19
Or, Missing Out
Reader,
I slept at 0100 EAT today (too old for Sunday afternoon naps, me) and didn't think to look for an Oscars stream as I struggled to sleep so I saw the biggest news of the ceremony when I woke up. It's been interesting dipping in and out of the timeline all day and seeing folks' takes.
Last week but one, I read an essay about Deaf culture & language. It was a week that saw me go down a rabbit hole featuring couples where one person is Deaf or Hard of Hearing and the other Hearing, leading to a certain exposure to Deaf (American) spaces. The essay was, for me, about translation - no one language translates neatly into another and part of language learning is the process of missing out (on meaning, humour, nuance and so on). Why are you so English, to mean - why are you an outsider even though you're technically one of us. It made me think about the possibilities afforded to us by literature, but also what is lost in (essentially) transcribing (sign) language.
Still on Deaf culture - Don and I watched CODA together earlier this year and it was such a pleasure to see Troy Kotsur win an Oscar, and the particular moments leading up to his address. We think about access and accessibility a lot (here I'd especially like to shout out my dear friend Faith Njahira, whose work makes me think about disability justice in our context) and seeing Yuh-jung Youn handle that moment so seamlessly reminded me what world we work towards. For now - transcripts, in the future - accessible venues, sign language interpreters, recordings, and so on.
While we're on the topic of the Oscars, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Will Smith incident. There's a lot to be said about illness, disability, honour culture, masculinity/ies, gender and so on. Like a lot of people, I think many things can be true - that assault is horrible, that mocking someone for something beyond their control is an act of unkindness, that it's hard to separate which bits had to do with Will's honour and which had to do with respecting Jada and so on. Some folks have pointed out that his behaviour would have been swoon-worthy in a romance novel and maybe it's a chance for us all to consider what it says about folks that interpersonal violence is conflated with love and adoration.
I was scheduled to have surgery yesterday but a massive breakdown in communication between my doctor, insurer, and the hospital had me at home on Sunday morning as someone called me from theatre to ask me if I'd still show. No, was the answer, seeing as I have to wait till August at the earliest. This development left me feeling sad and unable to do anything other than send a broadcast message on WhatsApp on Saturday evening. I slept most of yesterday and then watched Encanto (first time!) to chase some of the blues away. Books and bookish things helped, too, as I took some time to submit my BookTube Prize ballot and finish When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo. I'd really been looking forward to surgery for the relief it promised and 4.5 months of waiting make me feel like I have to limber up when I thought the race was over.
I'd lined up a bunch of graphic novels and middle grade books to read during my down time and I managed to finish one before I got the news - The Lighthouse by Paco Roca who I first heard of because of his book Wrinkles, which I'm still on the lookout for. I also finished The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers & re-experienced Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (narrated by Vineeta Rishi) this past week. I'd hoped to put in a lot of reading during my week off wage work but that wasn't to be. Still, there's the collaborative Spotify playlist which you can contribute to.
Having spent 5 weeks of back to back digital reading, the choice is between making up for physical book time or resetting the clock and just doing 2 weeks per format going forward. More important, in the wake of the first blog post in 6-odd months, is tracking books (in a Google form and via various Twitter threads1) and writing about them.
This week, I hope to read She Called Me Woman (edited by Azeenarh Mohammed, Chitra Nagarajan and Rafeeat Aliyu), The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa (whose The Memory Police I greatly enjoyed) and Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid. These physical copies will be accompanied by listening to How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind by John Van Epp (narrated by Alexander Cendese), The Giver by Lois Lowry (narrated by Ron Rifkin, recommended by a Bumble match) and Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark (narrated by Channie Waites) which I’ll be discussing with MJ (we finally had that chat about We, the Survivors by Tash Aw!). I’m excited about the walks and reading time that await me.
I hope you have a great week and a lovely time reading. Talk to you soon!