I’m going to Azerbaijan. It’s a country next to the Caspian Sea, bordered by Iran and Russia. People are going to talk about saving the world, also about making money.
Reading slows down time, I’ve found. The clocks get slower. I think this is what they mean by relativity, and I wonder if Einstein was any good as a lover. Reading stories in literary journals this morning. Some are so good. Some are so boring that they make me want to go back to sleep. The former make me want to open my laptop and write. The latter make me despair that we’re at all interested in storytelling.
Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan. It’s an east-meets-west station that will likely have skyscrapers and very old buildings, as though this is the story. So unique. I’ll find a story there, probably wandering around half-drunk. Azerbaijan has been at war with Armenia since the late 1980’s, and I’ve been assured that someone will back up a bus and ask we ‘tourists’ if we want a free trip to western Azerbaijan to see the beauties of the land. To take a few photographs showing the world how lovely it is. How un-war-torn.
Write stories so out there that no one would ever think to read them. Be extreme. Be bold. Be unique. Tell a story. I saw Bruce Springsteen play in Toronto the other night. For three hours, he was on stage belting it out with the E Street Band. I could barely stand for three hours straight, and yet here was this sixty-five year old man running around on stage (I’ve since been corrected on his age; the Boss is actually seventy-five). He’s a storyteller. Wonder if he’s going to Baku, too.
One of the best stories I read today was Anne Baldo’s ‘Before and After’ in Grain Vol 52.1 (Fall 2024). The type of story that sticks with me. It has nothing to do with my life, but what’s my life got to do with it? It’s a story. Well-told. Forlorn. It’s still with me, as the best art always does.
Blue sky. Bad politics. Puffy pastries, more air than solid matter. Ethiopian coffee made on the stove. Water in a mason jar. A heap of journals. We figured out how to fly. But we can’t figure out peace. Take the collective artistry and imagination of humanity and eliminate the endless strife and politics, and we would be so much further ahead. We’d concentrate on art instead, beautiful art. Each magnificent piece a letter in an alphabet of a species we haven’t met yet. People who live in the stars, unwilling to come down and join with us until they’re sure we know their language. Their alphabet. Every letter glowing on the surface of our blue planet. Lit up like Christmas lights, telling them that we’re ready. That we figured it out.
It’s relativity. It’s a matter of time. There are ways to speed up; and there are ways to slow it down.
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4 Responses
Hate to break it to you but Springsteen is almost seventy-five. And yes, for three hours he never stops. It’s an amazing show.
Whaaaaat!!!! That’s even more incredible!
I was going to correct you on the age thing, I was pretty sure he was 75, so I asked Siri and she confirmed. Then I read the next line and saw you’d already been corrected. So I apologized to Siri, and she said “It’s ok.” I’m not the biggest Springsteen fan, but I acknowledge his greatness, and his Bossness. I would also like to apologize to you, to Canadia, and some of the rest of the world for what we did down here last week. I promise I did everything in my power to prevent it, which wasn’t much, but I did what I could. I kind of feel like the people who could really do something about it should have done something about it, but even they didn’t. So here we are.
I would never doubt that you would do the right thing in this. I feel a particular detached form of rage at the moment. It’s disconcerting and distracting, and it’s not ok. I can write it out. I rage my words at time, and there’s no time like the present. So I’ll let that go, but I’m endlessly detached from real action and need to find my way in this fucking mess. I choose to think this is an aberration in time, and I mean that sincerely – we fuck up all the time and we eventually learn. This is going to be a hard lesson for a lot of people. It says something about folks in general – but not too much. It says something about humanity – but isn’t the full story. What is the full story? What are we about? What is our purpose? I don’t find it in religion. I glimpse it in philosophy, understand it through history, and choose to believe that it becomes evident in our art, whatever form that may take. And art, my friend, has nothing to do with politics, or vice versa. It’s the opposite of the thing, and that’s why it bothers me so.
Sanity is overrated, in some ways. But this is just insane. I’m curious about the people who sat this out. I’m curious about the people who remained quiet. What do they want? What is their goal in all of this? We all get what we deserve, in the end. I swear to god that this won’t continue. Our children are ten times smarter than us, they must be, because we continue to make a botched up mess, even as the world keeps making exquisite beauty at the same time. Such a contradiction, this species. When aliens finally reach us, they’re either going to be dazzled by what we’ve created, or they’re going to eat us.
Anyway, I can’t believe you apologized to Siri. Actually, I do that to Alexa all the time, and I think ChatGPT when it gives me something useable. It’s weird. And kind of wonderful. As for the Boss… he was crazy good for a seventy-five year old. Mark Paxson corrected me on that, he is a fellow fan. I have zero concerts in the calendar coming up. I think I may need a few!
Be well, Walt. I love it when you chime in.