Friday Links: Ice Real Cool Edition
"In Little Rock they know / Not answering the telephone is a way of rejecting life," - Gwendolyn Brooks, "The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock"
Nazis unwelcome: here’s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie. I might forget/get bored and stop. Not today though!
BONUS SECOND INTRO NOTICE: I will be at AWP! Please say hello if you would like, I would be stoked to talk to you. I am not scheduled to do anything, so if you have any open reading slots, holler. I’m not really on Twitter but I check DMs there, same with Discord (I’m @chriscorlew). Hope to see you in KC!
It feels like there’s been a lot of dialogue lately about whether or not people actually read books. I referenced Nicholas Russell’s piece last week, saw some pot-stirring on Bluesky about “quit whining about your TBR list and just read,” there’s been some dismissive “I’m sure the good liberals will buy the right books” stuff in things I’ve read this week.
Having been a person who read a lot of books, then didn’t read hardly any books, and now reads at least 50 per year because of an idiot blog, I will say: reading books is good. Reading books is also a time commitment. Reading books also changes you—whether that’s learning life-altering information or just brightening your mood because the author spun a good yarn or the poet tickled your brain just right. What I’ve learned: sitting and spending all the time it takes to read a whole book (or actively listening, I guess) is a worthwhile endeavor for your brain. Being intentional and thoughtful with what you read is worthwhile, because even as the pace of life quickens, you never really get any faster at reading. And change can be subtle and subliminal or some sort of conscientious adaptation—it’s up to you.
Mostly, this stuff is supposed to be fun. Why do y’all hate fun so much?
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Speaking of supposed to be fun, oh boy did I treat myself this week. After 1400 pages of US history for the last three weeks, I ran to poetry and horror fiction like they were Claudio the Tamale Guy walking into a bar at midnight. For the short fiction, I dug into an anthology. I love anthologies, but haven’t been reading them too much since starting this blog. Part of the joy of an anthology is picking it up every now and again, reading a couple pieces, then setting it aside—doesn’t lend itself as much to what I like to do here, but is great when you have a newborn baby strapped your chest 10-12 hours a day (which was my life for a year). Anyway, after all that history, I picked up two books I knew would be fun, so of course I reached for The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks and Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele.
From Out There Screaming: “Reckless Eyeballing” by N.K. Jemisin, “Flicker,” by L.D. Lewis, and “Lasirèn” by Erin E. Adams: Jemisin and Lewis are two writers whose online presence I like, but I hadn’t dug into their work yet. It’s great! And the Adams—that story really grabbed me, reminded me of Jamaica Kincaid. These three are varying degrees of high concept, creeping terror, and fable, and two of them made me go “oh dude that demon is coming for you, I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do” on the second page, then didn’t disappoint. The third one told me running for my life was pointless. If these three stories are any indication, this is an anthology of stories I would like to see Monkeypaw Productions option and make into movies. That’s not to say movies>books. Short stories—talking 2,500-8,000 words here—are a literary form that really lend themselves to movie adaptations, I think. Plus I want all these writers to get PAID paid.
The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks: Last April was my first serious time ever reading Gwendolyn Brooks, and I’m thrilled to report that The Bean Eaters is every bit as wonderful as A Street in Bronzeville or Maud Martha. The language games (rhyme comes in and out of these poems in interesting ways), the varied lengths, the community scope of subject matter, the joys, the people who turn away from joy, the indignities, the celebrations—if Gwendolyn Brooks was a WNBA player, you’d call her “a bucket” or “a problem.” She writes poems the way you want someone to write poems. This Collected sure is awkwardly named, but damn, the book keeps on giving!
LINKS!
New The Line Break podcast! New year, nothing really new about my beloved Bob and me. We recorded late at night and our cats got in the way. Bob reads “Community Check-In” by Sam Herschel Wein, I read “John Wayne Niles … .--…--.- …/ - --- Ermias Joseph Asghedom” by Mahogany L. Browne (stayed my favorite poem in Four Hundred Souls), and then we both have a whole lotta egg on our faces—that can’t be the saying, can it?—about how we didn’t think Kawhi Leonard and James Harden would be awesome together.
To put a button on my project reading US history (Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven), this Daily Zeitgeist interview with , author of Be A Revolution, is really great. Dare I say inspiring? Individuals on their own cannot overcome systemic, structural problems. That said, between learning the quiet ways in which people have rebelled in the past and then hearing Ijeoma talk? Got my wheels spinning about individual choices that do matter, like quiet quitting or composting.
Inquest has an excerpt from Angela Y. Davis’s new book about how abolition to help mend democracy. Prison abolition was being talked about in 1943. A better world is possible, the Establishment just works hard to make sure we don’t think that it is.
After leaving her publisher because of their silence on the genocide in Palestine, Bosnian-Serbian author Lana Bastašić was disinvited from a residency in Austria. The way Bastašić responded is blistering (with Dan Sheehan at Lit Hub reporting). Personally, I’m not sure how I’d recover after “I do not know what literature means to you outside of networking and grants. To me it means, first and foremost, an unwavering love for human beings and the sanctity of human life” or “It is my political and human opinion that children should not be slaughtered and that German cultural institutions should know better when it comes to genocide.”
At Defector, David Roth asks: “How Will The Golden Age Of Making It Worse End?” This mostly about Boeing’s move from a company culture of “safety” to a company culture of “financial bullshit.” Those are real quotes from a former Boeing physicist. Reminder: Boeing makes airplanes. A pull quote because Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “…I’d also submit that [Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci] and his cohort has no idea—no idea how much anger there is about what he and his cohort have done to make every aspect of life flatter and crueler and riskier and worse, and no idea how lucky he is that all that rage is still being pointed in, and not up.”
If you are of a certain age and read SLAM magazine, Scoop Jackson is a legend. I mean, he’s been at ESPN and the Sun-Times, too. In my mind, though, Scoop’s coolness and vibe always makes me associate him with SLAM. Scoop’s written George Gervin’s new autobiography, and he sat down with Lee Edwards for an interview in The Triibe.
What’re you still doing here? Go watch one of the coolest hoopers of all time do one of the coolest moves in basketball over and over again.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this week. And whatever happens, keep it real cool, like Iceman or Gwendolyn Brooks. Don’t let those ratty customers make you feel lesser.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris