Dreamers Rise
An Open Notebook
And for those who choose the twisty road, prefer it to the straight
Let joy beat out old misery, as love will conquer hate.
 Illustration by Henry L. Stephens from The Goblin Snob (ca. 1855) | |||||
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A sort of electronic broadside, composed of rants and reviews, conceits and speculations, and whatever else feels the need to be here. Issued as chance will have it. The Dreamer's Rise interview Good evening. First of all, to start with, what is Dreamer's Rise? Is it a blog? It is not meant to be, and I have been told that it is not. In fact, some months ago, when I submitted the URL to a blog-indexing service, I received after a day or so an emailed notification that what I do is Not a Blog. I regard it instead as a broadside, which according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary is “a sizable sheet of paper printed on one side,” or “a sheet printed on one or both sides and folded,” or “something (as a ballad) printed on a broadside.” Except that no paper is involved and folding your computer monitor is not recommended by the manufacturer. How does Dreamer's Rise differ from a blog? For one thing, it consists of separate and distinct numbers rather than a more or less continuous flow of entries. In part this is because, since I don't make use of any of the various user-friendly blog-making templates and services, it is simpler for me to maintain, my technical skills being fairly rudimentary. But additionally, it is hoped that each number will be able to stand (or fall) on its own, except on those occasions when I spread a piece over multiple numbers, and that there will be no implication that there is any unity to be found in the numbers as a whole, except to the degree that they were all written or cobbled together by the same person, and maybe not even then. Why don't you accept comments? The short answer: because I don't know how. Were this an actual blog, of course, it would welcome comments, except that some blogs refuse to accept them, in which they are well within their rights. I suppose I could bone up on HTML forms and try to patch together something that would mesh with my bargain-basement server, but in the end I'm not sure it would work. And in any case, the truth is I don't want comments on the page, because just figuring out what it is that I want to say and getting it said in a reasonably coherent manner is enough of a challenge; having other people's voices come into play would be too distracting. I do welcome email, however, and I promise to reply, unless you're a dying widow from Nigeria who wants to share her entire fortune with me, in which case just send me a check. Read any good books lately? Surprisingly, yes. I say surprisingly because, although I have never stopped reading and could not in fact imagine ever doing so, I confess that for a long time I seemed to be deriving less and less pleasure from books, because (it seemed to me) there simply wasn't that much out there that I really felt like reading. Partly this was a reaction to September 11, which somehow made reading contemporary fiction, even very good fiction, less pertinent, but the truth is I struggled to find non-fiction that seemed to matter to me as well. I'm a fussy reader. I have no tolerance for sloppy writing, even if the subject is of interest, and I regularly toss aside books after a page or two if I don't think the author has the chops or if the editing is half-assed. I loathe ephemeral magazine-style non-fiction and books about “the [insert topic of choice] and how it changed the world,” but on the other hand I'm not an academic and there's little point in my reading a scholarly tome that has no narrative or stylistic merit. In the last few months, however, I've enjoyed reading (or in some cases re-reading) Anthony Smith's Blind White Fish in Persia, Nelson Reed's The Caste War of Yucatán, Josef Škvorecký's The Swell Season, Francisco Goldman's The Art of Political Murder, and Gilbert Alter-Gilbert's anthology Life and Limb. So maybe there's hope after all. Have Freedy Johnston, Gillian Welch, and Syd Straw finally released new CDs, and if not, when will they do so? No, no, yes, and — reportedly — soon. According to Freedy's website, his long-delayed Rain on the City is finished and will be released in 2009. According to a rare interview with Freedy that appeared in June, his original plan to release Rain on the City as a double CD has been scrapped. Rumor is that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will put out a new CD late this year or early next. As for Syd, her Pink Velour is now available. And just how long has it been? What ever became of Satan and Adam? Well, there was this woman named Eve, you see, and … Oh, that Satan and Adam — As it happens, the blues duo are alive and well and touring again. About ten years ago, around the time that his book Mister Satan's Apprentice was published, blues harpist Adam Gussow did a signing and performance in the store where I was working. His musical partner, guitarist and singer Sterling Magee a.k.a Satan, was unable to appear, and another guitarist sat in with Gussow. I later heard that Magee's health had declined and that he was living in the South, and assumed that that was pretty much the end of the line for Satan and Adam. But after fishing out their 1991 debut CD, Harlem Blues, and giving it a listen for the first time in years, I did a little research and discovered that Magee has recovered sufficiently to resume his career, and also that a new documentary about the pair is nearing completion (trailer here). Are there are any other forthcoming documentaries you find of interest? Since you ask, a film called Growing up with Paul Goodman, about the late novelist, poet, and social critic, is in the works, apparently waiting for additional funds to complete the final stages of filming and editing. Among those interviewed, in addition to surviving members of Goodman's family, are Noam Chomsky, Grace Paley, Ned Rorem, and Jason Epstein. Also in the list of films that I hope will someday be completed is Tom Weber's documentary about songwriter-musicians, Troubadour Blues. Any blogs you've discovered lately that you're excited about? I can think of three: A Journey Round My Skull; By My Green Candle; and Luc Sante's Pinakothek, (see, especially, at the last, “Shroud”). Have you endorsed a candidate in the 2008 presidential election? Indeed I have. I am voting for Barack Obama, and urge everyone to do the same. I have yet to personally meet anyone who is intending to vote for John McCain. I hear that such people exist, though probably not in New York. Like many people on the left, I am not completely satisfied with a number of Obama's positions (see The Nation's thoughtful “Open Letter”), but there is only one issue in this election, and that is whether American voters want the corruption, incompetence, and wholesale assault on democracy of the last seven and a half years to continue under another four years of Republican rule. Obama isn't perfect but I think he's a decent and intelligent man; in the White House that in itself would be a welcome change. I also warmly endorse the re-election of my representative in Congress, John Hall. Anything else on your mind? This line from a poem by Mark Strand: “Everyone who has sold himself wants to buy himself back.” Except we don't seem to have quite reached that point, yet. Say, what about Jorge Luis Borges and the rest of the Scooby Gang? What's up with them? They'll have to wait their turn. August 6, 2008 [ Permalink ]
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