is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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A Plea for Letter-Writing.
Look at this charming little note Josiah sent me about Wallace Stevens:
"ANYWAY... how marvy is it to see you trucking in Wallace Stevens !!! He sits, for me, in an isolated moment at my Aunt Anita's lake cottage in Maine. There was naught to read or do for an idle-yet-fumbling 19 year old (tho' they let my brother and I have Michelob with supper, we thought that was the shit alright)...and I was between semesters and working, buying import LP's and at least a year away from my obsession with Rilke and Beckett. I was emerging from a Vonnegut rut (really, he might as well be Garrison frikkin' Keillor)...and I had already read the cartoons and music reviews in all the back-issue New Yorkers (quietly dying inside that I would not see Robert Fripp, Laurie Andersen or the Talking Heads in Manhattan)...when I stumbled upon a time-musted, semi-yellowed Wallace Stevens book, the exact title of which I do not now recall, but it was hefty enough to set down loudly on the dock by my lawn chair, the thud of which implied 'leave me alone for awhile, I'm doing some serious reading.' Gracious...what small games young men can play. But how lovely to see him conjured in your blog...how it has set me to a bit of time travel of my own. And how strongly then I felt the undertow of his quiet, almost celestial and water-borne voice in those pieces. I canoed for a spell in the big, beefy, alloy Grumman...with him on the front bench, on a towel. We navigated the imagined currents of that small lake well into the afternoon, my leg arched over the port gunnel barely ankling the drift... fully caught-up in the 3's and 7's that were his masterful quatrain and line countenances. I had to paddle back at full giddy-up as we had some bar-b-que of my Uncle's to attend, and we were asked to 'dress nice' ...meaning 'no skinny ties and sunglasses.' Sadly, I left him there, for no real reason...maybe the new Public Image LP was out, who knows. And I soon found William Carlos Williams who took me back to Frost (of all directions !?!)...and then I was soon in California with Beckett, Barthes and Rainer Rilke. I should once again make some room for Mr. Stevens...I imagine I've the time and sense for it now."
Now, that's a letter, is it not? Letters don't have to be big. And is it not good, sometimes, to receive a letter?
Here's an idea: send one to someone.
7:26 p.m. - April 03, 2007
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