Autumn reminds me of this vignette I'd Xeroxed from some selected works by poet Karl Shapiro when I was fifteen. I'd plucked two or three random tomes from the poetry aisle at the library where a particular boy from the senior class was shelving books. Then, with an ersatz nonchalance, I began copying arbitrary passages from them with the machine at the end of the aisle in a calculated move to stay in view of him.
Nothing ever happened between myself and the boy from the senior class, though thinking back on it now, I'm pretty sure he at least liked the attention. I did, however, wind up keeping the unexpectedly fascinating bundle of papers that had been my flimsy excuse to be in his vicinity. I wonder if this might have been the accidental start of a lifetime pursuit of curating and embellishing little moments of longing and desire. Or why the alchemical bouquet particular only to very old books, triggers for me fantasies about trysts in libraries. Or why I have hurled insults with intimacies.
I don't pretend to fully understand the sometimes-perverse flush of triumph inherent in piquing a person's interest, regardless of intent, though I know I've experienced it from numerous opposing angles. It's perhaps this perpetual incomprehension that causes me to break such themes apart and reassemble them, again and again, or why every song I write is some kind of love song.
This month, you'll have the opportunity to probe these considerations with me a song at a time, starting tomorrow afternoon at Mosaic Taphouse, as part of the first annual St. Johns Music Festival. Later in the month, I'll have a brief set on the busker stage of the PDX Pop Now Festival, curated by Curbside Serenade. And then I'll be closing out my September shows by joining Rocky Seahorse at the Covert Café for an early show.
