What does your October reading list look like? Ours, it’s safe to say, covers a lot of ground. If you’re looking to see NYC through new eyes or revisit the work of an iconic filmmaker, we have you covered; if you’d prefer a trip into space or a jaunt into history, we have those angles covered as well. Read on for some literary recommendations to ease you into fall.
Chapter 38
I went back to the cabin. As I approached it in the transference toward the evening when the sky was split blue and pink, I recognized it’s importance. Why no roads lead to this place.
One must be chosen. One must be led.
There are few sanctuaries left on Earth. Few solitudes. Ones that will endure forever, and those who take refuge in them survive through the ages of terror and excitement.
Afro-Centered Futurisms: A vibrant and approachable book by award-winning authors of black speculative fiction
an essay by Eugen Bacon
It started with a read: Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century by Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek (eds), published by Ohio State University Press. I put down this book and contemplated it.
Chapter 37
Hans wasn’t the same after the funeral. He’d died too in some deep hidden place.
The past week I was gaining so much instruction on our walks but every morning he looked a little paler, a little weaker.
Hans drank wine every night and didn’t touch his food.
Composer Erland Cooper did something unexpected with the recordings that would become his new album Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence: he buried them. For several years, in fact, until they were discovered by someone who’d followed the clues Cooper had left to the master tapes’ location. The result is a gorgous, melancholic array of music, interspersed with poetry and given a more textured quality from their time underground. I spoke with Cooper about this unusual process and the role of collaboration in his work.
Chapter 36
All black tents and black chairs.
Rain.
While the list of attendees was large in size and scope, it was a complete secret to anyone not invited. There was no media coverage whatsoever. The founders of every major publishing platform on the planet came in droves in total silence. The forest surrounding the estate was ghostlike, veiled in a hissing mist.
Today, we’re pleased to present an excerpt from Manu Larcenet’s graphic novel adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Its path to publication was somewhat unorthodox: Larcenet, a winner of multiple awards at the Angoulême International Comics Festival over the years, wrote to McCarthy seeking his approval for the project. (It worked.)
“I loved The Road for the atmosphere it creates. Most likely because I enjoy drawing the snow, the chilling winds, the dark clouds, the sizzling rain, tangles and snags, rust, and the damp and the humidity,” Larcenet wrote. I draw violence and kindness, wild animals, dirty skin, pits, and stagnant water. I enjoy the contrast between the characters and their environment, and as conceited as it may sound, I feel like I’m up to the task.”
“He pitches as though he’s double parked.”
-Pitcher Bob Gibson as described by announcer Vin Scully
***
Singer and guitarist Black Joe Lewis opens the show with the briefest of introductions:
“We’ve been playing like this for a while. Hope you like it. We’re not going to stop for a while.”
Moments later, he is torching the joint, soaring through an extended instrumental break, not fast or flashy, but somehow making it feel as if he’s propelled us to the middle of the set, skipping the warm up songs that bands and audiences use to acclimate, suss each other out. Lewis and his band, the Honeybears, get to the flow so quickly I lose track of conventional markers such as time and lyrics and song structures. Are they purposefully steering away from those elements in order to generate a different kind of energy? Or are they simply ready to roll, like Bob Gibson?