The Weekly Atticus (07/28/2018)

Turn Your Thoughts into Writerly Actions | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

Dear ,

In the cottage near the idyllic lake where I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a good amount of time this summer, there also live a number of spiders. True to their nature, they usually keep to the corners, tending wispy webs that snare the occasional mosquito and fly. When I’m upset with news of the messy, ugly world (too easy a thing these days) I think of brooming the place out, creating order, making a clean sweep of life’s betrayals and deceits. Then I remember this sense of restoring order is false. There are no clean sweeps. There will always be betrayals and deceits, and it’s not the spiders doing the lying. I return to Issa’s eternally wise infinitely layered haiku:           Don’t worry, spiders           I keep house           casually.All throughout my adult life, at least when I’m in my right mind and not dealing with a Brown Recluse or a Black Widow, I’ve tried to adhere to the philosophy of Spider and Cup.  It works just like it reads: I see a spider on the run across the floor or sitting in the center of the ceiling. I freeze it with glare (Try it, it usually works!) and call for the cup, which my wife or one of my daughters brings to me if I’m lucky and they’re within earshot. I set the mouth of the cup on top of the spider, slip a piece of paper under it (often a bill), carry the spider outside and shake it into my garden where I hope it gets fat on the aphids already getting fat on my tomato leaves.I’m an endlessly flawed human being and so I like to imagine this spider and cup routine brings me some kind of karmic luck. I’m not talking about the luck of any grace I might be afforded or the weak compassion I might pat myself on the back for displaying despite the fact that I may have “saved” a spider while on my way to grilling a steak.  I’m talking about how our thoughts become actions (or inactions in Issa’s case) that transform spiders and the webs we might see as otherwise meaning laziness or decay or danger into something that makes us think and sets us to writing. I mean, look at a typed page. Letters are not unlike insects when you stare at them thoughtfully enough.    Like usual, this is me writing not to tell someone else what I think I know, but to try and show myself what I could mean.  And what could I mean? I mean writing (and perhaps living) is about seeing into the small things, which are actually the big ones. Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.Matt MullinsMixed Media Editor 

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

BOOK REVIEW: OF THE WILD MOONA Review of DIRT AND HONEY by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland Review by Tara Ballard"Vasquez Gilliland’s work is more important now than ever, as our nation marches for women and survivors of sexual abuse, marches for immigrants searching for a better life, and marches for equality."READ ON

FICTION: /by Zach VandeZande"He did not believe any object that could move on its own had the capacity to be junk."READ ON

POETRY: A GIRL SCOUT’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING MIDDLE AGEby Vivian Wagner"Read and write, becausethere will be bothmore and less time,a paradox you will grow tounderstand, if not love."READ ON

CNF: DENOTATION/CONNOTATION (OR, THE RELATIVITY OF SHIT)by Miah Jeffra*2018 Flash CNF 1st prize winner"I was running from someone at the end of the Millennium. I was lost in the Brooklyn Museum of Art because it was big and it was full of things I had no control over."READ ON

TELEVISION: SOUTHERN SLOW BURNA Review of HBO's SHARP OBJECTS by Allyson Larcom (@ogrewitch)"Sharp Objects is an exquisitely crafted piece of television, but it’s also an alienating one."READ ON

FILM REVIEW: YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING YEARA Review of Bo Burnham’s EIGHTH GRADEby Allyson Larcom"She’s a mess of contradictions, and an easily identifiable reflection of so many of us during our most awkward and embarrassing middle school years."READ ON

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