I begin with love, hoping to end there.
Recently, for an (alleged) society interview, I was asked the question “What is important to you?” With a combination of a desire to be truthful and a compulsion to be interesting, I said that language was very important to me. I don’t think they loved this answer. One of them told me it was very “English Major.” I guess technically I am an English Major, so she was correct. They asked me to expand, and I told them that I care a lot about how language is used, and I’m very interested in new and exciting uses of language. They liked this even less. One of them asked me if I got upset when people used incorrect grammatical structures. It was embarrassing.
But, I do actually think that language is one of the most important aspects of my life, and I do think about it all the time. I love writing, and I think it’s incredibly moving. I have never been someone who had much emotional attachment to music which people sometimes are surprised by. I spent a lot of my life playing and practicing music, and I obviously listen to music and enjoy it. But a song has never made me cry. I have a very strong emotional attachment to words and language. I almost always cry when I finish books, whether or not they end sadly. I feel so involved with the characters and the beauty of language within the things I read that during times when I need to focus, I can’t read any books, because I will become so hyper-focused on the lives of the characters that I will become completely detached from the reality of my own situation. I don’t think there is anything in life more beautiful or more emotional than language.
“Am I sleeping and waking, or just turning over?”
That’s something I’ve been asking myself lately. It also happens to be the best line in one of my favorite songs, “Leading a Double Life” by Blue Gene Tyranny. I’m not sure I know what it means but I also often feel that I am just turning over. It makes me think about suffering. I used to think suffering was a not only necessary but noble part of life. I worked myself to the bone in school; I suffered for academic success. I dated horrible people; I suffered for love. When I was successful, it only felt like I earned it when I had sacrificed. Perhaps, this was some contrived mechanism for self-harm, or maybe my self-esteem was just hilariously low. Regardless, at some point in the last three years, I stopped feeling this way. In his essay, “Uses of the Blues,” James Baldwin writes, “Every person, everybody born, from the time he’s found out about people until the whole thing is over, is certain of one thing: he is going to suffer. There is no way not to suffer.” If suffering is a fact of life, why seek it out? There is no valor in making yourself suffer more than you already will. It’s just silly. Now, I like doing things that make me feel good. While I don’t know if this is good for my academic career, I do think that it is good for me.
In the dream where I am an island,
I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.
- Jericho Brown
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Watch
I don’t (unfortunately) watch very much television. I wish I had better recommendations. The last television show I got really into was Peaky Blinders. Cillian Murphy is a very good-looking man. I don’t have much else to say about that show.
I’m a tiny bit better at watching movies. My goal this year was to watch forty movies, and so far I’ve watched two. One was Saltburn. I didn’t like it very much and it also has been written about ad nauseam. I don’t know if I have anything productive to say about it so I won’t say anything. (Though, it does have an awesome soundtrack. The 2010s are back, baby!)
Mulholland Drive
This was the only other movie I’ve watched this year. I liked it several days after I finished it, but I hated it right after I watched it, and I didn’t really enjoy the experience of watching it. If you know a lot about film and want to tell my why this happened, I would be forever in your debt.
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Read
The Idiot
I have already talked extensively in DOWN, and in real life, about how much I love this book. And yet, I will say more. It’s so good. The longer it’s been since I read it, the more I love it. I think when I finished my first year of college, I felt like I had missed a crucial meeting they told everyone why college mattered so much. I had fun my first year, but I remember looking around and wondering if this was really the place I had worked so hard to get to. It seemed that I had reached what I had thought was the end of a 10k, only to turn the corner and realize I was running a marathon. I read this book the summer after my freshman year. While reading this book didn’t give me the answers, it did make me feel like I had a friend spitting in the wind alongside me.
Also, Batuman is just such a good writer. Her prose is incredible, and I really like her interpretation of what is essentially just auto-fiction. Did you know that all the emails in the novel are real-life emails she sent to her real-life Ivan? If I’ve ever talked to you about this book, you probably did know that. Selin is great representation for girls who are liable to swoon over STEM-y men who will inevitably destroy our sense of self. Ok, enough. Just read it.
Martyr!
At the time of writing this I have still (still!) not finished this book. I am both taking my time and enjoying every second of it (what I tell my foes) and I also haven’t had any time to read for pleasure (what I tell my friends). However, I love Kaveh Akbar and this book is so far so incredible. I could rave about his technical abilities but honestly, it’s the story that makes it for me. I hope it ends well…
Sonny’s Blues
A lot of stuff on this list is going to be James Baldwin, I’ve been reading a lot of James Baldwin. This short story is so good. Obviously, the prose is insane, but also its such a beautiful story about two brothers, one of whom is dealing with addiction. I am also a sucker for narratives about jazz musicians. So good, and very short!
Uses of the Blues
Another James Baldwin (what did I say?!) This essay is so beautifully written I was in awe when I finished reading it. Also about music, also insane prose, also so, so good.
Days of Rest
Raven Leilani is the coolest. One thing I love in short stories is explorations of religious trauma, and she does it so damn well. She grew up Seventh Day Adventist and writes a lot about it. I heard her read this short story in Paris, and it was possibly the most insane moment of my life. I also got the chance to ask her a question (I think I actually asked two, but I don’t remember the first.) Throughout the question and answer section of her reading, she had spoken a lot about being a perfectionist. She said she worked through all of her writing with a fine toothcomb, going over every single word. She didn’t talk about this like a skill, more like a compulsion. This felt entirely too relatable. At the end of the reading, I asked her, “As a perfectionist, how do you know your work is done?” This is something I worry about. She said, “When I’m working on it and it keeps getting worse, I know I was done a while ago.” What a brilliant answer. I think about this a lot when I’m writing.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Listen…I am recommending this in a short story way, not in a fiction workshop focusing on dialogue way. It’s a really good short story and also happens to be a story that all creative writing professors recommend. Usually, there is very little overlap between these two categories. But, there are exceptions.
Poems
I have been spending a lot of time on Twitter recently. While some might say this is a “bad thing” I find it to be immensely productive. Mostly what I see on Twitter is poetry and frustrated tweets about being rejected from literary magazines. I don’t know why. I think I’ve somehow conned the algorithm into believing that I am a late-twenties-writer-editor, freshly graduated from an MFA in creative writing living in New York trying to make it big in the Bigger Apple. It’s awesome. I love Twitter. Here are some poems that I sourced pretty exclusively from my Twitter “for-you” section.
Incident–Natasha Trethewey
I Love Natasha Trethewey. What an incredible contemporary poet. I recommend the entirety of “Native Guard” but we can start with this poem.
Seven Years Sober – Kaveh Akbar
Trust God but tie your camel. Trust
God. The bottle by the bed the first
few weeks. Just in case. Trust.
After the nights of too-relaxed-to-
breathe. After the nights—no repetition,
only insistence. Trust.
Buying raspberries to
watch them rot. Dipping bread in water.
Trust. You find a gold tooth washed up
on the beach. So long in coming. Gurfa:
the volume of water that can fit
in your hand.
Trust God.
The volume of your hand.
But carry water.
– Kaveh Akbar
Ok, this isn’t from Twitter. But isn’t it good? This is just a continuation of my Kaveh Akbar obsession. If I love you, you have probably already seen this poem because I have been showing it to everyone I know.
That’s all from me for now! Here is a playlist of songs I was listening to while writing this. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
