#jer brain dumps

[jerxiong]

Currently reading: "Magically Black and Other Essays" by Jerald Walker (Amistad, 2024)

Imagine my surprise and immediate delight when I came across this in Libby! Jerald Walker is one of my favorite essayists--great storyteller, great commentary on race through humor and irony. For some reason, I never caught the news that he had a new book coming out, so I had no idea. Just the other day, I remembered that I didn't have his previous collection because I had gifted it to a friend, and now I'm sad that I don't have that book. Walker is one of those authors where I KNOW I need to buy the book because I'll be referring back to it often as an essayist.

I got a chance to listen to almost halfway through the book in one day because I was without a car and taking a train and bus to get around. It accompanied me throughout that afternoon, and the signature humor made me smile.

I usually don't read two books at once, but this one is an audiobook while the other one is a print book, so I read one or the other whenever the moment calls for it. Can't wait to finish this book.

[jerxiong]

Currently Reading: World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Milkweed, 2020)

Status: in progress (about halfway through the book; third time picking this up and getting farther than before)

Thoughts: This essay collection is really proving to me that I'm really, really, really bad with nature. I'm not one of those people who grew up immersed in nature--my parents didn't really take my family on hikes, camping, never really took us to the mountains, to forests, to beaches, to national parks. It was probably only a handful of times. What I learned from nature really came from school, like learning about poison oak and poison ivy--even though to this day, I still don't know the difference and would not recognize it if I came across it. I didn't do "nature" things until I was older, when my sisters were allowed to drive us out to do more things outside; when I was in college where I'd do more activities with them.

So, it's been really hard to finish this book. It's not boring, per se. It's doing straightforward essaying, using nature to talk about or connect back to memories to do with identity and race. I'm just having a difficult time conjuring the images in my head. I don't recognize them, I don't know their names. It's hard.

Strangely, my parents and grandparents were garden folks and so those were the things I recognized the most that their hands built: thai chili peppers, cilantro, green onion, squash, peaches.

[jerxiong]

Semi-completed: "Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes" by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco, 2023) *audio version*

Status: completed all the nonfiction essays; did not listen to the fiction stories since it's not of my interest at this time.

Thoughts: I should look up the reader for this. I've never heard Anthony read, so I imagine this is similar to what he sounds like, but of course, I am probably completely wrong. Anthony passed away in 2020, just as his first book, a story collection titled "Afterparties," was going to come out. He was a highly anticipated and "new" writer, as in he was just about to debut a book. He was a queer Cambodian American, which piqued my interest as someone also from the Southeast Asian community in the United States. And, he's from Stockton, California, a city I know of and have family and friends who live there or have come from there.

"Songs on Endless Repeat" is a mix collection of his writings, both fiction and nonfiction, that were either published in literary magazines or were completed but not polished before his death.

I think I'll pick up the physical printed copy of this book sometime in the future. I want to revisit these essays so for now I'll borrow it on the Libby app.