In spite of projects chronically getting pushed back, I've managed to get some of them out into the world: a book here, a zine there, a poem, new shirts and stickers...
What follows is a round-up of my friends' and my current projects, forthright and forthcoming.
But first...
Here's a quick clip of me talking to Eiliyas of Mixtape Menage about the impact of Public Enemy's "Rebel Without a Pause," which I first heard on the Plywood Hoods' OG BMX videotape "Dorkin' in York."
If you're unfamiliar, here's the song in question:
Thanks to my man Thomas Durdin (Happy bornday, my dude!) and to Plywood Hood Mark Eaton for the exposure, and to Eiliyas for the chance to talk about it.
Read on!
DISCONTENTS is Here!
My friends Patric Barber, Craig Gates, and I have been working on this zine for a while now, and we finally have evidence of our efforts. The pilot issue of discontents is printed and assembled and ready to go out.
This issue features stories on Ceremony, Hsi-Chang Lin a.k.a. Still, and Unwound; interviews with emcee Fatboi Sharif, Coherence director James Ward Byrkit, and Crestone director Marnie Elizabeth Hertzler; pieces by Cynthia Connolly, Spike Jonze, Andy Jenkins, Timothy Baker, Greg Pratt, and Peter Relic; cover art by Tae Won Yu, layouts by Patrick Barber and Craig Gates, and drawings by me, Zak Sally, and Marcellous Lovelace.
It's 50 solid pages of good stuff about good stuff. Get yours!
We also made shirts!
PHANTOM KANGAROO #27
I have a poem called "The Indexical Trace" in the new issue of Phantom Kangaroo, "a portal for inter-dimensional poetry," conceived and edited by the magical mind of Claudia Dawson. You should be following her work however possible.
ESCAPE PHILOSOPHY
My newest book, Escape Philosophy: Journeys Beyond the Human Body, is now available from punctum books!
Many thanks to those of you who helped make it a #1 New Release and a Top-Ten Bestseller in Heavy Metal Music Books on Amazon!
If you haven't gotten one yet, get yourself a beautifully menacing paperback or a FREE open-access .pdf from punctum books.
If you missed it, here's more about the book:
Using extreme examples from heavy metal music and science fiction and horror movies, Escape Philosophy is a survey of all the ways we try to shuck off the shackles of our physical forms.
The physical body has often been seen as a prison, as something to be escaped by any means necessary: technology, mechanization, drugs, sensory deprivation, alien abduction, Rapture, or even death and extinction. Taking in horror movies from David Cronenberg and UFO encounters, metal bands such as Godflesh, ketamine experiments, AI, and cybernetics, Escape Philosophy is an exploration of the ways that human beings have sought to make this escape, to transcend the limits of the human body, to find a way out.
As the physical world continues to crumble at an ever-accelerating rate, and we are faced with a particularly 21st-century kind of dread and dehumanization in the face of climate collapse and a global pandemic, Escape Philosophy asks what this escape from our bodies might look like, and if it is even possible.
“A peculiar hybrid of Thomas Ligotti and Marshall McLuhan.” — Robert Guffey, author of Operation Mindfuck
Here's a brief excerpt from Chapter 3, "Machine," on the Malarkey Books site.
With a cover by Matthew Revert as dark as the ideas inside, it will make you look cool reading it on the bus or displaying it on your bookshelf. Escape Philosophy is the perfect read for our current uncertain moment.
Now you can get yourself a beautifully menacing paperback or an open-access .pdf from punctum books.
BOOGIE DOWN PREDICTIONS
A bunch of my friends and colleagues and I have put together a collection of essays called BOOGIE DOWN PREDICTIONS: Hip-Hop, Time, and Afrofuturism. It will finally be out in time for fall classes and back-to-school reading!
“The study of hip-hop requires more than a procession of protagonists, events, and innovations. Boogie Down Predictions stops the clock—each essay within it a frozen moment, an opportunity to look sub-atomically at the forces that drive this culture.”
— Dan Charnas, author of Dilla Time and The Big Payback
Boogie Down Predictions is coming in a few weeks from Strange Attractor Press, and it's available for preorder from the outlet of your choice! Please preorder it if you can! Preorders set in motion all kinds of good stuff for books and their creators.
If you're still not convinced, here are more details, including the table of contents, back-cover blurbs, and a nice review from The Wire Magazine. The list of contributors to this thing includes Omar Akbar, Juice Aleem, Tiffany E. Barber, Kevin Coval, Samantha Dols, Kodwo Eshun, Chuck Galli, Nettrice Gaskins, Jonathan Hay, Jeff Heinzl, Kembrew McLeod, Rasheedah Phillips, Steven Shaviro, Aram Sinnreich, André Sirois, Erik Steinskog, Dave Tompkins, Tia C.M. Tyree, Joël Vascheron, tobias c. van Veen, K. Ceres Wright, and Ytasha Womack.
Preorder your copy now! It's such a monster piece of work we made.
THREE OTHER NEW BOOKS!
Also, in case you haven't snagged them yet (what are you waiting for?!), I have three (3!) other new books out:
Follow for Now, Vol. 2: More Interviews with Friends and Heroes (from punctum books)
Fender the Fall (a sci-fi novella from Alien Buddha Press)
Abandoned Accounts (poetry collection from First Cut)
As always, thank you for reading, responding, and sharing.
More soon,
-royc.
http://roychristopher.com