Sunday, November 27, 2016


The media had broken down as result of Trump’s election. Click-bait fake news had taken over and traditional news outlets were vilified and harassed into the margins. Anyone who stood up for the truth or for thoughtful debate could expect a targeted campaign of online vitriol and humiliation. I just remember somehow trying to navigate this new world.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Pete invited me into the record store. They were going out of business, he said, so I was free to take anything I wanted. The space was piled floor to ceiling with empty beer bottles, everything Pete and his coworkers had drunk over the years. I tried to calculate whether there were thousands of dollars worth of five-cent deposits or hundreds. I decided hundreds. Pete told me I could take anything from their inventory, and there was more downstairs. I went down there to find a vast storeroom. There were kitchen utensils and knick knacks like salt and pepper shakers. Glasses, plates. I think I dreamt this because we walked by the tag sale on Seventh Avenue on Sunday.

There was a luthier’s room with guitar parts strewn about it, a workbench for repairs, and guitars hung on the walls. I walked past it to a corner of the room with strange stringed instruments I’d never seen before. There were piles of a double-CD entitled “Titles of Every Country Song of All Time.” No music, just the titles. I supposed there had been so many country songs that it took two CDs to fit a list of them all. There were guitar picks. I couldn’t find the ones I use, Fender super heavies, so I took a box of Fender heavies. I wondered if I should text C. D. and ask him what picks he uses, and take some for him.


I’d gathered some other things, I can’t remember what. They were becoming cumbersome in my arms and I had to constantly shift around so I wouldn’t drop anything. Sara called and I told her to come down, take what she wanted. There was very little good music left, though. Just easy listening compilations, Christmas music. Titles like “Trumpet Classics.” I figured it was time to leave.

Wednesday, November 09, 2016


We were on a trip somewhere, the three of us. We visited an old house on a hill, then watch a film of it being deliberately destroyed. It rolled down the hill on some kind of trailer, gathered up some other structures in its path, and crashed on the other side of the street, partly falling into a lake. There were a couple of ancient bluegrass musicians at this house, or in this film. One played the guitar beautifully, remarkably well for his age.