Nathaniel Duggan's Black Friday Death Egg and the return of Josh Sherman

Early on in this conversation, I noticed I was breathing like an athlete and wondered, in some remote part of my mind, why the adrenaline and ragged nerves? Possibly it was the fact that we were back. Carla was back in the store with me and we had the TASCAM out and the headphones on. The guest, Nathaniel Duggan, wrote a book that seemed to me to be as good as any poetry book that ever won an award, and Josh was coming back for the episode, which made it feel like the early days (also known as 4 episodes ago). I read over the bleak poems throughout Black Friday. What a perfect collection for the day! Poems filled with unmoored hopelessness and capitulation to the industrial machine. Poems written by a brilliant 29 year old who has already failed as an adult, by most metrics. He has no buying power despite having had every privilege. He has no property or family of his own. His poems are about not meeting the demands of modern society. Of pausing too long during a greasy lunch to write a poem on your phone, which casts you even farther away from the GOAL of locking it down and making money. Death Egg sold 200 copies so far. We talked about this. We talked about how indie art won't change your life financially. This theme comes up a lot in the 10 episodes of Self Exposure. It's meant to be a sign of the meaninglessness of striving for and reaching an audience of any significance. I have come to see this crumb sweeping attitude as understandable. Expectations are emotional and having expectations that are too high will lead to more personal misery. Sometimes there's an opposite impulse at play. I've seen bluster about being the "best" writer or "best" indie press, and it's a quiet claim, like the time I was in the Netherlands and biked past a restaurant sign that said, "The best bolognese in Rotterdam." The space that contains these episode notes will likely be missed by most who listen to the podcast, but nonetheless, I am ready to proclaim that Death Egg is the best bolognese in Rotterdam. That Self Exposure is the best indie-lit podcast, and that I am the best auto-fiction writer in Berlin. Take that Lauren Oyler! My pecs just got hard. I'm into strength now. Join my army.

Death Egg by Nathaniel Duggan