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Reading
October 28, 2006    File under:

This blog has been spammed about 200 times in the last week or so, burning up some of the time I might have to write to you here. But, as well, I've been engaged in the usual pursuits. Sunday, I performed a Southern vernacular sermon, and Thursday I curated a lecture/performance exploration of the migration of blues music from the Mississippi Delta to electric Chicago and beyond. In between, I hosted a reading by Paul Fattaruso and Michael Friedman (Wednesday) and kept my usual schedule of classes, conferences, and memos, and got a little extra intrigue for my trouble. I worked a little on the Copper Nickel website and dillied on a few small pieces I wanted to post here, all of which I hope will come along quickly enough.

For now, know that I think about you. Even you, dear Spammer. I understand that one can only express one's interest in so many ways, and so you've offered your Mariah Carey galleries and your strapon encounters, your home mortgages, ringtones, and Cialis, as ways of saying that you've been drawn here by forces beyond even your understanding. I know you must write me more than 20 times a day hoping to discover, though some chance, the words that will, at last, open a dialogue between us. But, as well, all this attempt, so touching, is redundant and just as appetizing as forcemeat and so has been canned. And beginning today, all comment periods will last for a mere seven days, not because I wouldn't value your readership, but because I'd ask you to actually read.

***

Today, there's a "Power Read" of John Nichols' The Milagro Beanfield War, recently named by our esteemed mayor as the city's 2006 One Book One Denver book. A number of Lab rats are gathering to read the book aloud. How far will we get? Maybe come out and join us at 1pm and follow along.

Tomorrow, if the snow's melted down, there will be raking and caulking the silicone roof where some small waters are burrowing, and perhaps sleuthing out of mouse-holes to keep those little shadows from the kitchen floors at night. Today there will be naming of parts, but tomorrow there will be straightening, cleaning, putting all in order.

This week could be calmer. Thursday I will fly. My parents and I have tickets and a route to see my alma mater, Auburn, play Arkansas State in that loveliest village of the plains, a little barbecue and nostalgia and some father-son interface over the grill. My father has acquired a green egg but continues to have trouble with various cuts of chicken, so we will endeavor, I believe, to get it right. Strangely, I will be the teacher, showing him the bird-meat's tells. Then a few hours with Mr. Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish, recently named the One Book One City book for my hometown, Gadsden, Alabama: Mr. Wallace will be in Dothan, where my parents prowl, reading and talking at the college where my mother teaches. And then football, the moving text of the familair field spread out before us.

Just after I return, Copper Nickel will host Eula Biss, Monday, November 6th, at 5pm. Come out, if you can. Think about it anyway.

Otherwise, I hope you, like I, are curling away from the monitor with a book or two or seven.

***

Just before I leave off for the rest of the week-end, let me say, there's a great deal of fantastic music writing circulating, including, most conspicuously, Oxford American's 2006 Southern Music Issue, which is one of the most satisfying ever, both textually and musically, and Shenandoah's Traditional Music Issue, including more of those amazing Robert Johnson duets Diann Blakely's been writing for the last few years. With all this, and Simmons's Terrain.org, there's a lot to read and enjoy, a lot to turn one back toward music.

This week, for me, it's T-Model Ford, Scout Niblett, Johnny Shines, and Yo La Tengo, to start with. Then Balthrop, Alabama. After that, some old favorites, on which more to follow.

Happy Saturday, dear reader. May your ears be filled. Somehow.

Posted by Jake Adam York at October 28, 2006 10:24 AM



COMMENTS


200 times? Jeese . . . I can't imagine doing anything 200 times in a week.

Posted by: JG at October 30, 2006 8:08 PM