Be Someone On Whom Nothing Is Lost

The perpetuation of strangeness in the life and times of Monsieur Me has relegated newspaper reading, Israel/Arab relations thinking, and sleeping to a secondary importance.

Awhile back I tried a temporary halt to news-related consumption, more for curiosity’s than principle’s sake. Now I am embedded in a more serious declension that stems from circumstance, and I’m just realizing that I have no idea what is going on out there.

So. In the spirit of navel-gazing, I will now direct you to the texts.

Dispatches by Michael Herr -

Don’t front on Vietnam. Our presidential elections still coalesce around questions of credibility and authenticity, and what you did during this time frocking matters. Point-blank, brutal, hysterically lucid, this book is.

Pancho & Lefty, song sung at campfire during visit to lakehouse two days ago. (I was not the singer. I do not sing.)

This song is good. So were the hot dogs I ate while listening to it. It turns out that the combination of acoustic guitars, campfires, renditions of old Guthrie, Seeger, and labor songs, and midnight swims is not passé after all. Who’dathunkit?

Old, decimated farm buildings that lean and pitch and engage each other in architectural conversation.

Since I’ve abandoned all delusions of being above being sentimental/hokey/not my Dad, life has become more interesting. There are buildings out here that have outlived whoever built and lived in them, and their saggy foundations and petrified wood appearances document time. Check that shit out.