01
One of my first thoughts when considering how to address this topic was: it’s right there in the tagline, since nearly the very beginning…
seeking stories beauty meaning
Or, in the era-appropriate syntax of the 00s…
It’s the one thing from this site that has held up over the decades.
02
love was a reasonable answer to this meaning-of-life business…I’m part of a greater mystery
A common theme here is this, but also that my desire is to connect to that mystery via deep connections with specific people. Earlier in life I primarily tried to actualize this via romantic relationships, but as I’ve aged the idea and connotation of romantic has changed. People, even those closest to you, tend to embody that greater mystery. And that can be frustrating. Ideally, it is enjoyably frustrating. [1]
I recently revisited a longer-form piece I worked on in 2004 but never finished or fully published. Pieces of it can be found in: In the End, to Live a Perfect Life Is to Stop Being Human, Sometimes You Just Have to Jump…, Doors, My Life: Vows, My Life: Night Draft Bit.
As with many old works, reading it is dubious and disquieting. From above, you can see that I originally published fragments under the title My Life, then as selections disconnected from the larger work, which is thinly veiled stories from my divorce era intertwined with some of the most transgressive fiction I’ve written.
But much of what I wrote in the above posts, the newest of which is 19 years old, still rings true, and speaks to my answer to this never answered question of meaning.
Maybe that’s through a prayer, or a song, or a partner, or a stranger. Maybe that can be described as love. It is, at best, elusive.
03
As is the nature of our attention, I discovered some relevant things since turning mine to this topic.
📺 The Ballad of Clem Snide. If you have not listened to the music of Eef Barzelay/Clem Snide [Bandcamp/Bandcamp/Bandcamp] yet, you are in for a treat. I can easily claim he is my top five favorite lyricists. Much of what he says in this mini documentary feels like a great sermon at my new church (or in this case, synagogue). If you don’t know where to start, a few of my favorites are 📻 Misty, 📻 Forever Just Beyond (with Scott Avett), and 📻 The Ballad Of God’s Love.
📺 The Innocence Mission Tiny Desk Concert from 2018. The Innocence Mission was the soundtrack of that era I referenced above, and Tomorrow On The Runway is listed as soundtrack to Doors, and also the second song of this Tiny Desk performance. 📻 A wonderful cover of this song was recorded by Trespassers William.
📺 That led me to Iron & Wine’s beautiful cover of it. Not many people would dare to cover the Innocence Mission. 📻 I dared to copy their cover of John Denver but recruited one of the best singers I know for it. 📻 Here is their original cover (original cover is a funny neologism).
That reminds me of the other great cover of an Innocence Mission song, Sufjan Steven’s rendition of Lakes of Canada, 📺 performed live on a Cincinnati rooftop in 2007 or 📻 another live recording with slightly better fidelity. 📻 Here is the original. They did another recording in 2019 that is available as a free download: 📻 the lakes of canada 2019. I discovered (many) more covers while searching Bandcamp, those by 📻 FAUXKNOW and 📻 Honeysuckle stood out.
Do you ever think about how, before recording technologies, covers were the only way to listen to music?
📚 Eventually Everything Connects: Eight Essays on Uncertainty By Sarah Firth. I have been reading this off and on for a long time but can already recommend it.
04
Music appears to be one of the strongest of the invisible connective tissues of the universe. While I’m here, I’ve already posted about it twice, but as always the latest edition of Midnight Radio, Darkly Euphoric, is perfect.
…a startup that “develops sophisticated autonomous AI agents that can make intelligent decisions with minimal human intervention”–even though human intervention is the whole fucking point of being on this planet…
PS
Today I attended Homebrew Website Club - Writing Edition, having found out via Tracy Durnell’s Weeknotes, and it was delightful, perhaps even magical. A moment of connection during what has been a season of isolation.