The Third Thing I’m Thankful For (of Ten):
Tetris. Period.
Ten Things I’m Thankful For, Thing the Second:
Blogs that make me want to do something, be something, think something differently—instead of buy something, have something, covet somethings endlessly.
Africa (Toto) - Perpetuum Jazzile
Ten Things I’m Thankful For, Volume One: Cover songs, choral arrangements, a cappella… pretty much anything. For that matter: schmaltz, cheese, earnest sentiment, that rare moment in which pleasure overpowers self-consciousness. Anti-irony (ugh!) and other odious, indispensable things.
“If I could wish, toss my penny into the fountain, or better—since wishes are beggars—toss in my three pennies, and name my nine and more wishes for myself as a writer, for my country’s writers, for our literature, what would they be? I’d wish, first of all, to be able to name my wishes, to be able to avow them openly: to name them, to claim them, the better to act upon them. I’d wish upon most of us more ambition, a larger sense of possibility. I’d wish for a sense of mission beyond identity politics—a wider healing. I’d wish as many of us were as interested in healing as in indicting, and if not able to name, at least willing to point, or if not able to point, at least willing to search for what could make our lives better than they are. I’d wish for a serious literature less willfully inarticulate to spiritual need, less deaf to spiritual summons, a literature that looks to what has long endured as well as to the novelties of the moment, a literature that seeks wisdom, that is unafraid to speak, without taking ironic cover, its full heart and mind.” — A.G. Mojtabai, “A Missed Connection.”
New year, new beginnings.
These days
whatever you have to say, leave
the roots on, let them
dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
where they come from
- Charles Olson
I will be starring as “glasses-wearing friend” in this missed connection posting until craigslist, like, removes it.
P.S. Also preserved for posterity.
P.P.S. I heard a rumor that this is a missed connection success story in the making.
Holy Ground - Ford Beckman
Tulsa, Oklahoma (my hometown) is always showing up in the strangest places. Whenever I read an article set there I summon up the city so literally; it’s an experience unlike any other type of reading/remembering that I know. Like, I think I imagine a specific spot on Peoria, or maybe by the river—something like trees and houses from the window of my car, or browned out winter grass and the curve of a highway entrance ramp, or just that muted color palette that northeastern Oklahoma wears most of the year: grey-blue empty sky and grey-yellow grass set off by the grey-grey of concrete strip malls, endless parking lots, and crumbling streets. I love Tulsa, don’t get me wrong. But is it right to assume that the people I’m reading about would recognize the city I’m imagining? I certainly feel closer to them because of this assumed connection, whether or not it’s fantasy. I wonder when and if I will feel this way about New York.
Very often I email myself quotes with no attribution or explanation so that I can feel a sense of rediscovery two months later when I take the time to track down their sources. Of course then sometimes the sources are lost.
“What more can we ask of a writer than that he draw us into the charmed circle of his obsessions?”
“The whole of social life rests on theological imagination, on acts of explicit or implicit worship of what stands beyond ourselves, of what we depend on. The connections we imagine ourselves into with other people and things weave around us with divine thread.”
“I found fun dip in one pocket and your NYPL card in the other.”
