The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“I was born in the circus. I play the flat man.

My voice is flat, my walk is flat, my ironies

move flatly out to sock you in the eye.”

— Anne Carson / “My Show”

“I’ve covered thousands of foot-miles in my memory, because when — as most nights — I find myself insomniac, I send my mind out to re-walk paths I’ve followed, and in this way can sometimes pace myself into sleep.”

— Robert MacFarlane / The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

“Our relationship with death profoundly changes our relationship with life. It’s all too easy to live a long, unhealthy life without having ever felt truly alive … What will happen between this present moment and having my bones licked clean by a ravenous wild animal? As I say, I don’t know, as I’m no longer blessed with the certainties of youth. The more I explore, the less I seem to know, and I’m starting to like it that way. If someone comes along and convinces me that all of the impedimenta of contemporary society — the screens, the engines, the switches — are actually life-enriching, life-affirming, life-giving, then I’ll change tack and start sailing towards that shore, to see if they’re onto something. But for now, I’m going to try to stay in the only place that makes sense to me: the bloody, sublime, mucky, sweaty, breathtaking world of life.”

— Mark Boyle / Long Way Home: Tales from a life without technology

“When I think of / I.C.E. I think of brown / skin, that looks just like mine, trying / to make it in America. / Am I American if neo-Nazis are / running America?”

— Viktoria Valenzuela / “Oh Say Can You See”

“If you’re traveling and away from your local library this summer, no problem: Try some library tourism! Even if you don’t plan a whole trip around them, libraries are excellent spots for weary travelers: free, quiet, cool, full of locals, and staffed by people whose job is to help any visitors who walk in the door.”

— Austin Kleon / “A Newsletter from the Desk of Austin Kleon”

“The only conclusion I can draw is this: a person who walks slowly must have a much richer inner life than a person who runs as fast as their legs can carry them.”

— Torbjørn Ekelund / In Praise of Paths

“The only thing intelligent about a good art is if it shakes you alive, otherwise it’s hokum…”

— Charles Bukowski / On Writing

What I’m Listening To:

“I’ve got an old mule and her name is Sal, Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.
She’s a good old worker and a good old pal, Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.
We’ve hauled some barges in our day, Filled with lumber, coal and hay,
And ev’ry inch of the way I know, From Albany to Buffalo.”

— Pete Seeger / “The Erie Canal”