Burn Collector #13 features 100 pages of Al Burian’s excellent writing. We at Stickfigure think that this is definitely the best issue of Burn Collector yet. Topics range from real estate to hitch hiking in germany to art school.

Here is an excerpt:

“My friend Matt instructs me on how to compose myself if I’m ever caught in a drive-by shooting. “Your first instinct, when people start falling to the ground screaming all around you, is going to be to make a run for it,” he tells me. “Wrong move. People in Chicago are really good shots. They’ll aim around you. You just have to keep walking at a steady pace, as if nothing’s going on. If you make a break for it, you’re much more likely to accidently run into a bullet.”

I try to imagine myself walking to the convenience store on the corner for a soda, calmly, through a hail of gunfire, and then casually back down the street, soda in hand, stepping over twitching bodies as the sirens begin their howling lament in the far off distance somewhere. I’m not religious enough to use the words like “fate” or “pre-destiny” openly (instead opting for phrases like “statistical inevitability”), but deep down, I do believe in the idea of the bullet with your name on it. It was stamped on at the factory, and either has it or it hasn’t, there is nothing you can do, and your composure, one way or the other, certainly isn’t going to change things. The only course of action is to keep a steady pace, do what you have to do, and hope that today, once again, will not be your day.”

This is out of print but is re-printed in the Natural Disaster book by Al Burian