To Read & To Write

George Takei's graphic novel - illustrated by Harmony Becker and co-written with Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott - is an important entry into American history that, for the most part, has not been delved into at depth (and very much should be). Takei's graphic novel, They Called Us Enemy , chronicles his life's memory beginning with a short childhood spent in California and then only a little bit later, the rest of his childhood spent in Japanese Internment Camps set-up by the U.S. government during World War II due to a attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese government. Takei's journey is an astounding glimpse into a world fraught with racial politics; the problems with defining people, especially immigrants, by their ethnicity, and the extreme, wieldy, power an unlawful government has to wreak havoc on a person's identity, physical and mental, by means of vocabulary (images of the wartime propaganda are shown), ideological impositions on/of "law" (the j...

To put it lightly: every time I've picked up "Roman Letters" since its publication I've been reminded that I'm fully alive, not quite dead yet, and that I hate it. And yet, it is precisely the letters in this book that have urged me continue on, despite all my illnesses, mental and physical, and all the disgusting politics that go with that. With steady words, the stories Williams tells throughout this masterpiece of a text convince me that maybe it's not so bad, maybe it's completely OK to go on living with this hatred of my existence; moreover, that it is necessary for me to unpack what's there, to go in deep into that emptiness, and, for the sake it, become that gorgeous thing like Williams' Napoli... that Italian city that he traverses (Rome and Bologna among others)... a city that is gorgeous, "gut-clenching gorgeous, because it has stopped caring whether or not it exists, but still it does." (81) "Roman Letters" is the ...

"In the Land of Giants: A Journey Through the Dark Ages" by Max Adams (2016) is exemplar of how I wish history would always be written. Adams, an archaeologist, writer, and traveller has a profound understanding of Great Britain's history, and uses its architecture, landscapes, metalwork, books, and other geological sites to explain and theoretically dissect the events of its past in order to understand the present historical - and moreover - social - conjuncture. In this book, Adams unpacks one of the most ambiguous times in Great Britain's long history, what is known as the Dark Ages, using artifacts, pathways, and geological markers that still, unbeknownst to the majority, stand (either above or underground) to this day. Furthermore, to make his work all the more visceral, Adams avoids traveling by anything other than his own two feet, and in doing so falls into the landscape and its horizons as his predecessors would have.  Though there have been recent e...

(Listen to the audio version of this letter read by Resonance Audio) My short review:  A powerful and passionate letter to all of us in these times of riot, rebellion, and mayhem. Instead of seeing those who dissent the perpetuation of classicism and racism, particularly by the hands of the police, as apart from the whole (indeed, of humanity), Williams asks us, in well reasoned vexation, to take notice of our blind spots and understand how to fathom these chaotic rebellions as natural responses to injustice, greed, and ignorance. Whether you are part of the rebellion or one who witnesses the death and destruction from your velvet couch, the point here is not so much an urge for you to dis/continue setting fires or to move from your meditative position in order to stoke it, but rather to consider the actions leading up to such hellish disruption; a consideration that hopefully leads to a connective point disavowing all the structures set in place that makes class and rac...

Have you heard this story before? A woman, torn between her feelings for two different men, ends up making the wrong decision and lives a life of pain, suffering, and longing. Does that sound familiar? Though that storyline comprises the basic plot of Samuel Park’s “This Burns My Heart” (2011), I promise that there is something especially distinctive about this story, which I would even go so far as to call an epic saga. The novel is made up of four parts, each one named for a plant organism special to Korean culture; Part 1: Chrysanthemum, Part 2: Orchid, Part 3: Plum Blossom, and Part 4: Bamboo.   Each of these plants represents something specific, which is beautifully explained by Park within the context of the story, but can be said simply to symbolize resilience, strength, and persistence in the face of harsh circumstances. These characteristics align with how Korean society became after the war, during the 1960s. Everyone in “This Burns My Heart” is an embodiment ...