Tuesday 6/15/21
Sometimes I don't even bother to create a new email and just write something new atop the forwarded email that went to the IC. It doesn't matter. There's not going to be a response anyway. As an FYI: I wouldn't normally speak this informally. But after twenty-five years and you know someone just hates you (though all you've ever done is offer masterful work after masterful work) and you could present a story that grants them immortal life and they'd still not respond because it's by you, it really doesn't matter. You end up trying everything in time. But none of it matters.
***
Goddamn, man. How fucking good is this? You should read it. Less than 900 words. Mere minutes out of your life, but immeasurable in the ways that most matter.
You know something? First thing I ever sent to The Sun was this shitty personal essay about baseball. Total dreck. I was in college. And a bunch of Sun editors wrote me and said, "Oh, wow, this is amazing, will you revise this part?" And it was truly a horrible piece of writing. This is twenty-five years ago. I sucked. I was a kid. And I didn't revise the piece. It was an embarrassing work. And you know what? That is the only thing--you know what I do--that in a quarter of a century anyone there expressed any interest in. I think about that a lot. That piece vs. something like this? Or "Fitty"? Or "Girls of the Nimbus"? Or "Seedless Cherries"? Eh. But it's not about the work, is it? Fucking funny, though. That piece was so bad. I should send it to you sometime. Inept.
---------- Original Message ----------
From: COLIN FLEMING <>
To:
Cc:
Date: 06/14/2021 8:33 PM
Subject: "A Visit to the Babe"
This will blow your f---ing mind.
"I couldn’t tell if his smiles were grimaces. Or if his smiles were knowledge and knowledge makes you grimace."
The simile about the wine cork. Motherf---. Who writes like that? And the sequence as he stands on the baseline. Just pure protean power and poetry. I just honestly don't see how you can write something more moving than this. I don't see how someone can read this and not be reduced to tears. But there is nothing lachrymose about it.
