#15: Ace is Wild is the Wind
“Leigh Chadwick puts sunscreen on the sunflowers in the yard. She builds her poems into tree houses. A butterfly cocoons. Inside the house, Leigh Chadwick dresses up as a lifeguard while you go scuba diving in the washing machine.” (From Pretend I Am Real by Leigh Chadwick, HAD.)
Evan Fleischer: Hi, Leigh! So I read your recent, wonderful excerpt from “Pretend I Am Real” in HAD, which … then led me to your excerpts from the self-same … collection? Book? in scissors & spackle, Daily Drunk, and Ellipsis Zine, and — in looking at these three, with more presumably on the way — I feel like I have to ask two questions: (1) who … is Leigh Chadwick? And (2) what led you to take this angle of approach?
Leigh Chadwick: First, thank you for the kind—though very much expected—words about my excerpt from Pretend I Am Real that was recently published in HAD. I was happy to give the publication some credibility. And that you read the other excerpts from the novel that were published in other online publications was, again—though expected—much appreciated.
To answer your questions:
1.
Leigh Chadwick is based on a true story. Leigh Chadwick is the first day of sweater weather. Leigh Chadwick is your mother’s mother. Leigh Chadwick drips from the hips. Leigh Chadwick is an interview with Leigh Chadwick where the first question of the interview is “Who is Leigh Chadwick?” Leigh Chadwick is not Sally Rooney but maybe one day. Leigh Chadwick is the fuck that made you realize how to fuck. Leigh Chadwick is a Franz Ferdinand guitar riff. Leigh Chadwick wakes up lightning. Leigh Chadwick was going to publish an excerpt of Pretend I Am Real in the New Yorker but decided she might fuck around and get rich and buy the New Yorker instead. Leigh Chadwick is not Banksy, though Banksy wishes Leigh Chadwick was Banksy. Leigh Chadwick is Leigh Chadwick is Leigh Chadwick. Leigh Chadwick is the last clove cigarette. Leigh Chadwick is soon to be a major motion picture.
2.
Open the book that was the first book, and it will tell you it was always meant to be this way.
EF: Evan Fleischer is reading through a copy of Pretend I Am Real that he took out of the library and is halfway through annotating the page when he realizes that he’s annotating a library book. He pauses when he realizes what he’s doing and tries to see if he can spot any librarian within his field of vision who might take note of this, walk over, and then say, Well, now that you’ve ruined it, you should feed it to the gargoyles, and then direct Evan to the outside of the building to hold the book up to the gargoyles perched hundreds of feet in the air and say, Treat? Snack? and then wait to see where they are in their centuries-long debate on The Value of Art, whether or not it is just a treat or a snack or whether or not there is a self that has emerged in the period between 1989 and the present day that moves at a speed beyond the reach of things that would otherwise be keen to place a flag in its side and declare it the new Eddie Izzard, wait, no, hold on, that shouldn’t have ended in what could end up being a niche joke.
Gargoyle #1: Who’s down there?
Gargoyle #2: What’s he holding?
Gargoyle #1: Is it a torch?
Gargoyle #2: Is someone finally asking us if we’ve heard the good word?
Gargoyle #1: Which words are the good words?
Gargoyle #2: Is it a liberator of some kind? Someone keen to free us from this ledge, my friend? Who could cut ties with all the lies?
Gargoyle #1: What is liberation?
LC: Do you remember how Pretend I Am Real started?
I’m talking after the Prologue but before the birth of Discourse?
Here, let me show you:
And on the seventh day God said, “Here, Leigh Chadwick, take it. Take it all. It is yours,” and Leigh Chadwick told God, “Thanks, God, but I’m good. I’ve got a snickerdoodle to eat and a husband to go crawl inside,” and then Leigh Chadwick finished eating her snickerdoodle and wiped the crumbs off her hands with a paper towel and then crawled down her husband’s throat, where she swaddled the robin’s nest in his chest as he put on a pair of cotton pajamas and brushed his teeth with lavender.
Also, gargoyles aren’t real.
EF: I’ve been had. Found out. My Scooby Doo has become a Scooby … Don’tttttt.
Speaking for myself, I know I sometimes get hung up on the idea of wanting to articulate the idea of a version of me 'doing nothing, just hanging out' in text but don't know how to send the roving Eye that seeks to arrange the world into order — whether through enlisting someone to ask ‘interview questions’ or something else altogether — away. Any tips? Recipes? Knives? Suggestions?
LC: First: If you are going to buy a knife that can cut through a penny, then you also have to buy a penny so the knife has something to do. Unless the knife comes with a penny. In that case, you don’t need to buy a penny because you would already have a penny. But I don’t know. I don't know how that works. Is it like when you buy a toy for your daughter and on the side of the box it says “batteries not included”? But instead of AAA batteries, it’s a penny? Does the side of the packaging on the knife say “penny not included”?
The truth is always something inside of something.
Are you the penny or are you the knife or are you the question that brought on the response where the interviewer asks you, “Are you the penny or are you the knife?”
This is Why I, a Mostly Happy Old Lady, Never Leave the House
by Amy Lyons
It’s soft serve, which makes me angry. Three in the morning and an old girl with insomnia should be able to get the real stuff, hard to scoop. The car came slowly, then all at once roared down the whole kit and caboodle: sugar cones flew like little party hats, sprinkles exploded color all over the dark, wet street. The guy’s wife had left and he didn’t know why, that’s what he screamed over and over. The proprietor, uninjured, asked whose fault was that? Back home, I wished I’d asked for more toppings.
CLIMATE CORNER: “On Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will incorporate climate risk into the cost of flood insurance for the first time, dramatically increasing the price for some new home buyers. Next April, most current policyholders will see their premiums go up and continue to rise by 18 percent per year for the next 20 years.” (via.)
THINGS TO RAMBLE THROUGH AT YOUR LEISURE:
One note I’ll add to this TikTok video (which you should watch): I saw … what looked like an entire neighborhood owned by this hypothetical company in the Pacific Northwest.
A brief discussion regarding the etymology of udder — with a digression into Dutch spelling before the Dutch Language Union issued a ‘spelling reform’ in 2005.
John Berger’s “Pig Earth.” It’s John Berger! It’s Earth! It’s John Berger’s Pig Earth! (This is not an accurate description of the program nor the book the program is based on, which reminded me more of Agnes Varda’s Les glaneurs et la glaneuse than anything else, really.)
“Long Hair Bo Burnham.” I have a galley copy of Devon’s forthcoming book that I should really get around to reading. (Sorry, Devon.) However: to say I’m delighted at the prospect of hyping it up and talking with Devon about it would be an understatement.
“THE BUS SHOULD BE FREE By Wyatt Gordon and Faith Walker.” The whole collection of essays found on this site is worth taking a look at, especially if you have an interest in the city of Richmond, Virginia, especially in the context of recent tweets from Allan-Charles Chipman.
How can y’all play Arlo Guthrie every Thanksgiving when this song exists?
Global Forest Watch is looking for a communications specialist.
Latinx in Publishing Mentee Program is accepting applications.
Divya Maniar and I wrote a story together. You can read it here.
The gist of Stephen Pinker’s years-long public project of intellection is — despite the alliteration — … kind of boring, but — but! — it raises something valuable along the way: there is a difference between being a good public historian doing good work to engage the public — David Blight, for instance — and someone who thinks they need to tell the public something they ought to hear for … reasons unknown. With that in mind, I attach here a link to a nice review of Pinker’s latest book — in much the same way I might attach a review to Andrew *ullivan’s latest book, *lenn *reenwald’s latest book, Joe Rogan’s latest Dr. Oz Horse Supplement (which turns you into a horse that thinks it’s Dr. Oz), and so on. These are people who Have Something To Say, and are very keen to tell you that they do indeed Have Something to Say, and where are you going, don’t you know they have something to
ARETHA FRANKLIN COVERING WILLIE NELSON.
First image: a photo via Evan Fleischer. Second image: Alex Katz, Yellow House 2, 2001, via.