Story
The Shadow Lifts Off Before You
bart plantenga
We were speeding at a rate some might consider reckless. But I’m a cabbie, so I know what I’m doing. The man was late and it’s just common courtesy to get him to his destination on time.
To quote fellow cabbie Aust...
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Story
Parisian Literary Imposter
bart plantenga
Luke discovered Sophie’s latest map, “LUKE’S BRAIN – XXX DESIRES & FANTASYS & BEAUCOUP DE RIEN,” taped to the perfectly fine desklamp he’d rescued from the street. Sophie hated that lamp, the kink in its aluminum...
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Story
Mermaids Are People Too
bart plantenga
“That happens to be nothing less than a mermaid.
An authentic, flesh & blood mermaid.”
—William Powell, Mr. Peabody & the Mermaid
Bikini Girl requested – demanded! – that I show up at the Monkey Bar in a...
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Podcasts
S02E10 – bart plantenga
bart plantenga
Novelist and essayist bart plantenga in conversation with Bernard Meisler.
Amsterdam-based bart plantenga is a novelist and essayist (PARIS SCRATCH, NY SIN PHONEY) and one of the co-founders of the Unbearables lite...
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Essay
Mike Golden: The Unbearable Beatnik of Lite – & Dark
bart plantenga
I come from a long line of people who drank rat poison. They got headaches every time because they thought the skull & crossbones over the instructions was just a cool logo.
Mike Golden [RIP], bless and rest his littl...
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Story
Radio Activity Kills
bart plantenga & Paloma Jet
Excerpt number 3 from Radio Activity Kills, by bart plantenga & paloma jet
DJ Kees flees Amsterdam under mysterious circumstances with teen daughter, Alouette. A new life in the USA leads to an obligatory hitchhiking road...
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Book
Paris Scratch vs. NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor
bart plantenga
Introducing 6 new video snapshots, 3 each from Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor, which will hopefully illustrate the fortuitous strategy of the 2 books, a basic, not-well-thought-out premise of wandering & do...
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Essay
Mark McCawley RIP
bart plantenga
“I had become periodically insane, with long bouts of horrible sanity...”
--Mark McCawley, “Sick Lazy Fuck”
I knew something was up on 3 counts: I had just posted something on the 19 April death of Richard Lyons ...
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Writing
Joined at the Hips
bart plantenga
When you hitchhiked back then, before it was redefined as criminal trespass – and dangerous – you could get around OK and once in a while catch a ride with someone you would never have met in your regular life. [Do not t...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #20: Eddie Woods Has Been Around the Block – With & Without Tennessee
bart plantenga
“If Tennessee Williams doesn’t know what to do with his life, why should I worry?”
~ Eddie Woods, Tennessee Williams in Bangkok
Eddie Woods and I go back to October 1978. It was in Amsterdam at the Ins & Out...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #20: Ron Kolm: No Longer Chugging Rank Cologne
bart plantenga
Ron Kolm: No Longer Chugging Rank Cologne
One of the perils of the fast life is that if you’re not synchronized with the prevailing velocity you lose focus, things get blurry, imprecise, or you end up getting dragged a...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #19: Beer in Times of Distillation
bart plantenga
“glory wreathes, flutes” • Karen Garthe, “Buckle Up, Sweetie”
bart plantenga
I buy beer when other purchasing behavior fails. I drink beer to slow down the ridiculous spin of this earth & defuse those who...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #18: The Long Windy Road to a Closed Bar
bart plantenga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqEeL1QzGsc
BEER MYSTIC: Read Beer Drink Novel: I thought by serving words in the name of beer & side effect mysticism would be repaid in not only the enchantment of words & the jo...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #17: Beer Party Trumps Tea Party Any Day
bart plantenga
A discussion with activist cartoonist and BEER MYSTIC host, Ken Avidor [here posed as Greek God of Mini-Golf, Nkolfus, in Asbury Park, c. 1984].
I knew Ken [aka Weiner] for many years in NYC, during its – or was it jus...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #16: Books – Increasingly Illegal Intoxicants?
bart plantenga
An interview with Karen Lillis
When I was just beginning high school I was one scared, miffed, gawky, pimply kid, unlike the rest of the kids somehow. But what kid of 13 didn’t feel that way? (photo: Karen in the ...
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