City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: an urban fantasy mixing magical realism with gonzo noirish prose, where duels are fought in Pioneer Square, and union meetings are beseiged by ghost bicycles.
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:
Want to make carnitas without all the fat? Bolognese without the wait? Why? Why when there are so many pork dishes that are not confited, so many Italian pasta sauces that don’t require hours of simmering. If “that” is to be avoided for whatever reason, it feels like a failure of the imagination to stay stuck on “this.” We, editors and readers alike, are all drinking the same very contemporary, very American flavor of Kool-Aid, keeping up the charade that we can have everything we want and nothing that we don’t, even as our lives feel harder and tighter.
“Good lord,” says Arnold Becker in that brightly empty room, and only a white leather couch on the white shag, before a sweep of window.
“Yes,” says the Anvil Pyrocles, there by the bare kitchen island.
“You, I, I mean, we?” says Becker, “Live? Here?” Pointing, to the unlit hallway on the other side of the island. “There’s more?”
“Two bedrooms,” says Pyrocles, and then, “I might move my things to the other, if that would,” but Becker’s already heading off, past the island, and Pyrocles follows with a sigh. The cabinet under the sink stands open, and nothing within but a spray-bottle of some cleaning solution.
The narrow hall jogs back past a couple of closed doors to open on another room filled with morning light, a round bed strictly made, crisp linens striped with indigo, and three men, one of them in a simple black suit, and a slender, older man in a chef’s coat, and the third of them seated on the foot of the bed, clean workboots and yellow coveralls unzipped, empty sleeves wound about his waist, head hung low, his shoulders broad, sunbrowned. “Oh,” says Becker, in his berry-colored plaid.
“This is the room we share,” says Pyrocles. Slipping off his blue suit coat he holds it out, to the man in black. “Though I’d happily sleep in the other, love, if you would be more comfortable.”
Becker says, “But,” in a far-away voice, “this isn’t my room,” and then, louder and more close, “my place–” He starts off around the bed. The man at the foot of it looks imploringly up to Pyrocles. Somewhere out in the main room a harsh buzz. “How did you know?” says Becker.
“Know what, my love?”
“—over the top, long winded, unnecessary, grossly elaborate and just bloated beyond all proportion.”
“The surrealism, the lush detail, and the loving attention to local Portland culture…”
“Who else could cause an LLM to hallucinate Emma Goldman, John Berryman, and an Irish sea god?”
