WORK

Thomas stood up and walked away. He wouldn’t even try to tell us any stories again for a few years. We had never been very good to him, even as boys, but he had always been kind to us. When he stopped even looking at me, I was hurt. How do you explain that?

Before he left for good, though, he turned back to Junior and me and yelled at us. I couldn’t really understand what he was saying, but Junior swore he told us not to slow dance with our skeletons.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Junior said.

There are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you. Maybe you don’t wear a watch, but your skeletons do, and they always know what time it is. Now, these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices. And they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they’re not necessarily evil, unless you let them be.

—Sherman Alexie
—from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

WORD(S)

fard. noun or verb. Cosmetics, face-paint, especially white. As a verb: to paint the face with fard to hide defects. Figuratively: to gloss over.

“A trio of women holding hands, gaunt and thin as the inmates of a spitalhouse and attired the three alike in the same cheap finery, their faces daubed in fard and pale as death.” (Cormac McCarthy)

“Why will he not stick to copying her majestical countenance instead of daubing it with some fard of his own?” (William Thackeray)

“He frisles and he fards, He oynts, he bathes.” (T. Hudson)

“Euphonical Nonsence, farded with formality.” (William Petty)

WEB

1. “Forty Portraits in Forty Years”. Beautiful.

2. Not sure if this collection of iconic photos since 2000 is comprised of 75 or 100 images (or somewhere in between), but worth a scroll.

3. Yesterday we learned how politics ruins our brains. Now, more feeble-brainedness: “Why We Keep Playing the Lottery.”

4. I want ►this raven to be my dad.

5. Today in 1966 one of my favorite all-around authors, Sherman Alexie, is born in Wellpinit, Washington. You can’t go wrong with his book of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven or the movie, Smoke Signals adapted from it. Or try The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is a (literally) LOL coming of age story for adults young and not-so-young. Oh, and Alexie is a fine poet…pick any book.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. appreciates yesterday’s WORDs: “Ha! Terrific quote. Feels right, too, somehow, for Walpole the antiquarian.”

• Reader S. weighs in: “On the cultural appropriation issue, there’s certainly room for using elements from other cultures in a thoughtful fashion. This does not always (often?) happen, which is why tropes like the Magical Negro are justly derided. Respect and accuracy are key. ¶ Athena Andreadis has a nuanced take: http://ktxc.to/authentic-ethnics”

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