{"id":145168587,"date":"2024-06-07T12:47:43","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T12:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=145168587"},"modified":"2024-06-07T12:47:43","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T12:47:43","slug":"friday-links-rip-bill-walton-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=145168587","title":{"rendered":"Friday Links: RIP Bill Walton Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I used to cry in a genre no one read. What a joke, they said, on fire. There’s no money in it, son, they shouted, smoke from their mouths.” – Ocean Vuong, “Nothing” <\/h2>

Nazis unwelcome: here\u2019s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon<\/a>. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie<\/a>. I might forget\/get bored and stop. Not today though!<\/em><\/p>

Cotton Xenomorph\u2019s \u201cCryptids and Climate Change\u201d issue continues\u2014get light with \u201cSilhouettes In The Snow\u201d by Orion Emerick<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>

Real quick brag\u2014my short story \u201cHe Is The River Monster\u201d was chosen as a finalist for Fractured Lit\u2019s Ghosts, Fables, and Fairy Tales contest, judged by Aimee Bender. I don\u2019t get publication or prizes or anything. I just get to know that my favorite writer thinks my short story is pretty good. I could\u2019ve gone my whole life not knowing what my favorite writer thinks of my writing. So if you\u2019ll excuse me, I\u2019ll be FLYING off this for the rest of the summer. <\/em><\/p>

For the record, I had this idea before the Celtics did it last night. We\u2019re a little late to be reminiscing about Bill Walton, but honestly? He\u2019d probably say we\u2019re right on time. Bill Walton was a man who truly loved basketball and life, a man who lived with a gratitude we should all try to emulate. If you can really, intensely love something as comparatively pointless as a sport\u2014and love it on an aesthetic level, a pure \u201cI just think this is a fun and beautiful\u201d level\u2014it kinda prepares you to deal with living, which is often unfair, cruel, absurd, and unjustly harsh. Bill Walton was Jabari Parker was Derrick Rose was Grant Hill was Penny Hardaway was any other promising young hooper preyed upon too ravenously by the injury bug. That he managed to overcome suicidal depression and go on to be a champion in the NBA, a champion of the game, and a cheerleader of life\u2014that\u2019s something we honor here on the Shipwrecked Sailor blog. <\/p>

But first, did someone say something about ravenously devouring? <\/p>

What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p>

One book that\u2019s been sitting on my shelf, its back-cover description poking my brain ever since I read it in Women & Children First a year or so ago. Another book I picked up sort of on a whim, but knew I\u2019d like. Neither disappointed, in fact, both dazzled me more than I expected\u2014on different levels. This might be the best distillation of my reading habits, a super poemy poem book of poems, and a wild monster book full of blood-drinking Becomings. I\u2019m talking, of course, about Time Is A Mother<\/em> by Ocean Vuong and Sister, Maiden, Monster<\/em> by Lucy A. Snyder. <\/p>

\"Sister,<\/figure>

Time Is A Mother<\/strong><\/em> by Ocean Vuong: <\/strong>Once again, everyone already has read this book and has opinions on Ocean. But dudes! I loved this book, wildly, and far more than Night Sky With Exit Wounds<\/a><\/em>\u2014though no disrespect to that book. The poems here flow, expand, contract, leap. They\u2019re playful, yet mining deep deep pain. There is, it almost goes without saying, the grieving of Ocean\u2019s recently dead mother. And it\u2019s just, in ways that are hard to articulate, a massive leap forward from someone who was already starting from a place of incredible talent. I picked this up almost on a lark, and am so glad I did.<\/p>

Sister, Maiden, Monster<\/strong><\/em> by Lucy A. Synder: <\/strong>Gonna save my parents and former pastor the trouble and say this isn\u2019t one for book club, you can skip on to the links if you want. What a wild read! There\u2019s gore and sex in ways I knew you could do in literature, but had never seen or experienced. Imagine Hannibal Lecter eating Ray Liotta\u2019s brain out of his open skull, except it\u2019s after lesbian BDSM sex. Imagine tumors that become wing\u00e9d monsters, awesome and terrible to behold like biblical monsters. Imagine the COVID-19 virus, except instead of losing your taste and smell, you start craving brains or blood. <\/p>

In fact, let me stamp every possible gorey and sex-juice-drenched Content Warning on here, it\u2019s all here, but especially: don\u2019t read this book if you have COVID PTSD. Every issue here\u2014the sex, consent, gore, murder of a member of a different race, etc.\u2014is handled with care and sensitivity. I know that Lucy A. Snyder spent a lot of time on Twitter before writing this book. But, if you still have sleepless nights thinking about lockdowns or anti-mask tantrums or mass death\u2014be prepared. <\/p>

But also know that first and foremost, this is a monster book. Eldritch. It even bypassed my intense apocalypse fatigue because of how fun of a the-monsters-are-coming book this is. It\u2019s super voicey\u2014you are reading a book by an author who has clearly lived in a suburb in the Southern United States, who has spent a lot of time watching True Crime and Dr. Pimple Popper<\/em> and cult documentaries and other things my wife also enjoys watching\u2014but I found that voicey-ness fun. My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski<\/em> and I loved the hell out of Inherent Vice<\/em>. It\u2019s high time Millennials got to populate the prose of 260-page novels with their own slightly cringey but endearing slang and mannerisms. Two small notes: 1) I don\u2019t think the Old Gods, once awakened, would talk with \u201cthine\u201d and \u201cthou\u201d and \u201cdost. King James\/Elizabethan English was one moment in history, and not even that long ago, writers of SFFH. But who cares? 2) I did find the tense shifts a little jarring and having an unclear purpose, but you know what else is jarring with an unclear purpose? The Eldritch-born, octopus- and biblical-angel-led apocalypse. Read this book! It\u2019s so fun. <\/p>

LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>

Something to listen to while you browse? On Bill Walton Remembrance Day, it can only The Grateful Dead. Which is a band I\u2019ve never actually listened to. Let\u2019s do this together. This is apparently the beginning of one of the Dead\u2019s most highly-regarded performances. <\/p>

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