The up! The coming! 🧳
Dear ones,
In a way, it's nice to have a bookend, a talisman, a fin at the end of a film. The first thing the pandemic cancelled for me was the launch party for The Elegy Beta which was scheduled for March 10th, the day the governor closed our state. And now--Lord-willing, and barring an unforeseen resurgence--the last thing it cancelled was the Spring MFA Retreat. I was looking so forward to seeing these writers, to being at Camp Casey, but there's comfort in knowing, or at least in feeling, that this is the last swipe of the claw.
Okay though, here's the big stuff:
First, I'm headed to Los Angeles next month to give a talk on my favorite book of travel writing, Alexander Smith's Summer in Skye (1858) at the Conference on Christianity and Literature. It'll be the first academic conference I've attended in awhile, so I'm pretty stoked. 🏴
Second, remember my friend Dave Wittig, who made the photographs for the cover of The Elegy Beta and for Festus? Well he has a gallery show for his nuclear project (weirdly, suddenly, apropos) at the Leica Gallery in...LA, of all places. When, you ask? The weekend I'm there. You're all invited to the opening on April 6th, 6:00pm and if you can't make that, you should still visit the gallery in the next month or so if you can swing it. Cherry on top: I'm taking the train back to Seattle afterward. 🚞
Those convergences feel like a grace to me; I love that I'll get to be there for it, but—I've just found out, and I thought I'd let you know because that's the kind of newsletter this is—that same night will be a cultural highlight in Seattle as Image bestows the Denise Levertov (referenced in the interview, below) award on Rowan Williams, writer and former Archbishop of Canterbury. That means my friend James K.A. Smith will probably be out, and maybe Gregory Wolfe, and a whole host of other people I'd like to see. Had we but world enough and time, eh?
But the fun doesn't stop there! (I'll bet you thought the fun stopped there). Speaking of friends, and Image, next Thursday is the launch day for a new book I'm excited about: Dancing About Architecture by Joel Heng Hartse. His first book is my favorite book of music criticism ever and for this new one I get to interview him via webinar for Image where we'll also be joined by musical guest John Van Deusen, maker of these lovely records but also of my Pacific Northwest theme song with his former band. We'll be talking about music and writing and music writing in communities of faith. It's free to attend: register here. March 24, 3:00pm PSD
I've got more to tell you but I'll save it for now—my Lewis-Tolkien class is coming up and I've still got planning to do for the CS Lewis global seminar in Oxford, London, Cambridge in August.
Press and Publications
First, I was interviewed on the topic of Christian poetics by the folks over at the Rivendell Institute at Yale. A lovely conversation ensued about Seattle used bookstores, which you can read here.
Second, I published a new poem in Christianity and Literature that just came out last week. It's behind a paywall, so I screen-shot it so you can read here.
Listening
Mr. And Mrs. Garrett Soucy / From the River to the Ends of the Earth
This is a spare and lovely folk duo reminiscent for me both of Nathaniel Rateliff and Rue Royale. Maybe there's a bit of Matchbox 20 in there somewhere; do you hear it?
Bach / Cantatas
I don't have quite the command of German I'd like, so I've been listening to these recordings with translated lyric sheet in hand, 1-2 per day through Lent.
Reading
Out of the Ashes by Anthony Esolen
A bit polemical for me, but also sensible and wistful. It pushed me to sign up Sebastian for little league.
Reynard the Fox by Anne Avery
The most exciting re-telling of a very old story-cycle in a very long time. It's like Charis in the World of Wonders in the way it immerses readers in a recognizable but wholly foreign world-view. Whenever I'm not reading it, I'm wishing I was.
This article about classroom confrontations by Richard Steele is exemplary for me of the kind of writer, the kind of teacher, and the kind of Christian I hope someday to be. Man.
Oddments
I saw Over the Rhine at St. Mark's Cathedral and it was wonderful.
I watched the 1980's movie Road House and had some thoughts.
All for now; take care out there.