Alex Kudera's Blog, page 68

let us pause for this message from the paper of our virus

"Joelle Herr, owner of The Bookshop in East Nashville, which closed more than two weeks ago, wrote on Facebook about her 'fury, despair and helplessness' at watching other businesses carry on as if nothing had changed. 'It’s frustrating when you feel like you’re one of only a few doing the right thing (and at a great cost to my small business!) and those doing the wrong thing are the ones with the greater impact — an impact that is going to be devastating.'"

The Silence of Writers

"The Americans, meanwhile, were innocently asking members of the Soviet Writers' Union: 'Why are you silent when your colleagues are imprisoned?'

"They were silent because they knew that they only had to open their mouths to follow in Elena's footsteps. They did not share her courage; officially acknowledged writers lead an easy life, they have a great deal to lose. In any case, we're not their colleagues--we have never participated in any of the Soviet propaganda activities which are mandatory for Writers' Union members, so we were not members ourselves. For it is impossible to serve both God and Mammon. One must choose. And the choice was made: we chose one, they chose the other. We have never regretted our choice, and I don't think they regret theirs. Different people have different destinies. . ."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

The Five Books of Moses Nersesian

Arthur Nersesian's The Five Books of (Robert) Moses arrives in July!

"Bucket List" Books

According to The Guardian, "bucket list" novels have seen a surge in sales.

the knight of deliverance

“If the [virus] is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?”~~ from Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49

Grey is the Color of Hope 5

"We made no attempts to reform them, we merely tried to understand them and their world. Vitebsky wrote that he was a thief 'by calling,' and would have been a thief in any country and any social class, 'even in America' (he thought of America as the epitome of well-being and legality)."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

thank you, Alexander Chee

Part of the problem is that "the reading public" is likely unaware that even "successful" authors who have mainstream bookstore exposure may have extremely limited income from their writing and support themselves through some combination of adjunct teaching, freelance writing, and other gig-economy "opportunities." Authors are well represented among the millions who have lost their income and are navigating a "new normal" of heightened insecurity.

Grey is the Color of Hope 4

"Raya has very definite ideas about poets: she's married to one, after all, and it was her devotion to him that landed her in the camps. To her, poets are like small children who are incapable of looking after themselves. She is convinced that if food is not placed before them, they will forget to eat, or that if they are not forced to go to bed at a reasonable hour, they will sit up all night communing with their Muse. . . She was like a nursemaid to me in the years we spent together in the camp. Also, she liked my poetry, and we would spend hours reciting to each other; she would read her husband's poems, and I would read mine. . ."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

we interrupt this gulag with a message from our virus

"In contrast to hand-washing and other personal measures, social distancing measures are not about individuals, they are about societies working in unison. These measures also take a long time to see the results. It is hard (even for me) to conceptualize how ‘one quick little get together’ can undermine the entire framework of a public health intervention, but it does. I promise you it does. I promise. I promise. I promise. You can’t cheat it. People are already itching to cheat on the social distancing precautions just a 'little'- a playdate, a haircut, or picking up a needless item at the store, etc. From a transmission dynamics standpoint, this very quickly recreates a highly connected social network that undermines all of the work the community has done so far."

Grey is the Color of Hope 3

"When everyone who is in any way connected with your imprisonment--from the supervising procurator through to the censor and the doctor--persists in lying day in, day out, you begin to feel as though you are in some huge lunatic asylum. The only difference is that it is the overseers who are psychopaths, who try to incorporate you into a hideous, contrived reality. Shalin's insistence that we do not exist is a case in point: 'There are no political prisoners in this camp,' he would aver. Yet at the same time, he and all his colleagues invariably referred to us as the 'politicals.' The pots in which our skilly was delivered from the kitchen had the words "Polit. Zone" marked on them with brown paint. And Shalin himself, in an attempt to make us see reason, would say: 'Everyone in th emen's political zone wears identity tags, so why can't you!'"

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya