Bananafish

***Publisher I. VERN BEEZER and editor M. MONROE deliver another juicy issue of their award-churning tome dedicated to the pursuit of the liesurely arts. In this gorgeously designed issue you get more than the goods on... 
 
Christine Shields 
 
Interview with this issue's cover artist, the author behind surreal, dreamlike Blue Hole comic book, and banjo-player for Appalachia-influenced Grouse Mountain Skyride (also featuring Dame Darcy and Ian Christe). On the CD: "Monkey Goes to the Moon" and "The World Is My Home" 
 
Mal Sharpe 
 
Interview with author, jazz musician, and Man-on-the-Street interviewer most well known as half of '60s prankster duo Coyle and Sharpe, whose legendary put-ons have been released on CD by the 21361 and Thirsty Ear labels. On the CD: Coyle and Sharpe "Transporting Captured People" 
 
Ana-Maria Avram 
 
Translation of an interview by Costin Cazaban with Romanian acousmatic composer and Editions Modern recording artist whose uncompromising, demanding music gives heavyweights like Dumitrescu and Fernando Grillo a run for the money. On the CD: the 13-minute "Etude (I), computer assisted music." 
 
Volcano the Bear 
 
Interview by Neil Campbell with this mind-expanding UK surrealist quartet whose music straddles "a strange, ambiguous line between comforting and terrifying." Collaborations with Nurse With Wound and Aube, releases on United Dairies, Misra, and Pickled Egg. On the CD: "Phantom, tha will be done" 
 
mad-cow.org 
 
Interview with Dr. Thomas Pringle, webmaster of the Sperling Biomedical Foundation's site containing almost 8,000 articles on mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, scrapie, and numerous other crimes against nature that should drive any sane person to veganism. 
 
John Crouse 
 
Guest editorial plus one other previously unpublished text by this inspirational author whose writing has been described as "a non-stop torque conflating the distinctions of sky, people, forest, political costume store … He makes his own vocabulary rushing forward at full tilt, the 'camel of wow'." On the CD: Crouse reads an excerpt from Lapses (O Books, 1995) with Stanley Zappa on sax 
 
Rats With Wings 
 
Freeform essay and images by this emerging Australian noise artist with releases planned on Plate Lunch and Freedom From. On the CD: "Horse Eat Grass" 
 
Volvox 
 
Interview with two members of this Australian band with a posthumous CD released by Dual Plover. Ant-honey Riddell, the leader of the band, was brain-injured and comatose after a fall through a skylight several years ago. "Next to Milk," a chapter from his phenomenal novel Betrayed by the Senses (Menisicus, 1999), is also reprinted. On the CD: "Extraordinary Swordfish" amd "Milkhead," from Egg, Pluto Pup and You 
 
Agog 
 
Interview with Damien Bisciglia, noise artist and sculptor of Rohrshach-like, nightmarish creatures made of melted plastic and various found materials. On the CD: "Waters Black from the Dung of a Thousand Camels"