Here’s a picture of Ben Tanzer:
And here’s a picture of his new book, Repetition Patterns:
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s a little chat I had recently with super funny, most excellent local writer Ben Tanzer, author of the novels Lucky Man (Manx Media, 2007) and Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine (Orange Alert Press, 2008) and the short story collection Repetition Patterns (CCLaP, 2008).
Hey Ben, how’s it going?
If I ignore the chronic pain in my arthritic right knee and my high cholesterol, my dwindling 401(k) and the sporadic bouts of impotence I have suffered ever since watching The Notebook, I would say that it’s going well. How are you?
The Notebook was probably where you went all wrong. I'm just fine, thanks! So, are you nervous?
Right now, at this moment? And do you mean because I am doing an interview or more specifically because I am doing one with you? I will assume it is not the latter, but I think I will say no. I mean yes, I am somewhat nervous about the Wham! reunion show we are hoping to do at Coachella. And I don’t care who you are, but you’re not going to tell me that an asteroid couldn’t hit the earth at like any time. Further, it is one thing to be wracked with paranoia on an ongoing basis, but the fact that I no longer have to imagine what it might look like to crash land into the Hudson River is unsettling to say the least. As a general state of being though, am I nervous, no not so much, and nothing like when I was in elementary school and my stomach hurt all the time. Was that just me?
Not just you. But for me it's not elementary school, it’s now. My fears about crashing into the Hudson, because I've always worried about that seeing as how the runways are so close to the water at LaGuardia, have actually been allayed just a tiny bit.
Tell me about your new book. I hear it involves our and David Sedaris’ mutual hometown, Binghamton, NY. (Even though I was technically born in Johnson City, but whatever.)
I would love to talk about the book and Binghamton, which I would add is also the hometown of Rod Serling, my third favorite Binghamtonian after you and David Sedaris, though to be honest he was probably my favorite Binghamtonian when I was kid, but only because I didn’t know you guys. Not that I know David Sedaris per se, though we met one time and it was quite moving. Well, for me anyway. By the way, I am a big fan of the Johnson City as well. It is the home of not just the Oakdale Mall, but the birthplace of the only blonde I have ever dated. She was the daughter of the wrestling coach there, and while he looked like a brick wall, and she wasn’t actually all that friendly, she looked amazing in her convertible when the top down and her hair was blowing in the wind.…Wait, what was your question a gain? Oh yes, the book.
So, the book, I had been reading a number of short story collections I really liked, including When The Messenger is Hot, which you may have heard of, but also Drown by Junot Diaz, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, The Bridegroom by Ha Jin and the Collected Stories of Breece D’J Pancake among others, and I was struck by the fact that these are wonderful collections, by wonderful writers certainly, but that they also evoke a certain time and place, from story to story, a place you may not know, but is clearly defined as some place you now know intimately. I decided I wanted to try that as well and came up with a series of semi-interlinked stories intended to evoke Binghamton, or towns like it, in the early eighties. They all sort of got published separately, but Jason at CCLaP was interested in publishing a collection and I pitched the stories to him plus two other pieces, one I wrote later that I felt fit in with the original group, and one I just wanted him to read, the title story Repetition Patterns, that he saw as linking the other stories together. What he recognized is that while I had been aiming for time and place in these pieces, I had also come back to themes I have visited over time – fractured families, violence, substance abuse and the inability at times to make sense of the confusion these things cause in peoples’ lives over a lifetime.
Nice. My memories of Binghamton are limited to a couple of visits back there when I was older - I was a toddler when we left. But I look forward to having some traumatic memories of my fractured family after I read your book. Ever hear back from that Diane Lane?
No, which is killer to me. And it’s not that she could in any way replace or supplant you as the muse for my blog, or that I would say leave my wife or something if she asked me to, I say this of course just in case Debbie reads this, it’s just that like so many of the women I know that are my age and are certain John Cusack would be perfect for them just because they know he would be, I know Diane Lane and I would be perfect together as well. I mean look, she was in The Outsiders, so enough said. Now, what do I think us being perfect together means, I’m not sure really, but I am open to suggestions.
Explain Friday Night Lights to me, because I’m not sure I get it. I feel like when I see it, I should get it, except I don’t.
Wow, this is like explaining how to get The Basketball Diaries, The Ramones, Ecstasy or I don’t know, The Warriors. It is what it is, joy and madness, and being moved out of our protective bubbles to be transported to a world we sort of know, but forget is there as we pay bills and shop for groceries, go to work and lose our cell phone signals. It is relationships, the failure to communicate and our efforts to try and do so anyway even when we don’t quite have the skills or insight needed to be successful at it. It’s about disappointment, but laughter as well and the rare victories we sometime grab hold of amidst the chaos and messiness of day to day living. It’s about life. Well, and Connie Britton of course. Meanwhile, I don’t think this whole not getting it thing is about you, I really don’t. I blame society. Does that help?
I actually think I get The Warriors. I saw that when I was in H.S. in the middle of all the hooplah around it. I think I just don’t get FNL because of the football, which as you may know I also don't get. I met one of the cast members in Austin and he actually asked me if I was on his show! I wanted to say - Don't you know?
Is there anything else you want to tell me? About me, Diane Lane, or your new book?
Thank you for the time and support, it is much appreciated. If you see Diane Lane, please stress that at worst I am fan boy, but my intentions albeit muddled, are true and pure. And the book, I want people to read it and let me know what they think, and if they like it maybe they can let their friends know about it. And maybe if they haven’t read either of my novels, gratuitous plug coming, Lucky Man (Manx Media, 2007) and Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine (Orange Alert Press, 2008), they will read those as well and then let me know what they think of them too, and soon we will all be interacting and it will be nice, very nice. Cool?
Cool.
Ben also wants you to know that he compulsively blogs at This Blog Will Change Your Life, the center of his vast, albeit faux media empire and oversees This Zine Will Change Your Life which he thinks you should read and link with.
