“The World Doesn’t Smell Like You,” from LOOK! LOOK! Feathers by Mike Young
This post, part of a series of short reactions to the stories from Mike Young’s really remarkable collection LOOK! LOOK! FEATHERS was written by Gabe Durham, who picked the story for Keyhole #10.—MS
“The World Doesn’t Smell Like You,” from Mike Young’s story collection LOOK! LOOK! FEATHERS, is a quest narrative about these high school dumbasses who need to know whether the rumor’s true that their gym teacher, Coach Schiel, has only got one ball.
It’s one of the L!L!F stories I got to read an early draft of, it’s the story I got to publish in Keyhole 10, and when in a certain mood, it’s my favorite story in the collection. Other favorites are “Susan White,” “Snow You Know,” “The Same Heart,” and “Burk’s Nub,” the latter a band-nerd companion to “The World” that underscores each high school clique’s unique potential for cruelty. READ MORE >
“Burk’s Nub” from LOOK! LOOK! FEATHERS by Mike Young
So. Cyber-punk.
“Johnny Mnemonic” can’t get past just being Johnny Mnemonic. “Burk’s Nub,” though, gets to be Tetsuo The Iron Man, and “Burk’s Nub,” gets to be George Washington.
Because “Burk’s Nub” isn’t concerned with the gadgetry of cyber-punk. It’s just concerned with youth, with bodies, with tubas, and with language. And because it is full of concern and not full of fetish, it gets to be fuller and more satisfying and more interesting. READ MORE >
“The Peaches Are Cheap” from LOOK! LOOK! FEATHERS by Mike Young
It occurred to me, hanging out with Mike Young last weekend, that I/maybe we have not talked enough about Mike’s really fantastic collection of stories, LOOK! LOOK! FEATHERS here on HTML Giant. I will endeavor to do so, to at least offer an impression of each story, over the coming weeks.
So, PART ONE.
Placed at the beginning of the book of stories is “The Peaches Are Cheap,” a flash meant maybe not just to be itself, but meant instead to be the slow, disjointed, “look around, case the joint,” opening of all that comes after. It’s a couple of dudes in a car, and all the stuff they see—all this stuff that promises to act like hooks through the rest of the book. These hooks on which we hang the answers to our “where the fuck are we” questions. Hang the things we unpack to learn about where the whole where of the book is. READ MORE >