In Praise of the Revised-Draft World

I'm catching up on the sections of the Sunday NYT I somehow never manage to finish until weeks after the fact (namely the Travel section, the Book Review, and the magazine). Book News from April 20 (yes, April) has a short article about the poet Laura Sims, who struck up what wound up being a years-long correspondence with the experimental-fiction writer David Markson. Markson's side of their correspondence wound up in a book, Fare Forward.

I'm not familiar with Markson or his work, and I'm not really one for experimental fiction any more than I am for experimental art, but I loved this tidbit about his reaction to the online world (and yes, I see the irony of posting this here).

"Markson may have lived on the cutting edge of fictional technique, but he happily lagged behind in the world of technology. In March 2004, Sims offered to print out and send pages from several blogs that praised Markson's work. Markson, unaware of blogs, reluctantly agreed to take a look. When the materials arrived, he found them riddled with errors and omissions.
'Hey, thank you for all that blog stuff, but forgive me if after a nine-minute glance I have torn it all up,' he wrote back. 'I bless your furry little heart, but please don't send any more. In spite of the lost conveniences, I am all the more glad I don't have a computer. HOW CAN PEOPLE LIVE IN THAT FIRST-DRAFT WORLD?' Later he wrote: 'I have just taken the sheets out of the trash basket and torn them into even smaller pieces.'"

(From "Fan Letter to Pen Pal," by John Williams, NYT Book News, April 20, 2014)

In Which Otis and I Issue a Plea to MC Hammer

Emily Wilska posted to Michael Richman

Hammer, we're asking you very gently and politely: please strongly consider not hurting 'em.

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Michael Richman

The world is a dangerous, endlessly violent place, Hammer. Perhaps it's God's plan; perhaps there is no God. We will likely never know. What we do know, Hammer, is that adding pain to an already painful existence is not the Peaceful Way as Buddha describes it. Ergo, if you should be considering the act of hurting 'em, Hammer, won't you please, please think again?

Emily Wilska

May we suggest perhaps putting on a nice comfortable pair of loose-fitting pants, say, and engaging in some relaxing and rejuvenating dancing rather than hurting 'em? We will uphold our promise to respect your wishes that we not touch this.

Michael Richman

We know, we know. You've toured around the world. From Mother England to the San Francisco Bay area. And while it might be frustrating, everywhere you go, that "It's Hammer go, MC Hammer, Hammer, yo! Hammer!" and the rest can go and play we request respectfully that you simply consider all of these souls to be as much a citizen of the world as you are. Hammer? Are you listening to us, Hammer? MC Hammer? Yo? Hurting 'em doesn't solve anything. Regardless of your latitude / longitude. It's about going and PLAYING, Hammer. Not - we must repeat - NOT - about hurting 'em.

Emily Wilska

Know what, Hammer? You--no one else, just you--have the power to redefine Hammer Time, to take it back, to remove the smudges and the sting. Do people think that Hammer Time, by its very nature, involves hurting 'em? Maybe. Maybe they do. But that doesn't have to be the case. Rise up, Hammer. Heed the higher call. We know you have it in you.

Michael Richman

Hammer, you're a better person than 'em. 'Em are just trying to get a **rise** out of you, Hammer. And you know, what? If you hurt 'em, Hammer, you're just going to GIVE 'EM WHAT THEY WANT. Don't give 'em the satisfaction, Hammer. 'Em aren't worth your time. You know what **is** worth your time, Hammer? Serving God. That'll take the better part of the next decade or two. Why not start now? Or? What about medical school, Hammer? Ever thought of MD Hammer? Now, that has a ring to it, doesn't it?

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Songs for an Achy but Hopeful Heart

I just watched, in his Tiny Desk concert from All Songs Considered, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats sing "Going to Georgia," and promptly embarked on a brief but intense crying jag. (You, too, should take 12 minutes and 39 seconds to watch the full little concert, explosion of tears optional.)

What the hell with the sobbing? It's not a depressing song--in fact, if anything, it's precisely the opposite, fast and loud and insane with what sounds like the shiny hope of young love. And yet, it punched me squarely in the chest. So I listened to it again. And again. Then once more.

The last song that (figuratively) knocked me on my butt in the same way was the National's "Slow Show," which I listened to about 5 times on repeat when, on my way to the library early last November, I actually paid attention to what it had to say. That whole "You know I dreamed about you/for 29 years before I saw you" thing did me in--though in a generally good, hopeful way at that point.

A few weeks hence, that all seemed to play out nicely. At least for a little while.

But back to "Going to Georgia." Though the track from the album doesn't quite have the same flat-out, pedal-to-the-metal energy and thrill of the live version, I decided it must immediately go on a playlist, along with other songs that are either therapeutic in their feel-your-pain misery (Elliott Smith, I'm looking at you) or, in the interest of being fair and balanced, somewhere on the spectrum from cautiously to flamingly, unabashedly hopeful.

So here's where you come in. Because I'm in the mood for some surprises, I leave the other entries on this playlist up to you, my, um, extensive readership. Your recommendations for good cryin'-in-yer-drink or I-defy-you-to-resist-hope songs? Lay them on me in the comments. (Yes, sometimes I cry in my drink while listening to the sweet, shiny, hopeful stuff, but don't let that stop you.)

My only guidelines: nothing bitter, nothing angry, nothing saccharine, nothing religious, no speed metal, no smooth jazz (just because), and R&B or slow jams only if absolutely, positively necessary (and, really, when are they ever?). Everything else is fair game.

Gimme what you got. And in the meantime, get yourself to the NPR Music site and listen to John Darnielle's little gembox song stories. They're good for what ails you.

Expansion

Moonrise in Sonoma

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

-from Li Young-Lee, "From Blossoms"

I had forgotten this: the feeling of so much concentrated bliss that it's almost hard to breathe, and nearly impossible to fathom, at least for a while, that anything could ever be wrong in the world. But now I remember.

We spent the day in Sonoma, S and I and his visiting friend, and for hours I was so happy I sometimes couldn't speak. Sitting overlooking the lake at Gundlach Bundschu in the bright sun of late afternoon with my eyes half-closed and S's arms around me; looking up from every sip of wine to see that beautiful and adoring face close to mine; watching out the window as we sped through the heartbreakingly pretty golden hour scenery along route 12, my hand on S's knee as he drove: I don't have adequate words to describe how these things made something in me lighten and expand so much that there was no room for anything other than untempered joy and amazement.

Those two can't last forever on their own, of course; back in the city, with night fallen, there were parking woes, an unexciting and overly expensive meal out, S reaching a saturation point after 5 straight days with his friend, and the annoying reappearance of the real world in the form of outstanding work tasks and bills to pay and planning to do for the week ahead. And, of course, there was our goodbye, utterly untenable despite being very temporary, which has left me listless and unmoored.

And yet, and yet: those hours of sunshine, brilliant skies, baisers volés, hands touching, free wine, effortless joy--they've left me feeling calmer and more whole than I have for much too long, and have reminded me that sometimes fate or good luck or good timing intervenes and kicks open the door that's kept you for months in a murky dimness, leaving you blinking, dazzled, and pleasantly dazed in the sudden onslaught of light.

Grateful

On Thursday, sometime near dusk, we will sit around my brother and sister-in-law's table, eight adults and one outrageously adorable child. One of that child's grandfathers will ask us to go silent for a few moments, then will say a blessing.

I'm not much for religion, but this grace I can abide. I'll bow my head, close my eyes, listen to what Dad or Rod says, and will give a collective thanks for all of this:

I am thankful more than anything for my darling Kate, the world's best niece. She reminds me that every time I think I've reached the extent of my ability to love someone, I never really have: I can always love more. I know this because every time I see her, or even hear her joyous babbles over the phone, my heart cracks open and expands a bit. It has grown a lot in the past 17 months.

Also amazing is my huge, crazy, immensely loving family. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that every single day, something reminds me just how lucky I am to have the kin I do. We love and support and stand by each other without condition, without preamble, without question. My family may not prevent me from occasionally falling flat on my face, but I never have any doubt that they'll be there to help pull me upright again.

If I had my choice, I'd pull my friends from the near and far reaches of the globe they inhabit--LA, Seattle, Portland, New York, Laos, North Carolina, Chicago, bits and pieces of Europe--and collect them all here in San Francisco. But I'll settle for knowing that they're out there, knowing that there's a litany of places I could go and find myself welcomed with open arms.

Despite what has been an occasionally hellacious and uncertain year work-wise, I'm grateful to have the freedom and flexibility to be my own boss (however inept I may sometimes feel in that role!) and to be able to say that I've created something of which I'm immensely proud.

I'm thankful to my Shanti client for reminding me time and again that love and compassion can cross any tangle of age, race, nationality, gender, and language. Too much of the world forgets how easy it is to just be human together.

And I'm grateful, finally, for this: walking back from Market Street on Thursday night with a smile involuntarily taking over my face after four hours of talking and laughing and pizza and wine; spending all day yesterday feeling funny, that kind of funny I haven't felt in a very long time; swimming in this delightful back-and-forth flow of words and photos and plans and possibilities. It all makes me amazed and awed and hopeful. "Hope is an unruly emotion," says Gloria Steinem. It is. It's also a giant breath of the purest air, and a shaft of early morning sunlight hitting a white wall, illuminating an entire room.

The Moment

Last Saturday, Cape Cod, dusk.

We're sitting around the fire pit in the yard of what was once my grandparents' house (now officially my aunt and uncle's), a fair chunk of the family. The day before we threw a surprise party for my grandmother's 90th birthday ("the biggest surprise of my life," she called it). Earlier on Saturday a clutch of us ran in the Brew Run, I with my cousin Sarah at my side the whole way--a delight on many levels--and then sat down to our annual clambake feast.

After dinner, my Uncle Bob built a fire, and by ones and twos we started congregating around it. Now, with night coming, we're swapping stories, laughing so hard we occasionally double over. We run back and forth to the food tent to fetch cake, and then, just to gild the lily, Aunt Char brings out a platter of cookies. (Later, Sarah will dip that gilded lily in glitter by bringing out the makings of s'mores, and Jess will root around in the dark until she comes up with a few suitable marshmallow roasting sticks.) We stick glass bottles of various colors and sizes into the coals to watch them slowly soften and collapse, then try to retrieve them, with varying degrees of success.

Uncle Eric points out the North Star. Someone points to the moon, heavy and huge, and asks, Waxing or waning? I guess waxing, not wanting to think of the fullness going (too soon, too soon). My niece sits on my mother's lap in her pj's, an earlier attempt at putting her down for nightnights having proved unsuccessful; now she watches the flames rapt, growing quiet and sleepy. The circle around the fire grows as more people drag chairs down to join us.

Pause here.

These few hours--these few days--have been so achingly perfect that for a while I forget that they won't last. Heather raises a toast to Twin Chimneys, the family "manse" (quotes intentional); this is the last summer we'll know it as we have for the past 35 years. Starting soon, it will get the renovation it so sorely needs, and in the process will be stripped to the studs. Starting even sooner, family members will start peeling off to return home, setting off our long succession of goodbyes. And starting even sooner still, people will turn in for the night, our circle like a waning moon, the fire beginning to die down.

But for a while we're all here. Bob throws more logs on the fire. Eric fishes a droopy bottle from the flames. The platter of sweets makes another round. The house glows from inside in the background, still standing. The North Star flickers. We laugh. We laugh. We're here.

Long Night's Journey into Day

On Friday, in those moments of sudden stillness, N tells me that apparently the body releases some kind of paralyzing chemical during sleep, which is why, he says (after telling me not to quote him on this), you sometimes have those moments during dreams in which you're frantically, desperately trying to move but cannot.

I've had dreams like that: I want to run or get up or turn but I'm stuck, leaden, right where I am, as if some greater force is exacting control over my limbs. I wake up with a start, relieved to realize, though it takes some time, that my body is mine again, that I'm free to move as I please.

This morning I thought of that dreaming, of that sleepy paralysis, and realized that, if you (like me) go in for the occasional grand extrapolation, you might say that much of the grand ol' US of A is on the cusp of being pulled out of just such a dream. It was a long one, and exhausting, in which we thought we could move or scream or do something, anything, to stop feeling like so much was out of our control (and quite possibly getting worse all the while). Something kept us frustratingly still.

But it's morning in America, my friends, and I don't mean the Reagan kind of morning. I mean the kind when we wake up and understand that we can move again, understand that our futile attempts to shift our frozen limbs or open our mouths and hear something come out are over, understand that though much of the past eight years were significantly more than just a bad dream, they're over.

Tomorrow morning, human voices will wake us, but with apologies to TSE, we won't drown. At long last, the senseless, useless flailing and sinking are over.

We won't drown. We'll swim, finally, toward what looks once again like a reachable shore.

Procrastination Tools of the Week

I've had a productive few weeks here in the early stretch of 2009, which clearly means it's time for a bit of procrastination. There's always Facebook, Flickr, and the passel of blogs I follow (see sidebar), but sometimes my time-wasting needs to be a bit more specialized. Here's what I've been turning to lately when I need to kill time creatively.

The Black Cab Sessions
The schtick: indie musicians play songs in the back of a London cab. (What musicians, you might ask? A safe rule of thumb is that if you've heard them on All Songs Considered, they've also played a number in the back of the cab.) It's sort of like a (very) mini concert with only you (and the cabbie and the videographer) as the audience.

For the record: Jens Lekman, you can play in the backseat of my car anytime.

Diamond Dave
Words don't do it justice. Just go there and click around. I defy you not to giggle (or at least chuckle). My recommendation is to leave the site open in its own tab/window all day for easy access when you need a DLR fix, which you might find happens surprisingly often.

Daily Routines
A compendium of articles and blurbs detailing the daily habits of various artists, authors, designers, and other public figures (Mr. Rogers included), Daily Routines has the potential to make you feel both much, much better and much, much worse about your own level of productivity. I especially like Stefan Sagmeister's take on the breakfast of champions.

Damsel

What, no boi? (From the Digg profile edit page.)

You Have No Idea How Much I Love You

Kate at 2 months old

OK, seriously: this niece of mine makes my heart want to explode.

Sweet Baby

Witness my adorable, darling, well-behaved little niece, Kate. She is a sweet light in my world.

Baby Kate

Katherine Rosalie

I'm an auntie! Baby Kate arrived on Monday night, two days before she was scheduled to be evicted from her mama's womb.

Though I won't get to meet her until I go back east in July, I can already tell that she's adorable and delightful and will make her aunt swell with pride for years to come.