“The Lexical Funk” is a witty and creative collection of short stories by Daniel Clausen. Daniel does a marvelous job with his vivid imagination creating memorable characters and settings. I enjoyed reading each story in this collection. My favorite story was “Imitation for Beginners,” which dealt with the interaction between Androids and humans. It was hilarious as the Androids attempted to mimic human emotions. Other of my favorites were “Angela Killed Herself,” “Red Shoes,” and “Rich Jacobs Searches for the Meaning of Life.” Included at the end is an excerpt from Daniel’s novel, “The Ghosts of Nagasaki.”

I highly recommend this short collection of short stories by Daniel Clausen. I received a free copy of this book from the author Daniel Clausen for an honest review. ( )

I personally did not care for most of this mix of short stories and musings. Parts were funny, but I'm not sure if the author and I agree which parts. Parts were awfully vulgar. The author is clever. I did like the story about the produce clerk. It's short, so if you're interested, if you're an angst-ridden English major or know one, give it a shot. You might like it better than I did. ( )

I’ve read a fair few of Daniel Clausen’s short stories now (and you should know that I have written a book with him, so I guess that makes me biased in this review’s opinion), and this collection is the crème de la crème of Daniel’s wordiness, wisdom and wit. In this second edition of The Lexical Funk it seems that the author has taken out any below par pieces from whatever was in the first edition, leaving us only with the very best gold nuggets.

This book’s only forty pages long, but it manages to cram in five top notch stories that are masterfully told and will linger in your mind for days after reading. The blurb for The Lexical Funk says that the book “promises to take you to another dimension of funkadelic wordliness”, and it does. It’s got a great cover too.

If I had to pick my favourite story, it would be a toss up between three:

‘Imitation for Beginners’, the story of androids mimicking humans, manages to take the essential underlying philosophical and ethical themes of Asimov’s works and take them one step further. This piece not only conveys a real depth in its few pages, it’s also very funny. You want to read about an android losing his virginity? Then this one’s for you.

‘Lexical Funk: How The White Boy Learned to Settle Down and Love The Afro’ was simply a jazz jamming wonder of language and humour that had me grinning all the way to the etymological funk bank. White Boy done good.

And I loved every minute of ‘Rich Jacobs Searches for The Meaning of Life’, which includes sticks of celery knowing what the meaning of life is:

“(The celery said,) ‘After much thought and controversy, we have decided that the meaning of life is to be eaten.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ (asked Rich.)
‘Oh yes, quite sure,’ it said. ‘Ask the cabbage, the watermelons, the carrots, any of them, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. Except maybe the peas, they’ve always been a rebellious bunch, trying to fall off forks and spoons and what not.’”

All five of these stories fit together really well – they cross over in subtle ways sometimes, and the subjects of life, death and purpose binds them, but the one thing that really brings them together is that they’re all really about: writing, literature and genres.

If you want a book that’s funny as hell but also sentimental with underlying philosophical musings, then you don’t need to look much further than this triumph of words. ( )

Such a fun read. I love how the author played with words and how witty his stories are. I would love to read more of his short stories. It was so refreshing. ( )

I’ll be short and sweet … like this book. Lexical Funk is smart. Damn smart. The kind of smart that thinks of the answer before it knows the question. The kind of smart that thinks twice about four things at once. The kind of smart that already knows how this sentence is going to end. This book was smart enough to make me want to eat its brains. Did this book smart? A little. Applied some bactine and moved on. Is this book book smart? Or is it street smart? Would that be Main Street, Wall Street, or Mean Street? If you look at the word “street” for too long, does it start to look misspelled? What about the word “misspelled”? Where was I? Apparently caught in a web of words, much like Lexical Funk. What can I say, I got my funk on. You know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. The groove, the jam, the jelly, the preserves that preserve your taste for pomo lit. Hah! Tastify my friends, hallelu-yum. (Call back to the “sweet” in “short and….) Hah, hit me two time, hee-yah! Lay down that funky muzak, white boy, and read this postmod litter-a-chère. Postmod, pre-ascot, tight pants, bold prints. (Memo to self: Refer to last sentence for main character of my next novel.) This book is short in stories but tall in tales. Tones on Tail?
Sorry, I turned tail on a Bauhausian tangent there.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this surprisingly insightful collection. The end. ( )