The meeting about the thing went well. I’m hugely excited. It still feels a little unreal to me, but it’s always lovely to have someone say nice things about your work. So, yeah, I think the thing is happening. I will keep you vaguely updated as I know more and then specifically updated as I can.
We ended up on a side track talking about making art in the current climate and how hard it is to figure out how to talk about these things that matter so much without it turning into “Trump sucks!”
I have been thinking a lot about the Beats and about how current a poem like “Howl” seems. I wasn’t a big Linkin Park fan, though I always have a soft spot for people who love a wide range of music and I thought it was obvious they love a wide range of music. And I appreciate how their music has gotten a lot of people through tough times, that it was a voice saying, “I have been where you are. You are not alone, even though it seems like it.” And it breaks my heart that one of the men making that music, doing that important work for others did not have that himself–a voice he could believe that made going on seem possible.
Was he a best mind of his generation? I don’t know. But I do know we lost him.
And rereading “Howl” just now, I’m struck by how current it seems. Sixty years old and it still reads fresh.
The thing I think for my own creative process, though, is that I am still screaming “Look what is happening! Look at the terrible things that are happening!” and cursing the ascendancy of Moloch. I don’t know how to offer myself to you in Rockland. I don’t know how to find this holy.
Tiny Cat Pants 