September brought uneven weather to San Francisco. What better way to start my first Substack than with the familiar pleasantry of talking about the weather? In the words of W.G. Sebald, “meteorology is not incidental.” And mirroring internal experience with the pattern of rain and sunshine isn’t (always) just a literary trope. In accord with these strange weather patterns, the world outside has seemed like a wildly inconsistent place. Every day seems to bring news of some fresh hell, unpredictable patterns that threaten the stability of growth and the potential for beauty. It feels like we are living through a period of collective uncertainty.
Still, I love Autumn. A time to stay indoors. A time to watch Nightmare Before Christmas. A time to eat soups and stews. A time to listen to AFI and The Misfits. A time — at last — to wear sweaters. I have been trying to spend time in the garden before the afternoons get too dark. Last week, I brought a rose bush back from the brink of death. It had been forgotten in the corner of the yard and, unwatered and disease ridden for months. But now it is blooming green again. There is some joy in that.
This past month I reviewed Kunié Sugiura’s survey exhibition at SFMOMA and the fourth annual Chinatown Contemporary Arts Festival. I also wrote about the creep of tech money in San Francisco’s art scene. My fall art guide for the Bay Area can be found here.
Just yesterday, I published a new short story called “Census.” You can read it here. It’s my first attempt at writing about some of the intricacies of interracial romance and its social implications. It was a difficult story to write, and I’m not totally sure it succeeds. But it still feels urgent and necessary, which is not always the case by the time a story reaches publication.
I am very close to a finished draft of the novel I have been working on and I am probably writing this post as a form of procrastination. But there is an end in sight and I’ll continue to update you as it progresses. If all goes according to plan, this month’s paid post will have a lot of thoughts about the novel and the writing process, summarizing the last three (!) years of work I’ve put into it.
Anna has a solo show opening this weekend and we’ve been talking a lot in our house about the anxiety of one’s art not being good enough, or art succeeding or failing. I guess I want to believe that art can’t fail or always fails in some reassuring way. But I thin the more honest, nuanced reality, is that I don’t always know what art does. Especially not my own art. What I do know is that the fear of failure and the uncertainty of quality are real and, if we’re lucky, can be the thing that drives our work. And sometimes imperfect art is the best art.
Over the weekend, I went to see One Battle After Another. I’ve been unpacking it ever since. It’s a fraught, abundant, masterful film that encapsulates much of the present moment in America with humor and grace. That isn’t to say that it’s also not susceptible to its own problematics, some of which the movie itself addresses and attempts to negotiate. But boy, oh boy, is it good.
I recently read Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s novel We Cast a Shadow and his short story collection The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You (my god, what a book). I’ve slowly been reading Biography of X by Catherine Lacy (I am having trouble with it) and Sober Living for the Revolution, a collection of interviews and essays about the straight edge punk movement, sobriety and radical politics. Last night I started reading Brandon Taylor’s latest novel Minor Black Figures and I’m pretty sure he it is his best book yet. It’s a steamy romance set in the New York art world. You’d like it.
I also just finished reading Rilke’s Letters to a Young Painter (as distinguished from Letters to a Young Poet) which makes me wish I had some pithy words of wisdom to end on. But I don’t. Sometimes it is just enough to sit in each other’s company, even from a distance.
Until next time.
– M