Random thoughts:

Last Sunday night I rode the L train out to meet David Peak at his house. I texted him beforehand to get his address. He texted it back to me and also wrote It’s a little dirty in the hood, just to warn you. David lives in a neighborhood that straddles Brooklyn and Queens. A hairy neighborhood apparently, one that’s getting its first trickling of gentrification. I got off the train, the furthest I’ve ever been on the L. It was quiet on a Sunday night, all the storefronts with their metal shutters drawn closed, as if in preparation for a hurricane. The few people on the street were either walking to or from work. There were even fewer white people. I walked past a trio of white women and we made eye contact with each other as if to say “What are you doing here?” In his building there was a baby crying that you could hear from every floor. Across the street was a gang of stray cats. It was an apt preface to reading David’s chapbook.

This book is about being a young white man living in a fucked up city. Or at least, living in a fucked up part of the city. David collects images of decay, of cruelty, of insanity, and shows them to you, not to force you into guilt or pity, but to get you to recognize that we live in a fucked up world, and that you’re a fool if you ever forget that.

Excerpt:

Economy

I read in a magazine that you’re never supposed to give pets away for free on Craigslist. You’re always supposed to charge money, like forty dollars minimum for a cat, or maybe more for a dog. A person interested in killing animals for pleasure would never pay forty dollars.

Google imaging “Museum of Fucked” brings up some unsettling pictures.