Stuff From Last Week #03

Back from vacation. Coltrane.

Last week, my wife and I took our kids to Woodstock. Traveling with two children under three isn’t really a vacation. It’s parenting without the comforts of home and routine and childcare. It was hard and exhausting. Still, it was the best and most fulfilling use of my time. Doing something hard with people you love, growing closer as you make it through, well, it’s a great way to feel purposeful, full of purpose, as if your creating something concrete with your life. This might sound melodramatic, but making it through four days of out-of-whack sleep and eating schedules will cover anything in divine dust. We also visited one of our favorite bookstores, Rough Draft in Kingston. A wonderfully curated selection. I was introduced to this small press out of England. Prototype. I picked up Vehicle by Jen Calleja. Loving it. Don’t these books look great? Grab them if you can find them.

Okay. Back from vacation. Here is a flower.

COLTRANE RANKINGS, so far:

I’m reading Nathaniel Mackey’s Double Trio, an edition I got from Grey Matter Books in Hadley for a great price. It’s inspired by Coltrane’s Meditations. I’ve loved Coltrane, like everyone, for a long time, but I haven’t seriously tried his discography from start to finish. I’m doing it now. There’s a lot to get through. I’m just about halfway, at The Believer, still a year away from A Love Supreme. Here is my Top Tier so far. An expert might have formulas and reasons. My process asked simple questions. How did I like it the first time? Did I listen to it a second time? Have I gone back to it days later? These are my favorites, released before 1965, in case you’re looking to start a similar journey. I recommend it. Way better than listening to ten hours of current events podcasts a week. Coltrane’s turning 100 this year. So is Miles Davis. I’ll listen to Davis next. I wonder which other field birthed their two towering geniuses in the same year? No time to look it up. I have to listen to more Coltrane.

TIER 1:

1. Blue Train

2. Giant Steps

3. Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane

4. Ballads

5. Stardust

6. Olé

At the Disquiet conference in Lisbon, I heard Padgett Powell say a great way to learn how to write is by reading an author’s oeuvre from start to finish. It was good to see where they peaked, he thought. You can learn a lot by the progression and the decline. If you’re curious, Powell thought his own peak was The Interrogative Mood. If I remember correctly, Powell’s example was Tennessee Williams. I don’t know if A Love Supreme is Coltrane’s peak. I just know I have always enjoyed it better than most other works of art. Maybe I’ll find another peak on my journey?

While we’re talking about oeuvres, Powell also said one of the gravest crimes committed against literature was the Nobel Committee not awarding The Prize to William Trevor for his collected stories, or something like that. If you haven’t read all of Trevor, here is a perfect guide from Adam O’Fallon Price.

I’m almost done rereading Lispector’s stories. Moving onto Cheever next. I might be writing a short story for the first time in three years. We’ll see. Whenever I think I’m writing a story, it just turns into a novel. It’s a strange tick. Can’t seem to shake it, can’t seem to move on from characters and moments after I sink sufficient sentences into them.

Proust Update

I have misplace my Portuguese version of Within A Budding Grove. Or, Á Sombra Das Raparigas em Flor. My searching for it has turned into a bad bit from Frasier. “Has anyone seen my Portuguese Proust? I swear it was in the sitting room.” Anyway, here is a grandmother’s love. That pity still more vast.

WHITE SOX UPDATE

We are in second place! In the American League Central Division! We don’t suck that bad!

FINAL SCENE FROM VACATION

A happy goat in a tunnel, taking a break from eating grass, looking into my soul.