From letters
- Colin Fleming
- Apr 17
- 3 min read
Thursday 4/17/25
These were all to different people. Just things of the week.
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The following is good. But I'll preface it with an anecdote from today. I'm waiting for the Monument to open. It's this big obelisk, right? Built to commemorate a battle. Do you know how stupid Americans are? And it's not a MAGA thing, it's an American thing. And a post-human world thing, because what people are now isn't what people were thirty or forty years ago and you need a different term. I go with post-human.
Anyway, this woman asks the guy she's with if the slits in the side are for guns. And this guy--like there could be no doubt in the world--says, easy as you please, that that's exactly what they are.
People seriously believe that the Colonists showed up at Bunker Hill ahead of the battle--because that's where the battle was scheduled to be fought--and built this obelisk under cover of darkness or whatever, so they could fire musket balls--and flaming arrows (I overhear that a lot)--down at the British below. That's how people think.
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Hey! I'm a mess with about everything at the moment save the writing, but just wanted to give you a quick heads up: This Easter piece will be with you tomorrow morning. It's most of the way done now. I didn't want to put you up against the wall by getting a fairly long piece to you with only a day or two for you to deal with it. I know you're busy.
I need to bring Bride of Frankenstein across the finish line in the next little bit, too.
This world has me so down. I write until I'm exhausted, almost as if to be apart from much of it. The news of it, the thinking of it, the mores of it, the cliches of it, the verbal memes of it, the shallowness of it.
On a lighter--but also somewhat depressing--note: I've been watching a number of horror films that people rave about on the likes of Reddit--you know, in search of things I might have missed--and I cannot believe how bad so many of these raved about films often are.
It makes me wonder what people have ever seen. There's precious little curiosity out there, with people being reliant on learning about whatever without tying to. Like it has to fall in their lap or be shoved in front of their face. I was so rapacious from an early age to discover more about the things that interested me and have always been. But man, these films. People need to get out more. Figuratively with this kind of thing.
Conversely: I've just about drained the site dry in terms of using the site to be introduced to works I'm really glad I've now seen that I hadn't yet and who knows when I might have. But these, what are they called, sub-Reddits? Not very uplifting.
Anyway, you will find me in your inbox in the morning!
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Great, will do.
The Dead are the single most important musical presence to ever grace my life. I came to them later than perhaps I ought to have.
Sounds like you saw the Dead out West in 1972. Maybe you were at this?
I'm the same way with their timeline. Basically, 1966 to 1977.
The 4/8/72 version of "Dark Star" may be the greatest thing I've ever heard. But they are a group that makes me ask myself that question time and again with their music.
I'm going to write a book about "Dark Star" and another about the band's 180 circa 1969 and into 1970. I can't think of a more rewarding American album than American Beauty.
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This works like a dream and thought I'd recommend it to you. I got this today, thinking I'd do a one-time monthly payment after mulling doing so for a while (I'm not an ace with these things and leery as a rule) and then just start grabbing stuff like mad and putting it on an external hard drive. Got that sonic enhancement of Solti's complete Ring, a score of Paul Lewis packages, Walter's 1937 Don Giovanni, Emerson Quartet's complete Beethoven string quartets. Very easy to use. Type in what you want in the search bar--chances are it's there.
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