3 / A Continuing Education

Thank you for checking in! Thank you for being a friend!

I am learning how to write the newsletter I want to receive. Part of this education is recognizing that nobody wants to read all that, that I don't want to read all that. Screenfuls of uninterrupted text can meet one like a wall instead of a welcome, and I don't want to overstay. So we will try to be quick here, then we can get to the lovely woman pictured above and the songs I want to share with you.

Learning, trying to become better versions of ourselves, is not without its pains. I read from a Doireann Ní Ghríofa poem this month, "We make ourselves new, and it is a difficult birthing," and the line found a home in me. I am often frustrated by my limits in personal growth and the creative hobbies I stretch myself thin over, testing a cognitive flexibility with little give. I am so bad at so many things lol.

For example, I am trying my hand at woodworking, and the mistakes I commit at every step of the craft are myriad. I am studying French, and the combination of passé composé tense and reflexive verbs smacks me in the face every time like a gathering of upturned rakes. I am learning to become a better partner, son, and friend, ashamed by the times when I haven't risen to the occasion. And I tell myself I am learning how to edit a novel, but any examination of the years since I wrote its first draft will find my takeaways have been in how one avoids the revision process, the hard work.

It will take time to make these messages come through the way I see them. It will require more effort to get to where we want to be. Thank you for checking in to see where I am.

A few dope things that have been on my mind:

1. Alexis photographed with her pumpkin decorations by David Smith - Each fall, my partner garlands our home with dozens of vintage, plastic jack-o'-lanterns strung across our driveway and porch. At night they glow, lit by LED bulbs Alexis embedded in their cavities before hanging them. Many of the buckets have caught autumn leaves from shedding trees, but the holes drilled into their bottoms drain any rainwater that might weigh them down. Their faded orange faces sway and smile in the dark, as if carried by drifting spirits.

It's a gift the community enjoys. Children walking home from their classes love the scene; they call our home the pumpkin house. Nighttime drivers on our busy road slow as they pass, windows rolled down to take photos of the decorations. When Alexis begins to install the pieces in early September, driving the poles that will hold the jack-o'-lanterns into earth, neighbors stop to tell her how much they look forward to the Halloween display. They seem grateful to be haunted, as am I.

David Smith, a local photographer compiling portraits from our neighborhood, produced the shot you see at the top of this email. That's Alexis and our pumpkin house. Magical, right? If you would like to bring that magic into your own home, you can peruse her online shops for hand-bound journals and antique jewelry.

2. "Here's Where The Story Ends (Live)" by The Sundays - For as many years as I've cherished this song, feeling a kinship with it I'm sure several of you recognize in your own wistful hearts, like its existence in this era tied my own presence here, for all those years, this live version never found its way to me until last week. The way it hit me, friends. I staggered when it came on. My hand sought a surface to steady myself.

"It's that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore."

If you've never heard it live either, this track hid as a B-side on select versions of the European CD single release for "Summertime". The Sundays would put out another single for "Cry" (another deliciously sad song) before bowing out, retreating from the spotlight, no more new music, that story ended. We are going on almost three decades of quiet from the band.

When the song came to me, I felt the same shock that must have gripped footballer Ian Wright when he reunited with a teacher he presumed long passed, the man who taught him to read, to play the sport that brought him fame. Wright took off his cap in immediate respect, before hiding his face and tears behind the hat. “I can’t believe it," he cried. "Someone said you was dead.”

3. "How Ya Do Dat" by Young Bleed featuring Master P and C-Loc - This also debuted in 1997, a few months prior to that "Summertime" CD single. Maybe not such a terrible year after all. And while Young Eric surrendered his evening ears to a maudlin Harriet Wheeler, building weblogs and Magic the Gathering decks in his room instead of attending to homework, he dedicated his late afternoons, those precious hours before his mom came home, to Toonami and Rap City, again instead of attending to homework.

The music video and warbling synth melody for "How Ya Do Dat" has followed me since, the same way those cached blog posts and boxes of Magic commons have. The recent Verzuz battle between No Limit Records and Cash Money Records brought this BET classic to mind again, and I hope the youths are rediscovering it. Rapper JasonMartin, formerly Problem, put a West Coast spin on the song with "Like Whaaat" back in 2013, and this shit still bangs.

4. Bands Made Up of Skeletons - I will stand up to applaud any skeleton band, introduced to the phenomena by Les Squelettes in Canada's educational French series Téléfrançais. So when Alexis and I watched Mad Monster Party? (1967) for the first time recently, we were delighted to come across the Beatles-inspired group Little Tibia & the Fibulas singing "Do the Mummy." The novel I mentioned in the opening paragraphs also features a band of skeletons, and I hope I can get around to completing the work and share them with you, too.

♫ It's almost the end of the show ♫

Reply and tell me what you want from a newsletter, from me. I'll see what I can do.

3 / A Continuing Education

Credits: The line from Irish author and poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa comes from "Seven Views of Cork City," collected in Clasp. Thanks to Elizabeth Warner for lending me her copy of the book.

The live version for "Here's Where The Story Ends" is from a 1992 performance broadcast by Radio France International. The near-complete Black Session recorded from the radio is archived and available to download at The dB's Repercussion.