A Quality of the Unreal

A Quality of the Unreal

I should have been inured to climatic changes; but I again felt I had moved out of ordinary life into an area of total strangeness. All this was real, it was really happening, but with a quality of the unreal; it was reality happening in quite a different way.

Why read science fiction? Have you read the news? Forever chemicals in freshwater. Ohio says natural gas is now clean energy. More tornadoes than average nationwide. Less snow than average in Chicago.

I could have written this post ten years ago and there would be equally as bizarre environmental concerns.

Is that what makes Ice such a good book? The confusing narrative, the hallucinations, the not knowing what is and is not real? We’re apparently hurtling towards disaster, but we still dance and party like nothing is going to happen. 

Alienation & Connection / Past & Present

Alienation & Connection / Past & Present

“It would be foolish, in conclusion, to pretend that Moravia was anything but the most profound of pessimists.” Writes Tim Parks. It’s a truth permeated throughout Contempt. 

“I don’t love you anymore.” No one wants to hear those five words. The first three words could pique an interest in potential conquest, a challenge. The first four words could be the result of unrequited love. The full five words though? There was something there and now there is not. There was a pre- and now there is a post-. We compartment these into eras, historical or personal. It never gets easier the more we experience. 

Contempt’s protagonist, a screen-writer, wants to find out why his wife of many years no longer loves him. Not even that: despises him. Did he do something? Surely he must have done something. Or she loves another man. It could be the producer that the screen-writer works for. But it could be something more simple than that. It might just be the passage of time. Changing and not changing. Or not changing enough. Or too much change.

Ear Relevant: 79ers Gang

Ear Relevant: 79ers Gang

I don’t remember how I stumbled across this band. It might have been a Bandcamp feature and I certainly remember being intrigued by their Bandcamp page and album description, not to mention the eye-catching album cover by the artist Ceaux. The music of the 79ers Gang is described as “rooted in the unique traditions of New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian culture.” This much is obvious on first listen to opening track “79ers Bout To Blow.” But what’s also immediately obvious is that these traditions are modernized with electronic elements to create something that sounds new, a collaboration between technology and tradition as much as it is a collaboration between two unlikely partners.

2021 in Books

2021 in Books

A friend asked me recently how I decide what books to read. There is no one answer. I used to work in a used bookstore so I would find stuff there that looked interesting. I subscribe (or used to subscribe) to many publishers such as Haymarket, Transit, Archipelago, and Belt. I find out when publishers host big sales, like when New York Review Books does 40% off for four books. I read what people I know are reading. I read what I get as gifts. I read what looks interesting on Twitter. It’s a lot of different ways.

In 2021 I read 52 books. According to my Goodreads where I’ve logged all this, I’ve read 9,952 pages. The average length of each book being 190 pages. The shortest was all 64 pages of Herman Melville’s Bartleby The Scrivener. The longest was Remain in Love by Chris Frantz at 384 pages (which I didn’t even read the whole thing and donated to a Little Free Library almost immediately).

I like short books. Maybe I have a short attention span. Maybe the writers I enjoy have short attention spans. Maybe I want to read as many different authors as possible and short books are a good way to do that. I also read a decent amount of poetry which greatly reduces the page count.

UPCOMING EVENT - Palabra Pura: En Traducción

Wednesday November 20th
La Bruquena
2726 W Division
7PM - 9PM

Join the Guild Literary Complex for the last Palabra Pura event of the year, hosted by Kolin Jordan and featuring Amaia Gabantxo and Andrew Hertzberg. Translation will be a theme of this event, so feel free to bring a translation of yours (a poem or a few lines of a prose piece) for the open mic.

$5 suggested donation ~ No one turned away
Event space is on the 2nd floor

Facebook.