Self-Portrait with Ghosts and Trains, by Jessie Lynn McMains

Self-Portrait with Ghosts and Trains

by Jessie Lynn McMains

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1.	Lilac Palace, 1987 02:27	buy track
2.	& i need to cling to something 03:25	buy track
3.	Exhibition Labels from the Unreal Museum 03:18	buy track
4.	Rust Belt Jessie's Taxonomy of Ghosts 08:47	buy track
5.	Highway 32 03:15	buy track
6.	in the summer / it's a pity 02:05	buy track
7.	a spell for the end-of-summer & its burning 02:30	buy track
8.	other words for mainline 02:19	buy track
9.	La Balada Perdida del Bebé 01:44	buy track
10.	self-portrait at twenty two 00:13	buy track
11.	Love Letter with Trains and Brautigan 03:15	buy track
12.	Self-Portrait in Hobohemia 02:32	buy track
13.	blessed is the lonesome pioneer 02:59	buy track
14.	Self-Portrait as a Jug of Corn Whiskey 02:35	buy track
15.	Self-Portrait as the Girl from a Springsteen Song 03:59	buy track
16.	A Spell for the Dog Days and the Leaving 02:10	buy track
17.	Dimestore Ghosts 02:47	buy track
18.	our faithful, reckless hearts 04:46	buy track
19.	Saint Anthony and the Ten Thousand Things 04:32	buy track

about

Jessie Lynn McMains is an American writer. I mean that in the sense that their writing shows the sum of America as they know it--a wild, panoramic, documentary view. The rundown Midwest towns, the coal trains, haunted lakeshores, factories closing, heroin habits, old men fishing for trout, summer lovers, unholy motel rooms, dust motes blazing, cornfields, head-on collisions, fried potatoes, queer love, endless arguments and endless cigarettes, dim-lit bars, and the quiet, sunny, overgrown railyards of every town everywhere. Their writing feels like a Middlewestern Whitman for 2021, as they deliver visual, thoughtful, dark, well-crafted depictions of life in this failing empire.

Self-Portrait with Ghosts and Trains makes me want to drive around and look at things, listen in on things, stare at my problems then smash them with a strongman's hammer from a county fair. Some books, some stories, poems, songs push you to toss yourself into the thick of life, to dive into the dense, crowded world of humanity and throw some punches, give a few hugs, buy people drinks, wait out a rainstorm, sing a ballad, catch a ride, seek the ghosts, seek the ghost of your teenage self, of your childhood, of the all yous you've been.

I love this record like Brautigan throwing a rock through a police station window. All chorus, all the time.

-Adam Gnade

credits

released July 2, 2021

Side A, Track 01: record needle sound effect by InspectorJ from Freesound . net

Side A, Track 04: Marco Trovatello - Shuttleworth (Interval)

Side A, Track 07: Jahzzar - In the museum

Side A, Track 09: Kai Engel - Cobweb Morning

Side B, Track 03: Jahzzar - Self-Portrait

Side B, Track 07: Tim Simmons - There Will Be Magical Things

Side B, Track 09: Marco Trovatello - Southfolk 1st Division

license

about

Hello America Stereo Cassette

A new record label releasing audio recordings of writers' work. Poems backed by noise. Novels as audio books. Stories on cassettes. Curated by Adam Gnade. Currently accepting submissions.

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