Books

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Linda Lerner | Something is Burning in Brooklyn | Iniquity Press

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Something is Burning in Brooklyn is a collection of poems situated in a particular place, but could be anywhere in this country. My hope is that people who live elsewhere, who’ve never been to New York City, will find commong ground in the hardships caused by gentrification, have known what it’s like to be targeted as different, other, who have also pursued a dream, however unlikely to be realized, watched a mother slowly loos her grip on reality, as they are transformed to brother or sister by her dementia. — Linda Lerner Continue reading →

John Bennett | Children of the Sun & Earth | Hcolom Press

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In John Bennett’s novel, Children of the Sun & Earth an intelligent, steady-nerved young man and veteran named Tobias climbs the rungs of power in the cutthroat world of drug dealing and heavily armed Mexican cartels. By applying the right amount of respect and confidence in meetings with the heads of the Morales cartel, the Huichol Indian tribe, all the way to Pablo Escobar, Tobias sets himself up for the ultimate showdown between the DEA, a Vietnam Colonel named Wild Harry Witherspoon, the top drug lord in the world, and a team of highly-skilled Vietnam veterans. — strong>Adam Michael Luebke – Dear Dirty America Continue reading →

John Bennett | Tire Grabbers | Hcolom Press

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Tire Grabbers is the story of the coming of Moloch, a horrific force that mutates out of the Era of the Great Schism and – feeding on spiritual marrow – threatens Mankind’s extinction. And it is the story of the children who challenge Moloch, with their innocence and with an army of mind creatures that they eject into the outer world and call… John Bennett Continue reading →

Eilon Paz | The Dust & Grooves Book

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Eilon Paz’s 416-page coffee-table book illuminates over 130 vinyl collectors and their collections in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. With a foreword by the RZA, compelling photographic essays are paired with in-depth interviews to illustrate what motivates record collectors to keep digging for more records. Readers get an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. The book is divided into two main parts: the first features 250 full-page photos framed by captions and select quotes, while the second consists of 12 full-length interviews that delve deeper into collectors’ personal histories and vinyl troves. Continue reading →

Linda King | Sweet & Dirty | Hcolom Press/Metropolis

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Linda King showed up in the Vagabond Press mailbox, unsolicited, back in 1972, in Redwood City, California. I’d never heard of her before, but the poems she sent had fire and were free of pretension. I wrote asking if she might have enough material for a chapbook, and she sent the manuscript for Sweet & Dirty. It was only then that I realized she was connected to Bukowski. Vagabond published the book, to the delight of some and the disgust of others. Most of what we published tended to draw these extreme reactions. It was a short press run and was gone in a flash. True to its name, Vagabond was always on the move — Munich, D.C., New Orleans, San Francisco, etc., and in 1974, in Ellensburg, Washington, we brought out a second edition of Sweet & Dirty. It too was gone in a flash. It’s now 2013 with lots of water under the bridge. I hadn’t thought about Sweet & Dirty in a long time, and then Herr Klaus of Outlaw Poetry, a powerhouse literary web site operating out of France, contacted me with the request to bring out a third edition. I agreed, Linda agreed, and here it is. The poems in Sweet & Dirty still have their fire, and also, I realize now, their innocence. What goes around comes around. — John Bennett – Ellensburg, WA, August 10, 2013 Continue reading →

Peter Halfar | Life’s Crowning Moment | Hcolom Press

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I FIRST MET PETER HALFAR IN THE FALL of 1965 in Munich, Germany, where I began publishing Vagabond, a literary magazine. Maria Spaans, from the Netherlands, was art editor for the first two issues, and Peter followed in her footsteps. Five issues of Vagabond were published in Munich before I shifted the enterprise to New Orleans, and in that time Peter, Maria and I became close friends. Peter’s favorite word is unheimlich. It colors his art and his outlook, and in the sense he means it, unheimlich translates as a quirky, sometimes playful, sometimes foreboding surrealism. The unheimlich permeated the pages of the early issues of Vagabond. Peter, Maria and I went our separate ways after I left Munich, but we never fully lost contact, and when I returned to Europe for a visit in 1986, I saw them both. Maria was married and living in Paris, and Peter was still living in Munich. But he had become something of a world traveler since I last saw him, and it showed in his art, which was flourishing. And something new had been added. Shyly, on the last day of my visit, Peter pressed a thick folder into my hands. “Stories,” he said. “I have been writing stories. Unheimliche stories!” — John Bennett Continue reading →