#31 - Bathroom Reading
Camp Something; Work Music; If You Write a Poem in the Forest
Hello, my friends,
Hope all my Jewish friends had an easy fast on Yom Kippur. Though I don’t do much to observe Jewish holidays, I have fasted on Yom Kippur for many years now. It’s a ritual that aligns with who I am from various angles — vaguely put, it simply feels right. In a related swerve, last week I wrote about the importance of challenge in microlearning and last night I added some new flash cards to my AnkiDroid app. I’d become more or less comfortable with the nikkud (Hebrew vowels) that I was learning and needed something fresh to whet my appetite so I looked at a couple of frequency lists for biblical Hebrew words and most commonly used words in the prayer book and added something like 20 new words. As expected, I’m more keen to work through the flash cards and while it hasn’t given me the new stuff yet, I’m ready to be befuddled by them.
Camp Something
As mentioned in my accidentally early newsletter last week, I did indeed go camping with my brother Thursday - Saturday, and it was as nice as expected. The spot we reserved was at the North Shore Campground near Lake Arrowhead. The drive into the mountains including beautiful views and poetic place names like Skyforest, Rim of the World, Strawberry Peak, and others. Both Igor and I were intrigued by Rim of the World High School which is located adjacent to the cliffside highway directly across from a majestic view of other peaks, clouds, and San Bernardino County below. We wondered if the 900-1000 students of this high-altitude high school continued to marvel at the view despite seeing it regularly. Probably, I surmised. I appreciate the view of the Verdugo Mountains visible from our bedroom window even though I see them everyday. And they’re not nearly as sublime as the view from the rim of the world.
Camping itself was pretty standard fare, which is to say, very nice. We got to the campsite as dark was setting in and managed to get our tent up unexpectedly fast despite that it was only my second time using this tent (any tent, actually). We had warm fires both nights (even though it rained sparse but walloping drops for around 45 minutes on our second night), we cooked and ate camping food, talked, hiked, and read (for me it was the introductory chapters of How Biblical Languages Work by Peter Silzer and Thomas John Finley and for Igor it was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway which he finished, and then a biography of economist John Maynard Keynes).
North Shore Campground is ideal for beginner campers since it has potable water taps throughout the grounds, decent bathrooms, and is hardly secluded. Lake Arrowhead and it’s village are within walking distance as is a hospital which stands across the road from the campground. Not being camping purists, we took advantage of civilization and ate at a restaurant on Saturday evening and took in a beer at the Lake Arrowhead Brewing Company. I was surprised by their Oatmeal Cookie Golden Stout, a collaboration between the LABC and a couple of home-brew groups. I’m already a fan of porters and stouts but would I swoon for a sweet golden one? Turns out the answer is yes!
As promised, here are a few photos from the weekend:
Work Music
If we’ve spoken about music, you might know that my tastes run far and wide. However, at work when I don’t want to be distracted by recognizable lyrics, I limit myself to instrumental music. What I listen to depends on the type of work that I’m doing and my mood. Genre stalwarts include jazz from the 50s and 60s, Norwegian techno centering around Tromsø in the early 90s, classics of electronic and ambient music, and Japanese pop, mostly featuring bands and performers achieved fame in the 70s and 80s. What? I should stop stalling and give you a list of albums I like? Fine!
These are in no order at all but what comes to mind first since it’s what I’ve been listening to lately:
Microgravity by Biosphere, 1991
Arctic Circles 2 by various artists associated with Tromsø electronic music scene in the 90s, 1999
Lowflow by Thomas Fehlmann, 2004
All of Me by Masayoshi Takanaka, 1979
Birth of the Cool by Miles Davis, 1957
Ambient 2: The Pleateaux of Mirror by Brian Eno and Harold Budd, 1980 (Ambient 1: Music for Airports is an ambient classic and I highly recommend it as well, but it’s a lot different from this one)
All This I Do For Glory by Colin Stetson, 2007 (Thanks for the recommendation, Joe!)
Harmony in Ultraviolet by Tim Hecker, 2006
Funky Stuff by Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media, 1979
All Alone by Mal Waldron, 1966
piano room by Hideyuki Hashimoto (I just love listening to the live recording of this on YouTube. I’m actually listening to it as I type this)
Brilliant Corners by Thelonius Monk, 1957
GOD COMPLX (instrumental version) by Sol Messiah, 2023
Prisma Tropical by Balún, 2018
A few individual tracks I like from other albums:
“Wireless Fantasy” by Vladimir Ussachevsky from VLADIMIR USSACHEVSKY ELECTRONIC AND ACOUSTIC WORKS 1957–1972". New York: New World Records (2007)
“‘Round About Midnight” by Grant Green from Green Street, 1961
“Merry Christmas, Broken Hearts” by Memphis Ukulele Band from Holidays Ain’t The Same, 2018
Let me know if you listen to any of these and have a response. My wide-flung music has mostly been a solitary journey for me so it would be welcome.
If You Write a Poem in the Forest
I’m going to be reading poetry at the North Figueroa Bookshop on Friday night and it turned my mind to a topic I consider every so often: The audience for poetry. The cynic in me responds “What audience?” with an ironic smirk. I hate that guy, but is he right? Poetry books neither sell very well, nor do they circulate much at the library. Even I, who have been writing poems on and off for over 20 years, read poetry maybe once or twice a month and bought one book of poetry last year (My Hollywood by Boris Dralyuk). So many people write poetry yet it seems like not even all of them read it. How does it survive so famished of readership?
Some people write poetry with no expectation of readers; they do it as personal reflection or self-medication, or both. Me? I write for an audience. The name of this newsletter refers to that audience. Hello, my friends! That’s you!
I’ve never been able to keep a journal because, honestly: What do I care what I think? More to the point, I already know! So boring…Like looking at a mirror. Now, communicating, that’s fun and exciting. Will readers react the way I want them to? By sharing this newsletter with their frenemies, sending me money and chocolate, or maybe even saying my name out loud at odd moments, but not so loud that anyone else could hear, like a creepy little shibboleth. The good thing about the last one is that if you do it, no one will ever know. Haven’t you always wanted to have a secret? Oh, you have secrets. Don’t tell me because I might write about it in my newsletter with 63 subscribers.
Or will readers react badly? What would that even look like? I imagine an incensed reader stuffing their phone into their pocket, rising from the toilet, and angrily flushing it. “That idiot! He wasted my whole bathroom break with his inane prattle. He was supposed to be talking about poetry!” They will definitely not be whispering my name quietly as if it was a lullaby sung to a very tiny dog.
Anyway the tl;dr version is that for years I’ve been ambivalent about putting effort into publishing a book of poetry because I don’t think enough people will buy it to recoup the costs for a publisher. Why work on a book that tens of people will read? How would I build a bigger audience for my poetry anyway? If only I could rub a lamp shaped like Seth Godin’s head and a Marketing Genie would appear!
One of my favorite courses in college was phonetics, taught by Peter Silzer! We attended the same church—he’s a lovely person.