Kyle Beachy's Blog

Catching Incrementally Up

It took a radio interview for me to update the place, clean up some cobwebs. Apologies for absence, and I’m happy to share the following updates.

Some stories! Short ones. First, at Juked, a short story called “Allegory,” which got a nice longlist nod for this year’s Wigleaf Top 50. Here too is “Flicker,” one of a batch of Monkeybicycle one-sentence stories.

Some essays! I have been lucky to find opportunities to write about skateboarding. First is “A Very Large Puzzle,” which looks at Andrew Reynolds and adulthood. Next is “Making Up Legends in the Era of Zero-Budget Skateboarding,” about independent skate video productions and the local communities from which they spring. Finally I have another Point at The Point, specifically “Point 82.”

Finally, a big heaping thanks to John Busbee, host of The Culture Buzz on KFMG 99.1 FM. I enjoyed our chat very much.

An Interview at The Short Form

I should have mentioned this earlier. The good people at The Short Form were kind enough to invite me to yammer a bit about writing and empathy and the various other things you’d expect, plus I hope some that you would not, like this:

Well it depends which types of “progress” you’re suggesting. I am not anti- modern fuel economy in automobiles, or modern advancements for homosexual couples in the United States to marry, or modern developments for drought-resistant crops, not even slightly. What I am anti, and vehemently so, are the historically ugly behaviors that the modern economy has found ways to congratulate and endorse. Like performing, posturing, and the basic denial that other people’s eyes and brains and chests and genitals function in a way totally differently than your own, and that therefore nothing is simple, or easy, or clean.

There’s also this picture to consider, which is great because I’m wearing my Uprise cap and it’s part of the drawing. Interview to be found here. And poke around while you’re there…place is full of great.

 

Five Chapters

It’s turned hot in Chicago. The dog, she pants and rests magnanimously on her side, splayed. But that is not all, currently. There’s also a story of mine that’s been running this past week with one small piece at a time at the truly stacked Five Chapters website. Many thanks to David Daley  for accepting the story into the site’s ranks. I am indeed grateful and stoked in equal measures.

Here is is as one long unit: “Within the Cathedral, an Echo.”

The story will also show up in Hair Lit Vol. 1, a print collection from Orange Alert Press this August. Thanks, too, to Nick Ostdick for the inclusion and catalyst for the story.

Short Story Twofer

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.

Chronicles, Depth

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 ...

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 also published a Point at The Point.

If you're a person who wonders why I don't have any books...

If you're a person who wonders why I don't have any books finished or even forthcoming, technically, one reason is that I have been skating more than writing, and teaching full time now at Roosevelt University's MFA program. I've somehow not mentioned this yet. I've been there since August. When I skate all summer I get footage of proximal bros and then I get a little more more recently, and then I messily compile it by trial and error. Here is "Tall Down There," what I will call a short film. A short film.

I'm writing too. Some short fiction and an essay will be out variously soon, and I'm writing about skateboarding for The Classical, monthly , starting in the coming week or so.

If you’re a person who wonders why I don’t have any books...

If you’re a person who wonders why I don’t have any books finished or even forthcoming, technically, one reason is that I have been skating more than writing, and teaching full time now at Roosevelt University’s MFA program. I’ve somehow not mentioned this yet. I’ve been there since August. When I skate all summer I get footage of proximal bros and then I get a little more more recently, and then I messily compile it by trial and error. Here is “Tall Down There,” what I will call a short film. A short film.

Lula Reading, Big Questions

This coming Tuesday, Anders Nilsen, the man behind, among so much else, the van overhead and all other images on the covers of The Slide, will present a "book release slide show art show multi-media reading event and food tasting" at Lula Cafe in Logan Square. John Porcellino will read, I will read, others may read too, and Zak Sally, who used to play bass for Low and probably gets tired of, I'm only guessing here, being referred to as a guy who used to play bass for Low, will be there to play bass and probably share his own comics. Things begin at 7:00 at the cafe where everyone waits for brunch, looking goooooood. Here is a Facebook page for the event. Hope to see you…

Every Time Makes…Makes Us Better

Some overdo updates to arrive very soon, but for now here's a little video of the buds' recent activities. Music from Serengeti.

Every Time Makes….Makes Us Better from kyle beachy on Vimeo.