3:AM Magazine

Hiag Akmakjian was born in New York of Armenian immigrant parents. He is an photographic artist, taught by Ansel Adams, and is the author of the novel 30,000 Mornings and Snow Falling from a Bamboo Leaf, an essay on haiku. His Cafe Mornings is a Rabelaisian memoir of his student days in Montparnasse and his story, ‘A Room on the Left Bank,’ anthologised in 3:AM London, New York, Paris. His all-time favourites are:

1. ‘Clair de Lune,’ — Debussy
2. ‘Clair de Lune,’ — Faure
“The two Clair de Lunes are based on the same sonnet–of that name–by Mallarme.”
3. ‘Das Kraehe,’ — Schubert
4. ‘Chanson Triste,’ — Henri Duparc
5. ‘Fiocca La Neve,’ — Respighi

Noah Cicero lives in Youngstown, Ohio, and is the author of the novels The Human War, The Condemned, Burning Babies and Treatise, and the e-books transmissions from noah x to tao x and The Living and the Dead. He has been anthologised in The Edgier Waters and ‘At Home by the Hudson’ is in 3:AM London, New York, Paris. Here are Noah’s top 5 tunes & books:

1. ‘Wagon Wheel,’ — Old Crow Medicine Show
2. ‘Achilles Last Stand,’ — Led Zeppelin
3. ‘Keys to the Highway,’ — Big Bill Broonzy version
4. ‘The Harder They Come,’ — Jimmy Cliff
5. ‘Hallelujah,’ — Jeff Buckley version
 
1. Life and Fate, — Vasily Grossman
2. The Outsider, — Richard Wright
3. Nausea, — Jean-Paul Sartre
4. The Call of The Wild, — Jack London
5. My Life, — Anton Chekhov

Move over Jarvis, Archie’s here:

More on Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog [via The Morning News]. It’s good. But not as good as Shatner, obviously.

Fiona Dunscombe won the Dundee International Book Prize [2007] for The Triple Point of Water, which draws on her experiences of working as a stripper in Soho in the Eighties. She has written drama for radio and her plays have been shortlisted for and awarded prizes at two London Radio Playwrights Festivals. She now lives in France and her story, ‘Shifting Sands’, can be read in 3:AM London, New York, Paris. Fiona says: “It struck me that [a] music list was more mutable (even from day to day) and emotional; the books thing is more about ways of seeing the world, so it might take a decade to start to view favourite books in a different light. Five of my favourite books are…”

1. Gilead, — Marilynne Robinson
2. Knowledge of Angels, — Jill Paton Walsh
3. Eating Children, — Jill Tweedie
4. The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, — Melissa Bank
5. The Vagina Monologues, — Eve Ensler

Chris Cleave is the author of Incendary, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and adapted into a film. His new novel, Little Bee, will be published in August, but you can read his story ‘Oyster’ in 3:AM London, New York, Paris. Chris writes: “I’m a 30-something dad and I figure who cares what music I like? I mean, my last five tunes I listened to would include ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round’ and the theme music to Fireman Sam (top tune, by the way…). Novels is my thing really, so I can happily give you my five of those I read most recently if you like? Otherwise you’d better put me down as ‘Wheels on the bus…’

1. Cannery Row — John Steinbeck
“An all-time favourite.”
2. God’s Own Country — Ross Raisin
“Incredible debut novel.”
3. East of Acre Lane — Alex Wheatle
“Brilliant and often very funny — see also his new book The Dirty South.”
4. Ubik — Philip K Dick
“Another old favourite.”
5. Disturbing the Peace — Richard Yates
“Bleak and bloody amazing.”

Ed Park is an editor of The Believer, an associate editor for the Poetry Foundation, creator of The New-York Ghost, author of numerous blogs and writer of Astral Weeks, a monthly SF column in the LA Times. His novel, Personal Days, is forthcoming from Random House in May and his story, ‘The Alchemists’, can be found in 3:AM London, New York, Paris. Ed plays in the garage band Psychic Envelopes and he tells us he has been listening to:

1. ‘Toast,’ — Streetband
2. ‘Babies,’ — Pulp
3. ‘Berlin Wall,’ — Psychic Envelopes
4. ‘San Bernardino,’ — Mountain Goats
5. ‘Plus Ones,’ — Okkervil River

Writers take over Libération. * Andrei Codrescu’s Exquisite Corpse is back after a year-long hiatus (and it even includes a new story by Tom Bradley). * The second coming of a major talent: Lee Rourke on Ben Myers. * Trainspotting — The Prequel: “It’s about how Renton and Sick Boy went from being daft young guys just out for the buzz on drugs, to total junkie”(more here). Swells puts the boot in again: “He [Welsh] is what he’s always wanted to be — a literary novelist. He is and has always been a conservative writer, fulfilling all the criteria of ‘good writing’ — a fact often missed by prissy critics blinded by his flurries of fecality. So what if he’s a one trick pony? That never did PG Wodehouse or Tom Sharpe or George MacDonald Frasier or Slade any harm. But there’s the rub. Those chaps were more than happy to be considered superb craftsmen. Welsh wants to be considered an artist — a curiously bourgeois ambition. I wish he’d give it up and allow himself to become the great comic genre novelist he could be if only he’d let himself. In fact, if I could. I’d like to revisit the young Irvine Welsh - before he became addicted to the notion of being a ’serious’ writer — and advise him to whack out mass-market junkie and physically rotted cop comedies by the score, and not give a damn about what Hilary and Camilla have to say. Choose life, lad, choose life.” * Malcolm McLaren is back too: “In one regard, The Game follows the punk aesthetic: it’s very DIY and has this gorgeous amateurish aspect to it. I’ve always thought that gaming and YouTube and the web is a very post-punk extravaganza. Punk sowed the seeds of this DIY attitude, and now technology means it can go further than most people thought it would 30 years ago. …So the BBC should be praised for commissioning mad, experimental, programming like this, as much as a disaster one might want to suggest it is. Everyone should be commended for allowing people to make disasters, to make failures - you’ve just got to be sure that it’s a magnificent failure and that, by creating a magnificent failure, you plant the seed”. * McSweeney’s turns ten; as does France’s “new generation literature” collection. * The next internet revolution. * Nick Denton, King of NY gossop. * Writers: to blog or not to blog? * Is Martin Amis a blogophobe? * DJ Taylor and Sam Jordison celebrate Alan Sillitoe’s 80th. * Young novelist Antoine Dole (who will feature in the Offbeat Generation anthology) has just set up a “micropublishing company” called Editions Impact Verbal. Their mission is to publish slim volumes which they aim to sell very cheaply in cafés or at gigs instead of bookshops. The first three titles will appear in June. * Oi! Hands off our music! * The King of Soho snuffs it. * Courttia Newland’s West 10 LDN. * London’s 30 most erotic writers including Molly Parkin (3:AMer Sophie Parkin’s mum) and Stewart Home (nominated by 3:AMer James Bridle). * On D. A. Levy. * One for Susan Tomaselli: Serge Clerc’s comic-strip biography. * Joe Stretch and other musicians turned writers. * Petite Anglaise’s love affair with Belleville. * Don’t vote for me (in fact, don’t vote at all). * The Aquarium’s Bid for Ken. * Patience is a virtue.

Nina-Marie Gardner lives in London and Boston and edits college and grad school application essays to support her poor-girl’s international bi-coastal existence. She started out as a contributing editor at Flavorpill and her dirty messy little stories have appeared in the anthology Bedford Square and 3:AM. Her story ‘Barrio Superstar’ is in 3:AM London, New York and Paris. She is currently at work on the 99, 999th draft of her first novel, I’m Not This Girl and has been listening to a lot of the soundtrack that inspired it, from the mid-nineties in LA:

1. ‘The Falling Kind,’ – Semi-Gloss
2. ‘Too Civilized’ – 9-Iron
3. ‘He’s Kissing Christian,’ – That Dog
4. ‘Reign or Fall,’ – Michael Petak
5. ‘Roadrunner,’ – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

Matthew Wascovich (pictured left) was one of the very first 3:AMers. He is the founder of Slow Toe Publication & Record Institute and a member of several bands, notably Thee Scarcity of Tanks (see forthcoming gigs below). Matthew is currently listening to:

1. Whirl of Nothingness — Paul Flaherty
2. Seven Reasons for Tears — Borbetomagus
3. Rusted Breath Quiet Hands — Matthew Welch & Craig Colorusso
4. Deliverance — Paul Metzger
5. 33 1/3 — Smegma

20 March 2008
Nick Painter’s Basement - Pittsburgh, PA
NATE SCHEIBLE & MATTHEW WASCOVICH with Shep & Me (Pittsburgh, PA), Fuck Telecorps (Pittsburgh, PA)

21 March 2008
Berks Street Warehouse - Philadelphia, PA
NATE SCHEIBLE/MATTHEW WASCOVICH/JACK WRIGHT TRIO with
Talibam (Brooklyn, NY), Magnet City Kids (Philadelphia, PA), Gun Muffs (Philadelphia, PA)

22 March 2008
Dead Herring - Brooklyn, New York
DANIEL CARTER/NATE SCHEIBLE/MATTHEW WASCOVICH/JACK WRIGHT QUARTET with Talibam (Brooklyn, NY), Deep Hits (Brooklyn, NY)

27 March 2008
All Go Signs - Cleveland, Ohio
THEE SCARCITY OF TANKS with Nalle (Glasgow, Scotland), Paul Metzger (Minneapolis, MN), Black Forest/Black Sea (Pittsburgh, PA)

28 March 2008 - Spontaneous Infinity Improvised Music Festival
Velvet Lounge - Washington, D.C.
NATE SCHEIBLE & MATTHEW WASCOVICH with Elliott Sharp ,
John Dierker/Vattel Cherry/Toshi Makihara, Jaimie Branch/March Riordan, Thus