The Shape of a Good Day
All right, time to clear the decks.
The arc of life bends long, but I don't know that holding my own writing hostage because I'm not thinking about Mixtape Forensics or Ten Things or (this one is for the real heads) the Ebert Cup is a good or productive idea. Sometimes you just want to write a short missive about what you've been up to.
For good or ill, I often think that I'm pissing my days away doing dumb shit. Then I get in my head about what not pissing my days away might look like. Everyone has their own version of the proverbial “good day”; some of us write legendary rap hits about them. Sooner or later, I start thinking about a post Austin Kleon1 made in 2017 called “A checklist for every day.” In it, Kleon traces the origin of Goethe's good day—”one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words”—and emphasizes that liking stuff is the first step towards making stuff. But also, doesn't just sound like a nice way to spend your time? Music, poetry, art: what day isn't at least improved by experiencing them?
So how have I been completing the Goethe Haul2 lately?
For reasons that can be traced back to the Midnight Special YouTube page, I've had Slade's glam-rock stomper “Gudbuy T'Jane” stuck in my head for most of the last month. Roy Peter Clark's How to Write Short inspired me to keep a book of little poems in my bag. I got reacquainted with the graphic design work of the great Aaron Draplin, a man who loves Dinosaur Jr. and painted signage on corrugated steel in equal measure; as good as his work is (and it is good, peep the archives, read the book), what I admire about him most is his blue-collar Our Band Could Be Your Life approach to working and lecturing. I'm knee-deep in words, reasonable and otherwise: books, podcasts, press releases, Scrabble3, correspondence with friends.
Most of my days are good using the rubric, and that's good enough.
1 The decks may have been cleared, but one thing that will never change here at Ahead on Differential is most of my good ideas can be traced back to either Kleon or Kottke.
2 A “haul” is what soccer fans call a four-goal hat trick, or so Reddit tells me.
3 Not only is Scrabble still an ongoing concern, but I am paying someone to teach me to get better at playing it.