CORO ROUND-UP + OFFICE HOURS
READ, WATCH, PLAY, FEAST
Gang,
Hoping everyone is doing swell and staying in books.
Spent this morning in the rain and something about the last blasts of winter never sits well with my Caribbean soul. I read less, watch less, write less, end up walking a lot more. I’m one of those two hours-a-day walkers and there’s a quality to my treks as though spring is a place that can be reached by hard marching.
Despite the winter doldrums, collected below is what fired my heart and my imagination during these last few weeks.
As always, I profoundly appreciate all the support folks have given this substack. You are the reason this keeps going.
Last, but not least: it’s time for another OFFICE HOURS.
If you have any questions at all regarding building stories or building worlds or the creative life in general — or have any questions about anything we’ve been discussing — please ask your question in the comments section of this very post.
Nota Bene, with apologies: OFFICE HOURS is for pay subscribers only.
And now onto our…
CORO - FEBRUARY EDITION
READ
If you don’t know Marie Arana you should: journalist, novelist, memoirist, Peruvian immigrant and Jerseygirl, Marie ran the the book review section of the Washington Post for years, and it was Marie who helped start what is probably my favorite book event: the National Book Festival in Washington DC. Which is to say, Marie has a civic imagination like you wouldn’t believe.
Anyway, her latest nonfiction book is out: LATINOLAND: A PORTRAIT OF AMERICA’S LARGEST AND LEAST UNDERSTOOD MINORITY.
I got a chance to read this one early and I wrote: In a just world Marie Arana would be everyone's favorite writer and her monumental LATINOLAND would be everyone’s book of the year. Arana has achieved the impossible — she has produced a searching, moving portrait of one of the most misunderstood and singularly important communities in our country. LATINOLAND is indispensable, unforgettable. A work of prophecy, sympathy and courage.
Long way to say this book rocks and you should rock with it.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/LatinoLand/Marie-Arana/9781982184896
Most indispensable scholarship I’ve read this month: Paloma Duong’s PORTABLE POSTSOCIALISMS.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much of the world lives in a post-socialist reality and how hard it is to understand our conjuncture without taking post-socialism into consideration. Professor Duong is who you want to read for multiple reasons. I attach an interview below where she talks about the book and her project in general.
“The book looks at a specific moment in Cuban history, the first two decades of the 21st century, as a case study of the relationship between culture, politics, and emergent media technologies…
One of the book’s focal points is to delve into the cultural and political discourses of change and continuity produced in this new media context. What is this telling us about Cubans’ experience of postsocialism — that is, the moment when the old referents of socialism still exist in everyday experience but socialism as a radical project of social transformation no longer appears as a viable collective goal? And, in turn, what can this tell us about the more general global experience concerning the demise of and desire for socialist utopias in this time period?
That question also requires a look at how global narratives and images about Cuba circulate. The symbolic weight of Cuba as the last bastion of socialism, as inspiration or cautionary tale existing outside of historical time, is one of them. I examine Cuba as a traveling media object invested with competing political desires. Even during the Prohibition Era in the U.S. you can already hear and see Cuba as a provider of transgressive desires to the American imagination in songs and advertising from that time.
Top-down narratives are routinely imposed on Cubans, either by their own government or by foreign observers exoticizing Cubans. I wanted to understand how Cubans were narrating their own experience of change. But I also wanted to recognize the international impact of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and account for how its global constituents experienced its denouement.”
https://news.mit.edu/2024/3-questions-paloma-duong-complexities-cuban-culture-book-0214
https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477328262/portable-postsocialisms/
WATCH
Hideo Gosha’s first film distilled the chanbara tropes into a scorching purity. Caught this the other night and am still haunted by the shots, by the elemental cruelties, by the impossible dreams of justice. Critic Bilge Ebiri has it right when he compares Gosha to Sam Peckinpah.
https://www.criterion.com/films/27734-three-outlaw-samurai
Yu Araki’s ROAD MOVIE is playing at the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2024, and talk about distillation: it’s the American Nighmare in under 20 minutes and maybe 40 plates. Yu Araki is low-key one of the best artists around. Not available online but if you’re in Tokyo, watch this. Otherwise, keep an eye out for this protean talent.
https://www.yebizo.com/en/archives/program
https://www.yebizo.com/en/program/424
PLAY
Saw Donnie Letts in Shinjuku last week and he blew the doors OFF. If you don’t know the Rebel Dread, you should. Check out his music, his book, and this amazing video where he talks about his life, his music, and his friendship with Bob Marley.
https://www.donletts.com/book
FEAST
Hard to go wrong in Tokyo, dining-wise, and there are dozens of hole-in-the-wall gyoza spots for every taste and inclination — from the tourist famous Gyoza Lou in Harajuku to a spot I love in Kamata — but if you’re in the Nakameguro area, taking in the cherry blossoms or just strolling the canal and are looking for a knock-out gyoza in hipster digs, then Kittan Gyoza is for you. Their sesame chicken lunch set cannot be beat, except maybe by their spicy chicken lunch set. So many veggies, and the staff takes kindly service to another level.
https://kittan-gyoza.jp/
This is last minute but if you’re in Tokyo or know someone who is, direct them or yourself to this Keith Haring exhibit at the Mori. Don’t let Haring’s corporate ubiquity stop you from seeing Haring a-fresh. The final pieces, the videos of the breakdancers in Tokyo, the jackets he signed and the jackets they saved — which are now on display — moved me to tears.
https://macg.roppongihills.com/en/exhibitions/keithharing/
Oh boy had a few errors in that post--indispensable and Professor Duong's book title etc--fixed them but still.
Dear Professor Diaz,
Thank you for this substack, which has given me inspiration and confidence. You are an empowering teacher: I’m grateful for your writing here and for your fiction.
I wanted to ask about symbol, image systems, and metaphorical meaning. I can think of only two places where I’ve encountered this question from my teachers directly:
- Shirley Jackson writes in the New Yorker (“Garlic in Fiction”) about The Haunting of Hill House, how she used symbols to carry the meaning--and therefore the story;
- John Gardner describes an image patterning system where each image repetition evokes an ever widening set of associations. Like throwing pebbles in a pond to watch the ripples combine and recombine.
I imagine if I studied poetry, which I am only beginning to do, I might find more explicit discussion of image and symbol. (I believe Ocean Vuong has written well on metaphor).
But I’m wondering: is this fundamental to storytelling, or is it a mode certain writers work in? Do you consciously pay attention to symbols in your work? Is it better left to the unconscious?
Thank you for your time!
Joshua