A hypothetical formative experiences that may befall you this weekend, plus other stuff

1. Perhaps you are going home, wherever home may be. In going home you will jumpstart the process exhuming old, unworked-out feelings about origins, identity, and where in the world you are supposed to place yourself. You will test Thomas Wolfe’s contention that there is no home to which anyone may ever return. You could be flying, or driving, attending a funeral or going to visit the children of your sister/brother/good friend, interviewing for a job or simply taking a break to revisit whatever it is you once left. You may see your nemesis and/or your first love and find that hatred fades but love persists, often as a dull throbbing ache/thirst/yearning/need. Maybe you, like me, do not know what to think about where you come from, and a host of conflicted, visceral, self-wrestling notions about your return, the imminence of which is really the only reason you started this trajectory of thoughts and immersed into memory. But you will be there, and your being-there is an opportunity, so why aren’t you packed? That’s the other thing: the actual traveling, with the airports, blue haired ladies, black guys who drive the carts for people whose bodies are no longer dependable and laugh big belly laughs, etc. I would go for the window seat.

So I don’t know what you did, but I did go home, I did face inner conflict, and I did get the window seat. What a coincidence. I also got a job offer, which complicates things and simplifies them at the same time. I have a tendency to pass over a job offer if it’s more attractive than a different job offer, and I know not why. But you could give less than a shit about this, and because I salute you for that, I shall progress.

Airports and buses supply the best evidence as to why cell phones should be banned and why driving without a time constraint remains my favorite mode of travel across these greater United States. Of course time was limited, so every slick operator in a suit and flipphone subjected me to his (or her – in which case substitute pantsuit for suit) sales pitch vis a vis the public space that we shared together. Commerce must be difficult.

I’m way late in the game, but the books music conversation, topics intermittently engaged:

1) I like when Lil Kim says “Wifey” on that Biggie song. Or Jay-Z song, whichever. Specificity is overrated.

2) I like the 22 twos Jay-z song off of Reasonable Doubt? I have reasonable doubts as to whether that’s the right album.

3) Neutral Milk Hotel: yes yes and yes. One of the few albums I own that I can honestly and unself-consciously proclaim that it is Art in an era of artifice, whatever that means.

4) Essays: Borges on Whitman. EB White on Thoreau. Wendell Berry’s “Standing By Words.” Dennis Johnson v. Bill Vollmann on living “off the grid” (see Johnson’s Seek and Vollman’s Rising Up/Down). Emerson’s “Fate.” An untitled essay by Diedrich Bonhoeffer.

5) Fiction: Aleksander Hemon “Question of Bruno.” “Cloudsplitter” Russell Banks. “14 Stories” Stephen Dixon. James Welch “The Indian Lawyer” Revisiting: lorrie moore. Tibor Fischer. “Winter of Our Discontent” I re-re-read Paul Beatty’s White Boy Shuffle this weekend (thank you insomnia), and it bears up to re-re-reading.

6) Poets: Snyder, Gary. Alexie, Sherman. Stein, Gertrude. Collection of Japanese death poetry from way back when, when it was considered quid pro quo to write a poem on one’s death bed or before committing ritual suicide, which is a little wishy washy but contains some gems.

7) Miscellaneous: books I want - new biography of John Brown. CDs I want: the new typical cats, which is kind of old now. Buy them for me.

8) Instrumental: there’s one Don Cabellero song that makes me want to throw myself into a wall, in a good way. Cello concertos and piano concertos make me feel sophisticated; Scriabin and red wine are a salve. DJ Shadow: yes, yes, and yes. Old school though mostly.

9) I listen to Dr. Dre’s the next episode at least three times a week at work.

10) The Mammals do that retro-hillbilly bluegrass shit, and do it well.

The Coup’s Party Music is seventeen stars out of six possible. I don’t even want to get into how good it is.