Ask the Author: Joseph Riippi

Joseph Riippi writes about various somethings in the June issue and talks with us about this sequence of work, writing soundtracks, forthcoming projects and a DVD bonus extra.

1. What would the first sentences of “Something About Thundercats” look like?

“I spent high school summers working on a strawberry farm; days beginning at 4, last flats picked by noon. That final August, college loomed. I passed afternoons in the attic remembering things: Construction paper glitter pumpkins. Handwritten wide-rule book reports. Thundercat sticker on a three-ring binder. Dead mice. Finnish money show-and-tell. I left them all until today.”

2. Have you always been obsessed with “Something About…” or did it start after your first novel came out? Will that be on your tombstone as your epitaph (Joseph Riippi – Something About Being A Writer”)?

The “Something About–“ titles started while organizing what became the novel Do Something! Do Something! Do Something!. I knew the bulk of the book would be three parts, each with three sections, but I didn’t want to do titles and have people call it a story collection. I referred to untitled sections as “Something About Asheville,” “Something About Ellensburg,” “Something About The Hotel Balcony,” etc, and that became how one of the characters titles his journals “Something About This Room,” “Something About My Sister,” “Something About the Bird”–

As titles, I like the mechanism. It becomes very easy to title pieces this way—just a vague description about what the story is about. And it’s a very passive way to title, which for short pieces like “Something About Birthdays” and “Something About A Finger” seems appropriate. It can also work inversely—I have one story like this called “Something About My Blood and Yours.” Titles can be almost violent sometimes in their insistence that a reader read a certain way, look for certain things. I agree with Genette that titles are the most affecting paratextual element. A story called “The Finger” pushes the reader somewhere else.

I hope my epitaph is something more familial, to be honest. Like, “A good husband, father, son.” (That’s “Something About Honesty” right there).

3. What would a “Something About…” t-shirt look like? How could we buy one?

I just turned in the manuscript to Cook at Ampersand that’s 90 percent “Something About–“ pieces. It’s called The Orange Suitcase and should be out early 2011. A “Something About–“ t-shirt would/will probably look a lot like the cover of that book.

4. What is your soundtrack when writing?

Noise-canceling headphones and nothing with lyrics in English. Then it depends on what I’m writing. Records that get played the most: Stars of the Lid’s And Their Refinement of the Decline, Miles Davis Kind of Blue, Lindstrom’s Where You Go I Go Too, Philip Glass’ Solo Piano, anything by Hauschka or Johann Johannsson. Chopin nocturnes. Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.

5. Have you ever written a poem? If not, why? If so, show us.

Yes. A version of this was in CommonLine Project a couple years ago. The revision made it into The Orange Suitcase:

“Something About Rings”

A couple sits at a table across

the room. I peer over my book to watch

their quiet fight. They rest silent and

full of hard gestures—steel hands and eyes.

“You’re a bastard,” says the tattooed arm.

“Fuck yourself,” say jeweled fingers, clinking teacups.

Quiet fights are quite ordinary. Split

a relationship to see its odd rings.

I settle the novel and turn to watch.

They are fine, they are in the midst of love,

when sucking tells less than a touch,

when indifference tells more than a fuck.