The Moth Presents Occasional Magic

 The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible Edited by Catherine Burns
2019
Weight: 1.05 lbs
Method of Disposal: Giving Away

I accidentally picked up the first Moth book while in Santa Rosa, Florida at a wonderful little bookstore called Sundog Books.  I have no idea what drew me to it, but I picked it up last minute while waiting in line for the register.  I was buying an absurd amount of greeting cards, as usual, and a few books.  There were a lot of people in there, and the downtown Square was much more popular and populated than I had ever remembered seeing it.  The small city had really grown in the years I had been away.  It is hard to imagine all the things we did on that trip now.  Covid would have changed everything, as it has done this year.  I am so glad we already had so many of the times we've had.  I know the present and future have so much to offer also, but it is not terrible to reflect on the past.

Moth has these incredible, sometimes unbelievable, personal stories, like the piece by a teenager about her experience saving a shooting victim.  She used skills she learned from Umedics, a black grassroots group that teaches people how to medically respond in emergency situations.  Not only does she save him, as a child, but then she goes on to help get his family trained to also respond in similar situations.  Those kind of stories make you wonder about your own mettle.

There was another story about a young, gay man, growing up in a homophobic landscape, trying to find himself.  Trying to win over and then ultimately deciding to emulate a young man he had been seeing in the bar only to find out much later that the man he had been hyping up was Jeffrey Fucking Dahmer.

There are also stories about what one woman wore to her divorce, what it was like to meet President Obama while working for his team, an adult son finding a relationship with his dad, and so many others.  It is good stuff.  

Ruined by Reading

Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
1997
Weight: 6.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Do you want it? Otherwise, I am putting it in a book donation drop box.

This book got off to a slow start. The author was writing about how she will no longer keep reading a book if she does not like it, and I kept thinking it was a nod in my direction that I could put this one down. I started it on a lunch break from work, and I did not feel like I had relaxed at all when I was done. The only thing I could relate to was on page 4 and I did not feel that the sentiment described in a particularly beautiful way. Schwartz wrote, “Despite all this mental pirouetting, or maybe because of it, I don’t remember much of what I’ve read. My lifelong capacity for forgetting distresses me….while I struggle for the details, all I recall is the excitement of reading.” I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I was happy to stumble across someone struggling with the same thing.

Then, all of the sudden, I was on page 47, and I started to get into it. Schwartz got me going when she wrote about A Little Princess, a book I also loved as a child. I remember when I parents bought it for me I was furious. I hated princesses. Were they denying my tomboy identity? I was being a brat, but they kept asking me to give it a shot. I did, finally, and it was wonderful. After reading this section of the book, I went straight to my shelves to find my own copy of A Little Princess. I found it, and I am really looking forward to reading it again.

Later, she writes about McCullers, whom I love but also have not read since I was a teenager. Schwartz writes, “I’m afraid I’d feel certain dismay, like coming upon a photo of a great love of one’s youth with the eyes of middle age. Imagine pinning over that! Not that I’d find her books untrustworthy, just so oppressively young, so weighted by youth’s Gothic glooms, manias, and succulent indulgences” (90). How many times have I avoided a book for this reason?
Towards the end, on page 115, she questions, “So what has been the point? Not to amass knowledge, since I forget the contents of books. Certainly not to pass time, or ‘kill’ it, as some say. (Time will kill us).” I have been asking myself this for at least three years.

This book brushes up against interesting topics. How can you not when you are talking about books? I still found it to be mediocre. If you are looking for a good book about reading and books, I recommend looking into Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.

Queer (not so?) Fabulous

From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond edited by Morty Diamond
2004
Weight: 6.4 oz.
Method of Disposal: Giving away to my friend, Tracy H.



I recently had a conversation about the use of the word queer (amongst other things) with a good friend over cold beer. We had different experiences and feelings surrounding the word. This book does not really define, explain, or defend the word though almost everyone in the book self-identifies as “queer.” It is a book about and by transgendered people, monster trans people, genderqueer people, and so many others. I have re-read it and am passing it on in hopes that it will help in the quest for understanding, community, and revolution that is so desperately sought by so many people struggling with what identity may or may not mean to THE movement.

It is not my favorite book about “radical gender transformation”, but it has its moments. It is one in a list of many that I will be re-reading and then passing on.

In this collection, I particularly like “Father and Son” by Mykkah Herner and was happy that I was inheriting some of my father’s shorts while I was reading about his father-son bonding moment, receiving hand-me-downs in the form of suits, shirts, and pants. I was also a big fan of “Dear Breasts” by Storm Florez and “If I Should Die Before I wake…Don’t Let Me 9/26-11/4/02 For Brotha Bear” by Imani Henry.

If you have read this book or when you read this book—let me know what you think.