Punk Hooks and Rare Books: An Interview With SAVAK

SAVAK

Since their formation in 2015, Brooklyn’s SAVAK have been on a tremendous run, releasing album after album of blistering garage-punk at an admirable pace. Their latest album, Flowers of Paradise, is a fantastic addition to their discography, blending a postpunk urgency with the sense of warmth that longtime musical compatriots can summon. I spoke with Sohrab Habibion and Michael Jaworski about the genesis of their new album, the rare book trade, and my inability to identify an EBow.

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Checking In With Lauren Denitzio of Worriers

Worriers

It’s been a busy year and change for Worriers‘ Lauren Denitzio. Their band has released two albums since the beginning of 2023: Warm Blanket and Trust Your Gut. Worriers is now on the road sharing bills with Alkaline Trio and Drug Church, and Denitzio’s excellent newsletter Get It Together is a go-to source for musings on the creative life and terrific musical recommendations. As Worriers makes their way across the country, I checked in with Denitzio about their latest albums, life in California, and tour reading.

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Haunted Places and Haunted Stories: An Interview With Rebecca Turkewitz

Rebecca Turkewitz

Where, exactly, can you find the dividing line between a ghost story and a story about ghosts? In her new collection Here in the Night, Rebecca Turkewitz explores that fascinating boundary. There are moments that stray into the uncanny here, for sure, but Turkewitz also explores the effects of ghost stories and local folklore on her characters, leading to moments that illustrate just how tales of the uncanny can have similar effects to the uncanny itself. I spoke with her about her collection, her own experiences with folktales, and what’s next for her.

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Punk Rock Body Horror: On Alison Rumfitt’s “Brainwyrms”

"Brainwyrms" cover

One of the first books I read in 2023 was Alison Rumfitt’s novel Tell Me I’m Worthless. There’s a small subset of books I’m fond of that seem to follow a traditional narrative path, right up until the point that they don’t. Brian Evenson’s Last Days is one, as is Percival Everett’s Assumption. Rumfitt’s debut fits in here as well: it’s something of a haunted house story, but as the novel continues on towards its conclusion, it got weirder; Rumfitt moved away from the tropes of haunted house narratives to push towards something deeper and scarier about trauma and inheritance.

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Art and Literature In an Endless Cycle: Tomoé Hill on “Songs for Olympia”

Tomoé Hill

There’s a long history of literary works inspired by literary works or works of art. For her new book Songs for Olympia, Tomoé Hill opted to go one layer deeper. Her book opens a dialogue with Michel Leiris’s The Ribbon at Olympia’s Throat, which is itself a response to a Manet painting. That said, a detailed knowledge of Leiris’s book is not necessary for enjoyment of Hill’s’; instead, the earlier work by Leiris and Manet provides Hill with a vantage point from which she can reckon with questions of art, gender, intimacy, and her own history. It’s a mesmerizing work, and I caught up with Hill earlier this year to discuss it in greater detail.

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Revisiting the Rust Belt in Words and Pictures With Jay Halsey

Jay Halsey

To read Jay Halsey’s Barely Half in an Awkward Line is to be immersed in its author’s world and the places and people at their heart — sometimes literally. This book blends terse poetry, haunting prose, and mysterious images, all of which combine to bring the reader into the author’s history and the places closest to them. I spoke with Halsey about the book’s genesis and its new edition — as well as what the deal was with the masked figures that factor prominently into the book’s second half.

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Revisiting “The New Brooklyn Cookbook” 14 Years Later

"The New Brooklyn Cookbook"

It’s been well over a decade since the publication of Melissa Vaughan and Brendan Vaughan’s The New Brooklyn Cookbook. Featuring dispatches and recipes from 31 restaurants throughout the borough, the cookbook offered a memorable snapshot of notable eateries at that point in time. I’ve had a copy of the cookbook in my apartment since not long after it was first published, and a few years ago I began to wonder: what happened to the 31 spots featured in here?

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