Will Be-s and What For-s

Finally I'm returning to writing: both here and The Library's Grain. I apologize to those few who read this for the silence of recent days. It's been largely outside my control. Though I might add that the summer has been laboring to teach me to hear the music and rhythm of such lacks and losses, and the means with which to sing by them. The breaking of the will, I think, is in a key all its own, and it may very well be the key of genius (in the Greek sense, of course).

Today, as I sat in the Last Drop while Jeehyun ordered a coffee at the counter, an odd and nervous girl approached me at the table. She had heard me answer Jeehyun about my reading, and felt moved, I suppose, to speak with me. "You said you're reading Yeats. I've heard he's really wonderful." She was timid, severely so, and kept her distance while speaking, her hands brushing repeatedly at the strands of hair that fell past her ears. "Do you know The Vision?" She asked, "What do you think of it?" I answered vaguely, half-remembering what I'd read as an undergraduate. "Try it," I told her. "I'm sure you'll like it." She sighed with relief, and replied, "I'm so glad to hear you say that. I think I will then." And with that, she turned and left the coffee shop.

These past few days have been full of such moments: strange, but beautiful, and unaccountable by any system whose rules I can discern. And I have tried to play my part, returning the city's surprises with my own. I'm thinking specifically of a long delayed project for the The Library's Grain. In the novel, Square, Stephen's sidekick, is engaged in the practice of CD-dropping. Though I've never heard of the activity in that particular medium, tape-dropping - the act of leaving specially designed mix-tapes in odd places where strangers will find them - has a long and fascinating history (see, for example, the January 2006 issue of The Wire). Though I don't much anymore identify with such artistic games (the stuff of Square's aesthetics), I had promised myself to give this one a try, if for no other reason than for the purpose of lending my writing an added layer of verisimilitude. And so, three copies of the first mixed CD, compiled month ago, have finally been dispersed (one of them, admittedly dropped in the hands of a friend who enjoys such things). The CD has a silly, though somewhat well-plotted narrative, and is a strange mix of religious sincerity and very ridiculous (I might even say bad) pop. For those interested, and for the sake of obsessive cataloguing, here is the track-list:

Elijah, by any other name...

1) Ebony Rhythm Band "Drugs Ain't Cool (instrumental)"
2) The Wolfgang Press "Shut That Door"
3) Weezer "Tired of Sex"
4) DMX "Lord Give Me a Sign (a capella)"
5) Daedelus "Doorbell"
6) Voice Farm "Come on a My House"
7) Ramsey Lewis "Do What You Wanna"
8) Barry Manilew "Why Don't We Live Together"
9) The Homosexuals "Hearts in Exile (full mix)"
10) The Clash "The Sound of the Sinners"
11) Pest "Heard Your Bird Moved In"
12) WhoMadeWho "Out the Door"
13) Daedelus "Back Doorbell"
14) Tamia "Stranger in My House"
15) Masada String Trio "Rssasiel"
16) David Byrne "The Great Intoxication"
17) Johnny Cash "God's Gonna Cut You Down"
18) The Streets "Get Out My House"
19) The Soft Pink Truth "Kitchen"
20) Essential Logic "Wake Up"
21) Kate Bush "Get Out of My House"
22) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds "God's Hotel"
23) snippet from The Simpsons: [phone rings] "Troy, Mack Parker - ever hear of Planet of the Apes?" "Uhh...the movie or the planet?" "The brand new, multi-million dollar musical, and you are starring as...the human!" "It's the part I was born to play, baby!"
24) Tim & Mollie O'Brien "Shut De Do"

Otherwise, it's evening. The sun is just starting its descent. And my thoughts are full of things meant to be written elsewhere.