READING
I’ve finished Eric Bogosian’s 100 MONOLOGUES. I’ve flipped back and forth between monologues, kind of like how your average Catholic flips around the Bible randomly, but I took the time to read these 100, cover to cover from start to finish. I took two things away from this experience:
- Some of these pieces go back 30 or 35 years, and it’s scary how some of the reactionary characters depicted must’ve somehow time-traveled forward to 2023.
- Reading 100 MONOLOGUES while concurrently reading THE COMPLETE GARY LUTZ might not have been good for my mental and emotional health. I mean, the collection includes a book titled, PARTIAL LIST OF PEOPLE TO BLEACH, so I’m sure you can imagine.
I’ve still got a ways to go before finishing Lutz’s stuff, while still picking away at Christine Schutt’s A DAY, A NIGHT, ANOTHER DAY, SUMMER. But I’ve got a huge to-read pile, so I’ve moved QUANTUM CRIMINALS: RAMBLERS, WILD CAMBLERS, AND OTHER SOLE SURVIVORS FROM THE SONGS OF STEELY DAN by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay up the queue.
Even if you’re someone who’s inclined to shit on Steely Dan you might still enjoy the snark that’s so cleverly (and at some points, lovingly) laid down on Donald and Walter.
In the ’70s, Donald [Fagan] favors a preshow Valium and two immediately preshow tequila shots before taking the stage. But the Cuervo Gold and the fine anxiolytics can only go so far in terms of making the night a tolerable thing.
COGNITIVE SALUBRITY
This is the type of local history that always fascinated me. I’ve always said that the first time I visited this zone of “10 square miles surrounded by reality” almost two decades ago, I knew I’d found my place. Stuff like this is why…
The Witch on Horseback Institute for Cognitive Salubrity was a short-lived new age education center and performance space founded in Trumansburg, New York in the nineteen-seventies by former employees of the Moog synthesizer company. These forgotten recordings with disgraced Ithaca experimental psychologist Noving Jumand were discovered at a library sale in Ithaca, New York in the early 2020s, and have been restored from the original LPs by the musical entity known as Witch on Horseback, named in the Institute’s honor.
“AY, OH, WAY TO GO, OHIO”
My home state, much like a broken clock, can be right twice a day…
“Ohio voters reject Issue 1, scoring win for abortion-rights supporters ahead of November” from The Columbus Dispatch.
IN THE WILD
There’s this coffee shop at my (dying) local mall that’s been around for a few years. It’s all right. It’s small, it’s local. The food and drinks are decent and the folks who run it are nice. The furnishings came from the Borders that left the mall when it closed down. They gathered dust in the closed storefront for years, before being moved to a new space to be re-used.
I spent hours at the old Borders cafe doing a lot of writing. I’ve likely sat on every chair and at every table (including the couches you don’t see) at one point, so it’s kind of like visiting old friends and seeing if I can recreate the old writing magic we once had.