a film and a book

 

Dear Viewer,

I hope you have already read The Lover; I hadn't, and I always thought I would, it's just that a lot of years have passed since I first came across it- like, 35 or 40 years!  It's embarrassing, but I know you won't judge me, and I won't judge you, either; but I hope you do read it, I hope you read it in the next 30 days, let alone years, but whenever you get to it, you will want more from Marguerite Duras.  And so.  Let me offer you something that doesn't need you to turn the pages, but will give you some Marguerite Duras:  Hiroshima Mon Amour; your film assignment for this month!

PS  Now; not now, later, when you have read The Lover, or watched the film, you might want to read this, too.

a fall tune

 

The Dove, Pablo Picasso, 1949.

Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

What's new, you ask?  Lots of stuff, I guess.  It never seems quite worth the telling, all the new stuff.  I feel often tired from playing my same role in the pantomime, and it makes me feel like writing to you is just more of the same.  But I do think of you, and I want to send you some little token, something good.  Let it be Peace Piece, you song for today.

pool, bakery

 

Sunday

 

Dear Days,

Sunday is the best radio night on my public radio station.  The first show is Global Spin, which has, yes, World Music-  And if want to be a citizen of the World, you will want to listen to World Music!  Then comes the best show, Speak Low:  which is all kinds of good including French pop music.  It's a terrific two hours of radio.  Lastly, comes Citizen Sound, which is also good, sometimes even great.  The show is varied; I think interns run it, at 11 pm on Sunday eve, and I don't often listen past midnight.  This song, your song of the day, was played on the middle show, Speak Low, one recent Sunday.  It is great, no question; but if for some reason you are too old or too young to recognize that circular staircasing sample is coming from, it is from here, another peerless song.

the big wheel

 

read me

                                                    Untitled (Cat), watercolor on paper, Robert Smithson.                                                                       Check out more museum-worthy kitties at this Smithsonian link.

Dear Y'all,

You know it's bad when circumstances lead me to consider wearing a t-shirt as a sign to tell you what I think.  My body, my billboard is what they say, but I never quite like it.  It's possible that I am self conscious about people reading off the front of my chest, it might also be that I like form more than content; it's hard to say. 

I settled on a tee shirt that says Hell Cats on it.  I think I will get another.*  Read me and know what I am feeling, then go away.

*  If you don't want a shirt, you could get one of these.

nonwork (& delulu & skeuomorph)

 

Wonderbread, 1962, serigraph, Corita Kent.

Dear Y'all,

So many good new to me words lately!  Non-work, or nonwork is all over my mind right now.  See, I have long struggled to make what I do seem like work to that annoying voice in my head that suggests I am 'doing nothing.'  I defined my reading or thinking as my 'research;' my bed as my 'lab' - but I think, my up and doing* friends and the rest of you comrades in nonwork, that I have got it wrong- backwards, even.  It is the nonwork I should be cataloging and cherishing- which, yes, is just a matter of definition- all the work I do at making things and thinking things and writing and playing that is all now, from this day forward, officially, nonwork.  I am taking my research hours back and putting them into this other pile!  It's like moving your socks and underwear drawer from the second drawer down to the top!  I expect great things from this new definition.  

It should be said, it should be emphasized, that I don't think I could have gone directly from indoctrination in The Meritocracy to nonwork.  (Even though I have read a lot of French authors).  No, I think the roundabout arrival via research and lab work was the better way for me.  For you?  For you, for you! I wish the world of goodness!  I wish you to go directly to nonwork as your sustenance and paydirt, your bread and butter, your raison d'etre.  Go, go now!  While no one is looking!  Let us be honest about what gives us meaning, what love is, and where love is.

Let's meet again soon, to take a nonwork look at delulu and skeuomorph!  It's going to be fun!