Just A Peck 0007 // APT, Pigeon Photographers, Forgetfulness

Just A Peck

Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here! New issues come out most Sundays. Unsubscribe at any time.

WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS WEEK

Zinema Movie Posters
This week the Zinema is playing two of my favorite movies! The Blues Brothers and Do The Right Thing. These are both so much fun to watch on the big screen with a crowd of fans. Tickets are available here.
Concerts on the Pier
Jeremy Messersmith and Sophie Hiroko are at Glensheen's Concerts on the Pier this week!
Fairhaven Farms
Fairhaven Farms has a dinner series which offers "four inspired courses, curated wine pairings, and heartfelt hospitality". Each dish is made from ingredients grown at Fairhaven or neighboring farms. We'll be joining some friends there this week for the first time.

JOURNAL

APT 2025
We spent the week at American Players Theatre in Spring Green. We go with a group at least once every summer (often twice plus a third trip for the fall show). It's one of my favorite places in the world. I look forward to this trip every year.

We saw six shows this season: Anna in the Tropics, The Barber and The Unnamed Prince, The Winter’s Tale, Fallen Angels, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Tribes.

Arcadia
We went to so many bookstores, including one of our favorites: Arcadia.
Richland Center AirBnb
We stayed at a beautiful AirBnb in the bluffs around Richland Center, cooked and ate together, talked about theater, and looked at the stars. It was lovely.
APT Group Photo

What I watched:

  • Shin Godzilla (2016). Apparently Godzilla evolves through multiple forms like a Pokemon and his first form is Derp-osaurus. Nothing is scarier than the ineptitude of government officials.
  • The Golem (1915). Iconic German Expressionist classic. Clearly an influence on Whale's Frankenstein. Some pretty clever in-camera effects. Inescapable antisemitism.

What I’m reading:

MEMORIES

Five Years Ago: While everyone was still on lockdown, Kaylee came up with a small business idea to help people send each other a little bit of love through the mail. She launched Kaylee’s Care Packages which kept her busy during her Covid gap year.

Kaylee's Care Packages

Fifteen Years Ago: We were beginning the “soccer season” of our parenting journey.

Kaylee and Grace in soccer shirts

MY FAVORITE POEM OF THE WEEK

Forgetfulness
By Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!

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