Click through to read the full review of 3^RD BED [6], the thirty-first in this full-press review of Calamari books.

3^RD BED [6] Contributors:

Lara Glenum, Ben Miller, Mark Laliberte, Lucy Ives, Stacey Levine, Marc Palm, Geoff Bouvier, Lisa Jarnot, Steve Potter, Kate Bernheimer, Billy X. O’Brien & Ronald Palmer, Brian Evenson, George Lichtenberg (Translation by Sam Stark), Osip Mandelshtam (Translation by Kevin Kinsella), Greg Bachar, Anthony Hawley, Amina Cain, Laura Sims, Ed Skoog, Thomas V. Davis, James Wagner, Catherine Kasper, David Ohle, Noah E. Gordon, W. B. Keckler, Jeffrey M. Bockman

Just as with my review of 3^RD BED [5], I start this one by saying how beautiful 3^RD BED [6] is, how nice it feels to hold, and how well-designed and artfully wrought the content is. Also, as with 3^RD BED [5], I want to mention the extremely close aesthetic relationship to our still wonderfully kicking Caketrain – more on that later though – for now, some highlights of 3^RD BED [6]:

from Stacey Levine’s ‘Pat Smash’:

As a youth, Pat played a game that often made him tingle. He held a short male doll before him, wondering who—he or the doll—would be killed first. He waited. From the porch he saw the heavy car which bore his father home. He ran to his room, always the same, the world around him fresh as a bare red embryo before the moment it was gashed.

from Brian Evenson’s ‘House Rules’:

The first of the house rules, the only one Horst ever manages to recall, is No leaving the house. He only remembers because it is posted on both front door and back. Though he can no longer read, that portion of his brain concerned with reading having been compromised (Hatcher’s language), Horst recognizes the signs. Rarely, however, does their significance strike him until after he has tried the handle of the door in question, found it locked.

from David Ohle’s ‘Ratt’:

While his mother returned to her estate, Moldenke took a sooty-ceilinged, three-walled room at the old Adolphus, furnished only with a pull-down bed, a wicker chair, a table, a radio, and a fusel oiled lamp that puttered and smoked.

Lying in the pull-down his first night, he listened to Radio Ratt, determined to stay abreast of all the changing statutes and avoid any further tangles with the law.

These are all I’ll quote from here, but 3^RD BED [6] also includes a story from Kate Bernheimer, work from Lara Glenum, an ad for Gary Lutz’s Stories in the Worst Way, two awesome comics, art + text, formal and experimental poetry, flash fiction, and standard-sized short stories. And what is amazing about all of this content, apart from it being truly admirable writing, is that even with this variety, 3^RD BED [6] doesn’t feel scattered for one single moment. Somehow, all of it works together to create a volume of literature that is mesmerizing and grand.

And this brings me back to Caketrain. Remember how when they sold out of their print runs of early annual volumes they offered them up as issuu or pdf on their site for free, so that people could keep reading their words? This is what I want from Derek White at Calamari Press and Vincent Standley of 3^rd Bed. Can’t the same rule apply to what is left of these 3^rd Bed’s issues? If we promised to keep buying copies until they are sold out, could one or both of these fantastic gents get the sold out issues up online for free? This is now my mission for the 3^rd Bed portion of this full-press review, because these volumes are something to behold, and we should all be holding them in one form or another.

So while we are fingers-crossed that Mr. White might make us a deal, as a show of good faith, maybe one or two of you could hop over and get a copy of 3^RD BED [6] here? It is worth the coin.

Next up: James Lewelling’s TORTOISE, SLEEPINGFISH ZZZ, & James Wagner’s THE FALSE SUN RECORDINGS.

Are you guys watching Bored to Death? Love that Zach G.