Reading Roundup: June 2024

How much of these hills is gold by C Pam Zhang. I put this book on my library holds list as soon as I finished Land of Milk and Honey by the same author. Hills is her debut, and it is as beautifully written and sophisticated in execution as Land, The main characters are siblings, children of Chinese immigrants who were brought to the American West to build the railroads and then remained in the land to work–to mine or to prospect for gold, mainly, which both have their dangers. The children were born in this land and learned to survive in it, despite the fires and floods caused by extractive mining, and being treated as fundamentally foreign even though they are American. It is their story, and their struggle of how to find a sense of self and belonging in a hostile world–but through flashbacks to their parents’ stories, we learn how the land has changed (been ravaged, really) over time and how history was rewritten to exclude both indigenous and immigrant knowledge and labor. There is also some interesting exploration of gender in the book; it seems a bit clunky at first, but as the children grow up they become a little better at understanding themselves and how they fit in among others.

Ship Fever: Stories by Andrea Barrett. On the surface, these stories are elegant and easy to read. Though the main characters are usually scientists of some sort, the stories tends to focus not on their achievements but on their relationships–pupils and mentors, lovers, parents–and on challenges or obstacles, particularly for those whose scientific education was curtailed by class or gender. The tone is quiet and reflective, which makes the moments of brutality more startling. In these stories, science is dangerous and painful to its subjects if not also its pursuers; in one story, two young women drown swallows in order to disprove the hypothesis that they hibernate under water all winter; in another, a young man risks his life to shoot and skin exotic species for naturalists to study.
I wish I could remember how I first heard of this book. It’s an older release, published in the 90s, and it was the only entry on a library list I don’t remember creating, titled TBR? But the author has a more recent collection, Natural History, that got some acclaim, and so perhaps that’s why it’s on my radar. Or perhaps it’s the Philadelphia connection; several of the characters live in or near Philadelphia, and the art museum and Academy of Natural Science plays pivotal roles.

A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None by Kathryn Yusoff. We read an excerpt of this book in my class last spring and I was mesmerized. It’s a slim book, but highly academic and theoretical. I found it a challenging read at first, I think because the author is a geologist–which is to say a social scientist, with a bit of environmental scientist thrown in–and draws from different theoretical vocabulary than I do as a literary scholar (with a bit of philosophy scholar thrown in). But I eventually found my footing, because the author is extremely interested in examining and assessing the language we use to talk about geology and climate change, and particularly the stories we tell about it. For example, there is a push to name our present geologic era to make it distinct from the Holocene, the epoch that began after the last glacial period. Many people call this the Anthropocene era (although some people call it Capitalocene, Plantationocene, or Cthulucene), but few experts agree on when we should say it begins. In 1452, the year African slaves are first put to work in Portugeuse plantations, thereby intiating the cycle where Black bodies are extracted from one location to enrich another? In 1610, informally the year that kicks off European conquest of the Americas, which likewise turns human bodies into gold and also severely reorganizes ecology and geology across the Atlantic? 1800, the approximate beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which built on existing modes of extraction and began to alter atmospheric chemistry through combustion and emissions? The 1950s era of nuclear testing, which displaced many islander populations and changed the soil and atmospheric chemistry via byproducts of nuclear detonation? The author warns against using the story of the Anthropocene Era to elide and erase these distinct and devastating impacts, or distance ourselves from the “them” that perpetuated these crimes even when many of us still benefit from the economic gains of extraction. I found the argument fascinating and challenging; I remain interested in geology from an ecological standpoint but I have a new appreciation for the political complexity of earth science.

I picked up Closer by Patrick Marber from a used bookstore awhile ago. I’m not quite sure why. I loved the movie when it was released twenty years ago, but when I rewatched it recently, I could see the misogyny in the story–and the misandry, too. The engine of this story is that its two male characters see the two women as trophies whose value is enhanced by how other men see them, and spoiled by how other men touch them. Three of the characters are artists (the fourth is a dermatologist), but only the male artist’s art is openly admired by any of ther others. The story does not age well. Perhaps I thought I’d learn something about dialogue from the vicious conversations these characters have with one another, and the way offhand comments evolve into inside jokes among the different relationships.
In any case, I know why I picked it up and read it one sultry afternoon this month. One of my ballet instructors taught us some choreography to “The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice–still a stunner of a song–and that reminded me of the movie, and also of listening to Damien Rice albums on repeat, and I suppose I was feeling nostalgic for a time in my life when I thought the film and album offered some of the smartest and truest stories about relationships I knew. It was not a better time, or a simpler one. More like a theatrical and mean time of life.

My writing workshop studied In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado this month, so I had the pleasure of reading it again. And I started Walden by Henry David Thoreau, which I’ve somehow never read before, and am going through it slowly. It is both more and less fun than I thought it would be. A bit like getting cornered at a party by a loud man with many opinions who goes not read social cues well. But no one is making me read it!

Some short pieces I loved:
Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller
(Soma)tic 5: Storm SOAKED Bread by CAConrad
self-portrait as that one scene from Pokémon: The First Movie by Tyler Raso

Elsewhere

I just really enjoyed this thoughtful, personal conversation between poets Diane Suess and Hanif Abdurraqib.

Loved the wide-ranging conversation about fat, sex, and books with Emma Eisenberg and Virginia Sole-Smith.

Also at Burnt Toast, Sole-Smith interviews a couple of people from the Association for Size Diversity and Health. They get into the history and implications of Health at Every Size, a philosophy I learned from size acceptance blogs in the early aughts, and still sort of hold in my heart when I am advocating for myself medically. But as I age and experience more ups and downs in regard to my health, I am starting to see more ways that health-ism can stigmatise those experiencing chronic illness or injury, and can create some obstacles to care. It’s a really interesting conversation and worth reflecting on.

For various reasons, I am extremely interested in a map of public restrooms of New York–may every city have one someday!

On a recent trip with friends, I had the pleasure of summarizing the wild story of the insectarium in Philadelphia that allegedly was robbed by disgruntled workers (who were never charged); every time I look up that story online, new unhinged details have been revealed. So I deeply enjoyed this story of an equally unhinged aquarium in North Carolina, although I am also worried about the well-being of those animals.

Along similar lines: I’m realizing that the spectacular implosion of badly managed nonprofits is my Roman Empire. I don’t care about true crime stories but I ate up every crumb of this Free Library fiasco, and not only because I used to work at the Foundation.
The Free Library’s Author Events staff resigned Monday due to what they called ‘heartbreaking’ work culture (Philadelphia Inquirer)
What to know about the Free Library, the Free Library Foundation, and the Author Events drama (Philadelphia Inquirer)
The Philadelphia Free Library’s whole Author Events staff has resigned over workplace conditions. (LitHub)
Author Events Programming at Free Library of Philadelphia a ‘Hot Mess’ After Staff Firings (Publisher’s Weekly)

As always, there is stuff about AI in the world.
About the viral “All eyes on Rafah” image: The power of an Instagram Story (Garbage Day, May 31, 2024)
OpenAI insiders are demanding a “right to warn” the public (Vox, June 5, 2024)
What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment? (Scientific American, June 11, 2024)
Not new research, but an intriguing, rich scholarly analysis that some folks were circulating in light of the Sky voice assistant debacle: “Alexa, Tell Me about Your Mother”: The History of the Secretary and the End of Secrecy (Catalyst, May 15, 2020)
I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again (Ludicity, June 19, 2024)
AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle solution. (Washington Post, June 21, 2024, gift link)

Minutiae

On the first day of the month, I corralled a group of 11 adults for a day of kayaking down the Batsto River–same route that I took last year. It was objectively a gorgeous day, warm and bright but not too hot in the shade, and the water was wonderfully cool when we waded into it. It was a good month for swimming, actually. My gentleman and I went to a daytime solstice party–my first time visiting the storied Brandywine River–and sipped ice tea, played with a puppy, and sat in the cool shallow river while tubers and boaters floated by. I also went to a Philly public pool for the first time, which was crowded but refreshing on one of the dire hot days we had this month.

What else did I do? I went to a lot of medical checkups. I tried to keep my garden watered; some of it got rather crispy, but a few things are blooming. I made plans. I met an old friend for margaritas and found a beautiful miniature tarot deck with art nouveau illustrations at a secondhand shop. I caught up with some beautiful souls I used to work with at the library. I spent hours and hours cackling and whispering during an anniversary showing of the Lord of the Rings extended cuts. I marked some storm drains around a South Philly park with badges indicating that the drain flows out to the river; on the walk home, my friend and I encountered an outdoor music festival, and I bought an ammonite pendant on a cord. And I celebrated the birthdays of dear friends on a rooftop bar.

Mostly, though, I mourned and moped. I miss my old cat every day.