Barn Sour After Hours
Lucid dreaming and surreality, motherhood and Mother Nature, calling a phone number to hear a poem, and the start of Barn Sour Book Club.
Good evening! Welcome to Barn Sour after hours, a special time where this letter is coming to you far past morning hours. Sorry for the delay in delivery, life got in the way. Whether you’re cozy and sipping on something nourishing, your lights are low and you’re winding down for the night, you’re just making it home and are looking to scroll your way into relaxation, or it’s already the following week for you, I’m thankful you’re here, reading this.
We have found ourselves passing again from the hand of one week to the next — what do you plan on carrying into August with you, and what will you be leaving with July? A rush of truths washed over me like a river running upstream while getting my nails done this week, and I won’t be sharing what I found in that current of consideration, but as summer winds down, I would like to tap back into my creativity, to feel more sun on my skin, and to go fishing too; to access more wonderment and gather more wisdom; to roast s’mores over an open flame with friends; to offer myself more patience; to feast on a meal with my husband from our favorite Jamaican spot; to feel sturdier in my body after so much upheaval; to take more herbal baths; to alleviate the pressure I put on myself; to smell like the desert. I have more pragmatic objectives for this month too, but I think it is best keeping those close to my chest.
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Too Many Tabs Open
Florida’s Commissioner of Education thinks Jane Austen was an American.
Freshwater first appeared on Earth 4 billion years ago, ancient crystals hint
How a sex-obsessed California brand worth $1 billion completely collapsed
As Starvation Spreads in Sudan, Military Blocks Aid Trucks at Border
Skill Issues: Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Its Discontents
Did You See This
Members of the Tule River, North Fork Mono, and Tubatulabal Tribes conducted a ceremonial controlled burn at the Alder Creek Sequoia grove in the western Sierra Nevada region of California, alongside the U.S. Forest Service and Save the Redwoods League. For generations, Indigenous tribes have been prohibited from practicing cultural burns due to a 19th-century law, but with the ban being lifted in 2022 after devastating wildfires in 2020 and 2021 highlighted the need for better forest management, this allowed for the historic event to become only the second “cultural burn” outside the tribes’ reservations in over a century. This was really enlightening; I definitely recommend reading it.
My mom sent me this article about “dark oxygen” being discovered in the deep ocean, and at first, it blew my mind, then it bummed me out to read that “several mining companies have plans to collect these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process—and damage any marine life that depends on the oxygen they produce.” Because of course they will. Apparently, naturally occurring metallic nodules on the seafloor are splitting seawater into hydrogen and oxygen; these nodules also contain metals that we use here on land to make batteries, which is why mining companies are eager to get their hands on them. Scientists believe the dark oxygen likely supports life on the seafloor, and that deep-sea mining activity could “result in the destruction of life and the seabed habitat in the mined areas.”
Seán Ronayne, an ornithologist from Cóbh, County Cork, Ireland, has made it his goal to capture calls and sounds “from all known regularly occurring bird species on the island of Ireland” and has already recorded 194 out of 200 — “63% of which are red or amber listed,” meaning they’re in or near imminent danger of extinction. After returning to Ireland from Catalonia, Ronayne noticed the stark contrast in biodiversity between the two regions. Inspired by a series of books called The Sound Approach and motivated by the website Xeno-Canto, an online encyclopedia of birdsongs that was itself bereft of Irish birdcalls, he decided to begin documenting the sounds of the birds around him. This venture was especially encouraging for Ronayne, knowing that Ireland has lost significant natural habitats due to modern farming practices and industrialization—part of the reason why 63% of bird species on the island are at risk today. Ronayne has recordings ranging from the songs of everyday birds you can find in your backyard to more rare and elusive types. The dedication he has for this project, and the love he feels for our avian companions in this world, is deeply moving to me. When I finished being captivated by the interview, I tried to find a way to watch Birdsong, a documentary by filmmaker Kathleen Harris about Ronayne’s “mission to record the sound of every bird species in Ireland,” but I don’t think it is available in the United States yet. Insert sad face here. I have, though, been enjoying Wild Silence, his soundscape project with Seán Mac Erlaine, “created as a result of […] longing to be out in nature.”
Granta has published an(other) excellent piece of writing by Mary Gaitskill that pulls the rug out from under your perception of the story. First, she guides us through a thicket of contextualization, then we are left to try and discover, amidst the woods of her words, where we are on our own. I’ve noticed a lot of people these past few days trying to make heads or tails of whether this—Pneuma—is a story that speaks to something fully realized, though aberrant, that occurred in Gaitskill’s life, or if it is a sort of anomalous and chimerical ciphering of intangibility, but I’m less inclined to disassemble the machine powering the voice that draws us into its narrative (because I do not believe it is my veil to peek behind) and am instead completely captivated by its spell, continuing to be thankful that I get to live in a world where I can not only read something of this caliber but for that something to be generated by the labyrinthine that is Gaitskill’s mind. In 2021, one of my favorite mutuals, Ann Manov, reviewed Gaitskill’s collection of essays Oppositions, and the piece opens with a brief mention of Gaitskill suggesting that Manov see an energy healer—a curious, if not tenuous, thread of connection or just a mere coincidence? Who’s to know.
Speaking of mutuals I think of as bright and intelligent, another one of my favorites, Miriam Gordis, wrote mesmerizingly, for Dirt’s Summer of Bibliomancy, of vegetarianism and romance and tarot readings and “the temptation to narrativize your own life.” This was beautiful, delightful, thought-provoking.
The atmosphere is charged with wonder and excitement; the air is thick with an intensity that is only exacerbated by the oppressive heat. The crowd is eclectic in both manner and dress, the music so loud that it dizzies the mind, and the hosts of the event are feeding off the collective frenzy, using it to galvanize their audience. This isn’t a music festival, though—it’s a weekend of exorcisms. The spiritual fervor and pageantry of this event are totally enthralling. The idea of gluten intolerances being caused by demons is so absurd that I kind of love it. Like, that’s camp.
This Elisa Gabbert essay on the philosophy of fear, anxiety, and reality was absorbing. Gabbert is one of those writers whom I find very elegant in their craft, her words refined in such a way that reading her work makes me feel smarter and more discerning in my considerations—probably because this is exactly what happens.
From ancient traditions to modern science, lucid dreaming has always fascinated us as a people. This story delves into the author’s own experiences with lucid dreaming and explores the field of cognitive science that has grown from the diverse history and techniques inspired by dreaming through the ages. It connects the richness of the dream world to our waking, perceptive reality in a manner that I found pretty engrossing.
This heart-wrenching story about writer Ryan Nourai’s mom, Carol Lepak Nourai, who survived her own murder in 1987, and how, after her eventual death in 2015, he became devoted to unraveling the horrifying context of how her life’s history was dislocated by the event, is spellbinding.
Beyond the atmosphere that surrounds the idea of Chris Kraus, she is not a writer whose work I had engaged with much, apart from clicking on bylines and headlines featuring her name, enjoying the I Love Dick adaptation from so many moons ago, and finally, actually delving into, though very (very) slowly, I Love Dick since June. This isn't because I wasn't interested, but because the book's popularity made it almost feel like I'd already read it. Since I began reading it, though, I’ve realized that this was far from reality, and I’m enjoying my time with it. I also enjoyed this conversation between Kraus and Catherine Lacey featured in the Los Angeles Times this week.
New on the Shelf
A bit of a quiet week, but here are five new books that grabbed my attention, and hopefully yours too.
Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and written by Ricky Ian Gordon, is a memoir of “humor, insight, and incredible candor.” Gordon chronicles his life as it begins on Long Island and spirals into a realm of addiction, the loss of a partner to AIDS, becoming a composer, and, obviously, more—because isn’t life something roiling and complex? This is a story I’m curious about sinking my teeth into.
New from Sarah Manguso is Liars, published by Hogarth Press. Jane, an aspiring writer, falls in love with John, a filmmaker. They marry, become parents, and live happily ever after… except not really, because it isn’t long before Jane realizes that her career and aspirations have taken a back seat to John’s. Here is where Jane decides to rediscover herself, and John decides to leave her. As if I didn’t already want to know what happens next, this salient Los Angeles Review of Books piece drew me even further in.
Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, has published The Modern Fairies by Clare Pollard. Honestly, mentions of similarity to Jenny Offill and Deborah Levy and Angela Carter are initially what attracted me to this one, then I realized Pollard is the author of another book that’s been on my TBR for ages, theeeen the description for the book left me a little befuddled, but I eventually settled on wanting to read this prurient (?) recounting of fairy tales through history. I’ll let Sarah Perry’s blurb do the rest of the talking: “Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin—the book I really, really needed.”
Investigative reporter Jesselyn Cook’s The Quiet Damage: Qanon and the Destruction of the American Family, published by Penguin Random House subsidiary Crown Publishing Group, looks past the theatrics of conspiracy theorists and into the lives of their families. Inviting readers to delve into the stories of “five families shattered by pernicious, pervasive conspiracy theories”—including a woman who was misdiagnosed with cancer and turned to “alternative medicine,” a mother and son who stopped speaking, and sisters of color who went down very different paths—this book sounds like it has the potential to be upsetting, disturbing, and right up my nonfiction alley.
This New Yorker review of Irish writer and historian Susannah Gibson’s The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women’s Movement, published by W. W. Norton & Company, is what compelled me to take note of Gibson’s book about the history of eighteenth-century England—a time when women could not attend university, own property, or, apparently, even engage in stimulating conversation at a coffee shop—and the (demure, moneyed, tendentious) women, the Bluestockings, who were seen as abnormal for their intellectual ambitions, discriminating taste, and assiduous spirits.
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The Graze
Well, this looks like a tearjerker. The little girl at the beginning of the trailer, measuring the length of time by how many rotations the sun will make before she gets to see her dad again, already got to me. Daughters won the Sundance Film Festival’s audience award in the documentary competition and was named the overall festival favorite this year. It premieres on August 14 on Netflix.
Laraaji’s Glimpses of Infinity has been so good for relaxing the recently frenetic state of my mind body spirit connection. I think Segue to Infinity (Glimpse) is currently my favorite song on the album. This interview he did with Lindsay Costello for The Stranger back in May is also really good; I recommend reading the whole thing. I love everything he said about funniness and laughter, but I’ll leave you with this one line in particular: “The shortest distance between two people is laughter—boundaries come down and we become available and vulnerable.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer was recently on Alice Vincent’s Why Women Grow podcast, and maybe it’s recency bias making me say this—I’m unconvinced that this is the case, though—but I think it may be one of my favorite podcast episodes I’ve ever listened to, and it’s less than 25 minutes long. Vincent and Kimmerer’s conversation is brilliant, astute, charming. Listening to it while I wound down for the evening enveloped me in a sort of tranquility. I felt as inspirited as I did at peace. Thinking of the world around us as a place of reciprocity, abundant with gifts of the Earth—not commodities or natural resources; the smell of a rotten garden and the sight of birds picking through leftover vegetables and seeds; how the act of observation is deeply relational; recognizing, even embracing, grief as “the mirror of love for the land” rather than turning away from it; and using our anguish to galvanize rather than sedate us—oh, it was all so good! The spirit of their interview wove together in such an activating way for me. I just wish we had gotten pictures of Kimmerer in her garden too!
Another album perfect for languid summer days is ambient artist Meetka Otto’s new self-titled release. I can’t get enough of I Like It Here and I Love You and Whippet Girl, but Partly Cloudy and Perfect Day are also on frequent repeat. The type of album that will stretch across seasons and encapsulate seamlessly the sensation of their days.
Did anyone else not realize Dial-A-Poem was relaunched earlier this year? After a minor bout of restlessness tried to overwhelm me on Saturday, I called the number and was treated to an exhortative poem wrapped in eroticism. I was unfortunately reeling from the honestly kind of strange and unexpected welcoming operator's susurrant tone, so I missed both the title of the poem and who the reader was, but once I summited the mountain of my bewilderment, hearing the voice of another person speak in verse effectively defanged my nerves. It was cool. I hope they’re able to continue this.
Sour Reflections
At the start of the week, I asked how you all would feel about adding a book club component to Barn Sour, and it seemed a healthy number of people were interested, so moving forward, on the first Sunday of each month, I’ll share the details of what we’ll be reading! We’ll use Substack’s chat feature to casually chitchat about the book throughout the weeks, and then on the final Sunday, we’ll discuss our thoughts and opinions about the selection more thoroughly. Since this is our first book, and because I’m excited about venturing into this, I’ll be sharing our choice for August today rather than waiting until next week. I hope you’re excited too and can’t wait to read together!
Since August is knocking on next week’s door I will technically see you next month. Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite, and here’s a cool article on the history of the aforementioned saying if you’re looking for something more to read.
Edit: sorry for any late night typos — please let me know if you notice ones I didn’t catch!
I really enjoyed the lucid dreaming article and the Miriam Gordis piece - as I was reading it, I thought about the book “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” only for her to mention it down the line! I’ve been, yet again, pondering deeply about my lifestyle/morals/dietary choices lately 🙇. And I’m so excited for Barn Sour’s bookclub!!💋