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César Aira on Not Doing Art Well
[A]rt is not something that should be done well. If doing it well is what counts, it’s craft, production for sale, and therefore subject to the taste of the buyer, who will naturally want something good. But art creates it’s own paradigm. It isn’t “good” according to preexisting standards; rather, it sets the standard for what is to come (the crafts of the future). That’s the difference between creation and production. César Aira, Birthday (2001, 58), tr.Read More
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My Year in Books (2017)
This year’s list is longer than usual, in part because I created two literature courses for the Professional Creative Writing program I direct at D.U.’s University College, a process that entailed lots of reading.Read More
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My Year in Books (2016)
As I did at the end of 2015, I’m laying out my past year’s book reading in the spirit of sharing the often haphazard journey of mind and heart that is my chief solitary pleasure. (There are other pleasures, of course, not solitary at all, but they don’t involve this particular addiction.) Again, the books listed below are ordered according to when I read them. I won’t comment on all of these titles because all of them are well worth reading.Read More
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Reality and the Kingdom of Images
How strange to discover the figure of Donald Trump in a 2001 novel by César Aira! I’m speaking of Shantytown, in which Aira presents a character called Judge Plaza, an obese woman with dyed-blond hair. Here’s how Aira describes her (pp. 128-129), in Chris Andrews‘ fine translation: Very confident, well-groomed, commanding and decisive. She had earned her reputation. She inspired fear. The tabloid journalists loved her, and so did their huge audience, who felt it was time for a tough and energetic justice, unhampered by wigs and precedents, ready to take to the streets and fight crime on its own turf.Read More
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My Year in Books (2015)
I, too, dislike “best books” lists except when they bring me news of books I want to read but somehow overlooked, which is surprisingly seldom. Over 60-plus years of reading, beginning, as I recall, with Little Golden Books, I’ve developed enough self-awareness to guess correctly about 70 percent of time which books will bring me that mixture of pleasure and revelation that is my particular addiction.Read More
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César Aira’s Ghosts
Ghosts by César Aira My rating: 4 of 5 stars I find it nearly impossible to describe a César Aira novel. This is because his effects operate in mysterious ways, somehow underneath plot and characterization. But let me nutshell Ghosts without spoiling the arc, which begins in a typically wandering Airaesque way before firming up and acquiring the character of Fate. Raúl Viñas and his family live on the site of a luxury condominium building under construction.Read More
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Mexico Books 2009: Distant Star
I started reading Roberto Bolaño’s novel Distant Star at Denver International Airport, where we waited three hours for the first leg of our flight to Cancún. Thunderstorms over Dallas had grounded flights there, where we were supposed to connect, so I started out with an overhanging mood of distress, uncertainty, and not too far below the surface, anger—at the weather, the airline, and the idiocy of my choosing a connecting flight to save a few bucks.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
