I still have questions

November 24, 2020

Yes, I still have questions.   Hello. It's been a minute. I've been busy writing and editing and loading the dishwasher (over and over and over) and teaching and, oh yeah, screaming silently in my heart. I'm good, kind of, mostly. You OK?   I began to feel like returning to my Tiny Letters as the Media Substack Discourse really started to howl. I realize Substack is where the monetization happens, which I guess makes Tiny Letters just the cute little cousins living on the outskirts of what is sure to turn into the Newsletter Industrial Complex if it hasn't already — that slide from independence to extraction feels inevitable to me, so get it while the getting is good, I suppose. But as a very wise woman recently told me, "Some writers only ask me about what's selling these days and they want to write that, but you are the polar opposite." For better or for worse? [Reply hazy, try again.]   So expect to hear more from me going forward. Feel free to ask me "how's the book going?" because for the first time in two years I'm not afraid to answer.

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 Is it giving up, or giving in? I am fascinated by this viral item that can only be called Couchbed (technically, it's the Hariana Tech Smart Ultimate Bed, is too many words for an all-in-one marvel such as this), which looks like what the Oompa Loompas would build Charlie Bucket's grandparents if they got really into the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog while waiting for Charlie to take over the Wonka factory. The copy is disturbing if you've read a lot of crime stories — it promises to be "the ultimate enclosure system that comes with everything you need in a room” [italics mine] — and calling it an "adult playground" seems a bit ambitious slash Fredericks of Hollywood catalog circa 1987, but hey. It comes in red, too. Ogle it here but remember there's an end to this interminable staying at home on the horizon, if we can make it that far.

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 "Whose land are you skating on?" I just love this profile by Justin Garcia for Scalawag of the founders of St. Petersburg's Gay Commie Skate Crew. For Cynamon Gonzales, "the root of all violence and discrimination toward Natives comes from the theft of their lands and the persecution of their cultures. Returning land to Natives is what Gonzales cares about most." Skating helps with the emotional toll this work takes, and helps build a strong community. Read it here.   “God damn, what will I tell my parents?” I'm still reading this fascinating Crime Reads profile of the tragic short life of Linda Millar, daughter of celebrated crime writers Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar, and I'm hooked. Read it here.  “who’s been in the dead girl’s room? Who touched her things? And why?" A knockout by Yamilette Vizcaíno Rivera, "Witness Statement #8," from Barrelhouse's Funky Flash issue. Read it here. * * *  Who do we picture when we picture Appalachia?   If you think J.D. Vance and not Nina Simone, you're part of the problem. Here are some answers:  "Nina Simone was a mountain girl, is what I’m saying." In this brilliant Guernica essay "Lost in a Misgendered Appalachia," Leah Hampton takes us to Nina Simone's childhood home in Tryon, North Carolina, and asks us to “picture her that way, to set aside what you know of this iconic artist and think of her rural beginnings" as a path into an argument that "We have purposely misgendered rurality in this country" in part by deceptively defining Appalachia and its culture solely along capitalist-friendly toxic white male lines — "that old familiar Truck Nutz ethos" — instead of embracing the "inconvenient truth ... that every aspect of American rurality leans heavily towards the feminine, the nonbinary, and the Other." Read it here.  "If you start yelling at the highest level, there's nowhere for you to go." Alison Stine makes the case for just laughing at the schadenfreude of all the absolutely terrible reviews Ron Howard's adaptation of Goddamn J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy has received. (There's a lot of shouting!) The myths about poverty, addiction, rural life, Appalachia and anyone in those spheres who isn't a straight white cisgender man still need pushback, or they'll continue to shape the punitive policies that favor only the J.D.s of this world. Read it here. (Yes, it's at Salon; I'm not apologizing.) * * *  Need books?