The Snake Pit Book by Ben Snakepit paperback - 304 pgs Ben writes a three panel comic strip for every day of his life. It’s funny at first, but as you keep reading, it gets to be much more than funny. It shows you the patterns of behavior we all go through in life. You see how mistakes keep repeating themselves, how the beauty of small moments redeem us, and all the life that’s in between.
In a sense, despite turning the big 3-0, Ben Snakepit captures the same spirit in the comics he draws to summarise each and every day of nearly the last decade of his life. In his second collection condensing the last three years we see our hero move to and from Canada, tour the world with J Church, hang out with the Sainte Catherines, meet Mike Watt, get caught in the throes of whirlwind romances and we're there to watch helplessly as he gets his heart broken. There's also more pants-shitting, Adderall tripping and days of doing absolutely nothing to keep the old school fans happy. Also keeping with tradition there's a song allocated to each day. This collection comes with a mix cd of some of those songs for the maximum Snakepit
A 288 page novel-like narrative, Evasion is one person's travelogue of thievery and trespassing across the country, evading not only arrest, but also the 40-hour workweek and hopeless boredom of modern life. The journey documents a literal and metaphorical reclamation of an individual's life and the spaces surrounding them—scamming, squatting, dumpstering, train hopping and shoplifting a life worth living and a world worth the fighting for.
($2 by snail mail or in person) blurt! #5: cosmic shit by LEW HOUSTON 4.25"X5.5" 97 pages Returning to root of burgeoning blurt! days of "other stories", bursts forth "cosmic shit": the most tonered blurt! to ever wind through photocopier. The stories start in the woods and end in the water. In between they pass over miles of highways, stagger through countless towns and cities, trip through basements and backyards, glide over ice and sidewalks, hop feet in diners and lakes, toss and twist in bus seats, lob lefty hook shots on dirt and grass and macadam, stutter at cop side, and smile and sweat and struggle in arms of friends. There are lots of stories to tell, cosmic shit tells many (Keep an eye out for Crafty dAN mentioned in a story or two!)
Shirley Wins by Todd Taylor paperback - 188 pgs. Shirley is a grandmother who has designed and built the world’s most powerful pumpkin-launching cannon. At her side is Rachel, Shirley’s bright and quiet granddaughter, a budding geneticist electrified by punk rock. Shirley’s interest in physics is re-ignited one day in a supermarket parking lot. Through the elating dance of discovery, the painful crunch of broken bones, and the shame of failed experiments, she vaults her head down the loaded barrel of life’s biggest consequences while carefully calculating a brand new trajectory for herself. Shirley Wins is a novel of not giving up and not giving in. It’s a story about punching the world back in the arm.
