The Emperor of Ice Cream

new blog, new frontier

2009-09-22T21:35:00.004-06:00

well, another class beckons i make a blog, so i decided to remove the sweet, awesome hook and just have my thoughts. also, nick vogt will be there dropping gems (read:contributing) . if you want a place to drop gems, hit me up at superflyronald@msn.com ... oh, the new url is ronaldmetellus.blogspot.com

remember that kanye blog post where he says the word "dope" like five times to describe a photo, i feel like i just did that, but then it's meta because kanye came up with the "dropping gems" line. that was a little strange.

there's a ton of new ice cream literary news if your interested, even the new yorker got in on the act. there's a more recent article then that, but i can't find. see, this blog is tearing me apart, lisa!

the return is looming

2009-06-21T01:19:00.001-06:00

soon, there will be more ice cream... soon.

Interview with Nick Vogt While Playing Street Fighter Part Two

2009-04-28T00:48:00.005-06:00

The character 'Guile' (pictured above) is a meathead, there, I said it. Link: here

Interview with Nick Vogt While Playing Street Fighter Part 1

2009-04-28T00:35:00.005-06:00

The intro song "A Little Bit Cooler," is by The Cool Kids. The sound is pretty good, I'll do better next time, but; no fan so hurray! Link here

Interview with Rex Horner, Part 2

2009-04-26T21:33:00.003-06:00

'Raymond Carver is not a meat head'

I considered adding a vocoder to this one and calling it a day. I just got Audacity for my PC which is what I'll be using for my future interviews--hurray. Click here

Interview with Rex Horner, Part 1

2009-04-25T16:57:00.010-06:00

'Will Rex end up on the street, spouting mythology?'
Find out at the recently updated link: Here

Please bare with the fuzzy noise in the first few seconds, I've been messing around with noise all week and I think it sounds much cleaner. Tell me what you think. Special thanks to Vvinni.

Part Two of Robin Romm's Interview with The Emperor of Ice Cream

2009-04-20T02:21:00.006-06:00

Robin statrs up a riveting ice cream discussion, and much more.

To access the interview click the title, or just click here

Part One of Robin Romm's Interview with The Emperor of Ice Cream

2009-04-20T02:02:00.004-06:00

The Mother Garden (Scribner) and The Mercy Papers (Scribner) author Robin Romm pays the emperor a visit to talk about growing up in Portland, her path to writing (a path involving a smelly paper factory), and, of course, about ice cream.

Click the title to access the interview, or just click here

Also, check out the new paperback edition of The Mother Garden
and the new hardcover (first edition!) memoir The Mercy Papers

Part 2 will be up soon.

No, I'm not stalling. I'm NOT.

2009-04-19T02:25:00.005-06:00

Nearly tantamount to my indulgent interest in ice cream, is my indulgent interest in The Dream. One need only to hear his hilariously beautiful Put it Down to know why. Anywho, The New Yorker just did a profile of him--here. Enjoy it, or enjoy ice cream, the choice is up to you -- as we all know, the battle is in the streets.

Now some of you may try to construe my throwing of stimulation at you as an attempt at stalling the uploading of my recent interview with Robin Romm. Rest assured, I am not stalling, and it will be up tomorrow. I promise. Until then enjoy the stimulation fodder. I'm off to sleep ... perchance to dream.

Profile of Evan Bustria (Part 2)

2009-04-15T22:00:00.004-06:00

Evan Bustria Interview

We discuss Evan's works in the upcoming edition of Glyph. Special Thanks to Rex Horner for asking questions. There is also an appearance made by William Culbert, which is always a bonus.

Profile of Evan Bustria (Part 1)

2009-04-14T01:48:00.019-06:00

The Homemaker

A Profile of the Writer and Filmmaker, who was recently the subject of the Documentary—Kino Bustria and whose prose and poetry was selected for publication in the literary magazine, Glyph.

I sit in the recently cleaned dorm room of Evan Bustria. Evan momentarily explains—to fellow writer and friend, Rex Horner—the intricacies of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. The game is a common pastime of Evan’s , who says, “the story [mode] has taken me eleven hours to complete, but I lost my file so I had to play another eleven,” he also spends an extensive amount of time driving through billboards and being the middle man on drug sales, an activity Evan calls “guilt free, since you don’t have to sell to junkies.”

Evan has been up to far more than just facilitating drug deals in GTA, he’s been writing and film making like there is no tomorrow, and if your privy to the current financial situation at the College of Santa Fe (where Evan is currently a student) there may very well be no tomorrow.

Before Evan was crafting stories about homeless lab rats like the ones in “Minerva Realized”, which will be featured in the 21st edition of Glyph: College of Santa Fe’s Literary Magazine, Evan was just a kid from … somewhere. The question of what place Evan identifies as his home is something that seems to weigh heavy on his mind. Evan comments on the idea of home “I don’t really acknowledge the concept [of home]. No matter what I feel [about a place] I could wake up and just move somewhere else and be OK. I consider the school and the Chicago area as homes, but the school is about to close down and my parents are moving out.” When asked about his upbringing, Evan retorted “My upbringing? I’ve never got that personalize with anyone.” He considers his childhood to be relatively normal, though “Not normal by today’s standards.” When they met his father, Eugene, was in the Navy and his mother, Carolyn, was a nurse in Los Angeles; both of whom attended college in the Philippines at the age of fourteen. They eventually became Med Tech’s and moved to the San Diego area, where they had Evan in 1989. When Evan was seven, his dad (who received his Masters in Business from National University) took a job offer in Virginia, and the concept of “home” moved to a Northern Virginian neighborhood. A 13-year-old Evan packed up once more, this time to Northern Illinois, a place where Evan will call home for perhaps another month or two.

Currently however, Evan is focused not home, but on art. Evan ascribes to the saying that “Art is never finished, only abandoned,” as he rarely gives early drafts of his works to other readers, and consider the time when something is turned in as the time in which it is finished, and only after that does he considers further revision. Of the editing process Evan remarks, “I go in and fix the typos [laughs]. With workshops, if I see that some people are pretty wrong, especially one person in my Techniques of Fiction class (I won’t name any names) then I dismiss it on the spot. But mostly, I’m lucky, as usually people have concerns and I'll look at it and see that they’re right.”

***

If Evan could live in any other time period he says it would be the 70’s, which informs Evan outlook on life, though is unfortunately absent from his wardrobe—one that often consist of plain t-shirts, jeans, and a blue thermal light hoodie. On the seventies Evan says, “[It was] a time when everyone was disenchanted with the sixties and optimism in general. They had Nixon, who everyone hated. It was cynical and unhappy, but people were doing exciting things. [The Elmore Leonard novel] Freaky Deaky informs that the most, in that the characters are apathetic. These characters are quirky, but you wouldn’t want to meet them in really life. The apathy of some of the characters is just stunning. There’s a part with a guy that’s in chair with a bomb strapped underneath the chair and the cop tells him just to wait; that he would get help. He leaves to talk about his bad relationships with another cop and they hear a bomb going off in the background and just don’t care. And the fact that person in the chair was impatient to his death, is also pretty hilarious.” Evan admires the writing of Elmore Leonard, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Graham Greene, and Haruki Murakami and sites them as influences on his writing.

In regards to his film work, Evan says, “My film work, it really isn’t impressive at all. I did a project for my school and it was lost on my school’s computer, which is actually for the best. If you did some digging you could piece scenes together, but it’s probably best left the way it is.” Evan, and filmmaker friend William Culbert released dual documentaries, Evan’s documentary was on Will’s documentary of Evan, and Will’s documentary was on Evan’s documentary of Will. Both delved into the filmmakers’ creative processes; Evan’s documentary was called Seeing What You Saw and Will’s was named Kino Bustria. When asked why'd they did dual documentaries Evan states, “I guess it came out because we just wanted to fuck with stuff, [Seeing What You Saw] is a little too sloppy though and I kind of have to pare it back for the DVD. It’s really spontaneous and Will’s was better put together." On the question of which is the superior documentary Evan says, "I guess it’s a matter of taste.”

Evan's future includes looking at transfer options. He’s searching for schools with strong creative writing programs, with film and animation programs as well.

On the topic of Evan’s favorite ice cream, he says, “I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but it’s the one that I always end up getting. It has tiny Reeses Pieces and Caramel and Chocolate Swirls, all within Vanilla Ice Cream. I don’t think you can go wrong with it. It’s very indulgent [laughs].” That’s certainly something to write home about.~

For more from Evan Bustria, check out his blog by clicking here

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 , the audio portion of the profile, that delves into Evan's literature.

Open Season!

2009-04-08T22:20:00.004-06:00

The Emperor of Ice Cream Blog is now accepting submissions for publication. Ice Cream related works of prose, poetry, and drama will do, so long as they are of high literary merit. Forward all submissions or queries to superflyronald@msn.com and please allow 3-7 days so that I can give your work a proper reading and suggest revision, or perhaps recommend another, more suitable Ice Cream publication that you should send your work to, if it doesn't mesh with this one. Also, could some please design an Emperor of Ice Cream related header?

Ice-(S)cream(n)play Anyone?

2009-04-08T22:14:00.003-06:00

FROGSTACKING BY VVINNI J. GAGNEPAIN

Two men are standing in front of a large pile of frogs.

MAN 1

The frogs are out again.

MAN 2

So I can see.

MAN 1

What do we do?

MAN 2

Same thing we always do when we

have a problem.

MAN 1

You mean?

MAN 2

When life gives you lemons, you...

BOTH

MAKE ICE CREAM!

Man one pulls out a butter churn from his pocket and Man two

begins pouring cream on the frogs.

MAN 1

Make sure to add the powder

sweetener!

MAN 2

WHY WOULD I FORGET THAT?

MAN 1

Because you did last time and we

had to eat unsweetend ice cream. IT

WAS TERRIBLE.

Man two opens a packet of powder sweetener and sprinkles it

onto the frogs, Man one opens up the butter churn.

MAN 1

Throw those frogs in!

CLOCK WIPE

Man one and Man Two both have ice cream cones and are

lounging on lawn furniture.

MAN 1

More ice cream?

MAN 2

Of course!

Man one pours some ice cream out of the butter churn into a

cone and give it Man two. Both chuckle, toast their cones,

and give a smiling thumbs up.

"THE END" is written on the screen in cursive handwriting.

End.

Replace all Glaciers with Ice Cream

2009-03-30T21:20:00.000-06:00

Ice Cream Book Club

2009-03-29T14:08:00.001-06:00

If you approach a book with every one's favorite delectable on the cover--or in the title-- and think flowery, light summer reading then you certainly haven't read these books. Robin Romm's The Mercy Papers (Scribner), Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide (Houghton Mifflin Co.), and William Boyd's An Ice Cream War (Vintage) are shining examples of the often underated relationship between literary excellence and ice cream. The Emperor of Ice Cream reccomends these books with great pride. Check back soon for an interview with Mercy Papers author Robin Romm.

Welcome

2009-03-24T00:43:00.002-06:00

There are three ways to commemorate the creation of this blog. First, let us announce: We did it! We made it! Together. Second--the blog's mission is to ensure a literary (but not stuffy and academic) haven for everyone's favorite frozen dessert. Third, of course, is the poem from which the blog takes its name. Wallace Stevens' The Emperor of Ice Cream:

The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.