Here is my first in long series of fresh algorithm-free newletters where I shall take the opportunity and freedom to share with you things I think are worth sharing.
I plan to publish my newsletter every week, on Tuesdays.
To the word-users unaware that a seventh of their existence takes place on Tuesdays, my newsletter may be a gentle reminder.
Are you ready?
Here goes my first:
GET OUT
The wordless world is full of magic and wonder patiently waiting for you and me to rediscover.
Sure, we may be busy. But let me assure you, the wordless world has got nothing else to do.
The wordless world just is.
And…but you know that stuff… it’s difficult to win an argument with what is.
KID & SHAKESPEARE
Is this title kidding me?
Thanks to Austin Kleon whose newsletter arrives in my inbox each Friday without fail — thank you Austin! — I am now happy to share with you this lovely 3-paragraph essay about taking a kid to see Shakespeare.
Wishing I could write like that.
SWISSMISS
Thanks to Tina Roth Eisenberg’s SWISSMISS online garden which she started back in 2005 (thank you Tina!) I am reminded of Anaïs Nin’s “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”…which in B@-speak becomes:
In SWISSMISS — which you will discover is treasure trove to get lost in more often than not (be careful!) — I also discovered this episode of The Ezra Klein’s Show on How To Discover Your Own Taste.
It is full of wonder, and like Tina, I will make sure my teenage grandkids will get to hear it too.
POETRY
Funny how poetry and poverty rhymes for good reason. Don’t you also think so?
The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything from Happening at Once
X.J. Kennedy
Suppose your life a folded telescope
Durationless, collapsed in just a flash
As from your mother’s womb you, bawling, drop
Into a nursing home. Suppose you crash
Your car, your marriage – toddler laying waste
A field of daisies, schoolkid, zit-faced teen
With lover zipping up your pants in haste
Hearing your parents’ tread downstairs – all one.
Einstein was right. That would be too intense.
You need a chance to preen, to give a dull
Recital before an indifferent audience
Equally slow in jeering you and clapping.
Time takes its time unraveling. But, still,
You’ll wonder when your life ends: Huh? What happened?
MUSES
As far as the muses for this my first newsletter are concerned, I selected music’s.
For which it is appropriate to quote Polo Hofer (the Swiss Bob Dylan): “Great music doesn’t take words, but great songs do.”
The proof’s in the pudding.
Two great songs by two great musicians I admire for their courage, for moving mountains, and for keeping their word.
Notice: To make these songs open correctly too, right-click the blue link and then select “Open Link in New Tab”.
