The snows have begun falling in earnest. Yet the winds sneak past, around, and damn near arrow straight through the heavy, antiseptic door labeled Pure Winter Wonderland. So, the world around me blows and shrieks, tearing at trees and sanity alike with murderous success. Flakes fallen jump and race away. They fly into corners and build gentle looking, slightly shapeless sculpture to all things not leeward. I find my respite, my solace, in books. The warm, easy months having come and gone, I must now hunker & protect myself, enduring this colorless season with thousands upon thousands of pages. My body has been running at speeds without records, sights seen all filed under Marvelous, Still Wanting; it is now my mind which needs sustenance — to snatch from the second dimension that portal to the third! Motivation is not always easy. Moving around in either world requires want, determination, and a willingness to see what you see. Reflection means looking at yourself. Each day I wake and try, the question of what are you doing here? considered then tabled. I’m no jet engine, no screaming champion of intellect. I am of thin build and moderate endurance. The question should be, what will finally crush me? I hope nothing [soon], but I’m aware of payment one day being required for past present and future misgivings, however dispassionate they were. I’m aiming to be something, someone. I think I may already be both.
Seth Katner’s Shopping For Porcupine, Barry Hannah’s High Lonesome, McPhee’s Encounters With The Archdruid, and Rick Bass’ The Wild Marsh. — Katner’s an actual person, and his books make you feel like one too. Hannah is a man you read, twice, realizing quickly that second time that you’ve never had a thought to match his. McPhee is just a man we ask for details, a writer who is solid enough in language, but brilliant in the dimension of his observations regarding all the Big Picture men and women he spends time with. And Bass, Bass, may he always treat the world with respected wonder.
Curiously enough, Katner and McPhee write from much the same place — a place of mysterious loss, change, and from beneath the weight of a press too finely manufactured to fail without ceasing all else too. Forty years apart and in vastly dissimilar places, both are feeling out change, one more objective than the other. Relevant and lucid, they seem curious humans, always wanting, finding it necessary to share.
And if that weren’t enough. It isn’t. Today, I tore apart All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy today. It is the first of his Border Trilogy. I bought a beautiful, gold thread bound hardback containing all three. While I know that a great many people believe him to be a good, grandiose, and dramatic storyteller, I am now finding this out. His vision sweeps a canvas so large that we should land, drive any native peoples to the least desirable plots, slaughter slow moving, near prehistoric animals, declare our independence, and carve up states. His sight is continental, utterly, completely beautiful without being wasteful.
I await more phone calls. Be no bashful. Commandment 11. 307.733.6262
I tried to keep commandment 11 tonight but to no avail, the line was busy. i’m glad someone called. were you surprised to hear from your caller or were you the caller to someone on the outside? your stack of books is very impressive. be safe on any adventures you have until we speak. love.