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.
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:
Want to make carnitas without all the fat? Bolognese without the wait? Why? Why when there are so many pork dishes that are not confited, so many Italian pasta sauces that don’t require hours of simmering. If “that” is to be avoided for whatever reason, it feels like a failure of the imagination to stay stuck on “this.” We, editors and readers alike, are all drinking the same very contemporary, very American flavor of Kool-Aid, keeping up the charade that we can have everything we want and nothing that we don’t, even as our lives feel harder and tighter.
The toilet in the light of morning sparkles, peach enamel, polished chrome, half-filled with water clear as crystal. Leaned over it Becker shirtless one hand braced on porcelain tile, sweatpants sagged below his buttocks and his other hand, his arm works quickly, with a rhythm, breath gone ragged rough but quiet, quiet, held, expression gripped with effort, a swallow interrupted.
The first jet splots the rim, the underside of the upraised seat. The second’s less of a jet than an ooze that heavily falls to mar the water, a whitely oily bolus that unskeins itself apart, a creamy cloud thinning to watery milk, and Becker shivers. Sighs as he catches sight of his sticky fingers. Tears away a couple of squares of toilet paper to fold and wipe. Eyes the splotch left slickly glistening on the toilet rim as he drops the wadded paper in the bowl. Flushes. Lowers the seat, the lid, to hide it away.
Dressed now, grey trousers, blue-striped shirt, hastening down the stairs into the parlor, shoes in one hand, leatherette portfolio in the other. A messenger bag slumped on the floor there, and with a green-socked foot he toes open the flap of it to tuck the portfolio within. “Hail, the conquering hero!” calls someone from the dining room beyond, Jimmy, baggily soft pants in a zig-zagged profusion of bricky, earthen reds and oranges and yellows, his sideless T-shirt printed with a smiling cartoon, a monocled brown face under a limp-brimmed yellow hat, a signature that says Panama Jack.
“That’s what you’re wearing,” says Becker, slipping on his shoes, hoisting one onto the overwhelmed sofa to tie it.
“You know,” says Jimmy, “it’s a pleasure? To see your grasp of the obvious remains as firm as ever.”
“The characters are both subtly human and bold rock-opera caricatures and why do they both work—”
“—people who like urban fantasy written in a rather jumpy unusual style will like this book—”
