Conclusion and follow-up to previous post:
Connection has so many layers. Of love. Of art. Of our icons. Of colleagues. Of friends. Of the ones who’ll come after we’re here.
Of self. In this brutish time, this year, the days I’ve been reading the book, I’m reminded not to make myself small, not to silence my voice, not to let anyone else control my narrative. My voice is resistance. My voice is survival of honesty about who I am and what my writing can say about who I am. I don’t define myself by what I’m not: literary writer, prophet, sage. I’m a storyteller. It’s enough.
Thank you, Paul, for that.
You’ve got to shake your fists at lightning now
You’ve got to roar like forest fire
You’ve got to spread your light like blazes
All across the sky
They’re going to aim the hoses on you
Show ’em you won’t expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die
Come on now
You’ve got to try
From “Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Song)”
1972 ©Joni Mitchell Pub Corp
I made a YouTube playlist of 85 of the 86 songs I listened to during the course of reading this memoir (the 86th is live and has bad sound quality). My playlist is public, if you ever want to check out any of the versions I listened to.
Below are the ones I heard while reading the end of the memoir.
“Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” 1975
“Coyote” 1976
“Cactus Tree” 1968
“A Chair in the Sky” 1978
“God Must Be a Boogie Man” 1979
“Two Grey Rooms” 1991
“Free Man in Paris” 1974
“Urge for Going” 1966
“My Old Man” 1971
“Strong and Wrong” 2007
“The Jungle Line” 1975
“Lead Balloon” 1998
“Last Chance Lost” 1994
“The Windfall (Everything for Nothing)” 1991
“Hejira” 1976
“Dog Eat Dog” 1985
“Sex Kills” 1994
“This Rain, This Rain” 2013
“Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” 1977
“Furry Sings the Blues” 1975
“Cotton Avenue” 1977
“Help Me” 1974
“Come In From The Cold” 1991
“The Crazy Cries of Love” 1998
“Night of the Iguana” 2007
“This Flight Tonight” 1971
“Both Sides Now” 1966 (which has floated over the book from its beginning but is only now in full presence near the end, in what Lisicky calls “the beginning of the ongoing goodbye”)
“Big Yellow Taxi” 1970
“Underneath The Streetlight” 1982
“A Strange Boy” 1976
“Borderline” 1994
“Nothing Can Be Done” 1991
“Shine” 2007
“Raised On Robbery” 1974
“Lucky Girl” 1985
“Turbulent Indigo” 1994
“Just Like This Train” 1974
“Fiction” 1985
“All I Want” 1971
“This Place” 2007
“Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Song)” 1972