#24: Sticks in An Empty Room
“Leigh Chadwick goes into the bathroom, turns off all the lights and spins around three times while chanting, Leigh Chadwick, Leigh Chadwick, Leigh Chadwick.” — “A BRIEF EXCERPT FROM LEIGH CHADWICK IS YOUR FAVORITE POET: AN UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY, WRITTEN AND EDITED BY LEIGH CHADWICK” by Leigh Chadwick, Hobart.
A brief word on My Share of the Body by Devon Capizzi: read it. A slightly longer word: you should read this debut collection of short stories for the patience, the craft, the line, and because you’ve already seen Almodovar’s Dolor y gloria and you want something else to fill that particular narrative emotional space. Read it because this is someone who knows what they’re doing and you should always pay attention to the people who know what they’re doing.
The Richmond Boat Parade of Lights lived up to its name this past weekend. There were boats. The boats were covered in enough Christmas lights to be seen from space. One individual with a bullhorn shouted, “Merry Christmas!” to those on shore in such a way that you realized that his boat wasn’t going to leave unless you said, “Merry Christmas!” in return. The blow-up snowmen on these lit boats seemed to get larger and larger with every pass the boats made. The extremely religious parade boat played music that reminded you that Jesus Christ definitely did a lot of Christy things that needed to be celebrated with gusto and velour.
“They always said you can be whatever you want, and I wanted to be a box of cereal.” — “HONEY” by Logan Roberts, HAD.
“Named for Bucknell's renowned literary alumnus and initiated in fall 1993, the Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing offers up to four months of unfettered writing time for a writer working on a first or second book of fiction or creative nonfiction. The residency provides lodging in Bucknell's "Poets' Cottage" and a stipend of $5,000.” (via.)
“Love turns accident into gold / … over time …” — “HIGH NATURALISM” by Tom Snarsky, Words & Sports Quarterly.
Politics: why is the current administration reversing its position on student loans and insisting that it is now — given the state of the world — a priority? /// Why is the current administration sneering at the idea of free at-home Covid tests for everyone, something which is a very real thing in the UK? /// Which members of Congress received the previous administration’s powerpoint briefing for their plans for a coup? (You can see some of the powerpoint slides here.) /// Does Joe Manchin think it’s an ‘entitlement mentality’ for people in West Virginia to have subsidized insurance for their teeth? /// The previous guy has moved from trying to pursue a violent coup to trying to lay the groundwork so that he doesn’t have to worry about a violent coup. /// What is the filibuster currently blocking? /// Why is the balance between an attempt at apolitical redistricting and an aggressively political redistricting tilting so dramatically in favor of future Republican elections? /// Why is Bernie Sanders the only Democrat with a positive net approval rating? /// Why is redistricting rolling back black political power across the south? /// Will the previous occupant become the Speaker of the House if the Republicans take control of the house? /// Why are Democrats not talking about Biden’s success rate with the courts in the same way Republicans talked about their success rate? /// Are we really going to charge teachers with felonies for teaching books with LGBT themes? Are we really? ///
“If the Republican Party decides to declare victory by selecting conservative electors even when they lose, change the rules to ensure that they never lose again per the Hungarian model, and allow a Republican president unchecked dictatorial powers—all of which are not only possible but, in fact, likely outcomes within just the next few years—it will actually be doing so from a position of weakness.” Someone online characterized this piece as grim but necessary. I’d agree.