Jason Weiss
Cloud Therapy: a book about swimming ISBN: 978-1-58498-116-9, paper, $16.95 |
An inherently fascinating read, "Cloud Therapy: A Book About Swimming" is one of those rare little books that will linger in the mind and memory long after it is finished and set back upon the shelf.--Midwest Book Review
“For over twenty-five years I have been going several times a week to swim laps in local pools. That’s a lot of time with my head submerged, my thoughts left to wander and percolate. I had long been tempted to write about this intermittent life, almost like a dream state though different, but only gradually did I begin to find the form. A mix of memoir, reflection, metaphysical speculation, social observation, Cloud Therapy seeks to track moments, patterns, relationships, wild thoughts, gathered from my ongoing practice of this curious discipline that is swimming. Where does the mind go in that altered state? How do we incorporate the physical exertion? Is there some dynamic of community at the pool, albeit one composed of stubborn individualists? Is swimming, with its implicitly interior dimension, somehow a more private discipline? And what does it mean to return so faithfully to water, the primordial element, how does that affect our bodies, our being? Numerous angles and points of contemplation occur to me while swimming, and this book explores that other realm, hidden in plain sight.” —Jason Weiss “Ode, memoir, philosophical and sensual meditation, the luminous Cloud Therapy defies all categorization. Weiss precisely captures the experience of swimming — the math of distances, the politics of the pool, the temptations and dangers of open water, the ‘ego of speed.’” — Jill Eisenstadt “At the age of 22 Lord Byron became the first to swim the Hellespont. Distance: about four and 1/2 miles. Byron swam for fame and glory. He achieved both. Since 1985 Jason Weiss has swum the distance from Brooklyn to Salt Lake City, 2,176.9 miles. In his appealing dream of a book Weiss takes us into the water with him, in pools here and abroad. His beautifully titled Cloud Therapy radiates health, well being and calm.” —William Corbett Jason Weiss was born and raised on the Jersey shore near Asbury Park and schooled in Berkeley; he spent the decade of the 1980s in Paris, and has lived in Brooklyn ever since. His most recent books are Always in Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-Disk', the Most Outrageous Record Label in America (2012) and the translation Silvina Ocampo, selected poems (2015). www.itinerariesofahummingbird.com |