I bought this issue yesterday because it has an interview with Lydia Davis in it and I am fascinated by Charles Burns; also The Believer online is where I heard of Dean Young.I was thrilled to find an essay by one of my favorite poets and celebrities, Eileen Myles. "Lost in Canada: a 3,600-word advertisement for my missing notebook" is a meandering, casual, conversational piece of musings about, well, notebooks. Writer's notebooks. But it opens up in all these unexpected places. It's the best kind of essay, like you're in someone's mind. But not. The writing seems effortless. But not.
Because I'm a narcissist, it has to of course somehow resonate with my personal sense of inadequacy to be truly brilliant. So, the piece didn't make me want to write. It made me feel like shit for not being a writer. That means something is really, really good.
Here's an excerpt:
"... when I had broken my ankle jogging around the outside of the apartment building of someone I met at the MacDowell Colony and had a great affair with. Our affair brought on the end of her relationship so now she wouldn't see me so I was running. I thought she would feel my presences somehow. My proud urgency. I twisted my ankle on Sixth and C. It was like an earthquake of pain and two junkies who had just copped were standing there nodding right into my eyes. I'm howling in pain and they're thinking wow-pain. It was like we were in a museum and I was some Egyptian thing."
2 comments:
Hi, I'm doing an assignment on Eileen Myles and I've been trying desperately to find a copy of the full essay, Lost in Canada by Eileen Myles. I see that you purchased the magazine it was originally published in, and because it's no longer for sale, I wanted to know is it possible for you to scan it and send me a copy? It would help me a great deal and it would be greatly appreciated. If not, I understand as well.
Hello, it is unlikely that I still have a copy of that magazine, but I will double check and let you know...
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