Can This Be Dystopia?
by Karen Heuler
Parades belong to dystopias.
Ha, you say. Prove it.
What is a parade but a display of solidarity with the norm, with the perceived perfection of society? We love to celebrate, of course, and we love crowd emotions, which provoke a sense of unity and—here, I’ll say it—superiority.
If you’re not part of the parade, you’re part of the problem.
In our morning reading: thoughts on a De La Soul reissue, Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl adaptations, and more.
In our afternoon reading: Olga Tokarczuk on politics, thoughts on Paul Tremblay’s new collection, and more.
In our morning reading: thoughts on books by Victor LaValle and Chloe Aridjis, an interview with Hal Hartley, and more.
For many writers and artists, spending time at conventions is a regular part of an annual routine. It’s not surprising, then, that some have opted to use genre and comic book conventions as the setting for stories, including one of Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville Club stories, Nick Mamatas’s novel I Am Providence, and Paul Cornell and Marika Cresta’s Con & On. Now, in the new series True Believers, writers Joshua Viola and Stephen Graham Jones teamed with artist Ben Matsuya for a tale of cosplay and horror set at the Colorado Festival of Horror.
Transcription
by Regan Mies
My mother told me over the phone that my brother had become “selectively deaf.” He could still hear. He enjoyed instrumental music. He often took nature walks in the arboretum along the shore. When we were kids, he could identify birds by their calls.
“He doesn’t want to listen to you?”
My mother scoffed. Her shopping cart clattered. The sound muffled as she swapped her phone from one ear to the other. “You know your brother. It’s his new thing.”
In our weekend reading: an interview with Elyssa Maxx Goodman, revisiting Arthur Russell’s music, and more.
In our afternoon reading: interviews with Matthew Binder and Sean Howe, revisiting Albert Camus’s plays, and more.