Hey, my favorite people. You holding up? Seeing any art? I’m concerned for the state of galleries and bookstores and live music. People at St. Paul’s Fall Art Crawl said hardly any artists opened their studios because no one ever shows up. Shoot. We almost didn’t make it. Is your body and soul together, and how can it be, without creation? You not angsty all the time? I struggle with anxiety. Are you having a nice long fall into winter? I wrote a song for my kindergartners called, “Falling Into Winter”; maybe I should’ve written more kinder music 20 years ago, because I wrote others, about going to market, and poetry tools. But here we are, sliding down to winter, at least in Minnesota. Our daughter says it’s snowing right now on Lake Superior’s north shore, where she lives. It’s 36F here.
In the reaping whirlwinds that I’ve felt, to the extent they’re not just in my moody head, but outside, I’m watching the world at-large keeping on crumbling inside domes, sifting news from chaff, and people embracing miles of priors and received truths, and no one convincing anyone of anything different. Every time I read a story, I’m appalled at the amnesia, attention economy, and fuckery of the writer, and ask, Why won’t your editor jerk your chain? It’s her job. Then I back off and immerse myself in old dead authors.
So, about fiction, and the lag since “Uncle Joe” on October 21.
Hotspvrre ran afoul of his onboard editor (me), so he is suspending this Waffle Iron until he can map out what he should have mapped out before. The days and months of notes and drawings I’ve already made haven’t gone into the piece, confound it. I wrote five chapters as if possessed, which is really fun, really hyper, and I can keep going, but I need to obey certain biblical truths about story, and I’ve tossed them in favor of the wild drug of exposition without a blueprint.
Would it be okay if I just updated you frequently on what the hell is going on?
As they say in Irish phone hang-ups,
Byebyebyebyebyebye. Yes.
Byebyebyebyebyebye.
Hotspvrre
Your reflection on the quiet art crawl and closed studios really captures how vulnerble the creative community feels right now. It is tough when local galleries and bookstores see fewer vistiors and it can feel like the cultural pulse slows with the seasons. I relate to the anxity you mention and the way weather shifts can mirror our own moods as we slide into winter. Creating songs or stories for kids is such a sweet way to keep the joy alive and share it with others. Hoping more people show up and recgnize the value of art in their neighborhoods even when it's cold out.
I will wait for you even through the seasons. What else is there?