Slingshot Review, Josh Kleinberg A Philanthropist, Derrick Jensen, What.

Josh Kleinburg edits an online literary review called Slingshot. It is here. There is sweet work from Howie Good, Christopher Cocca, Ben Segal and others. It is definitely worth browsing. What else would you be doing? Masturbating or something. Also help to promote it, Josh Kleinberg will send you a book because he is a warmhearted person. Also submit to it. I am going to submit to it in an hour or so. Maybe an extract from the novel I recently finished and sent to two people. You can submit your erotic fantasies or word portraits of your parents. You should definitely do that. Do that. Josh will send you "As the world burns: 50 simple things you can do to stay in denial" which is a graphic novella by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan if you choose that from his list. Derrick Jensen. So you have to do it.

I am going to type out a large Derrick Jensen quote now because you should do that for Josh Kleinburg. It is one of my favourite passages of his. It is his responses to a series of questions asked by The Ecologist as part of a feature in which environmentalists and writers were asked about books that had influenced them.

"Question one: Which book first made you realise that something was wrong (with the planet/political system/economic system etc)?
My answer: It wasnt a book. It was the destruction of place after place that I loved. And it was the complete insanity of a culture where so many people works at jobs they hate: What does it mean when the vast majority of people spend the vast majority of their waking hours doing things they'd rather not do? The culture itself convinced me something was wrong, by being so extraordinarily destructive of human happiness and, far more importantly, the world itself.
That said, Neil Evernden's The Natural Alien was the first book I read that let me know I was not insane: that the culture is insane. It was the first book I read that did not take the dominant culture's utilitarian worldview as a given.

Question two: Which one book would you give to every politician?
Answer: One that explodes.
Before you freak out, let's change the question and see what you think: Which one book would you give to Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Goebbels?
Let's ask this another way: Would a book have changed Hitler? I don't think so. Unless it exploded.
And before you freak out at the comparison of modern politicians to Hitler and his gang, try to look at it from the perspective of wild salmon, grizzly bears, bluefin tuna, or any of the (fiscally) poor or indigenous human beings. Those in power now are more destructive than anyone has ever been. And they are for the most part psychologically unreachable. And if someone does reach some politician, that politician will no longer be in power...

Question three: What book would you give to every CEO?
Answer: See above.

Question four: What book would you give to every child?
Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads.
That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.

Question five: It's 2050. The ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising. You're only allowed one book on the Ark. What is it?
Answer: I wouldn't take a book, and I wouldn't get on the ark. I would kill myself (and take a dam out with me). I do not want to live without a living landbase. Without a living landbase I would already be dead. No book would even remotely compensate. Not a million books. Not a million computers. Not a million people would compensate."

In case you were wondering the picture at the top of this post is related to the thing I am currently working on. It is a bright day bright day.