Hello, fellow two-legged mammals that an Alpha-Centaurian would consider freaky,
Here’s what I’ve been completely distracted by recently.
Parents who raise their kids to be alphas. People who even use the word alpha: as if we are wolves or tigers or gorillas or who knows what kind of predatory carnivore. As if teeth should determine our value systems….
I get it: these parents believe this is a dog-eat-dog world, they believe in survival of the fittest (when the fittest are armed), they believe that everyone is out to get everyone else and that the best defense for this is to breed fierce top-of-the-food-chain humans who are ready to rip everyone else off the ladder so they can get up there and grab the gold ring. And who says they are wrong.
But what I’ve been thinking about is how these “dog-eat-dog” people point at the people who teach social values like compassion and generosity and understanding and sneer at those efforts as benefitting “sheep.”
As though the only alternative to a successful predator is weak, stupid prey.
I would like to put forth this alternate alternative.
Perhaps humanity is meant to be, not lone wolves and vampires, but social animals. Group animals. Hive animals. Pod People.
Maybe humans are intended to evolve until we are as mutually beneficial to the whole as a society of ants or honey bees or a Portuguese Man-o-War or coral.
Hives, colonies, or siphonophores.
And if you prefer democracy to royalty (worrying over queen bees or hive queens), perhaps you could look out to the realm of Poseidon and recognize that the whales and dolphins might be a darn good animal model for humanity.
Yeah, those guys. They work together. They’re wicked-smart either as individuals or as a collective. They take time to save humans sometimes. Their biggest fear is that we’re doing irreparable damage to the environment (oh man did you see that UN report?) But basically, they spend their time having baby dolphins (don’t look up how they eat each other’s calves) and jumping around and having a great time, singing, dancing and playing. Can you think of a better ultimate purpose than just being joyful? It’s true, those dolphins aren’t all sunshine and sparkles - they have feeding frenzies with the best of them. But they’re not stupid and ALSO they are not so darn angry and afraid all the time, like the mammals waiting to be taken down off their alpha perch—where every social encounter is about dominance and might bring about the endgame battle.
When I wasn’t thinking about this whole dolphins vs sheep society, I was working on my novel. This week I also:
Heard I am getting a poem published! A villanelle, accepted by Limp Wrist Magazine which should be in their all-villanelle issue this September.
I went to see Shakespeare in the Park last week and wrote an essay about the lottery process. (The play was terrific, even if it was a 90 minute abridged and rewritten version. SO enjoyable to see live theater. Great acting, I particularly enjoyed the outright glee which Jacob Ming-Trent brought to the updated character Falstaff.)
The Medium publication, “Life and the Performing Arts.” almost immediately requested the essay as a reprint. I said sure!
The new story collection, A Fire to Light Our Tongues, is FINALLY being published in Spring 2022 by TCU Press! I was first invited to contribute in early 2019. The contract is now signed and editing is at last in progress. My story “Baptism” is a doozy!
Speaking of invitations, I should have a new, very strange story in a Halloweenish anthology in 2022 (I just sent it off per request; hopefully the editor liked it!)
Attended a great in-person event that featured my friend Nick Kaufmann reading from his awesome soon-available evil-mushroom novel, The Hungry Earth. The other two readers were Carrie Laben and Steven Van Patten, both new to me, but terrific speculative thinkers. The reading series on the rooftop of Ample Hills Creamery on Union Street in Brooklyn is well worth the subway ride. (Lemon Poppyseed Ice Cream has just dethroned Mint Chocolate Chip as my new summer favorite, and this takes some doing.)
Went to a gallery show called “Discount for Ugly People” and wrote an essay about it. (See? All those response essays I wrote after fifth grade field trips finally paid off!)
Then, a new visual-arts publication on Medium called “Counter Arts” reached out to me and asked to reprint this essay on my visit to the Whitney and the high line. (I’m starting to REALLY like Medium.)
I agreed to do a reading on September 11th. It’s hosted by The Society of Art and Literature. They’re throwing a cocktail party featuring some NYC authors reading about NYC to honor the resilience and renewal of Downtown NYC on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. You can get tickets ($50 early bird/ $60 at the door) by emailing marehunt009@gmail.com (or just venmo @marianne-kuhn). Proceeds benefit Pen Parentis. Come hang out in person with me!
To show my new love of Medium, I decided to enter the Medium Writing Contest. I’ve written three entries. Work, Death, and Reentry. They are very different from each other. Work is adapted from my nonfiction book, while “Play it again, Christmas Girl” is a new essay about long-ago NYC times. Death isn’t about death at all, it is about vocabulary. I have one more to write before August 24, on Space. (The four themes were assigned by the contest judges.) The only downside is that I’m getting NO sleep because I keep writing until 3:30 am!
And that was my week! There should be a hurricane hitting NYC anytime. I’m in a super-safe apartment sheltered from weather (I frequently do not know if it is raining or not) but I hope that everyone in Connecticut and Long Island is keeping safe & that you managed to get all your things off the floors of your basements.
Before you move on to the rest of your day, watch this awesome 3 minute video if you haven’t seen it - it will pick up your mood and make you fall in love with NYC all over again. So many beloved NYC moments & images & humans. 3 minutes of pure love. Enjoy!