Friday Links: Colonizer Knowledge Almost Catches Up To Indigenous Knowledge Edition
"But he can't. The rest of the day was already happening, had already pretty much happened when Gabe kept looking downhill..." - Stephen Graham Jones, 'The Only Good Indians'
But first, your weekly Vine: Thursday was Chapter 30: “Whiskey Lemonade In The Abundant Afternoon.” Today is Chapter 31: “Wise Fear.” The podcast is cooking along, and don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter. Not to break kayfabe, but this 1950s stretch of the story is a series of good, solid, standalone flash pieces that were a lot of fun for us. We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed writing them.
This week, I went outside. Well, I have a five-year-old, I’m outside all the time. No, I mean I went to a literary event! It’s hard for me to get out—blame the five-year-old, I happen to love him, tho—but I was thrilled to go see Melissa Lozada-Oliva read from her new novel, Candelaria. It was delightful, and I’m very stoked for the book. Writers, if you come to Chicago and read at Women & Children First in Andersonville, there’s a chance I’ll be there. Whether that’s exciting or a warning, I’ll let you decide.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week: Coupla bangers this week, lemme tell ya. Well, one and one-fourth banger, as far as I’ve read. I’ve not been able to catch up after taking two weeks to read The Devourers, but once again, I pre-set this spooky season schedule, and I’m not straying from it. Not to mention, these two books pair super well with one another, telling stories of what happens when humanity’s relationship to nature is broken. I’m talking, of course, about The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones: holy bloodsplatter, Batman! Where to start with this one. I guess I should say CW for dogs (and other animals) dying. Any plot recap seems like it would do a disservice, so I will say: when the back of the book says this is “a tale of revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition,” pay special attention to that last one. As the U.S. slinks closer to fascism and the world is threatened by climate change, I keep thinking about how the knowledge and practices and behaviors that have been so violently stripped away by forces of white supremacy and colonization is a tremendous loss, and we will be paying for those rat bastard “explorers” sins for a long time. The inciting incident of this book? I don’t even know how much non-Indigenous USians would even get what the problem is. All that is to say, read this book, and think on it a bit. Plus, have I mentioned how bloody it is?
The most breathtaking bit, to me, is a five-or-so-page stretch in the middle section, “Sweat Lodge Massacre.” The whole section is setting up the sweat: we have two of our main characters and their history together, we have a father trying to set his teenage son on the straight and narrow by getting him to do something traditional, and we of course have our hellbent-on-revenge supernatural entity. All of this is multiple things at once: funny (the friends are joking around), contemplative (all the talk of tradition vs. contemporary cautionary tales), full of interpersonal grief (some of the cautionary tales are their homies), and ominous (the section is called “Sweat Lodge Massacre”). Then, right in the middle, Jones brings a sixth character to the scene. Heretofore known only by other characters mentioning them, this newcomer is fully fleshed out, wholly made into a character—without interrupting the narrative—in just a few short pages. It’s a masterful stretch of writing.
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: I’m still getting into this one, about 50 pages in. It’s incredibly exciting so far, I have not stopped thinking about Mexican Gothic since I read it earlier this year. There’s gorgeous detail, and I’m always going to be excited about anything taking place in Yucatán.
LINKS!
But first, something to jam out to? Y’all, I have to admit something embarrassing—I might like Weather Report. Evidence is inconclusive so far, but “Birdland” rips, and I really enjoy this Matteo Mancuso cover of “Havona.”
Interesting look at the strange life of “literary fiction” in The Nation from Dan Sinykin. I’m riotously bad at understanding publishing trends and who’s a big deal or not, so I found this useful. I will say my fiction prof in undergrad forbade us from writing genre fiction, pushing us towards literary, on the grounds that we should learn to write original stories, not necessarily play direct to tropes and constraints. Personally, I thought it was a good rule for undergrads—but of course, I am a horror writer. It’s a better literary world where “art that resists commercialization” and “the crossroads between literary fiction and genre fiction” and “aesthetically ambitious” writing are not mutually exclusive.
Marvelous genre-bender from Elena Zhang in Bending Genres, “Watermelon Boy.” As a parent and a massive Zach Schomburg fan, this is one of them poems that easily finds its way to my heart. Love the recurrence of butterfly breath.
I have been unfamiliar with Brett Biebel’s fiction until this story in X-R-A-Y, “Heaters,” and boy oh boy, I shall be unfamiliar for not much longer. This story rips! God in Heaven. Makes we want to tear up every piece of flash I’ve written and try again, better this time. “‘We could commit career suicide together. Some day. Twenty years hence’…‘Better that than one of those marriage pacts.’” Hell yeah.
We as a species are not going to survive if we don’t incorporate Indigenous learning and knowledge into our understanding of the world. It’s been shown over and over again that Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Pacific Islands, Australia are vastly better at land management and sustainability than colonizers. This Defector article from Sabrina Imbler took me to this piece from George Nicholas in The Conversation. It starts out with some birds called “firehawks” earning their name, and expands into a plea for colonizer scientists to be more open to including Traditional Knowledge in their interpretations of the world. A quote: “While some actions leave no physical evidence (e.g. clam cultivation)…Some types of Indigenous knowledge simply fall outside the realm of prior Western understanding…One key attribute of Western science is…testing hypotheses to ensure rigor and replicability...Although hypothesis testing is not a feature of [Traditional Ecological Knowledge], rigor and replicability are not absent.” The The Conversation piece was published in 2018, so I’m late to the party, but man, I am glad I read it.
It is possible that the only person using Substack correctly—maybe the only person using the entire internet correctly—is Chicago’s own
over at . Here are Matthew’s ideas for improving Chipotle.
What’re you still doing here? Go read Vine! It’s a real fun stretch of stories coming next week, too.
Service workers, may you clean up in tips this weekend. It’s raining out there, good vibes only to all my delivery driver homies.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
Thank you!!!