A is for Week One

For a time, I’m going to use this as a weekly media log.

In the first week of 2023, I finished reading Matt Bell’s Appleseed. Three interwoven tales from past, near-future and far-future. I had only one wish from this book—that its had made its mythical connections earlier and more explicit. Why? Not because I was not getting them, but because the withholding felt not intrinsic to the text but a carrot at the end. The birth of a faun into early America was a fascinating premise… and I wish there had been more roots to uncover. There’s biblical and Greek myth everywhere (Cain and Abel/Adam and Eve/Orpheus and Eurydice (never looking back)/Dionysus but not. It made me want to re-read Jitterbug Perfume. I also craved more psychology… and to see John’s faun form slip during his lifetime. But that’s how it is with good books… they make us want to rewrite them to our specs. Unfair really, to authors, but true in my case.

I also read Inger Christensen’s poetic fibonacci sequence—alphabet. An incantatory masterpiece. Spell binding.

We watched Amsterdam. I believe Christian Bale was built for this role. What a crooked little man. I recommend.

I listened to America’s eponymous album (with A Horse with No Name). There is something about this band that gets to me. I hope to have more to say about it later.