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 gold, the gold that spills from her hand a glittering trickle to the brilliance mounded in that wooden tub, “After all that.”
“Yes,” says Ysabel, laid back among the rugs and pillows, wrapped in a white robe.
“You said it was broken,” says Gloria Monday, empty hand on the edge of the tub. “Done.” Still in that black gown, and still with ribbons in her hair.
“I said if,” says Ysabel. “If it were broken. If it were done. Would you stay. And the answer was yes. Even so. But now,” her black hair shining, wet, her hands, her throat, her bare shin streaked and gleaming gold, “the toradh is restored.”
“We must’ve been reading different rooms,” says Gloria, stepping away from the tub, past Anna there in her houndstooth, her narrow glasses. Jo in the shadows, buttoning up her jeans, braces herself. “This,” says Gloria, “is fucking unbelievable. This cannot fucking be believed.” Anna lifts a cautioning hand, “Gloria,” she says.
“You know what’s up there?” says Gloria. “You know how all this started? Why?” A step toward languid Ysabel. “It was all the people, all the women,” says Gloria, “you fucked over, with your fucking goddamn question. Me,” she says. “Marfisa. Bobbi, and Anna,” Anna looks away, hand to her brow. “Julia? Tully? Petra, and Miriam, and every, everybody else who’s up there, now,” as Ysabel sits up then, looking to her with those green, green eyes, “who washed your dishes, or, or cooked you something, folded your fucking underwear, slept,” turning to Anna, “in a goddamn shoebox, and you,” whirling back to loom over Ysabel, “said it was all done!” Jo gets to her feet. Gloria straightens, steps back. “I guess that was bullshit.”
“The surrealism, the lush detail, and the loving attention to local Portland culture…”
“The characters are both subtly human and bold rock-opera caricatures and why do they both work—”
“Long, complex with a lyrical rhythm to it that’s intoxicating.”
