Letter

Sunday evening a bunch of teenagers show up at Thalia Hall. They’re here because their friends or friends of their friends or kids they wanna be like or be with are on the bill. The headlining band has a record out with a big-deal label. It’s a night to celebrate.

I have misgivings about being here. It’s one thing to be the old guy at the show when everyone else is at least of age according to the government; another to be surrounded by actual children. But with all the proud parents, I have protective cover. They’ve even roped off the balcony for family seating. That’s the one area I’m not allowed.

I find out about this show from an article Leor wrote. My friend Brian’s kid is in one of the bands. There will be zines for sale. Curiosity beat out discomfort. I figure that I could not belong in this crowd just as I don’t belong in throngs of my own cohort or in herds of geriatrics. It’s always like going on safari.

The merch area’s overflowing with teens. They’re like colts or calves, skittish and awkward. Most are giggly and excited. The tables are covered with tapes, t-shirts, patches, and zines. It’s weird but sort of touching that people who’ve lived through screens their entire lives are attracted to these outmoded means of expression. Before coming here, I’d spent the whole day doing layout on what amounts to a slightly more advanced version of  what these kids are hawking. Makes me feel like I have some point of entry, a connection. I buy a five-issue run of a zine devoted to horror movies to give to Mallory and a few others for me.

The hall starts to fill up as the first band hits the stage. I listen a few minutes, then wander upstairs and flip through my pile of zines at a table in the lobby. I wonder whether the parents of the kids who made these things showed them how or if they blundered through on their own. Is it possible to be amateurish with paper, scissors, and glue in the cyber age? Does it mean the same thing to run off a hundred zines now as it did forty years ago?

Downstairs, Brian’s manning his kid’s band’s merch table. He looks really happy. His young daughter’s helping by getting t-shirts from a big box in the back when someone orders one. 

I do a sketch of his kid’s band. They’re really good. So good I leave after a couple of the headliner’s songs so the traces of the previous set can linger as I bike home.

I’ve started laying out Paint-by-Numbers. I haven’t heard back from any of the presses I cold-called about putting it out and don’t expect to. They don’t want what I do yet I can’t stop doing it. Looks like the printer in Michigan will be getting another order from me in a few weeks.

It’s hard to reconcile the lack of interest with my absolute belief that what I’m doing is worth sharing with others. I hadn’t looked at the manuscript in a couple months while I waited for Christian to look it over. We met at the bar and, aside from a few minor line edits, he didn’t have too many big quibbles. I know better than to keep poking editors about whether they actually like what I write. And most who work with me know that whatever they say I’m going to do it my way anyhow.

I’m trying out a new design program to put the book together. So far, it’s working okay. Its chief attribute is that it’s not called InDesign and it’s not made by Adobe. Meaning, I paid one time to buy it rather than shaking me down monthly and I don’t get the feeling a sadistic mathematician made the thing to torture me. It’s still unintuitive to someone who struggles with technology. But then again I feel that way about anything that’s not paper or paint. Sometimes I feel it about those as well.

It’s been about a year and a half since I designed a book. I’m surprised to discover I’m enjoying it. It’s a very different engagement with word and image than writing or painting. It’s closer to collage. Cut and paste. It makes me see the material with fresh eyes.

After working on the thing most of a day, I ride my bike downtown to Orchestra Hall to catch Cécile McLorin Salvant. My friend Stan is an usher there so I get in for free. Orchestra Hall is not my favorite place. A bunch of sad and bad memories, plus they mostly feature classical music which has violins. But I love Salvant’s singing. She makes show tunes bearable. She even makes a Sting number compelling. That qualifies her as some kind of sorceress.

But not even a magician can overcome the staid stodginess of her surroundings. This is just not my scene. There are barriers to the immediacy I need to be really into the sounds. Too much etiquette. Too much architecture. Plus, Salvant lets her band play too much. They’re fine, but I didn’t come here to see them. Still, when she lets loose, it’s a thing of beauty. Such a clear voice.

I bike home and dive back into Paint-by-Numbers. It will not be a long book but it will be book-shaped and book-sized. There will be many pictures for the non-readers, as always.

I look forward to sharing the book with you not too long from now.

—I got my cassettes and listened and didn’t hate it, so maybe you’ll like it. If you buy one, you don’t even need a cassette player since each comes with a digital download. You can display the tape cover on your mantelpiece, bookshelf, or curio cabinet and be the envy of the neighborhood…

—Listen to my talk with the writer/artist Sam Pink and catch the one with Dr. Sonia Weiner on Wednesday. I post new ones every week. Entire archive here.

In August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, a half dozen people keep coming in and out of a diner about to be demolished for urban renewal/gentrification/whatever they called it in Pittsburgh in the 60s. It’s such an affecting recurring sequence: people running in and out of the same doors over and over, convinced they’re getting somewhere. 

I saw a great new production of it last week at the Court Theatre in Hyde Park and it stays with me as an apt metaphor for a pervailing feeling these days. Maybe you sense it too. A kind of hectic rushing about while knowing all the time we’re not going anywhere at all. Just sinking as days go by.

Saturday morning I get the first proper sunburn of the season pedaling up to Evanston for Whitmanstide. When I arrive at the park by the lake, only four or five others are there. I fear I’ll have to read about a third of “Song of Myself” myself. But then another dozen readers show up.

It’s my fourth time taking part but Tony and Beth have put on Whitmanstide for forty years. It might be as close to a legitimate holiday as I’m willing to acknowledge. The first couple times we were all jammed in the basement of their Evanston home, but the last two—due in part to the plague—we’ve gathered in this park. Seems more apt to read from Leaves of Grass sitting in grass rather than indoors.

I’ve never read this poem aside from the four times as part of this ritual. I’m struck by how over-the-top ecstatic and American it is both in its arrogance and its optimism. It reminds me I’m a foreigner. I could never have most of Whitman’s thoughts, much less have the temerity to put them to paper. But it makes me happy to read some lines aloud. They leave a hopeful aftertaste in my mouth. It’s exotic.

I recognize many of the readers from past years but don’t talk to many aside from our hosts. There’s bad blood with one or two. But Whitman provides a DMZ from any hostilities or bad feelings. I don’t hate the guy across the field from me in the dumb white pants so much as I would if we weren’t reciting this poem while he crosses my vision. I’m thankful for the reprieve.

I ride south with some time to kill. Skyler and Sam are celebrating the release of their record two years-plus after the fact, for reasons we all know too well. They’ve asked me to introduce them before they play.

I eat falafel on Kedzie and rest a bit to bounce back from the day’s sunburn. When I get to Constellation they’re soundchecking. I always enjoy watching musicians prepare to do their thing. Gillian has designed a kind of living room stage set behind the drum kit and pedal-steel rig. There’s a couch, some plants, chairs, and a coffee table with a mahjong set left scattered mid-game. Some dollar bills. Whiskey and a couple tumblers. 

Their music always makes movies in my head so the stage set feels right.

Early next morning I train it out to Midway to rent a car, then pick up Bill and drive to Traverse City. He’s hired me to be his roadie not for the first time. I’ve never been this for north into Michigan and neither has he. On the way we pass the place I go to pick up my books from the bindery.

We listen to music and resume the ongoing conversation we’ve been having for over twenty years. It’s more or less about making art and how to keep going and all the weirdos we meet along the way. This talk picks up with no need for set up or backtracking or definitions of terms every time we see each other. It’s easy for me to pick up what he’s putting down and I hope he feels the same. 

The gig’s really dumb. It’s some kind of block party/food truck rally held in a glorified parking lot. The organizers don’t know what they’re doing where music’s concerned. The sound is shitty and most attendees are just there to eat, drink, and roast in the sun. There’s a schedule reshuffle which keeps us waiting around an hour or two longer than we’d hoped. The whole idea of getting me to drive is so Bill doesn’t have to waste money on overnight lodging.

It’s a long day but Bill’s good company and I’m always happy to lend a hand to make the magic happen. Even when the recipients don’t deserve it.