Tattoos, the Indelible, Silence, Jane Austen, and Bruce, of Course

Jun 3

Jun 3 Tattoos, the Indelible, Silence, Jane Austen, and Bruce, of Course

I’ve been thinking about noise and silence and music lately. Something I used to say a lot was tweeted by the fabulous poet Ada Limón, here. “The amount of silence I need to write just one poem is astounding.” Which is, most likely, why I haven’t written poetry for ages. Other things, obviously, but the requirements are different, the silences are different. In fact, I even listen to a bit of ‘warm-up’ music when I start writing most mornings. (Max Richter, usually). I still love the music of silence, but I’m not courting it as assiduously as I once did. I no longer take the dog on long silent walks. I no longer sit in the chair in the corner in my study and stare endlessly into space after reading a few lines of someone else’s poetry.

Instead of the dog walk, I’m on the treadmill now, and I’m listening to Springsteen, which is partly why I got hooked on his music. By now I’ve watched a lot of videos. I love the young Bruce, the less young Bruce, and I love his newer stuff. I love that I can watch this, and then this. And his latest. Multitudes. The more I think I know about him, and the more I read about him, the less I know. And this is what it’s like with any new subject that you fall in love with. I have very often smiled to myself when I see a bookstagrammer talking about which Jane Austen novel they should read first. I’ve read each book more times than I can count, written university papers, read countless essays and books of criticism, yes, watched every variation of the movies etc. Still, I do think it’s lovely to see someone fall into the material, fall in love with her work. So I can only hope the longtime Bruce fans will cut me similar slack.

I’ve also been reading up on Bruce, of course. When I’m in, I’m in. I will possibly have more to say about these books pictured above at a later date, but with my copy of the Brian Hiatt book, The Stories Behind the Songs, I also received a temp tattoo. Which honestly got me thinking that if I were to get a tattoo, and it were to be a line of music from Springsteen….what would it be????? I mean, I’ve had my Jane Austen tattoo picked out for a long time.

“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”

I’m probably going to have to think more about my actual Bruce Springsteen tattoo. Which, no, I’m not ever really going to get. But I think of it as a creative exercise. What words would you most like to get tattooed indelibly on your skin?