Stonewall Honor, Rainbow List for SPARKS

Thrilled beyond measure to announce that SPARKS has been named as one of the Stonewall Honor books, not to mention the ALA's Rainbow List, for 2013!  There I was, sitting in the bathroom (as one always is when these things happen) when my phone started going nuts on my desk.

Lesson: watched pots never boil; spend more time in the bathroom away from your phone.

I may even start posting as SJ again.  Normally, you can follow me under my usual name,  Adam Selzer , both at that home page and on twitter.


SO pleased and hoping this leads more people to read the book!

Some Notes from Adam

I'm thrilled to hear that Sparks is up for the ALA Rainbow List. That's fantastic.

I haven't updated this page in a while, or SJ's twitter, because no one was looking at either of them, anyway. Attempts to get "SJ Adams" off the ground as an alternate persona, which I thought might even replace my old one, never really got anywhere. Since some people wondered, here's why I put Sparks out under SJ Adams, not my own name, for the benefit of people who stumble onto here:

1. There was an "Adam Selzer" book coming out the same day as Sparks. Two under my own name on the same day seemed like overkill to me.

2. So many reviews of my previous book had opened with something like "I didn't think I'd like this, because it's by a guy."  That's something to consider, particularly when your main character is female. The fact that Debbie was lesbian was another x-factor; I imagined that there would some people who would be rubbed the wrong way by seeing a guy's name on a lesbian book. The old trick of using initials so no one could tell what gender you are seemed like the way to go.

3. Look, publishing is mostly misery and humiliation for us mid-listers. My books are the kind that generally get very good reviews, but don't amaze anybody sales-wise. I've never had one that was easy to find in stores. I've had publishers forget to show me the cover, forget to submit my books to the trade reviewers, or forget to send me any copies (this last one happens all the time, actually). After a while, you DO get to a point where publishers say "Hey, we love this guy, but based on his numbers he's probably not worth the risk." After enough of that, you start thinking "Well, fine, I don't want to be that guy anymore. I'll go be somebody else."

Knowing what I know now about what happened with Sparks and the other book that was out that day, I wish I'd just gone ahead and put it out under my own name, but, well, here we are. I've toyed with having my "Satanic YA" novel (currently being shopped around by my agent) to be an Adam/SJ collaboration, but it would just be a little attempt at giving Sparks a boost. I love Sparks. I think it's my favorite of all my books. I'm thrilled that it's being considered for any sort of list.

Worst Episode Ever (The Girl Who Looked Like Kimmy Gibbler)

While looking for new and exciting ways to plug SPARKS, we ran across an mp3 of Adam singing a song about stalking a girl who looks like Kimmy Gibbler, the annoying neighbor on Full House. Since SPARKS holds the world record for most Full House references ever in a published novel, I re-convened one of the house bands, The Holy Quests, and had them re-record this little gem. Here's hoping that Andrea Barber doesn't take out a restraining order on Adam.

So we recorded it in honor of the fact that the staff is off to see the Beach Boys reunion show tonight. Enjoy!




Adam says that he mailed a copy of this to Andrea Barber's management (or something) 10 years ago just to be on the safe side. He never heard anything, so he assumed they didn't want to sue or anything. Here's Adam with Dave Coulier. Call him UNCLE Joey and you die. He was Danny's best friend. He wasn't anyone's Uncle. That was Jesse. Who Adam once waited on at a restaurant.

I'm back.

I've made it back from the arctic. I did not see Santa. But I'm not dead yet. In fact, I'm nominated for the ALA's Rainbow List.

I didn't come back to Chicago right away. In fact, I rolled through Canada to the great lakes (in that contraption of my own making) to go to Rochester, where the boss and I were both booked at the Teen Book Fest. Rode in a hot rod with AS King, caroused with Terry Trueman, Barry Lyga, Paul Griffin, Shawn Goodman, James Kennedy, and Jack Ferraiolo.

And, of course, as soon as I got back to Chicago and HQ, Selzer put me back to work.

"THERE you are!" he said. "Thank god. I need someone to make me a set of Don't Trust the B in Apt 23 action figures."

"Huh?"

"Complete with a coffee shop action playset. Hurry. I want to act out my favorite scenes. And by the way, I think I might be going into the basement of the building on the site of the Murder Castle next month for a cable show to look for ghosts, so you'll want to start drilling the interns for what to do if something goes wrong."

"Gotcha."

"And we're getting some hate mail from Oxfordians ever since the Shakespeare guides came out."

"Naturally."

"And I started you a tumblr so we can see about getting some people to pay you five bucks for holy quests."

"Why?"

"So we can be tax exempt!"

"You're weird, Selzer."

Maybe I should go look for Santa again.

New Tumblr based on Sparks

HOLY QUESTS FROM THE CHURCH OF BLUE

Message from Adam

Hi, folks. Adam Selzer here, S.J.'s boss on the Smart Aleck Staff. Just thought I'd give you a bit of an update about SJ and his whereabouts.

Most authors go through a sort of "post launch depression" when their book comes out and doesn't make a huge splash. After a dozen odd books that got good reviews but were hard to find in stores, I'm sort of used to it. S.J. isn't, though. We all deal with it in our own ways. Most of us whine about our publishers, or Barnes and Noble, or the simple fact that there's no market for YA humor these days. SJ didn't complain at all. That's not the kind of writer SJ is. But that's not to say there was no post-launch depression. SJ always wanted to Do Big Things, and slowly realized that putting a book out isn't as Big as it seems.

In January, a couple of months after SPARKS came out, SJ showed up at Smart Aleck HQ with this giant canvas ball - about the size of a monster truck - that barely fit into a city parking space.

"SJ," I said, "what the heck is this?"

"All terrain vehicle," SJ said. "Invented it myself. Look inside."

Inside of the thing, there was nothing but an axl with a hammock hanging off of it. "This baby'll roll over land or sea," said SJ. "You steer by sliding the hammock up and down the axle to shift the weight."

"SJ," I said, "what the heck are you going to do with this?"

"I'm going on an expedition," said SJ. "To the north pole."

"Like in Winnie the Pooh?"

"Yeah."

"You know that since that book came out, they've discovered the north pole, right?" I asked.

"Did they find Santa?"

"Uh, no."

"Then they weren't really at the pole."

And SJ climbed into the hammock and the big canvas balloon rolled away down Grand Avenue, towards Lake Michigan. I guess SJ was planning to take the Great Lakes into Canada and head to the pole from there.

A few weeks back we got a note saying "Have been in the arctic for two weeks without snuff."

SJ doesn't use snuff anyway, so none of us here at HQ thought much about it.

But that's the last we've heard. I'm sure SJ is still okay out there, and has not frozen to death or been eaten by a polar bear.

- adam

What S.J. stands for....

For those who've asked, S.J. stands for Satan Jehosephet.

Like all authors who go by initials, I am gender-neutral.

I just kicked Adam Selzer's ass at tetherball.

The Smart Aleck Staff is in high-gear trying to get new guides going. The Smart Aleck's Guide to Grave Robbing is now on ibooks.  Just click here:

On the Air!

KMSU has posted a 20 minute segment in which I discuss, and read from, SPARKS.

Listen to it or download it here!

A Pair of Holy Quests

Some holy quests from Emma and Tim's scrapbook.

#73: Kick old ladies' butts at bingo and act all arrogant about it. Bingo hustlers, yo!

#55: Find a guy with the same name as a U.S. president at get his autograph. 

New review: SPARKS is "a game-changer"

There are some reviews that have launched people's careers - like Dorothy Parker's review of Harlan Ellison. Or Robert Shelton's review of Bob Dylan. Or the one from 1974 where Jon Landau said "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen." Shelton's review got Dylan a record deal (with Columbia. At age 20). Landau finally got Columbia to pay attention to Bruce instead of just slipping him out and thinking of dropping him (that anyone COULD get dropped after those stunning first two records sort of makes you take pause). And that Ellison could have been thought of as strictly a pulp fiction guy given the quality of his best 1950s/early 60s work is sobering.

I don't think any YA blog has the same pull as Parker, Shelton or Ellison did in their prime, honestly. There's a middle grade blog or two where a rave can make a real difference in your sales, but YA is a different world. In fact, I've been a fairly harsh critic of all those Memes n Drama blogs that focus more on contests than content. And I'm not alone. Honestly, if I repeated the way I'd heard authors, agents, and editors complete the sentence "there are a few great blogs, but...," the scandal would go on for weeks. Authors are known to kiss up to bloggers incessantly in public - I've played that game myself. But believe me, when we meet for lunch or a drink, the conversation is different.

However, there are a few in particular that I really do recommend. Like The Book Lantern, which is known to ruffle some feathers with its criticism of some of the dominant themes in today's YA (it's drama, but it's for a good cause). And there's John Jacobsen's Dreaming in Books , one of the rare male voices in the YA blogosphere, whose reviews are lengthy and articulate. Like Roger Ebert, even when you don't agree with John, you at least get the idea that he knows what he's talking about, and get a sense of whether you might like/dislike a book more than he did (and, incidentally, if you read Ebert's 1 and 4 star reviews, you can skip every "writing craft" book out there - he may be writing about movies, but he'll tell you all you need to know about writing). These are blogs that expect writers to write good books - not just to stick to the trends.

Reviews on these blogs may still not get Columbia to push you so hard that you end of on the cover of TIME and NEWSWEEK in the same week, but they're gratifying as all get out.

So it's REALLY nice to get a good review from him. A REALLY good one. Like Parker on Ellison, Shelton on Dylan, Landau on Springsteen good.  I got reviews that felt like raves from some of the trades on I Kissed a Zombie, and a couple of my others, but you only get a paragraph or two in those things.  As a writer, you always fantasize about people articulating what they like about your book at great length. I'm not going to lie to you. This is a fine ego trip at a time when I can use one. It's reviews like this that make you feel like you're good at your job and ought to keep doing it, no matter what that pesky student loan officer says.

Some excerpts:

Every once in a while an LGBTQ book comes out for the YA audience that just strikes me as being a game-changer for my expectations of LGBTQ YA.....Back to my usual schpeel - the writing in Sparks is fabulous.  Truly, truly fabulous.  This is the kind of book that will make hipster YA readers (you know who you are, peeps) and commercial readers equally happy.  The book satisfies on a basic level, but as you can tell from above, there's more here than meets the eye.  Adams writes truly hilarious situations - I laughed many, many times while reading this book - and he has a great balance of satire, regular humor, and seriousness.  He doesn't stay too serious, though, and that's what will make readers fall in love with this book....  This book is more than a journey novel - more than a cross-town road trip.....I just can't say enough about Sparks.  This is a book that is so different from the contemporary and LGBTQ YA out there today.  It's not angsty...eople that want diversity done without a heavy hand; without a stereotyped view.  They will all find something in Sparks.  Go out and buy this book.  I can't recommend it enough."  

Full review

A Joyful Playlist

I tend to go on and on about the "Ragged Glory" playlist that lasted me the whole time I worked on SPARKS, from the first draft to the last copyedits. The songs all have a ragged, soaring, triumphant quality that I wanted in the book. I don't think playlists help much with rough drafts, but they're fun to make and help me a lot on revisions. You play a song with the right vibe and try to build the scene to work like that song is playing in the background.

Today I made a very important decision that I think will change my life: I typed "Slade" into the "Create a Station" field on Pandora. The station this created has me jumping off the wall as I bang my head and sing along to "Somebody to Love," "Cum On Feel the Noise," and "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress."

It makes me want to talk about my "joyful" playlist, which I switched to for a couple of scenes in the book during revisions. Songs that sound like the band and singer are so happy they can hardly contain themselves and want you to feel the same way. Here's what's on that:

"Oh Yoko!" by John Lennon. The harmonica solo at the end is pure distilled joy.

"Hold Me Now" by Polyphonic Spree. I'm not sure what they're on about in this song - I'm never sure what these guys are on about. But they sure sound uplifting. It's like an indie "Up With People."

I always wanted to start a band called "Up To Here With People."

"Good Lovin" by the Grateful Dead. Once I was at a show where they played this, and a rainbow appeared in the sky. I told a dead head about it and he said "Yeah, that happens a lot at Dead shows. There's a lot of psychic energy." I'm pretty skeptical about stuff like that, but there's no possible scientific explanation to explain how all those VW micro-busses in the parceling lot are still running.

"We Are Golden" by Mika. Fun!

"Don't Stop Believin' (Glee version). I never felt like the show lived up to the promise of the pilot. I like it when their music really sounds more or less like something a really good glee club would do (plus guitar and drums). They usually just sound like karaoke versions. But I sure loved that pilot! Did they ever get around to the gag I assumed they were going for where "new directions" sounds like "nude erections?" The "Halo/Walking On Sunshine" mashup is on there, too.

"My Favorite Things" by The Mountain Goats. One of their dozens of "unreleased" numbers. A minute long song about hearing John Coltrane on the radio while dancing with someone you're probably about to sleep with. "you put your arm around me and it felt real fine /and your ankle brushed up against mine /  and resonating in my bones / the precise, crisp, drumming of Mr. Elvin Jones / god damn it! / i love john coltrane!" I swear he actually sings the exclamation point. John Darnielle tends to sing in italics. He does not sing his songs so much as he declares them.

"Oh, Mary Don't You Weep" by Bruce Springsteen an the Seeger Sessions band. The Seeger Sessions band sounded like what old folk music should have always sounded like, but it's a sound that couldn't exist in a world without mixing boards. An 18 piece folk band with a banjo, a tuba, an accordion, and a ragged band of gypsies vibe. I really hope he brings this band back - or makes up for the loss of Clarence by sort of merging the E Street band with some of these guys (which is pretty much what he's already started).

"Janglin" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. These guys (like Polyphonic Spree) sort of seem like a cult. But what a swell cult! One line I just can't get past here is "We want to heal ya / we don't mean to kill ya." Well, good. I wouldn't want to listen to a band that meant to kill me (and wasn't a Norwegian black metal band).

"Kick Drum Heart" by The Avett Brothers. A bouncy song on an album that is generally not bouncy.

"In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel seems like it fits into every playlist ever. All building up to the line "can't believe / how strange it is to be anything at all" which is sort of what Sparks is all about. I would have written that right in, but Flux is pretty hardcore about not quoting any lyrics. This made writing the scenes where they listen to "God Only Knows" and "This Year" and "It's All right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" an interesting challenge. This is not a song Debbie would like, though. It took forever for this band to click with me, and Debbie is not into artsy, avant grade-type stuff. Maybe one day she will be. Not yet.

"Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service. This makes me think of my wife.

"Love the One You're With" by Stephen Stills. When I was about 14 I went to see a Shakespeare in the Park thing where they did Midsummer Night's Dream with hippies in place of fairies, and between acts a band played this. One of those songs (like "You may Be Right" by Billy Joel) where, if you pay too much attention, you'll start thinking the singer is acting like a complete douchebag, but they make it fun anyway.

"What Is Life" by George Harrison. My favorite of his solo songs. "Waiting ON You All" would have worked in any Sparks playlist, too.

"My Roller Coaster" by Kimya Dawson. One of her happier songs. All the people in this book need to listen to more Kimya Dawson records. We all do, probably. The importance of "Nothing Came Out' by her band, The Moldy Peaches, to SPARKS can not be over-stated. Sounds like a funny song if you've never been "there," but I think it's really their most doggedly serious song.

"Queen of the World" by Ida Maria. I love Ida Maria. This is one of her happier songs, where the depression underneath is more effectively buried. She features very prominently on the playlist for another upcoming book tentatively titled Mad to Live, and "We're All Going to Hell" is on the Satanic YA book playlists (of course).

"Valerie Plame" by the Decemberists. "Engine Driver" turns up in most of my other playlists, but this one delights me more. Something about opening a song with "Valerie Plame / if that really IS your name" makes me smile.

"What Light" by Wilco. THe "Sing, Sing a Song" of my generation.

"The Happy Wanderer" by The Polkaholics. These guys are the greatest band in Chicago. They are a guitar-drum-bass combo that sounds like early Green Day, only they play polka. All polka is happy. It is happy music for happy people. "The Beer Barrel Polka" teaches us that something can start in Scranton and go to Number 1. The lead singer, Dandy Don Hedekker, is the name sake of the appliance store in the book I Put a Spell on You.

"Constructive Summer" by The Hold Steady. The Ragged Glory playlist was heavy on these guys.

Just added today to this list  is "Stuck On F**in' You" by Lady Gaga. Sounds like a Beggar's Banquet outtake. She should do more songs like this. I found myself wishing that whole last record was a big more organic (but in that Jim Steinman and Meatloaf way, if that makes any sense).


Some other music writings I've done:
On Green Day
The Gospel of the Mountain Goats
The Hold Steady and the Gaslight Anthem: Two Gangs Fighting In the Same Springsteen Song
On 90s Alternative as Oldies

News, all sizes

Some time soon I'll be doing a radio interview on KMSU's Weekly Reader program. More details when I have them.

Fiction State of Mind has a nice review of Sparks today.

Selzer and I are continuing work on Satan's Parents' Basement: A Novel For Young Adults Who Worship the Devil. No word on what we'll DO with it - we're very happy with it, but we're realistic about its chances of fitting into today's market. Contemporary humor with a male protagonist is a hell of a tough sell today.

Barf

If you take the map of Cornersville Trace , the made-up suburb of Des Moines where SPARKS takes place, and overlay it on a map of where it would actually be in Des Moines, Lisa's house in the book would be right about where Newt Gingrich just opened his new headquarters.  Ugh.

Hail Satan?

About a year ago Adam Selzer (my boss on the Smart Aleck Staff) got into a discussion about Christian YA novels and joked that he should write a Satanic one. He started writing down a few lines and had the first chapter pretty quickly.

He and I are collaborating on it now. he brought me in because he needed some "14+" stuff in it.

It's the story of Leon, the kid from his first two books, as an 18 year old slacker, three years after his girlfriend moved to Europe and he sort of let himself go. He now works in a b-rate ice cream place, may or may not be graduating with his class, and spends most of his time hanging around with his assistant manager, who claims to be Satan and serves as Jeeves to his Wooster. There's a full draft of it now, and we've been going through and revising it.

But what should we DO with it, anyway?

There's really no market for books like this. It's a humorous boy book in which no one gets shot or blown up. A few years ago there would have been a market for something like that, but for a book like that to find an audience these days, it pretty much has to be written by John Green. We have a lot of friends TRYING to sell books like this, and even if an editor wants it, all they're hearing from sales and marketing is "we could sell this if it were by John Green, but since it's not...."  John is sort of lucky - in the post-Twilight world, he's a YA writer that it's still socially acceptable for boys (and smart, left-of-center kids in general) to be seen reading. Boys were always a tough market in YA - it's not that they don't read, but when they hit "ya" age, they tend to gravitate more towards adult sci-fi/fantasy/horror and graphic novels. And who can blame them? The YA section is still "The Twilight Section" these days. Even most of the books that AREN'T dystopia/paranormal romance are marketed mainly to the girls who read those.

And if someone DID publish it, we don't think there's any chance they'd actually MARKET it as "a novel for young adults who worship the devil." The chain stores would probably tell them they wouldn't order any unless they removed all references to the dark lord from the cover, title, and description. And then they probably wouldn't order it anyway (getting them to carry a boy book by a midlister is a real trick these days - we'd need to have a movie version coming out or something before there'd be any demand for it).

The obvious choice, then, is to just put it out as an e-book. But there's a danger that "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Will it make it harder for us to get traditional publishers (and good contracts) for our other books if they think we're willing to just throw things out for no money upfront? And who's going to edit it? And who'll READ it? These stories you hear about people selling tons and tons (or, well, gigs and gigs) of ebooks are the exception, not the rule. What sales Adam and I get tend to come about mainly because of our good reviews reviews in the trades. We wouldn't get reviewed in the trades at all if we put it out ourselves.

And is it really better to put it out at all, or is it more fun to just tease people about it? It can be like those albums that bands record and are rumored to be masterpieces, but that, for some reason, never actually get released, and become the stuff of legend, even though they're really just okay? Not releasing this it all lends it a kind of air of mystery, doesn't it?


Anyway, the book is in revision now, and the title is either Satan's Parents' Basement or Are You There, Satan? It's Me, Leon. The Holy Quests, who did the "theme song" for Sparks, are recording a whole EP of songs connected to it which we could offer as a free download.

Or maybe we'll just keep it all on our hard drives and let you all stay curious. Muhahahaha.

The Great Battle

Adam Selzer and I have long had a challenge: we both had books out on November 8, and whoever's book  sold the fewest copies upon launch had to mow to the other guy's lawn.

I think Adam is winning so far, though my book got a lot more critical attention than his. So it's SORT of a draw, but probably more accurate to say that he's winning so far (going strictly by Amazon rankings and store availability).

Either way, though, the subject is kind of moot, since neither of us actually has a lawn.

School library journal has put out their review of Sparks, btw:

ADAMS, S. J. Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie. 258p. Flux. Nov. 2011. pap. $9.95. ISBN 978-0-7387-2676-2. LC number unavailable. 

Gr 8 Up–Debbie, a junior, has been in love with her best friend, Lisa, for five years. In fact, she has created an entire set of interests and religious beliefs as a way of remaining by her side. But when Lisa suddenly gets a boyfriend, Debbie realizes that she needs to figure out who she really is and what she really wants. With the help of two unlikely sidekicks, she sets off on a quest of hilarious adventures where she receives her first kiss, makes some great new friends, and figures out how she wants her life to look from then on out. A funny and quirky coming-of-age novel, this book will appeal to teenagers who are a little bit on the outside looking to find their places in the world.

–Sharon Senser McKellar, Oakland Public Library, CA

There's also a blog review up here:

"S.J. Adams’s descriptions are so vivid and precise it feels like you’re reading in Technicolor."

"

SPARKS giveaway!

SPARKS hit shelves all over today. Enter the HOLY QUEST giveaway! 

In the book, Emma and Tim go on Holy Quests for their made-up religion, Bluedaism. Some goals on their "holy quest checklist" include: 

"Find someone in Des Moines with a Scottish accent" 

"kick old ladies' butts at Bingo" 

"shake hands with someone who has the same name as a former US president" 

"pee in the 18th hole at the golf course" 

"plant a pressed ham at the governor's mansion"

"convince a guy with a bad combover to shave his head"

"touch something from ancient Rome"

"find a guy in a suit and tie at George the Chili King"

Suggest a new holy quest goal of your own to us at staff@smartalecksguide.com and be entered in a contest for one of five free copies! Bonus points if you actually complete the goal!

I Beat Up Adam Selzer

Just a few days until Adam Selzer and I have our new books out out.

He is not taking it well. He is rocking back and forth, obsessively checking Google Blogs and and his Google alerts, eating so much candy that I think he'll probably need insulin, and pacing back and forth (more so than usual). I'd say he's done at least a half marathon just inside of HQ today alone. By the end of the week he'll have paced so much he could have made it to Carbondale.

If, you know, he had any reason to go to Carbondale.

So, I did what my contract as Smart Aleck Staff manager says I'm to do:

I beat him. I beat him up but GOOD.

You see, in all this "anti bullying" stuff we're doing in YA lit these days, no one's really telling the bully's side of the story, except for the usual bunkum about them being scared and alone deep down. Well, sometimes, I'M a bully, and it's not because I'm scared and alone deep down, it's because Adam Selzer is driving me nuts and needs the snot beaten out of him.

He's on the couch now, with a steak over his eye. A minute ago he said, "Thanks, Sij. I needed that."

"You'd better believe you did," I said.

"Your book is going to outsell mine," he said. "I concede."

"Hey," I said, as I poured him a ginger ale. "Mine's in paperback. Easier sell. And it's got good trade reviews."

"I don't have BAD trade reviews," he said. "I just don't have any for this book yet. I did get that one on goodreads that you told me about."

Adam doesn't go on goodreads. It's blocked at HQ. But I saw one review for his new book, and it was a rave. Really, a rave. But reviews from goodreads, blogs, and trades don't really sell books, anyway. Not really. Last year Adam was on AM radio, and after 60 seconds of talking he'd had more than 10x as many web page hits as he got from all the bloggers talking about I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It combined.  He didn't get many from being on NPR last weekend, though.

He's got about half an hour before he has to go out and do a couple of ghost tours now, so that'll get him out of HQ for a while. Long enough for me to hide the candy, though. On Tuesday morning, the two of us will probably trek around to the many indie book stores in Chicagoland to see if our books are on the shelves. And I'll probably end up beating him up again at the end of the day. You should have seen how bruised he was the day that Smart Aleck's Guide came out.

In My Mailbox

In my UPS store box came a pair of copies of the final version of SPARKS!

In my mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by my butt.

Am I Hipster?

The first real, official copies of Sparks arrived at Smart Aleck HQ.  One of the interns flipped through and said "man, you listed the bands you had on your playlist in the acknowledgements? You're a hipster."

I got indignant. "No I'm not!"

I looked around the room. "Oh, you're definitely a hipster," said Adam Selzer, the boss. "I'm sure glad I'm not you!"

"Like you're not a hipster," I said. "Didn't one of your blog posts get tagged as 'hipster' on Reddit a few weeks ago?"

He gulped.

We make fun of hipsters around here a lot. Adam's movie, At Last, Okemah! made fun of them a lot (though it played primarily TO hipsters). In fact, you're hard pressed to find anyone in town who will claim to be able to stand hipsters.  But the truth is, whether we like it or not, we're hipsters here at Smart Aleck HQ - or, anyway, we'd qualify as them in most cities. We're still listening to indie rock in our early 30s, at an age when most of our old friends don't like "that awful new stuff." We live in a big city, use MacBooks, and have a record player.  We take the train. We hang out in coffee shops.

But by Chicago standards, we probably don't. There's not a single mustache in evidence at HQ, nor a trucker hat. We don't go to parties or clubs, and have seldom been seen in a hot new restaurant (even though they pop up on block now and then). We watch sitcoms. None of us precede our name with "DJ." We are not under any illusion that we have any notion of what's cool and what's not these days. In fact, I'd say that most people around here think of us as hopelessly dorky.

I like to think that we're hipsters in the classical, 1950s sense around here. We're more "bohemian" than "hipster," really. Granted, most of the bands on the "Ragged Glory: Debbie Does Detention" playlist were popular indie bands once (Moldy Peaches, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mountain Goats) but they've probably been absorbed into the mainstream enough now that I'm actually losing hipster cred by mentioning them.

But then again, we live in downtown Chicago, a pleasant walk from the "hipster corridor" of Milwaukee Avenue. We have a skewed sense of what makes one a hipster and what doesn't.

Shrunken Heads at HQ

I hate it when Adam, boss of the Smart Aleck's Guide, starts up a new collection. Especially when it's shrunken heads. This month, it's shrunken heads.

I guess someone gave him one as a tip after he ran a ghost tour, and, well, he got the bug. Now HQ is a disaster area. The heads are one thing, but they each come in a REALLY large box (you wouldn't think they would, but they do), and they're all full of styrofoam peanuts, bubble wrap, and plastic sheets.

And, yeah. The heads bother me. I keep feeling like they're going to start talking and telling me things I don't want to know.

Selzer loves them. He's even mounted a few of them onto Barbie doll bodies to make his own "2 Broke Girls" action figures. With shrunken heads. He has them set up in his own "Williamsburg Diner Action Playset."

And he's not even AROUND headquarters much these days. He's always off running tours, interviewing the grandchildren of serial killers (he got invited out to help exhume one the other day - Gd only knows what he'll bring back from THAT trip), tromping around arboretums, occupying large banks and having milkshakes in the burbs with his wife and Claudia Gray.   Meanwhile, we here on the staff are left in a mess of shrunken heads, trying to work on the new guides and dealing with the blowback from someone calling him a hipster on Reddit, and there're only three weeks until Sparks comes out (on the same day as Adam's new one, Extraordinary).

#OccupySmartAleckHQ.