2015 Reads

Ikebana by Yumi Sakugawa

Frontier 9: Becca Tobin

Fountain of Age by Nancy Kress

Among Others by Jo Walton

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

xoOrpheus edited by Kate Berheimer

Dragon's Breath by MariNaomi

The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell

Hagelbarger and That Nightmare Goat by Renee French

It Never Happened Again by Sam Alden

Worst Behavior by Simon Hanselmann

The Oven by Sophie Goldstein

Malcriada #1-3 by Suzy X.

Revenger 1, 2 by Charles Forsman

Ley Lines: Thank God, I Am in Love by Cathy G. Johnson

Lover Only #1 by various

Frontier 8: Faith in Strangers by Anna Delforian

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Super Mutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

Ink for Beginners by Kate Leth

Sea Urchin by Laura Knetzger

Mutual Paradise 1-3 by Lizzee Solomon

Ice Heist and Vampires Vampires Vampires by Madeline McGrane

Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

Forgive Me #2 by Summer Pierre

Frontier 7: Sexcoven by Jilliam Tamaki

Paper, Pencil, Life #1-3 by Summer Pierre

Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

Eat Pray Spit in My Mouth by Mike Funk

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

Horizontal Press Tijijuana Bibles by various

Never Forgets by Yumi Sakugawa

Bird Girl and Fox Girl by Yumi Sakugawa

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

Earthling by Aisha Franz

The Wilds by Julia Elliott

Smut Peddler 2014 Edition, edited by C. Spike Trotman

Grace, Jerry, Jessica & Me by Derek Marks

Backyard by Sam Alden

Frontier #9: Becca Tobin

The story of a musician is a story that I'm inclined to dislike. However, the excellent thing about reading about creative frustration is that you don't have to hear the products of the struggle. Though, in the case of Frontier 9's spaced out music scene, where synthesizers are created by shaping globs of goo into instruments, I might not object to a listen.

Becca Tobin's gloppy fantasy follows Butter, the synth lead of the wildly popular band Eurobe as she struggles to create an instrument that will bring her one-album wonder band to the next level. What follows is both a meditation on the perils of fame, the fraught consequences of wish fulfillment and a creepy vampire golem story. It is funny, too.

This short story seemed luxuriously long, in part because Tobin conveys the band's back story and current circumstances with super sharp description and, later, dialog, that distills both the characters and quickly builds the world they live in.

I loved Tobin's use of color. Generally I'm overwhelmed by too broad of a color pallet, but the full-crayon-box colors and watercolor-y tones of her art drew me in instead of making me want to take to my bed. The pages seem to pulse with the energy of her lines. The details, like the cat shirt Butter wakes up in the morning after the creation of her synth, make re-reading rewarding--a rare treat.

Simply, I can't wait to read more by Becca Tobin.

The Oven by Sophie Goldstein

I must admit that I am a sucker for a scrappy utopia. I love hope expressed through investing in the land, having children and forming community around shared humanity. In Sophie Goldstein's The Oven, "the city" has become entirely removed from the land and in order to have children one must be deemed perfect and issued a permit.

Young 20-something main characters Syd and Eric run away from the city to have a child and, perhaps, to become adults. The Oven seems to offer a few options for that future. They begin with the exhilaration of the young and despite Syd's initial fear that they made a mistake, they are taken under the wing of a farmer couple with several children and settle into a physically strenuous life of growing their own food, sewing their own clothes and living without the UV-ray protection of a dome.

But the saying, uttered often around the camp, "It's a free country," has a dark side of course. Goldstein is sparing in showing us the full extent of life  in The Oven, but the glimpses of the less savory side of being outside the law are interesting. Especially effective are the panels showing the effects of a local drug made from bugs.

While I enjoyed The Oven, I felt as though the decline of Syd and Eric's relationship happened too quickly. I would have appreciated more scenes of them growing apart, their shared dream unraveling, so that when Eric leaves we feel more profoundly what Syd has lost and gain more insight into her final decision to stay in the colony. I also think this would have provided more opportunities to explore the world that Goldstein built.

Update: The Oven is a 2015 Ignatz nominee for Outstanding Graphic Novel.

keep out

It has been a long time now but I once had a terrible boyfriend that I loved. We bonded over books and writing, wrote long notes and letters, tried to figure things out with words. However, when it came time to do our own work, he became wary and watchful.

All he could imagine was that I was writing in my journal about him, or about my desire to be with other people, because what else could be going on inside of me? What else dare go on inside of me?

It has been a long time now but it still makes me angry.

click to enlarge

When I read this page by Summer Pierre in Forgive Me #2 I started to feel sick. When I got to the part where she cuts out the passages that obsess and terrify her boyfriend, my heart broke a little. Now I know that no matter how much you give away to that person it is never enough, and it is never worth it because you get wise, you get lucky and you get out, but a little smaller and little more rounded than is best.

If you don't get out, you get The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado. This story is framed by familiar urban legends and concerns a woman's sacrifices for her desire.

"– I have given you everything you have ever asked for, I say. Am I not allowed this one thing?
– I want to know.
– You think you want to know, I say, but you do not.
– Why do you want to hide it from me?
– I am not hiding it. It is not yours."

Though the above quote is plain and bare, the story itself is subtle and entrancing. I love how Machado takes on how women are punished for being complex, the resignation inherent in many life choices and the importance of an inner life.

Ley Lines: Thank God, I Am in Love by Cathy G. Johnson

Grindstone Comics and Czap Books' Ley Lines series collects work from exciting cartoonists about art. Sometimes the comics are about influences, sometimes about the art world, but Thank God, I Am in Love gets at the primal, wrenching feeling of finding work that speaks to your soul.

The brown pallette of the pages seems an odd choice for a book about love, but the plainness of the images lets Cathy G. Johnson's words take center stage.  "I don't need portraits or actors pretending to be him. I don't need the mythology. I have the swirls of ecstasy, the impasto, I have his presence his presence his presence" Johnson recreates those swirls of ecstasy for each panel of the comic. I could recognize some of them from my very limited knowledge of Van Gogh's work; I wonder if a more versed reader would gain extra insight.

Though descriptions of the physical sensations that art love cause dominate the text the (not unrelated) line that most stuck with me was: "His work alleviates my loneliness." That is the most precious gift of falling in love, that melding, that recognition, and Johnson truly captures it in this book.

I was deeply into Golden Smoke by Warren Craghead and Unholy Shapes by Annie Mok, and I can't wait for the next issue of Ley Lines. If you did not subscribe, well, now's your chance.

a thing for ghost ships

I've got a thing for ghost ships.

Image ID G90F270_027F from the NYPL

There is something deliciously creepy about a floating reminder of the dangers of isolation in the wild world. The possibility of treasure, or just something to do after days or months of monotony, is a true lure on the open sea and I love pondering the possible malevolent intelligence behind such displays.

So here are two derelict boat stories, one very old and one new, both expertly read:
Tales To Terrify 177: Derelict by William Hope Hodgson
Pseudopod 440: Octavius Bound by Nathan Ehret

weird fucks in Portland

I went to Powell's and, a surprise to no one, the small press section got me.

It started with the irresistible Weird Fucks by Lynne Tillman. A few of the stories in Fast Machine were in the Before You She Was a Pit Bull zine, published by Future Tense Books. I really enjoyed those stories so more stories seemed like a good idea. Toilet Bowl, published by Guillotine Press, couldn't be more in my wheelhouse. I've been wanting to read Chelsea Martin for a long while.

My picks from the other sections of the store: A bad Philadelphian, I've never read any Delany and short stories seemed a good place to start.  And North American Lake Monsters and Super Mutant Magic Academy were simply must-haves.

What are you reading these days?

never 31

My brother and I reading what I fear is a Dilbert comic. We are suitably unimpressed.

Dear Christian,

I wanted to write this to you on your birthday, but my smartphone fucked me over. This year I spent your birthday feeling very sad. I'm feeling all twelve of the long years you have been missing. Fuck, smartphones didn't even exist when you died.

This year our dad is dead, too, and I am the only one left with our face.

This year I can't believe how old I am. I think it might be that simple.

Love,
Carrie

lettermo update

Unsurprisingly I did not make 28 letters in February. I couldn't focus each day on a person, I took a trip, the winter, the winter, the winter, etc. I managed to make 17 pieces of mail, mostly postcards, some of which haven't even arrived at their destination yet!

llllllll

Here is a comic about why a relationship with the post office can be very, very fulfilling if approached properly: Why I Live At The P.O. by Summer Pierre.

I must check my PO box. If you've sent me anything and it got sent back, I apologize. Now that there is the promise of a thaw I plan on going there more often.

a valentine for mother

I like exactly two things about Valentine's Day: hearts and mail.
Here is the mail art card I made my mom, my only valentine.

nu vampyres

Like all sane people, I love the idea of beings that subsists on life force, that kiss with a price. It hangs around in the back, all in black, looking for you, just for you. Pretty cool. Yep.

But vampires have become overexposed and boring, stripped of their complexity by trying to perfectly reconcile love and desire with being good, being redeemable, as if that is the main problem with loving the undead.

Here are two short stories that are about vampires, among other things. Both have been swirling around my brain for days.

I Can See Right Through You by Kelly Link on McSweeney's
I am in the midst of Link's new collection, Get in Trouble, now, and this was the first story I read from it. Concerning the movies, young love, obligation and dead nudists, I Can See Right Through You is probably my most recommended story of last year.

Traveling Mercies by Rachael K. Jones, ( I listened to it read by Anaea Lay) on Strange Horizons
This short short story concerns the logistics of being a guest when you never die. I would love to take a peek into the main character's address book.

What are your favorite vampire stories?

In the month of February I am attempting to make some mail every day. So far two every two days is working much better than trying to write something each day. And, despite the hashtag, a letter is not necessary to get in touch. Today I made the above card for a friend with whom I talk through all my big moves, my big emotions. With all the death and desire of the past several months, I think we might be talked out for awhile, so I thought I'd send a winter fantasy instead of more fraught thoughts.

Who are you missing these days?

The podcasted fiction of Clarkesworld's issue 100 is a warm chunk of aural delight for these freezing days. I listened to the three below over the last few weeks and each has stayed with me. All are read by Kate Baker:

"It also ate that one picture of your old girlfriend from, what is it, ten years ago now? The one at the beach where it was pouring rain and she was freezing her ass off but then she got hit by that huge wave and even though she was soaked to the skin she started laughing and couldn’t stop, and that was pretty much the moment you fell in love with her. The begitte was right about that one, too."
The Apartment Dweller’s Bestiary by Kij Johnson 
This collection of flash stories fit seamlessly into my recent ruminations on what makes a home and the things we choose to share our spaces with. Alongside the descriptions of small, fantastical creatures, I was very into the glimpses into so many lives and so many homes.

"Bethany was baffling to me. Baffling. She was still taking cat pictures and I still really liked her cats, but I was beginning to think that nothing I did was going to make a long-term difference. If she would just let me run her life for a week—even for a day—I would get her set up with therapy, I’d use her money to actually pay her bills, I could even help her sort out her closet because given some of the pictures of herself she posted online, she had much better taste in cats than in clothing."
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer 
Not generally a fan of AI stories or cats, I greatly enjoyed this humorous story about a self-aware, meddling intelligence that uses personal info to decide what is best for three sad-sack humans.

"Brother, I love him. It’s absolutely not because the world keeps hurting me."
A Universal Elegy by Tang Fei
I loved this epistolary story about identity and love. It relates the pain of trying to be understood and the intoxication of feeling so very subtly and effectively.

I made a resolution to read more this year. I want to dive in to your story and not come up for air until the next one is in my hand.

In the meantime, I've been listening to stories. This one, Vacui Magia, by L.S. Johnson, churned around in my guts for longer than I expected. The structure, that of a spell or list of instructions, provides a comforting scaffolding for a very disturbing, but personally familiar, tale. It is about parents, the weight of legacy and the extremes of grief. It is also about witches:

"No one ever thinks it will come to this. Yet you wonder, now, if every witch has a time in her life when she finds herself crawling through damp darkness, clothes dirty and hair tangled, wild with a desperate, fearful hope. You will not read about this in any book. You will never truly know how many have crawled like you, have panted like you, have felt that awful hammering of failure and loss in their heads as you feel it now."

You can listen at the above link or read here.