Seven days late and a dollar short
It’s 17:09 PST, January 7th, and there’s a Balsamic Moon in Sagittarius
Dearest F@guettes,
Bibliomancy.
The practice of foretelling the future by interpreting a random passage from a book, especially the Bible.
Well, I don’t read the Bible but I do read other books. And, despite biblical protestations, I fuck with divination. So, seven days after New Year’s, enjoy yourself and read my wordy affirmations.
May they keep you like they kept me.
Also, as a thank you for your continued support, here’s a coupon code (bookslut2024) for 50% off any astrological consultation of your choice. Enter it in at checkout; I’d love to work with you ;)
Sincerely,
E.Y.
P.S. “This month, what guidance will my readers need to support their thriving?” is the question I asked my books.
2024 Literary Affirmations
by E.Y. Washington
January: With Teeth by Kristin Arnett
“His mother had scared her. The way she screamed, and how she’d looked at the boy immediately after, with a mixture of love and revulsion. And how, immediately thereafter, she snapped into a space where it seemed like nothing had happened,” pg. 93.
February: Love, In Theory by E.J. Levy
“I have observed that if you give a man a mystery you will end up with one of two things——a cop or a philosopher. Because one kind of man will look for someone to blame, he’ll try to find a culprit to punish until everything is under control again; the other kind of man will marvel at what he hasn’t seen before. That’s why the young are naturally philosophical, why kids wonder where they were before they were born and why a banana is called a banana; kids can spend hours watching clouds. Everything amazed them,” pg. 141
March: How to Be Gay by David L. Halperin
“Divas disclose a form of power that gay men can claim as their own . . . [it] is not the terroristic power of male intimidation or domination, but the power of the victim who isn’t going to take it anymore, and who returns to triumph, “wounded and dominant,” to confront her persecutors with the full force of her pain,” pg. 253
April: Park Cruising by Marcus McCann
“There was a good reason for gay men, throughout most of the history of cruising, to be attentive to feedback, to be discreet in their initial glances and then look for cues that showed mutual interest before engaging with a stranger. I am talking about physical safety, of course, and avoiding the risk of a public verbal confrontation with an offended heterosexual and the concomitant risk of outing or simply drawing attention to yourself,” pg. 172
May: Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
“Of course it’s beautiful, she says. And there’s really nothing like it, when you are climbing the notes and you realize suddenly, there, right there, this, and the music opens to you. You see how you aren’t there, something else is there that belongs . . . to the music. It doesn’t belong to you at all,” pg. 56.
June: Black Imagination by Natasha Marin
“I imagine a world where queer babies run wild into the ocean. I imagine a world where queerness is everything and everyone. I imagine a world where our pain is connected and our liberation is free,” pg. 65
July: The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings by James Baldwin
“If we care about this country——and not only the area of civil rights——it is time to serve notice on our representatives that they are under the obligation to represent us and that they cannot be said to represent us if they continually betray twenty million citizens. It is time to let the government know that we will no longer accept this peculiar, pathetic excuse: “We have no right to act,” pg. 62
August: The Right To Sex by Amia Srinivasan
“Sometimes when we say that Asian men remind us of our cousins, we are saying: we know too much about how these boys and men are raised. One question is: aren’t Asian women within their rights to make such choices? Another question is: why think that white boys and men are raised any better? Is sophistication only found in Caucasia?” pg. 109
September: The Male Gazed by Manuel Betancourt
“Acting is all I did everyday. I slowly deadened who I knew myself to be, lowering my voice here, hold my wrist steady there, avoid flailing while jogging here, keep my excited squeals in check there . . . Day in and day out such calibrated gestures curdled inside you, making you irascible and, in time, perhaps, perfectly suited to play a sullen judge ready to unleash his righteous ire on all those around him,” pg. 82
October: Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Allison
“The narrator exists, maintains, and renders in words a field of tensions that pulse around her, almost a sense of malign plotting outside her, as she tries to maintain integrity——of place, body, self . . . plot swarms around character . . . ‘You would almost think it was deliberate,’” pg. 114
November: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
“The description of the world to which you lend a benevolent ear is one thing; the description that will go the rounds of the groups of stevedores and gondoliers on the street outside my house the day of my return is another . . . It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear,” pg. 135
December: Blackouts by Justin Torres
“And then I felt, or sensed, from the purple black of the soundless sky, that we were in the nethermost opposition of the night, when it’s hard to believe that day will ever break,” pg. 159