Book Deal, Big Deal, Amen

Update: go here to get the actual book!

The deal for my new book, My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs, was listed in Publisher's Weekly this week! It's still about a zillion years away from being published (it's a picture book, and we don't even have an artist yet), but I'm excited. I'll let you know when I know anything -- although I don't really know anything at all, yet.

Except that the book is written. I do know that. And I was reading it at 5:00 this morning and getting all sorts of chills, the good kind and the kind that you get when something inhuman is watching you from a dark corner of the room, and I think you'll like it.

Here's the sale notice:

Children's: Picture book
Matthue Roth's MY FIRST KAFKA: RUNAWAYS, RODENTS, AND GIANT BUGS, a charming and delightful - or, at least, an oppressive and unsightly - introduction for precocious children, Goths, and literary nerds, to Robert McGuire at One Peace Books, by Marissa Walsh at FinePrint Literary Management (World). 

Around You

I have a new poem in the Oklahoma Review! It's actually really nice. The whole thing is out now on pdf, but in case you don't feel like scrolling to page 60, here's the first bit:

When I’m around you,
I keep my cell phone on silent
my pen in my pocket
and pretend like I can color-coordinate

When I’m around you
I act like I use a knife & fork & napkin
at every meal,
even midnight snack.

(read the rest)

Shlomo Says

this isn't mine, and i know the fonts are cringey, but it's what I needed to read today, I think. If you like it, check out shlomoyeshiva.org, cause that's where it comes from.

it's been hard being a single parent this week. i am so, so ready to be one of those workaholic parents who never sees his family and always mixes up everyone's names again. go corporate america!

A heartbreaking, deep question.

Reb Shlomo zt"l taught:
The spies had clear prophecy. They were all the greatest pupils of Moshe Rabbeinu. Why did they come back and say bad things about Israel? And also, Calev and Yehoshua, who gave them the strength to hold out? And there's so many, so many Torahs. Let me share with you one.

The first thing is that the truth is--yes, they [the spies] had clear prophecy. You know what they saw? They saw rivers of blood coming out of Yerushalayim, flooding the whole world. They saw the destruction of the First Temple and they saw the destruction of the Second Temple. They saw Auschwitz; they saw Dachau. They saw the Six-Day War, they saw the Yom Kippur War, and, you know, they said, "Why do we need it? Let's stay in the desert." So they were right. The only thing is, they made one mistake. They didn't realize that all this is only happening because of them. If they would come back and say good things, all the rivers of blood from Yerushalayim would be turned into rivers of joy.

You know how deep this is? Sometimes we see bad things in the world, we see terrible things in another human being …. but it's all your fault. It's all your fault. I mean, this is deeper than Yom Kippur--cuts right through you in a million ways.

But Yehoshua and Calev had holy eyes and where so pure they immediately saw the Gevaltige rivers of joy, so they said it’s a great Land. Every time we see only good in another person we are fixing the mistake of the spies, hastening the redemption; may it be quick in our days. Amen.

Trying to be really rosie.

maurice sendak is dead. i think this might be the thing that finally keeps me off facebook today. person after person mourning. when did it become a thing to post that someone's dead? i guess it's one more thing to identify ourselves with. one more way to build our personality out of other people's bones. and here i am, doing the same thing. i'm not sad -- i mean, he lived a full life, and he knew it was his time and he loved it, and he laughed at death, and now he's with his boyfriend, and hopefully happy, but it still ensaddens the hell out of me. here's Carole King singing "Pierre." I'm still not listening to music because it's sefira, but let's see if this gets me out of it.

R.E.M. review, circa 12th grade

One of the coolest reactions I've had to my book Automatic, a memoir about my dead best friend and my favorite R.E.M. album, was this: Mayim said that it inspired her to jump up and down on the family bed with her sons while listening to Monster. 

My first reaction was: "Monster? Really?"

Because Monster is sort of cringe-worthy to R.E.M. fans. This loud, boisterous, rock-guitar followup to this beautifully whispered string-quartet album. But I actually really like Monster. (And I guess so does Mayim?) And then last week my mother came over, trying to unload all my boxes from high school, and one of them had my review of Monster. 

I promise my music writing has gotten better. Please, trust me.

Is "Hunger Games" a Fairy Tale?

This article mostly talks about Hunger Games (which I like) (the book, not the movie) (not cause I'm anti-movie, but because I haven't figured out how to go to the movies for, like, a year) -- but the quote is about Cinderella. I've been working on video games lately, so in my brain, it's about that, too:

The real problem with fairy tales is that the protagonist never actually does anything to become a princess.  Forget about gerrymandering or slaying a dragon or poisoning her rivals: does she even get a pretty dress, go to the ball and seduce the prince?  Those may be anti-feminist actions, but at least they are actions.  No.  She is given two dresses, carried to the ball, and the Prince comes and findsher. Twice.  Her only direct and volitional action is to leave the ball at midnight, and even that isn't so much a choice as because of a threat. (1)  The clear problem with this isn't that girls will want to hold out for a Prince, but that it might foster the illusion their value is so innately high that even without pretty clothes or a sense of agency a Prince will come find them. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are worse: they don't even have to bother to stay alive to get their Prince. 

(Thanks to C. Alexander for the link.)

Israeli Food Is Safe, for now

So, um, yeah. The Co-op last night. Utter craziness. First, a recap from the Daily Show:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Co-Occupation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

The Story

Last night, the Park Slope Food Co-op had a special election, deciding whether to boycott all Israeli-made products. Because we are the Co-op and are totally masturbatory overprocessing Brooklynites, it wasn't actually a vote -- it was a vote about whether or not we should have a vote.

If I put it in one of my books, no one would ever believe it. You can't make this up, people.

Anyway. This international BDS movement (I keep wanting to say "BSDM movement," and really meant to slip up accidentally-on-purpose on stage last night, but forgot to), an organization that wants to boycott Israel, has been trying to infiltrate the Co-op for the past few years. It always comes up, but last night was the real boiling point. Two thousand people packed into an auditorium. Supposedly it cost over $10,000. The election would've cost another $20,000. The entire assembly was people speaking for one or two minutes. It was a LOT of people.


What I Said


I'm a walker, and I've gotten into some of the best fights of my life at the Co-Op. We're all different. We have nothing in common except for the fact that we like really good food. And that's the way it should be. I'm a vegetarian. I totally think the Co-op shouldn't sell meat. I also really hate lima beans, and I'd encourage everyone not to buy them. But I don't think it's right to ban other people from buying them. Keep listening to each other, people, and please, keep the arguments alive. Don't just ban them.

The Aftermath

• Got  home. Our boarders were like, "you're Internet-famous." Went through the Twitters, and there were a ton of references to "the hyper Hasid" and "this surfer with payos." Hey, I even got my own Twitter hashtag, which is super awesome and flattering, if ephemeral. Amy Sohn said "a star is born" about me! My friend Liz said " Highlight 4 me was @matthue on his hatred of lima beans." P.S. my mom is so gonna kill me.
• There were a lot of BDS people at the vote last night. A lot of them weren't actually Co-op members; they were just there to protest. I asked them, and they were really forthcoming about it. Totally fine for them to be there. On the other hand, they were the only ones not waiting to be admitted, which meant that the reporters got to speak to a lot more of them than anyone else--say, for instance, actual Co-op members. I'd call it "infiltration," but then again, I watched every episode of the X-Files  (not an exaggeration) and love conspiracy theories.
• I was one of the last people to speak. Itta said the people around us (big BDS shippers) didn't understand what I was saying -- granted, I'm not entirely coherent; I talk really fast and get bubbly, and the mic was really loud. On the other hand, I got stopped by a ton of people on the way out complimenting me. Granted, they were mostly old Crown Heights Hasidic ladies, but they were still awesome. 
• I still want someone to ask if I'm in favor of the BDSM movement so I can just say, heck yeah!

5:05 a.m.: The baby screams.

A day in the life.

Dude Week

I'm not really sure how it started, but I wound up guest-editing the mommy-blog Kveller.com, where I work, this week. We're calling it Dude Week. Let me try that again: We're calling it

And among our guest columnists are an Orthodox rabbi's husband, my boss, and Mayim Bialik interviewing her husband, since we love her at work and her man is, like, lovable squared. And he has what might be the best line of the week, which I can't repeat due to POSSIBLE SPOILERS, but you'll see soon.

Anyway, this morning I kicked it off:

We don’t write about our kids. We write about ourselves. I’m not saying this to be offensive, and I’m definitely not complaining: Look, babies sleep 18 hours a day. Most of their waking hours are spent doing slight variations on very simple tasks: feeding, peeing, vomiting, crapping, and crying. Just mention the phrase “the miracle of birth” around a new parent and they’re likely to pelt you with any one of the above-mentioned substances. 

Mommy-blogging isn’t about learning how to take care of your child. Despite what diaper companies and daytime TV commercials would like to convince you, you are born knowing how to care for your baby. Neanderthals raised babies successfully. Sloths sleep 18 hours a day, and they raise children successfully. Freaking Libertarians raise babies successfully.
Read the rest > 

Thank G-d I Didn't Name This Book "Kosher Jesus"

Okay, this is a big time for Jupiter. Next week, there's a new Jupiter story coming out -- chapter two of Enemies, the sequel to Losers, if you're keeping track. (If you aren't keeping track, Enemies is sort of a scavenger-hunt novel, where each chapter shows up in a different place -- chapter one is in this anthology, for instance.)

So I just got asked for a biography, and I wanted to include the title of the first story. I know I should really have it memorized, since I wrote it and everything, but you know that's not how these things always play out. Plus, the editor was British, and I'd originally titled it "Girl Jesus on the Uptown Train" and she didn't know what uptown meant, or that trains are what we call aboveground subways in Philadelphia (actually, we call it The El, but I knew nobody would have any clue what I was talking about if I wrote that)....anyway, we called it something like "Girl Jesus on the Inbound Subway," or maybe it was originally "Inbound Train" and we switched it to "Uptown Subway," and I'm not even sure if "uptown" should be capitalized in the title since it's sort of a preposition--

(And this is the way anxious people think. And I am an anxious person.)

(And there really is a reason I used "Jesus" in the title. You'll find out, eventually. But I can't spoil all the stories at once.)

So I turned to Google. Basically just searched my name + Jesus, and to my great surprise and immense pleasure, found a bunch of reviews about it. Which I didn't know existed at all for maybe almost a year, and  which I incredibly apologize for not blogging about sooner.

• This one is just awesome, in which my story is called "swift" and "beautifully written" and "with a stinging twisty bit at the end," and that's not even the nicest thing she says about it. (Spoiler: I now have a couch to crash upon in London any time I want to.)
  
• And I freaking got picked for Short Story Saturday! I wish I could say it was just because it was Shabbos and I was off the Internet, but, no, this was months ago. "I love how troubled and prone to fantasy he was." I think they're talking about Jupiter but I know they're really talking about me.

Okay, sit tight. The next chapter hits soon in Apiary magazine, which will be (a) online and (b) free, and which will (c) feature Bates, who is Jupiter's gay death-metal best friend/antagonist/confidante. I'll let you know exactly when it's up. And if you haven't read "Girl Jesus," I'm pretty sure there's at least part of it in the preview on Amazon.

And, bonus, double update: This is the cover of Cornered, which will have the next Jupiter story! Okay, end of excitement. Yeah, right.

Patrick Aleph Rocks My Religion

For someone whose life is writing on the Internet, Patrick Aleph still has a lot of secrets.
Aside from running the alterna-Torah site PunkTorah, the "online minyan" OneShul, the collection The G-d Project, and a bunch of other sites, Aleph is an astoundingly prolific blogger and YouTube video-maker. As a convert, his perspective on Judaism -- and on Jews -- is that of both an insider and outsider, and his observations on Jewish life and belief are often reflective of that. The things he loves, he loves. And the things he finds disquieting or hard to swallow -- well, he doesn't have any hesitation about making note of that, either.


If you've never encountered Aleph before, or if there's too much of his stuff out in the universe for you to know where to start, here's a great place. He's just released -- for free -- an e-book collection of his writings, titled, appropriately,PunkTorah, named after both his punk do-it-yourself principles and his website. The two dozen or so essays touch on everything from the actual nuts-and-bolts of Jewish practice to the more aesthetic and eschatological wtf-nesses of belief (how weird is it that we believe in an intangible, invisible G-d who doesn't actively interact with humanity, anyway?). And he really isn't afraid to break boundaries or mess around with tradition: In one piece, Patrick talks about working with queer Jews, self-proclaimed Jews who've neither traditionally converted nor been born into the religion. And the next piece is titled "Everything I Needed To Know I Learned From Chabad."

Actually, his essays are almost all amazingly-titled. OK, let me just give you my five favorites:

* Indie Rock Is My Shacharit Siddur
* Alterna-frum
* Walgreens and Tempeh Reubens Brought Me Closer To God
* Star Wars and Andy Warhol: PunkTorah's Non-Jewish Influences
* Diary of An Angry Convert

Full disclosure: Patrick cites me in a few of the essays. But I didn't remember that until after I was almost finished writing this, and I still think it's a pretty damn great book. And it's free, so you aren't wasting any money -- or any trees, for that matter.

Truant, but truthful

Tons of stuff to update, and I am totally truant. There have been a lot of people saying a lot of really nice things about Automatic, and I should write about them. But first I need to say a really nice thing about someone else: The amazing Ethan Young's first full-length graphic novel, Tails, is finally coming out! You can, and should, order it now. It's about being an artist and a vegetarian and an Asian geek with fantasies about turning into a superhero and living in New York City.

Oh, and I show up occasionally in the book.

And, totally separate, my sometimes-editor David Levithan compiles a best-of music list every year, and polls his coterie. His most recent list was just posted. Here's my entry:

Matthue R Goes Camp 

Weird thing: There's not much punk/loud stuff on here. I mean, Wild Flag, but that might be a vote for my past. I think that the most exciting stuff I'm finding is stuff that I'm just starting to give a second thought to? Also, other thing: A lot of the albums here are free mixtapes that the artists give away online. I mean, I love the hip-hop community.

most essential: Childish Gambino, Camp

and:
2. Wild Flag, Wild Flag
3. Frank Ocean, nostalgia, ultra.
4. Shondes, Searchlights
5. Regina Spektor, Live in London
6. Roots, undun
7. Nicki Minaj, Pink Friday (which I know didn't come out this year)
8. Girls in Trouble, Like You, Like Me
9. The Amy Winehouse uncollected-songs album.
10. House of Balloons, The Weeknd

Just in case you're curious, NONE of my albums made the Top Ten. Am I really cool, or just really out of touch?

HelloGiggles, Automatic-ally

Hey, so HelloGiggles.com featured my new book Automatic as their Item of the Day yesterday!

Besides being (actress-slash-singer-slash-Hitchhiker's Guide wunderkind) Zooey Deschanel and (producer) Sophia Rossi's website, they also feature particularly awesome writers such as Julia Gazdag (who wrote this piece) and Apocalypstick (who's just great), and it's a place that I actually read, which makes it particularly astounding for me to see my book in the same graphic space that I'm used to seeing things that are...well, not my book.

[A]fter blazing through the whole book in one sitting, I sat lost in a puddle of memories I had forgotten I experienced.
I love this book. I also love that even though you can get it for a kindle or as a pdf, you can also get a real life copy that’s handmade. And for $4.99. Including shipping. That’s way more than worth it. I don’t even understand that pricing. I’ve paid $25 for books that didn’t touch me as much as this one did.

Here, read the rest of it!

Automatic, the Real (Well, Paper) Version

So I wrote this book. It's a short book -- 15,000 words, or about a quarter the size of your average novel.

The book's on Kindle and as a pdf for pretty cheap, $1.99. I'm an old-fashioned sort, though -- I really like reading things in my hands. So I handmade a version of Automatic, which you can buy right here, and see photographs of below.

It's called Automatic, and I think it's really amazing. It's about my best friend and I, growing up as nerds in a  rough neighborhood, and falling in love and going crazy and listening to R.E.M., and him dying. (Spoiler, but it happens pretty early.)

The printed version is a little more expensive than the electro one -- it's $4.99, including postage (inside the US). It also includes a free download of the ebook.

You can order it on PayPal right now:

So, it's a good deal, right? But you're asking, is it hot? Because you're like that. And it's okay to ask.

The front features a cutout cover. The inside front and back covers are hand-lettered by me.

Inside, the pages are printed in a font that's easy to read (I could kill some of my favorite books for having ugly chapter headings) and large, but not too large. 

I also play with the text a bunch. You'll see. 

(It's blurry because I'm using the camera on my $25 cellphone, not because the words are. Promise.)

Seriously, just $4.99. And you'll get an ebook to read right now, while you wait.

(By the way, I can only ship to the USA. If you're abroad, drop a note, let me know where you are, and I'll set up a special link.)

Casting the Losers Movie

I got asked by the folks at the My Book, The Movie blog to draw up a dream cast for my book Losers. Since casting movies with 14-year-olds is sort of an impossible feat anyway, I decided to throw all the rules out the window. Half my cast is dead. The other half are way far away from being fourteen years old. Here's a snip (or read it from the start):

Hollywood would probably want Jupiter to look like Christian Slater in Heathers. I'm going to go with Ewan McGregor, though -- five years before Trainspotting, with his hair a little shaggier and his eyes a little more feral. His best friend, Vadim, in my head was always an Igor type. (Except, of course, that in Russia "Igor" is a name that real people actually have, and one of my best friends is named Igor, so I need to watch the references around him.) He's cool in his own way, but we'd probably have to prettify him up, so instead of, like, a 14-year-old Kyle MacLachlan who isn't quite ready to star in Blue Velvet, we'll probably have to go with what can only be described as a Wesley Crusher-type.

Read on ----->

Oh, and I talk a little about the process of making the movie 1/20, from the writer's point of view anyway, which usually doesn't mean much, since they try and keep the writers far, far away from the production -- except that I snuck my way onto the set running for coffee and stuff. Fun. Illicit fun.

Me: It's great to see you here. But why did you move to Crown Heights?

Ari: To show the people of Gotham that their city doesn't belong to the criminals and the corrupt.

(I promise, this wasn't a setup. It just popped up in the middle of a conversation.)