Textual Encounters: An interview with filmmaker, meme admin and novelist Peter Vack

It's a Sillyboy world and we're all just living in it.

Jun 21, 2024

I used to be a voracious reader until I read something that said, "If you don't like a book, just put it down and pick up a new one." I've been doing that ever since, caught in a perpetual motion of picking them up and putting them down. I started The Guest by Emma Cline but only got about 40% of the way through. I’m told it is a good book, it likely is. This is a me problem, not a book problem. Sometimes, I only get through the first 10 pages before I give up. At least I am still buying books, though! They make for great decoration.

I was intrigued when I saw that downtown indie filmmaker Peter Vack, known to many as @themasterofcum, had written a novel. I have seen some of Peter’s films, and he is an impressive actor, director, and writer. I've also followed him on Instagram for quite some time, and he is a stellar meme creator and prolific shitposter.

So, I purchased a copy of Sillyboy, and once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. I won’t be able to give you some thoughtful literary criticism here, but I like my books like I like my movies: entertaining, short, smart, and funny. This book is all of those things.

Anyway, I texted Peter and asked if I could interview him for my new Substack interview series, where I conduct interviews via text message. It’s called Textual Encounters (unless you can think of a better name), and he said yes. So here’s the full-text exchange interview!

*if you are reading this via email, it may be too long, and you may need to click something that says “View Full Email” or something like that.*

Textual Encounters with Peter Vack

At this point, I started to watch the first season of House of Dragons. I am not sure what Peter was doing but it sounds like he was running into technical difficulties. I went to sleep, and when I woke up at 7 AM, I checked to see if he had responded, but he hadn’t. I thought about texting him, but I didn’t and then, at 9 AM, Peter heard my prayers and arrived into my texts again with a daring “I’m back”