Episode 20: What’s in a name?
May 30th, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guests: Caits Meissner & Elae [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson]
Produced by Katie Rainey
Welcome to the 20th episode of the Animal Riot podcast. We'd like to thank you for leasing twenty hours of your time over to the wisdom and fuckery of our burgeoning warren. Today we'd like to invite Elae [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson] who, as an agent of change across arts and progressivism and the founder of The Operating System, is most notably a creative practitioner, which affiliation they expound upon in the upcoming episode. We’re also happy to welcome back Caits Meissner, Director of the Prison Writing Program at PEN America and author of Let it Die Hungry, published with none other than The Operating System. Today we’ll talk about the intersections of art, what it means to name things, collective creative practice, and, of course, we’ll get a reading from our two lovely guests.
>> Brian: Welcome to the 20th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum. We're here today with Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, aka Elæ, founder and creative director of the Operating System, interdisciplinary creative practitioner, cultural scholar, an assistant professor at Pratt.
We also have, for the third and certainly not the last time, the wonderful Caits Meissner, director of the prison injustice writing program at Pen America, author and illustrator of the collection of poems Let it Die Hungry, published by none other than the Operating System. So welcome. Anything you guys wanna add to your introductions to this little universe we have here?
>> Caits: Well, we can let the listeners in on what we were talking about just before we started which was the inadequacies of biographies and how to decide what goes in them.
>> Elæ: Yeah, I mean, I think it's Ah, I deal a lot with the idea that words are actually like, very problematic, very inadequate and also just sort of stand in as...
>> Brian: Oh, I could not agree more. I've been doing a lot of, like, research on the brain and how it functions. And just like in terms of just, like our metaphysical reality, like language is so limited the more you like, think about it. I mean, it's unbelievable.
>> Elæ: So my even, like taking of a different name had to do with the notion that you could create a name for yourself, right? That, like we have these names that stand in for ourselves and that those things come with all of these associations and that, like they're actually is the ability to sort of, like, rewrite that And a lot of what I work on is like a sort of self hacking and body hacking and mind hacking like both for myself and other people.
>> Brian: Oh wow.
>> Elæ: And what does it mean when you change your name? What does it mean when you decide to call yourself artist versus creative practitioner. Creative practitioner is a little harder, but artists has a lot of associations that I don't necessarily want to call forward. I work across many mediums. Artist, I think for most people it makes you assume that I'm talking specifically about visual art in two and three dimensions, but I also work in sound and I work in performance and blah blah blah.
>> Brian: So that is, that your association with art it's not necessarily like literature? You don't think of literature first when you think of art?
>> Elæ: I do but when you see a bio, if it said, you know Linda DeSilva-Johnson or Elæ, artist, would you assume that I meant that I worked with text?
>> Brian: Yeah, because that's pretty broad. No, you're right. My first thought would definitely not be like writing or like, you know, I don't know something that's not sculpting or like painting. Yeah, that those would be the first things that come into my mind is graphic design, but yeah, but can you can you define creative practitioner, I guess. Like if you can, just for our listeners who might not be familiar with that term.
>> Elæ: I think for me it's not it's another official term, right? It means that I work in creative practice across a number of creative practices.
>> Caits: And spaces.
>> Elæ: And space, yeah. I mean, so I think that, you know, when you're looking for words to define yourself, if you're looking to not, you know, box yourself in with things that people do have associations with sometimes bringing in new language, whether it's a name that looks really strange on paper, that someone can't necessarily pronounce without asking you right or whether it's what do you mean by creative practitioner, I'm always interested in things that bring about a question. Bring about dialogue rather than closing it off. So to say that I'm an artist like someone's not going to certainly going to actually ask what kind they may like have already closed that off when they saw my bio. They're like this person is a visual artist, but I don't want to say that right? Like for me all creative practice, whatever the medium, whether it's music or sound or visual art or text. Or, you know, social practice or any of these things are all part of a way of engaging with the world creatively that you use different mediums in order to do whatever happens to be the right medium at the time. And I think that Caits, you do this to in a certain way, right? I mean you go across mediums based on like, what process you're dealing with, right?
>> Caits: Yeah. For a long time, I was working with music with poetry. I haven't done that in the years now, but it's certainly a part of my history. I ignored doing illustration for years, and I have a graphic design degree, and only recently have I begun to bring things together and actually much in part to your... Well, I love to tell the story because I was like, I want just a poetry book.
>> Elæ: I was like, No.
>> Caits: And you're like, I only want it if it's all of you. And it was a great thing to be pushed towards because in the book there's illustrations, there's poetry, comics, there's poems, there's prose, notes that kind of unpack what I'm talking about in the book. And then there is these along formerly lesson plans but now just a series of questions. So I think to, you know, and I just added back into my bio actually had taken it out. I put d i y spirited poly creative because it is so I'm not just a poet and I'm not just a writer and I'm not just an illustrator. And it's we're, like, blessedly in this day and age. I think that a lot of people are able to be multiple things in their creativity more and more so, but I think we still have figured out how to quite talk about it. Yeah, it feels limiting to just say one thing. I think and tricky to package.
>> Elæ: There's also sort of these histories of legitimacy, Right? So it's sort of like what you got to say who you were when you got to call yourself an artist. When you had permission to call yourself a scholar or a You know what I think a lot of those things kind of come from the way that we've been taught that, like certain levels of achievement that are culturally deemed, you know, acceptable or like, validated like that at a certain point, you get some sort of permission to use certain terminology and reference to yourself, right? I mean, like, are you a published author right into the conversations about self publishing. Like, are you published? Did you publish it yourself, right? I mean, in a lot of the ways we talk about legitimacy with publishing as like, did someone publish something? Are they a writer? You know, you hear those kind of jokes about questions of like when you're like, Oh, I'm a writer and people'll be like, Oh, what have you published? Well have I read it? And it's sort of like, No, Well, I'm a writer because I write, you know, because that's my practice, right? The sort of the professionalization versus the practice is like so, so different. And like, I think the bio becomes a place where you can actually really trouble that by using language that is not necessarily expected and also deciding that you have permission to call yourself things.
>> Caits: Yes. And also, I think, you know, do you feel like when you're in the classroom at Pratt, with your wildly interesting syllabus that you're in a creative practice in teaching?
>> Elæ: Oh, my God, Yes, Absolutely. I mean, like, I well, I... there's an artist and I can't think of her name, but who refers to her as life art and she has, like, I know one of the people who, like, keeps her archive and she calls this person and, like, tells them about like how her chakras are doing. And like all of these different humans in the world, like keep her archive of her life, which he considers her art. And I was like, Oh, I don't even know that this is a thing that someone could do, right? I mean, and it sort of becomes legitimized once someone calls it that right? But we're the edges of creative practice for me, there are no edges of creative practice, whether it is the conversation that we were just having, which has to do with, like the body. Caits and I walking here, we're sort of talking about becoming conditioned to certain ideas of gender in the body and weight and health. But why is, you know, creatively thinking about the language that's associated with that and hacking that, like that's totally a creative practice. It doesn't have to be published. No one has to see it. Creativity for me is about challenge and like reframing things, right? Representation is creative practice, so it might just be that I'm saying, like, this is the way that I've language this all my life. I need to re language it, but I don't necessarily feel like I need to put on paper for someone else to read it anymore. I think I used to more than I do now, but a lot of my creative practices now are much more like internal.
>> Caits: Well, you said a great thing to me years ago. I've got come back to my own mind many a time, which was, you know, think of your creativity project's really idea, wise as a tree with many seeds, so you can have ideas all the time, and you should be able to have ideas all the time. And only a few of those were actually plant and grow.
>> Elæ: Oh yeah, I love this metaphor (laughter).
>> Caits: It's very permission offering because you don't have to latch on to every single idea. And I think, and also the idea of kind of thinking about life as a creative practice also brings me closer to the experience of being in flow, which then makes it much easier to do more tangible creative practices if I'm looking at just... it takes the pressure off in some ways around exactly what you're saying. Professionalization. And certainly I'm doing a better job working at Pen America when I think of it as also part of my creative practice and as a community artist, because there's so much creativity in that role, what we get to do. So I think that the borders and boundaries are sticky but it is interesting because in my bio, people always go to Pen America right now because as a Pen America's a shining name. Rightfully so. We do a lot of amazing work. And b, I think that work in the prison injustice space has exploded in the last few years. So it's a very attractive to people are interesting. It's intriguing to people. So yeah, the negotiation of who you are in the world. And if I if I stayed there, I would get offended. But if I see it as part of my creative practice in the world, then all of me gets to show up there. Does that make sense?
>> Brian: Mhm.
>> Elæ: But then you also get to understand that like people latch on to what's easiest for them to understand and so like or something that, like is exciting of them. And so, like I recently did a reading at Bowery for this event that they do monthly called Voce. Ars Poetica does it and it's awesome. And there's like one poet. And then there's like activists. There was someone from Make The Road who was amazing. There was a comic. There was a musician.
>> Caits: I think my colleague did that recently.
>> Elæ: Yes, it's great. So I was invited to do this. I was invited as the spoken word person, and I came up and I was getting introducing me and was my reading, but I get introduced as the founder of the Operating System. Like it was the only part of the bio that they read. But, you know, I have books coming out. I publish all the time. Like I you know, I have all this other stuff that's happening in my life, but I perform constantly. I'm a teacher, you know, But that's what I get associated with, you know, And so the people just latch onto these things and they're like, Oh, that's that's who you are. Like I'll do a reading and I'll get off the stage. And people come up to me to be like, How do I publish with you? And I'm like, Definitely not like this.
>> Caits: (laughs) I have to laugh because people are amazing.
>> Elæ: Oh, well, yeah. I mean, the social, the social skills of the poetry world are not always the best.
>> Brian: You don't you don't let them recited the first few lines of their book first? (laughs)
>> Caits: Here go. Right now. Here's a mic. Here's your audition.
>> Brian: Give me the 1st 3 and I'll decide.
>> Elæ: I think that we think that we pigeonhole each other. I think that people pigeonhole themselves. I think that a lot of it has to do with ideas about, like, success, like, you know, even with musicians or writers or something like when you do become successful, who allows themselves to change and who doesn't? And who keeps doing the same thing? I'm reading this like, incredible, like oral history of David Bowie and it's really good. But, you know, his whole thing was that, like I'm going to just keep making different music. I'm gonna keep going from style to style. And sometimes people really didn't like what he was doing. It all didn't think that he should be doing these things. And he was like, I don't care, you know, because he liked to be creative. But we often don't really allow that, right?
>> Brian: I was a massive Red Hot Chili Peppers fan when I was in high school. I had deep dissonance about liking there later and their earlier music. I had a problem with it. I don't know why. I was like, the funk stuff’s great, and it's, like, kind of more pure, But like this later, like British pop influence stuff is really good too. I don't know what to think right now, And there's all these, like little Chili Peppers fan boys that are out there like, you know, they're like they're like, No, the older stuff is the only shit that's good.
>> Elæ: When you become a public figure, which you are, as soon as you start making any sort of working on sharing that right, you are a public figure and I mean, what responsibility do you have to the public to like, give them what they want or what responsibility you have to the public to make sure that you're challenging them? Like, what does it mean to kind of be a public figure with your work, right? I mean, I think that this is so interesting. What does it mean to be expected to be a poet. Like the people have people assume that that's what you do, right? I mean, I think that in the last couple of years, the reason why all these words came into my bio was I was like, I really did poetry a lot in the last 15 years because I was really poor and like the other parts of my practice that are a lot more involved and involved more space and more resource and more money like I just couldn't do them. And so I didn't feel like it was a loss. I just felt like it was a transition into a period in which I was like, Well, let's use this material for a while. It's free, you know. But then, like people get really associate it with, like, doing a certain thing. And so I felt like I needed to carve out space for those other things and have people associate me with that other language and its really interesting. I mean, since bringing cultural scholar back into the way that I referred to myself, I've gotten I've done much more scholarly work in the last couple of years than I had for a while.
>> Caits: You know who else is going to claim and if you don't for yourself, you know, and I think I also think that there's different ways of creating and some people are really obsessed with their form. And in some ways I have envied that in the past because I feel like I'm all over the map. So am I ever going to get great at one thing? And I have these I spin in my mind around that, but this month I felt like electrically creative in a way I haven't in a while, which is very welcome. And I've been writing 30 poems and 30 days for April, you know, National Poetry Month with a group of women. So there's some real accountability. You don't be the one that didn't send the poem. Nobody has missed this time around.
>> Brian: What's the punishment?
>> Caits: There is none, but it's just, you know, shame. And so you know it's accountability. It's responsibility like we chose to do this together and to show up even if it's a haiku.
>> Elæ: JP keeps saying, today's a haiku day. I can't...
>> Caits: JP Howard, who's amazing author, also in the Operating System and in the writing group is in two writing groups. He writes two poems a day for 30 30. I don't understand, and there's been some amazing items from JP. Shout out. But I also have started writing flash fiction that I've been really excited about. And I'm also working on all these, you know, comics and illustrations. There's not time like there's not enough hours in the day. I have so many things I want to do. I'm bursting, and in the past I would have I would have really shamed myself like That's not okay. You had to choose a medium and stay there, right? That was a poetry was. I abandoned my whole early life, and I still make zines in high school. That was my thing. That was a mix of visual. Different kinds of writing.
>> Elæ: If you go on Caits Instagram, there's like these fun throwbacks to images from these scenes which are amazing.
>> Brian: Yeah, she showed me.
>> Elæ: Alison Bechdel. Come on now.
>> Caits: Yes. I did interview Alison Bechdel when I was 15 over email. I'm very proud of that still. And go Alison Bechdel. Fun Home hadn't come out yet for years it didn't but Dykes To Watch Out For was pretty popular at the time and thank you for, you know...
>> Elæ: Shout out, Lesbian Visibility Day was yesterday.
>> Caits: Oh, yeah And thank you for indulging a 15 year old. So you know, I think there's Yeah...
>> Caits: Well, I mean, I think the thing with Caits' book which I think is important to talk about too, like as a publisher like and thinking about what it means to make space for hybrid work in the world. I think like one of my reasons for going into making books for other people, had to do with the fact that I didn't really see this happening because the industry often is kind of milk toast. It's frightened. It doesn't really understand it's own changes. It's not really doing very well with, Like, big data. It's kind of like freaking out about changes that are happening. And so, you know, I think that in publishing a lot of people for a long time were sort of like what will sell, right? So it's sort of like your publishing things that are good. You're publishing people that you think will sell your publishing work that you think will sell. And again a lot of that, just like with the bios, it's sort of like what can people grab on to? What do they know?
>> Brian: It's a very it's very narrow definition of what will sell. You know, it's It's like whatever doesn't scare us into thinking maybe it won't sell.
>> Caits: Yeah, yeah, I mean, sometimes a common denominator. How many people can relate to this? I sat down with a colleague who was a former agent who was like so I could introduce you to people if you're interested in becoming an instagram illustrator because you could do that.
>> Elæ: You could. I have told you that also.
>> Caits: And but I don't want to. I can't do that. I just can't do it. But that's, you know, that's what I think about too when you say it like that.
>> Brian: Because you would have to mitigate what you were drawing? Like you think you wouldn't be able to do what you want?
>> Elæ: Because you become this thing that's like a fetish.
Ciats: Well, and all of those illustration drawing Instagrams that have a little quote or saying that are sort of like safely radical sometimes, you know?
>> Elæ: Caits is ripping (Instagrammer)... (laughs)
Right: Right? I just... I'm not a fan of, but there are other people who are doing it less... I don't think they call it poetry that I'm drawn to with the aesthetic of. But then I noticed that there's an aesthetic that becomes what is the aesthetic of this time, and there always has been. There's always been artist movements, but this isn't feel so much like an artist movement as kind of a capitalistic... I don't know. This distilling down of major concepts that deserve more space, an exploration into these bite size moments that I do believe help people sometimes. But it's just not my interest to distill down. So I could do it to become more palatable or more digestible or have more mass appeal.
>> Brian: Well, so I think that's the question, though that's that's what I'm asking. Do you think that would change what you work was?
>> Caits: Oh, definitely. And that's what my colleague was saying. Like, I don't think that's you, but you could do it if you wanted to. The skill for it.
>> Brian: What's involved? Would someone give you, like a prompt? Like draw this? How does it work?
>> Caits: No. I mean, people, I think, just make their own stuff then post it on Instagram. They just make their own little drawing and saying. I mean, that's their creativity. But there's there's a similarity to it all.
>> Elæ: It's an entrepreneurial thing as well, really, because there's like all of these, like aesthetic influencer type people who sort of like, you know, they use Instagram, Pinterest, like all the various sorts of social media together as a platform. They have an Etsy. They sell their stuff online. They put it on T shirts, whatever. Like if you're following something like Nathan Pyle like the Strange Planet person like who's, you know, it's like these alien things look like the aliens talk to each other about daily life and like it in the last month and 1/2 it's blowing up. There's like 1.2 million people, and there's like all this merch, you know on and it's like it's hitting a nerve, right? It's hitting a nerve. It's very digestible. It's like funny in a very specific way. There's like four lines on anyone. It's like, totally like this's my funny today, I'm going to walk away with this. But I think like, you know, and I think that there's a place for that and like it, it has changed commerce in a way that I think helps the indie press. It helps independent publishing. It helps, you know it helps the viability of self publishing or community publishing as an actual commercial model, right? It helps in terms of that, and it makes it something that people are more used to happening. But I do think that in terms of like what we expect to get in terms of making things really kind of palatable and pat and well packaged, right? That's a different question, right?
>> Caits: I mean, I think that the Operating System to has opened up space for the presses to take risks because hybridity and form is now very cool. And it wasn't at all. So I think that I don't know where I was going, actually, with the Instagram thing. So thank you for bringing him back around. It seemed like it was in connection with this commitment to taking risks and seeing also the role of the publisher again as artist and process.
>> Brian: Yeah, that's where they were the like quickly becoming the only people left that are doing that like is the independent presses and stuff. You know, I think Big Five publishing only takes risks if those risky books have already, the authors have already been proven in, like a previous format, you know?
>> Elæ: Yeah, well, I mean, that's a lot of like, the sort of, you know, selling the cult of personality right? And then you're buying the person. I mean, which is why in the commerce of indie presses, even what small presses people often, you know, have a pretty large instagram platform. And you people do take books from people because that human is saleable. Not the work, the person, right? I mean, And there was a lot now, and I mean, there has been, like since kind of the advent of social media, like there's a lot of ways in which, like the way individual artists or writers like build their personal platform, that has a lot more to do with image right? And the cult of personality that it does that person's work. And I definitely know many people that I would say, like, have gotten many book contracts like and publish all the time, not necessarily because of the value of their work, but because they're these kind of visible figures. Literary sort of figures. I would say that that's true. I mean, but like for the OS. I mean, from the beginning, it's been really important for us to not like I've not taken books by people that people know intentionally because I'm always sort of like if someone's if this is going to get published, I don't care as much, you know? Like this person doesn't need this. Whereas like more radical work, that is not easily sellable, that is between genres. That is not in a form that you see very frequently or that is politically difficult or, you know, radical in some other way.
I mean, I think that, you know, like, kind of if you trace the history of, like, anything truly avant garde, that is what it is right is sort of like making space for things before they're palatable, right? And so, whether it curatorally or whether it's with the press or whether it's with music or dance or anything, I mean, it's really people who hold space for things before people understand what they are. I mean in that I think that history is really important to me, and I mean, I feel like sometimes the like what I make room for is almost more archive facing. Meaning like I want the book to be in print and circulation. I want to make sure that it lands in all of these archives and libraries. But it doesn't matter if we don't make 10,000 of them, right? Because the existence of the book A changes the life of the practitioner because the practitioner is able to utilize that as a stepping stone. I mean, I can tell you people, like, since having a book on the OS have gotten a job. You've gotten tenure because another for another book or another book Or, you know, gotten all these public appearances or whatever because of having something tangible because the book as an object is a very sellable concept, professionally, right?
>> Brian: Yeah, I'm kind of I'm kind of wondering when like, because it does seem like the one of the things I do worry about indie press is that, and I don't think this is bad, but like, it can be kind of like a stepping stone... So, yeah, Kate is eating the cheese (laughter). I think she's going to eat the whole thing.
>> Caits: No, I can't. Slap my hand away. Okay. Sorry. Brian, my cheese habit interrupted you.
>> Elæ: I won't let Caits eat the whole cheese (laughs)
>> Brian: That's what addiction is. It's like starting to affect me a lot. You know, like the people that you love (laughter). But yeah, I have mixed feelings about it, but I think people do not use indie presses asking a stepping stone, but by virtue of publishing with an indie press, like they could go on to some of their opportunity. And I do hope that in the future, an author that says, Oh, I published with the Operating System And maybe they get, like, some notoriety or something and some recognition. It's really cool if you published another book there.
>> Elæ: You know, that's I mean, that's very much like what we're working towards. I mean, if someone can publish a book with someone else and not other press can give them something that we can't give them in terms of, like literal like money or resources then please go with my blessing.
>> Brian: That's the chicken and egg thing. It's like you're not going to be able to do that until you get that more notorious author to do another book, and then it's like, Oh, wow, they're there again, you know, which I think would be really cool.
>> Elæ: But it's a very different thing for me because, like even if you were to see our contract... like our contracts literally have within them, like if you are not someone who's interested in being part of something that's collective understanding, that every single other person here is a creative person, no one here is a staff, right? Like we are not people that work at Harper Collins who are editors and do not write, write. Well, I mean not to say that the people are calling it weren't like, you know, people who hoped its one point they'd be writing but like there is a professionalization of the publishing industry that I am not. I did not come from this. I taught all of the stuff that I'm doing on my own. And I think that in our transparent mission driven work is that I want to transform the way that we think about publishing and the way that we think about resources is and the way that we think about working in a radical, community oriented way. And I am not interested in trying to be a successful other press, because I don't think that what they're doing is successful. Like I don't care like I never want to be that like I'm not trying to ever get there because I'm trying to teach people about what it means to be collective in the way that you work and use your resources. I want people to self publish, literally like I think that encouraging people to self publish and teaching them how to self publish and teaching them how to community publish and all of us supporting that and talking about how legitimate it is, is essential. It's essential to the health of all of us as artists. Like to try to pull people down for self publishing is the most shortsighted, most like, fear driven thing I can imagine. Like, I think it's actually essential for presses to tell people that self publishing is amazing. To give people that validity. Because we are also artists. No one is going to tell me that my painting is not ready for public consumption. I would be like go, you know, whatever. I don't know if I can curse.
>> Brian: You definitely can.
>> Elæ: Okay, so go fuck yourself. You know, like I mean, like, it's kind of like the what we do with books is very different, right? But I'm an artist, like I make artist books. I did it for years. And when my artist book was done, it was done because I made it. Why is it different from when I'm putting text in it?
>> Caits: It's challenging all the structures that capitalism put up.
>> Elæ: And it's new. Those structures are new. We're talking about them as like being traditionally, this is how it's always done. And now people are self publishing like that's ridiculous, right?
>> Caits: Right. But I love the challenge. But it does take it out of the conversation of even being able to compare it to other efforts. I mean, I don't think all other efforts are bad, but I love what you're doing in terms of just rethinking the structure, rethinking how we work together, how we think about it and coming out of the punk rock DIY culture and the hip hop DIY culture, you know, the cardboard breakdancing and, you know, I think to me that's a very attractive esthetic. A way of being a way of being in conversation doesn't mean everything I ever do will be following that path. But I think there's so much teaching that comes from that, too. I think there's a line on the website or is it the Twitter to call just to call us just a press would hurt our feelings.
>> Elæ: Something like that, Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that's like, you know, like we're a question, not an answer. It's like it's always It's always posited itself that way. Like I've always been like, This is organization. It is an idea. It's an experiment. It's an organism. It is right? I mean, it was never like I knew exactly what I plan to do either.
>> Brian: That was my question is like, it sounds like not that it's aimless at all, but there's no like end goal, right?
>> Elæ: Oh, I mean, there's many end goals.
>> Brian: There isn't one single end goal. Which with a big press, the end goal is to maximize profits.
>> Elæ: Yeah, but the funny thing is when you say big press, we did over 25 books this year.
>> Brian: Yeah, right. But I'm talking about the Big Five.
>> Elæ: No, I know, but, like, when were talking about like when people say like, Oh, like micro presses. I'm like, do you understand how many more books were putting out than like many, many, many really, really well funded small presses were doing like we're doubling, tripling what other people are putting out with, like, way more finances, you know? So in a lot of that has to do with, like, how you create an efficient system and like, how you, you know, in thinking about economics and just like a totally different way and understanding technology and like thinking from the system level. I'm literally like I can't I also can't believe that we have done that. It's crazy like the numbers are crazy. Like, where is 70 books or something now.
>> Caits: It's amazing.
>> Brian: How many years have you guys been up?
>> Elæ: We started publishing books and 2013 but was only chat books and it was four.
>> Brian: And so obviously it's grown a lot.
>> Caits: You're talking about Big Five, like the angle for all presses is not, I mean, Animal Riot. Your end goal is not just sales, obviously. Books that matter.
>> Brian: But we're not the Big Five, right?
>> Caits: That's why I'm circling back to say that I realized that's what you meant.
>> Brian: That's why I keep harping on the fact that to me that's why indie presses are so important. It's like, regardless of what your like internal Mission is, it's like I just don't think, really, like on the forefront, avant garde, like experimental, whatever you call it. Innovative work just should be in the hands of smaller presses that are trying to put out that work and are not as worried about the bottom line. That's to me what the most important thing is because I think literary fiction is like if you don't fit into this spectrum like, you know, like if use the metaphor like the color spectrum, like if you don't fit into like the ultraviolet, whatever it is like that's it because, like or the colors that everyone can see, like you know what I mean, Like like it should be everything, but it's not. And that's why I think it's so important. And I would not be upset if, like, they just gave up and started making text books (laughter), because I think it is our job.
>> Elæ: Textbooks are super unsustainable.
>> Brian: Cookbooks. I don't know whatever makes them their money (laughs).
>> Elæ: Like to say that like, indie presses are the places where it happens, like what does that mean? Who runs them? Like most indie presses are ultimately unsustainable because they are still top down organizations. They don't take a lot of time to build in like a functional, systemic infrastructure that can be replicated. There isn't a lot of time spent on creating mechanisms, systems...
>> Brian: Our producers are signing a question right now that our producers would like to ask, which is what does that look like? What is that? What is that infrastructure look like? That may be a bigger press would have Or you know what?
>> Elæ: Well, I mean, I don't necessarily know of the bigger presses have it either, but I mean, I think that's something that you see happening a lot is like people you know decide that they're going to start a press and it is based on one or two people running that press. And that person has all of the intelligence personally. And then when that person burns out or runs out of money or whatever it is that brought them to and then it's over over there is no there is no systematizing. There is no like passing down those in that intelligence. There is no like you know what I've been doing in the last couple years as I'm like trying to mine my own process so that I have it all on paper so that I can hand it to someone else and be like this is what it means to run our poetry month series, which this year and last year was run by other people, which I ran for, like the 1st 6 years. But now I don't have to anymore, but the reason that that's possible and then the other person can train that other person, right? It's sort of like I don't want what we've done to be reliant on me, right? I want it to be an infrastructure that not only can happen here, but that someone else can take and start somewhere else. Like I don't even want it to just be the Operating System. The whole idea was always to be like, What is it me in to be able to produce these things for ourselves? Which is why I said, like ultimately, for me, it is self publishing because we are ourselves the community and we are publishing ourselves and saying like it doesn't you know what I mean, we don't need to wait for someone else's permission to do that right? Who has a different legitimizing body. But then you become a legitimizing body and it's a joke, right? Which is like why I continually try to try to draw attention to that rather than deflect. I think that a lot of people deflect that attention and you're like, Oh, like it isn't funny that someone became credible because I put a name on this thing that I started in my living room and then made myself business cards on the Internet and became a thing. And then you started treating me like a thing and people would send me most being like in someone of the Operating System do this and I was like, Someone is literally like me or my cat. There's no one else here. It's me. It's a book of the morning, like doing this after my two other jobs, you know what I mean? But it is. It's this legitimising organ, and rather than kind of pretending that that isn't what's happening, I want to draw attention and be like it's ridiculous.
>> Caits: Well it exploded a little bit.
>> Brian: Explode what exactly?
>> Caits: Explode the idea of becoming a legitimizing body like, Oh, now you're an authority on what is what is cool and good or whatever.
>> Brian: Exploding the idea that that's necessary? Is that what you're saying or explode...?
>> Caits: Exploding the idea that that's even happening, that even needs to be celebrated? And I think you know, when I think about I think about the idea of creating blueprints a lot in terms of my day to day work, not in art. Well in art, but at Pen and thinking about some of the more experimental things were doing and how do we create a map for other people to do it in their city or wherever, because of the exact same idea of this knowledge sharing and being able to... I mean, it's always better for more people to be doing great things in the world. But there's, I think, that this legitimizing thing that then gets turned back around on you after you get a little shine... I mean, there's no escaping it, really, because of the way society is set up and structured.
>> Brian: But well, that's also tough to avoid. And I'm having trouble reconciling the idea that if you do something that people like, they are going to put you somewhat on a pedestal and legitimize you, you know? So I'm like, I'm trying to think about how that would get leveled out, how that would get smoothed out.
>> Caits: I don't know that it does in our society.
>> Brian: But I mean, how does it? How does it in general, you know, I don't give a if people, If people start to like your books and like what you're doing, you're going to create something that people think is legitimate, you know?
>> Elæ: Well, I think the thing is like making it apparent that that process has happened and that it sort of doesn't have absolute value, right?
>> Brian: Like it's not like a superpower.
>> Elæ: No, it's not a superpower, but also that it's available for everyone, right? I think the thing for me is like and I think this with art as well. Like the sort of muse myth is old, right? A lot of art is work. It's labor. It's practice. It's process. It's planning. It's, you know, it's discipline and, you know, and so is this legitimizing thing, right? It's kind of like you too can make a press in your living room and call it something and give it a platform. And it will be just as legitimate and just as illegitimate as anything else. Nothing has absolute legitimacy. Nothing like actually has value. We grant it value and just kind of like and I think for me part of it is just kind of saintly. Don't let someone tell you that what you have value doesn't have value because it didn't go through that system. It literally doesn't matter. It does not exist. I mean, you know how so, back to the language thing, right? Like The United States does not exist, right? It's an invention. We drew it on a map.
>> Brian: Oh, my God. This is like the millionth time that I brought this up. Have you ever heard of the author called Yuval Noah Harari?
>> Elæ: No.
>> Brian: He's this Israeli... I would say he's a historian, but he's very unconventional and at the same time, like entirely logical.
>> Caits: What has he written?
>> Brian: He's written Sapiens.
>> Caits: Yeah, my dad's obsessed with him. (laughter)
>> Brian: It's great.
>> Caits: My dad is obsessed with him.
>> Brian: He's a genius. But like, what we label but that the thing is, and I guess, like my question is based off this his thesis in his first book, Sapiens, is that humans basically evolved, passed other animals because we were able to create language and fiction, especially. These borders that we have. They're all fictitious. Money is fictitious. Everything. Our whole society is based on walls that are not really there, just something that we agree on. So I don't know. I really don't know the specific question. I want to ask their but like that. I guess it is that how if we're kind of, like, almost like biologically based on this, like you know, this, like, need to, like, have these symbols? How would we get around them?
>> Elæ: Well, you don't get around them. You know what they become empowered by naming them as named, right?
>> Brian: What happens to a self published book?
>> Elæ: You mean like Leaves of Grass.
>> Brian: I've never heard that.
>> Elæ: Walt Whitman.
>> Brian: In the modern day.
>> Elæ: No. But the point is, that is the modern day like I mean, it's like 100 years ago. I mean, like, things that are now canonical were mostly self published until 30 years ago.
>> Brian: I'm completely aware of that.
>> Elæ: But we talk about it as if it has no value.
>> Brian: But for Walt Whitman for him to be known, or some of those people that weren't known until we picked them up later. People do have a drive to have their work read. So how does that How is that reconciled with like... What is everyone's goal?
>> Elæ: Well, it but there shouldn't be one goal, right? Who's to say that everybody has the same goal. My primary mode of working and I don't know if Caits is the same. I mean, my primary mode of working is first of all, like reprogramming de programming like understanding my body is like a human.
>> Brian: You were talking about the word hacking. How do you apply that to your life.
>> Elæ: Because I'm like body hacking all the time. Like every single one of us is walking around like an incredibly conditioned person, like, you know, like dealing with ideas of ourselves and each other and what we're seeing in the world and what we're seeing in school and how we deal with our families and how we deal with our partners. I mean, it's all literally conditioning.
>> Caits: Which means the story is all rewritable that we've agreed upon, right?
>> Elæ: If you recognize that you are. And so if you recognize that you are conditioned and recognize that like, Oh, I've always called myself a woman. But what is that? What does that mean, Right? That literally doesn't have a meaning like it. It didn't have the same meaning 100 years ago. It didn't doesn't have the same meaning in another country. But it's literally That's the only thing I've ever thought of, that as meaning. And so when I say that word, I hear these associations, right? So, like, how do you hack yourself out of thinking those associations when you hear that word, right? How do you hack yourself out of thinking that you have to get someone else to publish you in order for your book to have value. Like all of this work like, that's my primary work. And then it sort of like, Okay, I feel like I have the ability as a teacher, as an artist, to help other people see that, right? I mean, I think that I love that word representation as an art term, because when I represent something. I offer them to a different person's senses actually kind of channelled through the way that I saw them. And so that person has the opportunity to reperceive something the way I represented it. And they might be able to see the world in a new way because I was I did that and therefore self hack themselves like their own experience in the world. And I think that that is, like, immensely powerful, Which is why, you know, fascist countries are, like, so controlling of what we make.
>> Caits: Of course, and why art is dangerous. And we're seeing that more and more in our era with Trump that it actually is the truth because it shakes up those narratives. I think biologically we are driven to obviously create fictions all around us. But who's created the fictions? Obviously we know the historically white men. So all of these things are...
>> Elæ: Well everybody really.
>> Caits: Well, yeah, true everybody. But the ones we're talking about in America right now in terms of the conversation we're having.
>> Elæ: Sure. Yeah.
>> Caits: And I think that there's just a possibility and you know, I'd be inauthentic if I told you that if a big press came knocking on my door, I wouldn't publish with them.
>> Elæ: I would in 5 seconds. Caits and I would take Oprah in 5 seconds.
>> Caits: That's right. I would that on my book and be proud. Of course. Because of course I want my work to be read and to reach an audience. I think that the practice of it and the experiment of it, that you're talking about it. You know, this is a question. This is an experiment versus a press is not to say that everything needs to become what we're doing, but we're putting questions into the world, and I think about that a lot in the prison injustice space, where it's like, you know, the goal is that we have something that doesn't look at all. It's not called prison and is much better for humans across the board. That is beyond so many people's imagination, sometimes even beyond mine. Shamefully, I'm working on it. Not that I'm about prison, but that it's hard for me to get there and my imagination around what else could it be? And I think that we need people who can see that imagination and that's their role is to push that, even if I'll never seen in my lifetime. So I think is the same thing with our questioning what we've been taught to believe as truth. What we value even were walking over here you're talking about, you know, self value and and what do we base that on our productivity, The way we look often in the world? These are all things that are deeply ingrained in all of us. So in a similar way, I mean, it's a philosophy on some level to really philosophy and action, so asking great questions, which literature does too. So it's, I think it's less of a question of like, what does that actually look like because we could say it looks like a commune or something, but we also see in some commune experiences. What's it called?
>> Brian: Wild Wild Country.
>> Caits: It's that amazing documentary, but really intense right and humanity just happens on that land in a really intense way. And so I think that part of the practice is not, You know, none of we're all complicit in the world of capitalism. We if you buy dish detergent, boom. There you go. Right. If you live on the grid on any level, you can't. You can't live off the grid.
>> Elæ: I was just talking about this yesterday. So I am a big fan of the Good Place?
>> Brian: I've been hearing people... I've said just random shit. I can't even remember what I said to prompt it. And then people like you, you seen The Good Place?
>> Elæ: I think that there's a really fascination right now, I mean, always with myth, but specifically with, like, what happens after we die and morality. There's, like, a whole sort of little bevy of shows about this.
>> Brian: Does it take place in heaven or something?
>> Caits: In the afterlife.
>> Elæ: The Good Place is heaven but then there's the bad place. But so just briefly, like Ted Danson plays like this, like, kind of reformed person from the bad places, like learning certain things. I'm like There is an issue where, like people aren't getting into the good place anymore. And he's like trying to convince the people from the bad place that, like there is a reason that no one gets in any more and what in He says something. And I think it's really interesting, he says, you know, it's really different to be a human now. He says that I think about a lot like you want a berry. You want to eat berries. But you don't go outside and there was like berries growing and you could just pick them because we've gone to private property. So probably there on, so it's probably you can have it right, so private property has been introduced. Few of us have room to grow them. And so if you want to get it you have to go to the store. What store you're going to go? What are the ecological and ethical practices of that store? What are the ecological unethical practices of the people growing the berries? How did they treat their pickers, right? None of us should be eating Driscoll's. Driscoll's is basically like picked by slaves, but I do. And it's fucking terrible.
>> Caits: Of course you do because who could afford it?
>> Brian: So I had a subscription to Butcher Box because, you know, I can't you know, I can't stand eating like factory farmed animals. And, yeah, it was, It got to the point where I just couldn't afford it anymore, and it sucked and I hated making that decision. It was that or group therapy.
>> Caits: Of course, and they're wide swaths of people in the US who don't can't even think on that level, right? You'll get food deserts in the South Bronx when there's not, you know, people are living off of Cheetos. So I think it's all part of the same conversation, and it doesn't mean you're not going to go buy the berries down the store, you know, you know it is what it is. Here we are. But I think that reimagining in extreme ways, which is also creativity creates possibility and is also exciting.
>> Elæ: Yeah, I mean, in the last couple of years, like either body hacking thing like I've done a lot of work around... like it took. Caits and I have both, like, dealt with chronic illness stuff and, like, took me a long time to unpack, like where my chronic was coming from. And for a lot of people, chronic illness actually is coming from trauma. Like we're now understanding. You say you're like looking at neurology stuff.
Brain: Yeah especially recently, I've been I'm like, I'm preparing for this essay.
>> Elæ: I write a lot about body cognition and, like how the brain and the body are the same thing and you know, So I have been writing and doing workshops for the last couple of years, like, really helping people understand, like how trauma lives in the body and how like being in a culture that is what you would call bio precarious... bio precarity being like you are constantly aware that, like, your body is in some kind of danger, let like you are actually like, physically, like, involved in the precariousness of your life. So, like we in the States have really of bio precarity because of what we've done to insurance, right? So, like, if you know that, like if something happened to you or your job that, like not only would you probably lose your house but like none of your family could get health care. Your parents, your kids, like you. If anyone was to get sick, you might all become the homeless of bankrupt in like a day like, I mean, it's these levels of like how close you are to being really in danger puts us in a sense of like panic.
>> Brian: Yeah, the flight or flight is always on.
>> Elæ: Yeah, right. People are in survival mode way higher up into, sort of like the 1% versus 99% that we would think right? It's not like that is such a true condition, such a close condition for so many.
>> Brian: Yeah, it takes up a lot of cognitive resources.
>> Elæ: Yeah, it takes up a lot of cognitive resources. But the thing is, it's not only poverty. You say poverty, but it's not poverty. Like actually the decision making factors for so many people about the way that they work and why they work and where they work and why they're making those decisions because of this looming danger, which is so close because so little of these things are actually taken care of. And so, like, we feel really responsible for taking certain kinds of jobs and doing certain kinds of work and, you know, and being safe. Making safe decisions, not taking risks, not taking personal risks, not taking social risks, not angering our parents, right? You know what I mean. And this works in so many ways. I mean, and I think that, you know, for creative people, a lot of creative people often leave creative work because it is very... it feels irresponsible.
>> Brian: There's not enough security or whatever.
>> Elæ: Yeah. It feels irresponsible, right? And so I think a lot of what I've been thinking about the last couple of years, in terms of that is it's sort of like helping people understand, like, where is that? They've got in the feeling that, like making art is irresponsible and then making art is like, you know, something that is only for people who have a certain amount of money or is like would be something that if they did it, it would actually potentially put themselves in danger for their families in danger. I think that's very real for people, and some of that has to do with being stuck in the infrastructures that we have. If you are a writer and you have kids and you have a job, let's say you're a teacher, right? I've been teaching for like, a really long time. I make very little. I'm on Medicaid, right? Like just is. But you have a job. You have a great education. You have student loans, you have all this stuff. You have a book. You think your book is great. You submit it for how long? How many places do you submit it? What does it cost? What do you think the average is? People tell me all the time, they're like I submitted this for two years. I spent $3,000 tons of time, so much time, so much effort.
>> Brian: Can relate.
>> Elæ: But guess what? What if you didn't do that and you and your friends, like, started a press instead?
>> Caits: Which is what Animal Riot did.
>> Elæ: That's what I did.
>> Brian: That's literally what we did.
>> Elæ: And yeah, I mean, it would be nice, but it started.
>> Brian: I'll admit that personally. Me Looking back, I'm like, I'm kind of glad I did go through that adversity. But I have a completely different life experience. I have a lot more security than a lot of other people. And so I don't think it's the same thing. I think I was worried strictly about the book. It wasn't like, Oh, I need this book to be published or else X, y and Z might not happen. IIt was just me dealing with adversity on a more personal level. And so that's why I do value it a little bit, even though, you know, fuck it. I hate suffering.
>> Elæ: But you also learn something about those numbers and about a process. Now you can bring to bear on other persons.
>> Brian: Yeah, I was a good guinea pig for that experiment because, like, you know, I didn't I mean, don't get me wrong. I suffered, but like it wasn't life or death, like you know where? It didn't feel like that by bio precarity like what you were saying, you know? But yeah, I can totally I can totally relate to what you're saying. It's difficult. And also I sometimes I'm really bad at doing this, But I do think like it for a lot of people. It's like, Oh, I'm either going to be an artist for him. Not It's like it doesn't have to be that binary like you can write.
>> Elæ: Down with all the binaries.
>> Caits: Yes.
>> Brian: I'm actually not that bad at this. I'm not that bad at this. I actually started writing and I didn't like I really didn't try to get anything published for years and years and years. But in the back of my mind, I didn't know that, like I said, OK, I do you want to get published. But at the same time, like No, I moved to Seattle. I did nothing but sit down for three hours every day and just write. It wasn't about anything.
>> Caits: Great. Sounds wonderful.
>> Elæ: I know. Dreams.
>> Brian: No, they literally anything. And then sometimes I would write a story or like I worked on a couple of novels and, like, you know, but like, Yeah, no, I mean, like, I think, just some of its impatience. But I think it is a lot driven by our society. It's like, No, I need to be doing something productive that makes money like that's it, that's what I need to be doing.
>> Elæ: For me the idea of like getting stuff rejected has, like, I think I'm just an efficient person. And so I'm like, This is incredibly inefficient. (laughter) Like I know they think as just like a logical person like Is that like whatever right brain /left brain, Which side? Left?
>> Caits: Left.
>> Elæ: That part of me thinks...
>> Brian: It's left?
>> Caits: It's left.
>> Brian: I thought it was right. We've been reading up on the brain. Trust me (laughs)
>> Elæ: Yes. But part of it is I think about what I could do today, and I'm like, Well, I could send this thing out literally 99% it's not going to get accepted. Or I could spend that time doing something and literally I always choose something else because why? Because it is actually very challenging for me to submit to places. I've been trying in the last couple of years because I'm like, come on, just do it.
>> Caits: I always try to create a boundary for it.I have this amount of time. That's all I'm spending on it.
>> Brian: I also just don't feel like I don't know what to say to like... what's the right thing to say in a query? (laughs) Like I followed the instructions, but, like, honestly, it wasn't until Katie started helping me that I really started getting things published.
>> Elæ: Well, I mean, I think that honestly, a lot of people like they're just going into it to publish their work. They're not sending it to places that they like and are following, and they're reading, and they like what that person is doing. And they really like with that press is doing and they can have an intelligent conversation about, like, the meaning of that publication, right? Like, which is, I think, what a lot of people want to see in a query letter is not that you're like they're to publish your work, but that you are engaging in what is essentially a dialogue with the intention of that publication and, you know, like in a really meaningful way.
>> Brian: I have a good question based on that. I think there's a lot of writers out there who, you know, maybe they do want to get published, but they don't have the time to, like, you know, like, I know journals that I like even once I've not gotten published in. But like if you don't have the time to read all of these but you do want to publish, like, what should you do? I mean, you could make that you can then make the time but, like it just feels difficult, you know, especially for people that just, you know, have a lot of shit going on.
>> Caits: Well, you can't read everything in the world. It's true, but for example, at AWP, I went and bought issues of magazines that I had been admiring vaguely from afar but wanted to get to know a little more intimately. Now I just got one issue each, but that I can deep dive and see what it's about and that some of them I'm like...
>> Elæ: You also learned that you do not want to be in (laughs)
>> Caits: Exactly.
>> Brian: Exactly. And that's the other thing... and there's a lot of other problems. It's like even if you do want to be in it, it's like the chances still are you're not going to get picked up and chances are you still going to get rejected, you know? So, like deep diving into magazines or journals, you know, little literary editorials like it could just be endless. And like you go through so many, like 100 let's say, out of those 100 like seven, you know that you really think that your work or something like that.
>> Caits: But what's the point of published... I mean, you know, sometimes I'll get a poetry book that every single poem has been published already. I'm like, Why couldn't just put this whole collection online? There's nothing left for me to discover.
>> Elæ: Oh, that's not true. I disagree with that totally.
>> Caits: Yeah?
>> Elæ: Oh, yeah.
>> Brian: Say why. (laughter)
>> Elæ: I want Caits to finish what she's saying.
>> Brian: I thought that was going to be a staring contest. I was going to let that happen to you.
>> Caits: I think there's still a lot of value and putting things behind covers putting things in a collection. The curation about all of that has another layer of the art. But I think that what it makes me think of is the kind of obsession towards publishing for legitimacy which kind of circles back to that original question we have, and then it becomes a rat race, and then it becomes really feeding into the meritocracy and who's the gatekeeper.
>> Brian: But it's not a meritocracy, and that's the problem.
>> Elæ: But I feel like there's also something that has to do with, like visibility and access and redundancy. Like we're in a time of, like the noise, the signal to noise ratio is like bananas, right? So, like anything you put out in the world, the likelihood that someone's going to see that is like...
>> Caits: Then the more you see someone's name.
>> Elæ: Yeah. So if you have 20 poems out like each one of those is who knows who's even going to see it? I mean, they go into these different sort of parallel universes and they each one, each time a new thing kind of like hits the pond like ripples out and it may reach a different person. And you having seen that one poem like me. Then when you see that person's book like you'll buy the book and then you'll read everything else in the collective. I think about it as this very sort of synaptic sort of nerve net like where people are coming in from all these different places. But the likelihood that one person read all of those poems and all those different places is extremely low to me. Like, I think, like each of those poems, like becomes its own kind of like searchlight, like finding different audiences.
>> Caits: Yeah. I see that.
>> Elæ: Yeah, I mean, And then for me, like if I did like that person's poem when I read it, I only got to read maybe one or two, whatever was in the collection and if I really like their work, sitting with that poem again in relationship to the rest of their collection is a totally different experience, once I got to like, see that poem or those poems with their practice, like as part of a larger practice.
>> Elæ: You're totally right. I think maybe it was a bad example. But I think what I was trying to get at is your question Brian about reading 50,000,000 Literary mags. Well, nobody can and then, you know, you hop on with saying who and who actually is reading it? What's the likely that somebody is reading it? And certainly I want my work to be read. I also have journals that I love. I also don't read every single one of them under the sun, either, or even every issue of the same ones that I like right in a row. No, nobody has time, and also there's 1,000,000 fucking books you want to read in the world, you know as well. But I think that I think the question of of what motivates the seeking publication is probably also helpful and to ask, because I think when I think about people who publish constantly or put a lot of effort into that, maybe they just want to get their work read, sure, and also, but there's a validation piece of it. I think is is something to be examined as an internal practice. What's my drive to publish constantly?
>> Elæ: I also often feel like there's a privilege related to that because, like having the ability to continually submit means that you have some sort of resource and, like time, money for submission fees and I always I think that, you know, it kind of reminds us that, like people are not coming from an even playing field.
>> Brian: One more question because our producers air signalling for a reading. I'm curious. I'm curious because both of you guys said you'd put that Oprah sticker on a book or like you know, you'd go to a big press. What would that do for you?
>> Caits: Well, I think one of the potentials of a really wide readership. So when early was saying well, isn't the goal to be read? I'm like, Oh, sure, I mean, some people's goals are different, I'm sure, but that is one of my personal goals. I would like my work to be in relationship with other people, you know? And certainly resources and time. I mean, with money and resources comes the ability to relieve other kinds of work that I no longer may have to do in order to pay my rent or the freelance jobs I take on, you know? So I think those are two reasons for me why it's attractive, obviously. But I do also imagine myself to be should I ever be so lucky that if I were to be in that position, there'd be other projects that were not big five projects, So I'm interested in existing in multiple spaces, too.
>> Elæ: Yeah, I think so. I think. Also, I think you totally hit the nail on the head like it's really about, like, possibility, like what it opens up. I mean, I think that there can be a certain type of snobbishness where people are sort of like, Oh, I would never want to like be that commercial or I would never want to kind of, like, be associated with something that was like that kind of mainstream, like the idea of being mainstream is somehow, like, antithetical to like being radical, right? But I don't think that that has to be the case, right? And so, like, if it were to be like, I would not assume that if you or I or Caits or I were to get there that we would have done so because we, like, sold ourselves down the river and wrote some, like, totally tepid, like romance novel, right. If we got there, it would be because someone at that level who's like, is ready to sign on to like what we're doing. And if that is happening, then give me that platform right? Like what an incredible gift to be able to, like reach so many people. And that kind of visibility gives you all of these possibilities. Like if I got that like the number of people who would then give to my to my non profit would be like through the roof, I would never have to worry about people giving to my non profit because I'd have that kind of visibility. And once you have that kind of his visibility than people are ready to give it to you, you know? But it and it doesn't mean that it would have any more value. But people would think that it did, and I'd be willing to take that and I would talk about it. It's sort of like when you get that, do you talk about it right? Do you now say, Oh, I got this because I'm a genius? Or do you say, like, it is totally luck that I got this? And there's 1,000,000 people who should get this And here is how I'm going to share the wealth in some way, right?
>> Brian: I agree with that. I think the situation is that this is the society we live in and there's a far Facebook exact who has a couple of good videos about how I like his philosophy is like the only reason I'm trying to get money is so I can set up different systems, better systems and I was like, Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, it becomes one of those things where it's like It's kind of analogous to the whole, like kind of gender conversation. It's like if you put the conversation within the realm of the binary conversation or the old conversation, then how can you ever really change it? So I'm still kind of like trying to reconcile that in my head. It's like, OK, if your constantly trying to attain so that you can change, do you not sort of sustain the system that was there? I don't know. I don't think I'm smart enough to understand.
>> Caits: I think in some ways you do. And that's what it's saying about the dish detergent, that there's actually no way to be fully off the grid. And all of us are going to make sacrifices in our ethics, depending on the resources we have at this time, depending on a lot of factors. But I think it's about right back to asking questions, making choices, having conversations about your choices.
>> Elæ: What do you do with your platform? Like, if you look at someone like Jada Pinkett Smith Wright, who is using her platform to have these incredible conversation is like with her mother and her child. And like all of these guests and like putting it on the Internet. It's sort of like, Let's have these public conversations read, yes, like, way to go using your celebrity like or something like that.
>> Brian: Yeah. And despite the fact that I said ad trouble reconciling it, I do think it is the way to go. And I do think I do think like I have a little bit more optimism about capitalism, Like I do think it is at some point, I hope, going to turn into a more like philanthropic capitalism situation. But you know, we'll see then.
>> Caits: You've got to hold the hope for this table, my friend.
>> Elæ: I literally am not even opening my mouth. It's too much. (laughter)
>> Brian: I think it's very possible. I think it's one of those things where like...
>> Elæ: I'm not entrepreneurial, but I wouldn't use the word capitalism. I think the word is problematic.
>> Brian: Capitalism, you think, is problematic?
>> Elæ: Like the word, the word capitalism. We don't have another word to talk about like...
>> Caits: Money system.
>> Brian: Because if we have the word we know what it what it was. So that's why philanthropic capitalism is the best way I could put it, but like.... Yeah, I mean, it's... we'll see. I mean, that's a whole other conversation.
>> Caits: Yeah. I just had thoughts about funding.
>> Brian: Okay, well, let's do some reading.
>> Caits: We won't go down that road.
>> Brian: It is an interesting conversation. Maybe another day.
>> Elæ: Okay, so I guess I was I was thinking a lot about the evolutionary stuff, And so I have this piece, Caits has probably heard this, "In Memory of Feasible Grace"
>> Caits: I'll know it when I hear it versus the title.
>> Elæ: Well, I mean, it's not super long. It's a piece that was sort of inspired by Paolo Soleri, who's an Italian architect who did a lot of sort of visionary thinking and who had this kind of idea. He thought a lot about evolution, and so I was asked to do a poem about Place. And so I made this sort of longer piece about sort of what it meant to evolve would have meant to evolve in a city versus elsewhere. The whole poem is footnoted, so you can go and find it, like on my website. But I'm not going to read into the footnotes. I'm just going to read the poem, so it's called "In Memory of Feasible Grace".
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https://issuu.com/the_os_/docs/inmemoryoffeasiblegrace_2
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>> Caits: Wow! I can't wait to go back on the website with the footnotes now.
>> Elæ: There's so many comments. The whole thing about the Thracian girl and the philosopher.
>> Caits: I can't wait. See Surprise. I decided to read these pros notes. I don't know that they're not exactly connected to the conversation we've been having, but they feel in the world. So this is "Notes on Instinct".
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Notes on Instinct
— A documentary came out in 2014 that exposed the plight of orca whales. Their sheer mass a form of hypnosis, disbelief that such a body could exist on the same planet as our own. With a hypothesis of a higher emotional capacity than humans, who could blame the beast for dragging a trainer through the water? The friend who fed fish for tricks, who created a sideshow.
— Can one both love this beautiful breathing thing and also be an accomplice to captivity? Is it better to fight for the whale from outside the arena, or pet its wet skin from within the tank?
— When Ming the tiger was kept in the home of Antoine Yeats in New York City housing projects, his owner became a brief celebrity on television. He was quoted urging his peers to pursue PhD’s, to see themselves on the quote/unquote next level of working with animals as an answer to his own misguided propensity for exotic pets.
— Alligator in the bathtub, albino monkeys under sink, elephants in the creek, Lambert the lion escaping through suburban traffic (that last one true down to name.)
— Saw on the news that Cecil the lion was killed by a Midwestern dentist in Zimbabwe. I imagine Cecil rising from the dead under that fluorescent pink sun, a ring of roses strung through his mane, puttying up the potholes, redistributing land, restoring economics, wiping away the blood with his sandpaper tongue. Cecil pumped up with laughing gas, cracking up his own name.
— I won’t lie, it is easier, lazy even to assign purity to a species that does not bear our particular flaws—alive by instinct, lacking the ability to craft a gun from wood and metal or cook food above a constructed flame. When I look across my country I have to fight the urge to hate all of us equally. I reach deep inside to what is untouched in me in search of compassion for the form in which I arrived.
— But who will ever know. The lion does not choose its human name. The whale cannot speak to claim self defense. Ming’s claws become enormous when a man’s hand holds on.
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>> Brian: Excellent, because we're both really great.
>> Elæ: Are we each gonna do one more?
>> Caits: Thank you.
>> Elæ: Or we done?
>> Brian: One more? It's going to be a long episode. Who cares?
>> Caits: Cut it out if you need to.
>> Elæ: This is the unedited version. Like with On Being, there's this long one.
>> Caits: Right.
>> Elæ: I like to listen to the long one.
>> Caits: I never have. Is it worth it?
>> Elæ: Yeah, it's good. This is a newer one. And I think you'll hear a lot of the themes that we were talking about. It's called....
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a [*dyeu-] (Originally published in Poems for Muses / Positive Magnets #6, Spring 2019)
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>> Caits: I feel like the poem I'm going to read is not exactly in conversation, but it sits in the same world. So I'm pleased by this and because of all of our talk about edges, which appeared in your poem, this is called "Notes on Edges". And also Brian this for you because of your interest in addiction.
>> Brian: Great.
>> Caits: I wrote it when I was working at a needle exchange.
>> Brian: Oh wow.
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Notes On Edges
— When do you feel most alive?
Even those who do not have a nameable passion can understand the feeling of time stopping. Depending on the safety of the space, I can offer the example
— what about orgasm?
True, heads nod.
/ I stop being whatever I am, transmute. Simple energy. /
It’s a good writing exercise — what do you become in that moment?
/ A glowing crystal ball — all knowing. /
— Come on, you can get more interesting than that.
/ My Grandpa’s pipesmoke. The growl of midnight badger. A funk bassline pulsing below a buried coffin. Banging the walls of a mitochondrial cell — you thought I was gonna say concrete! A tin can rattling an electric solo through the string. /
— Now we’re talking.
The first draft isn't that important. We call it shitty just to lower the stakes enough to fill the page without fear. But revising is where the magic’s at, of course. Especially the removal of context to save your ass from anyone who can flip fiction to truth. There are levels of desperation in this need. Sometimes it's just to be kind. But when you write to paper because there is no one to trust, the magic trick is in coded language — to narrate without the cold reveal. Women who miss privacy also miss fucking, understandably.
When I make love
I am no longer a woman.
I can be anyone from anywhere.
My breasts are ripe melons,
or they disappear, sunken
like collapsed antholes.
I can fit myself into a vaginal cavity,
I can expand a canon.
Alien or angel, I'm not of this earth.
Everyone brags about how they could make you cum — or how someone else made them cum. It is a human power we all learn, but it is also a weapon, a sword, a wand, a time machine, a teleportation device, an escape hatch. That kind of high is worth its weight in gold.
My body manufactures its own high
when I firmly press the button labeled heaven —
over and over and over and over…
Intravenous drug users learn to shoot from television and peers. It perpetuates bad habits. All are clumsy with the needle at first. Blood flow works against gravity, valves usher blood to the heart like a saloon door. Veins are muscles.
My body — pitted against a control group.
You want to inject in the direction of blood flow, that way it zaps a relief. If the needle goes through the vein, it's all lost. Bevel up, point down. Prevent clogs with cold water. Men don't know this. (It's like washing blood from panties.) (It's like mom taught us.)
There are many ways to talk about the feel-good. V lives outside the realm of metaphor, right down a ways, under the bridge. She proclaims out of thin air that she is bi. She says the most beautiful woman she’s ever been with was named Cecelia — a white girl with blond ringlets and green eyes.
I finger popped her, she says.
I got on top and rode her until she came.
We both cried.
She looks at me softly, sincerely with a sappy close-mouthed smile, you’re pretty, she says. Part of witnessing is simultaneous non-reaction and a quick search for recognition of self.
Put it in the poem, I say.
(My body — a shadow to run from.)
V got so thin she is almost invisible — nothing to grab onto. How many times I've passed a person on the street with the same edgelessness and seen something other than a face, scrambled. And yet, the evidence stands. Same two eyes as mine, nostrils, lips, the hard line of chin.
— Understanding — an obsession of humans.
— Love, the essence of being alive, connection, understanding/transcendance from understanding?
— Flesh: just the suitcase.
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>> Caits: Oh that was like... fun is not the right word for that piece. That was fun to revisit (laughter). It was satisfying to go back there. Thank you for publishing me.
>> Elæ: Yeah, love.
>> Caits: And it means nothing.
>> Elæ: Well it means everything.
>> Caits: And nothing. That's what I was going to say. And everything. But you said it first.
>> Elæ: Simultaneously.
>> Caits: That's what I'm saying. Exploding that whole concept. But it means a lot to me personally.
>> Elæ: And to me.
>> Caits: Well, I want to say thank you, of course, for letting us come and talk about capitalism and collectivity and philosophy and how we'd sell out for Oprah in a second on all of the things I always really love getting to hear Elæ talk so articulately about these things and my brain starts going psp psp psp. Can you hear that in the headphones? Better than my crunching of crackers and cheese?
>> Brian: I can't believe you'd do that, but not crunch. It upsets me. (crunch, crunch)
>> Elæ: Thank you. It's so great to have spaces for these dialogues, and I think it's to kind of have it be a little open ended as also very nice. And to have the opportunity to have it happen with work, you know? I think, so frequently, to bring it all the way back to the beginning, you know so frequently we divide these conversations, right? It's like, here's a reading or here's a conversation right? But the two things are inextricable, right? Like everything that we were talking about is in these poems, and these poems and the experience of writing them reflects back on everything we're talking about. So, you know, I think it's important to have these things happen together. And so thank you for giving us the opportunity to do that.
>> Caits: Yeah. Animal Riot. You're the shit.
>> Brian: Thank you. We are glad to hear it. Seriously, because some people, some people, have seemed a little taken aback by the lack of structure. But I like it. I like it a lot.
>> Caits: You have the right people at the table for that. (laughter)
>> Brian: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I do think it is just about like who's here. Because if you can have a conversation then you can have a conversation.
>> Elæ: Caits and I are used to structure in space too. Because we're both educators. We've spent a lot of time like, I mean, anyone who's taught. Like I spent a lot of time with dead space. You know, like, people often say they're like, Oh, you seem so like, chill on stage. I'm like, Listen, I've been teaching freshman college freshman for, like, 15 years. You know how often I have to just, like, spend an entire hour and 1/2 just like talking because they're making me pull teeth?
>> Caits: Yeah.
>> Elæ: Teaching will help with stage fright. I highly recommend it for anyone.
>> Caits: Oh totally. 100%. Thanks, Brian.
>> Elæ: Thanks.
>> Brian: Yeah, of course. Thank you guys for coming. This has been great. Okay, that's it for today's episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe in review on whichever platform you're listening. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at @AnimalRiotPress and Facebook and Instagram at Animal Riot Press and all those social media necessary evils or through our website animalriotpress.com, which is not evil and great. This has been the 20th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast with me, your host, Brian Birnbaum, and featuring Linda Silva-Johnson, aka Elæ and Caits Meissner and were produced by Katie Rainy, without whom we would be merely three of Shakespeare's 1,000 monkeys banging on a typewriter.