Friday Links: We All Want To Belong To A Witch Edition
“She said things like, ‘everyone wants to belong to a witch,’ and ‘a name is a carnivorous animal.’” - Josh Bell, The Houseboat Veronica
There’s a lot to be said for maturing as a reader. Certain books you feel like you HAVE to read for some reason—historical legend, critical acclaim, everyone’s talking about it, whatever. We all know the type of dudes who push Infinite Jest too hard, the type of sophomore English teachers who say Ethan Frome is the greatest book in USian letters, the Bradley Coopers of the world walking around with dog-eared copies of Lolita in their jacket pockets. When I was in college, I thought the kind of book I’m reading this week was the kind of book I had to write to be respected as an original thinker and boundary-pushing writer (notice I didn’t say best-selling). I read these types of books until reading itself wasn’t fun anymore. Then I read some books I liked, and now, coming back to a more challenging book is actually a hell of a lot of fun.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that’s still something I want to imitate. A witch story set on a houseboat I mean come on, right up yr man the shipwrecked sailor’s alley. A book that reminds me a little of Joyelle McSweeney’s Nylund, The Sarcographer, Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper, or Shane Jones’s Light Boxes—all books I need to give a second look. A book described on its cover as “mythopoetic” and sure, I barely know what that word means, but we’ll use it here, it tracks. I’m talking, of course, about The Houseboat Veronica by Josh Bell.
This is the story of a witch, the black-haired woman—who is the captain of the titular houseboat—and her ward, a boy named Orphan Thing, whom she dresses in pink shorts and for whom she has built a masturbation booth in the galley of the boat. Orphan Thing used to have a brother—possibly a twin—but he was a malcontent, which Orphan Thing told the black-haired woman, who then murdered the brother. What are the black-haired woman and Orphan Thing doing on the houseboat Veronica? What are their goals? Unclear, besides fishing and surviving and sex. How did the world get this way? We’re told less than the opening of Fury Road. Yet this moody, fragmented, atmospheric writing is compelling. If this is a post apocalypse (big IF, imo, it really reads more like a fairy tale and the “post apocalyptic” tag is on the cover for marketing), then think The Road, but perverted and with witches. On a boat. You’re telling me you wouldn’t read that? I had a great time.
It’s hard to know what to do with CWs in this book. The world is a strange, sideways, fairy tale world, where voluntary imprisonment is a thing, hanging gardens are built in train cars and feature dance floors with hand job stands (yes you read that right), and people long to belong to a witch. There is child prostitution, but it’s not presented as this huge horrific tragedy. It’s presented as kind of the way the world is. Orphan Thing treats it less like he’s a trafficking victim and more like one of Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories where young Nick talks about that being one of the scary realities of riding the rails. Murder is ritualized and expected. Idk, is any of this worse than the witch eating Hansel and Gretel? Do we expect witches to treat children well?
LINKS!
Last summer, I said I would get into regularly watching the WNBA. I try to go to at least one Sky game every summer, and have since Elena Delle Donne was anchoring the pivot. The problem I keep running into is 1) it’s summer, who wants to watch that much TV? and 2) after monopolizing the TV for two straight months to watch NBA playoffs, I feel bad asking Mal if I can watch more basketball when we could, like, sit on the porch or play Mario Party or watch Deep Blue Sea again. But I’ve watched a couple games this year, and it’s a good time to do so—lotta talent in the league right now. It’s too late to say you got into the WNBA before it was cool, but better late than never.
Washington Post reported it first, but they’re owned by Jeff Bezos, so here’s The Guardian reporting on the WNBA’s $200 million per season TV deal. Media deals and collective bargaining agreements and all the business-y stuff is boring and not in line with my celebrate-sports-as-art deal, but I love seeing the league reach this height. It would be great if these women could sign real pro sports contracts, instead of playing for what a middle manager at Groupon would make and having to go to Russia or China in the offseason. This is good basketball, and this sort of monetary recognition is long overdue.
Oh hey look Chennedy Carter scored 34 the other night, against the best player in the league, A’ja Wilson. Let’s watch:
Why is the media narrative around (recent WNBA assists in a single game record-holder) Caitlin Clark that she’s ‘the good white girl?’ Tommy Craggs at Defector (originally Flaming Hydra) takes a look. That’s a gift link, but still—here’s a pull quote, since both sites are subscription-based (BUT WORTH IT): “Today, a straight white woman is the most beloved athlete in a professional sport long at pains to suppress that it was neither white nor all that straight. It’s Caitlin Clark’s blessing and curse to be so much of what the WNBA has always praised, and just enough of what it has damned: a Good White Girl, outwardly respectable, but with a game full of that fantastic blasphemy that sent John Wooden and Ann Meyers to their fainting couches—the taunting and trash-talking and showmanship.” I maintain Caitlin Clark is a cooler player than the freak narrative around her, and I feel for how overwhelming the freak attention she’s getting is. Shoutout to Chicago Sky legend Angel Reese tho.
Speaking of Angel Reese, she went on a 15-game double-double streak that only just ended. She’s got Big Joakim Noah energy, and I would like a jersey, if anyone’s got $100 lying around.
Favorite of this blog and publisher of the
Substack, , has a weekly WNBA column at Believer. This piece, about the often weird discussions of women’s bodies that pervades women’s sports coverage, is 1) really good and 2) feels like one of those important readings for mediating implicit bias. Don’t be like Bill Simmons, asking whither the sex appeal when you’re watching the W. Sports, I’ll say again, are art. “The elements I love most about basketball are grounded in the bare physical nature of the sport…” Katie writes, “…there is no basketball without the bodies powering it…so why not be thankful for them?” It took a long time for humanity to get to a point where athlete could be a real job, and it rules that we live in a world where pro sports is a thing.
What’re you still doing here? Were you waiting for a career retrospective on recently retired, first-or-second-coolest Chicago sports free agent signing ever, WNBA champion Candace Parker? You right, here’s some highlights:
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. If it helps keep perspective when those customers come in eight minutes before the kitchen closes and orders half the menu, your lot in life is not nearly as miserable as Orphan Thing. You don’t have to work the hand job stand for coins. Still doesn’t give them an excuse to treat you like you work at the hand job stand for coins.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
Thank so so much for the shoutout, Chris!