thank you notes (patrick)
i am thankful for the opportunity to write this note in a form which i had never really considered before because i generally find it very difficult to think of reasons to be thankful every day but i suppose that is exactly why this is worthwhile. so:
i am thankful to L, an old friend from school who emailed me from nowhere two weeks ago, even though we have not seen each other for perhaps three or four years. i am thankful that he enclosed a copy of a pet project, a russian novel by an obscure writer that he has translated into english, thinking i would be the kind of person to read it and offer an opinion.
i am thankful to think that somebody thought about me in this way, and also just thankful to be thought about at all - i am not a person who has very many friends, and so i worried that my reply had something of an over-enthusiastic puppy about it - and i worried that i should ask for money, because if i did this as a favour i would be one of the bad guys, somehow spoiling the literary economy for everyone else by scabbing the work of some hardworking subeditor somewhere - but i read the book because i wanted to read the book, and i hope L is thankful for the email that i just sent him, even if it was way too long.
on a related note i am thankful to the co-worker who asked me what i have been reading lately while i was in the kitchen making a cup of tea, even if my fumbled response and our brief conversation about charlotte bronte left me with a lingering anxiety for the rest of the afternoon that i had somehow got it all wrong and made a fool out of myself. however i am thankful that my efforts at small talk were considered basically viable and i am thankful to be known sometimes as a person who is approachable.
i am thankful for the delivery guys who came last weekend to bring the new bedstead we had ordered. i am especially thankful that they took the time to explain that there was no way we could possibly get this bedstead up the u-turn in the stairs that leads to the bedroom, and i am thankful they offered to return it right then and there to save me the hassle of calling them back, and i am thankful that when we called later to ask them to take it back they did not laugh very much.
i am thankful for the BBC DJ i listened to on monday night who explained that he almost didn’t come to work that day because he was so sad about the death of david bowie. i am thankful that he did the show anyway even though he was still too upset to read out anybody’s emails or tweets on air because they would probably just put him over the edge. i am thankful for the other presenter earlier in the day who also showed up for work even though she was in tears on air. i mean it when i say i am always thankful for the quality of BBC radio.
i am also thankful for the stories the DJ told of encountering that man’s music as a boy on tv, and i am thankful of his attempts to try to explain a world in which it was basically impossible to see moving colour images of your favourite musical artist ever, at all, unless they were on top of the pops, and then that was gone forever once the broadcast faded. i’m thankful for the little anecdotes he told of how in later years he would meet him a few times, and how once he got him to play an obscure song from the 1960s for a radio session, how he was always just a nice kind person.
i am thankful for the music of david bowie. i am thankful how his legacy has left me thinking about how pop music is made, which is something i find basically inconceivable. how do you tell people what to play if you don’t write it down? how do you go into a room and put together scary monsters, or station to station, or breaking glass, or sweet thing, or five years - and i know you can ask the same thing of any songwriter - but his words don’t look like songs, and they don’t rhyme or scan, and yet he crams them into songlike shapes and then you think: oh, of course, of course.
i am thankful for the contributions of carlos alomar and tony visconti and robert fripp and earl slick and mike garson and mick ronson and nile rodgers and all the other collaborators that made his music possible.
i am thankful for the line ‘…dropped my cellphone down below…’ on lazarus, which gives me deep chills every time i hear it, because it is the most understated reaction to looking down and finding yourself suspended over a fathomless void.
i am thankful to L, an old friend from school who emailed me from nowhere two weeks ago, even though we have not seen each other for perhaps three or four years. i am thankful that he enclosed a copy of a pet project, a russian novel by an obscure writer that he has translated into english, thinking i would be the kind of person to read it and offer an opinion.
i am thankful to think that somebody thought about me in this way, and also just thankful to be thought about at all - i am not a person who has very many friends, and so i worried that my reply had something of an over-enthusiastic puppy about it - and i worried that i should ask for money, because if i did this as a favour i would be one of the bad guys, somehow spoiling the literary economy for everyone else by scabbing the work of some hardworking subeditor somewhere - but i read the book because i wanted to read the book, and i hope L is thankful for the email that i just sent him, even if it was way too long.
on a related note i am thankful to the co-worker who asked me what i have been reading lately while i was in the kitchen making a cup of tea, even if my fumbled response and our brief conversation about charlotte bronte left me with a lingering anxiety for the rest of the afternoon that i had somehow got it all wrong and made a fool out of myself. however i am thankful that my efforts at small talk were considered basically viable and i am thankful to be known sometimes as a person who is approachable.
i am thankful for the delivery guys who came last weekend to bring the new bedstead we had ordered. i am especially thankful that they took the time to explain that there was no way we could possibly get this bedstead up the u-turn in the stairs that leads to the bedroom, and i am thankful they offered to return it right then and there to save me the hassle of calling them back, and i am thankful that when we called later to ask them to take it back they did not laugh very much.
i am thankful for the BBC DJ i listened to on monday night who explained that he almost didn’t come to work that day because he was so sad about the death of david bowie. i am thankful that he did the show anyway even though he was still too upset to read out anybody’s emails or tweets on air because they would probably just put him over the edge. i am thankful for the other presenter earlier in the day who also showed up for work even though she was in tears on air. i mean it when i say i am always thankful for the quality of BBC radio.
i am also thankful for the stories the DJ told of encountering that man’s music as a boy on tv, and i am thankful of his attempts to try to explain a world in which it was basically impossible to see moving colour images of your favourite musical artist ever, at all, unless they were on top of the pops, and then that was gone forever once the broadcast faded. i’m thankful for the little anecdotes he told of how in later years he would meet him a few times, and how once he got him to play an obscure song from the 1960s for a radio session, how he was always just a nice kind person.
i am thankful for the music of david bowie. i am thankful how his legacy has left me thinking about how pop music is made, which is something i find basically inconceivable. how do you tell people what to play if you don’t write it down? how do you go into a room and put together scary monsters, or station to station, or breaking glass, or sweet thing, or five years - and i know you can ask the same thing of any songwriter - but his words don’t look like songs, and they don’t rhyme or scan, and yet he crams them into songlike shapes and then you think: oh, of course, of course.
i am thankful for the contributions of carlos alomar and tony visconti and robert fripp and earl slick and mike garson and mick ronson and nile rodgers and all the other collaborators that made his music possible.
i am thankful for the line ‘…dropped my cellphone down below…’ on lazarus, which gives me deep chills every time i hear it, because it is the most understated reaction to looking down and finding yourself suspended over a fathomless void.
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