Grrr

 The nap took 2 hours longer than expected. Why did the hip bother me more when I woke than when I went down? I walked down to McClure's for Coca-Cola and some ice cream, and just to get some air. Then I paid my rent, ate my ice cream, and sat down here.

Feeling grumpy, slow, and dull. I turned off The West Wing for music.

Let us see if I can find some place to put my stories.

So I read Night Swimmer by Elizabeth Obermeyer from Heimat Review. I like the story, the oblique ending, and the prose makes me think I ought to have read more poetry - it has the lightness, the dancing, of poetry. I have 'Problem Solving" in mind, which is so internal and not given much to metaphor. Not much lightness in my story or prose.

I try another.

Donations by Donna Huneke gives me a sense of what it was like to be a single parent during the Covid lockdown - as well as part of a dysfunctional family. Nicely done. This one may stick longer in the mind for all of its plainer, more direct style.

I was beginning to think the review was the sole domain of the distaff side. I saw then two stories by men: An Obit by Bob Gielow (yes, it is told as an obit, a very spooky tale albeit not as spooky as you might think, and was a pure delight for language and how it sums up a person's life) and Playing Hooky by Will Musgrove (a slice of life, two working class guys, singing). Mr. Musgrove is a Midwesterner.

Heimat tops out at 3,000 words. The only thing I have on tap at that length is "Colonel Tom."

Grub Street I looked at the other day and do not think I will submit. I think the publication is lovely: here is an example.

No open submissions, so I will calendar this one.

Nat. Brut looks interesting, but the submissions are closed:

Nat. Brut’s (pr. nat broot) principal mission is to showcase the work of writers and artists who have been historically devalued or pigeonholed by art and literary institutions. We publish work that has been buried, ignored, and disappeared from public consciousness. Equally, we seek work that comes from artists’ buried, ignored, and disappeared impulses and practices—the risky, the exploratory, and the potentially ugly.

We bring together work that is serious and humorous, formal and experimental, by artists and writers who are trained and untrained, emerging and established. The work that we publish is intentionally representative of different identities, perspectives, and experiences. We believe in the power of presenting all of these voices in proximity.

However, did I read The Blob: Third Wave by Mackenzie McGee; the blog meets a barista, told as a movie. Absurd, fun, give it a look.

Another closed for submissions is Waxwing. There I read Salvation by Jemimah Wei. Interesting to me for its portrayal of what around here we call lowlifes, plus the use of a fourth wall. An amazing bit of writing that will grab you and not really let go.

On Squib, I read Illinois by Gracjan Kraszewski - an absurdist take on the spy story set in Champaign, Illinois. Sound like it ought not work, might be a bit too precious, but all I found marring it was the numerous typos. Another magazine closed for submissions.

It is getting late, and I find it grating that magazines announce a reading period that looks open until one goes to its Submittable page. Revolute is another example of this. KH should see this one; it will set his hair on fire. But I do like William Kitcher's Fool at Dinner for how it is written and the story it tells - I doubt it will get the attention it deserves for it is a humorous tale.

10:05 pm: I am throwing up my hands. I have more journals and have decided, if they are open, I submit to them. I'm a mutt. I have nothing to lose. Other than the time spent on other things - my own writing that is unfinished, on my reading, sleeping.

• Shift - "Problem Solving"
• Heimat Review - "Colonel Tom"

Not much good for the time spent. Unless one picks up one of the stories.

Onto other stuff. I have books, but I am going to read a few things online.

 

I know of Flavius Josephus, but have not read him. Which is why I read Why Josephus Matters, and now I would like to read the guy:

First, his War is among other things a meditation on the meaning of political freedom amidst great powers. While everyone in Jerusalem felt the same outrage at a Roman official’s actions, he presents those who advocated a fight for freedom as at best short-sighted, at worst seeking their own power to the detriment of the mother-city. They saw freedom only in the radical sense of absolute self-determination, which was a dangerous pipe-dream for Josephus. His views correspond to what we would call political realism, though the term is anachronistic. He was proud of his Hasmonean ancestry and the degree of independence that these brave forebears had carved out from the collapsing Seleucid dynasty. But he highlighted the skill of these revered ancestors in making judicious alliances. After their few heroic battles they had to become smart and supple diplomats. Even the Hasmoneans quickly approached Rome as a vital ally. Josephus and his group seek maximal internal freedom within the limits of the possible, sure that a drive for more will destroy even that.

Second, Josephus’ works offer abundant material for questions of belonging and identity, which are becoming ever more salient for us. As a Judean steeped in Greek literary culture who  relocated to Rome, he was the embodiment of hyphenated identities, though his deepest commitments are clear. All of his works devote significant space to problems that arise from suspicions about loyalty. Judeans of Scythopolis defend their town against Judean raiders only for the citizens to massacre them as a foreign element. Judeans in Antioch see their hard-won modus vivendi with the citizen population wrecked by one of their own. Acting from fear, he pathetically demonstrates his Greek bona fides by throwing his fellow-Judeans under the wagon, falsely accusing them of conspiracy. Judeans of Caesarea and Alexandria, who have lived there for generations, become instantly vulnerable to murder when Jerusalem is in conflict. Then again, Josephus explores the situation of foreigners who want to identify themselves as Judeans and then face peril for disloyalty to their compatriots. In all of this, our author shows profound insight and psychological understanding, as he does when describing the fears of those facing death in battle.

And there I end at 11:04. 

Tomorrow, I work on my fiction and my letters and get some groceries. Check in when you can.

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