It is odd how a magazine that entrusts their readership with the most reputable of writing can simultaneously treat them so obtusely as to give them 8 links to the same subscription page in one notice, as if they needed such excessiveness to either help with a decision or to find the link. Obviously, the editorial and subscription departments are two separate beasts, the latter’s sense of rhetoric as blunt as a teenager with a hard on, dry humping the nearest throw pillow. I can live with the (3) “save 75%” and (7) “renew now” capitalisty buttons, and there’s something almost endearing about their final (8) footnote-ish “subtle” oh-in-case-you-missed-it-the-first-seven-times hyperlink, but (5) that Eustice Tilley has been reduced to a roll over link, the symbolic object of his lepidopterous preoccupation now cropped, is something sad. To say he is blinded by commerce would be too easy, thus their editors are free to call me. The race for high brow has gotten so high, over the scalp, the best hairlines are found at the ass. For the past year, I flip through the cartoons during dinner, finding it all kind of funny.

Chateau Wichman is a book-length poem focused on a would be-hero as ambitious as he is aimless. Luckily, a mysterious group known as the Sage Editors uses everything from Rilke to The Terminator to turn The Wichman into a mythological celebrity. The Wichman doesn’t mind the transition until he begins to notice how little of himself others see in him. Epic visions, rushed romance, harebrained escapes, and the most sublime chicken cordon bleu recipe—all within one epic saga: Chateau Wichman: Blockbuster in Verse.

(poet/video artist Ben Pease talks about the process of making this video poem):

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Since the beginning of the internet, I estimate having waited for said internet, in some way, be it a massive .pdf within a browser, a youtube clip during peak hours, or porn clip off some shoddy site during night’s black skin — the euphemism “loading” an affront to our wants, desires, impatience, and ultimate sadness, staring at a loading wheel, mockingly clockwise as if time even mattered — cumulatively for about a week; meaning, if I didn’t get up for a sandwich, I’d be dead. The staunch lateral progress of the loading bar always felt more western-y, whereas the wheel has a kind of reincarnate cyclical Buddhist-y flow to it, to cease desire, or at least wait. On Monday August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will occur, said totality (as opposed to the more common, and broader, partial ones) being when the moon’s apparent circumference is not only larger than the sun, but directly in front of it, turning the day into a kind of movable night. This will only be experienced on a narrow path across the earth, auspiciously this time around in the United States. The “greatest” total eclipse on earth that day, i.e. the most darkness at the longest duration, will occur in Christian County, Kentucky, whose 73,000 +/- estimated residents will likely tailgate the damn thing, sucking on corn dogs in darkness.

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1. So how long did it take you to read the book?

I started it on Monday afternoon and read it for a couple hours a day, until 7:30am today.

2. Did you ever read the book in public places or leave the book out purposefully when visitors were over?

I’m on a camping trip with my family (two parents, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, two nieces, two nephews, two dogs), and I kept leaving it on the picnic table but no one touched it. It’s my dad’s book.

3. How did you deal with the uh not reading a better book?

The parts with the guns were my favorite.

4. Have you read other Lee Child? How did this book compare?

I thought I’d read all of them but my dad keeps surprising me with more. This one wasn’t as good. The odds don’t seem to be as stacked against Reacher. Plus it’s more of a detective story than the others. The women aren’t described as “slim” quite so often, and Reacher doesn’t have sex with any of them. The main lady he partners with is a lesbian.

5. Did you read the book while on drugs or alcohol?

Nope, just fresh Adirondack air.

6. What other “large books” have you undertaken?

I just finished the third book in The Game of Thrones. READ MORE >

The Coffin Factory is a magazine. I mean: you will read it and say “that was a MAGAZINE” and also you can fold it in half and not damage it. They are having a contest. I read most of the third issue on a bus, the rest on a porch. I read the whole thing then carried it around in my book bag or backpack, wanting to write about the issue but not doing so and instead opening the issue to take notes and simply enjoying the contents again and then sometimes researching the authors therein. I have read every issue (all 3) of The Coffin Factory to date. READ MORE >