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The Unloaded Camera Snapshots were initiated as a response to the condition that occurs when we’ve lived somewhere for a while; live anywhere long enough & we begin to show signs of sensory overload. In order to survive we learn to ignore, deaden our senses to become “inured to the ravages” so that we “scarcely notice anymore” [Flora Lewis]. This jadedness lets us believe we’re outwitting our environment.
In order to reinvent everyday life, plantenga applied a strategy of documenting the “snapshots” of daily life in Paris. He wrote down one incident or observation per day for a year, which resulted in the companion book to this one, PARIS SCRATCH. This continued upon his return to NYC & then, with AM✫STAR✫DAM, recommenced when he moved to Amsterdam.
This second book features 365 zen blinks, pop flashes, heated moments, & satori-sloshed sidewalk haikus that re-pollinate existence with the fecund details of the quotidian.
A.E. Housman once observed: “Having drunk a pint of beer at luncheon, I would go out for a walk. As I went along, there would flow into my mind, with sudden & unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza.”
“Evokes a similar magic to Baudelaire’s Paris and Kafka’s Prague.
NY Sin Phoney is not only well worth the price, it’s a steal.”
—Mark McCawley, editor of Urban Grafitti
“Look carefully at these written snapshots to see what lurks below the surface & don’t be surprised if you feel a bit self-conscious, frightened, even nauseous at times.”
—steve dalachinsky, PEN Award author of The Final Nite & Other Poems
bart plantenga is the author of the Autonomedia books: the novel Beer Mystic (2017), the short story collection Wiggling Wishbone, & the novella Spermatagonia: The Isle of Man plus the companion to this book: Paris Scratch (Sensitive Skin). His books Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World & Yodel in HiFi plus the CD Rough Guide to Yodel have created the misunderstanding that he is one of the world’s foremost yodel experts. He is one of the co-founders of the seminal New York writing group, the Unbearables (1985) & co-edited the anthology Unbearables (1995). He’s currently working on an Amsterdam-Brooklyn novel Radio Activity Kills with his daughter. As a radio DJ, he has produced Wreck This Mess in NYC, Paris & Amsterdam since 1986. Photo by Jose Padua at the 1992 Downtown Beirut book launch party for the early chapbook versions of Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor.
black and white |
6" x 9" |
150 pgs. |
978-0-9961570-5-6 |
$15.95 |
release date: January, 2017 