Friday 12/21/18
Apparently my last entry here served as an invocation of the Mucinex mucus monster, for he has come, and he is being a dick in terms of refusing to take his leave. The Man Who Came to Dinner. This morning I slept all the way until after eight, which happens maybe twice a year, if that, after having laid in bed wide awake for most of the night, coughing as what felt like a pool of slush accumulated at the top of my chest. By noon I had composed a 1600 word piece on "Silent Night" for The Daily Beast--I am operating at a high level--that I think people will really like, and walked three miles and climbed the Monument once. Hawking up phlegm as I did so. Twenty days in a row climbing the Monument.
Here is a new piece I wrote for The Washington Post on the influence upon writers of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Strong. And here is a feature I wrote for JazzTimes--I really like this one--on Charlie Parker's December 25, 1948 Royal Roost performance of "White Christmas," but the piece is so much more than a piece about a song. My collected jazz writings will make formidable books. When this is done--scratch that; long before this is done, while I am still deep in doing more of it--I intend to have the best book--books--of all kinds of books there are, and kinds I invent, like Musings with Franklin. Oh, look, the best novel, the best children's book, the best film criticism book, the best Beatles book, the best jazz book, best memoir, best essays volume, best story collection, best sports book, best diary (which I am writing in front of the world, in a sense, on these pages), etc. Just give me the backing. What will happen when the opposition ceases? Or ceases to matter, probably more like it? Because I have this body of work I have, and that is historically unique, and it has been made with less than 1% of my focus being given over to it, as all of the rest of the time and energy is dispersed on trying to get around a people and system that is hell bent and locked in unity in making sure there will be no recognition, above all, for an artist who is such a threat to their status quo and illusions. I have not even started yet, in some ways. To not have to deal with this soul divesting bullshit and evil and bigotry, and to simply awake in a clean, clear space, and create--what will that even look like? What will be the repercussions, the societal impact?
Strong pitches regarding Francis Bacon and Vaslav Nijinsky (speaking of diaries) went out. Came up with an idea to do an intro for a screening of The Uninvited at the Brattle, so I'll put that letter together. And as we wait for clearance on the Keaton lectures at the Coolidge, it occurred to me that it's worth floating doing something on Leo McCarey. I want this to be a regular gig, at least for the time being until it is not so much as a bucket-drop, and if it's a few thousand a pop in the (hopefully brief) interim, for not a ton of work, that will be useful. Had an op-ed idea about Josh Gordon, but no one will have the balls to do it. I wrote something on Tin House that The Wall Street Journal editor liked, but he said that no one has ever heard of Tin House, by which he meant, the people of the world at large. He had never heard of Tin House. If it comes to it, I'll put those words up on here. (Came up with another Wall Street Journal op-ed idea anyway. Still developing it, though.) They are lightning rod words. Another installment of the money Salon owes me came in the mail. Time to make another juice run to the store. Juice and fruit.
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Wrote and sent letters to the Brattle and the Coolidge. I don't follow very many websites, but I do regularly read this one site which exposes the sickening hypocrisy of SJWs. It is certainly less than shocking that I would detest all things SJW, for I hate all things artifice, and I believe that if you cowardly do everything you can to avoid even a modicum of self-awareness--which no SWJs possess--you are a human carcinogen doing your part to metastasize society, sanity, truth, beauty, decency. You live a lie, you are a lie. Anyway, I sometimes look at the comments on this site, because there is one person who posts each time under the heading of an obscure NHL goalie. I cannot imagine anyone gets this joke, but I find it hilarious. Bob Froese. Doug Keans. Pat Riggin. Chico Resch. Rick Wamsley. Sometimes they go with Billy Smith or Rogie Vachon--who are at least in the Hall of Fame--but can anyone get these references? I mean, Doug Freaking Keans. He was a back-up with the Bruins in the mid-1980s. Actually, he was better than I remember, going 83-46 with the team. He was very small--5'7". A goalie could never be that short now. And I see that he played in the AHL for the Binghamton Dusters. The Dusters? Like, they were good at...cleaning? That's weird.
