THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.”― Dashiell Hammett
It is a crazy thing, this world that is opening up, ever so slowly….ever so slowly. We went to dinner tonight with some friends…something I will never take for granted again. Six of us…around a table…raising cocktails and sharing our air and our space. It felt wonderfully strange, jumping right back into friendships like nothing has happened…and so much has happened…and continues, for some, to happen.
And the night before another friend and I raised glasses in the sun on. the docks of Richmond while eating delicious Vietnamese food catching up about life and the Swedish literary project we have been working on for years and need to finish. It seems like we toasted being together with every sip.
I am feeling a new heightened sense of thankfulness for all the little things that are opening up to me…hugging people again, listening to live music again (like we did outside Peri’s the other Saturday afternoon), catching up without a computer screen, hearing friends’ stories in real time with live reactions all around…seeing somebody’s naked, unmasked smile attached to their locked gaze.
I hope to never take any of this for granted again; I need to remember never to take any of this for granted again.
And on the other side of the coin….I will always remember this idea of getting in the car, and never experiencing traffic. Of never even thinking about having to travel for work, missing even one day of my kids growing up.
Things are ever changing.
Down-home blues and baseball, Pontotoc’s Terry Bean could do it all
This article has been making the rounds….first brought to my attention by Blues scholar Scott Barretta and then Tompkins Square owner Josh Rosenthal…and for good reason, it is a great read.
A Remembrance of S. Clay Wilson: Robert Williams on the Passing of an Underground Legend
There is no doubt about it: Robert Williams is one of the great artists of his time. More than just one of the godfathers of the incredible Low Brow art movement…his skill with the paintbrush and his vision are second to few. This remembrance he has written…and I have not seen much of his writing before….is rich and illuminating.
The hilarious moment Henry Rollins met David Bowie
Star Trek: Why Harlan Ellison Wanted His Name Taken Off a Classic Episode
One of my favorite Star Trek episodes by one of my favorite science fiction writers (whose birthday is today). And yet: “It took over ten months to produce a final script for one of Star Trek's best episodes, with unpaid rewrites and changes infuriating Harlan Ellison.”
A Red, Red Rose*
BY ROBERT BURNS
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
—
*The above poem was one of my Dad’s favorites to read to my Mom. Today is their wedding anniversary and is dedicated to the deep deep love they shared with each other for the 61 years they were married.
