{"id":17078,"date":"2024-10-01T15:22:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T19:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17078"},"modified":"2024-10-01T15:22:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T19:22:10","slug":"episode-607-christopher-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-607-christopher-brown","title":{"rendered":"Episode 607 – Christopher Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 607:
\nChristopher Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_607_-_Christopher_Brown.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“I wanted to combine the nature writing style I had been riffing on in my FIELD NOTES newsletter, with the potential for lyrical, descriptive translation of the richness of the world into language, and also provide an effective information delivery vehicle, like classic American non-fiction, and then telling a story in a way that a novel or a good memoir tells a story.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With his phenomenal new book, A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and Other Wild Places<\/a> (Timber Press), Christopher Brown<\/a> shifts from novels into a new mode and I am HERE for it. We talk about the eco-cosmos of East Austin, TX, the years of observation that opened him to the hidden pockets of wildness in urban environments, why solitude in nature is a myth, what we have to gain from taking a long walk, Long Time vs. the short presence of Anglos in Texas, how 2020’s lockdown turned off global capitalism and showed how society might truly change, and how this book mutated from when we talked about it at Readercon 2023<\/a>. We get into Bruce Sterling’s unforgettable critique of his writing, the process of turning a narrative of colonization into one of decolonization, (eco)psychogeography & the Situationists, why he (begrudgingly) brought the personal\/memoiristic into the book and how it helped him come to terms with himself, and what a workshop with horror writers taught him about the truth-telling power of non-redemptive storytelling. We also discuss the design flaws of the agricultural revolution, how his readers in different regions respond to his FIELD NOTES newsletter<\/a>, the nature of mysticism and writing a narrative about transcending the self, hiking a Massachusetts marsh in summer with Jeff VanderMeer<\/a>, and plenty more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“Solitude in nature is a myth. What you find in nature is a much deeper connection with all this other life around you, a connection that precedes language and the alienation that’s embodied in language.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n