Dispatches from the Culture War
A Monday has come and nearly gone, and the Writer remains chained in the dankness of his scribbler’s warren, seized by the bitter darkness that attends the cold winds of hopelessness and despair.1These are metaphors, you know. And yet, as the daylight wanes and the hoarfrost descends, there is no post. No hope. Only a bleak, suffocating sense of emptiness.
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I’ve been listening to a bunch of Jim Hall recordings lately. This one, a duet with Ron Carter from 1972, exemplifies so much of what I love about the music called jazz.
It’s all there…the playfulness, the attentive listening. More than anything, the sense of two people having a real conversation while never saying a word.
For most of the past 8 years or so, I’ve embraced my introverted hermit instincts. I’ve always tended that direction, but once we decamped our lifelong hometown of Atlanta – leaving behind a crazy great network of family, friends, resources, institutions, &c. – I overindulged my love for solitude until it morphed into full blown seclusion.
The astute follower of this blog1The use if the definite article is pessimistically intentional. will have noticed that your Narrator loves books. Almost daily I add three or four titles to my “must read” list. It’s great to look at the list in anticipation of great reads to come. It is also to despair: so many books, so little time. We do what we can.
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