The dreamcatcher in the wry

In her latest essay collection, Midge (Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's, 2019) sends up the idiosyncrasies of contemporary life from her perspective as a Native woman living in urban America. Written during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collection analyzes pop culture and the foibles of American history with a dry humor. The essays are akin to blog posts, short and casually told; their clipped length doesn't allow Midge to dig into the subjects at hand with any depth, and with 72 entries, the book prioritizes quantity over focus. Still, there is a charm to how Midge represents the feeling of information overload. A particularly entertaining section of the book is devoted to the low-stakes headlines that make for engrossing local news, many of them odd human-animal encounters. Readers familiar with Midge, fans of books like Samantha Irby's Wow, No Thank You (2020), and those interested in internet-oriented humor writers will appreciate Midge's insights.

This irreverent memoir-in-essays from poet and satirist Midge (Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's), a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, begins with mild musings on everyday frustrations before crescendoing into resonant commentary on colonialism and cultural appropriation. The book's first section compiles Midge's columns for an Eastern Washington newspaper. In "Bitter Homes and Gardens and Decolonizing My Diet," the most memorable entry, she "practices decolonization" by stealing from her white neighbors' gardens, mocking white romanticism of the Indigenous diet and noting that if her ancestors were offered "nettles, acorn, cattails, or The Cheesecake Factory, they would choose The Cheesecake Factory." Part two sees Midge describing unruly visitors at national parks and writing of her experiences with Covid in amusing-enough fashion, but it's in the 20 essays comprising the book's final third that Midge's righteous ferocity burns brightest. She excoriates non-Native authors writing "stereotyped Indigenous characters... from buckskin historical romances to gritty Western," and takes ruthless aim at "Pretendians"--people "impersonating Native identities and inventing Indigenous personas"--among them Margaret B. Jones, author of the fraudulent 2008 memoir Love and Consequences ("It's one thing to steal Native stories, it's another to write those stories badly"). Readers will be dazzled by Midge's abrasive wit. (Dec.)

1 The Dreamcatcher in the Wry Occasionally, Jon, my partner, will rescue various kinds of items abandoned on the sorting table at the post office. Or in the dental office. Or on the street. He brings the various odds and ends home, these found objects or trinkets, and imagines some future repurposing, some further use, a key with the potential to unlock efficiency and thrift. Last week it was a decorative dreamcatcher made in China. I smirked at its cellophane wrap, its implausible magic, before chucking it into the bin. And then a couple of days later I found the dreamcatcher lying out again. "Back into the bin with you," I thought. Later, Jon noticed it tossed out like yesterday's birdcage liner. "Why are you throwing out a perfectly good dreamcatcher?" He thought it deserved to be hung up somewhere in the house or given away. "I can't expend the energy required in deciding what to do with it," I explained. "I already have enough stuff in the house to fill a semitruck. Besides, it's janky, appropriative, and would probably give off bad medicine." Dreamcatchers. They don't hold any allure for me, not when they're commonly sold at truck stops next to maga hats and Slim Jims. One year Jon made some out of yarn and coat hangers and attached miniature Hula dancers and wishbones to them. I don't know if I convinced him. The dreamcatcher is still somewhere in the house, its glittery feathers, copper threads, and turquoise pony beads waiting for someone to offer amnesty or give clemency. Need a homemade bookmark? We have a pile of them. Looking for an animated bass that mounts to the wall and sings "Take Me to the River?" I got you covered. What about a plastic bonsai tree? I have one of those. I have dozens of gallon milk jugs. Rows of avocado pits trying to flower in the windowsill, every kind of glass jar known to mankind, piles of yogurt containers, stacks of paper, a cupboard with nothing but old to-go coffee containers, and a tiny pair of men's oxfords found at the local swimming pool. And don't get me started on my stuff. Books, magazines, clothing, art supplies, ephemera for making collages, photo albums, linens, old typewriters galore. One man's trash is another man's treasure goes the adage. I have no rubric for measuring the stuff I stash into piles or drawers or boxes, since my tastes are entirely subjective, as are his. This is what I try to remind myself. This week Jon put together five-shelf metal storage racks. Four of them. They are voluminous and impressive. They're to be tasked with getting our storage boxes off the floor, our this and thats, flotsam and jetsam, and will initiate a sense of ease and order. Now that the stuff is on view, I can easily ascertain what needs to be thrown away, what's expendable, and what's worth keeping. In the meantime, there are zucchinis in our dining area the size of my thighs. Are we supposed to eat them or challenge them to a duel? Jon found them on the church's take-away table. He insists we save seeds from any produce we've procured. I've designated an area in the kitchen to store seeds. We are not doomsday preppers, we're not even gardeners, but some low-grade facsimile of them. You could say that one man's doomsday is another man's nightmare. Good thing we have one of those dreamcatchers to filter out the nightmares. That is if it didn't get thrown out.   Excerpted from The Dreamcatcher in the Wry by Tiffany Midge All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.