Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media book Club book Club book Club. Hello,
Speaker 1: Welcome to cools On Media book Club, the only book club, period,
Speaker 1: the only book club. And this week I have a
Speaker 1: story seeped in the earthy sweet scent of mushrooms and garbage.
Speaker 1: Everyone likes mushrooms and garbage, right, this is a story
Speaker 1: but mushrooms and garbage, because today we are reading Saint
Speaker 1: Juju by the Powerhouse Rivers. Solomon Rivers is most known
Speaker 1: for their haunting and beautiful fantasy horror novels, but today
Speaker 1: we have a far future, utopian short story for you,
Speaker 1: packed full of queer yearning dog girls and a heaping
Speaker 1: portion of fungus and characters coming to terms with the
Speaker 1: reality that violence and impression room much more difficult to
Speaker 1: eradicate than it seems. But also and it's much more
Speaker 1: hopeful than that makes it sound. This story, Saint Juju,
Speaker 1: was originally published in twenty nineteen by The Verge as
Speaker 1: part of their series Better Worlds, which was a science
Speaker 1: fiction series about hope, and it was released with some
Speaker 1: abs of frutally stunning animation of the characters by Alan
Speaker 1: Leaster that I highly recommend checking out. All right, are
Speaker 1: you ready? You'd better be ready. If you're not ready,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to pause and do something else
Speaker 1: and come back when you're ready. Are you ready for
Speaker 1: Saint Juju? By River Solomon? The trash garden is stunning
Speaker 1: in the pre dawn morn lit up beneath a bulbous
Speaker 1: ivory moon. Two hundred acres of fungus hills stand between
Speaker 1: us and the edge of the enclave, and the smoky
Speaker 1: fragrance of pink toadstools waits the air with sweet earthiness.
Speaker 1: Enid sniffs, knows, twitching buried inside of mushrooming quiskea comidente.
Speaker 1: There are still several decades worth of trash, and though
Speaker 1: I can't smell it, Enid can. Six foot deep fungus
Speaker 1: covers the rotting bottles, cans, cartons, clothes, wrappers, and broken toys.
Speaker 1: But Enid's a hound mutant. She can smell it all.
Speaker 1: The fungus has been feasting on the refuse of the
Speaker 1: former landfill for over one hundred years, and the scent
Speaker 1: of the old world trash lingers for those with her
Speaker 1: genetic mutation. Do you mind it much? I asked Enid.
Speaker 1: The odor the fungus from the trash gardens is enough
Speaker 1: to feed most of the world, but they seemed a
Speaker 1: bitter sweet phenomenon for the hound mutants. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know it doesn't stink to you, I say, but does
Speaker 1: it remind you of the past? Enid shakes her head,
Speaker 1: the matted bowl cut coils sweeping back and forth over
Speaker 1: her forehead. There's a scar on her left temple, spanning
Speaker 1: down to her left eye and across her cheek, where
Speaker 1: she got swiped by a mountain lion that she was
Speaker 1: trying to spring from a trap. It's the sort of
Speaker 1: story that sounds like a tall tale, a hay geography,
Speaker 1: a myth, the beginning of a heroine's journey. I've been
Speaker 1: reading about the lives of various saints over the last
Speaker 1: year in preparation for my oration to the Enclave, and
Speaker 1: in another time, I think my Enid could have been
Speaker 1: Saint Enid. To avoid the shackles of marriage to a
Speaker 1: horrible noble, she'd commit herself to God and become a nun.
Speaker 1: The noble would demand her chastity anyway, but she'd run
Speaker 1: into a den of lions to escape his horseback riding soldiers.
Speaker 1: The lions would claw her face to forming her, and
Speaker 1: then finally the noble might give up his claims. She'd
Speaker 1: be the patron saint of women with scars. I bite
Speaker 1: the collar of my flannel as Enid and I walk
Speaker 1: the fungus capped ground. Although the focus of my upcoming
Speaker 1: oration revolves around the less savory aspects of traditional belief systems,
Speaker 1: the parts about people like me and Enid and how
Speaker 1: we are sin incarnate, I can see the beauty in
Speaker 1: it too, why people did and still do devote their
Speaker 1: lives to these religions. Enid's nose twitches again, and she
Speaker 1: bites her bottom lip. We shouldn't have taken this route.
Speaker 1: The other ways out of the enclave were longer, but
Speaker 1: they didn't have the same baggage. You sure you are
Speaker 1: right going this way? I ask? That makes Enid stop sniffing.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, She says, yeah. I say. She nods yeah.
Speaker 1: I know it must be hard on these grounds. I
Speaker 1: tell her it's not. She says, must be a little bit.
Speaker 1: I press unable to be a normal fucking person for
Speaker 1: once in my life and let it go. Growing up,
Speaker 1: my older brother always called me a pestering little shit,
Speaker 1: and he's right. Ever needy I poke and poke and
Speaker 1: poke until I poke so hard it's more of a push.
Speaker 1: Suddenly I'm shoving folks out of my life under the
Speaker 1: pretense of having a nice conversation. Not that Enid will
Speaker 1: give into my prodding. I mostly talk to keep myself company.
Speaker 1: If I'm silent, the void of half light will gobble
Speaker 1: me up. Silence likes to feast on folks like me,
Speaker 1: a heady, hot stew of discontent. I can't settle my
Speaker 1: mind when left to my own devices, left alone to
Speaker 1: think wonder, despair, I get feverish and wild. You can
Speaker 1: talk to me about it if you want feelings and shit.
Speaker 1: I mean, I say, I'm good, says Enid. You sure
Speaker 1: don't ask again, She says. Maybe it should sting, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Maybe I like to poke to see where
Speaker 1: the end of things are, and life becomes so much
Speaker 1: easier when I do. And do you know what will
Speaker 1: make your life a lot easier, dear listener, that's right,
Speaker 1: it's the products and the services that support this show.
Speaker 1: And we're back skipping shoes tonight was a good idea.
Speaker 1: My feet sink into the flesh of the Kisa Kia
Speaker 1: Commandente mushrooms The feedback is strange but nice, and it
Speaker 1: gives me something to focus on other than Enid. I
Speaker 1: can't tell if she's lying or not if she means
Speaker 1: it when she says it doesn't hurt her to be
Speaker 1: in this place. But maybe I can't let it go,
Speaker 1: because how could it not. This history of the hound
Speaker 1: mutants isn't kind, even that goddamn name. It feels wrong
Speaker 1: to call Enid after a dog, but it's her preferred
Speaker 1: term for folks born with pivicave pathologia. Enid eats metal,
Speaker 1: She eats paper, she eats plastic, she eats trash. She
Speaker 1: has since she was an infant. She came out the womb,
Speaker 1: craving non food stuff. Her body processes it and turns
Speaker 1: it into usable waste. In the old days, before garbage
Speaker 1: eating fungus, pound mutants were rounded up to clear the landfills.
Speaker 1: They sniffed and sought out trash like mutts and the
Speaker 1: names stuck. Being here has to dredge up memories, even
Speaker 1: if they're not her own, even if it all happened
Speaker 1: in a time before she was born. Sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what must be wrong with me. I'm always
Speaker 1: seeing ghosts hearing things. I call them my figments, but
Speaker 1: maybe they're things from long ago returning from the dead.
Speaker 1: Creeping in Enid's face is indecipherable in the dark, but
Speaker 1: every few moments her eyes blink for too long, or
Speaker 1: she swallows heavily, causing her lips to move and her
Speaker 1: throat to rise and fall. The trash garden is my
Speaker 1: favorite place in the enclave. I offer whenever Enid's near
Speaker 1: and uneasy. Energy springs up in my chest and I've
Speaker 1: just got to talk and talk to get it out
Speaker 1: of me, or it might build up pressure inside explode.
Speaker 1: I've always been a chatterbox, but it's worse around here.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't believe all the hollows I've dug into, the fungus,
Speaker 1: perfect hiding spots to nappen. I know, she says, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I've told her before I was born out here,
Speaker 1: I say, I know, Juju, says Enid. My papa was
Speaker 1: harvesting mushroom for supper when he felt his waters come loose.
Speaker 1: I continue, why. It's like I'm trying to salvage something
Speaker 1: out of this exchange, make this story worth it. But
Speaker 1: all I'm doing is making Enid feel worse and digging
Speaker 1: my hole deeper. He leant up against one of the
Speaker 1: fungus hills, squatted and rested until I came. My other
Speaker 1: Papa wasn't there. He was just waiting and waiting and
Speaker 1: waiting at home for Pops to come home with the mushrooms,
Speaker 1: because he was ready to cook supper. She nods but
Speaker 1: doesn't speak when she leaves. Is this all she'll remember
Speaker 1: of me? The girl whose mouth was a fucking geyser,
Speaker 1: The girl who fidgets, the girl who talks and talks
Speaker 1: and talks to silence the voices, the images, The girl
Speaker 1: who's turned her birth into a fairy tale. Even though
Speaker 1: Enid knows the truth that my papa died out there
Speaker 1: in the field and I almost did too, Born two
Speaker 1: months early and with no hope of medical intervention. Enid
Speaker 1: grabs my hand and squeezes tight enough to hurt, but
Speaker 1: the pressure reins me in. It reminds me that my
Speaker 1: body exists. I don't know why she bothers with a
Speaker 1: thing as untogether as me. I'll visit you whenever I can,
Speaker 1: she says. I nod my head and smile, and it
Speaker 1: hurts my cheeks. For how disingenuous it is. My offer
Speaker 1: to come with still stands, she says, But she knows
Speaker 1: I'm set on staying. The invitation is away. For her
Speaker 1: to be nice without any threat, she'll have to suffer
Speaker 1: the consequences of my co There's a lot I want
Speaker 1: to show you, says Enid, stuff I think you'll love.
Speaker 1: I've lived my whole life on the enclave, I say,
Speaker 1: I'm not as brave as you. Enid's never spent more
Speaker 1: than a few years off and on in the enclaves,
Speaker 1: preferring to travel in packs with others like her. She's
Speaker 1: going back out there tonight. We'll say our goodbyes, then
Speaker 1: walk to the edge of the enclave, and she'll step
Speaker 1: forth into the unpredictable frontier of life outside the enclave.
Speaker 1: Can't pretend it doesn't muck me up inside thinking about
Speaker 1: her leaving me. But what right have I got to
Speaker 1: be angry? The world out there scares me. Open road,
Speaker 1: open field, open forest, the ruins of cities and suburbs,
Speaker 1: wild animals, the same world of the old Saints. The
Speaker 1: past is still out there, waiting for us to make
Speaker 1: what we will of the future. In the Enclave, we
Speaker 1: feed entirely off the fungus and foraged plants and fruit
Speaker 1: out there. They hunt meat. They're vagabonds, chasing good weather,
Speaker 1: good game, good land, never sitting camp for more than
Speaker 1: four or six weeks at a time. Let's just do this, then,
Speaker 1: says Enid. Together, Enid and I climb up our hill,
Speaker 1: the tallest mushroom in the trash garden. This is where
Speaker 1: we'll be together for the last time. We lay on
Speaker 1: its flattened apex. She asks me again if I'm sure
Speaker 1: I won't go with her, and I tell her the
Speaker 1: same thing I did before. I have a life here,
Speaker 1: I have certainty, I have kindness. After my oration, I
Speaker 1: can complete the coming of age. Rites twenty years old,
Speaker 1: I'll be a full fledged adult, able to take on
Speaker 1: more projects, more responsibility, more ways to undo the quietness
Speaker 1: of my mind that sometimes undoes me. It's not fair
Speaker 1: to ask me to leave Paradise. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: she says, sitting next to me. I have a role here.
Speaker 1: I know, she says. It's important. I know. Juju, she says,
Speaker 1: and places her lips to mine so soft. I should
Speaker 1: go with her, just for that, the way she touches me,
Speaker 1: and I dissolve, legs parting unconsciously. They used to think
Speaker 1: it's sin us doing what we're doing now. Putting our
Speaker 1: mouths and our chests and our stomachs together, we writhe
Speaker 1: shameless as dogs, tenderest, wondrous, small, aching, and needy. We
Speaker 1: are this flesh, this pliable, weak flesh. We revel in it.
Speaker 1: I press my growing up into Enids, and we rub
Speaker 1: and rub. She draws her callous thumb along my left cheek,
Speaker 1: nail grazing the freshly buzzed sideburned skin still raw and inflamed.
Speaker 1: My head is bald, too, black from ink to designs,
Speaker 1: but for where my brown skin peeks through. God, you
Speaker 1: feel so good, says Enid. I wish you'd come with me.
Speaker 1: I don't understand it, but I know she means it. Please. Yes.
Speaker 1: Her voice rasps and splinters, and to hear it makes
Speaker 1: my whole body despair. How is it in the moments
Speaker 1: preceding the final throes of fucking, one's body feels so bereft,
Speaker 1: so gluttonous for contact and heat. Someone watching would think
Speaker 1: I'd never been touched at all, for how desperately I'd
Speaker 1: jerk my body to Enid's until we are both spent
Speaker 1: mad with feeling. The bet of fungus we lay on
Speaker 1: is taller than two houses put together, and there's a
Speaker 1: blanket beneath and above us. I can see venus, I
Speaker 1: can see every star. My breath seven slows yet, but
Speaker 1: I don't want them to. Soon as they do, that's
Speaker 1: when I'll remember Enid is leaving me. But do you
Speaker 1: know what, dear listener, will never leave you. The dedicated
Speaker 1: insteadfast deals on this sweet sweet products and services much
Speaker 1: like now, crap, who's that country singer who I really like? Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll be there in the morning. Oh no, this is
Speaker 1: terribly embarrassing. I listen to this man all the time.
Speaker 1: Towns van ZANDT. Much like towns van ZANDT. They will
Speaker 1: be there in the morning, these products and services. There's ads,
Speaker 1: and we're back, Juju. Enid asks. Her voice is gentler
Speaker 1: that I'm used to hearing it. She scratches her head,
Speaker 1: fingers catching in the mass of short, tight curls. The
Speaker 1: sun's coming up and her face is beautiful in the light.
Speaker 1: She's always got a scowl on, like she's thinking deeply,
Speaker 1: and it makes her thick eyebrows furrow. Juju come back
Speaker 1: to me. She grabs my shoulder and jostles me a little. Sorry.
Speaker 1: I say, don't be sorry. She says, you're thinking about
Speaker 1: all that stuff you've been reading again. I know it's
Speaker 1: how you do things here, but I think it's stupid
Speaker 1: that oration everything. What's your topic again? What'd they call it?
Speaker 1: Call us homosexual? I say, And you're still having nightmares
Speaker 1: about everything you've read? Shrugged my shoulders. Enid doesn't know
Speaker 1: what it's like to live in a place where you
Speaker 1: are responsible to other people. I get the coming of
Speaker 1: age rights, I really do. It's tradition to present a
Speaker 1: moral argument to the enclave so that they can decide
Speaker 1: if you're ready to handle the intense questioning of the tribunal.
Speaker 1: They're the ones to ultimately determine if your moral reasoning
Speaker 1: and sense of compassion is developed enough to undergo the rights.
Speaker 1: Usually the topic isn't something particularly relevant to our lives now,
Speaker 1: but was of note at a moment in history. The
Speaker 1: past year, I've composed of triestis deconstructing several arguments that
Speaker 1: called women like me sinners, degenerates. And Enid's not wrong.
Speaker 1: It is weighed on me, but that doesn't mean it
Speaker 1: isn't worth doing. Sun's pretty much up, says Enid. She
Speaker 1: slips her old leather jacket back on and buttons up
Speaker 1: her jeans, looking even cooler now than she had when
Speaker 1: she first come to Milkwood enclave. A gun on her back,
Speaker 1: a crow on her shoulder, a limping coyote at her side,
Speaker 1: Saint Enid. I start to get ready too, buttoning my
Speaker 1: flannel up, but Enid holds out her hand. You don't
Speaker 1: have to walk me to the edge. I can get
Speaker 1: there on my own. This was our goodbye, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: She's already walking down the mushroom hill before I can
Speaker 1: properly respond. Wait, I say, I slip and slide, chasing
Speaker 1: after her, feet unsteady against the dew wet fungus. I
Speaker 1: want to go with her so bad, more than anything.
Speaker 1: Tell me it's good out there, I call after her.
Speaker 1: I don't even have a bag. She doesn't either, she
Speaker 1: doesn't need one. How can I live like that without certainty?
Speaker 1: Tell me it's as good or better than Milkwood? I demand? It.
Speaker 1: Makes her stop, and I catch up to her at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the hill, about five hundred miles from here.
Speaker 1: There's an enclave called the Sacred Grounds. Sometimes they hire
Speaker 1: out howl mutants to clear out forest and make new
Speaker 1: farms in exchange for food and other items. Bored, that's wrong,
Speaker 1: I say, sounding more scandalized than I mean too. I
Speaker 1: always worry Enid will think I sound too innocent, too unscathed.
Speaker 1: She's right, isn't she. That's why I want to stay here.
Speaker 1: I'm just hearing about all this shit now. Since Enid
Speaker 1: came to Milkwood half a year ago, I've never left
Speaker 1: the six hundred acres that make up my enclave. Had
Speaker 1: Enid never come here, I might think the world perfect
Speaker 1: outside what I read in history books. They're not supposed
Speaker 1: to do that. Did you try and stop them, I
Speaker 1: asked Enid. Hiring hound mutants for eating scrap is degrading,
Speaker 1: but clearing forest land to make farms that could get
Speaker 1: someone in real trouble. The United Federations of Indigenous Nations
Speaker 1: manages land use, and the enclaves who leased the territories
Speaker 1: from them are expected to abide by the stipulations. No
Speaker 1: money changes hands, but it's understood who rules. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a great time for me, says Enid. I was lonely.
Speaker 1: There were about five hundred other hound mutantes. They are
Speaker 1: doing the same work, and it felt good to be
Speaker 1: close to so many of my kind. Anyway, there was
Speaker 1: this girl I was fooling around with. One night, these
Speaker 1: two women from the enclave discovered us, Margaret May and
Speaker 1: Jessa I think it was they threw bleach on our
Speaker 1: naked bodies, on our genitals. I tried not to gasp,
Speaker 1: as Enid speaks. Now. That got me properly vexed, and
Speaker 1: I punched Margaret May, who seemed to be the ringleader,
Speaker 1: and broke her nose. Blood spurted out her nostrils like
Speaker 1: a red fire cracker. I back handed that woman Jessa too. Afterward,
Speaker 1: I hoisted up the girl I was with, I can't
Speaker 1: remember her name, and took her into the creek and
Speaker 1: we washed off until we were clean and no longer
Speaker 1: a flame. I dig my hands into the pockets my
Speaker 1: old Jens. I don't know how I could ever reason
Speaker 1: with people who do the kinds of things those women
Speaker 1: did to my Enid and to her lover. What you
Speaker 1: do next? I ask? I left all us dog girls, left,
Speaker 1: every single one of them, and when we left, there
Speaker 1: were places to go to. Enid says, I can't stop
Speaker 1: shaking my head. I slapped my forehead with the heel
Speaker 1: of my hand over and over. But the enclaves are
Speaker 1: no guarantee of safety, Enid says, doesn't she know? I
Speaker 1: know that. Of course I fucking do. But at least
Speaker 1: here there was a system that tried to address it.
Speaker 1: You don't think they had folks at the sacred ground
Speaker 1: stand up and make fancy arguments. It sounded like the truth,
Speaker 1: Enid goes on. She grabs my wrist, but I tear
Speaker 1: it from her hands. Part of the reason I even
Speaker 1: told you that story is because it stood out. It's
Speaker 1: not common. She insists. Most places I've been to are
Speaker 1: better than that. There's some places better than here. Perfection
Speaker 1: isn't a reasonable demand of living things. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: I could imagine evil as something theoretical. I didn't like
Speaker 1: to think of it as real and breathing and near.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't have assigned you this topic, says Enid. Your
Speaker 1: life isn't some goddamn thesis. I understand the impulse to
Speaker 1: award adulthood based on an intellectualized notion of moral rigor,
Speaker 1: but it is flawed to believe it is a proper
Speaker 1: shield against wrongdoing, wrong thinking, And what is nothing? Nothing is?
Speaker 1: I shake all over admitting it to myself. The ghosts
Speaker 1: of other times shouldn't haunt me like they do. But
Speaker 1: what does it say about humankind that for generations and
Speaker 1: generations tyranny reigned? Who am I to think we can
Speaker 1: gird against it? Bigotry is taught. I know that, but
Speaker 1: I wish it weren't so easily learned. I wish humans
Speaker 1: had to fail safe against it. All this time, I've
Speaker 1: been thinking I was afraid of life outside the enclaves
Speaker 1: with Enid, But maybe I'm afraid of life here too,
Speaker 1: life everywhere. Afraid of people on what we're capable of.
Speaker 1: Maybe not in this time, but if it happened in another.
Speaker 1: I want to go back in time and deliver my
Speaker 1: oration to them. But something makes me think that make
Speaker 1: no difference at all. My heart beats and beats lead
Speaker 1: in my chest. It's an exhilarating thought to know that
Speaker 1: nothing I say could matter. If such a thing were possible,
Speaker 1: I'd be sorely tempted to build a time machine, to
Speaker 1: go before people of the past and say, let us
Speaker 1: Dike's fucking rut. We're all part god born raging. Let
Speaker 1: us who wish to be soothed by this intimacy be
Speaker 1: soothed by it. I don't know why I'm so raw,
Speaker 1: so goddamn afraid you'd think my life is a tragedy
Speaker 1: to hear me talk about my loving home, my loving
Speaker 1: community of kinfolk. The world as I understand it is
Speaker 1: in a state of healing. Maybe I'm too much of
Speaker 1: the sort who loves to pick a scab. I tear
Speaker 1: a wat of fungus from the ground and smell it,
Speaker 1: seeing if I can get a whiff of stink from
Speaker 1: the world before the world of garbage. There's nothing left
Speaker 1: of it. It just smells like food. Like in no
Speaker 1: time at all, it will be soup simmering on the
Speaker 1: stove with butter and milk. I'm coming with you, I
Speaker 1: tell Enid. Her smile in that moment is all the
Speaker 1: assurance that there is more good than bad in the
Speaker 1: world I need. I follow her through the trash garden,
Speaker 1: out the enclave, into the world the end. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: dear listener. Okay, this feels like I know we say
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of stories this is a quintessential
Speaker 1: book club story because we love running stories about climate
Speaker 1: adaptation and finding hope in a fucked up world. Hazel,
Speaker 1: who helps behind the scenes, has to say about this story.
Speaker 1: Rivers has never been an author who pulls their punches,
Speaker 1: and I love their commitment to pulling on the frayed
Speaker 1: edges of the utopia they've crafted to see what I furls.
Speaker 1: There are no easy answers or politics of convenience in
Speaker 1: this story, but Rivers really manages to sell me on
Speaker 1: how that might be a source of hope. If violence
Speaker 1: and bigotry will always exist despite our better angels, where
Speaker 1: do our responsibilities lie? What does it mean to still
Speaker 1: embrace joy and desire? Okay? And then what I have
Speaker 1: to say about it? What do I have to say
Speaker 1: about it? Well, the way that I chose to live
Speaker 1: my life in my twenties and early thirties is the
Speaker 1: kind of person who's usually not the main character but
Speaker 1: instead Enid right. That was much more how I chose
Speaker 1: to live for a very long time. So it's always
Speaker 1: interesting to read stories that are from the perspective of
Speaker 1: talking to the vagabond, the wanderer, the In some ways,
Speaker 1: it kind of the Manipixie dream girl, but not really,
Speaker 1: and I actually think queerness kind of undermines that trope anyway,
Speaker 1: in a good way, and so it's just always interesting
Speaker 1: to me yet to read, especially like a loving portrayal
Speaker 1: of that. Like I don't know if you've seen the
Speaker 1: movie or read the book Foxfire, particularly like the Angelina
Speaker 1: Julie version of this movie very influential to me in
Speaker 1: the nineties, and even know the more recent one from
Speaker 1: the mid odds or the early twenty tens whatever is
Speaker 1: much more accurate to the original book Foxfire, which I
Speaker 1: haven't read to be honest. Okay, anyway, this idea of
Speaker 1: the hitchhiking vagabond who comes through especially kind of a
Speaker 1: queer one who kind of like shows everyone in the
Speaker 1: world and is like cool and has a leather jacket
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, Right, I like that character, and
Speaker 1: I specifically like the character in this sense where the
Speaker 1: world that the protagonist is being asked to leave isn't
Speaker 1: a terrible one, it's actually a perfectly nice one. And
Speaker 1: yet like dangerous, freedom will always have an appeal even
Speaker 1: in the kindest, nicest, nicest whatever utopia, there's always the
Speaker 1: allure of dangerous freedom, and I really like that. I
Speaker 1: also really like Enid's critique of you know, this idea
Speaker 1: that like you have to have a college degree in
Speaker 1: order to be an adult. I found that really compelling
Speaker 1: as a college dropout. And the other thing I have
Speaker 1: to remember, Okay, so when I was living in my van,
Speaker 1: I was traveling around. I was in New Orleans and
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of street kids and we were talking
Speaker 1: to them. We weren't the furthest thing from street kids,
Speaker 1: but you know, I had a band, so I was fancy.
Speaker 1: And at one point I was like, wait, y'all don't
Speaker 1: have packs, because that was like the one thing like
Speaker 1: every street kid always as a pack. It's actually kind
Speaker 1: of dangerous to have a pack, especially in New Orleans
Speaker 1: like places where you can get like really targeted by
Speaker 1: cops for being a travel kid or like being perceived
Speaker 1: as homeless. A big travel pack is like a big
Speaker 1: part of being perceived as like the wrong kind of
Speaker 1: punk by the police. But it's so really essential to
Speaker 1: have a pack with you. And so the fact that
Speaker 1: Enid doesn't carry a pack, it reminds me of when
Speaker 1: I was asking this, you know, train hopper woman in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. I was like, why don't you have a pack?
Speaker 1: And she looks at me. She's day drunk, and she
Speaker 1: goes gearless and fearless, and everyone around her starts chanting
Speaker 1: gearless and fearless. And that's what Saint Enid is. Okay.
Speaker 1: The other thing about the Saints thing that I find
Speaker 1: really compelling about this story the fact that it's called
Speaker 1: Saint Juju. It's saying all of us can become amazing people.
Speaker 1: All of us can choose to become these like iconic
Speaker 1: and brave and interesting individuals. You know. At the beginning
Speaker 1: of it, she's like, oh, Enid, Saint Enid, Like, ain't
Speaker 1: it's the one who's like special and cool, right, But
Speaker 1: so is Juju. So is this person who doesn't know
Speaker 1: how to shut up, who's socially anxious, who has lived
Speaker 1: a very protected life. She's Saint Juju too. Like you
Speaker 1: too can put on a leather jacket. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't even have to put on all the jacket, but
Speaker 1: I'm using this as a symbol in this particular case. Anyway.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that really appealed to me
Speaker 1: about this story. As for the author, here's their bio
Speaker 1: River Solomon is a writer, a lecturer, and a refugee
Speaker 1: of the Transatlantic slave trade. Their home is in the
Speaker 1: realm of the imaginary, where blackness, queerness, and disability become
Speaker 1: sites of insurgency. In addition to appearing on the Stonewall
Speaker 1: Honor List and winning a Firecracker Award, Solomon's debut novel
Speaker 1: and Unkindness of Ghosts, was a finalist for a Lambda,
Speaker 1: a Hearst Right, and a Locus Award. Solomon's The Deep
Speaker 1: was the winner of the twenty twenty Lambda Award and
Speaker 1: was on the short list for a Nebula, Locus, World
Speaker 1: Fantasy and Hugo Award. Emerging out of a collaboration with
Speaker 1: experimental hip hop group Clipping, fronted by David Diggs, The
Speaker 1: Deep investigates Tony Morrison's incantation in the novel Beloved, This
Speaker 1: is Not a Story to pass On. Solomon's third novel, Sorrowland,
Speaker 1: the story of a young woman's godlike metamorphosis, when the
Speaker 1: Stonewall and Otherwise Award, and was shortlisted for an Ignite
Speaker 1: Award and Model Home. Solomon's latest novel has recently released
Speaker 1: a critical acclaim and I'm Margaret Kiljoy and you can
Speaker 1: find me on the internet. And Hazel writes with scripts
Speaker 1: and scheduling and you cannot find them. And Eva does
Speaker 1: our audio. And that's it for today. We will be
Speaker 1: back next week with another short story. Until then, land
Speaker 1: back pre Palestine, fuck ice, and towards a complicated utopia.
Speaker 1: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources where it Could Happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: Just