> the local library is a grocery store
You're tuning into Cheers, a newsletter made by Tiffany Xie. This week: medovik, a grocery store library, and the Sable Venus.
Hello friend,
> My sister and I did make the Russian Honey Cake. It took five hours but of course it was worth it.
> Our local library relocated to a vacant grocery store while the main building gets renovated for the next couple years. That grocery went bankrupt a few years ago, so it’s a bit odd to walk around, to see books in freezers, to be in a space that was, until recently, abandoned and empty and neglected. There are strange smells.
> I borrowed two cookbooks from the library that I am excited to read: Where Cooking Begins by Carla Lalli Music and Ruffage by Abra Berens.
> Reading (finally) Carmen Maria Machado’s unsettling rapture, her collection of short stories known as Her Body and Other Parties. If you haven’t yet read “The Husband Stitch,” you must.
> Just finished the bombshell that is Robin Cose Lewis’ Voyage of the Sable Venus (h/t Margaret), whose titular poem is made entirely of “titles, catalog entries, or exhibit descriptions’ of objects in Western art that depict the black female form, going back to 38,000 B.C.”
> “Verga” by Robin Coste Lewis:
bush because the women will only be raped but
the men will be killed...I have seen a woman
who was caught in the bush by several men.
They tied her legs to two trees while she was
standing. They raped her many times and before
leaving her they put stones in her vagina..."
Abshiro Aden Mohammed, Kenya, 2000
Dagahaley Somali Refugee Camp
from A Camel for the Son,
by Fazal Sheik
Before leaving her they put stones in her vagina
The men will only be raped but the stones will be killed
The bush caught many men to go into the stones
The stones will be killed by several trees before leaving
The bush tied the men to the trees in their vaginas
Before bush go to trees they kill many stones
Many men will be caught by the trees in the bush
Several trees will be raped by the bush and killed
Only the caught men will be stoned and bushed by the trees
Several men were caught by the trees before leaving
The men will be killed but the stones will only be treed
The stones put many trees into the men’s killed vaginas
By the bush, the trees were raped only several times
Before leaving, the vaginas were seen standing in the stones
> Reactive Guerrilla Performance for Dinners and Cocktail Parties delivered by Adrian Piper (h/t Yeeseon).
Cheers,
Tiffany