At a party someone says "Sinbad is so white." Yet the promised land still eludes us.



I scored my copy of Mathias Svalina's chapbook Why I Am White last night and read most of it right there in front of the author. It is pretty brilliant--a mysterious and brave little book all about whiteness. It'll make you laugh somewhat uncomfortably then it'll make you laugh comfortably. In Why I Am White, Mathias is being as ironic as he is sincere, and he is being very sincere.

This is the first of Mathias' 27 collections he will publish in his lifetime. I suggest you start buying his stuff now. You know, at the beginning.