Car Hop

Dear Skaters,

Man, what can we do about this?  There is no way they are going to hire me at Sonic, and I think I could have loved a life of slinging shakes on skates.  This kind of thing, when you find a job you should have had years ago, really hits me hard.  I need at least one more lifetime to do and try all this stuff I want to do.  There just isn't enough time, and I resent deeply the responsibility of having to work at spending what time there is so very carefully.

I wanted to get a law degree, for one thing, just so I could show it to the kind of ultra maroons that think being an artist is for people who aren't 'smart,' and I wanted to have a bakery, and to go to pastry chef school, and to learn to speak Italian, and to play piano more, and own a bookshop, and have a little motel in Lee Vining.  Yes, I know, there is still time for some of this, but I don't see how I can cram all that in while I open and operate a roller rink, which is the ne plus ultra, of course.

I wanted to band birds in Borneo, and document cave paintings in France.  I wanted to design wall paper and fabrics, to learn to make leather boots, and to write articles for magazines.  I wanted to spin records at a radio station, and help brides pick out a dress.  I wanted to run a little sandwich shop across the street from the nursing home, and serve up egg salad on wheat toast to little old ladies.  I wanted to have a cow to milk, and to learn to make wine.  I wanted to have a gallery, with beautiful white paintings in it.










PS
Sonic has a useful series of skate training videos, on how to skate with a tray, and through a sticky soda spill.  They also have one for going up and down curbs.  If you don't want to skate at Sonic, you might be interested in eating there, and this link recommends the onion rings and coconut limeade.

On.

Dear Atmosphere,

Here is a thing, a piece, that I have been looking for since 2008.  I lost it, see, on a little slip of paper.  Back then I tuned into a terrific classical music show called The Aeolian Impromptu.  I adored this program; I miss it still.   I used to build my week around its airtime.  It was a fascinating and compelling show, with music one could paint to.  I would tape it, and play the tapes over and over. 

Still, time moves on, doesn't it?  I thought, ten years ago, that the DJ had said this John Adams piece was called The Great Divide.  Just a few weeks ago, looking again, I finally found it, and my error:  the missing word "on."

I wonder if maybe you too have been looking for this music?  It's so great to find it again after so much time has passed.  It's filled with the kinds of things I love in music:  crashing waves of chords, layers of atmospheric and spacious sounds, wordless and babbling angelic choirs, and crescendos of overlapping rhythms that head off into the sunset on a long journey.

Another Molly Song

Dear Mollies,

This is one to watch.  It gives me all kinds of ideas about stop-motion film-making and feminism.  It's a treat.  Enjoy!

découpé

Dear Fans,

It's David Bowie's birthday today; I have been celebrating it since I was 14.  Have a slice of cake, a glass of champagne, and this song, Blackout.  The image above is the "cut up" lyric for the song; for more Bowie-ana, look here.









PS 
A demonstration:


Dear David Bowie,

Happy Birthday Blackout.  Since today, I have been fourteen.  Celebrating the lyrics for the song, cut up a slice of cake and look here: Above, fans demonstrate découpé in this glass image of Bowie-ana and champagne.    

The Year of...

Dear Darlings,

I forgot to tell you the good news:  2019 is The Year of the Sudden Surge of Confidence.   Plan big and bold!

Last year, I found out from a pal, rather late into it, was The Year of the Grocery Bag.  I loved that year, too, but this year promises unexpected outcomes, because when you surge with confidence, you never know what you might get!

For myself, I want to try a novel in a month and baking challah together for the Shabbos Project. I also plan to get some loaner roller skates in your size, so we can skate together once or twice a month.  Meet me at the top of the parking garage, or the new skate park- don't worry, I have extra helmets and knee pads, too.

Oh there's good plans in the making all around-  I just sent you a letter postdated for December 25- I
know you are going to love your Christmas post!  I can't wait for you to open it!

Our First.

Dear New Year,

Here we are, in our first meeting of this new year.  Yes, yes, I know how arbitrary it all is, but I love a little ceremony and mark making.  And so I present the first song of the day for the year on Radio Dodo.  In honor of the newness, this is a song I only just heard, for the first time.  My DJ just played it for me. 

Let's meet back here next year, and see what we think about this song of today.

Gone

Dear Those Who Have Gone On,

I was looking through some boxes of snapshots-  I know you will recogninize the feeling- like so many drifts and avalanches of déjà vu.  All those different people, so many of them dead and gone, or forgotton, and many of them are me.

It's an exisitential crisis in saturated color on a 5 inch scrap of paper.  It probably isn't good for humans to have this much self awareness.  On the other hand, why is it so sad?  Why would years that I know were perfectly good years, perfectly fabulous times, now gone, bring sadness to consider them?  Is it just "the missing," or is it "the lost and never was anyway?"  I do not know.  But I intend to keep on poking at the sleeping beast.  Yesterday must have some meaning, some relevance for today.  But, it's like a dream you can't quite remember; all sliding away even as it forms on the back of your eyeballs.

Looking at the past in photographs is a form of transcendental time travel, only it isn't working right.  Whatever working right would mean.  I don't think it would mean that everything would prove to have a rhyme and a reason, but I think it would allow you to proceed with less doubt and more truth.  It would mean that you could be that bright spirit that you would like to be, without having to wish for it. 

Anyway, when I saw your picture, I thought of you, and I wanted you to know that I miss you.