David Blake Fischer on Gym Shorts, Tank Tops, and Life Coaches

Los Angeles write David Blake Fischer, who grew up on Nolen Drive in Flint, describes what happens when your life coach buys you a tank top and gym shorts in McSweeney's:

"I could belong to one of any number of fitness clubs. In my athletic shorts and tank top I could attend spin classes, sweaty yoga, or regular yoga. And I could meet new people. We could walk the treadmills together, making small talk about pets, our favorite television shows, or other fitness related topics. I could forge friendships with athletic men and tall women. We could sit in the steam room and exchange stories, laughing hysterically when things are funny. Or we could sit in the steam room and say nothing. And it wouldn’t be boring. No one could call me boring."

Shattering Glass: A Flint Writer Draws on the Vehicle City for Inspiration

My friend Connor Coyne is one of those rare birds who left our hometown of Flint for not one, but two big cites, before returning to buy a home in the place where General Motors was born. Connor graciously offered invaluable feedback and support while I was writing and editing Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City. His friendship was a reminder that Flintoids help out other Flintoids.

 

As a writer, Flint is a recurring theme in Connor's work. Given the vicissitudes of book publishing these days, Connor has started a kickstarter campaign to fund the digital and print publication of his compelling experimental novel Shattering Glass. I've already made a donation. It's a great way to support an artist, husband, and father who returned to Flint to raise a family with his wife, who is a nurse at Hurley Hospital. I hope Flint Expatriate readers can help as well.

Here's some more information on Connor from the kickstarter page:

By the time 2011 rolled around I had written several novels and was just settling into a beautiful new house in my hometown of Flint, Michigan, to which I had returned after fourteen years in the Big Apple and the City of Big Shoulders. I was also coming off of publishing Hungry Rats, a grim and gritty noir novel that had taken seven years to develop and which was also the subject of my MFA thesis and self-published via Kickstarter.  These adventures had been successful, but I was looking for something fun and easy and a little bit stupid, and Shattering Glass was supposed to be the answer.

 

Shattering Glass was intended to be a short, pulpy novella in which I could indulge in allusion, rhythms, and thematic sledge hammers.  The setting would be the fictitious Arkaic University, based upon the University of Chicago where I had gone to college. If you don't know, the U of C is a cult of learning afflicted with both insularity and a fever of intensity. Everyone there is -- admirably, perversely -- obsessed with something.To paraphrase the first chapter of Shattering Glass, "visitors are novitiates; here tread experts."  The city of Arkaic, Michigan has featured in other stories I've written and it, itself, is a much exaggerated version of Flint, which is an odd town, poor but inventive, cold but romantic, religious but radicalized, frustrated and frustrating.  

And here's an excerpt from Shattering Glass:

Faced with the prospect of walking back to [her dorm] and having to either ignore or make up with Ezzie, Dunya shakes her head. She puts on her coat and heads out into the feral October. Tonight the wind tumbles through the leaves making the branches gape wide, like fanged jaws. She stares them down all the way to South Street, gets on the bus and rides it downtown. Then, still not knowing Arkaic very well but wanting to get as far as she can from campus, she gets onto another bus that takes her deep into the North Side. She gets off the bus at Ash Highway. Vacant lots and ragged signs shivering in the chill range away to the west. To the east, things look a bit more promising and she sets off along the highway. Even here, most of the buildings are vacant, with huge, stone-scattered parking lots. But then again... Dunya sees the traces of secret life among the desolations. Hidden treasures that have ridden out the blizzard. She passes a used bookstore, a hole-in-the-wall bakery, a laundromat, a trophy factory, a used car dealership, a Tiki-themed bar. They all hum with life, even though it’s well past business hours. It warms her heart to know that some of Arkaic is alive, even on the edge of oblivion. It reminds her of home, of Richmond. Okay, so the differences are huge: culture, climate, health, and appearance. Michigan is no California. But two down-and-out towns can share a common conversation across a few thousand miles, and Dunya hears it. She hears Richmond in the air. She recognizes its gravelly-staccato rusted language.

 Go here to support Shattering Glass.

Flint Profiles: Sarah Carson

I was happy to discover the poetry of Flint Expatriate Sarah Carson over the holidays. She has two chapbooks — Before OnStar and Twenty-Two — both available on Amazon.  

One of my favorites is In Buick City:

GG inherited the Buick when Mrs. Sacco died, though she hasn't driven it in years. The last time was the morning that little boy followed her home from the grocery store, acted like he had a gun in the lining of his jacket, and told her to hand over her pocketbook. Since then she's kept the car in the garage between the tool bench and the riding mower, climbing in every so often to turn on the radio or admire the chrome around the speedometer. There's a sticker inside the driver's side door says it was made downtown on Leith Street before OnStar, before the hundred thousand mile power train warranty. When Uncle Robert has nothing else to drive, he’ll come pick it up and use it to run his errands. He says he’s surprised how smooth the ride still is.  He thinks it’s cause the car gets so little use, doesn’t drive downtown on the cobblestones or around the potholes on the freeway. I think it’s just cause some things aren’t ever really as bad as they seem.

Although it's not always explicit, her experiences in Flint heavily influence her work."I was born in Flint, but raised in Flushing," she said. "Both my father and grandfather worked at General Motors, and seeing my father's experience with the factory had a huge impact on me. Many of my most vivid childhood memories revolve around the factory — whether it was waiting in traffic on 475 to pick up dad from work or visiting the factory on Take Your Daughter to Work Day or watching my dad deal with the loss of his friends who died or were seriously injured in accidents on the factory floor. After college, I moved back to Flint and lived on the South Side in the Cody School Neighborhood. I left in 2007 and moved to Chicago where I still live. My mother and I, though, are now fixing up a house in Carriage Town — Mayor Ray Brownell's old house across the street from Atwood Stadium!"