The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas by Rick Harsch

Long live the literary scene in all its contexts and plots.

And happy 2025.

a warm hug

"The neverending struggle that is life in New York City gives us a warm hug.

"'Hey Sistah, get the lead out, willya!'

"'I am not your sister and I carry no lead.'"

~~ from The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt by Ken Krimstein

The New World 1941

"Some New World! Martha and Blucher and I land in a fourth-floor walkup in a two-room flat in a West 95th Street rooming house. Down on the streets every variety of German, Yiddish, Slavic, and Greek fills the sooty air."

~~ from The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt by Ken Krimstein

She would not answer my question.

"Yumi didn't respond to my letter. Months passed and I spiraled into despair. Finally, I received a typewritten letter. Her anger radiated from the page. She was furious that I would 'besmirch' the name of her friend. She would not answer my question, and she never wanted to hear from me again.

"I was shattered."

~~ from I Would Meet You Anywhere in the World by Susan Kiyo Ito

The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt by Ken Krimstein

 

I would be as small as possible

"There weren't many choices for my birth mother, when she was pregnant with me, unmarried, in 1959, in that small town. She could have used a knitting needle or rat poison and tried to end it herself. She might have run away to an anonymous town where nobody knew her and passed herself off as a widow with a child. But that would have meant tearing herself away from her family, her community, and everything she knew. Instead, she bought a girdle. She ate like a bird. She did what she could do to ensure that I would be as small as possible."

~~ from I Would Meet You Anywhere in the World by Susan Kiyo Ito

Christmas 2024

Merry Christmas

a little tower of books

"I loved that she had a little tower of books next to her bed. My own parents were not readers, although they nurtured my love of books. They kept a subscription to Reader's Digest Condensed Books, which arrived once a month. I was the only one who actually read them."

~~ from I Would Meet You Anywhere in the World by Susan Kiyo Ito

by and by

Enjoy CAAMP's live performance of "By and By."

The Light Between Us

 

The copy I pre-ordered months ago resurfaces: 

The Light Between Us by Elaine Chiew.

trigger warning

"I have never formally issued a 'trigger warning' or explicitly carved out a 'safe space.' But I know that all readers do not come to a text equally."

~~ from The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I Would Meet You Anywhere in the World

"I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the world."

~~ from I Would Meet You Anywhere in the World by Susan Kiyo Ito

a clean, well-lighted book

 

Bartleby and Benito

 

how to send books

Publisher Rick Harsch weighs in on how to package literature.

food for seven long year

Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole,
the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when
the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets, swallows the

old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the
standing pool; who is whipp'd from tithing to tithing, and
stock-punish'd and imprison'd; who hath had three suits to his
back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to wear;

But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.

~~ from Shakespeare's King Lear, Act III, Scene IV

"that almost dead cult from which there's never any escape"

A reader found a few of my entries from back when, upon occasion, I would write, riff, and rant at L.U.S.K. Behold exhibits A, B, and C.

beckoning with a blade

“Beyond the subways, there were the trains. I was leaving Paris at midnight from Gare de l’Est. So long ago I can’t remember, but I believe I had my eye on Basel in Switzerland; I would have been interested in where Nietzsche died. I was tired, not feeling well, but I was intent on getting the most of an unlimited pass good for two months on continental trains. I could save money on lodging by selecting night trains with sleeping compartments. Aboard my car, I was patiently navigating down its narrow corridor. Directed at the man pushing ahead in front me, I heard in French, ‘All I need is the ticket.’ A gentleman facing us beckoned with a blade.”

~~ from “Chinese Sun” by Alex Kudera

I post a photograph in case we need a reminder that memoir & autofiction trend toward fiction.

quite a wingding

“That was quite a wingding, yes. Wingding—the word—was only in my brain because I had Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift with me for the entire trip. The novel was quite a gas. This was in China, not Paris back-then, or at my dad’s house as a child in West Philly. In France, I’d found a UK edition of Thomas Pynchon’s V, and I’d also read Melville’s Moby Dick. The latter was a Penguin edition I’d brought from home. I knew I had to read if I wanted to write.”

~~ from “Chinese Sun” by Alex Kudera

Corona\Samizdat's 2025 list

Slovenia's Corona\Samizdat publishes quality literary fiction. Chief Editor Rick Harsch is a prolific novelist who has big plans for publishing in 2025: "We're still here; we're still alive."

Rudolph the bow-tied reader