#Lapham's Quarterly

[metaphrasis]

"How everyday things lie hidden. Because we don't know what they're called. [...] Everyday things represent the most overlooked knowledge. [...] Quotidian things. If they weren't important, we wouldn't use such a gorgeous Latinate word. [...] An extraordinary word that suggests the depth and reach of the commonplace."

— Don DeLillo, From Underworld, excerpt featured in Lapham's Quarterly Fall 2008 issue: "Ways of Learning"

[razorsadness]

Perhaps day becomes night when the signs of the city light up. What were in the daytime complete words, like linwood super foods, become, upon illumination, the mere and bereft od fo. Over the pickup window of the algreens, it is dr e t ru, china market abbreviates to china, flacos auto to flac to. Nightfall in this city—the kind of city where businesses either can’t afford to fix their signs or don’t care to, or just haven’t yet—could be defined as “the moment in which some of the letters of our words disappear.” A few words, however, remain clear and fully spelled in the fresh semidarkness. tension envelopes, for example, never burns out.

Perhaps night begins when the gray-green of dusk meets the sensors built into the dashes of cars. Light sensors lack subtlety. All absence of brightness is to them, as Mary Shelley once described an eclipse, “night, sudden, rayless, entire.” The headlights click on without notice, meet each other on the streets, not quite needed yet except to announce night’s probable approach. Handfuls of cars line up at the now-illuminated signs of drive-throughs. Fast-food workers—elderly women, teenagers, mothers of small children, and people just out of prison—are at the end of their evening shifts or the beginning of their night ones. The workers stand against the aggressively lit backdrop of the drive-through window and lean into dusk to hand out taco supremes or medium fries.

The voices of the drive-through workers almost carry to the sidewalks as dark falls. The air cools, and drivers roll down their windows so that whatever song plays can drift behind them like whiffs of a rich person’s perfume. At the intersections, there is competing spill off, music against music, or sometimes, if everyone is listening to the same station, music in stereo with satisfied sideways looks from car to car. Motorcycle engines rev with greater pride at night. Perhaps night begins when sound becomes more vivid than sight.

Helicopters—police, ambulance, local news—circle overhead more, make more clatter, become more arrogant, ominous, and loud. They, along with all sirens, warn the rest of the city that despite the apparent permissions of the coming night, the social apparatus remains intact and vigilant. Helicopters are to night as lawn mowers and leaf blowers are to Saturday mornings. They exist to ruin everything wild.

—Anne Boyer, from “The Fall of Night” (Lapham’s Quarterly)

[jeffalessandrelli]

It’s been said that over the span of nine months, the human embryo ascends through a sequence congruent with fifty million years of evolution; that within the first six years of life, the human mind replicates the dream of its five-thousand-year journey from the sand castle cities of ancient Mesopotamia. The figures in the dream have left the signs of their passing in what we know as the historical record, navigational lights flashing across the gulf of time on scraps of papyrus and scratchings in stone, on ships’ logs and bronze coins, as epic poems and totem poles and painted ceilings, in confessions voluntary and coerced, in five-act plays and three-part songs.

The record is our inheritance, the one that Goethe had in mind when he suggested a restructuring of the deal that Satan offered Faust. It isn’t with magic that men make their immortality. They do so with what they’ve learned on their travels across the frontiers of five millennia, salvaging from the ruin of families and the death of cities what they find to be useful or beautiful or true. We have nothing else with which to build the future except the lumber of the past—history exploited as natural resource and applied technology, telling us that the story painted on the old walls and printed in the old books is also our own.

Cicero made the point fifty years before the birth of Christ: “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.” The American historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., made the same point in the essay that served as his epitaph when it was published in the New York Times on January 1, 2007, two months before he died. Under the heading, “Folly’s Antidote,” he prescribed strong doses of history as a cure for “the delusions of omnipotence and omniscience,” akin to those that persuaded the Bush Administration to stage a rerun in Iraq of America’s misadventure in Vietnam. The failure to connect the then with the now Schlesinger diagnosed as an illness which, if left untreated, he thought likely to lead to the death of the American idea. Children unfamiliar with the world in time make easy marks for the dealers in fascist politics and quack religion. The number of people in the United States at the moment who believe in the literal truth of the Book of Revelation exceeds the number of people who lived in all of medieval Christendom.

[themirrorofink]

Taking into account the automatic reduction in pomp and dignity that comes from watching a recording of a civic pageant on YouTube, there’s still an undeniable something about the Wedding to the Sea. It’s a lot of fun, and frankly, more local politicians ought to be ceremonially married to regional landmarks.

[cupsofsilver]

“Those who have exposed the extent of surveillance are fugitives and exiles from our paradise. They have played the role of the cursed serpent of Eden: the purveyor of illicit knowledge who broke the harmony between watcher and watched. The rest of us contemplate the prospect of dissent with careful unease, feeling that our individual and collective security depends on compliance. We are unwilling to cease our perpetual confessing. That murmuring of our thoughts and experiences into the listening ears of states and corporations—disguised by the loving online presence of our family and friends, or concealed by the vast anonymity of the Internet—is one of the great horrors of modernity. We cannot conceive of how what we reveal now about ourselves and our children might be used in the future, by the systems of governance that will arise amid the instabilities of a changing climate. And yet, for all that, the deep narratives of our culture tell us that the lost happiness of humanity consisted not of the harsh travails of private existence, but of just this: living naked and innocent within the absolute love of an omniscient watcher.”

Under Watchful Eyes: The medieval origins of mass surveillance, Amanda Power, Lapham’s Quarterly. (source)

[kitchen-light]

To know the night is a lot like knowing poetry, and knowing poetry requires what Keats called “negative capability,” the capacity for “being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” To know the night means having the clarity that some things are and should be and always will be hidden, for the night has been, or is, or should always be, the time of lovers, revolutionaries, and other conspirators. The night world is that which should be, or once always was, veiled.

Anne Boyer, from her essay “The Fall of Night”, Lapham’s Quarterly, Volume XII, Number 1 | Winter 2019

[girltwinkabigail]

We say that once there were two and now there is only one.

beyond evil (2021) / with the fog so dense on the bridge in almond blossoms and beyond, mahmoud darwish / plato’s other half, reproduced in lapham’s quarterly / alla dzevaltovska

[dearorpheus]

hello, your blog's vibes are absolutely impeccable! I was wondering if you could recommend me some nonfiction reading on eroticism, religion or fear? I'd love to read about any of these topics, but I never really know where to start looking for good theory books or essays, so I usually end up reading fiction instead. any nonfiction recs would be deeply appreciated (and on other topics too if you have particular favorites). have a nice day!

hello! thank you for the kind words♡

hm! some reading might be: - Erotism: Death and Sensuality + Visions of Excess, Bataille - Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs, Deleuze - The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography, Angela Carter - Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, Leigh Cowart - Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson - A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes - Uses of the Erotic, Audre Lorde - A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953 - Foucault's Histor[ies] of Sexuality - Being and Nothingness, Sartre - The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson - Aesthetic Sexuality: A Literary History of Sadomasochism, Romana Byrne - Pleasure Principles: An Interview with Carmen Maria Machado - "The Aesthetics of Fear", Joyce Carol Oates - Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing, Isabel Cristina Pinedo - "On Fear", Mary Ruefle - "In Search of Fear", Philippe Petit - Female Masochism in Film: Sexuality, Ethics and Aesthetics, Ruth Mcphee - Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva - Hélène Cixous' Stigmata (i am thinking esp of "Love of the Wolf") - Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis - anything from Caroline Walker Bynum.... Wonderful Blood, Fragmentation and Redemption, Holy Feast and Holy Fast - excerpts of Letter From a Region in my Mind, James Baldwin - Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche (re: Christian morality, death of God) - Waiting for God, Simone Weil - The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus - Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung - "The Genesis of Blame", Anne Enright

do know as well that Lapham's Quarterly has issues dedicated entirely to these subjects you've mentioned: eros, religion, fear ! there's also this wonderful ask from @rotgospels on biblical horror theory

other non-fic i will always rec: - "On Self-Respect", Joan Didion - Illness as Metaphor + Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag - The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Maggie Nelson - "The Laugh of the Medusa", Hélène Cixous - Ways of Seeing, John Berger - The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit - The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry some non-fic things i've read lately: - "Mary Shelley's Obsession with the Cemetery", Bess Lovejoy - "Horror Lives in the Body", Megan Pillow - "The Cruel Myth of the Suffering Artist", Patrick Nathan - "The Rub of Rough Sex", Chelsea G. Summers - "The Lost Art of Memorizing Poetry", Nina Kang - "The problem with English", Mario Saraceni

[izuku]

a game of thrones, "eddard xii" by george r. r. martin / albino twins by anne-marie vang / the idealisation of the twin relationship by vivienne lewin / human embryology, twins; double monsters and teratology by bradley m. patten / death-cup by joyce carol oates / eternal embrace (enrico pajello/handout/reuters) / plato’s other half, reproduced in lapham’s quarterly / game of thrones, season eight, episode six / legacy of the force: invincible, prologue by troy denning / who’s who by ilaria ratti / war of the foxes by richard siken / jaina vs jacen by alice li

[metaphrasis]

(DAYDREAM: In my daydream College for Bards, the curriculum would be as follows:

I. In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.

II. Thousands of lines of poetry in these languages would be learned by heart.

III. The library would contain no books of literary criticism, and the only critical exercise required of students would be the writing of parodies.

IV. Courses in prosody, rhetoric, and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.

V. Every student would be required to look after a domestic animal and cultivate a garden plot.

— W.H. Auden, from "The Poet & The City," excerpt featured in Lapham’s Quarterly Fall 2008 issue: “Ways of Learning”

[luxe-pauvre]

hi holly! your reading list are so awesome! how do you usually find these articles that make you feel inspired because they seem to come from so many different sources!

I'm going to combine parts of this, this, and this here.

Articles: mainly found in email newsletters from the following, The Guardian Long Reads, Farnam Street's Brain Food, Aeon, Lapham's Quarterly, The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), Five Books, Literary Hub, Nautilus, Quanta, Knowable, and The Browser (paid subscription is worth it's weight in gold, though there is a free option). I check Longreads periodically, always at the end of the year for their final lists.

Outside of this, I find articles here: @thecrownedgoddess and @hoursofreading are the two who immediately jump to mind when I think of excellent article recommendations.

[justforbooks]

ERIS

Ένας ανεξάρτητος εκδοτικός οίκος με αγγλόφωνα βιβλία απαράμιλλης αισθητικής

OΑλέξανδρος Σταύρακας έχει καταφέρει ένα εκδοτικό θαύμα. Ο εκδοτικός οίκος που ίδρυσε πριν από επτά χρόνια, η ERIS, είναι πλέον από τους πιο αξιόλογους διεθνώς, με βιβλία υψηλής αισθητικής και λογοτεχνικής αξίας που καλύπτουν από πεζογραφία, ιστορία και δοκιμιογραφία μέχρι τέχνη και πραγματεύονται σύγχρονα και επίμαχα θέματα. Η ERIS έχει έδρα στο Λονδίνο και στη Νέα Υόρκη και εδώ και δύο χρόνια τα βιβλία της διανέμονται από το Columbia University Press. Ο Αλέξανδρος κατάγεται από την Αθήνα και ζει μεταξύ Νέας Υόρκης και Λονδίνου.

«Ξεκίνησα να ασχολούμαι με τα εκδοτικά πριν από είκοσι χρόνια, όταν ήμουν ακόμα φοιτητής, πριν καν τελειώσω το μεταπτυχιακό μου», λέει. «Σπούδασα Politics, Philosophy & Economy στο Λονδίνο και μετά έκανα δύο μεταπτυχιακά, πρώτα στη Φιλοσοφία της Επιστήμης και μετά στην Κοινωνική Ανθρωπολογία. Προτού ολοκληρώσω τις σπουδές μου είχα ξεκινήσει να εκδίδω το “Bedeutung” (“σημασία” στα γερμανικά), ένα περιοδικό που θέλαμε να βγαίνει δύο φορές τον χρόνο, αλλά τελικά κάναμε μόλις 4 τεύχη σε τρία χρόνια ή 3 τεύχη σε τέσσερα χρόνια – δεν θυμάμαι πια. Προφανώς δεν ήταν ιδιαίτερα εμπορικός τίτλος, αλλά το στήριξαν φίλοι και γνωστοί. Το 2008 μετακόμισα στη Νέα Υόρκη, όπου συνεργάστηκα με συγγραφείς και άλλους γνωστούς που είχα στον χώρο των εκδόσεων, και ταξίδεψα εκτενώς σε όλη την Αμερική.

Εδώ κάπου χάνεται το νήμα της αφήγησης, καθώς η ενασχόλησή μου με τα εκδοτικά γενικότερα παρέμεινε στο επίκεντρο, αλλά σε καμία περίπτωση δεν εντάχθηκα επαγγελματικά σε κάποιον οργανισμό, ούτε με ενδιέφερε αυτό που ονομάζεται “καριέρα”. Όλο αυτό το πηγαινέλα ανάμεσα σε Αμερική, Ευρώπη, και Ελλάδα κράτησε αρκετά χρόνια. Την πρώτη μου δουλειά με τη συμβατική έννοια, δηλαδή σε γραφείο με ωράριο, αφεντικό και όλα τα συναφή, την έπιασα το 2014 στην Καλιφόρνια, και όχι τυχαία – εκεί οι συνθήκες ήταν συγκριτικά ευνοϊκές.

Εργάστηκα με κέφι για έναν νεοσύστατο εκδοτικό οίκο που αντλούσε έμπνευση –αν μπορούμε να την αποκαλέσουμε “έμπνευση”– από τον χώρο της πληροφορίας. Μέσα σε δύο χρόνια βγάλαμε έναν πολύ μεγάλο αριθμό βιβλίων, των οποίων η θεματολογία βασιζόταν σε δεδομένα που αντλούσαμε χρησιμοποιώντας αλγορίθμους και άλλες τεχνικές, που στόχο είχαν να εξαλείψουν τον παράγοντα τύχη.

Δυστυχώς, μαζί με το τυχαίο εξαλείψαμε και το δημιουργικό, με αποτέλεσμα να υπηρετούμε εν τέλει εμείς την πληροφορία αντί να συμβαίνει το αντίστροφο. Να αναφέρω εδώ ότι μοναδική ανάσα πραγματικά πρωτότυπης, ουσιαστικής και σε διανοητικό επίπεδο έντιμης δραστηριότητας ήταν το Oakland Book Festival, του οποίου ήμουν συνιδρυτής μαζί με τον Timothy Don και την Kira Brunner, δύο βετεράνους αρχισυντάκτες του “Lapham’s Quarterly”.

Τέλος πάντων, το 2016 ήταν χρονιά εκλογών στην Αμερική και εξαιτίας του Τραμπ όλες οι συζητήσεις πλέον περιστρέφονταν γύρω από ένα γενικευμένο αίσθημα απαξίωσης που υπήρχε για την πολιτική, τον οραματισμό, το μέλλον γενικότερα. Αυτά. σε συνδυασμό με την πλήξη που μου προκαλούσε η επαγγελματική αποβλάκωση, αποτέλεσμα της άκριτης προσκόλλησης στις βεβαιότητες που υπόσχεται η πληροφορική, με οδήγησαν πίσω στο Λονδίνο.

Αλλά ήμουν αφελής. Νόμισα ότι όταν επέστρεφα θα έβρισκα την ίδια, έστω περίπου, Αγγλία με αυτή που είχα αφήσει οχτώ χρόνια πριν. Ασφαλώς, βρέθηκα σε μια τελείως αλλαγμένη κοινωνία που είχε μόλις αποφασίσει να αποχ��ρήσει από την Ε.Ε., μια κοινωνία που θα άλλαζε τον ένα συντηρητικό πρωθυπουργό μετά τον άλλο, ��ολιτικά διεφθαρμένη, εγωκεντρική και κοντόφθαλμη, φοβισμένη και απενοχοποιημένα πλέον ξενοφοβική.

Παρ’ όλα αυτά, αποφάσισα να ιδρύσω την ERIS. Η αρχή του εγχειρήματος έγινε με ένα βιβλίο που στήσαμε με τον εξαιρετικό συγγραφέα και ποιητή Kenneth Goldsmith. Του πρότεινα να συμμετάσχει σε μια σειρά βιβλίων, τα “Marginalia”, όπου καταξιωμένοι σύγχρονοι συγγραφείς συνομιλούν με ένα κλασικό έργο ιστορίας, ποίησης ή λογοτεχνίας.

Του έστειλα μια μακροσκελή λίστα που είχα ετοιμάσει με έργα που ήταν ελεύθερα από δικαιώματα και μέσα σε αυτά ήταν το Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus του Ludwig Wittgenstein. Πήρε το κείμενο που του έστειλα σε χαρτί Α4 και άρχισε να ζωγραφίζει, να γράφει, να σχεδιάζει στα περιθώρια, να υπογραμμίζει το κείμενο. Το βιβλίο εξαντλήθηκε και η σειρά είχε μεγάλη ανταπόκριση στο αγγλόφωνο κοινό, αλλά ήθελα πια να εκδίδω πρωτότυπα έργα.

Ξεκινήσαμε έτσι με κάποια κείμενα φιλοσοφίας. Βγάλαμε σε μετάφραση την Επινόηση της Ετερότητας του Κωνσταντίνου Τσουκαλά ως Age of Anxiety –το οποίο θα ανατυπώσουμε φέτος το φθινόπωρο με μια καινούργια εισαγωγή από τον συγγραφέα– και σχεδόν συγχρόνως το Socialisme ou Barbarie Anthology, μια ανθολογία μεταφρασμένων κειμένων παρμένων από το ομώνυμο περιοδικό πολιτικού προβληματισμού που εξέδιδε για χρόνια ο Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης.

Με αυτά τα τρία βιβλία θέλαμε να δώσουμε τον παλμό των εκδόσεων για όποιον αναρωτιόταν ποιοι είμαστε και τι πρεσβεύουμε. Ακολούθησαν και άλλα συναφή βιβλία, ποιητικές συλλογές και μερικές πολύ αξιόλογες εκδόσεις όπως το τρίτομο A Breath, που είναι αφιερωμένο στον ζωγράφο και διανοούμενο Avigdor Arikha, με έργα και κείμενα του ιδίου και άλλων επιφανών συγγραφέων, βιογραφικά και άλλα πολλά ντοκουμέντα – είναι συνέκδοση με το Μουσείο Μπενάκη.

Τώρα πλέον τρέχουν δύο σειρές παράλληλα, η Eris και η Eris Art, την οποία τελευταία διαφοροποιήσαμε γιατί κάναμε μια σειρά εκθέσεων στη Νέα Υόρκη στην Opening Gallery, και τα βιβλία που βγάζουμε σε αυτήν είναι συνοδευτικά των εκθέσεων ή οι εκθέσεις συνοδευτικές των βιβλίων – πάντως, και οι δύο σειρές συνυπάρχουν και συμπορεύονται. Στην ERIS έχουμε εντάξει διάφορες, θεματικά αυτόνομες σειρές βιβλίων όπως τα ERIS Dialogues (με τα Dialogues of Consciousness, Rameau’s nephew το a dialogue: Bacon / Giacometti: A dialogue), τα ERIS Gems που περιλαμβάνουν μια πολύ εκλεπτυσμένη επιλογή σύντομων λογοτεχνικών και δοκιμιακών «διαμαντιών», και άλλες.

Για πολλά χρόνια έκανα τα πάντα: από την επικοινωνία με τους συγγραφείς, τη διαπραγμάτευση των συμβολαίων, την επιμέλεια των κειμένων, τη στοιχειοθεσία, το στήσιμο και τον σχεδιασμό, τις διορθώσεις και την προώθηση έως και τη διανομή. Πήγαινα στα βιβλιοπωλεία, μιλούσα με τους αγοραστές και τους έπειθα να παραγγείλουν τις εκδόσεις μας. Κάπως έτσι φτάσαμε εδώ που είμαστε σήμερα.

Ασφαλώς τώρα ο όγκος της δουλειάς υπερβαίνει ό,τι θα μπορούσε ένα άτομο μόνο του να προσφέρει, οπότε είμαστε μια μικρή ομάδα με πολλούς εξωτερικούς συνεργάτες. Παρ’ όλα αυτά αναλαμβάνουμε μόνο όσα μπορούμε να φέρουμε εις πέρας χωρίς να χάσουμε την προσωπική επαφή με τους συγγραφείς, την ουσιαστική ενασχόληση με τα κείμενα και τη φροντίδα του στησίματος. Η ιδέα ενός μεγάλου οργανισμού, όσο ελκυστική κι αν ακούγεται, με αφήνει αδιάφορο. Δεν είμαι επιχειρηματίας.

Αυτή η προσέγγιση ορίζει όλες τις επιλογές που κάνουμε. Για παράδειγμα, με ελκύει μια αισθητική που αποφεύγει όλα τα φκιασιδώματα (φανταχτερά εξώφυλλα, δημιουργική τυπογραφία, μεγάλες εικόνες που σε κατακλύζουν) και γενικότερα οτιδήποτε τραβάει την προσοχή μακριά από την ουσία που στη δουλειά μας είναι μία, το κείμενο. Έχει μαλλιάσει η γλώσσα μου να εξηγώ στους συγγραφείς, οι οποίοι είναι επίσης θύματα αυτής της αδιάκοπης ροής ερεθισμάτων, ότι ούτε τα πολύχρωμα εξώφυλλα ούτε κανενός είδος “μοντερνισμοί” θα τους φέρουν το Booker Prize, όπως και ότι ούτε το Booker θα τους εξασφαλίσει την καταξίωση που ίσως ονειρεύονται. Η μόνη σίγουρη οδός είναι η ποιότητα του έργου.

Για παράδειγμα, σε δύο πρόσφατα μυθιστορήματα, το Our distance became water του Ανδρέα Φιλιππόπουλου και το Two Hours της Alba Arikha, το οποίο, παρεμπιπτόντως, πάει να γίνει best seller στην Αγγλία, έχουμε αφαιρέσει τα πάντα, δεν έχουμε αφήσει τίποτα εκτός από το κείμενο και μια πολύ λιτή τυπογραφία. Εάν ένα βιβλίο δεν μπορεί να σταθεί έτσι, τότε μιλάμε απλώς για trend, όχι για ποιότητα.

— Με τι κριτήρια επιλέγεις τι θα εκδώσετε; Ο τρόπος που επιλέγω τι θα εκδώσουμε είναι συνειδητά ιδιοσυγκρασιακός: τι αρέσει σ’ εμένα, τι με τραβάει, τι διαβάζω. Κι αν υπάρχει μια πιο θεωρητική ή πολιτικοποιημένη στάση, αυτή είναι ότι επιθυμώ η λίστα της ERIS να εξετάσει και εν τέλει να αποδοκιμάσει όσο γίνεται τον γενικευμένο κομφορμισμό στη σκέψη που καταλήγει στη διανοητική, ιδεολογική και, στην περίπτωση πολλών συνεργατών πρόσφατα, και εκδοτική λογοκρισία. Αναφέρομαι ασφαλώς στη woke και cancel culture.

Παραδείγματος χάριν, το βιβλίο του Giorgio Agamben που βγάλαμε την εποχή της πανδημίας είναι μια συλλογή κειμένων και άρθρων που είχε δημοσιεύσει στα ιταλικά, τα οποία έπαιρναν μια θέση τελείως αντίθετη από την τότε επικρατούσα άποψη γύρω από το τι είναι η πανδημία και πώς πρέπει να τη χειριστούμε. Ήταν πολλοί αυτοί που απόρησαν γιατί βγάζουμε το βιβλίο του Agamben και αν συμφωνούμε μαζί του. Η απάντηση που έδινα ήταν ότι η δουλειά ενός εκδότη δεν είναι να συμφωνεί ή να διαφωνεί αλλά να επιλέγει με γνώμονα τον ευρύτερο ρόλο που ένας εκδοτικός οργανισμός παίζει στην κοινωνία. Και εάν άλλοι θεώρησαν ότι αυτά που έλεγε ο Agamben δεν άξιζαν να δημοσιευτούν, εμείς πιστεύαμε ότι η δημοσίευση καθαυτή αποτελούσε μια δήλωση που ανάγκαζε την αντίπαλη πλευρά να πάρει θέση και ότι κάπως έτσι, μέσω διαλόγου και όχι με απαγορεύσεις ούτε με άναρθρες κραυγές, παράγεται σκέψη.

Ευτυχώς, η ERIS είναι αρκετά μεγάλη ώστε να έχει το κύρος που της επιτρέπει να εκδίδει σημαντικούς συγγραφείς αλλά και όσο μικρή χρειάζεται ώστε να παραμένει ευέλικτη και να μην έχει ανάγκη να ικανοποιεί κανέναν, ούτε επενδυτές, ούτε ιδιοκτήτες, ούτε άλλου τύπου αφεντικά. Είμαστε πραγματικά ανεξάρτητοι κι αυτό για την αγγλόφωνη αγορά είναι κάτι σπάνιο και πολύτιμο.

— Έχεις από βιβλία για τον Antonio Negri και τον Stanley Aronowitz μέχρι και του Maurice Saatchi. Πώς συνυπάρχουν κομμουνιστές και συντηρητικοί σε έναν εκδοτικό που είναι ξεκάθαρο ότι έχει ιδρυθεί από έναν άνθρωπο που έχει αριστερές καταβολές; Καταρχάς, προσωπικά δεν ανήκω σε κανέναν χώρο. Το τι ήθη και ιδέες υπηρετώ και προωθώ μέσω του έργου μου το προδίδουν οι επιλογές που κάνω, τις οποίες κάθε άλλο παρά κρύβω. Αλλά δεν αισθάνθηκα ποτέ την ανάγκη να ευθυγραμμίσω τις επιλογές μου με τη μια ή την άλλη κατεύθυνση, όσο ετερόκλητες και εάν καταλήγουν να είναι. Θα αναφέρω το βιβλίο του Maurice Saatchi, γιατί ο Saatchi είναι η εξαίρεση, φυσικά, και όχι ο Negri σε αυτήν τη λίστα, που ήταν αμιγώς προσωπική επιλογή. Ασφαλώς η αφοσίωσή του στη Θάτσερ μου προκαλεί αποστροφή· οι πάλαι ποτέ επιχειρηματικές του δραστηριότητες ως διαφημιστή με αφήνουν μάλλον αδιάφορο· ως βουλευτής στη Βουλή των Λόρδων, μια θέση που κέρδισε χάρη στη Θάτσερ, είναι σίγουρα από τους πιο ενεργούς, σε αντίθεση με συναδέλφους του.

Ο λόγος που τον επέλεξα είναι άλλος: με συγκίνησε η στάση που κράτησε κατά τη διάρκεια της αρρώστιας, αλλά κυρίως μετά τον θάνατο το 2011 της συζύγου του, που έπασχε από καρκίνο. Καταρχάς, η συμπαράσταση που της έδειξε καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια της ασθένειάς της είναι μνημειώδης: υπέβαλε, και πέρασε, μια ολόκληρη νομοθεσία γύρω από το θέμα της επιστημονικής έρευνας και της καινοτομίας στον τομέα της θεραπείας του καρκίνου.

Αλλά η πραγματικά αξιοθαύμαστη αφοσίωσή του φάνηκε από το ότι ακόμα και δέκα και βάλε χρόνια μετά τον θάνατό της πήγαινε κάθε μέρα στο μνήμα της, έστρωνε το μεσημεριανό τραπέζι για δύο και όταν φίλοι τον παρότρυναν να κλείσει επιτέλους το κεφάλαιο αυτό και να βρει μια άλλη σύντροφο, απαντούσε ότι το θεωρούσε προδοσία στο πρόσωπό της.

Μπροστά σε αυτήν τη στάση, το γεγονός ότι η πολιτική του σκέψη είναι παιδαριώδης και οι απόψεις του για τα κοινά εσφαλμένες είναι, για μένα, δευτερεύον. Ως ήθος και μόνο η αυταπάρνηση, η φροντίδα και η αφοσίωση σε έναν άλλον άνθρωπο –για να μη χρησιμοποιήσω την παραφορεμένη πλέον λέξη “αγάπη”– εκφράζει τον ιδεολογικό μας προσανατολισμό πολύ καλύτερα απ’ ό,τι οποιαδήποτε στενά οριζόμενη ιδεολογική κατεύθυνση. Πολύ πιο άξιο απορίας, ασφαλώς, είναι γιατί εκείνος επέλεξε την ERIS να τον εκδώσει…

— Θες να μας εξηγήσεις γιατί η ERIS δεν έχει social media; Είναι πολύ απλό: γιατί δημιουργούν και αναπαράγουν ένα μοντέλο επικοινωνίας που θεωρώ ζημιογόνο. Η αμφίδρομη επικοινωνία που διεξάγεται με άνισους όρους, δεδομένου ότι ενός χρόνου δουλειά μπορεί να καταστραφεί από οποιονδήποτε μέσα σε μερικά δευτερόλεπτα, δεν θα μπορούσε ποτέ να είναι επιθυμητή. Επιπλέον, η απερισκεψία, η επιπολαιότητα και η ανευθυνότητα, η αυτοπροβολή και η αυτοαναφορικότητα, όλα αυτά τα κύρια συστατικά της διαδικτυακής δοσοληψίας, αντιτίθενται πλήρως σε ό,τι πρεσβεύουμε ως εκδότες βιβλίων, επομένως οποιαδήποτε χρήση των social θα ήταν απλώς τυχοδιωκτική. Ούτε μιλάω τη γλώσσα των social media ούτε επιθυμώ να τη μάθω. Η σχέση μου μαζί τους είναι σαν τη σκέψη του Σωκράτη καθώς κατέβαινε στην Αγορά και σκεφτόταν «κοίτα πόσα πράγματα δεν χρειάζομαι!».

— Όντως έχουν αυξηθεί οι πωλήσεις βιβλίων τον τελευταίο καιρό; Έχω την εξής θεωρία, η οποία είναι απλώς θεωρία γιατί δεν έχω ούτε τα μέσα ούτε την κατάρτιση να την επαληθεύσω – να σημειώσω δεν είμαι ούτε αναλυτής ούτε στατιστικολόγος. Από τη μία υπάρχει η εμπορικότητα ενός τίτλου, δηλαδή χοντρικά πόσα αντίτυπα πωλούνται. Από την άλλη, η αναγνωσιμότητα, δηλαδή το εάν ή σε ποιο βαθμό διαβάζεται. Φέρ’ ειπείν, την περίοδο των γιορτών αλλάζουν χέρια εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες βιβλία. Όλα αυτά καταγράφονται στις λίστες που με μεγάλο ενθουσιασμό μάς αναγγέλλουν στις διάφορες εκθέσεις βιβλίων, ουσιαστικά για να μας πουν ότι το έντυπο ζει και βασιλεύει. Ωραία όλα αυτά, αλλά το διαβάζει κανείς;

Πιστεύω ότι το βιβλίο είναι πιθανώς το προϊόν με την πιο δυσανάλογη σχέση μεταξύ κατανάλωσης και χρήσης. Δηλαδή, από όλα τα πράγματα που αγοράζει κανείς, είτε για τον εαυτό του είτε για να τα δωρίσει, το βιβλίο είναι κατεξοχήν αυτό που μένει αχρησιμοποίητο, στην προκειμένη περίπτωση αδιάβαστο. Πού το στηρίζω αυτό; Καταρχάς στην απλή παρατήρηση ότι δεν βλέπω πουθενά, όπου κοιτάξω, αναγνώστες, από τα καφέ μέχρι τα αεροπλάνα, τις παραλίες κ.ο.κ. Δεύτερον, το ξέρουμε από τις στατιστικές που μας δίνουν τα e-books: πόσα βιβλία διαβάζει ο κόσμος, με τι ρυθμό, τι ποσοστό του συνολικού έργου ολοκληρώνουν κ.λπ.

Και τρίτον, εάν ο κόσμος διάβαζε, ή διάβαζε όσο ισχυρίζονται οι εκδότες ότι διαβάζει, θα ζούσαμε σε μια τελείως διαφορετική, σαφώς πιο πολιτισμένη και διανοητικά ανώτερη κοινωνία από αυτή στην οποία τυχαίνει να ζούμε. Εάν πάρουμε στα σοβαρά τα νούμερα των ευπώλητων βιβλίων που δημοσιεύουν κάθε εβδομάδα οι «New York Times», θα έπρεπε να διανύουμε μια δεύτερη Αναγέννηση.

— Πού τυπώνονται τα βιβλία της ERIS; Έχουμε τυπώσει στην Αγγλία, στην Αμερική, στη Γερμανία, στο Βέλγιο και στην Ιταλία, σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις σε ονομαστά και παμπάλαια λιθογραφεία. Σας διαβεβαιώ ότι τα αποτελέσματα σε επίπεδο παραγωγής αλλά και γενικότερης συνεργασίας στην Ελλάδα δεν έχουν τίποτα να ζηλέψουν από το εξωτερικό.

— Ποια είναι τα επόμενα βιβλία που θα βγάλει η ERIS προσεχώς; Πολλά και διάφορα. Ένα από αυτά είναι το βιβλίο της Ευφροσύνης Δοξιάδη με τίτλο NG6461 για το πλαστό έργο του Ρούμπενς που ανήκει στη National Gallery του Λονδίνου. Ο τίτλος παραπέμπει στην αρχειακή ονομασία του έργου «Σαμψών και Δαλιδά», το ��ποίο αγόρασε η Πινακοθήκη του Λονδίνου το 1980 για ένα αστρονομικό ποσό. Το βιβλίο του David Rieff (γιου, μεταξύ άλλων κατορθωμάτων του, της Susan Sontag) που τιτλοφορείται Desire and fate, στο οποίο αναλύει με πολύ καυστικό τρόπο την κουλτούρα του woke, της λογοκρισίας και του cancelling. Τότε περίπου θα κυκλοφορήσει και η αυτοβιογραφία του θρυλικού Antonio Negri που πέθανε τον περασμένο Δεκέμβριο και η βιογραφία του Λουκά Σαμαρά, ενός πολύ γνωστού καλλιτέχνη που επίσης πέθανε πρόσφατα, την οποία έχει γράψει και επιμεληθεί ο Μιχάλης Σκαφίδας.

Βγάζουμε, επίσης, μια ανθολογία των κειμένων του Αμερικανού κοινωνιολόγου Stanley Aronowitz και ένα φωτογραφικό λεύκωμα του Roger Ballen, πάρα πολύ γνωστού Αμερικανού φωτογράφου που ζει στη Νότια Αφρική, το οποίο έχει τίτλο Hungry ghosts, καθώς και μια μικρή έκδοση της πραγματικά συγκινητικής αλληλογραφίας μεταξύ Rainer Maria Rilke και της ζωγράφου Paula Modersohn Becker. Τέλος, τον καιρό αυτό δουλεύω πάνω στο τελευταίο βιβλίο του Michael Fried, ενός από τους μεγαλύτερους Αμερικανούς κριτικούς τέχνης, ο οποίος επέλεξε να εκδώσει με την ERIS το τελευταίο του βιβλίο, κλείνοντας έτσι μια σημαντικότατη καριέρα εξήντα σχεδόν χρόνων.

Τα βιβλία της ERIS είναι διαθέσιμα στο βιβλιοπωλείο των εκδόσεων Πατάκη (Ακαδημίας 65) και από την ιστοσελίδα της eris.press.

✔ Το άρθρο δημοσιεύθηκε στην έντυπη LiFO.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[jeffalessandrelli]

LAPHAM RIP

In 2006, Mr. Lapham retired from Harper’s and founded his quarterly, an intellectual journal that used the lessons of history and the persuasions of literature to dissect modern problems. Each issue of the magazine was devoted to one subject — war, crime, money, medicine — and its content ranged from the classical writings of the ancient world to contributions from modern celebrities.

“The idea was to bring the voices of the past up to the microphone of the present,” Mr. Lapham told The New York Times in 2009 when asked about his magazine’s mission. “History doesn’t repeat itself,” he said, “but it rhymes.”

Mr. Lapham was a good fit at Harper’s: an editor of bedrock literary and historical learning and an elegant writer with common sense, taking long views that seemed to transcend the divisions of modern life. Founded in 1850, Harper’s is the nation’s oldest continuously published monthly, covering politics, culture, finance and the arts. Writings by Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, Herman Melville and Willa Cather, among many others, have appeared in its pages.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/business/media/lewis-h-lapham-dead.html

[ichabodanagram]

In chronological order of his visits, the modern geographic locations, the ten year journey of Odysseus took.

1. Troy (Hisarlik, Turkey) - After the Trojan War [2]

2. Ismarus (near Lake Mitrikon, Thrace region of Greece) [2]

3. Land of the Lotus Eaters (Djerba, Tunisia) [2]

4. Home of the Cyclops Polyphemus (Gozo, Malta) [2]

5. Aeolian island (Ustica or Lipari Islands, Italy) [2]

6. Laestrygonians (Levanzo, Italy) [2]

7. Circe's island (Monte Circeo, Italy) [2]

8. Underworld (Lake Averno, Italy) [2]

9. Sirens (Li Galli islands, Italy) [2]

10. Scylla and Charybdis (Strait of Messina, Italy) [2]

11. Calypso's island Ogygia (Gozo, Malta) [2][4]

12. Island of Scheria/Phaeacians (Corfu, Greece) [2][4]

13. Ithaca (Ithaki/Ithaca island, Greece) [2][4]

The detailed information on the potential modern locations that correspond to the mythical places described in Homer's Odyssey, based on scholarly interpretations and geographic clues.[1][2][4]

Citations:

[1] Ten years in the Med? The Hunt for the Real Odyssey Locations! https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-europe/odyssey-locations-0016724

[2] Following The Trail Of The Odyssey In The Modern Day - Travel.Earth https://travel.earth/following-the-travels-of-the-odyssey-in-the-modern-day/

[3] The Geography of the Odyssey - | Lapham's Quarterly https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/geography-odyssey

[4] Homer's Ithaca - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer%27s_Ithaca

[5] The real-life island that inspired the world's oldest travel story - BBC https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240429-the-islands-that-inspired-homers-the-odyssey

[starsailorstories]

Eleni Schirmer in Lapham’s Quarterly

[colsonlin]

“Alibi” (2010) — a dark comedy inspired by “Heathers” and “Mean Girls”

I.

This massive space reeks of white privilege. The interior designer—an up-and-coming celebrity who had logged ten appearances on the final hour of the Today show before he was convicted last year of drugging a teenage boy—had called the color scheme “Immaculate Frost.” Immaculate, indeed. The family room, predominantly white with hints of silver and cappuccino, is anchored by a window wall adorned by sheer white curtains. It is afternoon. Wintry sunlight streams in through the window, sheathing in bright light a mahogany coffee table at the center of the room. Magazines line the bottom shelf—Harper’s, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Paris Review, Yale Alumni Magazine. The owners of this home are exquisitely educated—they will deign to read The New Yorker or The Economist only if they are at the dentist’s, and there is nothing but Highlights to flip through in the waiting room. Everything about this living room is “tasteful”—even the bright pink throw pillows on the two white sofas and two white armchairs flanking the coffee table, which have no right to be tasteful, are tasteful. A white stuffed lamb above a row of Christmas stockings hanging from the fireplace watches over the living room—the Christmas lights are up. A Christmas tree in the corner of the room is ornamented by angels.

Mahler plays from the surround-sound speakers.

Lying on the floor and tucked between the white sofa and the mahogany coffee table is Alyssa White.

You know Alyssa already, and not just because she has cappuccino tresses and a waist the size of a curling iron. Alyssa was the girl in middle school who while her friends dated high school boys, herself would date a college freshman, and while her friends dated college freshmen, herself would date a six-foot-two Ecuadorian skier with emerald-green eyes who in some other century might have washed Alyssa’s clothes—it’s a good thing the wealth of the Global North liquidated across the equator. Alyssa makes Heather No. 1 look like a Girl Scout. She makes Regina George look like Shirley Temple. She wears pink lip gloss and white cowboy boots and, as the century draws to a close, she’s lying in a fresh pool of blood.

It's December 25, 1999.

Alyssa’s hands, arms, chest, back, stomach, and hair—yes, even her hair—are covered in raw blood.

“Moral violence.”

Not that it ever went away, but for a century that represses so much envy, it’s now back with a vengeance.

Alyssa reaches out her right hand and places it weakly on the white sofa. Her left hand tries to grab the side of the coffee table, but she loses her balance—a stack of Lapham’s Quarterly tips over, hitting her on the head. She tries to lift herself off the floor again—this time, her left hand strikes a silver tea tray on the mahogany coffee table, sending three teacups crashing into the floor. “Come back,” she croaks hoarsely. “Please. I’m a person. I’m a person. I’m a person.” As she says this, she begins to weep, until her weeping turns into labored gasps of air.

Until finally—

silence.

“G! I! L-T-Y—you ain’t got no a-li-bi, you guilty! Yeah, yeah—you guilty!” the white stuffed lamb begins to hum, as the playful gold bars of Mahler No. 3 sprinkle across the room.

II.

You should know right away that Asians own this home—Asian-Americans, the father is a philosopher and the mother is a therapist. When the lights come back on, it is evening, and Alyssa’s body is still on the floor. The red and blue swirl of police lights entangle the room. For all their tasteful accoutrements, the Yangs must be new money—the walls of their home are gaunt enough that we can hear the crackle of police transmissions outside, and the busybody neighbors who have crowded onto the Yangs’ front lawn.

A murderer is in the room.

On the blood-stained sofa, three lanky girls—Jamie Donahue (17), Madison Yang (17), and Abby Liddell (18)—sit with their arms folded and their legs crossed at the knees.

They look like a macabre spread in Vogue France.

To see these three girls together is to see the undoing of any arrogance you might have once had about your own appearance. Do teenage girls really look like this—their arms and legs thinned to such nuance Kate Moss would beam green with envy? Jamie, Madison, Abby, and Alyssa formed the in-crowd within the in-crowd at the School of Ethical Culture (tuition in 1999: $21,342). Jamie is thin and African-American. Madison is thin and Asian-American.

Abby is thin and white.

“You forget how much blood there is in the human body,” Jamie muses out loud to nobody in particular. “I mean it’s just not something you really think about, I guess—you know?”

“Six quarts,” Madison says.

Jamie turns to Madison. “What?”

“Six quarts. Our biology teacher in seventh grade showed us using pig’s blood and empty bottles of Pennzoil—it was so disgusting. He gave us all a turn dumping out six quarts of blood into the sink—he said it was so if we were ever canceled, we would know exactly how much blood we could lose before we exsanguinate. So that’s how I know—six quarts.”

“And how many quarts can you lose before you exsanguinate?”

Madison shrugs. “Two, I think?”

Jamie studies the pool of blood on the floor. “That looks like a lot more than two quarts of blood,” she says awkwardly. “I mean right?” She laughs. “That looks more like eight!”

“It reminds me of the time my cousin miscarried on the freeway,” Madison continues.

“Oh my god—for real?”

“For real—she lost so much blood, like it was all over her seat and stuff and then it started dripping onto the floor. I was sitting next to her—my shoes were moist.”

“Oh my god—stop.”

“Like when I stepped out of the car, I had footprints.”

“Oh my god—stop. You know what would be so fucked up? If we like, stained our shoes with Ally’s blood and we like, walked around all over the house and we like, made the detectives,” Jamie bursts out laughing, “follow our footprints.”

Madison laughs too. “Oh my god—what if we like, walked into my parents’ room and tracked her footprints to their bed?”

“That would be so ridiculous.”

“I know, right?”

“Oh, man—the pigs would never buy it though,” Jamie smiles, turning to look at Abby. “Sorry, Abby.”

Abby, who has been staring into the floor this whole time, turns to Madison and Jamie.

“The blood just means we’re human.”

“What?” Jamie says.

Abby continues softly: “The blood. All it means is it came from a person. We’re all people. It’s the same blood in Ally as it is in you, as it is in me—you see a pool of blood on the floor and you don’t know if it came from a black person or a white person, or a gay person or a straight person, or a fat person or a skinny person. You just know it came from a person. It came from a person.” Her voice begins to break. “And so you cry.”

A pause.

“You cry. Because it came from a person.”

“Abby?” Jamie says, repressing a giggle. “Animals bleed.”

“Not like people they don’t,” Abby says, shaking her head. “Anyway, it’s not like we’re Rebecca on Sunnybrook Farm and surrounded by animals all the time—all I’m trying to say is when you see a pool of blood on the floor, like in the hallway at Ethical Culture, you know it didn’t come from an animal—you know it didn’t come from a cow or a horse or a pigeon. You know somebody was canceled that day.”

Jamie turns to Madison. “I think she’s losing it.”

“But Jamie! It came from a person! A per-son!”

Jamie and Madison burst out laughing, while Abby rises from the sofa. “Go to hell. Both of you.”

“Abby,” Madison says. “we’re not the ones who cut Ally up like a chopped salad.”

“Careful, Madison—we still don’t know where she hid the knife.”

“Maybe it’s with Rebecca on Sunnybrook Farm,” Madison says with a high-pitched squeal, and they both laugh.

“I didn’t do this.”

Jamie gasps. “You know what I just remembered?”

“What?” Madison says, still laughing.

“Remember that time in seventh grade when Alyssa told Andrew that Abby was a hermaphrodite, and Abby told Alyssa that the only way she would ever forgive her was if Alyssa gave her a mea culpa?”

“Oh my god—I do remember, that was so weird.”

“And everyone was like, Abby, what the fuck is a mea culpa? And Abby started talking about—” Jamie can’t stop laughing now, “thetooth fairy—and black people?”

“Oh my god—shut up!”

“And like how her grandfather died in the Holocaust even though he wasn’t Jewish?”

“Oh my god—stop,” Madison gasps, keeled over in laughter now. After a few seconds they both settle down, and Jamie looks at Madison with a serious face. “Madison,” she whispers. “I think somebody owes Alyssa—a mea culpa.”

Jamie and Madison both burst out laughing.

Abby, who has been silently crying to herself, wipes her eyes dry and turns to go upstairs. A gust of wind from the furnace vent ruffles her airy sundress almost to her waist. Her strawberry blonde hair and bright white sundress bounce in the air as she saunters up the stairs.

III.

Abby is alone in the upstairs bathroom now, running the faucet—behind her in the mirror is a rainforest shower made of black granite. “The most important thing you learn about as a kid isn’t where babies come from,” she whispers into the mirror. “Or that the tooth fairy was just your dad slipping a quarter under your pillow while you were asleep. It’s that slavery happened. And the Holocaust happened. It’s that cruelty exists in this world.”

Abby opens a drawer in the sink and takes out a silver nail file. “The first cruel person I ever learned about was Hitler—Hitler is who most people lose their cruelty virginity to, I think.” She begins filing her nails over the sink. “And then you learn about how they treated black people in the ’60s, and that in the 1800s, black people were enslaved—like cattle. So by the time some fact-box in your eighth-grade world history textbook tries to tell you that Stalin actually ged twice as many people as Hitler did, you’re already numb. It’s like—what the fuck is wrong with people? You know?”

Abby hums a few bars of Mahler No. 3 to herself.

“But the thing is, you don’t have to go all the way back to Siberia or Nazi Germany or even the Confederacy to understand what cruelty is. As Mahler himself once said: ‘Cruelty is a certain look on a man’s face when he looks down on another man.’ This? This right here—is cruelty,” she says, pointing to the Yangs’ rainforest shower. “Really, it doesn’t even matter if I canceled Alyssa or not—and I didn’t. But it doesn’t matter. Because moral superiority—can be every bit as cruel, every bit as despicable, and every bit as barbaric as moral evil.” Abby finishes filing her nails and turns off the faucet.

She opens the same drawer from before and plucks out a bottle of blue nail polish. “But I didn’t cancel Alyssa,” she continues, applying the nail polish to her nails. “Okay, it’s true—we did have a falling-out over Thanksgiving. We haven’t spoken to each other in almost a month. But Alyssa and I have been best friends since middle school. We love each other. She was like my sister. Ow!” Some blue nail polish has seeped into an open cut on Abby’s finger, next to a nail bed. Abby blows her finger dry and then runs some water over it.

She turns off the faucet and shakes her fingers twice.

“Last night,” Abby continues, grabbing a hand towel, “Madison invited me to spend the night at her house—her parents are still in Taiwan, I think? She invited Alyssa over this afternoon without telling her I was here too. The plan was for me to stay upstairs until Madison came up to get me, and then we’d be forced into the same room together to work things out. So that’s what I did. I stayed in Madison’s room all afternoon after Madison let Alyssa in downstairs. All I could hear from the living room—was Christmas music.”

A closeup of the Yangs’ rainforest shower dissolves into the Yangs’ living room—it is now 3:14 in the afternoon. Sunlight streams in from the ivy-covered windows. Mahler No. 3 is still playing from the surround-sound speakers.

The front door opens.

“Ally? Look who I found outside.”

Two pairs of Jimmy Choos step into the front foyer as the front door closes. “Ally, are you in here?” Madison says, carrying a box of donuts into the living room. “Oh my god.”

“Holy shit,” Jamie, coming in after her, gasps.

Alyssa White is lying in a pool of blood in between the white sofa and the black mahogany coffee table.

“Abby?”

“Oh my god.”

“Where’s Abby?”

“Holy shit!”

“Abby?”

“See if she’s still breathing.”

“Abby? Abby!”

“Maddie—let’s get out of here.”

“Abby! Abby! Where the fuck is Abby?”

A door opens upstairs. “Maddie—is everything okay?”

“Abby, what the fuck did you do?”

“What?” a girlish voice calls from the second floor.

Abby’s feet appear on the stairs, just below the living room ceiling—her nails are painted cobalt blue. When she sees Alyssa’s body she gasps, covering her mouth.

She emits a single syllable: “��no!”

“Abby—what happened?”

A pause. Abby lowers her hand from her face and blinks twice. “I just woke up.”

“We have to get out of here,” Jamie whispers.

“Right, and Alyssa just decided to stab herself fifty times over my coffee table—that makes sense; maybe she read something really menacing in ‘Harper’s Index’!”

“I had nothing to do with this.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to explain this to my parents?”

“I’m calling my dad,” Jamie says.

Abby begins to cry. “I just woke up—Jamie, say something. You believe me, don’t you? I was upstairs this whole time!”

“Ally—there is something really, really wrong with you,” Jamie says. “You don’t want to know how I feel about you right now. Let’s just put it this way. I see angels near your soul. ”

IV.

Alibis are either/or—you can’t be in two places at once, emotionally maybe, but not spatially. Abby’s sobs are clearly audible from the bathroom upstairs. In the front yard, a detective is interviewing a next-door neighbor.

“There goes the waterworks again,” Jamie says.

“I know, right?” Madison says. “It reminds me of the time Abby wore all-black to school for a month after her brother was hit by that wrong-way driver.”

“It’s an Anglican tradition,” Abby says from the top of the stairs. “Andy spent four days in a coma before my parents decided to pull the plug. It was the worst day of my life.”

Jamie whispers to Madison: “Won’t be for long.”

“Are you guys really going to go through with this? Are you guys really going to tell everyone I canceled Alyssa?”

“Why Abby, what in the world would ever possess you to say such a thing? We’re not going to keep our mouths shut for you,” Jamie says. “We owe it to justice.”

“The future is fear,” Abby whispers.

“Abby,” Madison says gently. “I want you to take a really good look at what you did to Alyssa. I mean, whatever happens to you—you kinda deserve it, don’t you think?”

“It doesn’t bother you? After everything we’ve been through together, Madison—it doesn’t bother you that I’m about to be canceled? Not even a little bit?”

“Of course it bothers me,” Jamie says. “Abby, we love you. You, Ally, and Maddie are like the sisters I never had. Ally loved you so much—you were always her favorite.”

“When was the last time somebody was canceled at our school?” Madison asks.

“Aidan Doberman, in August.”

“You’re right—oh I forgot about Aidan. Poor Aidan.”

“Poor Aidan? He beat up his girlfriend.”

“Don’t tell you me actually believe Angie.”

“Angel.”

“It’s so Aidan to hook up with a freshman.”

“Oh my god—you totally had the hots for Aidan!”

“Did not.”

“You totally did!” Jamie snorts out a laugh. “He didn’t look so good cut up into four pieces, did he?”

“Jamie, I did not have the hots for Aidan. I just think Angie Montez is a lying hoebag—she clearly said what she said because she wanted the attention. And now she’s the only sophomore on the varsity soccer team—what a coincidence.”

“Did you go to Aidan’s disembowelment?”

“No, only the bonfire.”

“Oh really, I was there for all of it—the kidnapping, the decapitation, the disembowelment, the quartering.”

Abby quickly descends down the stairs. Her face looks sickly and pale. “I have to go now,” she says.

“What’s the matter, Abby?” Jamie calls out.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Oh, wow—you see, Madison? This is the type of poor impulse control that gets people canceled.”

“Abby, don’t go,” Madison says.

Abby looks at Madison quizzically. “I have to tell my parents what happened. I have to—say goodbye.”

“Look, you might not be canceled after all—I mean, a lot of people did hate Ally.”

“Madison!” Jamie says.

“What? I’m just being honest. This might not be able to attract enough—popular outrage.”

“What Madison’s trying to say is we’re going to be there for every part of your cancelation—I’ll even bring home one of your bones to have it embossed, how does that sound?”

“Jamie,” Abby says, staring into Jamie’s eyes. “Someday, everyone will see you for the evil little witch you are. And when that day comes?” Abby opens the front door. “I wouldn’t be shy about withdrawing from my 401(k) if I were you.”

In the doorway, Abby takes one last look at Jamie, then at Madison, and then closes the door. Madison watches as Abby waves goodbye to a police officer and enters her car. She turns to Jamie. “I can’t believe we pulled this off,” she whispers.

“Did you see her face?”

“She’s totally clueless!”

“This is so sane.”

“I’m so glad this is over.”

“I know—what a relief.”

“I can’t wait for January.”

“But Maddie—I just thought of something.”

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to wait until January anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well, remember what you said about Abby’s brother being dead? Abby’s an only child now. Her parents will do anything to protect her—even if it means moving her out of the country. She might not even be here in January.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

“Why not?”

“What are her parents going to do—send her to Malta? They’re white trash. They don’t have the resources to send her out of town that quickly. As soon as everyone finds out what Abby did, they’ll show up to her apartment with pitchforks—I’ll make sure of it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Jamie. There’s no way they’re moving Abby out of town in a week—don’t be ridiculous.”

“Your parents on the other hand.”

“Oh my god—I’d be on a plane to Fiji this evening,” Madison says, plopping down on the sofa.

She looks at Jamie and smiles. “So can I ask you something?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, here we go.”

“I’m just curious—what were her last words?”

“That’s the thing, she didn’t really have any last words. It was a total surprise—she just said, ‘Jamie, what are you doing?’ She didn’t see it coming at all.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but when I was stabbing her, she kept saying, ‘I’m a person, I’m a per-son.’”

“No way.”

“Over and over again. Isn’t that weird? Are you sure Abby couldn’t have woken up somehow?”

“I’m sure—you know how Abby is, she’s always so dramatic and over-the-top. I’m sure it was just a coincidence.”

“I hope so.”

“Look, Jamie—you’ve had a stressful day.”

“I don’t want to be canceled for this.”

“You won’t be. We’re in this together, okay? Trust me.”

“Okay.”

“Do you trust me?”

Jamie looks at Madison. “Of course I do, bee-otch.”

“Good. Now let’s get the fuck out of here—I’m going to let the police inside to clean up the mess.”

Jamie stands up and walks over to look at Alyssa’s body. “She’s so bloated,” she says, crinkling her nose.

“That’s what happens to people when they die. The bacteria in Ally’s body is breaking down her tissue and releasing hydrogen and nitrogen into her epidermis, the space between her fat cells and her skin. All the while, the cells in her body are decomposing and literally eating themselves. It’s called autolysis. It’s disgusting, but without it, the Romans would have never invented wine.”

“You’re going to be such amazing doctor someday.”

“And you’re going to be the perfect lawyer.”

Jamie stands up from the couch, grabs her purse, and begins walking to the front door. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, my love. See you tomorrow.”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

V.

Alone in the living room now, Madison Yang turns to the window and watches as Jamie’s silhouette recedes into the police lights. She loosens her scrunchie and then fixes her hair back into a ponytail. “Jamie and I—we’ve been through a lot over the years. She lives three blocks away—we practically grew up together. My dad’s a professor and her dad’s a state senator—they were in the same graduating class at Yale Law. When we were little, we used to sneak into the Voglers’ backyard, whenever their gate was unlocked, and swim naked in their swimming pool. Jamie’s bulimic, of course—you probably can’t tell since we’re all so skinny, or you probably just thought we all had eating disorders, but no.”

She shakes her head.

“Just Jamie.”

Madison rises from the sofa and walks over to a mirror above the fireplace. “Her breath always smells like Listerine. I love Jamie, and I’m totally not proud of what I’m about to do to her—but she’s become such an angry person lately. All she ever talks about anymore is the next person she wants to see canceled. I mean, you can’t really blame her—appearances can be deceiving, you know. She’s had a rough life. Her mom was canceled three years ago, in the parking lot of Whole Foods, two days after arguing with this guy over some minor road-rage incident. It changed Jamie forever. I mean, her dad had the guy canceled of course—and the guy’s two accomplices, and their wives and children. You don’t fuck with the family of a state senator. Which is why I had to be very, very careful.”

Madison picks up the stuffed lamb.

“But all the evidence is here,” Madison continues. “I mean, how was I supposed to know that this stuffed lamb was actually a camera? Remember when I said appearances can be deceiving?” She giggles. “My parents come home on Monday. They’re going to find the video of Jamie stabbing Alyssa, they’re going to turn it over to Alyssa’s parents, and I’m going to show Andrew the photographs. Jamie will be cancelled by Wednesday. I mean it's Alyssa for God’s sake—people aren’t going to wait to ask any questions. People don’t want answers—they want solutions. You know, if Abby were smart, she’d be telling the world about Alyssa’s cancelation as we speak—she’s the only one out of all three of us who actually has an alibi. She had an admissions interview with a guy from Brown at Starbucks at 2. Alyssa was killed at 2:15.”

Madison sets down the stuffed lamb.

“I told Jamie I had crushed two Ambiens into Abby’s hibiscus tea. If Jamie had only thought about it some more, she would have remembered: white trash doesn’t drink tea. Oh well. The thing is, Alyssa and Jamie are legitimately garbage people—they have no sense of compassion or empathy for anything that happens to anyone they’ve dehumanized. Abby’s a good girl. We all make fun of her, but I’m the only one who sees her for who she really is. She’s someone—just like me.”

“’scuse me miss?” a voice from the front door knocks twice and interrupts.

Madison turns around and smiles.

“You can come in now, officer,” Madison says sweetly. “Everything’s finally under control now.”

VII.

“…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears is playing from the surround-sound speakers. Abby and Madison are in the living room—sunlight streams in through the ivy-covered windows. Alyssa’s body is gone—her bloodstains are gone too. The black mahogany coffee table is once again immaculately arranged—not a teacup is out of place. The Christmas lights, however, are no longer up. Maddie and Abigail are sitting on the floor, decorating a Christmas tree in the center of the room. “Where’d you get this one?” Abby says, giggling as she pulls out a resin ornament from the cardboard box.

“I have no idea,” Madison says.

“Why’s she naked?”

“Because she’s an angel.”

“Are all your angels naked?”

“Abby, I would appreciate it if you didn’t make fun of my Christmas iconography, thank you very much,” Madison says, snatching the ornament from Abby’s hand. “I don’t make fun of your dreidels.”

“I don’t have any dreidels.”

“Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel—I made it out of clay. The first boy who it lands on—is the first boy I shall lay.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Okay, don’t be mad—I have something to tell you.”

“What.”

“I was talking to Jamie the other day—”

“About what, money?”

“—and Jamie was telling me how she had this crazy idea to cancel Alyssa—”

Abby’s eyes widen.

“—and frame you for it.”

Abby gasps. “What!”

“I know—can you believe it? And I was like, okay, Jamie, keep talking. And Jamie was like, I’m only telling you this because we grew up together and you’re my best friend in the whole entire world and if I can’t swim naked with you, I can’t swim naked with anyone, and I was like, oh my god Jamie, you’re my sister, I love you, you can tell me anything—and basically we just like crawled up each other’s assholes for a few minutes before she finally spat out the point. She goes, remember when Aidan Doberman was canceled this summer for beating up his girlfriend, and like, the entire baseball team was in on it—Andrew, Addison, Lance—which is the great thing about our school, everybody roots for the underdog? And I was like, yeah? And she basically told me that if we worked together, we could cancel Alyssa and frame you for it.”

“Oh my god. Have you told Alyssa yet?”

“Of course not.”

“What? Why the hell not—what if Jamie goes through with it?”

“Will you let me finish?”

“What’s there to finish?”

“Look, Abby—I’m doing you a huge favor here. I mean, now that you and Ally are fighting, you do have a motive for canceling her—everyone at Ethical Culture knows that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, let me finish.”

Abby stares at Madison uneasily. “Okay. Finish.”

“I told Jamie, I’ll do it.”

“Okay.”

“And, so—we came up with a plan to cancel Alyssa this weekend and frame you for it.”

Abby nods slowly—she’s visibly shaken. She puts the angel ornament she’s holding back into the box.

“Okay. I think I should go home now.”

“Abby, wait a minute—do you really think that if I was going to go through with Jamie’s plan, I would have you over today and tell you about it?”

“I don’t know, Maddie. You know how powerful Jamie is, how her father had those four kids canceled.”

“I know,” Madison says as she rises from the floor.

“Maddie, I’m scared,” Abby says. “I don’t want you to do anything stupid—I don’t want you to hurt anyone.”

“Abby, will you shut the fuck up and listen to me?” Madison says, approaching the fireplace. “I have an idea.”

“What? What is it, Maddie—what’s your brilliant idea?”

“Jamie is going to cancel Alyssa—right in this room. And I’m going to help her. But she doesn’t know one thing. There’s a camera in here,” Madison says, tossing the white stuffed lamb to Abby. Abby catches the stuffed lamb and looks at it.

“In Biryani?”

“Look, you said your interview with that guy from Brown’s this Friday, right? Is there any chance you can get it pushed back to Saturday?”

“But Saturday’s Christmas.”

“I know. Jesus riseth!” Madison squeals.

“We’re going to have to talk about this.”

“We will—we’ll talk about it. But Abby, don’t you get it yet? It could be just you and me. Instead of playing third and fourth fiddle to Alyssa and Jamie, we could rule the School of Ethical Culture. And I know for a fact that the only person who hates Alyssa and Jamie more than I do—is you.”

Abby nods.

“Okay? Abby, you can trust me.”

“I know.”

“I promise.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to go make us a drink. I’m thinking—bloody marys?”

“Funny.”

“Be right back, bee-otch.”

Madison walks over to Abby on the floor, grabs the stuffed lamb from her hands, squeezes her shoulder twice, and then goes into the kitchen.

The sunlight begins to fade.

Abby is alone in the living room now. She stands up and walks over to the surround sound. She turns off “…Baby One More Time” and switches the C.D. to Gustav Mahler.

“We called our plan ‘lick its toes,’” she says. “Madison came up with the codename—it’s just each word in ‘kill the sluts’ spelled out backwards: Llik eht stuls. Clever, right? Madison Yang is nothing if not a very clever girl. She already got into Harvard early. She’ll probably graduate summa cum laude, get a 40 on her MCATs, go to Harvard Med, and become a brain surgeon or something—you know, whatever the highest-paying specialty is. She’ll spend the rest of her life saving lives—isn’t it ironic? Do you have any idea how many girls she’s stepped on to get where she is; how many people she’s pushed off the totem pole? The thing is, nobody really likes Madison Yang except for the only two people more popular and powerful than she is—that’s right. Jamie Donahue and Alyssa White. They love Madison, because having someone like Madison as a friend makes them look inclusive or something. The truth is, I think they actually admire Madison. Madison’s everything they are—plus brains. It’s just too bad they’re stupid enough to trust her—I’m not. I wouldn’t trust Madison to pick me up from the airport. Oh, don’t get me wrong—I am going to go through with it. Alyssa’s going to be canceled, and Jamie’s going to take the fall for it.”

Abby giggles.

“The problem is—I’m going to be the only one with an alibi.” Abby pulls out a recording device from her pocket and presses play. “Madison, I’m scared. I don’t want you to do anything stupid. I don’t want you to hurt anyone.”

“Abby, will you shut the fuck up and listen to me? I have an idea.”

“What? What is it, Maddie? What’s your brilliant idea?”

“Jamie is going to cancel Alyssa. Right in this room. And I’m going to help her. But she doesn’t know one thing. There’s a camera in here.”

“In Biryani?”

“Look, you said your interview with that guy from Brown’s this Friday, right? Is there any chance you can get it pushed back to Saturday?”

“But Saturday’s Christmas.”

“I know. Jesus Riseth!”

Abby presses the stop button. “Starbucks isn’t even open on Christmas,” she smiles, and then giggles.

2010