Last week, Brandon (my writer friend) got his first set of self-published books in the mail called Stories from Laborliss: Volume 1. The book is a collection of 33 short stories that he publishes weekly (and sometimes bi and tri-weekly… seriously, this guy is insane) on his website, sociallyacceptable.org. He is still writing new stories every week.
The book is entirely fictional and revolves around the egotistical town of Laborliss. Brandon also puts out a free, faux lifestyle magazine in the Tempe area detailing the strange events that happen there (completely separate from the internet stories).Laborliss, to me, is right up there with Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology and Garrison Keillor’s Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon. If you’re at all an avid reader and have a discerning palette for the quirky and the odd, hit up Brandon’s website and pick up a copy of his book (it’s only $8 + $2 shipping). He also sells subscriptions to his magazine for crazy-cheap, too. Both are great reads and there’s little chance that you’ll put it down without being wildly and weirdly entertained.

Support independent artists!

Scott Coulson, director of bands at Poteet High School (TMEA 4A Honor Band… whom I wrote about a couple weeks ago) just sent me recordings of the group performing Shadow Rituals at the TMEA convention and at an earlier concert at the Eisemann Center. I wrote Scott back saying that, at some moments, I couldn’t discern Poteet from the ASU Wind Symphony (who premiered the piece). Take a listen:

Poteet High School Honors Band; Rick Davis, conductor
Recorded on 2.11.2008 at the Eisemann Center
Richardson, TX

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