Five things to share from the week
If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.
—Charles Bukowski
Friends,
Happy Labor Day weekend to all us Americans. Here are five things I’ve been doing/exploring/thinking about this week:
Charles Bukowski had a birthday a few weeks ago. I’ve long been a fan of his poetry (my favorite is The Laughing Heart), but I’m finally reading one of his novels: Post Office. The contrast betwen that poem and this novel is something that’s always made me curious about Bukowski—one is tender and hopeful, the other is earthy and blunt. Like the contrast between smooth wood and rough bark.
My experience learning and playing music has been a meandering one. Here’s one small story about a guitar.
Double whammy: school starts again next week for my daughter and wife. My daughter’s in 8th grade; my wife is a middle school teacher. It’s a year of change, with an equation of teen angst+early high school anxiety+excitement+my relief at getting my home office to myself again during the day. But every year on the first day of school, I take a photo of my daughter holding up fingers for the grade she’s in on the front steps. This will be the last time before high school.
I have a new (9 month-old) car, and I’m still giddy about CarPlay. I can summon almost any song in my memory by speaking it to the car, and pow—there is is. Last week it was a lot of Blondie, which led to this random thought about parallel lives.
Over years, I’ve read (and been asked for) a lot of advice on writing and grammar. My all-time favorite advice is really the only advice I’m giving from now on.
We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us.
—Charles Bukowski
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