![]() ![]() In one essay, for instance, he points to the “unstoppered perversity and brilliant heedlessness” of the poet Ronaldo V. He likes to narrate his regrets, urges, and tics while he’s writing (“I have a problem knowing when to pause” “I’ll wipe out all feeling from my voice, in the hope of luring you to fall in love with me”), but he also often explains the work of others in a way that reflects back on his own. His prose has a tendency to look over its own shoulder, catching itself in the mirror. ![]() From there, the essay veers into the notes he keeps while painting (such as “Change color of lozenge behind butt”), his origins as a reader, stray memories of family life, passages on Walter Benjamin, reflections on a 1968 Kodak Super 8 movie camera displayed in his hallway, items on the shelf next to the camera, assignments of “asemic writing” for the reader, and reflections on the essay he is not writing, is failing to write. In “Corpse Pose,” one of the highlights of Figure It Out, the opening paragraph proceeds from a yoga class to his plan to write an essay about “how literature should start enjoying its own corpse mode, its oft-foretold senescence,” which is then interrupted by the death of his stepfather. Wayne Koestenbaum’s book Figure It Out, 2020, Soft Skull Press. ![]()
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