a free book jubilee and other praise for personal artistic endeavour

There is a bookstore down the street from my 15x15 foot cell. (I'm mostly kidding about the cell, not the size, but the whole connotation that I'm monkish...although being cloistered occassionally strikes me as a capital idea. After all, Hildy Von Bingey was a nun, though not cloistered as far as I know.)

So there's a bookstore that has a box out front on the street, and in the box are free books

*angels choir, stream of light*

And today I lucked out not just once, oh no...but twice!

Both times I walked past the box I found books of interest that were also free

The words "free books" give me shivers every so often.

What books did I find, you might ask?

Linguistics and Theology (something about Noam Chomsky and religion)
Complete Poems of John Milton
Spencer's Faerie Queen
Holy Fire: Nine Visionary Poets and the Quest for Enlightenment by Daniel Halpern, including Rumi, William Blake, W.B. Yeats, Rilke and Allen Ginsberg
1000 Faces of God by Rebecca Hind (as sort of encyclopedia of religious art)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (a great novel, and I already own it but I thought I'd pick it up to gift it. First person to respond gets it for free)

Oh yes, I scored big time on the free books.

I've had an excellent week in the artistic wing of my soul. Thursday I walked to another local bookstore to peruse their poetry journals. You see, I am sending off some of my poems to be considered for publication at the urging of a classmate. So I was looking through some of the journals to decide which might be appropriate for me and my poetry. And in the name of self-care I also purchased a luxurious new journal. It has a "moleskin" (read leather minus the moo) cover, a silken tassel for keeping one's place, a elastic band for keeping the cover shut, and a pocket in the back for loose paper, photographs, napkins covered in poetry etc...

I feel decadent writing in the thing with the smooth black ink of my fancy pens. It makes writing feel like a holy act...perhaps like "spiritual practice." Ah Ha!

Anyway, while I was rockin' the life of the solitary writer I happened upon a reading by Irvin Welsh, author of Trainspotting and several other novels. He read from his new books in a thick Scottish accent. I adore Scottish accents and it made the writing sound better too.

I was a wee bit dissapointed in his Q&A after the reading. I am always interested in hearing writers talk about their work, their creative processes, their intentions behind their craft. But I have noticed that prose writers seem to be less intense about it. Maybe it's my poetic bias. But I have been to readings of Sharon Olds and Billy Collins and have watched an interview with Anne Carson (among many other poetry readings...these are just a few) and they are really "into" their writing and talking about their writing. Even Billy Collins with his jolly uncle who is secretly deep schtick spoke with a suprising amount of reverence about poetry and poetics.

It really probably is my bias.

And for the music side of things. I am auditioning for a number of choirs in the area in the hopes of getting to sing more this year. I am giddy with excitement about this, and substantially worried about my lack of sight-reading abilities (which have never been good, and continue to deteriorate since undergrad). Today I went to the downtown library and picked up several scores that contain some songs that I used to sing well back in the operatic days. These include: Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, John Dowland Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite, Menotti's The Medium and various others.

Singing will be a good hobby for me during another year of seminary. We'll see how age and lack of practice have effected the pipes.