“we’ll wrap our arms, / my brother and me, // and become / in the surf rising” – Ross Gay, ‘Be Holding’
IT’S FRIDAY AND WE’RE PARTYING! Let’s get in a good mood this weekend. If you’re in the service industry, I hope you get great tips and those people approaching your door with five minutes til closing time decide to go somewhere else. THEN PARTY!
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
After all that poetry and lyric essay business for the last two weeks, I was ready for some fiction. Leaping boldly from my shelf—because with this vibrant of a cover this book cannot help but to leap boldly off of shelves—was Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black. This book was first on my radar back in August 2020, when my dear friend Chloe N. Clark assigned a story of his in a workshop. I was so taken I bought the whole book straight away. Normally, I’m a stickler for reading short story collections in order. This was when my kid was like 20 months old, though—full-on sprinting everywhere 13 hours a day and us with no childcare help. So I cracked it open to “In Retail,” a quick-hitter I could read during toddler naptime, and Friday Black immediately became the rare book that makes me cry.
These stories are wildly imaginative, the sort of world-slightly-tilted thing that makes you go “wait a second, this is totally believable” even as something unimaginably horrifying is happening. The George Saunders influence is present, but not in the way where you feel like he’s just rehashing CivilWarLand In Bad Decline—Adjei-Brenyah is definitely a distinct voice. The stories are shot through with sadness, but not hopelessness, which is always what you want. Adjei-Brenyah is really great at creating fully embodied characters in a short amount of space, which makes stories like “The Finkelstein 5” and “Zimmer Land” really sing beyond their high-concept premises. “Lark Street” is written like Millennial Denis Johnson, while “The Hospital Where” veers fully into labyrinthine surrealism. These stories are super rad, get your hands on this book.
And ohlookatthat, his debut novel, The Chain Gang All Stars, is out in May. You can preorder it here.
LINKS!
The “Bombs Over Baghdad” music video doesn’t get enough credit for being a radiant burst of pulse-pounding joy. Look at how happy everyone is! My goodness. What a song, what a video.
Man, it super does not feel like nine years since Mal and I saw Janelle Monae at Taste of Chicago. This would’ve been in support of Electric Lady, and my favorite track off that record is “Givin’ Em What They Love,” which features Prince. Not many people could write a song and think “this would be a good feature for Prince” and be correct, but “Everyone” =/= “Janelle Monae.” That song doesn’t have a video though, so here’s my second-favorite track, “Dance Apocalyptic:”
Remember when Ja Morant tipped his server $500 and when she asked who he was he just said “I play basketball?” I think about how cool Ja is in this clip a lot.
Here’s Ross Gay, who’s on my list to re-read here pretty soon, on the poetry of happiness:
Being an old man, one who does not listen to radio, one who does not have any cool Gen Zers in his life saying “lowkey you deadass gotta stream [NEW ARTIST X], no cap,” it’s hard for me to find new music. Sometimes I like to go on the YouTube channel for Chicago’s own Audiotree and watch a set for a band I’ve never heard of. Yesterday, I watched Juice, who is pretty smooth and danceable and just looks like they are having so much fun playing their music. Get your big toe shooting up in your boot, as Miles Gray says, with Juice:
Sorry you got an email,
Chris