If you're gonna scream, scream with me

Thanksgiving Day, 2024

“Hothouse Flower,” Grace Mikell Ramsey

Dolly Parton had a list of tens of thousands of people she wanted to thank in her autobiography; when the publisher refused she left a blank space on the page where you could put your own name. I feel thankful for the named and the unnamed, and most of all the ones who feel cozy and cool writing in their name. I feel thankful, too, for blank pages and invitations. You know the line in the Woody Guthrie song, the one they sometimes skip? The one about the “No Trespassing” sign? About the other side of the sign? Do you know what the other side of the sign said? It didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me. Not to get all high and mighty, but it’s a holiday, after all. And notwithstanding the trouble sorting out your land and my land and so on, a holiday is a good time to sing. I feel thankful, too, for the names to come, the names I do not yet know that I will thank. They require another page, perhaps—to be filled in at a later date, if the creek don’t rise. I feel thankful for cultural evolution, our special trick. These symbols your eyes are focusing on now, which do not mean a thing in and of themselves. But which we have, through a feat of cooperation and tradition, collectively agreed to imbue with meaning. An unread word isn’t so different than a smudge of grease. But each time a word is read, a private act of conjuring occurs. An act of creation. And the unknowable business of your brain does its thing. And let’s say the unknowable business of another brain does its thing, too, eyes focused on the very same pattern of markings. These two private meaning-making sessions turn smudges of grease into stories, say. Or textured little worlds. And the conjured meanings are probably a little different (different brains and all), but they are also shared. In some deep sense unique, in some deep sense shared. Thank you for reading.

Thanksgiving watching

Here is raw footage from a Thanksgiving service in the Manuʻa Islands, November 24, 1989. Filmed by KVZK-TV, the publicly owned broadcasting system for American Samoa. According to the description in the archives, it is an appreciation ceremony for injured farmers (“Sauniga Faʻafetai Au-faifaʻatoaga i manuʻa”). Audio quality is not amazing but several lovely choir performances. My favorite is the children’s choir that begins around the 28:30 mark. More choir music at the end, which appears to be different footage altogether.

Thanksgiving listening

I’ve highlighted this song on Tropical Depression before, but feels like the right tune for today. This is my favorite version, recorded at Guy Clark’s house during the filming of Heartworn Highways, surely one of the most charming movies ever made. (And just look at Rodney Crowell at his handsomest—and look how tiny Steve Earle was, makes me feel better about my own transition to dad bod.) The first verse is snipped off in this clip, unfortunately, but the soundtrack has the full song. Give it a spin.

Be thankful if you have yourself a baby or a buddy who can straighten out your crooked ways of thinking. Be thankful if you can gather, all the babies and all the buddies. At a long table, say. In an old familiar home. Any friend of mine is worth his habit. All the babies and all the buddies are helping each other out, even if nobody says anything about helping anyone out. There’s just something in the wine, or the laughter—not too little and not too much. Like all our blue behaviors get put through a strainer, and it’s pure pleasure that remains. And it’s all right. We’ve all just hit our stride.

Notwithstanding the trouble, a holiday is a good time to sing. You can’t sing your way out of trouble or scream your way out of trouble or cry your way out of trouble or laugh your way out of trouble. But you can sing and scream and cry and laugh with your kinfolks, at a long table, with wine if you like—and you can let the trouble have a seat at the table, too, and it’s all right, or a little more all right, and right off the bat, you have a belly full of baby’s bluebird wine. The trouble doesn’t go away, it’s just better to be among your people at a long table in an old familiar home. I miss all of y’all so much today. There aren’t enough pixels to name you all, so pick a blank space on this page and pencil in your name with your index finger. I mean it, go on now. The dear ones and the ones I’ve lost touch with and the ones I haven’t even met yet, I miss you all. I wish you were here. Let’s let the trouble in. Even laugh at the trouble, together. Let’s sing a little and eat a lot. Let’s party.

Solidarity with Wednesday

Complaints

I woke up Tuesday morning with severe tailbone pain, for no apparent reason. My friend, a dancer, corrected me: “Of course there’s a reason.” She told me to go to the doctor. There is no dignity in mystery tailbone pain. I took my toddler grocery shopping yesterday and he kept dropping items, and then I would groan when I picked them up, and then he would groan in response. Perhaps in sympathy, or perhaps for some other reason all his own.

Giving, thanks

Some terrible news to report: I wrote in the last Tropical Depression entry about Basher, the outstanding free jazz party band from New Orleans. Their frontman, Byron, and his partner, Lydia, just had their New Orleans home destroyed by a fire. They lost everything. If you can spare a dime, there is a GoFundMe, which has more details. If we could get a few donations inspired by this post, I would be so inspired, so thankful.

Requests

Let me renew my request for photographs of any kind that you have taken and think I might like to share here on Tropical Depression. They do not need to be topical in any particular way. Just images you like. Likewise, I would love to hear about visual artists 1) who y’all think I might dig and 2) who might be willing to let me use images for Tropical Depression.

Some writers on Substack, including some I enjoy reading, use AI art for their posts. I cannot stand it. Despite their best efforts at curation, it’s all hideously ugly: litter in the blogosphere, disposable, so similar to the degraded aesthetic of marketing and PR that my brain begins anticipating disposable language to match the art. There is a language, after all, to the unread copy on a knockoff cereal box. And AI art is the visual language of the knockoff cereal box. Not just detritus, not just pastiche (though certainly it is both). It’s little Spam flags in a Spam war. A war to smother and cover and scatter and chunk everything that is original and human and decent in language and in art with Spam. Spam that is valuable not for the effect it produces, but for the speed with which it can be produced: 24-7 with near-zero labor costs. Anyway. I love searching for images in the public domain, etc. But you can also make a tiny contribution to my tiny protest by sending me suggestions or images of your own!

Language & body

Burning alive, the man had no name, only titles of what he was and was not to us. A Palestinian in Gaza. Age unknown. His arms raised stiff to guard his face. His arms raised stiff because the fire had engulfed his torso so fast it contracted him into a narrative that wasn’t there. Will you allow me the vulgarity of saying that his arms were a zombie dance pose of Michael Jackson’s Thriller? Is the language of his killers not part of our life? Is there a death we have not cheapened? There is, the chorus quickly replies. The man burning alive could not scream. A physiologic thing at that point. He in total shock. We in total awe. He beyond nociception. Irrelevant larynx.

—Fady Joudah, from his recent essay “A Glass of Water, a Burning Boy”

Coda

Dada: “Marigold, what are you thankful for?”
Marigold: “Food, family, friends.”
Dada: “Cosmo, what about you, what are you thankful for?”
Cosmo: “No!”