Month: July 2022

Another July In the Bag

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of July 24, 2022

The first part of 2022 seemed to drag, the days and weeks plodding by as if time itself were feeling an inescapable ennui. Then Memorial Day arrived and all the things which hadn’t happened since 2019 suddenly happened all at once, three years worth of events packed into a couple of months as everyone did everything everywhere. And suddenly July is over and in fifty days Autumn will arrive, suddenly and, given how hot the world is anymore, unnoticed except for the changing of the leaves. I felt no FOMO for two years because there was nothing to miss out on. Now so many things are happening that missing an event seems a luxury.

Thus I am exhausted in the midst of plenty and in desperate need for some quiet time and solitude.

Two new books arrived at the house this week.

First up is K.S. Villoso‘s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, which I picked up on a whim, as Villoso has been a speaker on several genre podcasts over the past couple of years.

On the right, from Two Lines Press, is Xu  Zechen‘s Running through Beijing, translated from the Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen.

In reading news I burned my way through The Last Emperox, the eminently satisfying conclusion to John Scalzi‘s Interdependency trilogy. I haven’t binged a series like this since last summer, and it felt pretty good.

I rounded out the month with a steady run of The Paris Review, and am slightly less than halfway through my backlog. I just finished the Spring 2018 issue, and expect to be caught up to present around the end of the year.

I still haven’t written anything, but I do have some ideas on how to expand a short story I wrote last fall into a full novel, including sufficient worldbuilding to possibly turn the novel, once completed, into a series. Time will tell. It always does.

Bottom of the Top #30

John Winkelman

As we approach the end of July the end of summer appears on the horizon and if, like me, you looked forward to a new school year starting, you feel a sense of anticipation (possibly leavened with some dread) as well as a sense that, well, summer just isn’t long enough to pack in all the things which make summer summer. Thus the end of July is a time of contrasts.

1977: The Floaters, “Float On”

“Float On” is smooth and groovy and oh, so seventies in both tune and lyrics. I probably heard this at some point in the past, but likely not when it came out, as the only radio stations which were played around our house at the time had taglines like “No punk, no funk, no junk,” which basically meant only (white) rock and country music.  This was the Floaters’ only hit song, which is unfortunate as they sing beautifully.

1982: Herb Alpert, “Route 101”

Ah, Herb Alpert. He and his band the Tijuana Brass were ubiquitous through the early parts of my life. I heard “Route 101” when it hit the charts, which would also have been about the time I started playing the trombone in junior high and listening to other artists like Chuck Mangione. I am a little irritated that I associate wonderful songs like this with distinctly unpleasant parts of my life like milking cows in the early morning, but at least down in the pit, covered in manure and either sweating or freezing, I had music like this to distract me.

1987: Danny Wilson, “Mary’s Prayer”

I definitely heard this song at some point, I just couldn’t say when and where. We couldn’t listen to music on the floor of the pickle factory, and it probably wouldn’t have gone over well with the inmates therein. Boy howdy, that was a terrible job.

1992: Rozalla, “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”

I don’t know how I missed this one, back in the day. If I was more of a club-goer I would probably be more familiar with Rozalla, but then again this was the only one of her songs which made much of a splash in the US. She was much more popular in the UK and in her native Zimbabwe. I admit I am intrigued, and will definitely seek out more of her music.

1997: Warren G. featuring Ron Isley, “Smokin’ Me Out”

One of the best parts of this project is the way it is serving as a crash course/deep dive into R&B and Hiphop, two genres of music where I am woefully uninformed. I have heard of most of the artists in these lists (like Warren G.) but the songs, at the time (like “Smokin’ Me Out”), went right through me without leaving much of an impression. Which is unfortunate, because now that I am better about getting out of my own way, I really like the music.

Coincidences and Timing

John Winkelman

New arrival from the week of July 17, 2022, and Pepper

I have two information-dense personal projects going on right now – the “Bottom of the Top” posts, and my deep dive into all the back issues of literary journals which have been slowly accumulating in my house. This means that I am encountering, in a time-shifted way, many musical and literary works for the first time. The Bottom of the Top project starts in 1977 and runs through 1997 in five-year increments. My stack of old lit journals goes back at least five years, and many of the pieces therein were originally written one to a hundred years prior, though the older works tend to be outliers.

Only one new book arrived in the past week – Robin McLean‘s collection of short stories titled Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Tough, Tell ’em Nothing, published by And Other Stories.

In reading news I am caught up through the end of 2017 in my stack of back issues of The Paris Review. This led me (with reference to the notes at the top of this post) to encounter New York artist Duncan Hannah, whose memoir 20th Century Boy was excerpted in issue #222 who was a contemporary of Andy Warhol and and active participant in the Scene in New York City from the 1970s on. I had not heard of Hannah before reading this excerpt, and immediately added his book to my list of upcoming purchases.

Then I did some more research and discovered that Duncan Hannah died a few weeks ago, on June 11. He was 69 years old, which doesn’t seem that old to me, from the vantage point of 53.

I also had a lot of fun reading Ana Simo’s Heartland, which I would happily put on the shelf next to Michelle Tea‘s Black Wave and Rita Indiana‘s Tentacle. With that complete, I have shifted gears back to more mainstream genre fiction and burned through John Scalzi‘s The Consuming Fire, the second book in the Interdependency trilogy, in two days. I am now reading the final book in the series, The Last Emperox. As with everything else I have read by Mr. Scalzi, these books are a lot of fun.

In writing news, a whole lotta nothing over the past week. That seems to be the state of things this summer.

Bottom of the Top #29

John Winkelman

There comes a certain point in any given summer when the excitement of “Hey! It’s summer!” wears off and every opportunity to do something fun comes with a slight note of “I’m kind of tired. Let’s not.” Or maybe it’s just me, here at the tail end of a two-week vacation which was so crammed full of peopling that I am in more need of a vacation now than I was two weeks ago. And two weeks ago I was in dire need of a vacation.

I have given up on trying to associate specific songs with specific times of the year other than in the purely nostalgic sense. Songs are written, recorded, collected, and released over weeks to months to years, and that often months or years in advance of when they appear on the radio (or streaming services). So other than the occasional song which is written for or about specific times of the year, the association between song and season is coincidental.

But that doesn’t stop them from carrying nostalgic weight.

1977: Cat Stevens, “Old Schoolyard”

I love love LOVE Cat Stevens, and have heard him enough over the years that, if I didn’t hear this song right about the time it came out, I surely heard “Old School Yard” at some point in my childhood. I just don’t remember exactly when. More recently, Stevens was part of the soundtrack of a long camping trip around Lake Huron a decade ago, and his music has been a constant in my life ever since.

1982: Eddie Money, “Think I’m In Love”

Yeah, Eddie Money was ubiquitous throughout the eighties, and “Think I’m In Love” was on heavy rotation throughout the decade, and still is, on classic rock stations. Definitely heard this one when it came out, and heard it a lot in the milking parlor in the mornings, and on the bus ride to and from Junior High.

1987: Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne, “Love Power”

“Love Power” doesn’t trigger any memories, deja vu or nostalgia, but I could listen to Dionne Warwick all day. It is likely that I missed this song in the midst of all of the harder rock which hit the charts during the summer between high school and college.

1992: Mr. Big, “Just Take My Heart”

Let’s just take a moment and listen to that amazing guitar. I have heard of Mr. Big, but I don’t remember this specific song. “Just Take My Heart” would have charted while I was looking for a new job to get me out of the third-shift assembly line hell I was stuck in after my fifth year of college. Actually I might have already found a new job at Jose Babushka’s, but I was not in a good frame of mind for the appreciation of power ballads at the time.

1997: Joe, “Don’t Wanna Be a Player”

I have no memory of “Don’t Wanna Be a Player,” but it is a lovely song.

No Down In My Down Time

John Winkelman

New books for the week of July 10, 2021

Today is the last day of my two-week break from work, the first break since ConFusion in January, and the first full-on vacation since the Christmas holidays. I enjoyed not having to work for two weeks, but the minutes, hours and days were so quickly filled with tasks, chores, and Things To Do that those two weeks included almost no rest at all. Last Tuesday I managed to get some time to myself, about three hours in which I walked around the neighborhoods, visited a cafe and a couple of bookstores, and wrote for a little while. And that was the only down-time, the only real relaxation, in the entire two weeks.

In other words, I need a vacation.

Earlier this week Zyra and I drove to Detroit, where we stayed in a moderately terrible hotel and ate fantastic food at a variety of excellent restaurants. We also, at the suggestion of one of our friends from the East Side, hit The Book Beat, a fantastic little bookstore in Oak Park, Michigan with an eclectic and surprisingly deep selection of books and magazines. Highly recommended, would visit again. While there, I picked up a couple of books:

First up is Nomadology: The War Machine by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, published by Semiotext(e). I think I owned a copy of this small book once upon a time, back in the 1990s. I am not sure what became of it. Probably lost in one of my many moves over the past quarter-century.

Next up is Black Mountain Poems, an anthology of work from the Black Mountain poets, edited by Jonathan C. Creasy. I picked this up because of my interest in the works of Paul Blackburn, specifically his beautiful “Matchbook Poem” which I return to again and again.

In reading and writing news, not much happening, because too much is happening EVERYWHERE ELSE. I did start Ana Simo‘s wonderfully strange Heartland, which arrived at the house from Restless Books a few years ago. And I’m still working my way slowly through my stack of The Paris Review, which is an absolutely wonderful experience.

I find it depressing to say that, since I head back to work tomorrow, I may finally have time to do some reading and writing. Selah!

Bottom of the Top #28

John Winkelman

The week after the Fourth of July has always felt to me line the first *real* days of summer, where from here on out life is all working for the weekend. No more big plans, no more holidays (which is a blessing) and just getting into the groove of summer and enjoying it as best I could before September arrived and it was back to school. And, like so many other patterns which are imprinted in our early lives, this one persists well into middle age.

1977: Elvis Presley, “Way Down”

I…am certain that I have never heard this song before, which leaves me feeling conflicted. On the one hand, Elvis recorded A GREAT MANY songs and I am not an Elvis superfan. On the other hand, IT’S ELVIS! HOW COULD I HAVE NOT HEARD THIS SONG?

So perhaps I did at some point, though the immediate hit of nostalgia brought with it memories of the soundtrack to Grease, which I heard a lot of in third and fourth grade. Maybe there was some Elvis on rotation in there too.

Elvis died in August 1977, a little over a month after this song hit the charts.

1982: Haircut One Hundred, “Love Plus One”

This is definitely another song which only appeared in my life thanks to Pandora. I have no associations with this song which don’t involve sitting in front of a computer and writing code. That said, “Love Plus One” is a lot of fun.

1987: Cutting Crew, “One for the Mockingbird”

When “Mockingbird” charted I was working in a pickle factory for minimum wage ($3.35/hour) and hating every minute of it, as well as loathing most of my coworkers, who were not having any more fun than I was. I mostly listened to the oldies station on the drive to and from work, which in 1987 meant songs from the fifties and sixties, with the occasional early 1970s super-hit. I do not remember “Mockingbird” at all, though I had heard “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight” which was blessed with a lot of air time. If I did hear “One for the Mockingbird” it was early on a Sunday morning while milking cows, which I was still doing even with a summer job, in an effort to save every penny for my first semester at Grand Valley.

1992: Elton John, “The One”

Though I have no specific memory of this song, (and not much of the associated album, also titled The One) I don’t see how I could have NOT heard “The One.” Wikipedia says this album was John’s first after completing drug and alcohol rehab, and certainly feels more introspective and down-to-earth than his previous studio album.

1997: Trisha Yearwood, “How Do I Live”

“How Do I Live” is beautiful, and it is certainly the only Trisha Yearwood song I have heard before, and I only heard this because of it being one of the high points in the otherwise completely mediocre Con Air. Which means I probably didn’t hear it until well after the movie was released to home video and I rented it from Blockbuster sometime in the early 2000s.

So This is What Down Time Looks Like

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of July 3, 2022

It looks a lot like work, except without the work. All of the things I hoped to accomplish (reading and writing, mostly) have fallen by the wayside as the hundred other tasks and chores which I have put off for the past six months have reared their ugly, dirty, dusty heads.

I have added several new books to the library over the past week.

First up is volume 7 of The Long List Anthology, which collects the finalists for the Hugo Award for short fiction.

Next up is Ocean Vuong‘s novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, which I picked up from the best bookstore in the city, Books and Mortar.

Next is Progeny of Air, Kwame Dawes‘ first book of poetry, which was published in 1994. I grabbed this from Argos Books, which I have not visited in about a year.

I also picked up Listening to the Fire: The Poetry of Fountain Street Church, which was published in 1998. I would have overlooked this one were it not edited by my old friend and co-worker from the bookstore days, Linda Rosenthal. I don’t remember when Linda left the bookstore but I was still there when this collection was published, and I am a little embarrassed that I had not heard of it until now.

In reading news, I finished Andrés Neuman’s brilliant How to Travel Without Seeing, which I first picked up back in 2016, and immediately stuck on a shelf and spent the next five years eyeballing uncomfortably, as if I had committed a small sin by not reading it immediately.

But I have read it now, and my life is much the richer for it. How to Travel Without Seeing is a travelogue of sorts, notes taken by the author on a book tour through nineteen (!) Latin American countries. Neuman is a brilliant writer and I will likely return to this book more than once over the coming years.

I am still working my way through back issues of The Paris Review, and have reached calendar year 2017, so I am only five years and change behind the present. This is another case where I regret not reading these journals as they came out, because much of the prose and poetry herein is simply remarkable. I have already added some books to my lists for later perusal, and will likely continue to do so throughout the rest of this exercise.

In writing news, I haven’t accomplished much, thanks to the specific mental/emotional hangover of having a break from work for the first time in six months.

IWSG, July 2022: Where Would I Live?

John Winkelman

A Curious Chipmunk

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. Life has been hectic and crazy, so I have not written a lot since the last IWSG back at the beginning of June.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for July 2022 is:

If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

The easy answer, and therefore the answer I am going with here, is the world of Amber, from Roger Zelazny‘s Amber Chronicles. This is because by its very nature the world (or more accurately, multiverse) of Amber contains all possible other worlds. Were I of the royal blood of Amber (and really, how could I not be?) I would be able to, after certain trials and tests, travel to any world that I desired, simply by picturing that world in my head and then going for a walk.

With the easy answer out of the way, let’s look at some other possibilities.

I have read huge stacks of fiction over the past 40+ years. With few exceptions, none of the worlds therein are worlds I would like to live in, no matter how compelling the world-building.

For instance, Bas-Lag from China Mieville‘s books Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and The Iron Council. Beautifully rendered, exquisite worldbuilding, richly detailed, and full of horrors (slake moths, the Malarial Queendom, and the Remade, to name a few) like I have seldom encountered elsewhere.

Tolkein’s Middle Earth is a possibility, but the realities of living in a pre-industrial society just don’t appeal to me.

The world Susanna Clarke created in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has potential, but then I think of all of the horrors of the twentieth century (and also the 21st!) and add magic to the mix, and I don’t see it being anything other than unimaginably worse than what the mundane world has seen in the past hundred-plus years.

And I suppose that is a good reason for the ambiguity of the answers: a heroic story exists in a world where heroes are needed, and such worlds tend to be terrible for all but the most privileged, who themselves are usually the reason heroes are needed in the first place.

Even the world of Amber is not immune to these issues. The protagonist is a prince and potential heir to the throne, and is himself the cause of much suffering across the multiverse in his quest for revenge. That he is the hero of the story doesn’t mean he is a Good Guy, and as some of the revisionist super-hero comics of the last decade have demonstrated, when heroes and villains clash, the collateral damage can be massive.

Moving into mainstream and literary fiction would bring us into the present world perhaps at a single remove or enhanced in some subtle ways. Bruce Sterling coined the term “now-punk” to refer to any fiction written about the contemporary world, e.g. a story about the world in 2022 which is written in 2022. I would add a secondary definition to now-punk which is “reality, only moreso.” And an amped-up reality has been the base state of reality for about the past twenty years, and even more over the past five, so by any honest measure we are currently living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

So all that being said, I will stick with my original answer of living in the Amber universe, with the possibility of taking a walk to any other world I can conceive of, if only for a short vacation.

I understand Arrakis is beautiful this time of year.

(So with all that being said, where would you like to live, or visit, or avoid at all costs?)

Insecure Writer's Support Group BadgeThe Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

The Bottom of the Top #27

John Winkelman

Happy Independence Day, to those of you to whom such applies, even if only ironically (I’m lookin’ at you, US of A).

1977: James Taylor, “Handy Man”

Ah, James Taylor. This is the James Taylor song, probably the most ubiquitous of his oeuvre, at least in the mid- to late- 1970s. I certainly heard it when it first came out, though likely didn’t pay much attention, as I really don’t think eight-year-olds are his primary audience.

1982: J. Geils Band, “Angel in Blue”

A repeat from last week, proving that inertia can affect the Top 40 list, no matter where a song appears on the chart. Interesting experiment idea: graph all of the top-40 songs by week, from the beginning to present, and see which songs lingered in which position the longest.

1987: Billy Idol, “Sweet Sixteen”

I have heard Sweet Sixteen before, though I don’t remember when and where. Maybe on MTV, though that seems unlikely. Despite the potential creep factor hinted at by the title, this is not adult Idol lusting after a teenager, but a song inspired by Edward Leedskalnin, who created the Coral Castle in Florida, channeling Leedskalnin’s nostalgia about a lost love from his youth. It’s a beautiful song but apparently never received much air play.

1992: Ugly Kid Joe, “Everything About You”

I listened to this song a lot while working as a prep cook and expediter at the restaurant during and after college. I imagine everyone at that place felt this way about everyone else at that place at one time or another.

1997: Blessid Union of Souls, “I Wanna Be There”

I have no memory of this, though late 1990s power ballads all tended to converge around a specific sound, and my memory of “I Wanna Be There” could be jumbled up with memories of a score of other songs.

The Anticipation of Down Time

John Winkelman

Reading material which arrived in the week of June 26, 2022

As of 17:00 on Friday, July 1, 2022, I am on vacation for two weeks. This is my first significant break from work since the Christmas holidays, and it is long overdue. I don’t have any particular plans beyond heading out of town with Zyra for a couple of days when her schedule allows. I hope to find time to read, write, and hang out at the lake until my head is clear of work stress and I am re-centered and ready to resume the daily grind. Then again, two weeks is likely nowhere near enough time for that.

This week’s only new arrival is the new issue of Poetry Magazine, the July/August issue, which was the last volume of words I read to completion in the month of June.

In reading news, I picked up Andrés Neuman‘s How to Travel Without Seeing, which arrived at the house at least six years ago from my old subscription to Restless Books. Ostensibly a collection of essays, this book reads more like a collection of journal entries focused on each of the many countries Neuman visits over the course of the books. And that could very well be what they are, though the cumulative effect is less travelogue and more lyric essay or prose poem. Neuman writes beautifully, and his translator Jeffrey Lawrence deserves serious props as well.

In writing news, not a lot going on. The past several weeks of work have been exhausting and what little free time I usually have has been put to use assisting Zyra with the many and varied events in which she and her company Gallafe have been participating. I have managed to transcribe a few more of my April poems, and even made some notes for a couple of new pieces, but I just haven’t had the mental and emotional space to do anything more than the occasional entry in my journal.