trajectories

I want to follow the trail of my reading and see where it goes. Since I have a number of unfinished books, I decide to focus on three concurrently. And the next read will be determined by the one directly before: references, themes, character names, places, allusions, a feeling, epigraphs, etc.

For example, I’m currently reading A Beastiary by Lily Hoang (Cleveland State University Press, 2016). She mentions in her strange, invasive, fractured essay collection that she hung out with Rikki Ducornet. I have the latter’s The Deep Zoo (Coffee House Press, 2015).

Though I can change my mind and switch directions. The past read doesn’t have to directly lead to this new. It can be so indirect, only I’ll get it. Like if it conjures a certain memory or longing. And I’d like to create blog posts on this WordPress and take photos of how it leads to the next link. Maybe have a corner or a peek of the cover in the background. Or a color element within the next cover to be in the one prior photo. I’m not sure I have the logistics right in my head but we’ll see. I definitely want to take pictures of the excerpt that leads to the next title.

The second book I’m reading is Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night (Yale University Press, 2005). It’s truly amazing and I’m starting over so I can keep the images fresh for when I take his 92nd Street Y class (!!!!) in the new year. It’s actually on Lewis Carroll’s Alice which is mentioned… I think. He references it a lot in his other essays so I’ll be dumbfounded if I don’t find it there. I already bought The Annotated Alice: 150th Deluxe Edition, edited by Martin Gardner (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) for the class. He only recommended Gardner’s but if I want to see more depth and illustrations hehe.

The final book I’m reading is Janice Lee’s The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016). Here’s the caption I wrote in fresh tears midair. It’s haunting. It reminds me of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets (Wave Books, 2009). Which I have haha.

Actually I want all the next books to be ones I already bought. The more wide ranging and deeper it goes into the backlist and the past years of accumulated dust, the fucking better. I want to read a book from 2016 and then read a book from 2002. I want to traverse from a book in English to a translation from a country that was set in the prior. I want to make great leaps across my shelves and piles and bring them all into the light and out of my disgusting neglect.

Reading is already romantic for me. I tend to swoon over every new idea or epiphany, ever shiny definition I discover that clarifies the order and names of things. But this traveling procedure will add more wonder to the whole experience.

And I could use more magic.

2017 is looking more and more fraught with uncertainty. I have no idea what kind of direction it will take because it’s already been blown wide fucking open.

And it’ll be up to me if it’ll be another year of grace and serendipity

or a year of fear and uneasiness and maybe even that sinking disaster I’ve known so well.

(sometimes I miss it)

But the one thing that keeps me afloat is reading and writing. It’s what helps me organize and clarify the world. And I confess I desperately need it because I feel like I can go into another manic phase. I’m hitting all the check boxes, just need a delusion to set it all off.