"False Memories of a Cape Cod Clam Shack" by Joel Huschle

In this sublime collection, Joel Huschle evades any sense of Intention as only a Master can. Watch out. This work is deceptively narrative. It's a trippy ride into an inimitable headspace.

False Memories of a Cape Cod Clam Shack is mind altering and mind expanding. Reading this book, you will find yourself using parts of your mind you never realized you had, and you will find yourself laughing more than you would ordinarily do.

For thirty years now, I’ve been hearing Joel Huschle’s words, usually as the vocal component of whatever combination of short-order hardcore and cheap-ass electronics Wckr Spgt or Furniture Huschle is perpetrating that week (and let’s not get into other pseudonyms, side projects, and video installations). Most of that time, I’ve been wondering, “How the hell does he do it?” You’ll find a selection of those lyrics as this book’s appendix; the rest is poetry, characteristically difficult to compare to anyone else’s. There’s a rotating cast of characters (Admiral Plotts, Phyllis, the ultimately decapitated Dagmar), a kind of backstory you might be able to work out involving several sea voyages and settings from Long Beach to Tripoli, footnotes that morph from to-do lists into paratexts as cryptic as whatever they depend from, and whiplash shifts from medicalized techno-jargon to body horror to moments of affect too recognizable to dismiss as absurd, perverse, or surreal: “I came to the chilling realization/My humanity had remained intact.” Also, haiku. You can read these poems more slowly than you can listen to Joel’s songs; I did, but I still don’t know how he does it.