So sayeth Mark Hunter in Pump up the Volume, whom I feel a bit like, but only the part where he's driving around in his jeep pirating his radio into the air, welcomed by kind folks who want him to stay on the air. I feel like that kinda'--not in the screw the principal and the system kind of high school way, but in that I'm grateful for the encouragement to keep writing, both on-blog and off-. Thank you.
The blog is due a short essay about my trip to Santa's Village, but I'm waiting for a scanner, the pictures being important to the effect, I think. Also, I just received a copy of Thomas Lynch's Booking Passage, and, Lynch being my favorite contemporary writer, I'm too giddy to think about much else. From the prologue:
"It is always fresh and new to me--this treeless, edgy, thick-grassed landscape falling into the ocean, washed by the wind and rain and tides--and I am put in mind of the first time and the last time I was here. I'm giving out with bits of songs now, scraps of poems, lines from old sayings--talking to myself almost liturgically, as if though alone here I am not alone, though distant from home I am home all the same, as if my being here has meaning beyond the sureties. I mark changes in the near term and the far and arrive by turns at the gate of the home my people and I claim as our own, persuaded that we are all what Nora Lynch used to say we are--'just passing through life.'
I'm passing through."
Posted by ghetto monk at August 2, 2005 01:25 PM | TrackBackglad you've got an exciting book to read. be sure and let me know how it goes. I recall digging up something on Lynch as I looked at the mortuary world a few years back. trying to find more of him around here in the middle of nowhere...
Posted by: jason at August 2, 2005 01:36 PMthanks, jason. yes, read as much lynch as you can.
Posted by: jeremy at August 2, 2005 01:38 PMi flippin' love that movie.
talk hard.
A new Lynch right? Not just new to you?
Posted by: daniel silliman at August 2, 2005 06:09 PMfresh off the presses.
Posted by: jeremy at August 2, 2005 07:08 PMI heard Lynch give a lecture a little over a year ago at Calvin college's Festival of Faith and Writing. I hadn't heard of him before that but his talk is among my more fondly remembered ones at the conference. Great words and great ideas.
Posted by: rachael k at August 2, 2005 08:02 PMThe local book store says it's "to be released." Damn you and your advanced copy coutesy of Mr. Lynch. ;)
Have you seen an Anne Dillard-edited anthology of "creative nonfiction"? If so, what do you think?
Posted by: daniel silliman at August 2, 2005 10:30 PMdaniel, i got my copy through Strand in New York. i'm pretty sure there are other advanced copies available out there.
do you have a particular anthology in mind? i know she did one with Lee Gutkind, and i'm pretty sure she was the guest editor for one of the Best American series.
Posted by: jeremy at August 2, 2005 11:28 PMPump Up the Volume: great movie.
Posted by: Rachel at August 3, 2005 06:52 AMWell, I am really glad to see you back. I was just getting to know you when you said that you were leaving (and this has happened to me too many times to count, although I refuse to believe, most days, that bloggers en masse decide to quit as soon as I come out of lurkdom).
Can I make one tiny suggestion? I don't know if it's just me and my computer, but between the small font and the dark backgrounds (the dark blue of the comments fields in particular), I find myself squinting as I read your words. Not that's it not worth it, mind you. ;)
But the next time you get an urge to change things, more contrast would be very much appreciated. Maybe it's just me...
Posted by: Diana at August 4, 2005 09:05 AM