ARJ | February 2016

books finished:

Orwell’s, like, a really good writer. “A Hanging” and “Shooting an Elephant” have a gritty, timeless appeal.

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working — bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming — all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned — reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone — one mind less, one world less.

As a collection of love stories (not sappy pocketbook love but a real, gritty, difficult love), it has powerful moments:

Even Magda wasn’t too hot on the rapprochement at first, but I had the momentum of the past on my side. — The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

But it also gives readers insights into the culture of the Dominican diaspora and Dominican-American communities, the way only someone who lives that culture can share:

Let me confess: I love Santo Domingo. I love coming home to the guys in blazers trying to push little cups of Brugal into my hands. Love the plane landing, everybody clapping when the wheels kiss the runway. Love the fact that I’m the only nigger on board without a Cuban link or a flapjack of makeup on my face. Love the redhead woman on her way to meet the daughter she hasn’t seen in eleven years. The gifts she holds on her lap, like the bones of a saint. M’ija has tetas now, the woman whispers to her neighbor. Last time I saw her, she could barely speak sentences. Now she’s a woman. Imagínate. I love the bags my mother packs, shit for relatives and something for Magda, a gift. You give this to her no matter what happens. — The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

— even with the levity of casual conversation. Without quotation marks (I love that about Díaz’s writing), and without feeling the need to explain every single cultural reference or Dominican Spanish slang.

Her name is Noemi, Dominican from Baní — in Massachusetts it seems all the domos are from Baní — and you meet at Sofia’s in the last months before it closes, fucking up the Latino community of New England forever.

Scherezade Siobhan first caught my eye as a talented poet on Tumblr. She is a fearless wordsmith. While Siobhan unearths nouns and adjectives from the depths of the dictionary, weaving them into thoughtful metaphors, she also deftly handles more common words:

then you are in a cab and the city is 
a cinema of gradually dying candles,
traffic lights wink their impending mischief
- “day 46: between atlas and earth”

sun thawing into himalayan honey
behind the caravan of clouds.
- “day 50: hope is a four lettered word”

you will take a pair of craft scissors to your hair;
cut away the wings woven into your tresses
so you can forget the etiquette of flying.
- “day 13: what you won’t let them do” (a stand-out poem)

I will say that this volume of poetry didn’t give me the same feeling of raw emotion that I gleaned from Siobhan’s Tumblr. It felt more calculated, more cerebral, and I suspect that that enervated its staying power. Despite that, her mastery of words is undeniable; she remains one of my favorite contemporary poets, next to nayirrah waheed and Richard Siken.

Always wanted to read more of David Levithan since I’d read his The Realm of Possibility in middle school (around 2004) and my little boy-heart swelled in awe. Why not balance out my reading list with a little YA novel in flash fiction?

breathtaking, adj.

Those mornings when we kiss and surrender for an hour before we say a single word.

flux, n.

The natural state. Our moods change. Our lives change. Our feelings for each other change. Our bearings change. The song changes. The air changes. The temperature of the shower changes.
Accept this. We must accept this.

I would have been in love with this ten years ago. My taste evolved, but I still think it’s well done.

Got it for free (Kindle First). Nazis. SS. Gestapo. Why not. …eh.

The way the Escober takes pains to explain every single Tagalog word (even transliterating putang ina mo), belief, and pop culture reference is taxing. I prefer Junot Díaz’s Spanglish approach: the words and culture ought to speak for themselves. It’s one way that Escober’s writing, though good-intentioned, reeks of insincerity. Interesting shtick, having each chapter an introduction to a Filipino recipe. And I will say that sharing the Filipino immigrant experience is important work. But overall, Not My Bowl of Rice is…. not my bowl of rice.