Rather than commissioning pieces, the fourth issue of Beat the Dust was open to all writers to submit work. No theme – anything was considered. So, expect blasphemy, a gravedigger in Disneyland, Mark Ronson having sex with Lady GaGa on a piano, a dwarf pissing on dolphins, an actual message in a bottle thrown off the Isle of Wight Ferry and a child killer. Yep, it's creamy literary goodness, folks.
Tony on Don’t Look In The Basement: “Some of my earliest writing was movie reviews, for fanzines. I started doing this again on the Guardian's movie blog, but I really hate most blogs. I’m beginning to hate the internet. The internet depresses me because people depress me. On the internet everybody has an opinion. Some people think it’s funny to laugh at all the idiotic comments people leave on youtube, or on news sites, but for me it just makes me sad. Sometimes not being aware of how utterly fucking stupid most people really are, is a good thing. With the internet, people seemingly can’t wait to reveal what idiotic shit suckers they are. Anyway, this is a movie review I wrote a long time ago (maybe around the time I was writing digging the vein). Can’t remember who or where I wrote it for, but I don’t think it was ever published.”
Submission Date:
15 Jan 2010
Category:
Review
In Chap-book
Title:
Don’t Look In The Basement
Excerpt:
In the 1970’s there was a definite trend towards exploitation movies warning us not to do stuff. “Don’t Answer the Phone!” the posters screamed, “Don’t Go Near The Park” they warned. “Don’t Torture A Duckling,” they confusingly advised. Some were good, some bad, most were just plain strange. One of my favorite movies to emerge from this trend was “Don’t Look In The Basement”...
J: Dementia (1955 – John Parker) A: The Undead (1957 – Roger Corman) P: Caperucita Y Pulgarcito Contra Los Monstruos (1962 – Roberto Rodríguez) A: Nest Of The Cuckoo Bird (1965 – Bert Williams) N: Yabu No Naka No Kuroneko (1968 – Kaneto Shindo)
Submission Date:
08 Dec 2009
Category:
Review
In Chap-book
Title:
Pop Avant-Garde Violence
Excerpt:
With the release of his first independently-produced film, The Embryo Hunts In Secret in 1966, Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu had sown the seed of a psychotic revolutionary cinema which would flower spectacularly over the next few years with the release of such stunning, controversial works as Violated Angels, Go, Go, Second Time Virgin, and Shojo Geba Geba. These films at the core of Wakamatsu’s cinematic oeuvre comprise a brutally experimental/primal apocalypse which easily transcends the limitations of exploitation yet still impacts with a visceral force unequalled by any comparable sequence in Western cinema...
Sam Jordison identifies the novel/play/poem/song he wishes he’d written
Novel: I'm starting to wish I would get round to writing any kind of novel of my own, let alone someone else's. But I guess I'd have to go for A Farewell To Arms. It's so far out of reach that all anyone can do is wish. Otherwise, you can't approach it. Every sentence has been chiselled and polished to such perfection. It's so hard, but also heart-melting. And the conclusion is so crushing. It took a mean bastard like Hemingway to kill that baby - but the world is richer for it.
Play/script: Easy. Hamlet. Because then I'd be the damn well greatest genius that ever lived.
Poem: The Aeneid. Because then I could have a fight with my Shakespeare self about who was actually the biggest genius, and serve me right for saying such choices are easy.
Song: Does lust for money count as a valid reason? If yes, Suspicious Minds. If no, probably Suspicious Minds too because it's a great song. And because, by writing it, I might have been able to meet Elvis... And ask him a few questions...
Submission Date:
08 May 2009
Category:
Review
In Chap-book
Title:
a review of the recession session live! by Sam Jordison
Excerpt:
I arrived at Liverpool Street Station with time to spare before the Beat The Dust / 3AM Recession Session. In a few hours, writers like Stewart Home, Paul Ewen, Lee Rourke, Steve Finbow, Melissa Mann, Joseph Ridgwell, Tom McCarthy (and many others) were scheduled to rant for five minutes each about The Way Things Are in the Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon. But first I had to get acclimatised to the capital. I'd come in from Norfolk and it had been a long time since I'd been to The City. A lot had gone down in the interim. The stock market had gone down. A long way. The price of houses had gone down. Not quite enough. The government's approval rating had gone down. Even further than before. And so on.
Dan Fante is interviewed by Mark SaFranko (continued)
MS: You’ve been known to pay visits to Chavez Ravine to catch L.A. Dodgers’ games. Have you always been a baseball fan? Did you play the game yourself? Do any other sports interest you? Have you become an Arizona Diamondback fan?
DF: I’ve loved baseball all my life. If you were a child of John Fante, and didn’t love baseball, you might well have been sold into slavery or driven from his home. There wasn’t much room for any other sport when I was a kid. Eventually I developed into a decent pitcher and played that position from the age of ten to eighteen in school and the various athletic leagues. If I could have played baseball professionally I would have.
As far as The Arizona Diamondbacks are concerned – they reside in Phoenix (or as I call it, Penix) Unfortunately my dislike for Penix is so great I cannot bring myself to enter its city limits, baseball or no baseball.
Submission Date:
03 Apr 2009
Category:
Review
In Chap-book
Title:
Article reviewing smoke
Excerpt:
Photocopy of an article in the Night Owl reporter column of the New York Daily News, Tuesday, September 14, 1971, reviewing Dan’s radio drama smoke.
Dan Fante began his writing career in his mid-forties after many years as a drunk. “I went to a Christmas party in 1964 and sobered up sometime in the first week of January, 1986,” says Fante. He writes poetry, plays, short stories and novels, and is currently at work on a cable television adaptation on his book of short stories ‘Short Dog’. Fante vows never to return to the city of Los Angeles except at gunpoint or for the purpose of cremation. To listen to an exclusive interview with Dan Fante check out Rob and Jack America on Blog Talk Radio.
Submission Date:
10 Jan 2009
Category:
Review
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
kissed by a fat waitress reviewed by Joseph Ridgwell
Excerpt:
Kissed by a Fat Waitress, published by Sun Dog Press, is the latest collection of poetry by renowned cult author and authentic literary outlaw, Dan Fante. Fante’s latest collection is published by the independent small publisher, ...
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