Two stories of mine appeared in print recently. The first, “Untoward,” occupies a few pages of Another Chicago Magazine‘s second of their Issue #50s, Volume 2 of the two-volume series of all-Chicago authors. The second is called “Lithium Tetrachloroaluminate and Other Servants of God’s Will,” in Knee-Jerk Offline Vol.2. The purpose of this blog post is: practical and informative and promotional.
I realize how terrible I’ve been with my official website. I go and tweet and tumbl and what-the-hell-ever else, but leave this place, my home, untended and sad. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.
In the meantime, two new essays are up The Classical. The first, ”A Chronicle of Doing It: Nike and Destruction,” explores the way Nike has gotten to where they currently are in skateboarding. Seems to me there’s something to be learned, there. Though I’m open to suggestions regarding exactly what that is, exactly.
The second is roughly half of an essay called “The Deap Seams: A Search for Fun in David Foster Wallace’s Peoria,” which appears in the first, beautiful, massive issue of The Chicagoan. You really wouldn’t believe the way people are crawling all over one another for this issue in Chicago right now. It’s like Furbies or something. But look, here is the link the excerpt, which many thanks to Pete Beatty at The Classical for working with me to get this thing up there.
Thanks, folks. More to share very soon…
My first piece for The Classical went up this week, so a thank you to them for having me along for their big smart sportswriting party. The essay is about what Nyjah Huston might possibly mean to the world(s) of skateboarding, and how that meaning is mitigated by the brutality of his performance, here, and the way the video of his performance was edited, marketed, and released. And perhaps why watching it over and over again isn’t the best thing for a skateboarder. And more…You’re Not Me: Nyjah Huston and Inflationary Spectacle.
I was fortunate enough to get a copy of The Pale King a few weeks back. Once finished, I began writing a review that, in addressing less the content of the book as its place in our larger understanding of Wallace and his work, became quite long. Meaning, that is, the book’s place in this particular reader’s (my) understanding of his work. Thank you to everyone who’s read it already and those who’ve circulated it. It’s a very good book, but not a novel, I don’t think, and to write about it was a hugely satisfying and challenging thing to do. Thanks, too, to St. Louis Magazine for continuing to give me a venue for these reviews.
On a related note, this Leland de la Durantaye piece in the Boston Review is incredibly insightful and smart and certainly worth our time.
