It's us and the public library
hello,
This is short (you don’t care) and late (same) because of work and Interesting and things. And, frankly, I was going to skip it until I came across the Anne Sexton letter below (Yes! Use of brackets!)
I’m going to see many of you at Interesting. Please come and say hello.
Here are 5 things.
A 1965 letter from the poet Anne Sexton to her friend Tillie Olsen. Quoted by Rachel Syme in ‘Syme’s Letter Writer’. (I also admire Syme’s used-book-shop-protocol - always buy books of letters written by poets.)
“Dearly Tillie,
Your valentines received!
Read! Loved.WHY DON’T TYPEWRITERS MAKE LITTLE HEARTS???? And your New Year’s Card for my new home, my new place
They (both cards, notes, actual things) mean a great deal. Something to treasure. Your note says you are not feeling well!! (But your book is. Hooray for the book) (that is important too). How sorry I am to learn that you are not. Annie mentioned it too. All my catholic friends offer up their sickness to God. I wish that I Could offer it up to the Muse. Or to Rilke. R. has some good (fine) Things to say on the subject. (as for me, I’ve got nothing to say but LOVE) which is all right but not practical. When I hear you feel Not well I say (simply) Oh shit! But that’s not very poetic."
One of the best events of last year was a talk between Maya Dunietz and Kate Molleson about Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru. And now Dunietz has recorded some orchestral versions of some of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s music for piano and strings. It’s magnificent.
I read Robert Seethaler and Katy Derbyshire’s The Cafe With No Name entirely because it’s about a cafe. But it’s fantastic. What a menu:
“Coffee. Lemonade. Raspberry soda, beer, and wine from Stammersdorf and Gumpoldskirchen, red or white. To eat, there’s bread and dripping with or without onions, freshly pickled gherkins or pretzel sticks.”I collect compressed communications. According to the New Yorker, the profane, long-haired, anti-establishment liberal lawyer Bruce Harvey has business cards that shout
“STOP TALKING”
Perfect.
Also from the New Yorker, in an interview with an inspector from the Department of Sanitation:
‘“Goodman takes a philosophical approach to trash. “The fact that sanitation is this free, unlimited service, sort of untouched by neoliberalism, is very appealing to me,” he said. “It’s us and the public library.”’
PROMOTIONAL APOLOGY
I didn’t do a Stampfans in April. Sorry. Circs. Will do one shortly.
I’ll give you back your day.
russell
(There are 993 of you. "The 993–994 carbon-14 spike was a rapid 0.91% increase in carbon-14 isotope content from tree rings dated 993-994 CE. This event was also confirmed with an associated increase of beryllium-10 in Antarctic ice core samples, supporting the hypothesis that this event was of solar origin.”)