Matthew Vollmer’s essay “epitaph 45″ appears in Issue 15 of the magazine. Matthew sat down to answer a handful of questions about the essay and the meaning of orangutans pissing in their own mouths.

Who died?

On one level, a version of myself. On another level, nobody. Yet. The epitaph could be read as one penned for the future occasion of my passing. But that sounds pretentious. Which is why I wrote these in third person. I needed distance. I needed not to say “I” or “my.”

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Glenn Blake’s Return Fire is set, like his first collection, Drowned Moon, along the rivers and bayous of east Texas, where families, legends, memories, and entire neighborhoods sink into the subsiding land and rising waters of natural and man-made disasters. “Who in his right mind would’ve settled here?” Bobby Dean thinks.

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Did you read this NYT piece when it came out last month? I’m surprised I’m still thinking about it these weeks later.

It’s a year-end retrospective on how bad big-label rock was in 2011, and it’s just awful. Not because it’s wrong — of course it’s too bad that Sublime with Rome is filling the airwaves with Sublime-lite filler, and of course it would likely be difficult to listen to the new Nickelback album from start to finish. But who with a vested interest in music in 2012 would have the bad sense to check in with Nickelback to see how they’re getting along?

The author cites “bands well past their sell-by date” like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Limp Bizkit, R.E.M., and Sum 41, as further evidence of the decline, forgetting that expired bands have been with us forever, and we have been ignoring them for just as long.

As Dan from Brussels puts it, “This year gave us terrific records from Wilco, the Decemberists, Radiohead, Adele, Bon Iver, M83, Cee-Lo, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z & Kanye among many, many others — and you’re sitting here bemoaning the fact that Nickelback and friends are making boring music? Please.”

“Yes, the center is rotting,” Elizabeth from Illinois says. “But the fringes are increasingly important in the world of rock music. In a world of globalization, the internet, and the arguable decline of major labels, is it wise to dismiss alternative and indie music as the fringe? In my eyes, ‘fringe’ artists ARE the new center.” Should Elizabeth really have to say this as if the year is 1999?

One of the easiest things a struggling newspaper (every newspaper) can do is hire good critics who are paying close attention to culture. Not radio culture — actual culture. They will do it for cheap or for free, just for the cred. The Times is better than this.

If you’re in New York City and looking to enrich a night of imbibing, go to KGB Bar (85 E 4th St) this Saturday, January 21, at 7:00 pm for A New York Tyrant party featuring readings by Michael Bible (Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City), Daniel Long, and Chiara Barzini. Also, Giancarlo DiTrapano and Tao Lin will be doing a one-time reading of “Andrew: A Dialogue of Texts in the Year of Drugs and Kidness” from Vice Magazine, which catalogues the drug-induced text correspondence between DiTrapano and Lin from July 2010 to June 2011.

Mud Luscious Press is no stranger to the seductive art of the bundle.

$40 gets you the 2012 subscription bundle: Gregory Sherl’s The Oregon Trail is the Oregon Trail, Matt Bell’s Cataclysm Baby, Ken Sparling’s Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall, & Robert Kloss’s The Alligators of Abraham.

I love this design of the reissue of Dad.