Field Recordings

Old workshop and grad school buddy, poet, author, father, ale drinker, and quip master-- Eric McHenry posted on this Facebook this week: Inside Amtrak's (Absolutely Awesome Plan to Give Free Rides to Authors) but I didn't get around to until Sunday, when March, my wife and compatriot, nudged me into actually reading it. It's a smashing idea, of course, and the old brain started to scheme and plot, plan a way to get a ride, test run another leg of the old Amtrak grant! Of course, all to help Amtrak work out the kinks of course! Where would I go? What could I write!?! Trains and American culture have long been involved. A pair of old lovers who meet after a long spell and enjoy hasty drinks and long greasy sleeps. George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue after taking a train to Boston--hearing its rhythms and music influenced the syncopated rhythm that he believed defined American music. One of the most exciting passages in American poetry is about trains, and is ...