tales of retail

Two articles on retail work in America recently caught my eye: here and here.

Wuhan, China

Reading Little White Duck: A Childhood in China led me to Wuhan, China, a large sprawling city dissected by a huge river that Chairman Mao is said to have swum across. Further online searches led me to the Wuhan Mikado, an intriguing structure that appears to have trees and grass on multiple levels.

from Turkey and Armenia to Russia and Ukraine

** Elif Batuman's The Possessed takes us everywhere from Stanford to Russia to Uzbekistan.

** I feared Batuman failed to mention any of my favorites from Russian literature (Shalamov, Olesha, and Biely among others), and then, like magic, Biely showed up in a footnote a few pages after this anxiety set in. So, yes, it was more like a doubt or disappointment, not a genuine fear.

** Arthur Nersesians's Dogrun has a Yuri Olesha reference!

** I read Turkish-American Batuman just before Armenian-American Nersesian, and, like a naive American-American dip shit, I imagine myself resolving the history of their ancestors.

** On Easter Sunday, we ate with people who described themselves as Ukrainians raised in Russia. The father came from the town that "Gooseberries" takes place in.

** An interpretation of Yuri Olesha's Envy is that it is equally critical of both capitalism and communism, Russia and its "foreign devils," and this is consistent with how I teach Ha Jin's "After Cowboy Chicken Came To Town."

** As you can see, I'm in a jam, and this sort of superficial listing is the best I can do.

** Also, I promised myself, I'd try to stop blogging and begin writing short little pieces I could then submit to journals and zines.

** I can't prove that the global news headlines continue to insist we are sliding into sustained global conflict, or World War III, but I can't prove that we're not.

** But blogging is easy and addictive.

** I must return to typing in more corrections I've made by hand.

** So I'll add detail to this another time.

** Fight for your long weekend!

the old man and the sea

I reread The Sun Also Rises in early May 2012, and I'm rereading The Old Man and the Sea in early May 2014. 

Who else could get away with "the Yankees of New York" or the "Indians of Cleveland" or the boy, the man, the fish, and a gigantic feat of "hand game" (arm wrestling) against a powerful "Negro" that then causes said opponent to lose all confidence? 

Nevertheless, I recommend, and I see Powell's has one for sale at the airport!

"Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is." 
--Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

motel life in disney world

Willy Vlautin's The Motel Life isn't based on how children are living in Disney World, but it could be.

A more recent post has Miami's poorest living on $11 a day and includes a doctor's assessment of the demographics:

"Miami isn’t the gateway to Latin America; Miami has the same economic demographics as Latin America,” said Pedro “Joe” Greer, a doctor whose 25 years of work treating the homeless and uninsured there earned him the nation’s highest civilian honor -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- in 2009. “Seventy percent of the families we work with bring in less than $25,000 a year.

goodreads review

I was happy to see Eric Gilliland's new goodreads review of Fight for Your Long Day.

Thank you.

dividing line

Congratulations to "The Over-Educated Negro"

Congratulations to the blogger/academic otherwise known as "The Over-Educated Negro" for completing his PhD. I'd only become aware of him because he reviewed my book three years ago, but his blog has flavor, insight, and energy. Here's some good recent stuff worth checking out!

Happy Easter.

two ducks, take two

two ducks