Same Page SF | The importance of close reading
Especially on MLK Day. Plus: Extinction foods, poetry, "feel-good murder stories" and more.
Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary. We’re your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy source for author events, book discussions, and new releases.
In honor of the holiday, I want to start this newsletter with a link to Martin Luther King Jr’s own words - because so many of them have been de- or mis-contextualized, strategically sanitized. Many of us - especially those who, like me, are white and grew up in predominantly white classrooms - were taught that MLK was synonymous with peace and love, with turning-the-other-cheek, with unconditional and uncomplaining compassion. That he was a man of dreams, not of action - certainly not of radical, revolutionary action.
Jonathan Eig, who last year published King: A Life - probably the best biography I’ve ever read - says it best. An excerpt:
In the process of canonizing King, we’ve defanged him, replacing his complicated politics and philosophy with catchphrases that suit one ideology or another. We’ve heard the recording of his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech so many times we don’t really hear it anymore; we no longer register its cry for America to recognize “the unspeakable horrors of police brutality” or its petition for economic reparations. We don’t appreciate that King was making demands, not wishes. “In a sense, we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check,” he said that summer day in 1963 as he stood at the foot of Abraham Lincoln’s statue. We’ve mistaken King’s nonviolence for passivity. We’ve forgotten that his approach was more aggressive than anything the country had seen – that he used peaceful protest as a lever to force those in power to give up many of the privileges they’d hoarded. We’ve failed to recall that King was one of the most brutally divisive figures in American history …. He was deliberately mischaracterized in his lifetime, and he remains so today.
If you’re craving literary community this evening, Madrone Arts Bar is hosting author and anthropologist D. B. Maroon for a special Motown on Mondays: she’ll be reading from her essay collection Black Lives, American Love, a “personal biography of America, Blackness, and racial politics.” Tonight, 5-7pm, free.
Looking ahead, it’s a BUSY WEEK. Here’s what you’ll want to attend if…
1) You don’t want food to go extinct
Sarah Lohman on Endangered Eating at Omnivore Books. Saturday 1/20, 3pm, free.
Join food historian Sarah Lohman to hear about Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods. Featuring heirloom apples, wild rice, filé powder, and more, it’s a chronicle of her cross-country travels to learn about ingredients at risk of being lost - and a case for preserving these largely Indigenous culinary customs. Per the NYT, “Part travelogue, part history, and part eulogy, [Lohman’s] book plumbs not just the American plate, but its soul.”
2) You’re in the mood for “touching, funny, and frank” poetry
Nicola Andrews on Māori Maid Difficult at Green Apple Books on the Park (or via livestream). Thursday 1/18, 7pm, free.
Join Nicola Andrews - local poet and member of the Ngāti Paoa iwi - for the launch of their debut chapbook Māori Maid Difficult, a collection of poems about family, identity, and decolonization as part of the Pacific Island diaspora. (If you’re curious about their work, I love their Best of the Net-nominated poem “I Didn’t Come Here to Make F.R.I.E.N.D.S,” published by Many Nice Donkeys, p19-22.)
3) You want to celebrate Indigenous creators
New Year NDN Arts Market at The Ruby. Saturday 1/20, 12-6pm, donation-based entry.
Join Indigenous Women Rising, NDN Girls Book Club, and The Ruby for an afternoon of arts and literature by Indigenous women and non-binary creators. There will be readings and performances, snacks and merch, raffles and free books (so really, everyone’s a winner!). Bring proof of vaccination - and, if you’re able, money and period products from the wishlist for donation.
4) You remember waking up to an orange sky
Manjula Martin on The Last Fire Season at City Lights. Tuesday 1/16, 7pm, free.
Hear Manjula Martin, in conversation with Oscar Villalon, discuss her just-released, already-acclaimed book The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History. A combination of memoir, natural history, and literary inquiry, it chronicles Martin’s experience of living in Northern California during the worst fire season on record in luminous, perceptive prose.
5) Your favorite Taylor song is “No Body, No Crime”
Parini Shroff on The Bandit Queens at Bookshop West Portal. Thursday 1/18, 7pm, free.
Join local author Parini Shroff to celebrate the paperback release of her debut novel The Bandit Queens. Set in a remote village in India, this “feel-good story about murder” follows Geeta, who did away with her husband years ago - at least according to the rumor mill. It’s not true, but she doesn’t mind the don’t-mess-with-me mystique - that is, until women start requesting her *help* with their own no-good husbands.
Bookish news
Find out if you’re in the top 1% of readers by number of books last year | The SF Chronicle published a delightfully detailed feature on Paul Yamakazi of City Lights | The SFPL is giving out free copies of On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton | we were here, tanea lunsford lynx’s creative investigation of the Black American presence in SF at the turn of the twentieth century, is on display at the SFPL Main Branch | Applications for the 2024-2025 Brown Handler Writer’s Residency are open now through Feb 4 | This NYT article waxes poetic about the joys of quiet reading parties (👋, Silent Book Club!)
Book-adjacent gatherings
Not *about* books, but around them
📽️ Adobe Books is partnering with Arab Film Media to continue their Solidarity Screening of Palestinian films; this event features Tale of the Three Jewels. Monday 1/15, 7pm, free.
🎨 Manny’s is hosting a panel on Keeping Art Alive with local artists and activists. How can we help artists thrive in urban spaces and economies? Tuesday 1/16, 6-7pm, $15 (complimentary tickets available).
🧵The SFPL’s Excelsior Branch is holding a visible mending workshop. Learn simple darning techniques to repair - and embellish! - ripped clothing so you can minimize waste and maximize style. Sunday 1/21, 3-4:30pm.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with a bookish friend or two (or more, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).
Have an upcoming event you’d like me to include? Want to share an idea or ask a question? I’d love to hear from you! Just reply to this email or message me on Instagram.
Cheers,
Christina
Same Page SF
Book recommendations are my love language.
A bonus for those who reach the bottom of the newsletter: each week I feature a book I’ve recently read and wholeheartedly loved.
It is an embarrassment and a mystery how I managed to get to 2024 without reading Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby. Maybe it was one of those books that I saw everywhere and somehow my brain conflated visual familiarity with actually having read it? (To be fair, 2021 was the year of the color-blob covers…)
The novel follows Reese, a trans woman who longs to be a mother; Reese’s ex, Ames (when they were together, he was Amy), who detransitioned for reasons that become brutally clear as the story unfolds; and Ames’ boss and paramour Katrina, who’s just learned she’s pregnant by Ames. I’ve rarely felt more curiosity and compassion for fictional characters - it’s been a while since a book made me full-on cry! - and that’s a testament not just to the plot but the lucidity and beauty of Peters’ writing. As Jia Tolentino put it, “This book is exhilaratingly good.”
Giveaways are my love language, too!
If you’re new this week, or if you missed it last week, we’re introducing book giveaways for paid subscribers.
We’ve thought long and hard about how to make Same Page SF sustainable - because while it’s a labor of love, it’s still very much a labor. Local and literary coverage is at the heart of what we do, and we won’t limit access to that core content. So we landed on this as an experiment worth trying.
We’re especially excited because giveaways support authors too! Our giveaways will highlight the work of authors who will be touring here. Most folks who show up for events already have a connection with the author, so we’re expecting these giveaways to build awareness, excitement, and attendance.
Paid subscribers, enter the giveaway below!
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