When someone tells you that there is no way they could be captured in writing, they've entirely captured themselves in writing.
I have not functioned at a high level today. Stayed up too late watching the Bruins game, then watching it with the sound off when I saw that last evening's Lucinda Williams concert was available on Facebook Live. Car Wheels is one of the five best albums of the last twenty years. Walked three miles, climbed the Monument once.
Streak sits at forty-seven days. Read part of Stacy Schiff's The Witches at the Starbucks this morning while having a black Christmas blend.
It's okay. She has a frustrating, gappy style, where things mean something to her--words she uses--that is a kind of private meaning that won't mean the same to others. I find myself writing a bunch of question marks in the margins.
Was going to go the BC women's hockey game, but didn't feel like trekking all the way out to Chestnut Hill. if you've ever wondered if candy canes get stale when they are three, four years old, the answer is, yes, they most certainly do. Nonetheless, I finished off those bad boys. Felt like the Bumble from Rudolph. Chompers/chomping--with seasonal aspect--etc.
Listened to LaVern Baker's album of Bessie Smith covers. I was going to pitch it to Pitchfork for their Sunday Album Review series. Spoke to the editor there in May about doing one on James Brown's Thinking of Little Willie John and a Few Nice Things. Told me back then he'd get back to me shortly, this is interesting, etc. And here we are. All of these months later. After following-up a number of times. That's what you get with these people. Just maybe do what you said you were going to do? Because the last thing I want to do is spend my time and energy begging you. You are not busier than I am. You don't have to make the white page black all day, every day. Imagine if you had to write thousands of words every day, and that was the tiniest fraction of what you did, because most of your life went to sending emails to these people? What would happen if they had to compose thousands of words daily? What would get done then? What fraction of what had to be composed would get composed? Do you know how difficult it it to always be on and also just crank it? But that's what it often comes down to, going back again and again for your answer. And you're damned if you don't, and you can be damned if you do, because they get pissed seeing you in their inbox (and then they ban you), and you know what the solution that that is, right? Do your job. Simple. Problem solved. Be a person of your word. Meanwhile, they hook up their friends and your standard-issue system people. People whose best seven year stretch doesn't live up to a week of your career. Maybe that's not what is going on with this person. But it goes on often with enough of them.
It was forty years ago tonight that The Star Wars Holiday Special had its one and only airing. If you've never seen it, be forewarned that it is dreadful, but the cartoon is pretty good.
Reading this new Cromwell bio upon my return during the evening to Starbucks. Publisher sent it to me, though I didn't request it. I have no idea why. (Someone else just sent me a Howard Hughes bio.) Normally when that happens it's straight to the recycling bin--never makes it off the first floor--especially if it's the latest MFA-machined fiction. At least the paper gets a second chance at life, after not having contained any. But I checked this out. I guess it's a little better than the witches book. He's a better writer. Better researcher as well. And there's more of a need for this book, though the subject matter has less obvious appeal.
I'd have a hard time having someone in my life who said "threw some shade" repeatedly. Someone tossed this out today. Was supposed to be clever. Look: If everyone else is saying it to show how smart and funny and edgy and cool they are, it's not smart, it's not funny, it's not cool, it doesn't make you interesting, or edgy, or anything but annoying to anyone intelligent if you start parroting it. Threw some shade. Threw my ass.
Someone with the handle cockgobbler4000 wrote me today. You know...but this is worth mulling. Is the 4000 like a serial number? So, presumably, the 4000 model is better than the 3000? (I wonder why. Less toothy? Get thee gone, Incisor!) Or does the number refer to the number of cocks gobbled to date? So it's just coincidence that we came into each other's orbit while they were perched on such a seemingly significant milestone? If it was cockgobbler058, I feel like the answers to some of these questions would be more apparent.
In non-gobbling news, here is the Faneuil Hall Christmas tree being wrapped with lights today with the Custom House--made from Rockport granite, just like the Bunker Hill Monument--in the background.
The Bruins are playing with a lot of minor leaguers in the line-up tonight because of injuries and yet they are up 2-0 after the first. They have an AHL D-corps tonight basically. Scrappy.