Deep Enders,
We made it, friends.
From the entanglements of 2023, weāve emerged into this time we call 2024.
I keep hearing people talk of how 2024 will bring more mayhem upon humanity than its predecessor.
Perhaps, this is true. š¤·š¾āāļø
My inability to give much credence to the Nate Silverlites of the world stems from knowing that life is one jumbled equation with beta as its only constant.
To what degree of magnitude this yearās happenings will deviate from last yearās is a beyond my control (or yours for that matter).
So, letās get to the workā¦
Honest Obituaries
I had breakfast with my good friend, Michael Webber on Tuesday.
After bathing in the collective pit of our alma materās Monday night loss, I told him how much I enjoyed and respected the poignantly honest obituary that he wrote of his mother last September.
I hope someone is this honest in describing whatever debris I leave behind once I flee the world.
Revisiting Toni Morrison
Many of you long-time Deep enders will remember that I re-read a coterie of books during December/January.
This year my trinity is: The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin), The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho and The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (Eric Jorgenson).
The Almanack is a recent initiate, while Baldwin and Coelho have been longtime members.
I also picked up Tar Baby from one of my book piles (thank you for understanding, Hilary šš¾š), and my immediate response was: Damn, Toni, you are so good at what you do. It had been so long since Iād read Morrison.
She writes in a way that yanks even the most unwilling of readers into the netherworlds of her creation.
So, my 2024 project is to read every Morrison book (Iām currently on page 49 of Beloved).
This brings me toā¦
Book Goals
Look, Iām a fan of anything that gets people reading (which makes me an enemy to the vileness of book bans) but one thing that doesnāt sit well with me are numerical book goals.
They are all the rave on the interwebs.
Instagram teems with folks rushing through pages to meet their goals in December.
Perhaps, a more thoughtful approach would be to pick a subject of interest, a place in the world, perhaps a time period, and dive headlong into that rabbit hole.
Volume be damned. No ones keeping score.
And while weāre talking about booksā¦
Public Libraries
One of the things Iāll be doing more of in 2024 is going to the Austin Central Library.
I completed my LEMME exercise for 2024 and remembered how much I enjoyed my time in public libraries last year.
These cathedrals are hotels of the egalitarian order.
Status crumbles.
No bounty of points separates unhoused from the tycoon.
The library card flattens everyone onto the same plane.
My suspicion is that book bans arenāt about books or bans but libraries. Weāll look back on this McCarthyistic period and liken it to the Boston Tea Party. The Battle of Yorktown will come later and it will involve a storming of the library.
Ok, enough about librariesā¦letās talk aboutā¦
Good Sentences
I tangle with words every day. And when I come across a sentence, some string of words that strikes an unheard note, I save them.
My good friend, AdƔn Briones knows this and kindly shared a collection of good sentences from the New York Times.
This article is a goldmine of grammar.
Hereās just one of its nuggets:
On her website The Marginalian, the Bulgarian essayist Maria Popova wrote: āWe were never promised any of it ā this world of cottonwoods and clouds ā when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into what we are ā creatures who can see a universe of beauty in the feather of a bird and can turn a blind eye to each otherās suffering, creatures capable of the Benedictus and the bomb.ā
The Void Between Thought and Sound
And finally, I share with you a quote from Miles Davis.
In October of 1960, John Coltrane found himself on the other side of a heroin addiction and coming into his own as a jazz saxophonist.
Up until this point, heād lingered in the shadows of Miles Davis, but in a recording studio at 234 West 56th Street, a clean Coltrane played his rendition of Oscar Hammersteinās, āMy Favorite Thingsā.
The recording is a masterpiece.
In describing his craft, Coltrane observed:
This damned instrument.
We all have one.
Will you play it like only you can?
I love you.
Stay In The Deep End.
I spend my time speaking, writing, reading and thinking (oh and shuttling five kids across Austin, Texas).
This newsletter is a completely reader-supported publication. If you love it and want to support it, the best ways are to buy my books, hire me to speak, or become a paid subscriber. šš¾āāļø
May 2024 be an awesome adventure!