instructions

 

Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

It's late, late at night on Radio Dodo.  So late it is early; and speaking of early, speaking of what comes before, I have your song of the night:  Piece of My Heart.  

Now, you may know this version already; or you may be hearing in ignorance, for years, decades, a lifetime- hearing the wrenching (too wrenching?  Stagey, hammed, rococo, even?) Janis Joplin version.  It's a real anthem for the female half of heterosexual relationships and I love this song, in any version, but I want to set my own self and the record (pun intended) straight:  this song was written by *two (dead) white guys, and first recorded my Erma Franklin, and I am embarrassed to say, I had never heard her name before.  I don't think I need to explain to you why not knowing Ms. Franklin is a pity and a structural racism thing, but I do need to make one thing very clear:  There is no Janis Joplin version without the instructions on how to sing it that Erma Franklin gives.  

I might even, I might just, make an argument that the restraint, the processional feel of this version builds to an even deeper contrast in the pitched chorus- but the thing is, I don't want to fight you, I just want you to hear this great song, and I know you already know this story, the story of what the hell is there of White music if you subtract Black music from it.  

*Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy.  These two children of Jewish immigrants wrote some absolutely essential songs, and they both went in for pseudonyms.

Nota bene:  There are, according to Second Hand Songs, 153 recorded versions of Piece of My Heart.  I think that listening to Franklin and Joplin's versions back to back is a worthwhile thing to do.  But, you have the internet, too, so you do what you like; I am only here/hear to tell you that a Black woman sang it first.

PS  Oh, yeah, and if you have ever heard this, you should know the instructions for singing it can be found, here, filed under Irma Thomas (music by Norman Meade/Jerry Ragovoy, additional lyrics by Jimmy Norman).  If you want firsts, you get Kai Winding With Vocal Group (the Gospelaires (the who?  Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, and Cissy Houston)).  And I'll bet you've never heard that, either!  

.

 

missed this?!

 

Dear Every One,

I have missed a total gem of a song!  Of course, we miss lots of things, because there is much more than we can have; more than we can read, more than we can see, more than we can ever hear.  However, this is such a perfect song, and to think I could have been listening to it for the last FORTY years??  Well, I'm all in a tizzy over it.  My DJ played it a little after midnight on Sunday, and I give it you at the same time today:  New York Grief '86, by Princess Demeny.  Have the '89 version, too.

more hyperphantasia

 

Dear September,

I have more for you!  Another pile of unrelated tunes any one of which might be your song for today!  There is so much not to say, and plenty of time to say it in.  May today bring us one day closer to an end to fascism!

God Moving Over the Waters 

Try (Just a Little Bit Harder) 

Cartable    

Unimvwesha Shuga  

Gravity

north of here

 

furrowed sky

 

a little tune

 

Dear Dodos,

Today's song is for watching and listening:

overplus

 

Francis Bacon in his studio.

Dear Someone,

I am having a little crisis of overwhelm on my computer!  82 tabs.  57 tabs.  The 78 tabs I lost in a shipwrecking storm of button clicking (sniff, teary drips, sadness).  I MUST do some cleaning up on this aging pc.  So, this is kinda like a digital garage sale- here are a bunch of tabs I have been saving to give to you in a more lengthy form, a more thoughtful explication.  Please, take them!  I have too many!  On the other hand, if you have too many also, well, maybe you can give them to someone who has no tabs open?  Is there anyone like that?

You Make Me Feel

Invisible Wounds 

Je n'oubelierai jamais

Once I had a love; had a dress of glass.

Nothing Can Stop Us

Sophie von La Roche

Lux (Rosalía)

Bernadette Mayer's excellent list.

Going Down Fast

Avian Memory

Claire-Louse Bennett's excellent list.

About a Boy

The Greatest list.

Comfort Me

PS  Apologies, as they say, for the hyperphantasic trauma dump!

59

 

Dear Siblings,

Your song for today is 4th and Vine, because my parents just had their 59th wedding anniversary.  This event is notable for its age (just like the things in museums), of course, but a strange cause for celebration, as 'married' can be defined as: two difficult people living in the same house.  I got married when I was older than they, and if I had had any sense or courage, or any combination of the two, I'd have just had a family without the wedding.  But not, I think, without the marriage.  I still like the idea of becoming a we in some official capacity.  I have mentioned the kind of alliances and compromises having a wedding can demand- it's a commitment to extended family that isn't necessary and once you feed the wild animal of Extended Family like that, it becomes voracious and will eat you right out of your wedded bliss.  

It's really something else!

 

     

         

Dear People,

I just finished making and eating dinner, and I then ran to the computer to tell you this:  If you try nothing else here, in the 13 years we have been meeting, let it be Ham El-Waylly's tomato sandwich!  It is so good!  May the beneficence of the season provide you with tomatoes that are worthy of this sandwich!

PS  Like the man says, do whatever the hell you want, but I made this sandwich too, and it is also SO good!  

I bought my baby a red radio

Image from the Museum of Radio & Technology.

 

Dear Radio-istes,

Here is a song, ooh, so good!  Turn it up!  Play it over and over!  I had forgotten it, but the big bad corporate corporation subscriptiion transmission confliction radio played it the other day, in my big bad new(ish) car- and hearing it once is worth plenty of months of lousy Duran Duran hits.  Ah, but, you don't have to pay anything today, because it is your song of the day!

PS  It is also a very typical tale of girls meets boy, unrequited love, and a very sad story, but only if you happen to be an oyster.

PPS

And while we are on the radio, let's have some other ab fab radio songs and one gem from the jukebox:

Roadrunner 

On the Radio

Radio Radio

Mr. Radio

Mr. Radio

Border Radio

Radio Clash

Turn on Your Radio

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Transmission

Listen to the Radio  

Radio Sweetheart 

Video Killed the Radio Star

Mohammed's Radio

You Turn me On, I'm a Radio

Oh Yeah

Hey Mister, That's Me Up on the Jukebox

Notes:  You already know how I feel about Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers: J.M. is the nicest man you'll ever see in concert.  Donna Summer is SO underrated.  Never can decide what I think about Harry Nilsson: unrecognized genius or just another pretty song face?  Indeep is also underrated.  Nanci Giffith IS America's Sweetheart.  Video Killed the Radio Star is absolute genius- listen for all the little details they put in to remind you of old radio sounds.  I refuse to live without the poetry of Mohammed's Radio.  Warren Zevon looks like every man I can remember seeing in the mid to late 1970's.  Everything Joni Mitchell does is genius.  I can't live without Roxy Music, either.  James Taylor- what to do with him?  He's uncool, he's often annoying; this song IS fantastic.

double double

 

Dear Y'all,

My DJ* played this great and true song for me, the other day, and now I play it for you.  I can't imagine why I haven't played it for you already: it's a big favorite of mine, as is the related, second song for today.  Oh, maybe just get on the bus, too.

*A word about my DJ- I had a great station, out in my studio, KCRW; it was good, but DJ-less, and that was a pity.  But of course, and this is why I originally started the Dodo, they took it away; it is gone now, like the empty lot, the bowling alley, the drive-in, and many other treasures of my yesteryear.  But, this is not just another story of loss, this is a story of expansion (albeit somewhat forced): the other two good stations are 1) local public radio, and 2) the movie-music channel from L. A.  You may know the second one as a "Classical" station, but it isn't eclectic enough for me, so I get frustrated with yet another John Williams score.  Also, you have to stand in a particular place, or you get static.  Station 1) is fine, but they have talking shows from noon to 6:30!  So I turned/tuned to the college radio station, which I sometimes have trouble listening to, because it can be a bit 'jangly.'  It can also, I am finding, be just as good as all get out, and I love, love, love, to hear the college DJs tell me why they like a particular song.

Oh, yes, I know, I can make my computer play KCRW, and lots of other good stuff, but, the music, Man, out of the clear, invisible air?!? I love that poetic notion and I am not ready to let go of it.

self-editing

 

From The Waves, by Virginia Woolf, 1931.

Dear Darling,

Today I want to tell you about The Waves- it's just so good!  It's genius; and I feel two weights in my chest:  why did no one tell me??  And, how can I tell you?  You may not love it as I do; but much more than that possible truth, is this feeling of facing another mile of uphill hike, from the trail sign of having come 56 miles already.  What I mean by this, is, I have been enthusing on stuff since I was a toddler.  I feel, like my excitement and interest in a thing is just your ennui at this point.  Or, just another thing you'd have to put on your to-do list.  That seems so sad, doesn't it?  I know, I sound like I am blaming you, but that's not it.  I guess being excited about a mouldering old book seems a bit daft right now.  Can anyone summon up go-juice for anything, anything at all right now?  It's such a relentlessly heavy and grief-filled time.  I suppose I am just apologizing for my frivolous thoughts and I do not need you to absolve me, nor do I expect you to  Let me say just that it is really something, this book, and I don't want you to come to the place I have arrived, where you are thinking, why did no one suggest this book to me?

PS

There is another book (there is always, thankfully, another book: just lying there, waiting to blow your mind, or set you to feeling, or scramble you utterly, or even to let you know you are not alone), Orbital, by Samantha Harvey (no relation).  I adored The Shapeless Unease, as well.  Like The Waves, this book has six people who are overlapplingly, additionally, one: they make an unsubstantial territory.  May it share some of your area soon.  It is a wonderful book.  Both these books will take you there.

Quark, Quaquaquas

 

Dear Dictionary of Light and Ether,

Why are we here?  So many answers!  I figure we might be here to look up words we don't know.  To grasp towards understanding of still further concepts and ideas.  To understand the whole of humanity as evidenced by what it has made.  To commune with the Ancestors by finding out what they thought.  Whoooo; what a lot of effort!  Why?  When you could pour yourself a gin and sit in the sun?*  Well, maybe I don't even need to answer that, but my mind would not be satisfied with the gin and sun.  I have tried it; I become mentally restless.  Perhaps I really am hyper-active in a very speed-of-the-sloth way.  Glacially frenetic.  Hyper-molassesesque.

Marmoreal. Ordure.  Himation.  Kiritanpo.  Incalescent.  Viriditas.  Tipasa.  The quaquaquas.  Gris-gris.  Teiresias.  Coup de foudre.  These are about half of the words and concepts from the last few weeks.  Look up one; hold it and put it somewhere safe; use it if you can, try it if it is available.  Or make a world, a whole world out of it: a doctorial thesis of it, a lifetime practice; a tradition of your one word.  

* To pour and to sit, to drink and to recline, these are metaphors for bodied, feeling states; I use them here contra-mind work.  The line between feeling and thinking, however, is unclear to me.  If you have pondered so long with your ankles crossed that your foot has fallen asleep, you may also be muddled on the difference between thinking and feeling.

water & waves

 

a real lulu

 

Dear Lu/Lou

A song for you, for today.  I also offer you this fine essay on hierarchical power and disappointing people (a minor hobby of mine).  It could also be thought of as an essay on seeking approval.  I know you know you shouldn't, but if it is the only praise you ever get, how can you not?  

I can see it so clearly, sometimes: I was doing a thing, making a noise, trying something, and there was a Man; he'd say: smile more, he'd say: keep it down, he'd say: you are doing it wrong, he'd say: you could be great, if.  

The thing I guess to try to keep in mind, is that we have been constrained, just like mice in a maze- sniffing along corridors, always moving forward, but we don't realize that there are no real choices in narrow channels.  We don't see that we have been conditioned.  It's a bit painful, really, to realize it, to notice it.  To see yourself bumbling unwittingly through time and space.  But if the walls of our mazes remain invisible, how can we ever follow anything but that same conscripted path?

How to: do nothing.

 

Dear Friday,

We haven't had an episode of Your Girl Friday in a mustelid's lifespan!  Your Girl, for this Friday, is Jenny Odell.  She will gently rustle you off of your somnambulistic treadmill and into awareness.  Unless you don't read the book and in that case, well, you are taking your chances, that's sure!  Check out her conceptual and very interesting artwork on her website; click on the 'projects' button.  And, I think, if you were a very lucky one, you might have taken a class from her at Stanford (I applied there, for grad school, but along with 11 other places, I was rejected.  Let's say I almost got to go, shall we?). 

You can be almost as lucky as her students, just by reading her great book, How to Do Nothing!  Inside this wonderful book, we are invited to "...inhabit somewhat fuzzier of blobbier ideas: of maintenance as productivity, or the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal." 

I love blobbier ideas, and I love this book.  Ms Odell cites interesting examples from philosophy (Epicurious), art (David Hockney, Barnett Newman, Henri Rousseau), and scores of fascinating writers (Donna J. Haraway, Rebecca Solnit, Ursula K. Leguin, Emily Dickenson); plus, there is birdwatching as a practice towards observation, awareness, and belonging: and then, "Eventually, to behold is to become beholden to."

An image from Jenny Odell's project Satellite Collection.

PS  Yes, the racoon is not a mustelid, but a procyonid. Your mustelid can be a badger, a skunk, a weasel, or even an otter.  So, I have skunked you with my misuse of mustelid, and I weasel out of it, here on the PS, and I am badgering you to read Jenny Odell's book How to Do Nothing, because you otter!

PPS  Oh, yeah, and there is this; your song for today!

ain't got no cigarettes

 

Dear Cluttered Desks,

I know! it isn't even really what I mean:  I know how you are; you are covered with great things!  Little things, pretty cancelled stamps, stickers, a piece of egg blue velvet, and the notes!  The lists!  The cards and letters!  The photos, the doodles, the pens and the paper.  I love you, cluttered desks!  I know that what you are is evidence of doing and living and making and thinking.  What more could I want from you?  Only a little more space.

So I cleaned you... um, I restacked you and discarded some of the paper treasure.  There was a lot!  And, you know I have another desk!  Plus, let's not forget the half of the kitchen table I took over because you had no room for more.  There will be more tidying, but not right now.  Right now, I am going to give you the song I found trying to find the song that I made the two and a half inch torn paper note on.  The note said: 

Moon Cookies

Nature Boy

Nancy King

Glen Moore

Hopefully, later, I will remember to ask my friend for the Moon Cookie recipe, and maybe, someday I can find Nature Boy recorded by Nancy King and Glen Moore; for now, have this fine song for today!

PS  
Nature Boy is a great song, for anyday, and here are two other versions for you:  One, and Two.

stumbling sound

 

Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

Oooh!  Today your song is this wonder: Nimetön.   And you don't even have to be the seventh caller!  Just push the button, Max!  ecord label (We Are Busybodies) website describes jazz collective Oiro Pena as "...a mix of lo-fi spiritual jazz, experimental, and avant garde musical forms."  What's not to love in that description?  

PS  The internet says that 'nimetön' is Finnish for nameless, innominate; and, ring-finger.  The connection between the two meanings, nameless and ring-finger, is so tenuous that I am skeptical about the translation.  I say, check with the Moomins, or your Finnish friends, just to be certain.

 

That is all there is.

 

Dear Godot,

I have your song for today!  It's actually everyone's song, really, but Existentialists will be the most delighted.  I just heard this for the first time today, and I wonder how I could have missed such a song; happily, many fine singers have not missed it, so you can have several nice versions!

Leslie Uggams

Peggy Lee

Diana Ross

Cristina

PJ Harvey

Chaka Khan

Debbie Harry & Billie Eilish

additional space

 

Dear Y'all,

Yes, I am thinking of you!  I still have to tell you about two books I read, but you know how it is, things keep coming, clocks keep ticking.  I am reading another book now; and there is a part about space and time; and that made me think on space.  Well, let me be more precise.  In my reading, I tripped on a thought from my own mind; it happened when I was re-reading a sentence, trying to 'know' it, to feel it, to internalize it.  Of course I wasn't even sure what the sentence meant.  And there was a song on the radio, a song that sort of drones/expands/continues, like many songs I am fond of and insert a little pause in my mind's endless rattling.  So this little stumble, and wondering if a person I know would like this book, caused me to consider a thing a woman I know used to say when she was leading our monthly group centered on anti-racism.  She felt, and I am not here to dispute it, that our systemic, learned, invisible-to-us, racism needed to be addressed somatically; or to put it the other way, anti-racism needed to be embodied individually.  To facilitate this embodiment, we would begin with various meditative practices.  

All this preamble, all this context, just to tell you that what she said often during our meditative preparation was: open your consciousness a little wider, make a little more space for even this; this new grief, this new atrocity, this new information.  She said there was ample space for these feelings to fit in our crowded brains.

Now I have heard a lot of these kinds of instructions, and you have, too: imagine the liquid gold flowing and filling yourself as a vessel, breathe in the positive and exhale the negative, let thoughts float on by as if clouds.  Not much of it has been worth remembering and certainly not worth repeating, but this one, an invocation to make more room for things, make space for difficult thoughts and feelings, this seemed very useful to me.  I often feel very small when I am overloaded, over extended, and grasping, and like I need to cram things, or get rid of things, or bar any further things from entering and this phrase suggested that I just needed to notice that there was plenty of space for everything.  Rooms and rooms, acres and miles of space.

PS  Have another version; let me know which you prefer; write to me and leave your note in the usual place; the oak bole by the dry riverbed.

music for another Monday

 

diagram of how we see an infinity mirror

Dear Monday,

You know I love you, don't you?  We all heap the disappointments of the past upon Monday.  It's as good a day as any, dies lunae, Moon-day, Monday is!  Our weariness with the tired story of history, of our own repetition is not inherent in Monday.  Poor Monday is the scapegoat of the week.  My own, personal, big bad day of the week is usually Sunday.  I like to save Sunday for a Sunday Snit.  Which is a thing you are entitled to when you observe a workweek.  I am all done with that, thank you very much.  But, for Monday, please have this wonderful Arvo Part composition: Spiegel im Speigel, which is the mirror in a mirror of the infinite reflections.

PS  Learn a little more, on Wikipedia.  Yes, I have issues with representation on Wikipedia, and some bozo took down my contribution within days, but I also use the holy hell out of it, and I am a monthly donor.  You can be too, if you want to.  Wikipedia is flawed, but it is also kind of ours, in a way that Google, Amazon, Meta, etcetera, will never, ever be.

a big green boat

 

Dear Listener,

Ooh, sometimes, sometimes I am caught, I hesitate to give you a thing, and why?  Because the ocean would make you crazy* if you kept on looking, because the love would make you sad, if you kept on feeling.  The size of this song is so much bigger on the inside that you will feel small and so alone that you might have chosen to feel whole instead of broken by beauty.  Okay, you are warned, yes?  Listen, or not.  Maybe it is your song the day.  

If you aren't split in pieces by "you can stay with me and just can pretend I'm not there," you must already be shattered.

* “Looking at the waves scudding outwards and getting lost on the horizon, he could not help but recall the words of his mentor, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who had once told him that a part of eternity lies in reach of those capable of staring, unblinking, at the sea’s deranging expanses.”  -Benjamín Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World.

further dust

 

Dust storm in Mongolia, 2023.

Dear Thoughtful,

Here we are again, meeting over a cup of coffee and a phrase.  It's a pleasure to have someone to talk to about myriad meaning.

"The novel was bad; I never finished it; but the writing thickens the dust." - Vera Caspary, from Laura.

The sentence for me is puzzling, but in the most gratifying way.  I think, because the writing of the novel was not finished, that the thickening of dust could refer to time going by.  It might also be that the time/dust obscures the meaning of the writing.  It might be that the writing does the obscuring.  It might be that the act of writing passes/passed the time.  It might be that the writing's dustiness makes it hard to recollect the reality or facts?  Also, it borders on nonsense, on absurdity.  Those are the ways I have counted to love that sentence.

"...The writing thickens the dust."  It sure does!

PS  Let's have another version of yesterday's song of the day, today.

thickening dust

 

Thick dust.  Bodie State Historic Park, California.

Dear Misc.,

I have a backlog of things to tell you about; two books, some art, some music.  A large playlist of songs around the word 'radio.'  Some thoughts on disdain and reverence.  There are scrappy notes and lists all over the desk, table, nightstand, coffee table, to remind me to write to you here.  But, (and yes, we all felt that 'but' coming, didn't we?), but, I want to give you today a totally different song, a song that isn't yet on a list.  

I also want to give you a line from Vera Caspary's novel Laura:  "The novel was bad; I never finished it; but the writing thickens the dust."

It's so good!  The book, and beyond that, the line!  And beyond that, "...the writing thickens the dust"!!!???  Well.  Take a day to think on it.  I will be back tomorrow, and we will toss around the old pigskin of meaning!

mangle-wurzels, pickle-chicken, goodness

 

Dear Delicious,

Today, in the heatwave, under the heat dome, in the year 2026 of our Climate Catastrophe, I could not help but think of all the goodness.

Goodness like ricotta cheese.  Like wind in leaves.  The smell of hummingbird sage.  The soft clucks of quail.  Goodness like olallieberry jam; bread.  Just good stuff all over the place!  An avalanche, really, of good things all within a few feet of where I was reading.  And yes, that also was good!  I am reading a mystery, Three Bags Full.  And in the book: mangel-wurzels.*  So good!  I feel I looked up mangel-wurzels once before, many years ago, but I had forgotten them, so they delighted me anew.

I was pondering all the goodness, because I was, in the part of my mind that wasn't reading, thinking about Wanting.  Wanting as one does when one plants a garden and wants to reap a harvest.  That kind of long-term want.  The planned for, effort-full, pay-out or pay-off.  I know its siren song- I have planted and watched things die and wither, along with hope.  They grow funny, or sickly, or poorly, or, worst of all, you neglect them, just once, by mistake, and there they lie: all dead.  Gardening isn't for gentle souls.  It is for tough nuts that don't crack.  And yet.  In all this want, there is so much other goodness you could acquire.  Frozen wild blueberries are SO good!  Yes, they are in a deathless plastic packet, but, they are good!  It is nice, it is 'rewarding' to grow ones' own whatever it is, but it is also nice to reap the harvest of the market, the icy frozen shelves.  I mean, I guess, that you can want, I won't stop you, want until your teeth hurt, but, if you find yourself being injured by your obsessive desire, please stop to consider a substitute before you go hurting yourself further.  Maybe, while you are fiddling around with re-directing your desire, you might even stop wanting what you haven't got.

What you have got, I bet, is a jar of pickles.  Probably one that is shoved to the back of the fridge.  I had one.  I ate the pickles very intentionally, because I saw a fellow on Instagram use the leftover brine to marinate chicken!  I don't know what he did with his pickle-chicken after the brining.  I dipped mine in flour and cayenne pepper and pan fried it, and whoo, pickle-chicken is good!

*  The mangel-wurzel seems like a machine you crank that would wring out your clothes while simultaneously playing a hurdy-gurdy tune!

not small

 

Musique for a Monday

 

Dear Radio Dodohead,

My DJ played this song the other day; I could not remember hearing it; I think I missed it, like I missed  Lizzie Mercier Descloux.  Maybe 'missed' is the wrong word:  I was late to hearing it.  I listened to some other Suburban Lawn songs, and saw there was this beautiful thing, too, a whole album by Suburban Lawn's lead singer:  Salon de Musique.

PS  

I think what gets me, when I find I missed a thing, or that I am very late to a thing; things like Eve Babitz, The Fabulous Stains, Hal Hartley Films, or No Wave, is that I wonder what other lavish gifts of the era I missed- and I also wonder, why, oh why, in the name of all that is good, didn't I miss seeing Beatlemania at Knott's Berry Farm?

a shape

 

Dear Working to Refine & Define,

I am trying, working, I guess, to find a 'poignant' shape.  This is a thing that concerns me deeply- perhaps all artists are looking for a poignant shape.  I want an emotional shape that is not defined already.  Not a heart or a butterfly, or a hand.  I want a shape that feels like something, but is not something.  A shape with fullness, and flourish, or a shape with weight and sadness.  Or a shape that evokes the moonlight.  Or satisfaction.  It should be rounded, some, I think, and maybe a bit awkward in proportion.  I often end up with something kind of mounded.  A half oval.  But, I have to be careful not to end up with something too human breast like.  Similarly, it can't be too much of a lemon or a pear or an apple.  It can't look too much like a mushroom.  Blobby, yes, but kind of symmetrical, I think, is what I want.  It should be like a view of the sublime, this shape- an awing feel.  Maybe bodypart-ish, but not specific.  Biological looking.

I once used a shape that was a cross between a wire whisk and a light bulb.  I used it enough in graduate school that an artist visiting my studio asked me what it was.  I said I didn't know; just a shape.  This fellow, then, warned me of the danger of using shapes without knowing what they were or where they came from. 

Curious, isn't it?  A warning like that?  Was it that the gods would be angry that I used a thing that came from the unconscious?  He went on to tell me that he had a shape like that, and he used it for years, until he recognized it as something in his studio- perhaps a light bulb?- and then he stopped using it immediately.  

Now, I wish, like a wish sandwich, that I could tell you what that all meant.  What lesson there was in his warning me about using shapes without... permission?  Full knowledge?  Clinical trials?  I do not know.  I know one thing, that if you are going to warn a person, you might take some care, do a little background check, because I think if you warn a person not to go over a certain fence, not to cross a line, they are not likely to obey if they aren't afraid of the undefined monster you say lives on the other side of the fence.

written on air

 

lettered

 

Untitled, oil and wax crayon on paper, 1969, Cy Twombly.

Dear Blue Letters,

Today I have for you two lovely thoughts on letters, from two lovely books.  

The first is this quote from By Cecile, written by Tereska Torres: 

But this afternoon Myette holds nothing in her hand but the sheet of white paper, on which there runs a writing so miniscule that one might think that there are only light, delicate lines traced across the page, lines that do not form letters, only a series of sea-blue threads marking undulating wavelets on a deserted beach.

These lovely blue lines lead me to your song of the day, and to the Cy Twombly drawing above.  The tangle of unletters in the drawing bring me to the letters beyond z which you can read about in Things in Nature Merely Grow (by Yiyun Li).*  The notion of letters that are beyond z opens a door to fabulous visual and mental experiments: what do they look like?  What can we spell with these letters?  What sentences should be written with these letters that are beyond?

Which reminds me of visiting the page-scented used bookshop with a friend and a conversation we had after:  I was saying that reading was keeping me sane, and we talked about whether all reading could keep you sane, or if it needed to be un-fluffy reading.  Now, we could spend a lot of time discussing what fluffy reading is, that's sure.  Maybe fluffy is the stuff than confers what you know already?  Bias confirming?  Or is it the stuff that entertains?  The books that mesmerize and enchant you into staying up late to see what happens?  I think, though, even so: any port in a storm; any reading will keep you saner than no reading.

*  Yes; that actually makes a total of three lovely books.  Enjoy a further tangling.  And another.

little fishes

 

Dear Shopping List,

If you happen to be going to Trader Joes, will you please pick me up another packet of these custard filled fish?  What a beautiful world this is, that custard filled fish are available to buy!

I had Taiyaki first two summers ago, at a place that sold them in Palo Alto.  I loved them then, but there is no nearby custard fish monger.  Until now.  If you are like me, you maybe don't have an air fryer or microwave, and maybe you don't want to wait 8 minutes on the oven; but I have a solution for you!  It's my same old solution for re-heating anything that tells me to put into the microwave- you probably already have one in your kitchen- a frying pan!  Be sure, my friends, to fry these fish in butter!  They are so good!  If you want specifics, use a non-stick pan, put the fish in on medium-low, with a lid on it.  After a minute or two, turn the fish over.  Wait another minute or two, then remove the lid, and butter each side of your scaled little pals, right in the pan.  Now grill them until you achieve your desired crispiness and color.  

PS  

Yes, I tried the bean paste filled also; and the Oreo-filled, and the matcha-filled, and the chocolate, too.  My favorite was the certain blandness of the custard.  Ah, and did I mention you can get them with ice cream in them, too?  If you are feeling like you want a larger cooking project than 5 minutes of buttering and pan-frying, you might like this recipe for making them from scratch.  You will need a sea bream shaped mold, similar to this one.

tea stained

 

Still Life, on tea bag paper, Ruby Silvious.

Dear Surface Interested,

What do you think of this?  Might we sew these salvaged tea bags into sheets that we could draw or print on?  The thing that compels me is the delicate and random staining.  It speaks of age and weathering, fragility and skin, also the relationship of the tea to the drinker's lips, and the leaves of tea that have grown somewhere far away.

cheeries

 

Dear Chérie,

I often write cheeries, when I mean cherries.  This is somehow as it should be.  I am making some ceramic cherries.  These are the proto-cherry.  Watch this space for more, possibly.

These cherries may put you in mind of a cocktail I made up, the Don't Worry Baby;  I can tell you right now that the Baby, I Don't Care cocktail (as soon as it is invented) will be even better than the Don't Worry Baby.  In the meantime, baby, have this great book of poems.  Have this, too; baby, I don't care.

everyone*

 

Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

Here is a fine version of a fine song: your song of the day!  I love this song's stately procession.  A woman sang it at our wedding.  A thing happened, though, at the wedding, where another paid musician suggested that I ought to also have Forever Young, because this fellow had had it at his wedding.  I said okay, because I didn't want to fight with talented musicians who knew better than me; but, yes, I regret that I didn't say no to it.  It's a tiny thing, of course, like every transgression (and every grain of sand).  Forever Young is fine, it is fine, really.  But it isn't half the song that Every Grain of Sand is:  Forever Young is a wish song, Every Grain of Sand is a statement song, a proclamation.  Our wedding was not a wish, our wedding was a proclamation.  If I had it to do again, well, there'd be some changes made.

1.  It will be our guest list.  Not anyone's mother's guest list.  No one 'should' be on the list- the list will contain the names of people we want to celebrate with, people we want to witness the pronouncement of our vows.

2.  Our wedding will be in the publicly owned Estrella Adobe, because a smaller venue is no problem (see item 1).

3.  Not only am I making the cake, I am going to make the food, too.  Because items 1 and 2.  I do not want to share the fun of throwing this big party.  We will not have dinner, or lunch, or gawdhelpus brunch; we will have things you pick up and eat.  Petits fours, tiny sandwiches, itty-bitty crackers with cheese, jam, and a celery slice on them, olives, nuts, that kind of precious, exquisite thing: amouse-bouche.  We will have champagne.

4.  No stupid registry.  In fact, no gifts.  Because when you are 55 and looking at your overcrowded kitchen and your underfunded savings account, you are going to choose to sell all that silver on eBay.

5.  No suggestions.  Have your own damn wedding if you want to have certain songs sung, or certain foods served, or a professional florist.  I loved doing the flowers myself- it was a pleasure to spend all that time amongst the flowers.

That should cover it.  If you know anyone gettin' hitched, give them this list, or the gist of it (which is Do it Your Own Damned Way)- they'll thank you for it!

*Everyone.  Everyone.

bedtime story

 

Dear Tucked-In,

Tonight, a bedtime story.  I think you will find it delightful!

who died and left you in charge

 

Dear Searching,

A book you might like/read/find beautiful is Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li.  Notice my ‘might.’  I worry about making suggestions to you- because who died and left me in charge?- as my friend’s mother* used to say. 

Things in Nature Merely Grow is a book about suicide and being a mother.  There was a joke, around looking for books for 8, 10, 12 year olds when my son was that age:  Book has an award; qualifying question:  Does the dog die?  I can tell you right now that the dog dies like you wouldn't believe.  I still think you should** read it.  

Two more books, which I also liked, even loved, but with a little more distance; with a measure of bleakness & sorrow:  Bastard Out of Carolina ( Dorothy Allison) and Member of the Wedding (Carson McCullers).  Dogs die and so does hope in these two, but yeah, I still think you should read them.  The truth has a beauty no matter how sad.  

*My friend's Mom was named Yvonne.  An amazing woman, really; much older than the usual 13 year old's mother.  She and I got along like a house on fire (peculiarly, all old people liked me in my early teens).  Yvonne was a classic alcoholic who chain smoked .  Which didn’t daunt me, because outside of my parents, all my relatives were drunks, and most of them smoked.  She was a connoisseur of country music (when that category meant Tammy Wynette and Waylon Jennings), and a font of phrases like ‘better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.’  She also loved to say; and this one might be my favorite:  Let’s not, and say we did.  I imagined, in my very rural and insulated childhood, that everyone’s mother had phrases like these, and that I would just be collecting more and more of them as life went on; but no, no one else’s mother talked like that, and I have only the handful of phrases to get me through the age she must have been when I knew her.

 ** But, don't read Bridge to Terabithia,  Or do. because adults love this book.  If you want a book where the dog doesn't die, try Pinky Pye.  Or the very lovely Raising Hare.

 

Super

 

Eric Carle, from Draw Me a Star.

Dear Asterisked,

I have been really looking forward to giving you this inflorescence of songs.  I know you probably get weary of my hyperbole; tired of my adoration for all kinds of wonderstuffs made by people.  Well, you can invest your time anywhere; but for me, it is so nice to think of you getting this little packet of beauty.

Keely Smith

Belinda Carlisle

The Carpenters

Sonic Youth

 Peggy Lee

U. S. Girls & Bootsy Collins

The Ray Conniff Singers

The Ventures

Delaney & Bonnie

 PS  The song was originally titled "Groupie," and it was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell.