So It Goes

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Burned Out

I was stranded on the moving sidewalk, shifting my weight impatiently behind a tour group who had bunched themselves up in the middle of the conveyor belt. I was somewhere between terminals at Washington-Dulles, either halfway gone or halfway home, depending on whether you gate-checked your optimism or not.

The walls were lined with shots of American Beauty or some other patriotically themed installation, photographs that are supposed to capture iconic scenes from sea to perfectly shining sea but instead look like the default screensavers that came with your last Dell.

The Capitol at sunset. A grain silo at sunset. George Washington’s granite face staring at a South Dakota landscape. At sunset.

The next to the last picture was just past the end of the moving sidewalk and, as the tour group shuffled past with their slices of Sbarros and stuffed neck pillows from Hudsons Booksellers, I realized that the frame that was supposed to backlight it had burned out.

I felt terrible for the photographer, who’d probably stood for hours—days—in a field waiting for all of the wheat (or whatever harvestable grass that was) to bend in that particular direction and for the sunset to catch it JUST LIKE THAT before capturing it on a memory card. Days or weeks or months later, he submitted that photo to the Dulles Airport Interior Decorating Committee and was delighted when it was accepted, knowing that hundreds of thousands of slightly annoyed air travelers would have the opportunity to see HIS OWN WHEAT PHOTOGRAPHY! Celebratory drinks were probably poured. A future of taking background shots for the Wheaties box was dreamed of. Maybe he stepped off that same moving sidewalk, lingering in front of that same picture to think about What It All Means, lost in the pixels until a red-faced man clipped his Achilles tendon with a rolling suitcase. 

Or maybe they just ordered it from a stock photo company.

Either way, that one unlit, overlooked picture caught more of my attention than the two dozen landscapes and seascapes and other-scapes that were hanging to its right. There’s probably a metaphor there but I’m not going to look for it, not now. My Sbarros is getting cold.

Exit Benedict

“Traditionally, a cardinal would approach a Pope moments after his death and tap his head three times with a silver hammer to ensure that he was deceased.”

I’m trying to be respectful on Pope Benedict’s last day, but all I can think is “Bang, bang papal silver hammer/Came down upon his head/Bang bang papal silver hammer/Made sure that he was dead.”

You’re welcome.

Find something that you really believe in, and think won’t harm anybody, and stick with it. It’s not what you think you ought to be championing, it’s what you can’t help championing. It might be trams, or it might be that there should be more branches of Harvey Nicks in Leeds apart from the small one in the middle, or that a huge monument to the Mekons and Gang of Four should be put up in the city centre. [Whatever it is] it’s probably in you already, you just have to locate it.

Robin Hitchcock, whose new album comes out next Tuesday. (Just in case you wanted to give me a ‘Hooray, It’s Tuesday!’ present)

I am still my teenage self. If you think that we all step through a door marked Adult, or that we sign a Grown-Up Document, you’re quite wrong. We remain as we always were, and that, alas, is one of life’s many nasty tricks.

Morrissey

Read everything. Write. Do not hope that elves will come in the night and write your novel for you. They NEVER do. I’ve tried, and it’s a waste of time. And finish things, just whatever it takes to finish, finish, and then get on with the next one. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.

Neil Gaiman, when asked what he’d tell aspiring authors 
This is what I picture anytime I see this phrase posted as someone’s Facebook status update. That’s right, people I went to high school with. You’re Buffalo Bill. YOU’RE ALL BUFFALO BILL.

This is what I picture anytime I see this phrase posted as someone’s Facebook status update. That’s right, people I went to high school with. You’re Buffalo Bill. YOU’RE ALL BUFFALO BILL.

Things Wot I Found During My Mega-Housecleaning
Several years ago, an ex cheated on me and—after several weeks of wracking sobs and eating fistfuls of brownie batter—I decided to retaliate by subscribing his withered new girlfriend up for a dozen or so magazines.
Although I inked her name and address on all of these cards, I never sent them to their respective P.O. Boxes, which is a shame. She really would’ve enjoyed ‘New Witch.’

Things Wot I Found During My Mega-Housecleaning

Several years ago, an ex cheated on me and—after several weeks of wracking sobs and eating fistfuls of brownie batter—I decided to retaliate by subscribing his withered new girlfriend up for a dozen or so magazines.

Although I inked her name and address on all of these cards, I never sent them to their respective P.O. Boxes, which is a shame. She really would’ve enjoyed ‘New Witch.’