so it is the longest day of the year.  also father's day.  took it easy.  watched a lot of TV today.  too much i suppose, but one of those things on the telly was the summer film wet hot american summer [2001], a loving homage of those lat 70s/early 80s summer flicks like meatballs [1979].  both are great movies.  the former is a film of tremendous warmth while the latter is a brilliant riff on youthful indolence starring the great bill murray.

well but then i read this article about poet donald hall.  accompanying the story is a wonderful pic of hall in his house surrounded by his books.  i remember in the 90s PBS aired a documentary on hall and i think also poet william stafford.  i recall a scene inside hall's house.  the rooms were stacked with books, on the shelves, on the floor, and i remembered thinking that that is a house of a writer.  that is the house i want.  a house filled with books.

i know we are entering a new age where all we want is available at the touch of our fingers via digital technology.  believe me, i think digital technology is great.  poet need not shun digital technologies.  i think we need to embrace digital life.  but for me, it is books that make a home.  i love books.  i love the physical presence, the weight, of books.  that image from the 90s of hall inside his home stuffed with books resonated with me.  hard!

i sit here in my room surrounded by my books.  the TV is on too.  I am comfortable with TV and never thought literature competes with TV.  i think competition is bullshit anyway.  i remember an interview with the actor/writer carrie fisher.  you remember carrie fisher, she was princess leia, from star wars [1977] -- oh by the by, i bought a couple weeks ago the novelization of Star Wars written by george lucas, published 1977; the same book that made me want to see the movie when my father and i were thumbing its pages a few months before the summer release of the movie at Payless, a dept./drug store;  thought i never would see that book again!].  she is also an accomplished screenwriter and novelist.  fisher in that interview said that she always writes with the TV on.

books and TV.  TV and the internet.  this brave, beautiful, terrifying new world.  I'll take them all.