“No reverting and no instant replay, but I remember what the air felt like at every major juncture.” – Sawako Nakayasu, “7.8.2003”
Happy Friday! It’s my kid’s second-to-last day of preschool! Time moves too fast!
What I’ve Been Reading Lately:
Two quick reads this week, well—quick in that they’re short. Both these books are super dense, real full meals on the sentence level—in the way that you want.
Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu: I wanted to revisit Sawako Nakayasu after my sort of lukewarm feelings toward the last book. You ever feel bad for not liking a book? I should’ve liked nothing fictional but the accuracy or arrangement (she more, and I’m probably going to read it again in 5-10 years. In the meantime, I read Texture Notes, which I liked a great deal!
There is a music recording term, “layering,” that means basically what it sounds like: layering multiples of tracks on top of each other. Often this is done with one guitar part being tracked twice and then panned hard to each ear, which offsets little imperfections and lends a rounder sound. Sometimes, it’s a bass line that gets doubled on a synth. Sometimes it’s the choral effect of extra guitar/piano that doesn’t get played live. Sometimes it’s “all of the sudden there are six singers.” Great examples of thickly layered recordings are Earth Wind & Fire’s entire discography as well as Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance. A great example of this kind of layering in poetry is Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu.
Flowers For The Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn: Man, this book has a bunch of Shit Chris Likes. A village’s worth of people, stuck on a boat because their land drowned. A commoner mouthing off to monarchs. The horrors of realizing you’re a parent now. Sea monsters! Monstrous hybridity! Eyeballs that are swirling purple with no iris! A kind of wink and nod to Octavia Butler’s Dawn by way of Namor’s Talokan in Black Panther 2!
All that adds up to a pretty compelling 100 pages that did make me audibly go “ahhh nooooooo” in front of my wife and child. If I have one nitpick, and this is again a “not the book’s fault” thing—the prose is a touch overwrought for my personal taste. It’s a gothic horror, and the tone is remarkably consistent—you get this sense that this fictional people do say things like “mine eyes”—the book is doing its job, it’s just a style different than what usually gets my hips a-swinging. But given the aforementioned [gestures wildly at first paragraph], I’ll definitely be keeping this book on the shelves and revisiting it.
LINKS!
There is new NxWorries, so let’s go ahead and start with “Daydreaming” and set the vibes right for the rest of the column:
These DeMisty Bellinger stories in Good River Review are a couple enchanting artifacts. Both give me a real sense of secondhand cringe, a real wanting things to be okay for these characters in their painful situations, but the stories are flash fiction and relief is not coming. It’s like both stories are the grandma in Get Out saying “no no no no no” while Chris shrinks into himself. It’s excellent stuff.
Had a reason to revisit this fairy tale from K.C. Mead-Brewer in Electric Lit recently, and you should, too. Or if you haven’t read it, acquaint yourself. You look like you need more bats in your life.
Mirin Fader is an excellent basketball writer, really good at these throwback long-form profiles. I enjoyed this look at Michael Porter, Jr., making his Finals debut last night after three major back surgeries by age 23. Your body is an intricate system, dear reader, please do everything you can to care for your back and feet. Also please remember that just because you are no longer “the future of basketball” doesn’t mean you can’t “start for a Finals team,” or whatever the writing equivalent of that is.
What’s that you say? Go out on more NxWorries? Oh most definitely:
School’s out, everyone go take care of your kids! I got White Sox tickets on Sunday.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris