8/21/17
i'm thankful that though i woke up in the middle of night again last night and couldn't go back to sleep for a while, i at least didn't have a nightmare beforehand or wake up in a sweat. i'm thankful that in spite of the wave of irrational dread about work i felt the day before, i had a good and productive day yesterday. i'm thankful to have gotten some momentum on a project that i had let stagnate since before the retreat and which was stressing me out in the abstract even though when i actually looked at it yesterday and started working, it felt totally possible in the concrete.
i'm thankful to have found out one of my favorite coworkers watches terrace house and to have formed a slack channel where we and others can discuss the show. i'm thankful for the show my coworker introduced to me, "hajimete no otsukai", in which cute young japanese children are secretly filmed running errands for the first time by themselves. i'm thankful she found a clip that has english subtitles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5k5XTZy0rA) and for her pledge to live translate an episode for me the next time we are together.
i'm thankful for the most recent episode of game of thrones, which was stupid enough to have me yelling at the screen for most of the episode but which i still enjoyed. i'm thankful for the odd sensation of being so entangled in a narrative and world that even when the narrative architecture and writing holding it together becomes very stupid, you still want to live there. i'm thankful for the concept of the new yorker ending, which is the idea of lopping off the last paragraph of a story and which would have been a much more ominous and interesting way to end this week's episode of game of thrones (just the wights pulling those huge chains out of the frozen lake).
i'm thankful in searching for the new yorker ending, i found the art of fiction interview with john cheever, in which he, in response to a question about the definition of a good editor, says, "My definition of a good editor is a man I think charming, who sends me large checks, praises my work, my physical beauty, and my sexual prowess, and who has a stranglehold on the publisher and the bank." i'm thankful that that interview is full of bon mots, such as him responding to the interviewer saying his stories have a fast pace, he says "The first principle of aesthetics is either interest or suspense. You can't expect to communicate with anyone if you're a bore." i'm thankful to have been reminded of the bit about tight pants from frank o'hara's "personism," which i read for the first time when i was 20 and seemed like the coolest thing i had ever heard
"Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them, I like the movies too. And all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American are better than the movies. As for measure and other technical apparatus, that’s just common sense: if you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what you’re experiencing is 'yearning.'"
"Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them, I like the movies too. And all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American are better than the movies. As for measure and other technical apparatus, that’s just common sense: if you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what you’re experiencing is 'yearning.'"
i'm thankful, sometimes, to flatter myself into thinking what i'm experiencing is yearning. i'm thankful for this video of a raccoon with some cotton candy. i'm thankful for this wonderful poem by eileen myles and for other poems that enact the feelings of peak summer. i'm thankful for alan bennett on scrambled porn in hotel rooms. i'm thankful for the phenomenon of crown shyness. i'm thankful (i guess) to have also learned what knotting is (and to give you the opportunity to learn if you want). i'm thankful for the way that this dog gazes at a large chocolate egg that nearly killed him.
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