Motion of Light: Samuel R. Delany Tribute at Jacket2

Last April 11 in Philadelphia, the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania organized a tribute to Samuel R. Delany (1942-), "Motion of Light," honoring his "performative poetics."

Though I always associate Chip Delany with his native New York City, he has taught at Temple University for over a decade (and will be retiring this year), and has become an integral member of that city's literary communities, so it was fitting that he was honored there. A number of admirers of Delany's work were present; though invited I was already booked at a conference (&Now) in Colorado, so I sent my contribution, "Paean," to Tracie Morris, one of the organizers, to present in my absence. The original event was archived at PennSound.

Now Tracie has edited a special section at Jacket2 featuring some of the events' tributes, including work by Kenneth R. James, Ira Livingston, Sarah Micklem, Fred Moten, Jena Osman, Frank Sherlock, Anne Waldman, Tracie herself I, and, as well as Chip offering his own contribution to the event through a concluding conversation with Charles Bernstein. Although Chip needs no introduction and his work as a creative writing, critic and intellectual could fill a month-long conference, if you're interested in seeing others speak (or create Möbius strips in response) to his poetics, the Jacket2 features offers a fine introduction.

Here's a snippet from Tracie's warm introduction to the special section:

The magnitude of Chip’s impact in a variety of fields is impossible to calculate, much less organize into one volume. Here’s hoping for more and more celebrations, compilations, cheers, toasts, and discussions on his monumental work and importance to so many people and at so many stages of their lives. Chip is a constellation that continues to be fixed, yet revolves, for me and for so many lovers of poetry, of resonant words. I’m eternally grateful to be part of bringing these many hands together that have lifted a glass in Samuel R. Delany’s honor during his birth month in 2014, a microcosm of his worlds-full of admirers. As this is coming out in February, a month, in the US, given to emphasizing the experiences of Black people and Black culture, I’m especially glad to share this celebration of one of the world’s great Black thinkers, writers, creators. A maker of many worlds. Worlds for everyo

Here's a snippet from Fred Moten's perfectly titled "Amuse-Bouche":

Moved movers amid the intensity of the pas de deux my offering asks you to imagine, Delany and Taylor are bound in what Denise Ferreira da Silva would call the affectability of no-bodies.[4] Bound for that embrace, they hold, in their openness, to its general, generative pattern. Openness to the embrace moves against the backdrop of exclusion and the history of exclusion, which is a series of incorporative operations. This is how openness to being affected is inseparable from the resistance to being affected. Dance writes this push and pull into the air and onto the ground and all over the skin of the earth and flesh that form the city. The words of these moved movers have something specific to do with dance and I want to talk about that specificity as an interplay between walking and talking, between crossing and tasting, between quickness and flavor. Their words and work form part of the aesthetic and philosophical atmosphere that attends the various flows and steps that have taken place in and as New York City over the last fifty years, especially downtown in the serially and simultaneously emergent and submergent dance space between two churches, Judson and St. Mark’s.

The Next Big Thing

THE NEXT BIG THING

Thank you to poet and lovely person Sheila Maldonado, for tagging me for this. I usually eschew posts of this sort, since as Samuel R. Delany has said it is better not to talk too much publicly about things that you have not completed, but since I agreed to do it, I'm going follow through.

What is the working title of the book?
There are several, but I'll mention two. One is a book I just finished translating, entitled Letters from a Seducer, by the Brazilian author Hilda Hilst (1930-2004). Another, which still has a bit to go, is a novel entitled Palimpsests. And there are other projects (fiction, poetry, etc.), as always, in the crockpot.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
The translation was suggested by the Brazilian publisher, as I'd written the introduction to a translation by her and an author, and greatly admired their work. (This is the second book I have translated from Portuguese; the first, by the out gay Brazilian legislator and reality TV star, Jean Wyllys, remains unpublished, except for a few individual stories here and there.) For my own novel, the idea came from attending an OutWrite conference in Boston many moons and skies ago, and seeing a tiny historical note. It took me years to figure out what I wanted to do with the idea, and then it has taken a while to write it.

What genre does your book fall under?
Fiction and fiction.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I would say no one is going to make a film of Hilst's novel anytime soon, except that if 1) Lars von Trier, 2) Bruce La Bruce, or 3) Rosa von Praunheim could find a screenwriter to do it, it might at least have a chance. The text is beyond the American cinematic imagination, for the most part. As for the novel I'm writing, Idris Elba would be my first choice for the main male character, and Kimberly Elise would be great as his sister, who is a significant figure in the work. Anthony Mackie would probably be very good as the third major character. I could fill entire blog post with actors for the other parts, but will just ask you to imagine any number of talented actors and actresses, ranging from Mahershala Ali to Angela Bassett.

In terms of the major white characters, I have no idea whatsoever, save for the 20-something daughter of the main character's nominal boss. That should be played by someone with a somewhat grave, fragile face, and an ability to show tremendous acting restraint.

There are a range of characters, so it would give an array of actors, especially black and brown ones, some jobs.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
A man has a stranger appear on his doorstep one night, and he has to help him create a new life.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Almost forever, minus a kaput computer and a half.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
With the translation, my inspiration is always Langston Hughes, who was a true person of letters, with translation as one aspect his prolific practice. It's an aspect of his career that people often leave out, but it is one I have taken to heart. Melvin Dixon was also a great translator, writer, and scholar, and someone I deeply admire still, and I would add my former colleague Reginald Gibbons, as well as Marilyn Hacker and Nathanaël, among many, as inspiring writer-translators that come immediately to mind.

With my novel the historical note I came across was the major inspiration. Also years ago my partner's late aunt gave him a book about early African American literature, and it turns out that the real-life person on whom my character is based was a figure notable enough to appear in that book, and even appears in this book. So that was inspiration too. Then there are so many writers and artists and thinkers I have read, followed, admired, known, many of them no longer with us, many lost to AIDS or psychological troubles, and I often think that either with this book or another, I will eventually follow Clarice Lispector's strange little introductory method in The Hour of the Star and list all these "imaginary artist friends,"as Sheila labeled them in her response, either at the beginning or the end of the book. Also, see Delany, Samuel R., Jr.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The Hilst book is the very definition of genre-breaking, and required me to learn more words for sexual terms in Portuguese than I know in English. English is vocabulary-rich, but comparatively sex-vocabulary poor.

My novel is set in 1804. How often do you read a book set in that year in America? And there are no electric lights, no cars, no airplanes, no TVs, nothing of the sort. They wear smallclothes and Empire-style dresses and ill-fitting shoes. Everything carries a thin veneer of candle smoke, and the fragrance of urine. There were coaches and the beginnings of plumbing and a museum exhibiting little wax statuettes of Othello and Harvard College and free black people, some queer, too. It was quite a time!

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
The Hilst book is to be published this fall by Nightboat Books, based in NYC, in conjunction with Abolha Editora in Rio de Janeiro (I believe). They published the first translation into English of Hilst, and I highly recommend it. I do have an agent, so with my novel we shall see.

My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:
Reginald Harris
Lee P. Jones

Neti Pots + The Wire + Errata

Perhaps it's chancing too much to note that today is the first day in over two weeks that I haven't woken up coughing or feeling as though my sinuses were on fire (they're still running, though, and my ears feel strange still); I'm hoping that whatever I caught has run its course, though I have to give some credit to the nasal rinsing effects of the Neti pot, which Ndlela told me about last summer, but which I didn't decide to try until the other day, under the influence of one of major US dailies. I didn't find the Neti pot itself, as it was sold out of all the health food stores and pharmacy chains that I visited in Chicago, so I got something comparable, and while I can't say I swear by it yet it did work, at least more so than I imagined. The sensation reminds me of accidentally inhaling seawater, but without the concomitant feeling of drowning, though that apparent does occur if the water's cold. (I won't be testing this proposition out.) At any rate, I can say I've tried at least one very new thing in the new year.

•••

Last night one of my favorite TV shows, HBO's The Wire, premiered its fifth and, unfortunately for fans, its final season. A week ago Reggie H and Bernie emailed about it, and we've since exchanged messages and links about what I'd estimate is one of the best dramatic programs in the history of recent television. In terms of vividness and depth of characterization, novelistic richness of plot, excellence of casting and acting, skillful dramatization of themes and scenarios, and fidelity to a realist vision of the world, it has few peers. (Yes, I know, The Sopranos is up there too.) I'll post the article links below for anyone who hasn't seen them, and keep my comments about the first episode succinct.

It was vintage The Wire, with a number of future plotlines braided in careful, deliberate ashion, and the new focus, the role and state of the newspaper industry, represented here by a fictional version of the Baltimore Sun, offering the major dramatic set piece that drew many of the script's threads loosely together. Previous seasons' focuses were also present each with a twist: the drug dealers (Season 1 and every one thereafter) appear to be facing a looming war, led by the most ruthless among them, Marlo Stanfield (Jaime Hector), and his deputies Chris Partlow (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and Snoop (Felicia Pearson); the cops (Season 1 and every one thereafter), now struggling under a severe budget crisis, are again being dispersed, particularly the exceptional special crime unit assembled by Major Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick); Season 3's focus, the mayor (Aidan Gillen), because of the budgetary problems, is breaking promises and straddling political difficulties; the students--Michael (Tristan Wilds) and Dukie (Jermaine Crawford) remaining from last year's heartbreaking season (4) are integrated into the drug trade; and one of the "Russians," Sergei (Chris Ashworth) who played a role in Season 2's union corruption and foreign gangster plotlines, also was invoked and will likely become important as the season proceeds.

Creator David Simon, his writers, directors, and actors succeeded last night in integrating all these threads with subtlety, though perhaps too subtly, I thought, for anyone who'd turned in for the first time. But each season since the first has required that you catch up to get the full flavor and power of the series. I've never worked at a real newspaper, but Simon's portrayal of the fictional Sun, drawn from his past experience as a journalist, appeared to hit the right notes, and new cast member and police procedural show veteran Clark Johnson (above, from HBO.com), who directed the first The Wire episode in 2002, particularly shone in his role as the city desk editor, Augustus "Gus" Haynes. It'll be interesting to see how the critiques of the newspaper business hold up, because this first episode made the newsroom look exciting enough that it could have been used a recruiting video. The portrayals of the police department, City Hall and the Council, and the Feds on the other hand showed the compelling philosophical pessimism that are The Wire's hallmark. But the brilliance is, ultimately, in the drama, and The Wire is a sourcebook on how to do it. (TV drama writers, please take note for when you return from your strike.)

Some links (courtesy of Reggie and Bernie):
Baltimore Sun: The Wire loses spark in newsroom storyline
Bowden on The Wire in the The Atlantic Monthly
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer's The Wire preview
Baltimore's City Paper's take on the news season
Baltimore's City Paper's take on Snoop (Felicia Pearson)

Hope grapples with despair, right down to 'The Wire' - PRIME-TIME TELEVISION - Los Angeles Times - calendarlive.com

No Happy Ending in Dickensian Baltimore - New York Times

'Wire's' latest target: The media - CNN.com

•••

On a completely different note, can I just say that I haven't yet tired of clicking through and reading these pages? They read almost like poems (though not, I'm sure, to the author in question, Samuel Delany); am I misremembering, or hasn't some clever written a poem or poems in the form of errata? You couldn't do worse as a writer and editor than study his changes, though, as the genius clearly gleams through.