001. Opening Reliquary
Hello, #####
From the Old English word "openian", related to the Germanic word "offen", I bring you the first note of many on this sweet Sunday.
TOUCH
Baby is Sara Sutterlin's newest poetry collection. I swallowed it up in a matter of hours. Besides having gorgeous fucking cover, these poems feel like holding a piece of stolen fruit in your pocket—careful and intimate, sticky and ripe, almost perilous. Yes, these are love poems. But they are the kind that rest precarious on a knife's edge. Small enough to fit inside the palm of your hand.
In 1923, Mina Loy was steps ahead of the artists and writers she traveled around Europe with. She was friends with some of the most renowned dadaists, surrealists, modernists, and was even the lover of Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian futurism. While the Italian Futurism we know of today was mostly a hyper-masculine, misogynistic, volatile machine of fascist aggression, Loy's futurist poems stand in stark contrast to the war-loving creations of her colleagues. The Last Lunar Baedeker is a dynamic series of poems. There's an explosive feminine energy that rings through her writing, a call for autonomy, the freedom to speak of childbirth, of sexuality, to enter into the modernity through ecstatic alchemy ("Receiving the holy-ghost / Catch it and caging it / Lose it / Or in the problematic / Destroy the Universe"). Her feminist manifesto literally shouts at you from the page like the ringing of colliding machines. You can read the rest of it here.
I'm not sure how I came across Sabat Magazine, but I've been following their work for quite some time now. Because they're based in the U.K., I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get my hands on a physical copy but lo and behold, I managed to find their newest issue at McNally Jackson. This is a magazine for witches by witches. Not only is the photography absolutely sinister and gorgeous, everything from the typography to the selection of articles has been carefully assembled. The Crone Issue examines American mythos and unpeels the archetypes of older witches in a youth-obsessed society: "The aging body is the diminished body. We're told it is decrepit and thoroughly asexual. It reminds us of death."
I was lucky enough to see Layli Long Soldier speak at the Brooklyn Book Festival last week (spoiler: she's absolutely brilliant and she read her poems with a precise grace that had the whole audience holding their breath when she paused). This poetry collection is breathtaking, to say the least. She picks apart political speech and legal language. She cultivates beautiful, aching lyric poems, and refashions the sinews of conventional poetic forms. She moves between violent histories and today's longings, aware that time has not changed anything. Each word is precisely chosen. Each poem feels like an exhale or a gunshot across the page.
LOOK
I've been thinking a lot about these lamps made out of mushroom mycelium by British designer Sebastian Cox. This fungal material is supposed to feel like suede. Using discarded goat willow wood as the binding agent, each piece is layered on until you get this rough, earthy color. Fungus has been on my mind a lot lately (the textures, the colors, the way it lives and grows). This could be the future of sustainable furniture design, living material you can grow and feed.
I can't get Carol Rama's Antibodies exhibit out of my mind. The only way I can describe her work is as arousingly disgusting. Rama eroticizes alienation, assembling disassembled bodies oftentimes caught in the throes of some fucked up pleasure, reducing the familiar into utter abstraction. Her life was one of many extremes, and it comes across beautifully in her work. Under the shadow of Fascist Italy, Rama witnessed her mother be institutionalized, her father committed suicide after losing his job at a bicycle tire factory (naked water-color women appear like animals confined to beds and wheelchairs, rubber can be found suspended across a majority of her collages). She uses all kinds of material to separate organs from the body. She was obsessed with Mad Cow Disease. Her favorite colors were red and black. When asked why in an interview she replied: "
"I always wore a black shirt because it gave me the idea that this ugliness of mine had a mysterious air. That of a bloodsucker, that of a deadly woman. That was at least fifty percent, the deadly woman is worth half. It's crazy." You can view more of her work here.
Minotaure magazine was a Surrealist magazine published between 1933-1939. Founded in Paris and edited by Andre Breton, the magazine quickly became one of the best sources of information about the Surrealist movement. Articles covered topics ranging from philosophy to architecture, cataloging a vibrant history over the course of just 6 years. Each cover featured original art by famous Surrealist painters such as Rene Magritte (left), Salvador Dali (right), Pablo Picasso, and even Henri Matisse.
In 2006, Brazillian artist Ernesto Neto installed Leviathan Thot inside the Paris Pantheon. This interpretation of Old Testament sea serpent swallows up its neoclassic scaffolding. I love how these forms sink to the ground like fish pulled out from the ocean and left out in the sun for too long. If only I could enter this monumental organ assemblage and be left in awe.
Lorna Simpson's 1986 photograph, Waterbearer, has been lingering in my mind since I first saw it at the Brooklyn Museum this past July. There's a slick coldness to this image, yet it's deeply charged with unspeakable violence. The elegant, sharp contrast of the stark white dress and the void framing her, reminds me of the disturbing composure of 40s noir films. Simpson knows how to suspend the viewer, her camera capturing a moment of time with unflinching honesty.
LISTEN
Sevdaliza's debut album, Ison, has been on repeat. She exudes this masculine energy that I'm quite drawn to. Each song moves like a ritual, raw renderings of the body meshed into throbbing, digitally manipulated beats that invite you to dance, to fill up space with your skin. She refuses to be fetishized as a 'mystery', exploring "the terror and magic" of living. I absolutely adore her music, the way it's soaked with dark emotionality.
Right after the tumultuous destruction of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, the memory palace released an episode titled "Sometimes the Rain Just Doesn't Stop" about the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926. Growing up in Florida, I've always been surrounded by hurricanes, whether it was days spent with no power, rain battering at our shuttered windows, or watching colored spirals whirl across television screens. The memory palace knows how to tell a story, now to cut down to the emotional core of history. For just a brief 8 minutes, you find yourself in the eye of the storm, witness the tragedy that follows the dark sky split open by rain.
Tommy Genesis is by far one of the most underrated queer rappers I know. Her new single, "Tommy", is equal parts sinister and delicious. Her lyrics, as usual, are biting and relentless. This song has been out for only two days and its already stuck in my head. She's fucking amazing.
About a month ago, I learned about Jessa Crispin's podcast, Public Intellectual, and I definitely don't regret subscribing to it. In general, I'm not a huge fan of chatty, conversational interview podcasts but Jessa tackles issues in contemporary politics and culture in a way that doesn't feel like another boring Hot Take. Although the show does sometimes err on the side of pretension, her guests are incredibly insightful. If you don't know where to start, I would suggest episode 9, " The Woman Genius Problem," about the legacy of Vivian Maier.
LICK
Of course, I have to talk about the Brooklyn Book Festival. Yes, this is a week late, but I'm still not over how amazing it was. I got to walk around, actually walk up and talk to people who work at the publishing houses whose work I admire. I bought enough poetry books to file for bankruptcy afterward. I got to listen to some of my favorite poets (Morgan Parker, Danez Smith, Kaveh Akbar, Eileen Myles, just to name a few) read from their newest collections and share their wisdom. Yes, I left with an absurd amount of tote bags. Yes, I left stinking of sweat and adrenaline. Yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Lately when I'm feeling anxious, dreary, or I'm just walking through campus and I don't have my headphones with me, I've been calling Dial-A-Poem ( 641-793-8122 ). Every time you call in, this phone service automatically connects you to a recording of a poet reading their work. The original phone line was created by John Giorno in 1968 as a way to bring poetry to the public. Can't recommend it enough.
Iris van Herpen knows how to bring science to couture. While every season she finds new materials, textures, and patterns to incorporate into her experimental designs, her Fall 2017 couture collection looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Using laser-cut metal sheared into filaments of undulating silver, she crafts dresses that move with an ephemeral fluidity. You can check out the rest of the collection here.
Last night, Eugene and I watched Perfect Blue, directed by Satoshi Kon (who's one of my favorite anime directors). Even though this film was made in 1999, its subject matter—a pop idol who decides to become a famous actress and suddenly becomes tormented by a stalker who posts about her every move on the Internet—in a way predicted the kind of celebrity obsession we see today, when fans can now follow a star's life through social media, the blurring between public image and privacy, what is real and what is just manufactured branding, how fandom can devour you. Kon makes movies that really fuck with you. His cuts are designed to disorient you, break from reality in subtle ways that leave you lost and confused in ways that live-action films never could (see also: Paprika from 2006).
If you ever get the chance to go to the New Museum, go to their gift shop and find the bottles of perfumes just to the left of the cash register. Folie Plusiers (although way out of my price range) has designed some of coolest fragrances I've ever seen (smelled??). My personal favorites include their line of scents inspired by movie scenes (including All About My Mother, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Broken Embraces) as well as their music collection inspired by sexual deviances (didn't know you could bottle the smell of dacry, or sexual arousal through crying). Go take a sniff next time you're there.
CLICK
Although I've already read Hannah Black's non-fiction poem, "Value, Love, and Measure", for my poetry class, the black and white printout of the original piece definitely did not do it justice. Black winds through the complications of love in a world built on capitalism, confronts the way bodies and feelings can become commodified with a sharp honesty. Accompanying her writing are a series of unsettling Youtube screenshots, images derived from monetized video. You know what? My explanation definitely won't do the original piece justice either. Just go read it.
Recently, I arrived at 4Columns. While other online publications oversaturate your feed with essay after essay after essay. 4Columns does exactly what it says. It publishes only 4 pieces of writing each day. Authors can discuss theater, film, visual art, television, or poetry. No artistic medium is left unexamined. If just 4 pieces of writing aren't enough for you, you can dig through their archives and find some treasures. It's the perfect kind of site for daily check-ins.
A piece that made me smile this week is Josephine Livingstone's brilliant review of Aronofsky's Mother! I'll be honest, I didn't see the movie (and now I don't really plan on it) but I did accidentally spoil myself on the plot (I was convinced this was going to be a vampire movie and went to Wikipedia to see if I was right) and when this article popped up on my Twitter feed I thought, ehhh why not? The movie is messy (in terms of its symbolism, its references, and its subject matter), but Livingstone does a great job of isolating and addressing each problem in order to demonstrate the film's shaky construction (both in pacing and overall plot). She questions Aronofsky's intentions of using a miserable-marriage psychodrama as a vehicle for Biblical allegory and problematizes the idea of a male director trying to make a statement about fucked up gender dynamics while utilizing traditional misogynistic tropes (ie: the oppressed, naive wife destroyed by the chaos of her husband's power). I would include a quote but I don't want to give anything away.
Having you been thinking a lot about rural queerdom or, more specifically, the absence of queer narratives in rural literature? Me too. Bruce Snider explores this subject in his Lit Hub essay, "Where Are All the Gay Rural Poets?". Oftentimes, queer poetry is set within urban landscapes, something that can feel alienating for those growing up in rural communities where you can't openly share your experiences ("The first gay man I knew was the undertaker," he writes). But this essay doesn't just question a gaping hole in the poetry world. Snider provides some great recommendations, reminding us that rural poets do exist, we've just got to do more to elevate their experiences. Seeing as Snider's piece is primarily focused on gay men, I would suggest pairing this piece with Ariel Levy's essay on the lesbian separatist movement called "Lesbian Nation".
Lastly, I bring you this new poem by Dorothea Lasky titled "The Clog". This is the first poem I read that's about nipples, unconventional yet she crafts such an interesting organ out of language. As with all of Lasky's poems, it feels like you're entering a dark fairytale tormented by bodies.
I did not plan to send this out so late (due to unforeseen Internet problems). If you are reading this in the early hours of the morning, I hope that sleep rolls off your shoulders and you get your hands on something warm caffeinated today. If you are reading this in the late hours, squinting at the electric blue screen of your electronic device, I hope you are taking deep breaths, letting your eyes soften as you spelunk through the Internet and into something like a dream.
Until next Sunday,
Ellie