Observer’s Slambook: Author Rax King Believes in Love Online

Observer’s Slambook is a series that is ongoing over at our Arts Newsletter, that I write weekly, where I ask various artists, writers, and culture heads a series of randomized questions. These questions are silly, and akin to something you’d do at summer camp, but what I’ve found over the course of this series is it’s an excellent way to see different sides to creatives we already love. This text comes directly from the newsletter and is not changed in any way. 

I met Rax online in 2017, or possibly even 2016. We both posted a lot and found ourselves in the same online poetry circles. When we both ended up in New York City, Rax took my friend Tony Tulathimutte’s CRIT workshop and we finally met face to face at one of his parties. Rax is funny, she can make anyone laugh. Her book Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer out through Penguin Random House, is a deeply moving collection of essays. Rax has a lot to say about life, so she was the perfect candidate for Observer’s Slambook where we ask a series of randomized questions to different culture figures.  

Your most played song right now

I’ve been listening to a lot of Yiddish folk music since I’m taking a Beginners’ Yiddish class, but the only stuff I can understand is very much for children. So my most played song right now is probably something off Mark Olf’s Yiddish Folk Songs for Children.

Did you go to the public pool as a child?

I sure did! To this day, I prefer to wear flip flops in the pool, lest I step on a shard or turd.

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you met online?

The man I am currently in love with is from online! We bonded over the fact that we both worked in construction.

Does the future scare you or give you hope?

Yes.

Would you want to know what’s at the bottom of the ocean? 

I most positively would not. Hashem stuck His chosen people up here on dry land for a reason. I do not fuck with fish. You can’t trust a guy who dicks around in the water all day breathing through stupid-looking gills. Who the hell would want to live in the ocean? It’s a bunch of suspicious characters in there and I want nothing to do with any of them. I won’t even watch the David Attenboroughs that are about the ocean.