Cool you can buy McPherson & Co books on Asterism now. They have a small but gorgeous list that includes Jaimy Gordon (Shamp of the City-Solo), Maya Deren (Divine Horsemen), and the novels of Ascher/Straus, whose Headless World I review here:

alvinlu.co/city-god/headl…

This is happening tonight in the Mission.

Medicine for Nightmares: Great bookshop-gallery on 24th Street. Picked up a used copy of Evan Dara's The Lost Scrapbook here just the other day.

Spring means sojourns for high school track meets in the suburban hinterlands of the Bay, with banh mi and mochi donuts in Hayward, Jamaican jerk chicken in Santa Rosa, and the drive back in from the north with 30 degree drop in temperature crossing the fogbound bridge.

'we spoke to a copper sundial to call on womankind, / our sisters in the desert, our mothers on the coast / evoking laughter not yet forgotten in a season of grief --': from 'A Garden, Post-Catastrophe,' 1 of 2 poems by KAREN AN-HWEI LEE On The Seawall / bit.ly/4bfpsdu

I just received a copy of the new novel The Rachel Condition by Nicholas Rombes (published with CLASH Books April 2024). clashbooks.com/new-products-2… Thank you dear N Rombes for your kindness. We can read a review by Alvin Lu on 3:AM Magazine.
3ammagazine.com/3am/the-rachel…

Like all great books, Paradiso imposes its idiosyncratic rhythms on the reader with an almost preternatural authority. One feels a spectator to the first day of creation.

Vincent Czyz Werewolf in selvage I saw
In day's dawn changing his shape,

Amid leaves he lay
and in his face, sleeping, such pain
I fled agape.

(Ezra Pound's translation from the French of San Francisco writer Jaime de Angulo)

Not really a review of Big Fiction: thereadingexperience.net/tre/2024/05/sp…

Caught Edward Yang's That Day on the Beach at BAMPFA, the first time since 30+ years ago, when I saw it on a deteriorated VHS copy. Those nested flashbacks, the great Sylvia Chang, and early 80s Taipei cityscape had sunk in deep, nevertheless.

On cue: I reviewed Nicholas Rombes's (The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing) new novel, The Rachel Condition:

3ammagazine.com/3am/the-rach...

Thank you Andrew Gallix

an aura- & foliage- & deity-rich register of remnant customs & ritual logistics ... by new_sinews issue8 (appearing this Summer!) contributor Alvin Lu Your Impossible Voice

yourimpossiblevoice.com/a-chinese-temp…

The Cal Poly Humboldt comrades in their full splendor.

The West don't learn from history
Doomed to repeat it endlessly
We put the past on to Fuji
And we erase it totally

Soon we'll be known as Great Japan
Just like they do in Great Britain
Spelt microchip and solid state
The things that made this country great

B.A.D., 'Sony'

Coming soon: Bruno Lloret, Wilfrido Nolledo, Ana Munar Guevara, Ricardo Piglia, Veronica Wasson, Alvin Lu, Khalil AbuSharekh, Kasimma, Francisco (Franky) García González, Amy DeBellis, Daniel David Froid, Bailey Sims all together in one of the best issues of anything ever.

Here we go

Pub date February 1, 2025. My foray into science fiction, gene editing, and switched consciousness.

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I have always resisted consuming books that are trendy or fashionable. My map of readings has been drawn more or less at random, by fate, temperament, and very much by hedonism. I am fascinated by the eccentrics.

Sergio Pitol, translated by George Henson, Ph.D.