Nora and I went to a show tonight. I won’t tell you who. This performer has endless talent, and a fifty-year career fully deserved. But… it felt like what you’d hear at a really sophisticated nursing home. Smooth liked mashed potatoes and gravy, comfort food.
All the greatest hits came out. And was good, this performer absolutely hasn’t lost any chops at all, gave us two full hours. But the crowd was restless, lots of meandering back and forth to the restrooms.
This puts me in mind of my own writing. It’s good, and I can totally give you a great reading experience. But—is it the SAME experience? Is it the nursing home, simultaneously excellent and familiar?
I’m putting together a collection of short stories from the last year or two, all having to do with people who are socially isolated for some reason or another. How alike are they? They range across fifty years, rural and metropolitan, poverty and wealth. But they have that common theme—how do people find themselves with no peers, no friends, no family? As I’m pulling them together, they feel… I don’t know, they feel glossy. Perfectly polished, perfectly accomplished. I know how that machine works, and I’ve got it tuned.
One of my favorite bands of the 90’s, the Crash Test Dummies, had three really great albums back to back at the start of their career. Their fourth album, Give Yourself a Hand, came with a sticker on the CD case warning that this one wasn’t much like the ones before. I didn’t much care for the new one, but they needed to make the change, and I respect that.
I’m left wondering what will come next. And I kind of like that feeling, even as it makes me unsettled. Will my fans follow me, or will I betray their expectations? (How many folk music fans does it take to change a light bulb? Five. One to turn the bulb, and four to complain that it’s electric.) I guess the next one might need a sticker.
Herb Childress 