I’m very happy to see another kind & thoughtful review of BADMOTORFLAPPER, this time by Harley Claes over at Angelical Ravings. Some phrases she uses include:
…homage to decadent womanhood, with surrealist style…written both eloquently and at times humorously…an entire cornucopia of sentimental remembrance…
I am enormously flattered that Jessie Janeshek, my favorite living poet, really grokked my debut poetry collection BADMOTORFLAPPER, & wrote a very kind review of it, which you can read in full on the instagram feed of Really Serious Literature.
I’ve talked about conceptual aspects of the collection; O’Brien’s craft is also strong. I love their flexibility with and careful use of form to suit both the aura of the flapper in question and the song that she’s paired with…
My debut poetry EP, BADMOTORFLAPPER, is now on sale! It’s a 10-track collection of poems I wrote as tributes to some of my favorite women of the 1920s + music of the 1990s. Some of these poems have been previously published in places like Yes, Poetry and Rag Queen Periodical, but some are exclusive to this little booklet.
Print Copies are $4US via PayPal (shipping in US only)
Digital (PDF) copies are $2US via PayPal
Track Listing
Today marks the launch of Many Loops, a fascinating new online publication obsessed with recursion. It includes “Buddy Holly,” which is a thing I wrote in 2018 about my nostalgia for Weezer’s 1994 video “Buddy Holly,” which was nostalgic for the 1970s sitcom “Happy Days,” which was nostalgic for the 1950s. It’s pretty much the most Joe O’Brien thing I’ve written to date.
This is something I’ve been writing called “Buddy Holly,” but it’s not really about the late preppy-nerdy rockabilly musician with the thick-framed glasses. It’s about a music video for a fuzzy-yet-sleek new wavy power-pop song called “Buddy Holly,” which isn’t really about the musician Buddy Holly either, it’s about how the song’s singer, Rivers Cuomo, resembles Buddy Holly.
This is something I’m writing in the year 2018, looking back affectionately and obsessively upon a music video I fell in love with when it first aired in 1994. Directed by eventual Oscar-winner Spike Jonze, the video features Weezer, a pop-rock band formed in the 1990s, playing their song “Buddy Holly” as if they were characters on Happy Days, a fondly-remembered sitcom from the 1970s that looked back warmly on American life in the 1950s.
This is about 2010s nostalgia for 1990s nostalgia for 1970s nostalgia for the 1950s. Nostalgia kinda like those Russian Nesting Dolls, or matryoshka.
So often I feel like I’m tightrope-walking above a gator-filled swamp while the world keeps chucking rotten watermelons at me, but these Flapperhouse readings make me feel all swaddled and warm. Like a birdhouse in my soul, you might say.
We’re having our 25th (!!!) one of these tomorrow night to launch our Fall issue, and there’ll be poetry & music & voodoo & telepathic football-playing dogs & on top of all that we’ll be raising funds to help immigrant families in need of legal assistance.
If you’ll be in the NYC area, feel free to swing by. I’ll be your little glowing friend, your blue canary in the outlet by the light switch, watching over you, filibustering vigilantly…
Join me & some very talented writers/performers tomorrow night (August 15) from 7-9 PM at Pacific Standard in Brooklyn as we dance with the faeries for a Mid-Summer Night’s reading!
starring
Admission is FREE, and you can purchase print copies of the latest issue of FLAPPERHOUSE for the special reading price of $5. Facebook event page here.
Tonight I’m hosting FLAPPERHOUSE’s 21st Reading to celebrate the flight of our Spring 2018 issue. The show will be from 7-9 PM at Brooklyn’s Pacific Standard (82 Fourth Ave).
starring
GREGORY CROSBY
LAURA PODOLNICK DUKHON
GABRIELA GARCIA
ALIBI JONES
KATIE LONGOFONO
ABIGAIL WELHOUSE
(& maybe more?…)
Admission is FREE, and you can buy print copies of FLAPPERHOUSE #17 for the special reading price of $5.
This is my website where you can check out things I’ve done & learn about things I will do soon. Here is a picture of me & my dog, Sprocket.
Joseph P. O'Brien 