79. A few words } re. Pear Noir!

When Daniel Casebeer emailed to ask that I submit to Pear Noir!, my first reactions were Daniel Casebeer is a fake name and Pear Noir!, really? Turns out yeah, really, there is a journal called Pear Noir! However, there is no Daniel Casebeer; the name represents a collective, or maybe a cult, led by a high school English teacher and an Anthropologie catalog model.

A copy of Pear Noir! #9 was delivered to my office Tues. morning. I’ve not yet read all of it. I like the impulse behind Christopher Urban’s “Empty Black Haunted House”; Maureen Seaton and Samuel Ace’s triptych is of interest—“A Guide to the Perplexed” name-checks Maimonides, author of the original Guide. 

In a communique with the collective, I proposed they include a selection from Angela Denstad Stigeler’s unpublished, unfinished ms.; the collective agreed and took the three pieces I selected. They’re different from everything else in the issue, straightforward and realistic. There’s irony, but not in the telling. Her stories give weight to the issue. I’m proud to’ve had a part in their creation.

Wendy Zhao’s drawings of soft bodies twisted and taken apart and Dmitry Borshch’s family portraits and murderous acrobats are outstanding. The image the accompanies this post is by Zhao. I stole it from Small Drawings.

My contribution is “Some Bedtime Stories.” I co-wrote it with my eldest. My wife read it and cried.