4 THINGS
A winter solstice party in the sky: Sunday evening in the dead of winter is more like Sunday afternoon. What a fine time of day to walk the dog, though. On the way to the schoolyard the sky cracks into a magenta golden dream, like alpenglow, like cotton candy, and then on the way home it's dark. The Christmas lights twinkle cheerfully as you walk by and peek in people's windows, watching all the small, graceful moments of their quiet indoor lives.
Marc Maron's WTF interview with Sam Beam: I'm still thinking about this conversation Marc Maron had with Sam Beam of Iron & Wine fame. What a gentle, funny human. What warmth. In my mind, he's a bearded buddha, living like he does off in the woods of Carolina with five kids, a bunch of banjos and a head full of dusty tunes. He has the secret. He laughed at every single interview question—even the ones that weren't funny. "You can't be too serious about it," he said. "It's only life."
Joan Didion: After watching the Netflix documentary about her, I was inclined to reopen Slouching Toward Bethlehem and spend a night reading wisdoms like this: "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 am. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be ..."
Portobello rueben at Capitol: On a Tuesday night of no particular import we went out for bar food at Capitol on Broadway. It wasn't our first choice, but Shan Dong was full and I refuse to wait for dinner in town of 10 bajillion restaurants. So. Amidst ladies dressed in shimmery skirts and men in dapper coats, I ate the reuben of a lifetime. Beet and cabbage slaw, hearty mushroom meet, crisp rye. Thank you, world! Thanks December. Cheers Portland. Sometimes, you just get it right.
