City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: a wicked concoction of urban pastoral and incantatory fantastic, where a grocers’ warehouse might become a palace, and an antique bank is hidden beneath a department store.
Boots Riley
So for me, the question isn’t “Is the public ready?” I start from: the public already knows things are messed up. The public is more open than we’re told. The question I ask myself is: how do I move people emotionally towards imagining something they can do? Not “the” solution, but a solution—something that shifts them from “It’s all hopeless” to “Maybe we can try this.” That’s what I’m after.
Miyazawa Iori
It’s true that I don’t want to say anything... I think there’s this mutual understanding among yuri fans, “don’t talk about yuri, make yuri.” If I accidentally blurt something out, it’ll provoke a flame war, and I don’t want to have what I say here spread around with a totally different meaning. And if it does, I’ll have to slice you all in half. I’ll be talking today with these feelings in mind.
The first of these aims will result in his being “kissed” or praised by the reading public and his courtly audience, but at the same time can only result from being “kissed” or touched by critical contact. If the poet remains unnoticed by criticism (“vnkisste”) he will always remain obscure (“vncouthe”) in the twin senses of unheard-of but also invisible, unavailable to the consciousness of his potential readers. The one who can provide him not only with fame but, at one level, his very existence, is the already knowledgeable EK.
Actually, having gone back to volume 5 already, I’ve finished the first draft of no. 47, and I’m a couple-thousand deep in the first draft of no. 48, which means I’m back again in volume 6, but today, today we’re doing the cover reveal for no. 47, which is in volume 5—thus, the title.
Anyway: the cover for no. 47, June 29th:
The rasher of bacon limply sheens those fingers greasy with scorched fat, those lips already parting for another bite, “You sure?” A gesture toward the platter heaped with bacon before them all. “Cooked to perfection. Gotta admit,” polishing it off, “you people set your minds to something, you do it right. No matter what.” The platter’s the only food on the long table, the plates before the rest of them all empty, cups and glasses sparklingly clean, napkins neatly folded, cutlery untouched. “Anybody?” A look for each of them in turn, the Glaive to the left, striped sleeves pink and white, the Guisarme in linen to the right, and beside him Mousely in a pink suit, clutching a sleek aluminum briefcase on her lap. Beside her the Chariot Iona, uncomfortably buttoned into a yellow blouse, and then Luys, the Mason, in a brown chamois shirt, and across from her the Gaffer Boggs, black turtlenecked, and the Soames himself, Twice Thomas in green tweed. “Going begging,” says the other, white shirt blazing in the sunlight. Stood behind each of them, at the edges of the shadowed porch, men in blue suits, hands behind their backs, Guerdon and Net, Trident and Serpent, Alphons, Anvil, Alans and Shield.
“My lord,” says the Axehandle Agravante, sat at the foot of the table, his suit perhaps of the darkest blue. “If we might dispense with the matter at hand?”
“What I don’t understand,” says the other, reaching for another piece, “is how any of this does any of us any good.” Munching thoughtfully. “Girl already owns the whole damn building.”
The Guisarme snorts. “Tom Wilson,” says the Glaive, “the girl’s father, held controlling interest in a group invested in developing the property; actual questions of ownership, of the land, of the structures, and so forth, and so on, are, shall we say: murky.”
“The characters are both subtly human and bold rock-opera caricatures and why do they both work—”
“Just a glorious bit of writing, I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
“It’s serial fiction done right.”
