City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: a wicked concoction of urban pastoral and incantatory fantastic, where a grocers’ warehouse might become a palace, and an antique bank is hidden beneath a department store.
Boots Riley
So for me, the question isn’t “Is the public ready?” I start from: the public already knows things are messed up. The public is more open than we’re told. The question I ask myself is: how do I move people emotionally towards imagining something they can do? Not “the” solution, but a solution—something that shifts them from “It’s all hopeless” to “Maybe we can try this.” That’s what I’m after.
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:
She sits leaned back in a nubbled green armchair, Marfisa’s sheepskin coat about her shoulders, bare knees scuffed, gleaming under the too-bright fluorescent light, hands restless in her lap. “It’s all right,” murmurs Marfisa, knelt before her on the grimy carpet. “Petra’s coming. She’ll be here in a minute. You’ll see.”
“It hurts,” says Ysabel, her voice quite small.
“I know, lady.” Stroking once those short black curls, and here and there a sprig of silver. “But you’re safe. Everything’s going to be fine.” Pressing a folded towel to Ysabel’s throat, her cheek.
“Everything hurts,” says Ysabel, green eyes blinking, dull.
“I know, my lady.”
The freshly painted green and purple door flies open, Gloria bursting into the little windowless room, “What the fuck,” she’s saying, “what the absolute fuck, you brought her here?”
“Not so loud,” says Marfisa.
“Fuck loud,” growls Gloria, “fuck you, fuck this, this, this this is why we, this is the whole reason, this is,” but Marfisa’s lifting one of Ysabel’s hands to the towel, pressing it close, to hold it, getting to her feet, “she’s, she is why,” Gloria turns to follow her, “we’re here, in the first place,” as Marfisa gently shuts the door. “If you keep on like that,” she says, hand still on the knob, “everyone will hear.”
“Fuck everyone,” snarls Gloria.
“—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…”
“It’s serial fiction done right.”
