HOUSEFIRE

TWO INTERVIEWS WITH LEN KUNTZ (part two)



This is part two of my interview with the hardest working man in flash fiction, Len Kuntz. For this section I asked him to look through the previous interviews I’ve conducted and steal his favorite questions for himself. Here’s what happened:

THE STOLEN QUESTION INTERVIEW (AKA SAY IT LOUD (I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD))

HOUSEFIRE
What is your favorite small press release of the last six months?
(originally from the XTX interview http://www.metazen.ca/?p=6035 )

LEN KUNTZ
DADDY’S by Lindsay Hunter. Reading her stories is like eating glass; having razors sliced through your corneas; getting a blowtorch shoved down your throat. Lindsay knows how to melt a reader’s internal organs, usually their heart. Every protagonist is wounded and wrecked, confused and often angry. Many of the stories are sexy. I would tell you about one and it would make your toes tingle and your earlobes go red, but I won’t spoil it. Just go get, DADDY’S Do it now. Everyone should read her book. It should be a law that you have to read Lindsay’s novel.

HOUSEFIRE
Tell me about some writer that I probably don’t know about, someone that I should look into. This person has to have published within the last year to qualify, online at least, so keep that in mind. Now if you could collaborate on something with this person, anything at all, what would it be? Give me the pitch and what each of you could offer the project.
(originally from the SAM PINK interview http://www.metazen.ca/?p=6471 )

LEN KUNTZ
Aubrey Hirsch. You don’t know her, do you? You should though. Aubrey is sweet and wise, pretty and more talented than a Carnival Cruise ship filled with MFA’s. Our project would be to write a new version of THE DA VINCI CODE, only we’d call it something else and it wouldn’t have anything to do with the Catholic Church or albinos who like to flog themselves silly with whips. In fact, our book wouldn’t have a single thing in common with Dan Brown’s work other than both versions would be available on Kindle.

Mine and Aubrey’s book would be the truth but written as fiction bending toward the autobiographical. People would bleed from reading it. Blood would leak out of their eardrums. They would sigh a lot. They would say, “I think my Uncle Lester could learn a lot if he read this book.” Our novel would be called THE STORY OF US but it wouldn’t be about us at all. It would be about you - your personal problems and pitfalls, your favorite pranks, pistachios and pink poodles, plus other “p” things of interest. Aubrey and I would take turns writing sentences. It would be like chess or checkers, but with words, and not boring. Together we would create the great American novel.

You should let us do this. You should compensate us for our brilliance and hardwork. You should pay us in cola-flavored gummy bears.

HOUSEFIRE
Done.

xxxxxxx

HOUSEFIRE
Write a piece of flash fiction based on the title of a Cannibal Corpse song. The story cannot be about death or pain or mental illness of any sort. Also, you have to write it in second person, present tense. Go!
(also originally from the SAM PINK interview)

MAKE THEM SUFFER
by Len Kuntz

You know how to do it, how to make them suffer. You start by flirting. You tell the girls seated in the barstools, you tell them, “Whoa! Look at you guys. You really know a lot about cotton.” You ask if their shoes are Manolo Blahnik and get back impressed grins. “I thought so,” you say, adding, “and Tuscany perfume?”

You tell a few crafty jokes that always have a twist. One is about a parrot and a dolphin getting suntans. You crack these girls up. They stare at your biceps which are exposed because you’re wearing a short-sleeved shirt and because, well, because you like letting people have a peek at the gun show. You say, “Wanna feel?” and they giggle and blush and say, “Can I?”

It goes on and on, just like the throbbing techno music and the dry ice that might really be smoke. The ceiling light looks like candy and you are feeling floaty from all the free drinks these hot model chicks are buying you. You want to eat the ceiling. It reminds you of taffy. Of your Aunt Sally, the one you had a crush on at age five. You’ve been in character now for an hour and half, boozing it up for free with smoldering, surgically enhanced females, and damn if you didn’t forget that there’s a purpose to your being at the bar, toddling with these models.

Then you remember your Ex, how she’s in the bar, too, how this is all about making her jealous, cutting her heart out with a machete, but when you look over there’s no pain at all. Sandy is swaying between two buff sailor-types as if she’s a painted piece of shrubbery on a windy day. Sandy’s all smiles and white teeth, lipstick and coin toss cleavage. You’re not wounded. In fact, you go ahead and chuckle as you watch your Ex. She can’t decide which fellow to kiss, so she puckers her lips and lets them decide.

HOUSEFIRE
You see your doppleganger in the street, and he sees you. You look almost identical, except he is a half an inch shorter. You have heard about him for weeks. Everywhere you go someone says, “Didn’t you just leave?” Except you didn’t just leave. You just got there. What do you do? Tell me exactly how it all shakes down.
(originally from the FRANCES DINGER interview http://tinyurl.com/6dddkt6 )

LEN KUNTZ
My doppleganager is me with better breath, fruity breath, not minty. My doppleganger has my same teeth but for some reason I like his better. And I’m jealous that my doppleganger is shorter because tall people always get asked to reach things for others.

My doppleganger wears a mirror on his back, one of those long coffin-shaped numbers so that I see my reflection no matter where I look and it seems as if I’ve been here before, there before, because in a way, I have been everywhere, the light reflecting my image everywhere. I grab my doppleganger’s shirt collar at the throat, even though he’s wearing my favorite shirt (the linen shirt that wrinkles easily) and I say, “You need to learn how to play fair, you ^&%$*(+!”

And that’s when he rams a blade through my heart, walking away with a whistle.

HOUSEFIRE
Make a “mix tape” called HEAVY PETTING VOLUME 6: HOW TO KILL YOURSELF IN THE EROTICA SECTION OF YOUR LOCAL BOOK STORE.
(originally from the JANEY SMITH interview http://tinyurl.com/6dp9nj5 )

LEN KUNTZ
“Janie’s Got A Gun,” Aerosmith
“I Touch Myself,” DiVinyls
“Hot For Teacher,” Van Halen
“Peggy Sue,” Buddy Holly
“Me and a Gun,” Tori Amos
“Nine Crimes,” Damien Rice
“Blueberry Hill,” Fats Domino
“Rape Me,” Nirvana
“Brick House,” The Commodores
“My Sharona,” The Knack
“Love the Way You Lie,” Eminem
“Baby” Justin Bieber
“Your Body Is A Wonderland,” John Mayer

And you can listen to that here -> http://tinyurl.com/6gfn2cq
or the original version by JANEY SMITH here -> http://tinyurl.com/68uu23l

xxxxxxx

That’s it. If you’re hungry for more then why not check out this video interview we did with Rob Gray not too long ago?
http://allthingsburn.tumblr.com/post/3140974585/the-best-teeny-tiny-interview-this-side-of-the

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