The New York Times Bestseller list is getting downsized

John Jackson Miller at Comichron reports on some apparent upcoming changes to the New York Times's bestseller list, including the deletion of the graphic novel bestsellers. He continues:

Following an early report, I communicated with a contact who receives an advance copy [of the list] who noted there are further changes, including the elimination of the mass-market paperback charts and the merger of the e-book-only list with the fiction list. Other categories are reduced in size; the adult trade fiction list goes from 15 entries to 10, while the highest-profile list, the hardcovers, is cut from 20 entries to 15.

Go read the full report. Why is it that newspaper owners seem to think that trimming their arts coverage will inspire more people to read their paper?

Thursday Comics Hangover: You maniacs! You blew it all up!

Jack Kirby's Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth was my favorite childhood comic. I didn't know it was a ripoff of the first Planet of the Apes movie at the time I started reading my brother's old issues. In fact, I probably started reading Kamandi a full decade before the first time I saw Planet of the Apes. And while I love the Apes reboot films, I still prefer Kamandi.

The premise of Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth is pretty much right there in the title: on a blasted-out apocalyptic earth — something called The Great Disaster happened an indeterminate amount of time ago — a human boy named Kamandi tries to survive. While Planet of the Apes just featured talking apes, Kirby populated Kamandi's planet with all kinds of talking humanoid animals: apes, yes, but also dogs, tigers, cheetahs, bears, and more.

Kirby packed Kamandi with all sorts of allegories for life in the 1970s — my favorite topical story involved a race of subterranean mole people who worship the Watergate tapes — but it was, primarily, a boy's adventure strip, a postapocalyptic sci-fi Jonny Quest.

Last week, DC Comics published something called the Kamandi Challenge Special, a squarebound sampler of Kamandi comics for $7.99. I've been waiting years for a nice, affordable sampler of these stories to give to the young comics fans in my life; I think Kamandi has a timeless quality that might appeal to any comics fan.

Unfortunately, this isn't the collection to pass on to a new comics fan. Frankly, the selection of comics in this edition is just plain weird. The book starts with a reprint of Kamandi #32, which is smack in the middle of an ongoing story involving a weird space organism that shifts from uni- to multi-cellular and back again. ("I am 'ME.' I can be...WE...! Now I am...US...!") It's a fun ride to be dropped in the middle of — one chapter is titled "Satan in the Sands," for crying out loud — but there's no real reason why it should be the story that opens the book.

Especially since the second book collected in the volume is the very first issue of Kamandi — one which introduces characters who we've already met in the first story. It's just a weird curation decision. And then the rest of the book consists of a black-and-white unpublished post-Kirby Kamandi story written by Jack C. Harris and drawn by Dick Ayers and Danny Bulandi which is itself wrapped around an unpublished Jack Kirby Sandman story that doesn't feature Kamandi at all.

Imagine you're just sitting down to watch a TV show. You've heard lots of good things about it. You're excited to watch it. But the first episode you watch is from the middle of the second season. Then you watch the pilot. And then you watch a shoddy clip show from a season well after the main actor has already left to launch his movie career. None of this makes any kind of goddamned sense, is what I'm saying.

If you're acquainted with Kamandi as a character but you haven't read much of his adventures, maybe the Kamandi Challenge Special would be worth picking up. It does feature, after all, a talking gorilla revolutionary named Ramjam. But anyone unacquainted with Kamand should stay far away from this awkward, poorly planned book.

Book News Roundup: Our dystopian president

Since its initial publication, historians have debunked and raised concerns about numerous claims in Barton's book. In it, Barton calls Jefferson a "conventional Christian," claims the founding father started church services at the Capitol, and even though he owned more than 200 slaves, says Jefferson was a civil rights visionary..."When the concerns came in, from multiple people, and that had weight too, we were trying to sort things out," said Thomas Nelson Senior Vice President and Publisher Brian Hampton. "Were these matters of opinion? Were they differences of interpretation? But as we got into it, our conclusion was that the criticisms were correct. There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all."

Your Week in Readings: The best literary events from January 25th - January 30th

Wednesday January 25th: You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened Reading

Arisa White’s latest book “takes its titles from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians.” She’s the visiting author who highlights a night of poetry written and read by powerful women of color — White is joined by Seattle authors Natasha Marin and Naa Akua. Fred Wildlife Refuge, 128 Belmont Ave. E., 322-7030. http://www.hugohouse.org. $10. 21+. 7 p.m.

Thursday January 26th: In the Cold

As Seattle prepares for the annual homeless survey — at the beginning of a year that will be dominated with discussion for how to deal with Seattle’s booming homeless population — our Civic Poet, Claudia Castro Luna hosts a reading and screening of a film to remind us of the human side behind the numbers. City Hall Plaza, 600 4th Ave. Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

Friday January 27th: The Undoing Project Reading

Ever since The Big Short and Moneyball became runaway sensations, every new Michael Lewis book has become an event. His newest book documents the unconventional team of two Nobel Prize-winning Israeli psychologists. Lewis appears in conversation with Steve Scher to discuss how our understanding of decision-making was changed forever in their work. University Temple United Methodist Church, 1415 NE 43rd Ave. http://ubookstore.com. $32.78. 7 p.m.

Saturday January 28th: The Poet Is In

After speaking out for homeless Seattleites on Thursday, Civic Poet Claudia Castro Luna makes herself available to Seattleites who’d like to make “poetic explorations” into their city. Castro Luna has been a ferocious advocate for poetry in Seattle; if you have any embarrassing questions that you’d like answered in a nonjudgmental fashion, this is your big chance. Seattle Public Library, 1000 4th Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. All ages. 2 p.m.

Sunday January 29th: Residencies Revealed

Residencies are one of the best parts of being a writer: you get a roof over your head and time (and permission) to do nothing but sit there and write. Today, representatives from Northwest residencies and local writers will talk about what they’re like, how to get them, and which residencies are right for you. Seattle Public Library, 1000 4th Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. All ages. 2 p.m.

Monday January 30th: Freebird Reading

See our Literary Event of the Week Column for more details. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, http://www2.bookstore.washington.edu/. Free. All ages. 7 p.m. PAUL CONSTANT

Tuesday January 31st: Loud Mouth Lit

Playwright and memoirist Paul Mullin has been thinking a lot about what makes readings special. His brand-new reading series looks to combine the smarts of a literary reading with the energy of a theatrical production. Tonight’s debut Loud Mouth Lit features Mullin alongside Scot Augustson, who’ll tell a story about time travel and corpses. St. Andrews Bar & Grill, 7406 Aurora Ave N, 523-1193, https://www.facebook.com/LoudMouthLit/. Free. 21+. 8 p.m.

How can you support the Seattle Review of Books?

We get asked this a lot, and it is the nicest, most heartening compliment we can think of. We are not a non-profit, so we don't ask for your money. We're not interested in a Patreon or GoFundMe page. In fact, the best way for you to support us to be slightly selfish and take a bit of time for yourself each week. How?

Well, did you know that our sponsorships are not generic, horrible internet advertising? Do you know that preparing and presenting each sponsorship is an hours-long, hand-crafted process to create the very best reading experience possible for you? That the people who buy our sponsorships feel like you're really going to like what they have to say, and that you may like it so much that you'll want to buy their book, or attend their reading?

All we ask is that you take a few minutes each week to look at our sponsorships.

We do have to say it pretty often, because we're all so used to advertising on the internet being so terrible. But: All we ask is that you take a few minutes each week to look at our sponsorship. Read the sample chapter and see if it's something that appeals to you. That's it! If you like it, of course we invite you to pick up a copy of the book, or attend the event. But really, all we ask, as your way of supporting us, is for you to look each week. If you've done that, you are actively supporting us in very real way.

If you're more motivated, then if you're ever talking to a friend and they say something like "Wow, did you see that Elisa Chavez poem on the Seattle Review of Books? I love that they run poems like that.", you should reply: "Did you visit their sponsor's page? Do it every week. It paid for Elisa's poem to appear on the site."

Not to lay it on too thick, but it literally is true: your attention and time is all the support we desire, and it would mean so much to us if you could help us out in this way.

But what if I really want to send you money?

We seriously get asked this. We're not making it up. And, finally, we have an answer: you, too, can buy a sponsorship! We'll give you a discount over our published rate, and you can tell us about a book you want people to know about. As long as you have no financial interest or connection to the author, we'll take your thoughts and write up a nice blurb, and get that book in front of our readers for a full week. You'll have given us some money, and directly paid for the content you see every day on the site.

And of course, if you have your own book or event to promote, our sponsorships are as popular as ever. Take a look at the newly released block of dates, and let us help you tell your story. We can't wait.

Literary Event of the Week: Jon Raymond reads Freebird at University Book Store

At some point, you have to figure, Jon Raymond will get sick of people comparing him to Raymond Carver. In reviews, the Portland-based author is said to “evoke” or hail “from the school of” Carver. Some reviewers even make the rare and fascinating observation that Raymond’s last name and Carver’s first name are — gasp — the EXACT SAME NAME. (Full disclosure, I very well may have made that Raymond-Carver comparison in past reviews; I’m too embarrassed to Google myself and find out.) If you work in the Northwest and you’re known for writing stories featuring short, declarative sentences and quiet epiphanies, it seems, you’ll eventually get branded with Carver’s legacy, even though it’s an obvious comparison, and one that does not withstand more than a few minutes’ examination.

If you’re reading his work through that particular lens, Raymond’s newest novel, Freebird, could be perceived as an almost-willful attempt to shake off the Carver mantle once and for all. But more likely, Raymond is just growing and changing as an artist. Freebird isn’t a book that belongs in the dusty, interior 1970s. It doesn’t reek of whiskey and regret. It feels, instead, like something new.

In fact, though Raymond has been crafting Freebird for years, it’s the rare work of fiction that feels more timely with each passing moment. It’s the story of the Singers, a California family that is constructed wholly from negative space. Grandson Aaron barely tries to bridge the chasm with his grandfather Sam, a Holocaust survivor. Anne, Aaron’s mother, is barely talking with her brother Ben, a Navy SEAL. And Anne, who works for the city of Los Angeles, is considering taking an unethical consulting deal on the side with a brown-water recycling firm — literally profiting from everyone else’s shit.

So Freebird is about the conversations we don’t have with each other — that we don’t want to have, because they’re too difficult. It’s about deciding to give up on basic human rules of conduct in exchange for a hefty profit. If you told me it was a book written for the fractured America of 2017, led as it is by a man who tosses civil behavior to the wind as he capitalizes on a fractured ideological landscape where Americans stay safely ensconced deep in their own viewpoints, I’d believe you.

The Singers are divided along political lines. There’s an age gap, and a cultural gap. History gets between everyone. And slowly everyone starts to wonder if maybe they’ve been wrong for many years. Here’s Ben, early in the book, considering the way he cheered for America’s wars:

Staring at his dad’s roof, imagining flames shooting skyward, napalm spreading over the earth, all manner of burning death, feeling his head slowly separating from his body, he began to wonder the once unthinkable: What if America was not imperiled by enemies on another continent at all? ….After almost three decades of extreme clarity on the matter, he was no longer at all sure. And without that clarity, there were other big questions to answer, too. Namely: If the enemy wasn’t out there, then what the fuck had all that violence even been for?

See what I mean? Raymond’s not some nostalgia act; he’s as vibrant as any author in the business today. Hell, it’s just like looking into a mirror.

Raymond reads at University Book Store at 7 pm on Monday, January 30. The reading is free.

Mail Call for January 24, 2017

Quid pro quo

Published January 24, 2017, at 1:04pm

Paul Constant reviews Claudia Rowe's The Spider and the Fly.

Seattle Times reporter Claudia Rowe's The Spider and the Fly begins as a successor to Ann Rule's brilliant The Stranger Beside Me. Then it turns into something much different.

Read this review now

Republican Study Committee proposes cutting all federal funding to libraries and the arts

Texas representative Bill Flores, chair of the Republican Study Committee, has released a Blueprint for a Balanced Budget 2.0 (PDF) that lays out a Republican plan for austerity under the guise of fiscal responsibility. It's a horrifying document, one that leaves the American people on their own while sustaining enormous military expenditures that amount to, by far, the largest defense budget on earth. So what gets cut? Programs that assist the poor, regulatory committes, and healthy school lunches ("funding for the National School Lunch Program standards should be prohibited, returning control of students’ diets to their parents.") This is a budget that even goes further than the budgets proposed by Speaker Paul Ryan — a famous Ayn Rand fan — in years past.

Also on the chopping block? The arts, including the NEA:

The federal government should not be in the business of funding the arts. Support for the arts can easily and more properly be found from non-governmental sources. Eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts would save taxpayers $148 million per year and eliminating the National Endowment for the Humanities would save an additional $148 million per year.

and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts:

It is inappropriate for the federal government to subsidize a performing arts center in one of the wealthiest areas in the country. Eliminating subsidies to the Kennedy Center beginning in FY 2017 would save taxpayers $36.4 million per year.

and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

A free society should not have government-supported media outlets, especially ones that so often convey political news and opinion. There is no shortage of media outlets and news services available to consumers. Eliminating all taxpayer funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) beginning in FY 2017 would save $445 million per year.

and federal funding for museums and libraries:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) provides grants to local museums and libraries, a task that can be better handled by the private sector and local governments. Eliminating the IMLS would save $230 million per year.

Needless to say, all of these programs amount to an eyedropper's worth of expenditures in the ocean that is the budget. And their claims that the private sector would somehow step in to save the arts is not founded in truth. Any nonprofit worker, particularly in the arts, can tell you that it has become much harder for nonprofits to secure private funding over the last decade or so. This is a budget that would destroy some of your favorite arts organizations.

As smarter people than yours truly have pointed out, this budget isn't actually about money. This budget is a message. It's a message to readers and writers and artists and lovers of art and musicians that when all is said and done, if Republicans had their way — by destroying the Affordable Care Act that provides so many freelancers with insurance, by emphasizing profit and material gain over quality of life, by making it easier to get a gun than to get assistance paying student debt — there would be no room for them in America. There is no room for art and for stories in the Republican budget, and there is no room for artists and readers and storytellers in the America they want to build. Somewhere over the last few years, Republicans squarely entered cartoon super-villain territory.

That Awkward Moment When He Says, “You’re So Sweet,” And All I Can Think Is: “Nah, Man. I’m a Velociraptor.”

Velociraptors and I have faces for the movies.

We have learned how to open doors: We scrape talons

across the knob, sneak out middle of the night

leave fading indent in the bed. He calls asking where I am.

I’m in your blind spot.

I’m watching heat radiate off you

as you stumble through the woods. I am attracted

to movement, meaning I only chase something when it runs.

Like a velociraptor, I will not text you back.


He kisses me like he doesn’t even know I have teeth,

like I don’t mouth his neck carotid and catastrophe.

He still thinks the parts of him I’ve swallowed are pieces

he’ll get to keep. When he looks into my eyes, I try to seem

like a warm-blooded girl, but I am a fucking velociraptor;

I trace my lineage back to birds.

He doesn’t understand how I can be so lizard-distant,

why I don’t want to kiss him outside the restaurant;

chalk it up to Cretaceous differences.


Squishy mammal boy, I don’t hunt in packs;

I have hooks for hands and very limited patience for bouquets.

If you wander into my woods, don’t be shocked when you call

and I don’t answer. Check your periph; don’t ignore that rustling.

You might have time for one last “clever girl” before you die.


Elisa Chavez is our Poet in Residence for January. Previously this month: "Revenge", "Ways of Devouring a Man", and "Tips for Surviving the Saw Franchise". She also sat for an interview.

Publisher issues unsatisfying letter to justify publishing a book by Milo Yiannopoulos

Carolyn Reidy, the CEO at Simon & Schuster, released a letter in response to the uproar that followed the news that a conservative imprint of S&S was publishing a book by white nationalist Milo Yiannopoulos. The response (published below) is several weeks too late and it doesn't actually address the issues that many have raised about the deal.

Reidy assures readers that the book will not feature hate speech. This is, of course, beside the point. Whether the book features hate speech or not — and I'm willing to bet that Yiannopoulos is clever enough to walk up to the edge of hate speech without crossing over, since this book is a gambit at mainstream credibility — Simon & Schuster is still providing a platform to a man who has made hate speech, who has unapologetically called for people to harass others.

Yiannopolous is an unrepentant harasser of women and minorities. He associates with white nationalists and white supremacists. Whether the book overtly features hate speech or not, it promotes someone who routinely uses his platform to spread a message of hate. Reidy is splitting hairs.

Some bookstores, authors, and review sites have protested Simon & Schuster's decision to publish Yiannopoulos through boycotts and other similar measures. A boycott is an imperfect solution because it penalizes other authors, including authors of color, who have worked for years to publish books with Simon & Schuster.

The truth is, if you want to prevent situations like this from happening again, you should support independent publishers. Simon & Schuster is too goddamned big to be ethically sound; every one of the big four corporate publishers has a conservative imprint. When you buy books from the corporate presses, you're supporting all kinds of imprints that publish books you don't want to support. If you devoted more of your book-buying money to smaller, independent publishers, you'd know which authors and editors and agendas you're supporting. Don't actively boycott Simon & Schuster; just spend your money on independent presses, instead. If you diverted a significant portion of your corporate publishing budget to independent presses instead, the publishing world would be morally (and artistically) stronger.

Here's the text of Reidy's letter:

I'm writing to you regarding the controversy surrounding the book Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos. Since Threshold Editions announced their plans to publish, we have received many comments from you and many of our authors and readers expressing concern and displeasure. I want you to know that we take all of this feedback seriously and appreciate that so many people, especially our authors, have taken the time to communicate with us.

First and foremost, I want to make clear that we do not support or condone, nor will we publish, hate speech. Not from our authors. Not in our books. Not at our imprints. Not from our employees and not in our workplace.

When Threshold Editions met with Mr. Yiannopoulos, he said that he was interested in writing a book that would be a substantive examination of the issues of political correctness and free speech, issues that are already much-discussed and argued and fought over in both mainstream and alternative media and on campuses and in schools across the country. Threshold Editions, like all our imprints, is editorially independent. Its acquisitions are made without the involvement or knowledge of our other publishers. In considering this project, the imprint believed that an articulate discussion of these issues, coming from an unconventional source like Mr. Yiannopoulos, could become an incisive commentary on today's social discourse that would sit well within its scope and mission, which is to publish works for a conservative audience.

Once Threshold made an offer to Mr. Yiannopoulos, our responsibility as a publisher is to work with him to produce the book he and our staff envisioned, and one that adheres to the standards that I have articulated. We promise to do just that.

There is no question that we are living in a time when many are feeling uncertainty and fear. It is a moment when political passions are running hotter and stronger than at any time in recent history, and cultural divides across the country seem to be getting wider. And so I can appreciate the strong opinions and feelings this has stirred in you and others. I also recognize that there may be a genuine debate to be had about who should be awarded a book contract. For us, in the end, it ultimately comes down to the text that is written. And here I must reiterate that neither Threshold Editions nor any other of our imprints will publish books that we think will incite hatred, discrimination or bullying.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Please consider donating the ACLU

The Seattle Review of Books has donated our sponsorship slot this week to encourage our readers to donate to the ACLU. Just the few first days of the Trump administration were enough to tell us that we're going to need as many hands on deck as possible to fight him.

That means lawsuits, and challenging him in court. That means the ACLU is going to be vital to American freedom in the years to come. Please consider donating, or becoming a member of the ACLU.

Talking with Elisa Chavez about "Revenge," shitty men, and art in the age of Trump

Elisa Chavez’s poem “Revenge” was published on her Tumblr and then was republished by Seattle author Lesley Hazleton. We read the poem on Hazleton’s blog and got permission from both Chavez and Hazleton to publish it on the Seattle Review of Books, and we made Chavez our very first Poet in Residence for the month of January. Then, the poem went absolutely nuts: this month, many tens of thousands of people have come to the Seattle Review of Books to read and share “Revenge” with their social networks. “Revenge” marks the second poem of Chavez’s to go viral; an earlier poem about Gamergate attracted the attention of dozens of internet trolls. We sat down with Chavez to discuss slam poetry, being a viral poet, and why art is more relevant now than ever.

How long have you been writing poetry?

My mom would have the most accurate count. I think I was 3 or 4 when I started writing. I'm 28 now.

And how long have you been performing your poetry?

I was briefly involved in slam when I was a teenager in Austin, Texas for like two seconds, but then I didn't really do it in a meaningful way until I moved to Seattle in 2013.

In your relatively short career, you've had two poems go viral. The first experience was maybe not so pleasant, and the second one was maybe hopefully a little moreso. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difference between those two experiences going viral and what it’s been like for you.

For a while my friends would send me links to stuff that they thought would make me angry. They'd be like, "I can't wait to see what you write about this." One of the emails was a link to a Vulture article about Gamergate, which was the thing where a bunch of guys got super-angry at women for having opinions about video games.

There were 900 comments on the article. I read all 900 comments, and then I wrote a poem. The structure of it was based on all of the things I kinda wanted to yell at people in the comments. The way the poem sorta became a thing is, I performed it at WOWPS, which is Women of the World Poetry Slam, in 2015. I didn't have a name for the poem — a lot of times in spoken word you don't have to name anything.

Yeah.

The actual title was the first three lines or something. I just called it "#Gamergate."

It turns out that the Gamergate crowd has Google Alerts set for that term, and they found me. Right about the same time that my friends were like, "Elisa, you're on Button Poetry, that's so nice," I started seeing all these comments coming in.

At first I thought "Oh, this is kinda funny.” It was several dozen, and then it became a hundred, and then three hundred, and it was really terrible. They were just very mean and angry. People don't understand how upsetting it is when somebody breaks the social contract and says horrible things. It was just so many people. They would sort of go back and forth with each other, and play a game of oneupsmanship about who could say the worst things about me. I have not been back to that comments section in almost two years now.

That was that experience. It fortunately mostly remained in the realm of the online, although I did have a show that I was doing in Vancouver, and one of them found the event and posted to let me know that they knew where I would be.

Wow, I'm sorry.

People made all these takedown videos of me, which I haven't watched. Some of them were women. And that was really kinda sad, because they're young girls. I remember when I was in college, there was a time when nothing felt as validating as a guy’s affirmation. That part was a little sad.

With “Revenge,” I think the biggest difference — aside from that people aren't yelling that I'm a resentful whore or whatever — the main difference is I think that people are really engaging with the actual substance of what I wrote. They’re tagging their friends in it. I see people going like, "Oh, so-and-so this reminded me of you," or "So-and-so, I know you would love this.” That has made me very happy.

Somebody messaged me on Tumblr, and they said that they had been really, really depressed ever since the election. All their friends were getting up out of bed because they felt inspired to fight and this person couldn't find it. Then they read this poem, and they felt like that gave them what they needed. I cried when I read that, then I told my mom. That's a huge difference. It's not that people haven't been negative, but you gotta really wake up pretty early in the morning to be as negative as Gamergate.

Yeah.

I know you've written about that, and I remember that's why I liked your essay so much, the way you linked Gamergate to the alt-right Neo-Nazis. Or Neo-Neo-Nazis, whatever.

White nationalists.

Yeah! Yeah, and seeing all that stuff again come up in this election is like, "ah, hello darkness, my old friend!"

In a way both poems are kind of about the same thing. Does it bother you that the two poems you've had that have taken off on the internet are both in relationship to shitty men?

No. Well, at this point, no. If you had asked me last year, I might have said yes. I write poems about so many things — like terrible horror movies and velociraptors, and all these things. You know, there's also some stuff about men. The thing I felt like I needed to respond to was, "oh, she hates men."

Yeah.

It was like, "No, I don't like you. I'm fine with men." I talk about my dad, and my brother as positive male relationships in my life. I think there are some poets whose body of work is a lot more like chronicles of terrible men. Which is great! I just don't necessarily have that many actually terrible men in my own life that I feel compelled to write about.

At first when it was the only thing that I was known for, I have to say it did feel bad when people were like, "Hey Gamergate, you wanna come perform at our venue?" I'm like [suspicious voice,] "yeah, thanks?”

Some Gamergaters said, "She's just riding that poetry gravy train by capitalizing on our fame!" I think I made 75 whole dollars off of that poem.

What are you working on now?

Trying to convince myself that I haven't peaked at 28? That's what I'm really working on, and it’s an emotional journey. I'm writing a bunch of Donald Trump/election related stuff right now. I'm giving myself permission to do that and not worry about the repetitiousness of it, because I got to take a really, really great workshop with Mahogany Browne a couple years ago. I remember the one little snippet of conversation I had with her. At that time I was writing a lot of angry feminist stuff and I felt like I couldn't stop being angry, and I was upset that I couldn't stop being angry. She said, "Just write what moves you until you don't have to anymore."

That's been really, really helpful. I gotta believe youth had something to do with this. You feel like, "Oh, I've been doing this for a year, it's forever, this is my life," and then it goes away and something else happens.

So that's what I'm doing, since I kind of have that permission I'm just trying to have fun with it. I wrote a poem about Donald Trump’s tiny fingers, and every line was shorter than the last. It's just fun. My mom told me that she wanted me to write a poem about Kellyanne Conway and dedicate it to her, and I did that. If you just watch any of these people for any amount of time, you just get so angry.

I hate asking this question but when I interview slam poets, I always have to bring up the disassociation between slam poetry and written poetry.

Oh, yeah.

You are a slam poet, but you were eager to have your poetry written. Is there a divergence between slam poets and written poets, or is it changing, or is it not, or what?

I'm gonna speak only for myself, and I want that to be known so all my slam poet friends don't think I'm selling them out or saying bad things about them or whatever. I do feel limitations within myself that are craft-based. Like: line breaks. What are they? Why? That keeps me up at night. I don't have much, sort of, awareness about a lot of this technical language around form.

At the same time, I love a couple things about slam poetry. Since it's a competitive atmosphere, and you don't want to bore people by doing the same thing every single week, it really keeps me writing. Since you want to write something that will appeal to people more than the stuff your friends are writing, it can really help you bring your A game.

There are some pitfalls, which is that sometimes you perform things that a crowd wants to hear. Sometimes things that the crowd wants to hear are not really particularly artistic or a good idea.

When I started competing, my well-meaning friends would try to help me do better in slams. They would be like, "You have to read this one," and I would say, "Oh I don't wanna read that tonight, I feel like doing something different." And they'd say, "Well do you wanna win?" I'd be like, "I do what I want!" And I did, and I didn't win for a year when I first started, 'cause I wouldn't do that.

I think slam is really accessible. One of my friends had a line in a poem, I remember the first time he read it. Oh God, I'm going to misquote it. It was: “The ninety seconds it took to go from one in a million, to one of them, to one of the good ones, is a uniquely American way to feel whiplash.” When he read it, people screamed. I screamed. It's hard to find a place where somebody's words will do that to a room full of people. That's a special quality to me.

Do you differentiate? Do you ever write something and say "This is a prose poem," or, "This is only spoken."

When I do have ideas for line breaks or for arrangement on a page, then I kinda want people to read it instead of hear it. There's some stuff that people tell me they like, and I hate it on a writing level, and I can't imagine that if it were put down on paper anybody would like it.

A lot of times, my metric is, I really really try to write something that will work on the page — as in, the writing is strong enough that it could stand on its own, but also it would be engaging to perform.

Are you interested in publishing a collection? Are you interested in staying on the slam beat, or both? Are you just seeing what happens?

I think both. I just started working on the board of Rain City Slam, it's a volunteer position. I think that what I'm excited about is trying to do more outreach, and get more people involved — at the very least getting involved in self-expression, and dipping your toes in the arts. Partially I'm trying to work up the guts to submit stuff. I'm trying to put more of my stuff out there.

Are there any poets in town who you like a lot who you think deserve more attention?

I would say Jane Wong, except she just put Overpour out, and people love it and it's apparently doing really well, which is great. Johnny Horton, I love. EJ Koh and Michelle Peñaloza have done really cool stuff.

You've been writing since you were tiny. What is it about poetry that does it for you? Why poetry and not prose? What is the calling?

I like prose too. I've written a novel. I wrote some political commentary this past fall, which was super-cool. But I like poetry because I think when it's really really good, you just get the most emotion per word. The best bang for your buck. It feels like a condensed, high-octane literary experience.

That is awesome. That is an awesome answer.

Yay!

If people want to read more of you, where should they go?

They could follow my poetry Tumblr. They can follow me on Facebook. People can yell at me on Twitter.

How often are you reading at Rain City?

Most weeks. Most Wednesdays. At least twice a month.

Is there anything else that you were thinking about?

The thing I've been telling everybody to do is, I just want to see so much art about Trump. Trump hates art, he hates comedians. His particular brand of communication is like this id-driven word salad. I think that that means that he can't speak the language of comedy or of art. And so I really really want people to write poems about him, and stories, and shove 'em in his face because I think that it would infuriate him.

That's it, that's my dream for America.

The Sunday Post for January 22, 2017

Piecing together the Sunday Post is usually easy and a pleasure; in fact, it’s an excuse and justification for the most idle pleasure possible: endless scrolling through the world of online content, mind half alert, fingers on autopilot.

But the Internet after the inauguration of our 45th president is no place for the idle or unalert. As much as Donald Trump has dominated the media, social and otherwise, since his presidential bid began, this week has been different. A single subject, on every front page and in every channel. Not a single voice, though — a cacophony. Anger, sorrow, and calls to arms; reflection, determination, and calls to hope.

What deserves to be heard in a week like that? Writing that clarifies, that provokes thought, that reveals. Writing that reminds us: the written word is a powerful voice. Use it.

And so it begins

Post-inauguration, George Will, pointedly, and David Remnick, thoughtfully, both remind us that our government has built-in protections against misuse,  even with an “unenlightened statesman” at the helm — and that an informed and engaged citizenry is first among them.

But Dan Rather’s impassioned, outraged response on Facebook may be the definitive statement on the Trump inauguration (via Meena Jang at The Hollywood Reporter):

Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread.

I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course.

What Art Under Trump?

No rose-colored glasses for Margaret Atwood, who is well aware that artists are imperfect and their work is often trivial — and yet —

With the Trump era upon us, it’s the artists and writers who can remind us, in times of crisis or panic, that each one of us is more than just a vote, a statistic. Lives may be deformed by politics — and many certainly have been — but we are not, finally, the sum of our politicians.

The Great Exception

In November, in response to the election outcome, Rebecca Solnit made her treatise Hope in the Dark freely available online. This week she writes again on hope and resistance: “There is another America rising and taking action, and it is beautiful.”

Among other examples, she highlights ongoing efforts by California’s legislation to protect its citizens as our nation’s values shift, starting with a bold and quickly viral statement published Nov. 9 of last year. Andy Kroll has the dramatic political (and human) story behind that statement:

At 6 a.m., Dan Reeves, de León’s chief of staff, got into his car to drive back up to Sacramento from L.A. He stopped at a Carl’s Jr. to help with a hangover and then started making calls. As drafts of the joint statement flew back and forth between the two offices, Reeves had each version read aloud to him while he was driving the I-5. Cut that line. Too slow. Good, good, good. Rendon’s people wanted more time, but Reeves insisted the statement go out as soon as possible. The staffs settled on a final draft at 10:57. Rendon and de León signed off an hour later, and at just past noon, the two offices hit send.

The statement, released in English and Spanish, had come a long way from de León’s phone call and Rendon’s late-night riffing. But the opening line had remained intact just as Rendon had first written it: “Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land ….”

Yes, science is political

I’m dead certain that when Warren Ellis said “science will fuck you,” what he meant was that science is splendidly and gloriously implacable, tenacious, and defiant. Science isn’t cold, uncaring facts —  it’s art with evidence. Powerful stuff.

The New Scientist has a four-part special tracking intersections between scientific endeavor and the new administration, starting with a piece from Sally Adee on how activists and protestors can cover their electronic tracks as Trump expands surveillance.

Bill McKibbon, at Wired, reminds us that dismantling the Paris accord strikes not just at environmental action but at the “building blocks of our common home — science and diplomacy and also civility.”

And Elizabeth Lopatto, science editor at The Verge, speaks out on why their science coverage can’t and won’t ignore Donald Trump.

Science is a way of seeing that provides us with facts. What we do with those facts is deeply political. Determining whether pollution harms people is a matter of scientific inquiry, but deciding what to do in response to that data is politics. Who uses the water and land, and how? Those aren’t scientific questions — they’re political ones. Do we value the safety of our citizens or the profits of our corporations? What’s the balance between the two? Those are also political questions.

Tower of Babble

If you truly want nothing this weekend but to indulge in some righteous rage, here are two highly satisfying diatribes.

Jesse Berney is a little indignant:

Of course he’s getting rid of the NEA and the NEH. What use does Donald Trump have for the things that make life beautiful and good? He surrounds himself with gilded ugliness. He’s a billionaire who hangs a Renoir reproduction in the $100 million abattoir he lives in, because why would he want an original? He has enough money and fame to access to the finest tailors in the world, and his suits don’t fit. His hair is stupid.

And a gloriously breathless temper-tantrum from Joe Kloc. Not even sure to how excerpt from this, here’s one almost-random sample:

Trump, who once dumped a glass of wine on a journalist who wrote a story he didn’t like, told his supporters that journalists were “liars,” the “lowest form of humanity,” and “enemies,” but that he did not approve of killing them. “I’m a very sane person,” said Trump ...

Today is the day we start taking the country back

Finally, in case you missed it (as the kids say), both of the co-founders of this publication have responded to the Trump inauguration and deserve the final word. Martin McClellan bears witness through the lens of Marcel Duchamp, and Paul Constant has marching orders for Seattle Review of Books readers:

If you think of an institution that you hold dear, chances are good that institution will be under attack over the next four years. It’s going to be brutal, and it’s going to happen on multiple fronts.

So here’s what you do. You pick the areas that you care the most about, that you understand really well. And then you fight for them.

Seattle Writing Prompts: More Moore

Seattle Writing Prompts are intended to spark ideas for your writing, based on locations and stories of Seattle. Write something inspired by a prompt? Send it to us! We're looking to publish writing sparked by prompts.

Theaters have a special place in the history of cities. It's more than memory, although I've certainly seen some notable performances at the Moore Theater over the years (odds are pretty good you have as well). Theaters take up a huge amount of space on the grid, but are only lit up with activity and people a few hours a day, at best. The rest of the time they lay in wait, a few people prepping, practicing, staging, or constructing, but otherwise, they're empty.

During the day, the gates across the front entrance may be slightly cracked, and you wonder who is inside. Perhaps you catch the person changing the letters on the marquee. Perhaps you think you hear sound check leaking out. Perhaps you see the tour buses, the sides popped out to allow for more sleeping space, parked in front or on Virginia between 2nd and 3rd.

The Moore is the oldest still-active theater in Seattle. About half the capacity of the grander Paramount across town, the theater feels both grand and tiny when full and a performer is on stage. You can see the expressions on their faces, the intimacy is something amazing.

It opened in 1907, which means as its doors were first thrown wide, just north workers were still sluicing away parts of Denny Hill, in the second regrade effort. The Moore's purpose was to house (in the adjoining hotel) and entertain visitors of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, a grand world's fair in 1907 (we all know what the fair grounds of the 1962 world's fair became, so what became of the grounds of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition? They became the University of Washington campus).

For many years the Moore was a movie palace, and under the name Moore Egyptian it hosted the first SIFF festival in 1976, before the folks that ran it moved the theater to the old Masonic Temple on Capitol Hill, and kept the Egyptian name.

The Moore has a second balcony, that has a separate entrance off Virginia, which bypasses the grand lobby, and offers more modest bathrooms. Speculation is that this was for racially segregating theater goers, but historians have not been able to uncover definitive proof. Other speculation is that the balcony was for economic segregation, which was defacto racial segregation as well. Feliks Banel wrote a great piece on this that was published on My Northwest.

Now, isn't that enough to give us some ideas to write about?

Today's prompts
  1. The theater is dark. A match strikes and flares, a candle is lit. A quavering hand walks it across a bare stage, one shy step after another, all the way to the front. The candle is placed, ever-so-carefully in front of its bearer, who clears their throat, and addresses the supposedly empty theater with something they've wanted to do in public their entire life.
  2. The theater is bustling, and outside the door on Virginia, trying to hustle a fifty-cent ticket to the high balcony, is our hero. There's a Vaudeville act coming through they keep hearing about, and they're gonna see it no matter what may come. The ticket acquired, they hop the stairs two at a time to get in, and grab an empty place on a wooden bench up front. But when the first act rolls out, they see that rich fellow who did them wrong, sitting right down there on the floor. Nothing — and I mean nothing — is gonna stop them taking their revenge.
  3. The theater is about to riot. The crowd is sick of waiting. They're booing, throwing illicitly imported bottles at the empty stage. The stage manager goes once more to try to convince the band, now an hour late, to get a move on. They're doing lines and gulping whiskey in the dressing room. But at the sight of the stage manager, they decide it's time. "Fucking singer been gone a long time" one of them says, and another goes over to knock on the toilet door. It opens. There is the singer, slouched on the toilet, needle in arm.
  4. The theater is rented for the afternoon. There's a single mic on stage, and only twenty-five people in the audience. Nobody can believe they got this lucky, especially that person sitting right in the middle, who is holding an envelope from the DNA testing firm that conclusively proves that the man about to walk out onto the stage is, in fact, their father.
  5. The theater is closing. Who goes out anymore? Everything is virtual reality now. Every seat is front row. You could sit on the damn stage if you want, and feel it when your favorite musician walks over to you and kisses you. But there's one more night to get over first, and it's gonna suck. Touring asshole comedian, the house not even half sold. But then, in a standard security sweeping, someone finds a duffel bag tucked under a seat. And inside, it sure looks like a bomb.

Today is the day we start taking the country back

Things are getting weird. Yesterday, I noticed a certain panicked expression on the faces of commuters. People answered the question "how are you?" by averting their eyes and mumbling that they're doing okay, considering everything. You know that moment when you suddenly realize that you've been clenching your jaw for the last 24 hours? That's what yesterday was like.

Today, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States of America. He doesn't like to read. He could defund the NEA and privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If you think of an institution that you hold dear, chances are good that institution will be under attack over the next four years. It's going to be brutal, and it's going to happen on multiple fronts.

So here's what you do. You pick the areas that you care the most about, that you understand really well. And then you fight for them. Donate to your local ACLU. Make some noise. Explain why the thing you love matters. Inspire people around you, and allow yourself to be inspired. Take care of yourself. Ask for help if you need it. Hopefully, if you're up for it, you'll join us in the streets for the Womxn's March on Saturday.

And look for writers to lead the way. Read Elisa Chavez's great poem "Revenge" again. Local poet Jeannine Hall Gailey just published a moving poem called "Failure, 2016" at Nice Cage. There will be many more — thousands more, tens of thousands more — in the days and weeks and years ahead. Read what they have to say and take it to heart. And if you can't find the thing you want to read out there, write it yourself. With words and actions, by example and with love, today is the day we start taking the country back.

The Help Desk: Stop me before I troll again

Every Friday, Cienna Madrid offers solutions to life’s most vexing literary problems. Do you need a book recommendation to send your worst cousin on her birthday? Is it okay to read erotica on public transit? Cienna can help. Send your questions to advice@seattlereviewofbooks.com.

Dear Cienna,

There’s a local writer I hate. You’d know his name. He’s awful. Sometimes I have to get into the comments and tell him how much I hate his writing, and sometimes I know I go overboard. I don’t threaten him or anything, but I do make some rather dramatic claims about parts of his anatomy. It’s awful. I’m awful. I don’t troll anyone (or anywhere) else. I even surprise myself sometimes with how much I love to troll him.

I try to ignore his writing, but he’s on a site with other writers who I love. I’ve blocked him on Twitter and Facebook, but I still encounter him on a regular basis, and I hate what my hatred for his self-satisfied prose is doing to me. What do I do?

Bob, Mountlake Terrace

Dear Bob,

You're looking at your hatred of this writer the wrong way. Who we hate says more about us than the object of our attention; these individuals represent qualities we despise, qualities we see in ourselves (that we despise), or qualities we envy. For instance, I tend to despise emotionally dismissive drunks, liars, cowards, hairy spiders with enormous pedipalps, and people who thread toilet paper the wrong way on the wheel.

So stop for a moment and appreciate this man as a foil for all you find good and right in the world – perhaps you dislike him because he uses his platform to singularly write about himself or his few navel-gazy interests, or he never has anything insightful to contribute to public discourse. Pinpoint your specific irritations with this man, and then, when you happen to come across his writing, privately pity him for his shortcomings.

Trolling is not only toxic, it's pretty ineffective. Most people who've worked on the internet and social media for any length of time have learned to dismiss trolls – it's the only way to do your job and stay sane. Harassment barely registers; pity is the arrow that strikes the heart.

Kisses!
Cienna

The Bride, on our wedding day

Marcel Duchamp’s great work, The Large Glass depicts an abstract scene. The full title: The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even. It’s conceptual and heady: “…nobody fully understands The Large Glass” says Duchamp’s biographer Calvin Tomkins.

Duchamp said it wasn’t a painting, but a “delay”: “a delay in glass as you would say a poem in prose or a spittoon in silver,” he said. “The Bride is basically a motor,” he said. The curious title implies that she owns the bachelors, but we know the work is largely about sex.

The question: is the sex the whim of the Bride, or the whim of the bachelors? To wit, is it consensual or is it rape, this stripping bare? Duchamp said that her desire was part of the machine, that she "accepts this stripping by the bachelors, since she supplies the love gasoline to the sparks of the electrical stripping; moreover, she furthers her complete nudity by adding to the first focus of sparks (electrical stripping) the 2nd focus of the desire-magneto." So, he says it is consensual, clearly, but perhaps with a puritanistic questioning, I question that it is, fully, consensual, much like I question how consensual the sexual revolution was.

In the lower half of the painting are three circles, based on optometric testing, called: the Oculist Witnesses. The witnesses have specific purpose in the work to Duchamp but I always read them as observers. They are voyeuristic, a part of the machine. They are witnessing whatever it is the bachelors and the bride are doing. They are witnessing pleasure, or witnessing sexual assault. While they witness, they have a part in the machine of the glass (to explain it would be nearly nonsensical, either outside of, or inside of, context).

And so when it comes time to watch what happens now in our country, I think of them, the three rings, the Oculist Witnesses. I think about the witnessing, on camera, that sparked #blacklivesmatter, the witnessing, on Twitter, that sparked the Arab Spring. We are all witnesses. We are a collective body. We are a head with millions of eyes, and wet meat brains to process that vision.

Everybody has to decide what is right for them, but today I don’t turn away. Today I witness. While I witness I continue my own work. When I can't witness anymore, I will turn away and someone else who can't stand not seeing any more will turn towards.

Duchamp is my metaphor, which I offer here, but perhaps others speak to you more. Mine is abstract, needlessly-complex, just outside of my full understanding, where I'm constantly chasing it like a kid who keeps kicking a hat they're trying to pick up. I like it that way. I suspect a better metaphor would be easier to hold and share, but if you are like me and the questioning is part and parcel to the question itself, then perhaps, for you too, there is the Bride. Or the Country. Start the grinders, spark the ignition, the machine is about to turn.

The Country Stripped Bare by Her Voters, Even.

We just made our late-night TV debut

Thanks to Seattle Review of Books readers Joey Pillow and @Polypodiaceae for catching our cameo appearance on tonight's Late Night with Seth Meyers, starting at the six minute mark in the video below:

Seth Meyers has been a fantastic late night host during the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath, and we're thrilled to be a resource for the show. Too bad it had to be during a segment about how our incoming president is borderline illiterate.

Portrait Gallery: Betty MacDonald

Each week, Christine Marie Larsen creates a new portrait of an author for us. Have any favorites you’d love to see immortalized? Let us know

Sunday January 22nd
Looking for Betty MacDonald Reading
Betty MacDonald’s 1945 memoir about life on the Olympic Peninsula, The Egg and I, is an underappreciated Northwest classic. Seattle-area historian Paula Becker celebrates the UW Press’s republication of three long out-of-print books by MacDonald with a reading from her book which celebrates MacDonald’s history and legacy.
Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com . Free. All ages. 7 p.m.