II. 
My dentist tells me that my tooth with the root canal can no longer stay. The clinical term for my diagnosis is pulp necrosis. It’s a type of abscess. I go home and read the technical definition of necrosis on a webpage: : … a diagnostic category indicating the death of cells and tissues in the pulp chamber of a tooth with or without bacterial invasion. It is often the end result of many cases of dental trauma, caries and irreversible pulpitis. …. The dentist says that the death was caused by a fracture in my roots. Splitted into multiple parts and can no longer bear the weight and pressure above the surface. I didn’t even feel the split. No sensation left to feel that demolition. 
>>Part of me dies and I don’t even know it. 

III. 
An extraction: The sense of foreign lived within me for years. Barely had problems. Beneath the alien material, I didn’t feel the death in my roots; a necrotic state of being. I know my tooth has been long dead but I’m hesitant to let go. I ask my oral surgeon if it needs to go immediately. The oral surgeon confirms for me because, “We want to keep you healthy.” So they evict the necrosis out of my mouth. I feel no pain, no sensation. Is numbness a blessing? When the tooth leaves my body, the left cheek feels distinctly flat. Then, a certain kind of despair rises in my chest. If I couldn’t feel its death, then how come I feel the trauma of its departure? Why am I mourning for this loss? It seems strange to feel sad about something that was already destroyed into a complete lack of sensation many years ago. What’s the difference between a lack of sensation and lack of existence? Perhaps I wanted a proper burial. Maybe I’m not mourning its death. Maybe I’m mourning its annihilation; a separation of the necrotic mass from the site of trauma, history, heritage, and its birthplace. The tooth that was once able to have sensations. The tooth that was once able to detect danger. The tooth that was once destroyed by foreign entities and human hands. The tooth that survived many cases of trauma even in its vegetative state of being. The tooth that had to embrace numbness as a way of survival. Gone. Where?
>>Part of me leaves and I don’t even know it. 

IV. 
A genealogy: 임창실 was the name of my grandmother. It is roughly translated as “Abundance of fruits in the woods.” It’s a beautiful name with an imagery that, at the same time, implies the expected performance of her gender embodied in her female body. Maria was another. She was baptized in Pyongyang, North Korea, where she was born. It’s also the name of the woman who birthed Jesus Christ. For non-believers of Christianity: a woman of the legendary child-bearing. It was a biblical, Catholic name that most people in her social life used to call her until her death. Her third name was “林” and it was pronounced in the colonizer’s tongue as [Hayashi]. It contained only one meaning: a Japanese pronunciation of her Korean surname, “Lim.” A mark. Meaning reduced down to a label, a number. Under the Japanese rule where her youth was buried, she was Hayashi and Hayashi only.
>>The woman with three names. 

V. 
An inheritance: I imagine my grandmother still living. She is sitting on the stack of blankets laid across her living room floor. The faint light from the daytime TV is reflected upon the translucent skin of her face. Her expression is empty. Is she really there? I tread softly on the linoleum floor as I approach her. I breathe quietly. As I reach her living room, I sit on the threshold to look upon her in silence. Minutes pass. I finally gather the courage to call her but I hesitate. Which one? If I wasn’t her grandchild, by which name would I call her? Is calling one’s name inherently predicated by the caller’s identity, rather than the subject’s? Thwarted by this contradiction, I stay sitting on that threshold. The vision of her swirls past and leaves me. After she passed away, my father gave me a small gold crucifix. He said it belonged to my grandmother and I so often reminded him of his beloved mother-in-law. He named me Fabiola at my baptism. From Maria to Fabiola. I keep the crucifix in a chocolate tin. Once in a blue moon, I open the tin and look upon the crucifix with the brown rust all over. I can’t erase the vision of my grandmother as the holy mother shedding tears for the son of god on her lap; the lifeless body she’s holding in her arms. There’s something swelling up beneath me but I don’t know what it is. Perhaps an abscess. But I’m numb. I put the statue back inside and close the chocolate tin.
>>I go on living my life the way I did. 

VI. 
A narrative: [a record with static plays inside your head in a dubbed English under a murmur of a Korean woman speaking in distance.] … your grandmother was only twenty-five when she escaped from North Korea with a priest. North Korea prohibited Catholicism among many other things. She didn’t have any luggage with her and all she had was her own body. She crossed the cold river in the Korean winter and the priest fell ill as soon as they reached the South. … The war came the following year. She never saw her family again. She worked as a nurse at the Seoul University Hospital, and her fiance from the North came to find her during the war. He became a military officer. She ran and hid from her ex-fiance, now a North Korean soldier. … When your grandmother went into a coma with low blood sugar in her last days, he came back to find her in her dreams. He called for her, “Hayashi…. Hayashi…. Come home.” The dream was the first thing she told me about when she woke from her coma. … I don’t think she’s ever loved him. But I knew my mother’s time was up. She didn’t have much time left here. … and she … [the sound subsides.] 

七. 
林の死の日, “Hayashi’s Day of Death” [a dream; a TV show; a historical-fiction-soap-opera; a fuzzy, pastel-toned scene on a TV screen appears in front of your eyes]

>>“林! 林! 
>>どこにいますか? 
>>私と来て! 家に帰りましょう!” … 

>>[Closed Caption] Hayashi! Hayashi! 
>>Where are you? 
>>Come with me! Let’s go home! … 

VIII. 
A classified information [an epic of a prince with no home; a ghost story]: 

The Foreign Service of the United States of America 
United States Political Advisor for Japan 

No. 670 Tokyo,
Oct 12,1948 
RESTRICTED 

Subject: Nationality and Property of Prince Ri Gin, Ranking Member of Former Korean Royal Family.

The Honorable 
The Secretary of State. 
Washington. 

Sir: 

>>I have the honor to invite the Department’s attention to various questions concerning the nationality and property of Prince Ri Gin (whose Korean name is Lee Eun). 

>>At his request Prince Ri called on an officer of this Mission and stated that he is in doubt as to the status of his nationality and as to the probable disposition of his property in both Japan and Korea. In regard to his nationality he explained that although he was born in Korea of Korean parents, he has lived in Japan for many years, had married a Japanese, and was entered in the family register of the Japanese imperial family. He said that he wishes to donate his property in Korea outright to the Korean government but that he hopes to retain his property in Japan as a source of livelihood. Prince Ri added that he has no intention of returning to Korea or of allowing his name to be used in Korea for political purposes, in spite of what he felt was the desire of some elements in Korea that he return as king. In regard to his personal plans, Prince Ri stated that, if his financial condition should permit, he would like to go to the United States for an extended visit or for permanent residence; he hopes that his son, who is now sixteen years old, will be able to receive his higher education in the United States. 

IX. 
An immigration: Before I crossed the border, my father begged me to see him. I’d been ignoring his messages and calls for months, but I finally gave in. I told him to meet at a cafe and sent him the address. He struggled to find the place and arrived thirty minutes late. He walked towards my table with a look of despair. We exchanged a few words that I don’t remember anymore, then I told him I was leaving the country. And I told him I’m going to the United States to make money and I wouldn’t be coming back to Korea. Hearing this, he said something. But I don’t remember. It’s as if I blacked out. When I awoke from the haze, I told him to stop calling me or looking for me. After my parents’ divorce, poverty, and their abuse, I wanted to cut ties. A total uprooting. He started weeping. I watched him with the strange feeling of dissociation. None of this felt real to me. It felt as if I was watching television. A soap opera. My mind floated up like a balloon and watched the two of us from the ceiling. A few days later, I got on a flight. Looking out the window, I imagined my homeland exploding behind me, and then buried into a mound of oblivion. I closed my eyes. There was something swelling up inside me but I couldn’t tell what it was. Perhaps an abscess. But I was numb. With my eyes closed, I kept replaying the image of the explosion in my mind. 
>>Part of me dies and I don’t even feel it. 

X. 
A permanent resident: 

Department of Homeland Security 
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services I-797, Notice of Action 

Receipt number: XXXXXXXX 
Case Type: I 485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
Receipt Date: October 29, 2015 
Applicant: Jang, Hanee 
Notice Date: February 16, 2016 

Hanee Jang 
Louisville, KY XXXXX 

Notice type: Approval Notice 
Section: Adjustment as direct beneficiary of immigrant petition 

>>>>>>WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

This is to notify you that your application for permanent residence has been approved. It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to permanent resident status in the United States. 

Notice: Although this application/petition has been approved, USCIS and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reserves the right to verify the information submitted in this application, petition, and/or supporting documentation to ensure conformity with applicable laws, rules, regulations, and other authorities. Methods used for verifying information may include, but are not limited to, the review of the public information and records, contact by correspondence, the internet, or telephone, and site inspections of businesses and residence. Information obtained during the course of verification will be used to determine whether revocation, rescission, and/or removal proceedings are appropriate. Applicants, petitioners, and representatives of record will be provided an opportunity to address derogatory information before any formal proceeding is initiated.

 National Benefits Center 
USCIS, DHS 
P.O. BOX # XXXXX 
LEE’S SUMMIT, MO. XXXXX 
Customer Service Telephone: (XXX)XXX-XXXX 

XI. 
An assimilation: 
Emails 

[threads continue]

XII. 
A commencement: [an assimilation, continued] 

The loud sound from the speakers in the auditorium announces, 
>>“Students, please come up to the stage when your name is announced.” 
>>“….Nina Yang, Master of Science.” 

XIV. 
A clinical definition of amnesia on a webpage: … is a deficit in memory. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the extent of damage that was caused. Individuals with amnesia can learn new information, particularly if the information is non-declarative knowledge. Some people who suffer  from amnesia show abnormal amounts of memory loss, confusion, and difficulty recalling other people or places. People who recover often do not remember having amnesia. 

XVI. 
A disillusionment of an immigrant: [a hymn] 

I once walked in the woods. I do not recall when or where. 
I only remember the sound, the colors, the peace, the horror. 
I found a tree with long open arms. 
There were so many fruits in the tree.
They were so beautiful. 
So lavish, so lustrous. 
The fruits, however, fell, 
one, 
two, 
and three. 

The tree shed its fruits, 
the crying mother of god, 
only to stand and watch. 
The fruits. They were burning. 
Burning from what? 
There was no fire 
but the fruits turned black tar, 
decaying from the inside. 
I cried, too. 
I sat on the grass. 
And her leaves caressed my cheeks, 
we held each other 
for a long time 
and mourn the fruits on the ground. 

I could hear the laughter in the wind, 
other trees and their arms madly swung about, 
laughing and then crying, 
mirroring our tears. 
Or was it we mirroring them? 
I suddenly smiled, not knowing why. 
In pieces my grandmother screamed inside me, 
“Fabiola! They set fire in the woods! やめてください! … 안녕.” 
The forest was loud 
and empty 
at the same time. 
And I woke up. 

What is it in my mouth that is gone?
I do not recall. 
The dream lingers on 
when I close my eyes. 

Why did she call me Fabiola? She’s never done that before. 
Fabiola. The nurse in red cloth. 
the patron saint of divorced people, 
victims of abuse, 
the unfaithfuls. 

I don’t know what I don’t remember. 
I don’t feel anything. I am whole. 
Just call me Nina. 
Nina. 
Nina. 
Nina. 
… 
Nina who? 

Part of me dies and I don’t even feel it.

The post Necrosisamnesia appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Australian culture has never been particularly well looked after in its home country. Decades of poor funding and even worse management has led to Australian’s creative traditions being devoured by American and European traditions. Few ordinary Australians could name an Australian painter or writer, possibly they could name a film or an actor. It’s a special kind of tradition that began almost as far back as the 1950’s and was described then as ‘the Cultural Cringe’ (Phillips).

Our uniquely Australian perspective is like a stubborn plant occasionally treated with liquid fertilizer, more often than not it’s casually sprayed with weed killer. It has not exactly thrived but managed to find a couple of patches of dirt in which its roots can grow and a few flowers can perhaps not bloom but at least reach maturity. 

Melbourne in particular, is a UNESCO City of Literature but has been let down on the state and  federal level by politicians who see the Arts as simply another financial wing of the Australian  economy: a profitable export. 

What I thought I might do is give you a list of some superb examples of Australian writing that you may be missing out on. I really do think that Australian culture is ill defined in its native country and internationally as well. If I can get you to do anything after reading this it is to read something Australian. 

Acute Misfortune, Erik Jensen (2014) 

If you can be bothered to read reviews, Acute Misfortune has been described extensively if a little  bit dismissively as being ‘novella sized’ and having a ‘gimlet eye’. As if the book was too small and  stuffed with bitter scrutiny to really be worth five stars. It is small and laser focused but it is also  capable of being a biting study of Australian identity to the attentive and sensitive reader. 

Acute Misfortune is the true story of Erik Jensen’s four-year friendship with the Australian painter  Adam Cullen set shortly before Cullen’s death in 2012. It doesn’t hold back. It uses real names and  tells the story as honestly as it can. It analyses why Cullen felt so pressured to behave the way he  did. Drugs, violence, guns and paintings. Substance abuse and shocking behaviour became crutches  holding up Cullen’s life and artistic career. 

Personally I blame former Prime Minister John Howard for all of this. I blame John Howard for a great deal actually. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Paul Keating (John Howard’s predecessor) was determined to create a modern, aspirational Australia identity. A nation more in connection to Asia than America or the UK. A thousand, unique blossoms bloom in the garden kind of thing. Howard fundamentally disagreed with this idea. He argued that Australian identity was decisively western, conservative and collective. It was Australia Day, the idea of a fair go, the British Commonwealth and a general distrust of those who  aspire to rise above their station. It was what sat in your gut ,and that your first instinct is your best one.

I see the struggle of Adam Cullen’s life through that clash in Australian ideology. Cullen’s toxic masculinity was a facade, demonstrated to him by the country he inhabited. His rejection of the multifaceted, sophisticated life and his whole-hearted embrace of petty, uncomplicated Australiana is as much the fault of John Howard as it is the artistic landscape of the time. A time of high economic growth and stifled political debate both of which benefited those establishment figures who already possessed both wealth and prestige. What Howard argued was that the ‘Lucky Country’ became instead the ‘Frightened Country’. Scared of immigrants, change and in some cases the reality of the wider world (Marr).

Acute Misfortune is a fantastic and essential read for those people willing to look beyond just the beautifully constructed words on the page. For me, the book reads as a state of the nation in the early 2010’s. Still struggling to emerge from the shadow of Little Johnny Howard and the ignorance of our own cultural output he instilled in generations following his leadership of our large island nation.

Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe (2014)  

Dark Emu, in my opinion, is probably one of the most interesting books on Australian history you could read today. The intention behind Pascoe’s work is to provide an alternative perspective to Aboriginal history and challenge preconceived ideas of first settlers as primitive and technologically backward.

I’ll be honest with you, Pascoe’s work is by no means utterly faultless; there is arguably a cherry picking of sources and a focus on non-Aboriginal sources. But you have to understand how fascinating both the intention and the effect of Dark Emu had on Melbourne and Australia as a  whole.  

Pascoe argues that in pre-contact times, Australian Aboriginal people weren’t just hunter gatherers; they were agriculturalists who changed their landscape to benefit  their communities. Examples of this include aquaculture in rivers, more permanent kinds of  settlements, and the spreading of seeds. He also contends that this evidence of pre-colonial  Aboriginal societies was often deliberately erased by early colonisers. For some in Australia, the  idea of our enormous continent being anything other than a sunburnt wasteland drove people  literally insane with rage.  

If you read most reviews of Dark Emu, the perception of it is considered mixed. Reviewers talk  about the book’s popularity or use gentle, academic phrases like ‘sparked debate’ and  ‘generated controversy’. This language does not go far enough to convey the tangible effect of the book’s release. People were sincerely upset by this book: media personalities called the whole thing a sham and a  waste of paper. The book tore open holes in the minds of many Australians. Some individuals could  find no academic way of absolutely discrediting Pascoe, so they critiqued his standing as an Aboriginal person instead.  

People who I personally thought of as uninterested in Aboriginal rights, or just non-readers on the  whole, were outraged by Dark Emu at the dinner table. For some, it confirmed their greatest fears,  that Australians had invaded and destroyed a society that already existed here long  before we rocked up and started telling ourselves this was all grass and kangaroos.  

Pascoe doesn’t fall into the quagmire of elaborate language, he writes simply for what is ostensibly an academic book. A big reason why I recommend Dark  Emu is that it is designed to be easy to read and digest.  

More so than any other piece of fiction or nonfiction published in the last decade, Dark Emu has brought a discussion of Australia’s colonial history into the mainstream, and we are all the better for it.  

This House of Grief, Helen Garner (2014)

Helen Garner’s work is the chicken parmigiana of the Australian literary landscape. Her work is fundamental much in the same way the chicken parma is to the traditional pub landscape. Just as every  pub must have a chicken parma special during the week, so too must every Melbourne bookshop  have at least a couple Garners out the back. Much like the parma, she is a reliable seat-filler.

This true crime book is a heart breaking story of a father, Robert Farquharson destroying his family, by murdering his three sons, because he is a broken man. Garner contends that perhaps all men are capable of reaching their breaking point and committing such an act. To do something totally unforgivable. I think Garner hints in this book at the idea of Australian identity being a fragmented thing. An artificial construct designed to shield most people from the harsh realities of living in Australia. More than 95% of Australians are non-indigenous, with no real understanding of why we are here and our short-lived traditions are designed to shield us from that fact rather than help us embrace and overcome it. It helps to come to this land pre-broken, with some kind of family chip on your shoulder. We fight for, purchase and build upon broken, colonised land that was never ours to begin with. It makes sense as to why people and communities who live here can end up perhaps even just a little bit broken. Garner uses the story of Robert Farquharson as a kind of warning, we can all, in different ways, be pushed to a breaking point. 

Garner’s insight and perspective is razor focused. She provides a fascinating examination of Robert Farquharson’s female relatives, and the effect of the children’s deaths on Cindy Gambino and her family. Garner  offers a unique perspective on the world around her by drawing attention to her role as author and  witness rather than trying to blend invisibly in the background. 

Her familiarity with Australian life is why she has had such tremendous success. 1 in every 100 Melburnians claims to have actually met Helen Garner. At swimming pools, super markets, university lunches, book shops and out the front of flinders street station. She is a kind of special literary ghost. I suspect 1 in every 1000 actually has met her.

I saw her speak most recently in 2025 about her most recent book The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder, to a packed house at the Melbourne Town Hall. Her words have the ability to transfix and unify, and just as everyone has their favorite pub parma, everyone has their favorite Garner work. This House of Grief is both mine and my mothers.

Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers, Ryan  O’Neill (2016) 

They are not real authors, the book is a clever work of fiction. 

Now that I’ve got the headline out of the way. My comments and thoughts. Their Brilliant Careers tells the story of 16 fictional yet highly realized Australian authors, comprising 16 individual but interconnected short stories.

O’Neill was most obviously inspired by Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño, who in  turn was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges. However O’Neill does so much more than simply mimic  Bolaño or Borges. He gives each of his chosen subjects a unique Australian flair: some cling to the  city, others flee to the regions or the suburbs. There is a restlessness about these characters that the  author captures perfectly with a clean and crisp prose. There is a stylised exactness about this  collection that makes it one of my favourites. Of the individual authors my favourites would  probably be Francis X McVeigh, Vivian Darkbloom and Helen Harkaway. There is a precision and emotion in each of these characters that touches me deeply and personally. I feel like given the right (or wrong) mix of choices I could end up just like them. 

The first time I read the book the individual stories were entertaining, but I didn’t fully appreciate the specifically Australian position of the work. It is a warm and comforting read the second time around. It’s a literary Kath and Kim. A humorous and gently affirming experience that enhances your perspective on what Australian culture can be. 

Their Brilliant Careers works so well because O’Neill is commenting on an absence. There is no  tangible literary landscape in the capital cities or the regions of this country. There are no libraries, cafes or restaurants or small towns famous for its cultural inhabitants. There are small clubs, reading circles and communities scattered like warts on a beautiful face. These blemishes are networking events rather than actual meaningful places of conversation and discussion. Culture is not something ingrained into our society. It has latched on like a parasite. The art, music, theatre, literature and creativity on our continent clings desperately to a hulking beast with Australia branded across its backside.

I enjoy Their Brilliant Careers because of the cultural absence it identified in Australia. There are no real literary cults set up around our writers or journalists in the way they are in America (see Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison or Truman Capote for more details). Their Brilliant Careers uses imaginative prose and compact storytelling to explore a kind of literary what if in Australian culture.

The Henson Case, David Marr (2008) 

This non-fiction selection is a hard find, but that, to me, is part of the experience of enjoying a really good book. It’s light and easy to read. The book explores the cultural fallout surrounding the 2008 raiding of a Sydney gallery.

The ‘case’ was a simple one. Bill Henson had been a professional, practising photographer since the mid-1970s.  He had cultivated institutional as well as social support for his work and had several major exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. Marr recounts the photographer’s exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, and the public media furore  that emerged from its invitation. The author takes a certain delight in naming and shaming those who first  brewed this storm of scandal.

The uproar around Bill Henson’s photos rose to such a level of outrage that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd,  described the photos by Henson as “absolutely revolting”. This, for Marr, was the final betrayal. A failure of leadership from a politician who had promised change, who had advocated for the arts when it was convenient, but chose to deliver populist scorn instead. This is the main thrust of Marr’s argument: if we live in the free democracy promised to us, we should have the right to express ourselves,  and to do so without being immediately strung up for crossing unspoken social taboos. Marr takes a refreshingly moderate approach in his criticism and acknowledges that his work is not for everyone. His position is that of strict anti-censorship. 

I think this book reminds its readers of modern events and foreshadows the  cultural quagmire some feel themselves sinking into. First and foremost for me, it would be the removal and reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative at the 2026 Venice  Biennale. Sabsabi was controversially dumped only to then be quietly reinstated as Australia’s representative. His ‘crime’ was depicting Palestinian political figures in his paintings (Jefferson). The fact that Sabsabi, a professional artist has to justify his political perspective and how it relates to his work is an insult to any artist, but particularly to an Australian creative landscape who applauds the socially-aware work of Kaylene Whiskey because it appears harmlessly inoffensive (Silcox).

Interestingly, the title, The Henson Case, also hints at the resolution. Because there was no ‘Henson  Trial’ or ‘Oxley9 Trial’. No charges were ever issued against anybody for these images. Something  happened, some vein was pressed too tightly in the hearts of ordinary Australians.

If Helen Garner is to be a chicken parma, I would argue David Marr is to be a Vodka Soda with Lime. His writing is fundamental. On the surface, you imagine it to be something cheap and simple. Beneath that, you have something that kicks the back of your throat (or the mind, in Marr’s case) when you  really need it to. He is one of the few Australian authors I can think of who will argue with you as a reader and actively try to work you over to his side. He writes convincingly of how individual cases of censorship like this one can cause lasting damage to the Australian cultural landscape. 

These are all really excellent books and well worth a read. Even if you only read one you  will be doing yourself a tremendous favour. If these reviews do anything they should inspire you to support and visit Melbourne. It’s a literary landscape desperate for your attention. It’s in my opinion the greatest city in the world and beyond reproach. I would know because I have never lived anywhere else.

My hope is that, in the future, we see a recognition of Australia as a really unique and special place deserving of cultural attention. We live in what can feel like the perfect beginner’s level to life. Artists like Kaylene Whiskey, Brett Whiteley and Adam Cullen. Writers like Helen Garner, David Marr and Henry Lawson. These are established individuals who I feel have long gone unrecognized for their skill and talent because of their identity. If I want you to do anything I would encourage you to read and embrace something Australian, before it vanishes in a puff of poorly-funded air.

Citations

Jefferson, Dee. After a turbulent year, Australia’s Khaled Sabsabi will present two works at the Venice Biennale. Sydney, The Guardian, 2026. The Guardian Newspaper

Marr, David. His Master’s Voice: The Corruption of Public Debate Under Howard. Quarterly Essay 26 ed., Melbourne, Black Inc., 2007. Accessed 17/5/2026.

Phillips, A. A. The Cultural Cringe. 4th ed., Brisbane, Meanjin, 1950, https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-cultural-cringe-by-a-a-phillips/. Accessed 16/4/2026.

Silcox, Beejay. The joyful world of Kaylene Whiskey: the Indigenous artist pulling Dolly Parton and Wonder Woman into the outback. Melbourne, The Guardian Newspaper, 2025

The post 5 Aussie Reads appeared first on The New Absurdist.

“It’s because I’m a pig isn’t it? … I did not get the nomination for best actress … can you  honestly say I am not Oscar material? … In this male chauvinist, non pig world, did you ever  think I even stood a chance?”  

Miss Piggy to Johnny Carson at the 52nd Annual Academy Awards.¹ 

I should begin with honesty. A very good place to start. I am not a Muppet fanatic. I have not  always adored Miss Piggy as much as I adore her now. I was, for a long time, much more of an  establishment Disney villain queer. A devoted worshipper at the shrines of Cruella De Vil or  Ursula the Sea Witch. That said, I can happily watch a Muppet film with a glass of wine and enjoy a  pleasant giggle. 

Something about Miss Piggy struck me more deeply than the usual queer coded Disney villains. It  could be the wig. It could be the dress. It is probably the karate chops. As a queer man, I am  constitutionally inclined to admire a confident female character who can karate chop a villain with  one hand and cradle her amphibian lover in the other. 

There is something irresistibly special about Miss Piggy. 

Her position in the public eye fascinates me. How could it not. 

Miss Piggy has been a still performing celebrity since her debut in 1974 as Piggy Lee, a parody of  the singer Peggy Lee, in a Jim Henson television special. ² Since then she has done everything. She has starred in multiple feature films including The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The  Fantastic Miss Piggy Show and The Muppets Take Manhattan. She has hosted, guest starred, sung  duets, delivered monologues and stolen scenes with alarming ease. 

Through all of this, Piggy has developed a distinct comedic persona, one that draws heavily from  the work of earlier comedic and dramatic female stars. She is a vessel for those classic feminine  sensibilities, preserving them, exaggerating them and carrying them forward into the present day. In  a strange way, she functions as both archive and performance. 

Miss Piggy does not age. She is, much unlike myself, unvarnished by time. 

Because she does not age, she is spared the usual indignities that accompany celebrity longevity.  There is no physical decline to be commented on, no descent into public cognitive fragility, no late  career unraveling that forces audiences to renegotiate how they feel about her. Unlike so many real  celebrities of the past, she does not become an awful person, nor is she reframed through hindsight  as someone whose opinions now make us wince. 

Stars of her era tend to fall into familiar categories. Some become venerated icons, endlessly  rehabilitated and re-contextualised, like Jane Fonda. Others quietly disappear into the fog of  nostalgia, remembered fondly but vaguely, like your Tallulah Bankhead or Lauren Bacall. Miss  Piggy exists in both spaces at once. 

She is a figure of nostalgia and an active character in the contemporary media landscape. 

She is a kind of immortal Carol Burnett, who fittingly appeared as a guest on The Muppet Show in  1980. 

Because of this, Miss Piggy acts as a bridge to the previous century and to older, conventional ideas  about femininity. She embodies them so fully that she is able to subvert them, twisting tradition into  something that still resonates with modern audiences. Her exaggerated glamour becomes  commentary rather than costume. 

Modern pop stars even echo her influence. Chappell Roan, for example, has been rumoured to  draw inspiration from Miss Piggy’s theatrical silhouettes and unapologetic excess. ³ This makes a strange kind of sense. Piggy understood the power of costume long before the internet turned  fashion into a language of identity. 

I am always interested in who Miss Piggy appears alongside. 

On the original Muppet Show, she sang duets with John Denver, Elton John and Raquel Welch.  Piggy is endlessly adaptable. She bends just enough to fit the guest star of the week without ever  losing herself. Her personality is strong but elastic, capable of surviving any context. 

In the most recent iteration of The Muppet Show, she appears beside Sabrina Carpenter. What is  striking here is that Carpenter subtly adjusts herself to fit Miss Piggy, rather than the other way  around. That alone says a great deal about Piggy’s accumulated cultural weight. By embodying  stereotypes and gleefully undermining them, she has somehow become a modern trendsetter. 

This is not something all boundary breaking celebrities manage. 

Plenty of stars who once seemed radical now feel awkward, dated or outright troubling. Scarlett  Johansson and Diane Keaton (until her death) continue to defend Woody Allen. Nicki Minaj has called herself Trump’s number one fan . Patti Lupone being Patti Lupone . ^{5 6} 

Divas age. They change. Often the media reacts badly to those changes, often unfairly. But Miss  Piggy avoids this entire cycle. At the end of the day, she is literally put back in a box and stored  until she is needed again, perfectly preserved. 

Sabrina Carpenter is an interesting choice, but not an inspired one. The new Muppet Show is  intriguing, yet it ultimately feels like a retreat into familiar territory. If you love The Muppet Show,  you might as well just watch the original. It remains sharper, stranger and more alive than its  successors. 

Miss Piggy’s greatest appeal is her ability to function as a bridge. On the surface, she is just a pig  puppet in a wig and a dress. Beneath that surface is a personality capable of making people feel  seen, affirmed and entertained all at once. 

As an entity, Miss Piggy also works as a quiet teaching tool. For audiences still learning about  pronouns, identity and gender norms, she offers an accessible example. You can point to her and  say, notice how this character refuses to be defined by what society expects of her. That is a deeply  uplifting thing, even when it arrives wrapped in satin gloves and dramatic eyelashes. 

Diva worship is basically my religion, and Miss Piggy absolutely deserves a niche, if not a full altar. 

My favourite historical nugget is Miss Piggy’s 1979 campaign for the leading actress Oscar for her  role in The Muppet Movie. It is what I love most about her. It felt like a genuine expression of  character rather than a corporate publicity stunt. That campaign even produced a wonderfully  absurd exchange between ABC’s Hughes Rudd and Academy President Fay Kanin. 

“To see Miss Piggy is to think of Olivia De Haviland, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid  Bergman, Oscar winners all. So why shouldn’t Piggy have an Oscar?” 

“You know we all do love Miss Piggy,” Kanin replied, “but the rules of the Academy say that  we give awards and nominations to actors and actresses, not to characters, and since Miss  Piggy is a character, we just can’t, we can’t do that.” 

Miss Piggy, of course, would disagree. And she would be right in doing so.

The post The Glamorous, Immortal Nostalgia of Miss Piggy  appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Would it be so bad to admit that this grief is for the childhood dogs I grew up with? I don’t think I will ever truly stop missing them, remembering them, mistaking the scratch of a branch at the window for their smallfooted bodies waiting to come back inside. The idea of a dog being ‘just a dog’ is a foreign concept to me, despite having heard those words time and time again in my life. 

Sweet things — it was only years ago, some hot summer, the sun baking us in the metal of our boat. My family, a few cousins, and me, on a heat wave weekend. The waters were choppy and unforgiving, but T-bone and Minnie had good lake legs. They knew how to move around, how to stand, when to sit, and when to brace themselves. They had always been the best deckhands on the Cobalt, but as the years bore on in those palmetto days, I saw the change. The new slowness, the minor struggle you could only identify when really searching for it. Before the days were over, though, they would have managed to steal a few chips from my mama. If I had known what times would be the last, I would’ve given them a few more. I would’ve laid by them on the brown floor of the boat the whole ride. 

I try to fill these days with reading, much as I do any other time of the year, but in the winter with more of a desperation. I have been digging through Mary Oliver’s Devotions. Containing some of her best work across many of her different publications, there was a poem that stuck with me the most: Her Grave, which hails from her 2013 poetry collection Dog Songs. 

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog. 

She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin 

from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile — 

and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her 

cunning elbows, 

And I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming 

perfect arch of her neck. 

Dog Songs details the canine companions of Oliver’s life, and expresses the profound love and joy they brought her in details that are etched in a sort of nostalgia. Each poem recalls a dog that she can only continue to love in memory or retrospect. In the language of each poem are intimate recollections of not just their habits and personalities, but their features, their bodies, and the things about each of them that brought a familiarity even in their passing. Her Grave is one of the longest and most heartbreaking of the collection, as she remembers fondly the last days of her dog, Luke. 

It took four of us to carry her into the woods. 

We did not think of music, 

but, anyway, it began to rain 

slowly.

Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce. 

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something. 

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash 

of happiness as she barged 

through the pitch pines swiping my face with her 

wild, slightly mossy tongue. 

It is through even the smallest of descriptions that she gives us the devoted imagery of Luke, staving away from any kind of apathetic ennui. It makes sense that Oliver would hone in on furry friends when a great majority of her writing is based in the natural world. However, instead of basing us in her usual lakes, mountains, or forests, we find ourselves in the simple places we often are with our pets. Fields, kitchens, bathrooms. For Her Grave, it is in the hardest of these: those last days, and a resting place. 

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat? 

He is wiser than that, I think. 

A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky. 

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds 

think it is all their own music? 

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you 

do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the 

trees, or the laws which pertain to them. 

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill 

think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment 

of her long slumber? 

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the 

smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know 

almost nothing. 

It was in this section that I had to sit with what Oliver was writing. I didn’t understand why she was referencing these animals and critters, or what they meant. I understood that we did not truly own our dogs, but what did that mean here? 

What I did know is that losing a dog is a special grief. And I think that, with human life, we know it to be a fact that we are all going to be gone somehow, some way. From the first time your parents take you by the shoulders and explain that someone, for some reason, is gone forever. From biology classes, from the nightly news, from the interstate, from cemeteries, and from boating accidents. I forgot, though, that this inevitable fate also applies to dogs. As a child there was no such thing as death because I had just barely begun to live. I had always navigated this life with a good dog at my ankles, barking and squirming happily while I giggled and ran with my arms outstretched — a memory that sprawls as far as the bermuda grass that grows to the edge of the cypress trees.

What I came to understand, after pouring over this poem over and over, is that not only do we not truly own our dogs, but they themselves understand this. We can own them, sure, on paper, or even in relationships that bear strong threads that seem impossible to break, completely inseparable. But they are always going to be part of where they originally came, even as we pamper them, adore them, and hold them close. And, somehow, this realization came as a comfort. 

She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or 

wait for me, or be somewhere. 

Now she is buried under the pines. 

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and 

not to be angry. 

I held a lot of frustration when I lost the second of my two dogs. While the first passed peacefully in sleep, the second was not the same. I walked around for weeks with a pent up anger that was melded together in hot tears. While that anger has cooled and replaced itself with acceptance, this poem put me further into something closer to understanding, rather than just blind affirmation. While it did seem she had been taken from me unfairly, there is somewhere where she runs through the grass, finds no faults in her little body, and is overjoyed just to be somewhere, the two of them together. 

Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering. 

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste 

of the infallible energies? 

How strong was her dark body! 

How apt is her grave place. 

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep. 

Finally, 

the slick mountains of love break 

over us. 

Oliver’s love for Luke, just like my own for my dogs, is coated by the knowledge that there is nothing to be done in loss, even as you wish for a way to change things. A love so impeccable and invincible that even a mountain, tall and daunting, breaks softly at the touch of a pure love like a dog’s love. When they leave us, it is not a loss or a derision — rather, it is a thankfulness, a love that sticks around. You may spend all these years without them after, but they spent all of theirs with you. That, for them, is all they need. They are always to be found in the mountains, in the nature they loved in living, in all the corners they once kept.

The post Mary Oliver’s ‘Her Grave’ and the Bittersweet Joy of Dogs  appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Navy blue nights covered in Johnny Cash, early mornings that echoed with warm Iron & Wine and the spiky sound of The Cure. Pieces of moments connected in lyrics of The Sundays, Tyler Childers, Eagles, Alice Phoebe Lou, little stars made of the bright showings like Sufjan Stevens, neon and endlessly shown as I walked from place to place, clicking my feet softly on some asphalt pad, some soft ground of clay dirt. I can’t imagine my life without the music and listening I’ve always had, whether it was some song I snuck from the boat radio while my dad whipped us through Lake Marion, or a tune barely heard from my spot in the back of a pickup truck. Or the late night music that spread around my friends and I in spirals, holding us together with the occasional low-paid cover of a friends band of ours. 

So, when I lost my cheap pair of headphones I’d been using religiously around the end of November, it didn’t go very well at first. They are always in my ears — whether it’s in the early morning for my regular gym routine, or working on one of many essays as I endure my studies at college. It was all the stages of grief that you could name, believing that they’d surely appear again, until days and then weeks passed. Before I knew it I had gone almost 2 months without a constant playing in my ears as I went about my day to day. 

Still, even in my frustration, I found myself listening to a new kind of poetry. Even moreso, returning to a poetry I had forgotten, covered up by my quick moving, crowded life I’ve been so blessed to have. In those times of the day that would usually be watered down by the extra sound, I found moments for boredom that were more beneficial than I had anticipated. From these seven weeks I took 3 main things that I thought would be worth sharing with whoever may come across this piece. 

1. Hearing the birds sing at least once a day is good for your health 

I grew up in days that were almost always outside somehow, whether it was covered in dirt, swimming, or helping my dad with the yard work. It was always so integral to me as a kid waking up before everyone else on those mornings and hearing the mourning doves, Carolina wrens, and mockingbirds call to each other back and forth while the sun still crawled itself from its bed of bald cypress and evergreen. 

Now, at my university, there are many walks through our campus that are bordered in tall oak trees, with branches that reach across the grass-covered quad. The birds that live in these trees never stop their subtle, low songs, only slowing them as the days shorten into smaller pieces of sky blue, the cold crowding in and choking out the leaves. Usually, in my walks from class to class, place to place, I would not pay as much attention to these little voices. In the weeks I spent without music, and even now, as I have gained a new habit of listening more often, I catch the snippets of hellos and goodbyes, following them to the feathered sources in the shapes of chickadees, goldfinches, cardinals, thrashers. My walks have felt all the more peaceful and have made my often stressful days just a little less overwhelming. I’ve found myself going back, leaving to walk to class earlier so as to enjoy it slowly. 

2. Music is better enjoyed when less listened to 

I love to listen to a song over and over until I’ve quite literally drained it of all meaning and life force. Of all the habits I have, it’s definitely one of the worst. The most recent extreme obsession has been Flightless Bird / American Mouth by Iron & Wine — I highly, highly recommend it. I’ve often received messages from friends tracking my listening habits to ask why I had listened to the same song fifteen times in a row, and sometimes more. 

I’ve never quite been able to find a solution to this problem. As much as I could always tell myself I wouldn’t listen to a song over and over until I couldn’t enjoy it anymore, I still would return back to it inevitably. In a weird, unexpected way, not being able to listen to music as often helped. It feels silly — listen to music less, enjoy it more? I was only able to truly listen to music when I would be driving in my car, whether that was to an errand or three hours across the state to my parents house. I was able to appreciate those songs I love all the more because I simply hadn’t heard them in a while. And, while I have never been the type of person to say that withholding something makes it better, music may be one of those very few things. Let the songs marinate a little. Come back to them when the time is right. 

3. Regaining presence in your own life regains your agency to create 

All these things considered, one of the most influential things I found in this seven week long journey was a refreshed ability to write. I can get very, very stressed during the school year here at UNC Chapel Hill. The work can compile on top of me like the Blue Ridge Mountains. And when those stressful times come, not only do I shut myself into my own world that is contained by the gates of my noise-canceling headphones, but I have less time to be creative, and even less willpower to try. I spend so much time writing and working on school related things, that when I finally get the chance to sit down at my desk and flex any creative muscles, they’ve deteriorated in some hidden filing cabinet somewhere in my brain. I’ve always hated this. Writing and art have been a huge part of my life since as early as I could walk. 

Without my headphones, I couldn’t shut myself away from everyone as easily. Sure, if I needed true silence, I could find it in my bedroom. But what I found was that this shutting myself off only made me more stressed, and, by proxy, made it even harder to do my work. I have never been one to give myself enough grace, but in these weeks I have caught myself in these hermit modes that do little to truly help me get any work done. Doing work with a few friends nearby, or next to my boyfriend on the couch while he did his own tasks, was worlds better. And, with this better habit, there was more time to write, more time to paint. Even in this last semester, I was able to work on a piece in this new free time that won me a huge award, and even the cash to replace those lost headphones. If I could allow myself the liberty to talk and enjoy my time working, I could just as easily spend my breaks doing something I loved rather than just doomscrolling on my phone with music blasting in my ears. 

In all the details of my life that have improved since losing those headphones, all of them return back to slowness. I overheard in a conversation that the young people of today can’t live life without headphones in, moving around like zombies in a living world. I’ve always thought that statement was harsher than need be, but now, with my seven weeks cold turkey, I have to agree. How do we come back to our lives that we do everything we can to separate ourselves from? Sometimes it’s just moving a little slower, taking pace without blocking ourselves off, easing tensions. Life with an entire sense cut off feels more like existing. But it doesn’t have to.

The post What I Learned From Seven Weeks Without My Headphones appeared first on The New Absurdist.

On the 11^th May 2024 a temporary forest sprouted in a theatre in Tartu, Estonia. The trees  were a gathering of around 50 tattooed Estonians, and the ink on their skin spoke of personal  stories of triumph and heartache, pride and resilience, celebration and change. We instructed  them to show as many of their tattoos as possible while dwelling silently in the darkened  performance space. 

I was positioned in the centre. I’d written a sequence of eight stories inspired by the same  tattoos that now surrounded me. I’d also spent time reading Estonian folktales and  mythology, I’d explored the edgelands of Tartu, and I’d visited the ancient mires and forests  of the nearby countryside. The stories attempted to respond to these various nodes while  staying rooted in the narrative traditions of folklore. The tattoos offered an obvious theme of  ‘permanence & change’ which I soon found reflected in the Estonian landscapes and their  accompanying mythologies. The resulting story sequence told new folktales of forests and  their people who contend with nebulous technologies, eternal conflicts, and fragile  interpersonal relationships. One of the stories, ‘The Artist’, is interwoven throughout this  essay, like ivy embracing a tree trunk. 

Back in the theatre, I’d fanned out the stories around me in an eight-pointed mandala.  This is a pattern often found in Estonian folk cultures and was also to be discovered inked  across the shoulders of one of our trees, somewhere in the shadows. At fifteen-minute  intervals, small groups of audience entered the space with torches. They were told to roam the forest, shining their lights on the tattoos while I read out one of the tales. At the end of the  story, that audience group would exit, and the next would enter soon after for the next  reading. 

Beneath it all looped a soundscape composed by UK electronica artist Rickerly that featured birdsong, the swish of the wind in the canopy, long-held drone tones, and sonic hints  of distant machinery. A chasing sequence of lights pulsated overhead, and a thin haze of  smoke filled the air. The tattooed trees would sway and shift, a few fell gently to the ground,  others crouched like stumps, one did a handstand as if uprooted, her roots turned upwards to  the sky. Sometimes I would roam towards particular tattoos, other times I would stay seated  in the centre and let the audience make their own connections.

We cycled this for four hours so that each story would be read twice. Two full turns of the  mandala.  

This was The Forest of Ink & Skin. 

The Artist: Part 1 

On the edge of a mighty forest lived a woman who was all alone in all the world.  No-one knew why she lived alone. Some from the town say that she was left in the forest as  a baby and raised by bears. Some say she had a husband once, but he was so cruel to her that  she killed him and burned his body in the fire she uses to heat her sauna. Some say she’s not a  woman at all, but a witch who is also a werewolf. But she kept herself to herself and was no  trouble, so the townsfolk let her be. 

But the world turned, as it does, and the times changed, as they do, and the town swelled  and became a city, bursting at the seams.  

And from that city came a man.  

He had silver hair, a golden suit, and bronze shoes, and he ate dry food from boxes instead  of the plentiful food offered by the forest. He walked with great confidence, his head high and  his arms swinging, as if pretending he were a giant taller than all the trees. He thumped a fist  on the door of the woman’s house. Against her better judgement, she let him in. 

“Why do you live here all on your own?” he asked. “No husband, no lover, no children, not  even a dog or a cat. Aren’t you lonely?” 

It took some persuasion to make the woman speak, but the man had a silver tongue and lots  of patience. Soon enough, the woman was telling the tragic tale of her life. She had not been  abandoned as a baby, she had never married nor killed a man, she was no werewolf or witch.  Her tale was much more complex, much more difficult to understand, and contained just as  much love as it did pain. Later, when the silver-haired man was questioned he could not  remember her story, for he had not really been listening. His mind was typical of the men from  the city: always busy thinking of other things. 

“There must be something that you want?” he said. “Something you desire most in all the  world?” 

She said that she had everything she needed right here in her house with her sauna, and the  forest. 

“That can’t be true,” he said. “You need a husband?” 

No.

“You need children?” 

No. 

“Then surely you must feel the need to travel beyond the forest and see the rest of the world?” 

She paused. She said no, but he heard her hesitation.  

“Aha,” he said. “You have wanderlust!” 

She had never heard this word.  

“No,” she said, more firmly. “True, I am curious about the world, but I have no desire to leave this place.” 

“Well, that’s easy,” he said, smiling a smile with no real smile inside it. From his pocket he produced a strange, glowing device and gave it to her. He showed her how to use it, and it  showed her the world.  

She was soon entranced. 

“You can keep this one,” he said. “But I want something in exchange. We’re building a harbour. Boats, ships, and docklands that look out over the sea. Our city needs to keep growing  and the ocean cannot stop us. Naturally, we need lots of wood. I will be taking the forest.” 

The woman nodded because she was not really listening. She was looking at pictures of  harbours and docklands and boats and ships, and she was looking at the sea and wondering  how far it stretched. 

“I will return for it in one year,” said the man, and strode out with his head high, his chest  up, and his arms swinging like axes. 

How it came to be: 

The core concept of The Forest of Ink & Skin had sprung from the head of my collaborator,  the Tallinn-based performance artist Henri Hütt. We had wandered Tartu together seeking  inspiration, and he’d struck upon the idea of an audience doing the same. He envisioned a  ‘rhizomatic story experience’ where an element of ‘soft participation’ might be created through  an audience actively rambling through tattoos. Perhaps, he suggested, my story might mention  an owl, and in that same moment the various torchbearers could be looking at a feather, or the mandala, or a mouse, or a skull, or the word ‘survive’, or, indeed, an owl. In this way, each  audience member makes their own symbolic associations between what is seen and what is  heard, perhaps enjoying thematic resonance or instead experiencing the disturbance of  dissonance, or something more nebulous in the hinterland between the two.

And while the tattoos had directly inspired the stories, that unity was eroded by the roaming  audience who encountered these alternative montages. A skull tattoo might portent a character  death that never happens, or a devil sparks a fear that proves misguided, or a heart suggests a  romance that is unfulfilled. In a sense we’d created a strange edgeland of narrative where  steadfast symbolic connections are put under strain and new uncanny linkages spring up in  their place. 

Of course, the audience had other alternatives. They were also free to switch off their torches  and turn away from the tattoos to focus entirely on me – and, indeed, some did exactly this. In  contrast, there were many others who roamed with determination from one inked body to  another as if this were an art exhibition (which, in a sense, it was), and seemed to completely  ignore the story being told. This too was a legitimate experience, especially for those few who  may have struggled with the language barrier (my stories were told in English). Whatever they  decided, our main intention had been to liberate the audience from their anonymous,  homogenous block of relative safety and instead let them loose to embrace a degree of chaos. 

To be rhizomatic, according to Deleuze & Guattari, is to resist the ‘arborescent’ and  hierarchical way of thinking, with branches sprouting from branches all derived from a central  trunk. Instead, we are to adopt a planar, horizontal network with no overall coherence or order,  where starting points and ending points are not so easily defined. In this sense, while our  tattooed participants became trees for the afternoon, the rhizomatic experience better evoked  the imagined mycorrhizal network beneath our feet; the ‘wood wide web’ of fungi fibres that  spread from tree roots to tree roots carrying messages and information. There was a visual  sense of this during the performance. We kept the experience on a horizontal plane, no one  person any higher or lower than anyone else, myself included. We had no riser stage to step  onto, and the audience were not in their raked seating. The traditional theatrical spatial hierarchy was eroded.  

This was partly how I was able to brush off those audience members who seemed not to be  listening to my stories. We had created a space of wandering freedoms rather than a constricted  focus, an almost neurodivergent theatrical expansion that accommodated the differing needs,  attitudes, and intentions of the non-homogenous visitors. I also came to realise that I did in fact  have a dedicated second audience in the form of the tattooed trees, many of whom reported  entering a heightened mindful state as they embodied the forests I repeatedly invoked in my  tales (especially the carved one included here in ‘The Artist’). By the second half of the four  hours, they were making links between the stories and showing me relevant tattoos that I had  not previously seen. I was most delighted to discover a hedgehog on someone’s arm given that the final story in the sequence ends with a hedgehog with ink in its spines. The rhizomatic  network was feeding messages back to me.  

I’ve deliberately invoked neurodiversity here as a rhizomatic offshoot from my previous project, where I studied the relationships between autism and fantastical narratives for a  Creative Writing PhD. I’d come across the work of radical French educator Fernand Deligny  who had, across the 1960s and 70s, fiercely resisted the institutionalisation of autistic children.  Instead, he’d developed a form of cartographic observation where young autistics are given  time and space to roam as they pleased while Deligny mapped their ‘wander lines’. These maps  were subsequently used as navigation aids during the therapeutic and socialisation activities of  his clinic. 

Deligny’s idea was to allow the world to bend around the autistic people, rather than forcing  the autistics to fight their instincts for the sake of fitting into a world constructed around  neurotypicality. Such thinking is a core tenet of the neurodiversity movement in the present  day, and this ‘neuroqueering’ of the world offers a fresh approach to the deconstruction of the  stubborn hierarchical structures of narrative and performance. I like to think we all left our  ‘wander lines’ on the floor of that theatre. Overlapping loops and circles of audience, trees, and  performer, each telling their own idiomatic tale of the desire to see and be seen. 

It would not be a wholly rhizomatic picture. Seen from above, it would be me at the core with the audience circling, and the trees drifting slowly around in the same orbit, like satellites. But I think also of the pattern of the torch beams, the ‘castlines’ perhaps, that tell a more  rhizomatic tale as they dart from tattoo to tattoo in a divergent quest for coincidence and  discordance. 

Something had been freed, I like to think, to run wild inside our forest. 

The Artist: Part 2  

Later, the woman was alone in her sauna.  

There was a great storm shaking the forest, and the branches of the nearest tree were tapping  furiously at her window. Soon enough, the strange device stopped working, so the woman had  to come back to her own mind. She remembered what the man had said, and it upset her  immensely. 

She ran from the sauna and sought out the wisest trees of the forest.  

First, she visited the eldest birch, the kindest and most understanding, and begged for its  forgiveness. A birch does not hold grudges, for it offers patches of its silver skin to write love songs and memories. The birch, in all its wisdom, could see she had been tricked by the silver haired man and his hypnotic device. 

The birch said: “You must take the device to the eldest oak and place it inside the hollow.  The oak will examine the device and it will soon know what to do.” And the birch gave her a  coat of its silver skin to protect her from the rain. 

She hurried to the oak and kneeled at the roots, begging again for forgiveness. While the  oak was grumpier than the birch, it was also the sturdiest and wisest of all the trees in the forest.  It took the device in its hollow and swallowed it. The oak began to understand new and  wonderous things. It learned about the strange age of glowing devices that had arrived so  suddenly in the last few rings of growth. It saw how they connected, and how the humans were  dragged along in an agonising cycle of high joys and deep pains. Most of all, it saw possibility.  Endless possibility. And soon it had a plan. 

The oak placed a crown of its leaves upon the woman’s head to grant her its wisdom. “I will keep hold of this device,” it said, “it is not for likes of you. Now go, to the eldest  pine, who will give you the items you will need.” 

With her cloak of silver skin, and her crown of leaves, she hurried on to meet the pine.  Again, she fell to her knees and begged for forgiveness. The pine was the most artful and  cheeriest of trees. It had long forgiven the woman even before she transgressed, knowing full  well that she would never harm a living soul. The pine knew of the oak’s plan, and happily  agreed. It bled out a barrel of its inky sap and gave her a sack full of its sharpest needles. 

“Well, well,” said the pine. “You’re going to create art, my dear. A picture, if you please,  upon every tree in the whole forest, but a different picture each time, of course. And then go  into the city and tell all the people to come see your work. It will be fabulous.” 

She was very scared, as she had never attempted to create art before, and she had not visited  the city for a long time. The pine laughed and gave her a cone to place beside her heart, because  a pinecone is a work of patience and pattern beloved by young and old.  

She spent a moment practicing on the trunk of the pine, drawing two stick figures fighting  with swords. It was crude but it was delightful, and for the first time since leaving the sauna,  the woman felt a glimmer of hope. 

What it meant: 

During my trip to Tartu in February 2024, just as the writing of the stories was starting in  earnest, I escaped the hard Estonian winter for a couple of hours and took to the cosy warmth of the Elektriteater cinema. The auditorium was packed, not a spare seat in the house, and the  Estonians were uncharacteristically fidgety and vocal. The film was Vara Küps (‘Vertical  Money’), a documentary by Martti Helde concerning the current management (most would say  mismanagement) of Estonian forests. Slick businessmen would appear on screen to justify the  excessive logging and the unhealthy cutting methods, raising incredulous laughter and barbed  comments from the auditorium. The tension in the room was palpable.  

Estonians have been known as ‘forest-people’. Around 60% of the Estonian landscape is  forest (compared to around 12% of the UK), and their histories, religions and mythologies are  deeply intertwined with woodland. For philosopher and semiotician Valdur Mikita forest covered landscapes are ‘an essential part of the sense of home for Estonians’, and he suggests  that forests have been ‘an accelerator of consciousness’ for the nation. He argues that forests  are where ‘periphery accumulates’ and spending quiet, meditative time within them ‘supply a culture with the unusual and keep it alive’ (Forestonia, Estonian Literature Centre, 2020).  

He also tells of the importance of the ‘home forest’; the area of woodland closest to your  home which is adopted as a sacred and treasured place. You’ll go there to forage for berries  and firewood, you may build your smoke sauna within those trees, you may even find yourself  a warden of an ancient and sacred pagan site. Historically, Estonia was one of the last holdouts  on Christianity, abiding for hundreds of years as a stubborn pagan pocket, and there are signs  throughout the country that these earth-beliefs never fully went away. This may have been in  large part due to these forests, where sacred spaces could stay more easily hidden and  preserved. And while Estonia is today considered one of the most atheist countries in the world,  there is a clear spiritual intensity for nature within Estonian hearts, with forests as a central  pillar of the pantheon. 

Estonian trees have persisted as protectors and providers of sanctuary. During World War  II, when Estonia and the other Baltic states were tossed between Soviet and Nazi control, the  forests became the fertile arena of resistance. The ‘Forest Brothers’ freedom fighters took  advantage of the generational knowledge of the woodlands and became a persistent thorn in  the side of the oppressors. While the Stalinist regime eventually quashed these efforts, the  legacy of this woodland brotherhood echoes down and can be felt today in the proud and  unwavering Estonian support for Ukraine. 

Today, many of the urbanised Estonians will retain a modest ‘country house’ at the edge of  a forest to decamp to during summer – locations that proved vital during the COVID pandemic.  Wood is everywhere in Tartu; most of the houses are made of wood, their tourist nick-nacks  are wooden kitchen utensils, and in the colder evenings the streets fill with the heady scent of woodsmoke. It was no small thing to choose the forest as our creative setting; the trees  intertwine with Estonian existence as if their blood were sap and their skin, bark.

And yet, despite all this, Vara Küps reveals a governmental distain for the preservation of  woodland heritage. Forest felling has accelerated in recent years, and large swathes of ancient  woodland are being aggressively cut in pursuit of profits. Wood, of course, is one of Estonia’s  key exports, and the forestry commission argue that harder winters and growing populations,  both within and outside Estonia, require more wood as a source of fuel. But activists contend  that protected forests are being shadily re-categorised and felling stats are being fudged to  accommodate aggressive expansion. Environmental concerns are also being ignored as  monoculture pseudo-forests are cultivated for the purposes of logging, resulting in unhealthy,  lifeless woodlands with little other flora or fauna. The pointed use of drone shots throughout  Vara Küps show the devastation wrought on the landscape. Bare and boggy arenas scratched  with the black track lines of the harvesting machines, the scarring wander lines of ecocide.

The story sequence of ‘The Forest of Ink & Skin’ makes regular contact with these fragilities. In one tale, a future city has carefully constructed sanitised ‘zones’ of nature,  including the most extreme version of a monoculture forest, and has embedded folkloric fears  among the people to stop them straying beyond the boundaries and into the wilds. The girl who  disobeys is reunited with animal life and transformed into a witchy figure more radical than  the city folk have been allowed to imagine. In another, a family collectively loses their memory  after one member, the youngest, is cursed for neglecting the home forest. Returning to the trees  restores a fragile form of harmony, but the ancient forces of the woodland fade into an unheard  distance, doomed to be forever out of sync with human modernities. I hope ‘The Artist’,  included here, speaks for itself. 

Like our audience, the stories meander and drift and make unexpected turns. They are  pointedly self-aware, asking questions of the narratives we construct for ourselves when we  use them to justify inharmonious actions. Obvious conclusions are resisted, questions are posed  and left unanswered, and throughout the sequence the forest abides as a ‘bewitching landscape’  (Mikita, Forestonia). It persists as often as it falls, it outlasts and outlives, sometimes shunning  our fairytale foibles, sometimes embracing them wholeheartedly. Much like our tattooed trees,  the forests in the stories are temporary, private, mysterious, and lead their own lives away from  the glare and the torch beams of visitors. 

Vara Küps unveiled to me a febrile debate that I was wholly unaware of, reminding me of  the similar debates we’re having in the UK concerning the poisoning of our bodies of water. It  also helped to reveal the cultural importance of asking a group of Estonians to embody a living forest of temporary trees and inviting another group to explore it. The rhizomatic experience  within the theatre space extended far beyond those darkened walls, reaching into the depths of  the home forests, ancient forests, and sickly forests just beyond the city limits.  

The central presence of the tattoos, I hope, emphasised a theme of defiant permanence that  helped strengthen these mycorrhizal narrative lines. Here, carved on the skin-bark of our sturdy  oak-humans were hieroglyphics of hope, icons of inspiration, and runes of resilience, the exact  details and reasons for their origins deliberately obscured. Instead, the mere existence of the  tattoos urged us forward by showing that change will happen, but our destinies are shaped by  what we choose to do. 

The Artist: Part 3 

Every day of that year from dawn to dusk, she went from tree to tree sketching and etching,  wearing her cloak of birch and her crown of oak, with the cone of pine snug beside her heart.  On the tree closest to the city, she drew an eight-pointed mandala with a butterfly at the  centre. It would tell the townsfolk that there was a transformation underway.  On the tree furthest from the city, she drew herself, her arms crossed over her chest, and her  head replaced with blooming flowers and stretching leaves, so that she could always remind  herself that there are ways out of every difficult situation. 

And on the tree at the very centre of the forest, not far from the eldest birch, she drew a great  dragon, borrowing all the colours of the forest, from the berries to the beetles, and the tree  responded by growing twice as tall so that the dragon could look out across the canopy, ready  to spring to life should any felling begin. 

It took her almost the whole year but with one day to spare, and only one needle from the  pine remaining, and just one single drop of its sap, she had etched pictures on every trunk of  every tree throughout the whole of the mighty forest.  

There was but one task remaining, and she barely had the energy to do it. But the dragon  roared from above the canopy, roses bloomed from her cheeks, and the mandala swirled  through her mind and drew her to the edge of the city. 

With the final needle and the last drop of sap, she fell upon the door of the house closest to  the forest and wrote the words: ‘Come and See’. Then she turned and walked back towards the  forest, knowing full well that this journey would be her last. 

When she reached the mandala, she just had enough energy to look behind. There was a vast  crowd of people following her and they all had the same strange device as the man who had  visited her almost a year ago. 

And the great tragedy of this tale is that our artist died on that spot thinking that she had  failed. Her final thoughts were these: that all those people had been hypnotised by the silver haired man just as she had been, and they were going to use those devices to destroy the trees  and build the wooden city to choke the distant sea. 

But the trees knew differently. She had not failed. The oak’s plan had worked perfectly. The people came with their devices, but they did not cut down the trees. They explored the  forest to every corner and every inch, and they marvelled at the work our artist had done. And  with their strange devices, they showed her work to the rest of the world and within the space  of just a few brief hours, the plans of the silver-haired man were stopped.  As for that man, he was driven out of the city and told to go elsewhere. As for her house, it  became a shrine for her mighty work.  

As for the forest, it lived on, the trees aching in the pain of bearing her art, but they stayed  standing for as long as they could manage, which was many, many years.  And by the time the last painted tree had fallen, there were already many new trees in place.

The post The Forest of Ink & Skin appeared first on The New Absurdist.

But why? 

It’s hard for me to say that old phrase, ‘the kids are alright.’ Especially these days, where it seems that having emotions and showing them somehow equates to being weaker than your peers, or having less resolve to the pains of everyday life. And beyond that; showing positive emotions, like excitement for things to come, or even love. Why is it that we’ve decided that showing love and affection is weakness? 

‘Nonchalance,’ as the word has been assigned to this phenomenon, is something that was popularized by the mass media spread of Tik Tok. Things like this, such as ‘mewing’ or ‘clean girl aesthetic’ (you can name a few, there are thousands) become ingrained in the media that many people, young and old, are consuming. It starts as something weird and needing to be explained, creating curiosity, eventually making itself clear through thousands and thousands of people claiming to subscribe to that concept or idea. 

What’s different about Nonchalance, I think, is that it seems to affect the younger generations a lot more than the older. This is what makes it particularly harmful and even dangerous. The overwhelming damages we were left behind post-pandemic, such as the 25% increase in mental health issues (according to WHO), I believe play a role in the orientation towards the younger folks that exist online. Our world is not the same one we knew before we spent two years away from it, confined to our living rooms, watching as the shift took place. There are some people who say things didn’t change, that this was inevitable and the pandemic only made it seem this way. But the children, the young minds that knew the most important years of life as separation, plastic walls, and distance, those are the ones who would feel it the most. 

The kids, for now, aren’t alright, because what else have they known? There is so much hatred, confusion, and pain, for some it’s easier to push those things to the side, pretend as though they aren’t really there. When was there time to learn how to process the many pieces of everyday life? We were so busy doing everything we could to get the masks off the children, we forgot about the minds that hid behind them. Now, they are scrambling through the brambles of growing older with their only guides being terms that have drifted far from their original meanings, trends that push them further into the patterns of quick dopamine rushes, and coping mechanisms that do more harm than good. On top of all that, the constant horrors that are constantly taking place in our world on a global scale can become overwhelming, and many kids never learned how to regulate those fears and worries. 

I won’t claim a bias case for my own sensitivity. I have always been the kind of person who feels things very deeply — my own emotions, and the emotions of others as well. As a child I always had to be the first of my siblings to get my shots at a doctor appointment, because if I heard their cries from the needles I would be in tears almost instantly. They’d stab my tan skin and send me out to the waiting room. I have always been, and still am, the kind of person to bear all the weight of hurts, pains, loves, joys. I can’t imagine being any other way. Sure, there are times when being this way can feel almost burdensome, worn down by extremities and sorrows that can become consuming in every corner of my life. But, without those feelings, especially those good ones that come with the light parts of being human, I would not have the people in my life that I love so dearly, or the experiences that have made the person I have the opportunity to be. And even if this applies a bias to my argument, it would be unfair to say that there aren’t other people who are just the same, who feel as I feel. 

Who are we as people without feelings and emotions? Every part of being alive is about how we react to the things we see or the things that happen to us. I’ve seen people wanting to blame the kids for wanting to be ‘nonchalant,’ pinning them as soulless or lost. But how would kids know any better when they’ve barely been shown as such? To love, hurt, cry, scream, and laugh is all human, all vital to being. The slow joys of an evening spent with friends, or the prolonged blues of losing something or someone — both are two small parts of a larger whole, one that could never be replaced by nonchalance or dopamine hits that come and go seconds at a time. That is the vital difference between then and now.

So then, the question is: how do we recover from this? What will it take for the pendulum to swing back? 

It has to start small. In the ways that we not only treat the ones who are already pushing it all down, locking away the feelings and shutting off — but all the people around us. There is always time to spend loving, learning, showing, crying, laughing, and there shouldn’t be any shame in those things, no matter how daunting the world around us may be.

The post Vulnerability in the Time of Indifference appeared first on The New Absurdist.

I start this not to suggest that there is anything I feel against this motif. I, too, am a lover of Wendy Cope’s The Orange, or Gary Soto’s Oranges, or even Roisin Kelly’s poem by the same name. My favorite rendition of this is JP Infante’s Yasica, Puerto Plata. 

“When I saw my great-grandmother peel a tangerine with her bare hands while men used knives for oranges, she became god.  I imagined what she could do with the sun.” (excerpt from Yasica, Puerto Plata) 

There is an endearment to writings like these, I think, that a lot of people find. That idea of someone taking you, the orange, in two gentle hands, tearing your skin to find what is truly you, pulpy and tender and hidden away. But why? Where does this come from? Why detach from our human selves and find understanding in citrus? 

Among the many opinionated literary folks of the world, there are some people who are completely exhausted by this idea, even calling it a cliché. Some string it alongside the common writings on pomegranate, a fruit that had come to have symbolism for feminism and love but has since become a sort of indicator for ‘bad,’ ‘performative’ TikTok poetry. The same has begun to happen with figs, after Sylvia Plath’s fig tree concept. 

But I am not here to discuss pomegranates or figs. Rather, I see oranges tumbling down into the same rabbit hole of dilution. 

For one, even as oranges find their way into language and writing time and time again, they can also be found in metaphor and phrases, like in Spanish. The phrase ‘mi media naranja’ or ‘my orange half’ refers to the idea that every person has another half that they are constantly in search of, suggesting a kind of destiny or generational connection that goes far beyond what we see in this one life we see presently. This is often linked back to the Greek myth recorded by Plato in The Symposium, where the idea that every soul is missing its other half is also expressed, claiming that Zeus caused this divide out of the arrogance of humans.

With this origin, I found a sort of poetry alone in the fact that oranges and many citrus fruits are the only fruits to be naturally subdivided, while usually for these orange metaphors the focus is primarily on the peel. You split one open — with a knife, maybe, like JP Infante’s poem — and half the work has been done for you, politely waiting with the segments in their expected places. 

I believe part of our exhaustion with oranges can be found in this. We give them surface level meaning, as surface level as the 3mm vivid, aromatic peel. The irony in this is that part of the symbolism we are always creating with oranges is about seeing things beyond their simplicity, like the orange peel theory; the idea that how or if someone peels an orange for you can indicate affection or care. 

Dare I say this theory has watered down the juice. To stop at the peel is to lose so much of the magic that can be found here! Dig a little deeper into the bright sun of it and find, perhaps, Amy Schmidt’s Abundance, in memory of Mary Oliver. 

“It’s impossible to be lonely 

when you’re zesting an orange. 

Scrape the soft rind once 

and the whole room 

fills with fruit. 

Look around: you have 

more than enough. 

Always have. 

You just didn’t notice 

until now.” 

This poem follows Mary Oliver’s Oranges, which I think also seeks further into the idea. 

“Cut one, the lace of acid 

rushes out, spills over your hands. 

You lick them, manners don’t come into it. 

Orange−the first word you have heard that day−”

(excerpt from Oranges) 

I think what often happens with poetry as it circulates online is a gradual misunderstanding of meanings. This present day loves to take a concept and spin it into one specific thing, keep it contained in a box that doesn’t allow further critical thinking or creativity (like orange peel theory!). We consume things quickly, in small rushes of dopamine that fade as quickly as they come. The same has happened to oranges.

When do the mundane things become beautiful, and vice versa? How does the repetitive nature of our modern day prevent us from being able to enjoy these poetic motifs? Sometimes things must be taken deeper than they are, looked at from a new angle, given new life. What I mean to say is sometimes you can’t garner the meaning from the simplest of explanations or viewpoints. Take a dip into another set of eyes, find the angle. 

To be able to absorb these ideas with a grain of salt — seeing past the misuse and confusion caused by modern day media — is to be able to peel past the skin, find the segments, see what more there is to something mundane.

The post In Defense of Wendy Cope, Gary Soto, Roisin Kelly, etc. appeared first on The New Absurdist.

If you’re unfamiliar, Letterboxd is a social networking platform that allows people to rate, review, and catalog films. It pretty much functions exactly like Goodreads with a laughably bad search function to match.

When I was a more avid reader growing up, there was nothing more satisfying than slamming my latest book shut and immediately typing away on my Goodreads account to publish the most unfiltered, long-winded review.

A friend or two—someone I knew in real life or Tumblr—would like my update, prompting feelings of immense pride and accomplishment to rush in. I was doing a great service. I was a critic offering well-regarded opinions. People trusted my taste in storytelling, an honor and responsibility I did not take lightly.

When Goodreads rolled out its recommendation feature, I was emboldened to continue pushing my favorite books at the top of my friends’ feeds like an absolute menace.

Now I slip my one-sentence, tongue-in-cheek, anonymous Letterboxd reviews in quick, smooth, easy conversations in person or via text. My comments are just as unsolicited, but the validation I get from making myself chuckle alone is enough of a reason for me to keep doing it.

—

I watched Jane Schoenbrun’s A24-distributed film I Saw the TV Glow (2024) and finished New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) in tandem. 

On the surface, both stories are pretty different. If they were the same medium, they wouldn’t be in the same genre section in Barnes & Noble or Netflix. Their intended audiences seem far apart as we follow a 35-year-old British woman in present day in The Midnight Library and two queer pubescents in American suburbia in the late 90s to early 2000’s in I Saw the TV Glow. 

Still, I came away from each story equal parts comforted and disturbed by the shared antagonistic passage of time, the mess of people and remnants of wasted potential lost or left behind, the fatigue of existence and repression in a stagnant world, and the life-saving, persisting art that emerges as a constant opposition for stragglers to build identities, homes, and whole communities around.

In The Midnight Library, Nora’s lifeline is the musings of old male philosophers and in I Saw the TV Glow, Owen and Maddy bond over a campy young adult show called The Pink Opaque.

Despite their respective outlets, we witness the nightmares of Nora and Owen actualize in real time: a dead-end, unfulfilled life haunted by what-ifs.

Nora’s what-ifs are a wide range of unrelated choices and passions. Owen dismisses and runs from gender dysphoria, or as it manifests in the film: the possibility that they are an unconscious Isabel, one of the two main characters in The Pink Opaque.

Nora lives out variations of her life through the purgatorial Midnight Library, each book a gateway to an alternate life she could have led. The Pink Opaque starts to bleed into Owen’s reality, but the harder they push this world away, the faster time skips ahead, leaving them with no memories of the past few years-turned-decades as they become more shell than human.

—

The metaphors these stories employ to make their points can be heavy-handed and blinding. (Though personally I enjoyed watching I Saw the TV Glow more than I did reading The Midnight Library.)

I’m aware this is a common crisis among 20-somethings and that other stories have dealt with disassociating from a life passing you by.

When I reminisce and look back on my life (as it’s beginning, thank you), my brain naturally visualizes my Goodreads account, specifically the annual reading challenges and year-end summaries in books. 

I can pick out a book and recall not only the year I read it in, but also the state of mind and circumstances I was in while reading.

If I go through my old rambling Goodreads reviews, skimming through the noticeable lack of punctuation and capitalization in some, and the ecstatic overuse in others, I can focus on the personal tidbits younger me threw in between the lines…as breadcrumbs, almost, leading to…I have no idea where exactly.

I can view my degression as an avid reader laid bare on screen. In 2015 and 2016, I read 53 books each year. In 2022 and 2023, I read a whopping total of 9 and 8.

Eleven months into 2024, I read 4 books including The Midnight Library and two of which being a manga volume and poetry collection. On the flip side, I logged 40 films in my Letterboxd diary.

One way or another, I’m getting my necessary fix of stories. As someone who has had difficulty being in touch with recognizing and feeling what’s real, media in its many forms has shaped and been shaped by how I’ve made sense of my life in that moment in time.

With an amorphous blob of a personality throughout my teenage years, using my favorite books, shows, movies, and music as an escape and front was always an intentional choice to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths.

Over time, I absorbed the stories so that they became a part of me, so that I was unrecognizable without them.

There are two aphorisms both The Midnight Library and I Saw the TV Glow really hinge upon. Without them, there is no purpose to either story. 

Matt Haig writes “three simple words containing the power and potential of a multiverse.” 

I AM ALIVE.

Jane Schoenbrun lingers on a shot of a street covered in chalk doodles and squiggles, framing a clear message.

there is still time

I want the stories I consume to be an extension of who I am, rather than define and form my entire being. 

I’m working on talking more about the experiences I’ve lived and not only the ones I’ve lived vicariously through fictional characters.

In separate discussions about I Saw the TV Glow and The Midnight Library, two friends asked if I had any regrets.

I said I didn’t, I’m too young, but I also don’t know that I’ve made decisions big enough to live out their effects. Or perhaps therein lies the regret: the absence of risk.

The voice that narrates in my head sighs and tells me to keep going.

The post I Walked Through the Midnight Library and Saw the TV Glow appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Here are a few: 

“Con chúc ông bà… (I wish my grandparents…) 

– Sức khỏe dồi dào” (an abundance of good health) 

– Tiền vào như nước” (may money flow in like water) 

– An khang thịnh vượng” (security, health, and prosperity) 

– Phát tài phát lộc” (riches and fortune) 

– Vạn sự như ý” (everything you wish will be) 

Every year, I try to up the ante, coming up with more impressive things to say. 

– “Tiền ra nhỏ giọt như cà phê phin” (may money drip like a coffee filter)

– “Nhiều bát canh cà chua” (many bowls of my grandma’s world-famous tomato soup) 

The more words I say, the more luck I will bring to my grandparents. 

The more outlandish, the more memorable. 

It makes sense in my head. 

Luck is a funny thing. On most days, I treat it as this unpredictable ideal that comes and goes as it pleases. On holidays such as Lunar New Year, however, luck can be controlled. Cleaning the house from top to bottom will entice it to come in, for example. 

For my maternal grandpa, or Ông ngoại, luck is accompanied by hard work and tenacity. If you work hard enough, luck might take notice and decide you would make good company. 

◆◆◆ 

Over the years, Ông has recounted his experiences growing up in communist Vietnam. 

Born on May 1, 1942 in Indochina, a French colony comprising the modern-day territories of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, he has lived through a lot. May 1st marked International Labor Day and the annual street parade of workers. As a result, there were barely any nurses and doctors left in the hospital as my great grandmother was giving birth. Luckily, my great grandfather was a doctor and friends with a nurse, and so, my grandpa, Quan Khang Tưởng, (born Kouan Hoong Cheong, which changed to Kuan K’ang Shiang on the Chinese Visa until it was finally translated into Vietnamese) was brought into the world. 

A world that would actively work to erase his identity and squash his every chance for success.

When Ông was five or six years old, his older siblings went off to school, waking at 5 a.m. to walk 10 miles. My grandpa, too young to follow them, had to stay home. 

There was an all-girl Catholic school that was closer. On his first day, dressed in girls’ clothes, Ông showed up. A nun took one look at him and asked, “Are you a boy?” In an instant, Ông said yes. With that, he was sent straight home to his mother who fought the urge to cry out of frustration. 

Ông was finally able to go to public school at eight years old. It was far but not as far as the one his siblings attended. He started in third grade with other kids his age, all of whom already learned how to read, write, and count. Without knowing numbers or the Vietnamese alphabet, Ông was punished every day by his teacher, slapped on his hands with a ruler or forced to kneel facing the blackboard for a time out. 

This became such a frequent occurrence that every morning Ông silently made his way to the blackboard before his teacher inevitably told him to do so. He didn’t dare tell his parents in fear he would have to stay home again and further fall behind on his studies. 

After almost two years, Ông left for another school. A French school in Hà Nội called Lycée Albert-Sarraut. According to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this school was the only one of its kind: an educational institution operated by a Western power in a Communist state. 

Without knowing a word of French, Ông was severely punished again. But by his second year, things were looking up. Ông could read, write, and understand French. Everything around him, however, was about to take a turn for the worse. 

1954. The communists occupy North Vietnam. Ông’s family has to leave Hà Nội and make their way to the South, to Sài Gòn. 

There was another French school in Sài Gòn that Ông applied to, but all Lycée Albert-Sarraut kids were transferred to a French school about 200 miles away, a school his family could not afford. Returning to Vietnamese school was the only option. 

5th grade. Lớp nhất. In history class, Ông’s teacher recounted China’s domination and Vietnam’s fight for independence, smiling at Ông as she spoke. His last name—Quan—did not escape her. Ông was Chinese; his family left China for Vietnam to escape communism. Not that that made any difference. In this classroom, he was the enemy. 

After school, five to six boys were waiting outside. They jumped on top of Ông, tearing at and throwing dirt on his clothes. 

Every week, Ông returned home, coming in through the back door, to change. He didn’t want to tell his parents; they were already going through such financial hardship. This would have been the least of their problems, Ông thought, or worse, created more. Instead, he directed his focus on school, seeing it as his only way to fight back. 

In 6th grade, Ông rose to the top of his class, skipping 7th grade and going right to 8th. Throughout high school, Ông maintained the same work ethic, knowing that if he did not pass his exams and receive a high school diploma, he’d be enlisted in the military. A military in desperate need of soldiers. 

Around this time, the communist Vietnamese government forced Chinese and other non-native locals to become citizens of Vietnam or face deportation. Ông’s family considered moving. Taiwan refused to receive them. Returning to mainland China wouldn’t have made any sense. They had to become Vietnamese citizens, a process which included changing their last name. 

Ông’s family fought to keep the Quan name. With such insistence, the government gave up and accepted it. 

Around 10 to 15 percent of students graduated high school in Vietnam. More than 80 percent failed.  Ông passed. But his fight would be far from over. 

There were 200 spots for freshman university students. About half were reserved for the extremely wealthy. 

Ông failed the doctor, pharmacist, engineer, and teacher entrance exams. His older brother received a high school diploma from a Chinese school. His younger brother failed to receive one. Both of them were off to the military. 

With each passing day, it was becoming more likely that Ông would be following his brothers. Until one day. A day my grandpa coins—to this day—to be his “Lucky destiny day.” 

One morning, a high school classmate passed by Ông’s house. 

“The aviation school is open,” his classmate said. “You could apply to be an air traffic controller.” 

By the time Ông’s classmate passed by his house, it was past 11:30 a.m. The admissions office closed at 12. 

With his high school diploma and no time to grab his birth certificate, Ông joined his classmate. His classmate was refused up front. The school was only accepting candidates born between 1941 to 1943 and his classmate was born in 1944. Ông, born in 1942, qualified.

If only he had brought his birth certificate. 

The Director of Civil Aviation (DCA) said it was too late to accept Ông’s documents. Ông begged and begged for them to reconsider. 

The school eventually gave in. They held onto Ông’s high school diploma and gave him until the following Monday to submit the rest of his papers. 

Luck was still on his side. 

There were 20 seats in the aviation school among thousands of candidates—close to 9,000. The entrance exam consisted of three parts: written, oral, and physical. The written section included mathematics, French, Vietnamese, and English. The oral section was in English and French. The physical exam tested his vision and hearing to ensure it was on par with the requirements for a pilot. 

The written section took four days. During this time, there was also a policeman exam going on. Around 2,000 candidates withdraw their aviation school application to take the policeman exam. Nine thousand drops to seven thousand. 

Ông excelled in French, English, and math. The same could not be said for Vietnamese. On the last day of the written section, Ông was presented with a philosophical Vietnamese essay question. With no understanding of what the question was asking, Ông wrote a few words and gave up. 

Miraculously, Ông moved onto the two-day oral section. The first of which was in French. Ông walked into a room to find his French essay on the table. The school had deemed it excellent. His Vietnamese essay…not so much. 

Ông still had a chance to win the school over. His French pronunciation was impressive. 

The next was in English. A representative from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was there to interview him. Ông spoke fluently in English. 

He had passed the oral section. 

After the written and oral section, 50 people were left. Those that were remaining were sent to an air force base for the physical portion. 

“Who here wears glasses?” 

Twenty people wore glasses. They were immediately dismissed.

Then came the examinations: vision, hearing, and heart. Ông passed them all. Five were dismissed. 

The pool of candidates had been cut in half. It was down to 25 people for 20 spots. Twenty people were accepted; five were waitlisted. 

Ông was lucky #25. 

Over the course of three months, all 25 candidates attend aviation class and take a flying exam. Three students fail. Twenty-two remain. 

After six months, another exam. 

Three students fail. Nineteen remain. 

These lucky 19 can now officially call themselves aviation school students. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a mere 30 minutes for lunch, Ông studied for the final exam. Three students fail. Sixteen students graduate. 

Ông graduated #2 in his class with the #1 graduate scoring just half a point higher. 

Working as an air traffic controller in an airport in Sài Gòn, Ông was exempt from enlisting in the war. This, however, did not guarantee his safety. 

1968. The war is at its peak. The Việt Cộng and the North Vietnamese military launches an attack on South Vietnam and the U.S. military. It is known as the Tết Offensive for taking place during the Lunar New Year. 

So many civilians die. Ông’s older sister’s house in Sài Gòn is hit by a communist rocket, instantly killing her. 

At 28, after one year of working at the airport, Ông’s mother arranged for Ông to be married, choosing my grandma, Trần Ngà Thi. 

They have three daughters together. One of whom being my mom. 

1975. North Vietnam fully takes over the country. My mom’s younger sister is born the year after. 

At this point, Ông was an airline security manager. Everyone who worked in aviation for the old regime, about 400 to 500 people total, gathered in the DCA building. Once inside, Ông walked into the personnel office where he saw a letter with his name on the table.

Ông was being promoted to army lieutenant. He grabbed the letter and destroyed it. Hard work and luck were simply not enough. This time, Ông had to be cunning. 

Under communist rule, each person was required to disclose everything about their life, family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. The communists had no records of anyone before 1975. 

You had to physically write about every aspect of your life and circle over and over again. If there was any discrepancy found in your retelling or in someone else’s, you were called in for questioning. 

Ông had 30 employees under him as manager. If his position as an airline security manager for South Vietnam was found out, Ông would be sent straight to jail or a re-education camp. 

Security was an especially dangerous word as it was often conflated with intelligence and espionage. To the communist government, Ông could be considered a South Vietnamese spy. 

He thought about what he should say to his team carefully. For Ông, this was a matter of life or death. It was crucial for all his employees to be on the same page. 

All DCA employees were divided into 20 groups to clean up the airport. Ông’s group was assigned to the terminal where his office was conveniently located. 

Ông headed straight to his office and destroyed everything. Uniforms. Paystubs. Photos. Documents. Anything he could find that could be used against him. 

Later that day, Ông faced his team. He told them to not write down anything regarding their involvement in airline security. 

“We are smarter than the communists,” he said. “They don’t know anything about us unless we tell them. Why should we tell them anything bad? Be careful what you say because the communists will ask for proof of employment. Proof that as of today no longer exists.” 

Not one of Ông’s 30 employees declared their job in aviation. The first phase in Operation Outsmart the Communists was a success. To avoid getting caught, Ông had to lay low. 

Bà, my grandma, attended weekly mandatory communist meetings to report on her family’s activities. 

Ông was presented with two options for re-education: be sent away for 10 days or study in place for 21. 

Ông had a feeling there was a catch hidden somewhere. He chose 21 days. After his re-education period, he was hired to teach air traffic control for the communist government.

Those that chose 10 days ended up away from their families for 10 years. Ông went on to work for the communists for two. During this time, he explored every possible option to get his family out of the country. 

The first was to go to Cambodia or Thailand by foot. Along with three young children, Ông Bà would have to make their way through the treacherous jungle and carry weapons to protect one another. 

Others paid to leave Vietnam by boat. Two to three hundred people would be crammed in a small boat and go off to sea. Along the way, they’d face pirates, storms, starvation, and disease. 

Foreigners (non-Vietnamese people) were allowed to return to their home countries. People gathered outside to retrieve an exit visa. This gave Ông an idea. Perhaps he could figure out a way to leave the country legally. 

But first, he had to quit his job. No country would grant him an entry visa if they found out he worked for the communists. 

Between 1975 to 1980, millions of Northerners moved to Central and South Vietnam. To manage this migration, the communist government implemented the New Economic Zones program, which forcibly evicted Southerners from their homes and relocated them in the countryside. 

In an aviation meeting with over 2,000 people in attendance, Ông raised his hand, expressing his desire to quit. The head captain and communist major were outraged. Ông was escorted to a small narrow room where he was kept until the meeting was finished. 

The captain and major came in. They took turns berating Ông, accusing him of disobedience. “No! You misunderstand,” Ông said calmly, “Uncle Ho [Chi Minh] wants us to move to the New Economic Zone. I’m just following orders and willing to leave the city.” 

The captain and major were quiet and left the room. Ông waited for four hours. At 5 p.m., the captain returned. “OK Fine! Go home!” 

Ông didn’t wait to be told twice. As he made his way out, he ran into the head captain’s assistant. The assistant was riding a bicycle, rushing to get home in time for dinner. When the assistant saw Ông, he let out a sigh of relief. “Here, take this!” he said, handing Ông an envelope. “Bring this to your local security office. Thank you!” The assistant took off. 

The envelope read CONFIDENTIAL across the front. Ông quickly pocketed it and continued on home. 

He told no one about quitting. Not even his family.

The letter the assistant had given him confirmed that he was no longer an employee of the communists. Addressed to his local security office, the letter stressed to the local officers to control and suppress him. That night, Ông burned the paper as he cooked. 

The next day, Ông left his house at the usual time as if he was going to work. His employers, in their shock, had forgotten to reclaim his employee ID card. Carrying this ID held a distinct weight of power. Every morning and night, he’d flash the card to the local officers. The officers, upon seeing the Cờ đỏ sao vàng, the red and yellow star flag of communist Vietnam, saluted in response. 

There was a complete lack of communication between the communists. Ông used this to his full advantage. 

Ông would observe the chaos at the district office to prepare his exit visa application submission. Everyone who cited reunification with family as a reason to leave Vietnam was turned away immediately. “Tell your family to come to Vietnam,” they’d say. Instead, Ông stated he was leaving due to his physical and mental health. He slipped his application right behind a family with a significant amount of gold, seconds before the office closed for the day. 

Ông wrote hundreds of letters to different countries, asking for an entry visa. 

Three responded with good news: Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Tahiti, and the Central African Republic. 

Because Tahiti is an island in French Polynesia, Ông managed to evacuate Bà, my aunts, and mom to France by plane. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or UN Refugee Agency provided them money for the plane tickets. With the help of a good samaritan, Ông also secured an apartment in the heart of Paris (about 2-3 days before being at risk for deportation) where they lived for two years. 

When the war was over, the U.S. government publicly promised whoever had helped the Americans leave Vietnam with entry to the United States. Ông reminded them of that promise and of his role as an air traffic controller. Finally, in 1981, my family arrived in New York. 

◆◆◆ 

Every Tết, or Vietnamese Lunar New Year, I kneel before my grandparents and wish them great fortune for the year ahead, usually in the form of catchy four-word phrases. 

The more words I say, the more luck I will bring to my grandparents. 

It makes sense in my head.

Without this custom and literal expression of giving back to your elders, I often wonder how I could ever reciprocate the sheer will and fortuitous circumstances that led my grandparents to the U.S. 

That resulted in my existence as their first grandchild. 

It’s a staggering thing to wrap your head around as someone whose only exposure to war has been through stories, images, documentaries, and the news. 

Sometimes, for that reason, the new year wishes can feel superficial. I always mean them sincerely. But they pale in comparison. 

My wishes come from a life of privilege. Luck has been handed down to me like an ancient family relic. 

No words or actions will ever be enough. The only real way to “pay them back” is to lead a life worthy of sacrifice. To study to get ahead. To be as bold as to resist as a means of self-preservation. 

Do so long enough and luck, just might, catch up.

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