(brain)crush of the week: Janna Levin

those of you who are aware of my strange proclivities know that i spend a good deal of time thinking about physics. science beyond biology was always really difficult for me because i am numerically dyslexic & am not a visual learner (quick shout out to auditory learners!!) as a result of my questionable (read: deplorable) performance in pre-college Chemistry, i was placed into a class with the curious title "Conceptual Physics." & was i ever hooked. because i was able to focus on theory & logic (& in some cases, rhetoric,) of physics problems rather than their intricate (and i'm sure lovely) layouts & mathematical accuracy, i could make both concrete and metaphorical connections between hard science & emotional/psychological landscapes--characterizations of matter, space, time, inertia, energy.

so, it's really no wonder that i've got a total braincrush on this here lady, Janna Levin.

while i’m thinking about, you know, how to make my next loan payment, Dr. Levin is concerned with slightly larger questions, like whether the universe is finite. she's a professor of astrophysics at Barnard College.

oh, and by the way, she's a novelist.

she was recently featured on American Public Media's radio program: Speaking of Faith. she talks about the connection between theoretical phsyics and [existential] philosophy, among other things. Einstein, limits to certainty, beauty, Godel, free will, (non)existence of god. this is seriously my wet dream.

from the interview--roughly quoted:

* "confession: no matter how i list facts, i'm unable to get to the truth-- truth doesn't just drop out like a theorem if i follow certain 'logical' steps....my approach to the truth in the bigger sense...will always be a little bit out of the corner of my eye...or the visceral experience of what it really means...or what the implications are... we can 'know' we're getting closer to the truth, even though we can't always prove it."

le sigh. for a fascinating hour of conversation, go here.

i envy people

who can make lists. or, i should say-- i envy people who find it soothing, productive or satisfying to make lists. whenever i have to make a to-do list it becomes so overwrought/overthought that the list itself overtakes any possibility of actually completing the tasks. any other kind of "best of" or "top" list becomes so laden with footnotes and disclaimers and explanations that it becomes a manifesto you'd probably need a map to read.

all this (see??!?) to say that i was reading brandi's blog last night and her list of top 10 non-poetry books challenged me to attempt to come up with my own. the fact that it's not poetry took the pressure off substantially.

the rules i made for myself: no teen/YA books i love, no philosophy/theory (sorry, everything kierkegaard or judith butler's ever written.)

SO (cringe) here's mine! complete w/ disclaimers, annotations, etc.

1) crime & punishment/ fyodor dostoevsky. (man those russians can write a protagonist!)
2) the invisible man/ ralph ellison. (couldn't sleep for DAYS after reading this)
3) speak, memory/ vladimir nabokov. (this book cemented my need to write poetry forever. even though it's an autobiography.)
4) my life/ lyn hejinian. (of course this is poetry, but i think it belongs on this list.)
5) slouching towards bethlehem/ joan didion. (love these essays like children)
6) tie: blankets + fun home/ craig thompson + alison bechdel. (coming-of-age graphic novels? yes please. the first is about a sensitive wisconsin boy growing up in the 80s trying to make sense of his inner emotional life & falling in love for the first time. the second is about an observant queer girl's relationship/childhood with an actress mother & closeted english teacher/ funeral director father. these books are both genius. also intense class/race--blankets is an undeniable portrait of a white-bred, canned religious, middle-american experience--/gender commentary)
7) portrait of the artist as a young man/ james joyce. (alter ego? lacing that alter ego with mythological context? hyper-awareness of self? check! also, um, it's clear that i love auto-biography...& only if it's non-linear/"experimental"/non-traditional. never really figured that out until i made this list.)
8) tie: lolita + pale fire/ vladimir nabokov. (yes, another tie. so what?)
9) 1984/ george orwell. (what's to say? it blew my mind. you know.)
10) the god of small things/ arundhati roy. (hey, arundhati roy! write another novel! this one was so good i was breathless at its end. seriously.)
11) (cause i can) the cutmouth lady/ romy ashby. (a lot of weird energy surrounds this book of short stories that nobody's ever heard of. queer, mostly american-part japanese orphan girl sent to live in a seedy district in japan & attend a strict all-girls school. oh yeah, and stories about legendary japanese woman-criminals somehow meshed with this. emily gould gave this book to me, several years ago when both of our lives were very different (like, before she had a wikipedia page). i think it was my birthday. she pressed it into my hands & said, "this is important." this obviously adds a whole other layer of girl mythos.)

what are yours?????

tilt title! aka sooooper news!

!gleeful! about:

my chapbook, a / long / division is officially available from Tilt Press!!!

so you know what you're getting into: a/l/d is a series of prose poems fixated on the idea of separations-- from others, from the real and concrete images of the daily, from the self.

thanks to rachel & tilt press for doing such a beautiful job!