Adam Writes
So this week I wanted to do something a little different. I put out a call on Twitter asking people to share their writings with me so that I could include them in this week’s Watch/Listen/Read. I did get some responses.
First Poet of Twitter: Joseph Fasano
Joseph Fasano sent a link to the Twitter account where he’s publishing a ‘living poem.’ Here is an excerpt:
I really like the concept. And there are parts of it I just love. The gist is that Fasano is writing this poem for his child, adding to it a bit each day to reflect the daily messiness of raising a whole person from birth to adulthood. I come to this work with a sense of connection, because I have two younger siblings, one 17 years my junior and the other 20. I will say that Fasano’s poetry often has the kind of yearning, astronomical, earnest quality that my own verse had from that period. Is there something about holding a child in your arms that makes you think of your place in the cosmos? Or maybe some of us are always thinking of our place in the cosmos and the love for a small child fits into that larger psychology.
It is interesting seeing something like this on Twitter. I have a bit of a bias. I think of Twitter as the place where you shout at people you disagree with politically. Then again everywhere is the place where you shout at people you disagree with politically these days. But Twitter especially, no? Anyway, it’s nice to see someone doing something so frigging wholesome.
Second Poet of Twitter: Elly Bness
The next response I got was from @EllyBness, whose country of origin is Uganda.
I really like the first line: “The bitter truth is: my soul is all I got.”
And there are some other great images:
My heart is a glass bridge
Cracked by a wild stampede
Of emotions lingering on life’s ridge
You really need to just watch the whole video. It’s two-and-a-half minutes you’ll be glad you spent. And there are a few others that are equally precious.
Third Poet of Twitter: Emma Lucy Thomson
I also received a link to Emma Lucy Thomson’s website: Diary of a Painfully Shy Introvert Blog. Considering how short the entries are, I was surprised how quickly I started nodding along. I find myself occasionally hyper-aware of my surroundings, of the pains in my body, and so on. Reading this, I felt seen.
I really enjoyed this exercise and plan to repeat it. So if you are a writer, musician… if you’re an artist of some kind who wants their work to feature in this column, please contact me via twitter or email and let’s talk! You don’t have to post your work on Twitter. You don’t even have to be on social media at all.
It’s Wheel of Time O’clock, People!
Moving on to the high fantasy series I’ve been obsessed with (it seems like) forever. I reached a milestone this week. I finished The Knife of Dreams, which is the last book in the Wheel of Time series that Robert Jordan wrote before he died. According to his co-author, Brandon Sanderson, he did outline the next book (which would be divided into three and thus would be published as the next three books) rather extensively before he died.
Reading (or rather listening to the audiobook) filled me with melancholy. What would I do if I expected only to live another few years? (N.B. That was the diagnosis R.J. was given. He ended up living considerably shorter, perhaps one year, after he received his diagnosis.) By this time Jordan had already written ten full volumes of The Wheel of Time. he could have been forgiven for saying: I’ve written my books. I’ve made my money. I’d like to hang out with my wife for a bit. But then. Harriet McDougal was also his editor and so without prying too much, one can conjecture that the book was part of their relationship.
Death and the Author
These are not idle thoughts, exactly, considering that the whole series proves prophetic in the following way. The whole fourteen books are a giant buildup to a single cataclysmic event, during which the main character expects to die. As the prophesied event draws nearer and nearer, he becomes obsessed with leaving something of lasting value behind him when he dies.
I can’t help but see the author in the main character. And of course I start to see myself in both. I don’t expect to write nearly as many books as Robert Jordan. I think the point is that unless sickness brings about an incredible change-of-mind, whether positive or negative, that a person wants to die as they lived. Ivan Ilych realized on his deathbed that his life had been a grotesque waste of time.
Much better to read books like that and take them to heart so that when the time comes you are spared such an epiphany. But it’s hard to take books to heart. I say this as someone who is proficient in the art of reading and changing his mind based on what he reads. It’s really hard. But it gets easier with practice.
Ah the Twitter of Little Flutes
Anyway, one of the things I’ve been listening to this week is the music of the traverso. What a fascinating instrument. Its sound reminds me of how my brother and I would blow across the tops of glass soda-bottles at restaurants until our parents made us stop. Which is nonsense because they’re the ones who taught us how. Yes, using a soda-bottle. Yes, at a restaurant. Ok maybe it was an uncle. But they didn’t stop him.
Anyway it’s fascinating what you can do with a straight stick that you bore some holes in. This instrument has a single key. You can see it in the recording. A typical modern flute, keyed according to the Boehm system, not only has more keys than a person has fingers, but its holes are so big that you can’t play any notes at all without the keys.
Just listen to the video. It has such a beautiful sound. There’s such an infinitesimal difference between the sweetness of a well-played wooden flute and the sweetness of a well-played silver flute. But some days you need that little extra.
Anyway, Erika will be pleased that at least I’m not making any viola jokes. Although to be fair, the viola is already a bit of a joke so anything I say would be redundant.
Erika Writes
Avengers! Ensemble!
Adam doesn’t realize he’s too late for viola jokes this week–someone’s already said to me, “no one likes violas anyway.” I assert that the reason no one likes violas is because no one really pays attention to the work it takes to play them–their tone is in the middle range–not high enough to sound squeaky and unpleasant nor low enough to draw our attention either. And so to play beautifully, it takes so much more work…hard work which people are willing to ignore or dismiss. I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to take up space, and I will gladly take that space for the viola players.
Not to discredit the time that other musicians spend working on their music, but really? If viola were easy, why wouldn’t it be a starting instrument for more people? Unlike, say, piano? It’s certainly far less space and financial commitment to invest in a beginner viola than it is to invest in a piano.
Anyway….
Can we go one week without the world coming to an end?
Last week was difficult. This week has been difficult. That song seems to come up again and again as I’ve compared playlists with other GenXers lately. It seems like we’re all turning to some of the same music to help us through. Several friends and I have discussed apocalyptic playlists and that song is one that comes up again and again. So is this one:
I’m doing my best to try to make sure I’m not overtaken by the gloom and doom. I’m trying to keep an eye on the horizon, to keep creating and seeking out the incredible and beautiful things, but it’s not easy right now. That’s the nice thing about these watch/listen/read posts. For a few minutes, I have to focus on the things that are beautiful, the things that are inspiring. I’ve been working on a new poem, and that work has meant that I’ve been watching or rewatching a lot of spoken word performances. It’s the first time I’ve approached a piece of work intentionally as a spoken word piece instead of discovering that it just happens that way.
As a result, writing it is different from other kinds of writing I do. And in order to learn that skill, I’ve been watching and listening to so many poets–those new to me and not so much. I haven’t been able to get this poem out of my head for a few days…
Music to write by
And of course, I’m still making sure there’s something to read each week here, too. I got through writing Monday’s piece about queer people in Ukraine and Russia by listening to Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite 1, probably most familiar either for the opening movement “Morning Mood” or for the final movement “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” I needed something repetitive and slightly creepy to quiet my mind while I wrote, and the Mountain King fit the bill quite well. I’m not sure I’ve ever really dissected why this piece works that way, but it does. On Monday at least, it had this magical way of bridging together the right combination of angry and frightened, to that end, it described a lot of my feelings as I wrote about my fears for queer people in Ukraine right now, and about resistance.
Of course stress is not the greatest thing for my own health, physically or mentally. I know when I start to experience it from uncontrollable outside factors (like my worries about global collapse) the usual day to day difficulties with things like sleep and pain can be magnified to the point where they actually start to interfere with just managing regular day to day existence. It’s an ongoing fight and it gets in the way of everything I do. Indeed, I’ve talked about the impact that this kind of thing has on my attention span before.
Short Films vs. Short Fuse
To that end, I’ve been digging into the many, many short films on YouTube this week. I had no idea it was such a source for good queer films. There have definitely been terrible ones, but so many more have been pretty good. I particularly liked Jenna Larson’s films, but I think my absolute favorite that I saw was 1987 which was painfully familiar. Like it could have been my own story.
I’ve also been watching a lot of stories about conversion therapy. In light of the horrible news lately about Don’t Say Gay here in Florida, about the student athelete and bathroom bills, and about Texas I can’t help but worry even more than before about what families will put people through to try and change them. To be sure, this probably isn’t the best thing for me to be viewing, but somehow, sometimes, I just can’t look away.
Since we’re all about sexual reality right now, too, the YouTube channel Robe Trotting has begun a weekly series about cultural differences surrounding sex and sexuality between Denmark (where the two guys who own the channel are now) and the USA (where they’re from.)
Also in the documentary category, VerilyBitchie, a YouTuber who I’ve enjoyed before released a new video this week called “The Bisexual Gimmick in Reality TV.” I’m not really a reality TV watcher, but even if I wasn’t, this was a good opportunity to see the connection between media and changes to how we re-learn to navigate things like dating in a world where COVID is endemic not pandemic. If you’re a fan of vampires, I recommend Verily Bitchie’s videos explaining the queer vampire trope, too.
Three’s Company
Fittingly, with National Threesome Day taking place this week, I also checked out Overly Sarcastic Production’s Trope Talk video on Love Triangles
I took a second look at the documentary All Things Must Pass, about the failure of Tower Records, too.
As much as I have just wanted to curl up with my books and my cats and retreat from all that is terrible, I can’t. Furthermore I can barely keep my eyes open a lot of the time right now, which is miserable with so many things I want to do. And that’s meant…you guessed it, more poetry. Rupi Kaur and Sam Sax mostly. Both familiar. Both comforting.
I’m seeking comfort in as many healthy places as I can find it right now. Are you taking care of yourself? Tell us about it.
