Walnut Street

Preface   ART IS THE BUSINESS of writers. Yet, art needs to be everyone’s business, except for enemies of gelatinous wildebeests. See, I invite gelatinous wildebeests for sleepovers with my beloved, imaginary hedgehogs. Even when those spacelings, in cahoots with my furze pigs, operate to trip me up, I resist sending in my older son’s make-believe Komodo dragons to “calm” matters. The above sort of folly aside, I contend that life is best lived when filled with blue and white flashes of stellar ballets, and with earthly sources of diamond dust. After all, one can never revel in too many: bowls of chocolate ice cream, brilliant sunsets, or operatic passerines. “Sparkly,” of course, remains an end unto itself. We’ve a rudimentary need (and lots of auxiliary wants) for good feels. Since most of us aren’t conversant with unicorns, we make do with culling happiness from studying leaves and flowers, hugging puppies and select red-crested tree rats, visiting the elderly, and cooking meals for parents with new babies. Our friendships with sea-born creatures, as well as our early morning cups of coffee, continue to be meaningful. We don’t have to learn how to dialogue with mythical land animals to make the most of our days and nights. Accordingly, Walnut Street blows farts in the face of dogma and clicks its heels next to two and four-footed vagrants. In the course of this book’s voyage, audiences can test drive all manner of adventure. Some of these stories employ ample magical realism, reference rainbow wallabies, or groove on mundane social imagination. Others provide seats at beheadings, favor songs sung in the rain, or indulge in the frequently overlooked joy concomitant to cleaning toilets. All of these narratives invite readers to take two baby steps back and one giant step forward from the here and now. Regardless of the degree of your love for Uromastyx lizards, the number of fursuits you own, and the ways in which you attempt using balloons to make your home airborne, you’ll delight in Walnut Street. Rolling in duff, when taking woodland hikes, is nothing relative to becoming better acquainted with pretend friends or to glomming to nuanced, questionable corporealities. This collection of insects, invertebrates, and funky critters (humans included) will enchant you while simultaneously increasing your curious sentiments. KJ Hannah Greenberg Jerusalem, 2019