1.02 - Book Reading
Hello, listeners. It is midnight on the Mountain once again, and I, Julian Glass, am here to soften your nocturnal souls.
[intro]
To start off this broadcast, I would like to make an announcement: I am organizing a visit and book reading from my favorite author! You see, there has been no event of this kind in Mercy Mountain—until now. The sole local bookstore, The Heart of the Woods, had been struggling in its first few years. But after a generous donation from an anonymous bear, as well as a successful PR campaign, Heart has really taken off the last year or so. So now they can afford to bring in authors for book readings!
Who is the aforementioned favorite author of mine, you ask? [brief pause] Frances H. Arnold! I know, I know, many of you haven’t heard of her. But trust me, she is amazing. She wrote the very book that helped me realized I am likely trans: The Permanence of Smoke. I won’t spoil any of it for you, but it’s about non-romantic love, weird gender stuff, and bananas.
Enough of that for now.
Earlier today, the air was redolent of creativity. Sophia Barnes painted for the first time in months. The image of a crimson door standing in a field, attached to nothing, was vivid and unyielding in her mind. Ever the perfectionist, she worked for hours, never overlooking a detail. After every layer, every step, she impatiently held the painting in front of a fan to dry the paint more quickly. Once the final touches of paint had dried, she took out a fine-tip permanent marker to outline the panels and colored in shadows using a black colored pencil, as she was not confident in her abilities to paint such fine details.
Jeff Miller worked on his sculpture. He has by now picked out a name for it: The Stark Flippancy of Tuesdays. He glued a cut-up newspaper ad to the fifth head of the towering work of art. The only piece of the ad that was intact was a testy, square-pupiled eye.
Okay. I am way too excited for Frances H. Arnold’s visit. So, I’ve decided I’m going to read to you some of her poems. She hasn’t produced many, but each one is resonant and striking.
This one is titled My Cells are Astrophysicists:
“I walk along a parched dirt road.
Recognition flickers in my mind
As I see a drop of rain fall to the earth.
Never mind.
It was my sweat.”
[interlude]
The cicadas were calling out intensely earlier today, listeners. I could hear them through my closed windows. I admit, I missed those fierce cries when I left Mercy Mountain for a year to live abroad. The cicadas may be irritating to many, but to me, they sound like home.
Cara Pinkerton, the woman known best for keeping tennis balls as pets, has another special interest: records. She curates her collection with love, dusting the covers twice a week and, tonight, tenderly returning a misplaced Isabella Leonarda record to its place among the other pop albums.
Fire chief Frank Barnaby is unable to fall asleep tonight. After having tossed and turned for over an hour, he has risen from his bed to watch M*A*S*H while playing Wordscapes on the living room couch. I hope you can find rest soon, Frank.
Listeners, I think it’s time for another Frances H. Arnold poem! Ooh, Geography Blues is a good one. [brief pause] Here:
“Is yearning the same as having an affair?
Can I have passion for two opposing things?
I wish
I did not have to compromise
I wish
I did not have to choose
I wish
This world was not so binary.
This is
About Star Trek and Star Wars.”
This afternoon, there was a workshop teaching people on how to make floral wreaths. Shinji and I went, as our décor around the home has gotten a little stale; we need to freshen up the look of the place, and making a floral wreath with your non-romantic partner is just the way to do it. Did you know, listeners, that there are multiple types of wreaths? Yeah! Types include wire, grapevine, Styrofoam, and esophageal. Ours were wire wreaths. I used all sorts of flowers to decorate mine: passionflower, aster, poison oak, goldenrod. Shinji used Turk’s cap lilies, Dutchman’s breeches, and pink lady’s slipper. Sadly, the workshop quickly ran out of Shinji’s favorite flower, father’s profit. Their wreath looked better than mine regardless. We’ve already hung it right above the toilet.
Did any of you go to the county fair last weekend? I did. I had only once before, never previously having much interest in the event. But Alejandra—my necromancer scientist friend—dragged me along this year. I actually had a good time. There were more kinds of animals there than I ever knew were on show. There were guinea pigs and llamas and ducks! I even got to pet a goat. There were also some booths where local artists got to show off and sell their work. Elderly Juniper Solo had her homemade bones at a significant discount.
I tried a new restaurant the other day. It’s a relatively recent addition to our little town, taking the place of the old shrine to Octavia Butler that had been standing for a few centuries. (For those of you wondering, the shrine was moved to the pet cemetery so Octavia can guide our beloved deceased pets to another happy place.) The restaurant is called the Bean Throne. It serves all sorts of variations on only one type of food: cheese. I ordered this cheesy risotto, and listeners, it was exquisite. I’m no food connoisseur, but I can tell you that the cheese was savory, and the risotto was as spicy as that little rice can grow. The restaurant also offers tarot readings. I didn’t take them up on that this time, but I certainly will in the near future.
It is, I believe, time for one more poem before the show ends tonight. Let’s see…you know what? Let’s do one of my own. Here is Interrogating My Soul:
“Women.
What are they?
Do they feel what they are?
How do they know?
I feel nothing where womanhood should be.
Is my womanhood just weak?
Or does it not exist at all?
How do I know?
What am I?
Julian.”
Stay tuned next for the audio of the entire Lord of the Rings saga played backwards at three-quarter speed. Have a wonderful rest of your night, Mercy Mountain.
