Readings - Fiction and Ideas and Politics

 There is a surrealism, a barreling forward in What is Death but a Dream from which we do not Awaken? by Barbara Byar, but I am not sure if I understood the characters (I assume they are dead, but I did not understand their relationship to the protagonist - former lovers?). There was one metaphor that stuck with me, not in a good way: "and that’s a Schrödinger’s vision of indecision..."

 The Unbearable Weight of My Heart by Erin Almond won the Pangyrus Fiction Contest - a woman's life told through the lens of weight loss, rather brilliant.

Guangxi56 over at Atticus Review I think is also brilliantly done. Not what I can do, though. It seems most of my characters never can connect - in my short stories. How to Tell a Story by Hege Lepr impresses by molding into Red Robin Hood a more modern story; I never quite fell under the spell of fairy tales (I did try to read The Brothers Grimm in prison and none really stuck). I do not think I can do flash fiction - I lack the poetry - but Déjà Vu by by Patricia García Luján makes think this is how it should be one - real characters, real emotion.

Lincoln Michel of Counter Craft has two stories online: Notifications and From the comfort of your own home. Both are in the speculative fiction vein. Different forms, but there is a humor and humanity to them both - they share a sense of humanity meeting tech. Much more my style than the Byar story. On his Substack, he writes what it took to get these published. Do read it, any potential writers who venture here.

While in prison, I came to think of Indiana as a borderline: between the forest and the prairie, between North and South; industrial but also a farming state.

I found the Eastern European writers interesting for this reason. Turgenev, for this reason, was easier for me to absorb than Gogol or Tolstoy. Lately, I have become aware of Bruno Schulz. What country is more of a borderland than Poland? So I spent time tonight with Studies in Heresy: On the Intimate Translations and Translated Intimacies of Bruno Schulz by Josh Billings discusses the virtues of Schulz's translators, and the power of language.

IN THE MYSTERY CAVE has several ideas that might confuse the representatives of the federal government, such as my PO, and upset those seeking the regime change proposed by the likes of Patrick Deneen.

I listened to Deneen on C-Span this afternoon. I heard a history of political thought that was unfamiliar to me. He cited Aristotle, beating hard on the terms democracy and oligarchy. I heard no mention of tyrants and kings, or of aristocracy. I reckon he conflated aristocracy and oligarchy, where I recall Aristotle condemning oligarchy as a debased aristocracy. He used the phrase "mixed constitution" without mentioning the U.S. Constitution as such a thing. He seems to think of liberal government in terms not of our Declaration with its giving equality to all, or the French Rights of Man, but as a form for oligarchic elites. Populism seems to be the right-minded solution to our oligarchic government, which seems odd when taken up a rather well-to-do Harvard graduate like J.D. Vance. I wonder what would William Jennings Bryan say if he wandered into such a lecture.

I did not take out the bike again. My eyes were tired of reading this computer screen, so I rested them - for more hours than I like admitting. I did walk down to Dollar General for a bottle of Coke Zero, the lack of caffeine was becoming bothersome. Then I started on this post and the readings underlying it. I still have not caught up with my email. I still need to get back to my pre-trial detention journal. The noel progresses slowly. No cigarettes. I did add two more posts.

I suggest Palter, Dissemble, and Other Words for Lying for anyone listening to Republican presidential candidates this year.

I had I, Tonya playing on the TV from 7 to 9. Am I the only noticing she does Harley Quinn with the same voice she did much of I, Tonya? Great soundtrack, which is why I am closing out tonight with this:

sch 9:38