There’s something about lost media that stirs something in us these days. How often do we get frustrated when something we search for doesn’t immediately materialize with that Wiki blurb, some pics and links to socials? Unless that grid of related info pops up, we feel we’ve suddenly stumbled into the ethereal realm, the Flammarion Engraving writ digital. That experience, though, is one of the few remaining remnants of a past we can never again replicate. In the absence of fact, we’re left with the word of others. This bygone reliance on word-of-mouth folklore is how Aug Stone’s The Ballad of Buttery Cake Ass (grab your copy here) unfolds, speaking in tales within tales, a cornucopia of simulacra that gets more and more layered. The tale begins like phyllo pastry in a cold oven; things hea...