Yesterday afternoon, my father-in-law reminded me of Poe’s advice for the modern fiction writer: a narrative should be readable in a “single sitting,” or at least divided into sections that are themselves roughly sitting-length. We debated for a while what constitutes a “sitting,” and ultimately decided that Poe had in mind a timespan roughly correlated to the strength of the average American bladder.
Taking into account advances in hydration since the 1840s, and considering also the likely prevalence of UTIs in the days before penicillin, we guessed that a “sitting” in Poe’s time was probably just about equal to our own—two hours, give or take.
The idea of a weekly blog came to me, composed of essays about fiction and poetry read in one sitting. After reflecting on a conversation with my former mentor, I decided to expand that to cover film, music, and art. I took a long walk through my FIL’s suburban neighborhood, then wrote up the first post, anticipating total silence. For whatever reason, it got a quick and enthusiastic response from friends, strangers, and people whose opinions I deeply trust and respect.
I will now be super embarrassed if I don’t follow through with this idea. So I guess I have to actually do it now. Thanks a lot, everyone.
My fiancée and I are dealing with some (thankfully minor) health issues today, after a long night in the Emergency Room. Hospital papers say we checked in at 8:58PM and left at 4:03AM, in case anyone’s keeping score. I’m running on 3 hours of sleep and the remains of a cold coffee that I found next to our bed this morning but do not remember purchasing.
Things got scary for a while last night, especially after Jane went in for a second round of testing and I was left alone in the waiting room. To calm my head and to remind myself that there was still a life on the outside of this hospital and a future on the other end of this situation, I spent the early hours of the morning putting together our wedding playlist. We’re having the ceremony in September, at my uncle’s farmhouse in North Jersey, so the vibe is something like “Lefty Americana”—lots of Springsteen, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, and the Stones in their country-western-adjacent era, plus the usual 2010s hipster fare.
Around 3AM, Jane fell asleep in a triage bed and I turned up the volume to tune out the hospital sounds—beeping, groaning, screaming, dry coughs, wet coughs, and everything in between as patient after patient piled into the ER and filled every available inch of floor space. In the middle of that overwhelm, I managed to find some calm. I rediscovered the greatest love song of the 21st century so far.
I am talking, of course, about Gillian Welch’s 14-minute epic “I Dream a Highway,” off her 2001 album with David Rawlings, Time (The Revelator). I listened to it continuously to calm my rising panic, until we got news that surgery would not, after all, be necessary. Jane and I played it in the car on the dark drive home, and we realized that it might just be the perfect object to open this project—and maybe the perfect first dance song, we’ll see.
If all’s well by tomorrow, and it looks like it will be (fingers crossed), I’ll have the first post up by Sunday.
Thanks to everyone who reached out last night with love and support. Good hours feel more precious than ever. If you’re interested in writing a guest essay, please reach out to me here or on Twitter @pourfairelevide.
I’m so glad things worked out! Also “Lefty Americana” perfectly defines the music that I hate the most. So thanks for that!