any of the Vacations songs written during Chin Up Chin Up’s time as a band? When these ideas came about, did you have this particular feel and use of instrumentation in mind from the beginning?
Yes, at least some of the ideas, and the general idea for instrumentation was conceived while we were beginning to write a new Chin Up record. We did have a particular feel we were going for, eventually it just made more sense to make it a new band instead of trying to push Chin Up into directions it wasn’t able to go; you really can’t force things like that to happen. I’m kind of sick of the traditional guitar/bass/drums instrumentation.
2/3 of Vacations were in Chin Up Chin Up; are there ever points where you find yourselves concerned that the music you’re making is veering too close to your previous band?
Not really, I don’t think were thinking about things like that. It seems totally different to me, but I’m sure to other listeners it seems similar and that’s fine too. Whatever it is we’re doing we’re excited about it.
A number of the I Was Bikini/But Rain Afraid songs reference community, either generally or through the “With” songs’ invocation of specific people. To what extent did you draw upon the people around you for either inspiration or points of reference?
Well the “with” songs were actually written with the people mentioned in the titles. Mahmood is a good friend of ours and me and Bobby wrote that song, and he stopped by my house while we were finishing it, so on the original take we had him play drums on a wood block thing. Same basic thing on “With Cale”. I think we’re always drawing from everyone and everything around us probably.
With an eye towards indie rock in Chicago nowadays, it seems like a number of the bands I’m listening to include combinations of members of the bands I was listening to a year or two ago, to a greater extent than I’ve seen in other cities. Do you think there’s something specific to Chicago that’s led to this sense of experimentation and collaboration?
Well I think the music world here, at least with people around our age, is pretty tight-knitand intertwined. People are always starting bands with and filling in for others, and everything kind of just evolves. I think it’s a pretty exciting thing to be a part of. It seems like in the last 2 years a lot of new bands have formed out of the remains of the main Chicago bands of the early 2000s. I can’t believe I just said ‘early 2000s’.
One: For The Stranger, Paul Constant reports from Book Expo America. Perhaps the key point he makes, in terms of debate-sparking-ness:
If nobody can afford to publish John Grisham, that doesn’t mean that Grisham’s readers are suddenly going to pick up a quality literary novel by, say, Dave Eggers or Stephen Elliott. It just means they’re not going to read anymore. And when the number of people reading decreases at the top of the mass-reading market—the Twilight and Stephen King readers—there will be fewer people filtering down to the serious literary experience, and the idea of reading printed books will be a tiny boutique experience, not unlike collecting vinyl.
Two: One aspect of the trickle-down process filtered above was covered recently by Dan Wickett at the Emerging Writers Network blog.
Three: So New Publishing’s James Stegall reports from Pilcrow Lit Fest. And one of the fine points he makes, in a piece abounding with them:
One of the tragedies of last year was the loss of Impetus Press — all it took was a reorganization at their distributor, which resulted in distribution charges they couldn’t pay. Hope won’t run a business.
The Constant and Stegall pieces are, I’d say, deeply relevant to one another, and point to an uncomfortable fact: while there are definitely impressive and vital things happening via independent presses, much of the larger structure by which books are sold seems to be interconnected with the fortunes of entities larger than those presses, whether distributors or larger publishing houses. Which begs the question: is there a place for an alternative structure (or alternative institutions) to arise? And if so, what would/should they look like?
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