54 Comments

I’m reading Make Something Up right now. Loving it!

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I've only read about half the stories in Make Something Up and the crowning jewel for me is still Knock, Knock. The way Chuck reuses elements, how he mixes elements is so satisfying. He sets up a joke but later weaves the punchline within the narrative. Clever stuff. You got a favorite so far, Ken?

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Agreed. Knock knock is my favorite short story of all time. Brilliant.

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“Red Sultans Big Boy” is my favorite

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I liked that one too.

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I haven’t got to Knock, Knock yet. Favourite so far is Eleanor. I love the use of language. A character in one of my novels speaks in a mangled form of English, mashing words together to make new ones. So I loved this use of not quite right words that still get across the meaning.

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Video unavailable in my country. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be Canadian.

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Damn. I’ll never be banned.

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But are you really TRYING!??

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Oh I’m trying, sir!

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The wife bans me all the time and I'm barely trying. . .

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Out of curiosity, do know what the straw that broke the camel’s back was when it came to ‘Make Something Up’ getting banned? Like any story or scene from a story in particular?

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My long time editor, Gerry Howard, forbid the story 'Cannibal.' He said it went beyond offensive. I showed Gerry how the story had been published in Playboy magazine and had garnered a huge following, and Gerry caved. But it was a sticking point.

Even earlier, the fiction editor for Playboy -- Chris Napolitano -- had rejected 'Guts' until he saw the crowd response to a public reading at Union Square. He bought the story then and there. Sometimes you have to build a readership while on the road.

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How can you not run with a story when it’s earned such a moniker as “beyond offensive”? That’s the kinda glowing review you stick on the cover of a book.

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Watching the movie right now. Classic! Though I feel like the home video/theatrical version is toned down from what they screened at Sundance.

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If my husband says something stupid, I walk off muttering, 'Fucking knave.'

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Just finished watching the whole piece. I'm floored by how entitled and aggressive these religious groups are. They're just chipping away at absolutely everything. Everything.

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Let's not invest too much energy there. Give it a good shrug.

Kids in every church school in America have written to me. My banned books circulate secretly among the students, makes me feel like V.C. Andrews!

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That's pretty great! I just love that.

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May 10Edited

Chuck, have you read Susan Orlean's book, _The Library Book_? I *highly* recommend it. In there she shares a story from some high schooler (forget all the details) but the student worked at a library where all of the "obscene" books were locked in a certain caged area. Because she worked there she had access to the key. When everyone had gone home (iirc) she methodically read every book in the caged area.

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Yeah my parents were very religious and never paid attention to the books I was reading. They didn't even pay attention when I sat in the basement of my Uncle's place reading through his entire collection of playboys. I thought they were stupid when they complained about me reading Dragonlance novels when I was high school. I mean seriously people. I was reading way worse stuff when I was in grade school but if books with magic are the hill you want to die on. They would have been the type of people to ban Harry Potter.

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My parents were very religious, and they paid attention to EVERYTHING. Well, my mom did anyway. When I was a teenager, somebody gave me a joke magazine: Cowsmopolitan, which was exactly what it sounds like -- a parody of Cosmo but with cows. My mom found it and took it, used a scissors to cut out any "risqué" parts, then gave it back to me. 😆 And yet I managed to get my hands on anything I wanted, and having to be sneaky just made it feel more special. So yeah.

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What was your favorite little thing that you got over on them?

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Ooh, good question. The first thing that comes to mind is a memory I have of catching Carrie on TV and watching it on this like 10” TV in my room with the sound as low as possible and my hand hovering near the channel-changer in case one of my parents barged in. I made it through the whole movie without being interrupted, and it was absolutely thrilling.

What about you (besides Playboy)?

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That is awesome. I also had a TV in my room. A little black and white one that I bought at a garage sale. In highschool I had a bedtime of 9pm because my parents were weird and didn't think I could get up at 5:30am without going to bed so early. ST:TNG came on at 9pm on Fox so I watched that turned down low. Friday by Robert Heinlein was something I read in 8th grade that had lots of sex and questionable situations. In highschool I read a lot of Piers Anthony and he is all over the place. His novel Firefly is likely banned in a lot of places.

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I was one of those kids writing to you at 14 from a religious household. I was also watching the segment last night when the book got name-dropped. Proper kismet.

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I attended the religious school in Indiana Amy Coney Barrett worked with for a while, run by the cult People of Praise-- a non-fun smug boring cult.

In my second year there, I found Fight Club.

Mr. P doesn't know it but his words protected my mental health and armed me with rebellion, while I was being taught to hate others (and my queer self) in the name of god.

During the pandemic I had to move back to Indiana for a while. Once again, Mr. P's threw me a lifeline in the form of his video tour and this substack.

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I saw that, Chuck, and I gave you a shout-out in the comments section. HELLA GOOD.

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Jon Oliver did another episode recently in the same vein, and there’s video from what I believe is a school board meeting of a very proper older lady reading “eat the pussy” over and over, capped off with a “but he did show me how to eat a butthole.” Comedy gold. I want to do an entire novel of it, like in The Shining. “All work and no play makes Jack eat a butthole.”

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Once upon a time, I had Choke on DVD. Love Sam Rockwell, especially in Gentleman Broncos.

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Same. And same.

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Keep your dvds! You never know when a film will disappear from streaming. Go ahead, try to find young Brendan Fraser's Airheads.

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I gave away thousands of dollars worth of CDs, DVDs, and video games before I left home and traveled for several years.

"I aint fartin on no snare drum"

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I wanna write a book that will get me banned from the universe.

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The people banning books dont ever read, and they dont understand how anything works. The problem is that sensible people have better shit to do than play stupid games to win stupid prizes. The kids who want to read will get what they want to read regardless.

"Moms for Liberty" is the most unintentionally ironic name for a bunch of numbnuts ever.

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I use that many fucks in one chapter… noted.

Also. Am I the only asshole who’s been pronouncing Chucks last name wrong for two fucking decades? Oof

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I had a similar revelation about a year ago…total gut-punch. Like how the EFFFF did I get that wrong for so many years? So I’ll fall on the sword with you here.

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You haven't read everything he's written. Not sure where but he lays out the correct pronunciation. Get to readin!

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Chuck, how do you feel if someone took a story through Google translate, translated it through 40 languages and turned it in for gloves off? That sounds like a fun disaster.

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When I first saw this post, I registered "Banned...John" and my butt tightened up.

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The book and the movie were both *chef kiss*

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