cranberries

 

Dear Season of Sauce,

Your song for today!  Spread it on liberally!  More cranberries!

Oooh.

 

Dear What Can the Matter Be,

I have a book I feel you should read- only, it is devastating.  I don't use that word much to describe books and tales, but it is warranted, here.  I could tell you more, but you know, it might be nicer for you to be enchanted in your own way; plus-what, I am now very busy acquiring all the other Rachel Cusk books, so I don't really have the time to sit and chat!

PS  Okay, that might not be enough to convince you, alright; even after all these books, all this time, you still don't quite believe that I wouldn't send you someplace you shouldn't be; okay:  here is another description:  This book sees you.  Yes, you.  And you, and me.

PPS  Okay, you want a taste, okay: no, you won't get it from me!  You must go and forge your own beautiful, specific relationship with these 255 pages!  And anyway, why not just judge it by its beautiful cover?

PPPS  Okay, one more thing: it all happens in a day, just as our beloved Mrs Dalloway.  And if that isn't enough?!  The endorsement, the recognition, the cover, the similarity?  Well, you just cannot be satisfied today, I guess.

it plays a little melody

 

A pocket calculator.   Another pocket calculator.

Dear Grantor of Wishes,

What I want, O Enobled One, is a learned little pocket sized person to have with me at all times, to consult with on terms like "chiasmus."  A portable being who could unpack for me, the meaning, in the literary sense.  Not the foul block of text generated by our Robot Overlords that I must train my eyes to shut out when I see the degenerating* phrase:  AI Overview.  And not even, the kinder, much more useful sterile dictionary description, because I see, that chiasmus, chiasma, has a meaning used in genetics as well as in literature.  It means, Alice, in part, the little crossed section in the center of say the letter x.  Now, as a space**, an interstice, well, it's terribly evocative, but that still doesn't let me know what it might mean for a translator to talk about the formal preference of chiasmus found in Borges.  

And well, damnmit, Jim, I want to know!

Beyond this desire, for defining specificity, the contextual knowledge of a word, I want this little pocket being to be gentle, kind, but never condescending.  I want to it beckon me, with an excited little hand gesture, and say:  "Looky here!  It is this, the text refers to, to this concept, and that is only really the beginning, because the text might also share some of the context of its life in another field, and you must also want to know who uses a term like this, and when, and also, why.  So grab a cup of tea and I'll get a little bit of scrap paper and pencil and we can make a diagram of all the arms this word has, all the roads that lead in and out from it."

*  "At this use of 'degenerating,'" my little pocket person would say, "the writer suggests that the AI is both degenerating itself and the things it overviews, and also that it degenerates the user, or reader of the AI Overview, hence the writer's rush to avoid reading the Overview.  A concept like this invites us, as readers, to wonder if writing, if words, become less potent with overuse, over reading.  This could be a question, in the writers' mind, of efficacy.  Tangentially, we know, from other pieces this writer has given us, that the writer believes that one measure of a story's value is the number of times it is retold, referenced, or read."

** In a church, the transept's "crossing."  Certainly a liminal area.

slow fade

 

 A nice essay on effacement with a beautiful series of photographs.

Dear Contemporaries,

Ah, you must remember this!  They barely played this on the radio back when it came out, and I loved it!  I had also forgotten about it entirely.  It's all a big wheel, though, so let's enjoy it again and not fret about what is lost or missing:  it is your song for today!

the song I want to write

 

Dear Yall,

Well, here it is, another song I wanted to have written.  It's perfect.  You can say what you want:  it's too small, too spare, too self-conscious, too precious.  It's absurd, it's dorky, its proportions are as awkward as a can, as dumpy as a housedress.  I love it.  I won't not!

message from a friend

 

Sigrid Nunez

Dear Readers,

I know, you already have a stack of books, and you don't want it to get so tall it endangers you.  Still.  And yet.  

Let's say this, you have a stack, but you want a good book, a book for right now, a book to help you imagine yourself expanding enough to survive even this tragedy we are living.  Or, well, maybe I am claiming too much; how can I be sure you will find this book helpful?  Let me try again:

This year I have read over 70 books- I didn't expect to love this one; I thought, I might like it, I thought it might entertain.  I had never heard of the author (which is pretty much how it goes for me- no matter how many books I read, I still haven't heard of this book, or that book, or the book you just read!), but I looked at her picture on the internet, and I knew, I knew in an instant that I wanted to read a thing this person had written.  Even if it was about a big dog; and well, you know, me and dogs, we have a kind of complicated relationship ever since one knocked me down when I was 4 or 5 and broke my tooth on the sidewalk.  

Let me set the record straight, it isn't just about a big dog.  (Also, and if you have read any dog lit, you may be worrying, the dog does not die.)  It is also about Big Life.  I am looking for instructions for how to live Big Life, and this book, The Friend, is a good guide.  I think you will enjoy it, should you add it to your stack!  

I have to run now, because I need to go and get all the other Sigrid Nunez books!

there's this guy

 

Stay, Nancy Dwyer, 1987.

Dear More,

Make way for more amazingness!  Your song for today is one I don't recall hearing- but, you know, I have forgotten lots of really good stuff.  This is one for playing loud, and you should know that I heard it from a guy on Instagram; a guy who sits there and enchants you with his feeling for music.  Here at Radio Dodo, you will get less enchantment, but you will also get the whole song, and Ms Ellison will enchant you in any case.