14th
What I don’t hoard: art
I’ve been thinking a lot about hoarding and sharing and oversharing and about the fact that while I love to collect things and that has caused problems in my life, what I don’t ever want to hoard is art and my appreciation for it. When I fall for a book (it’s usually a book) or a play or a movie or a piece of art or someone’s overall work, I want to share that because I then find out things, like that someone’s favorite poem is “Mayakovsky” or that awesome artist Chris Uphues, whose work I see almost every day at Gimme Coffee on Lorimer Street, writes to thank me for spreading the word. For me it’s that the joy I get out of, say, walking into what is effectively my office, Gimme Coffee, and seeing those hearts, is something I can’t measure, something that brightens my day just as much as my coffee fix. It’s not always about adding joy per se, though; I sent “Mayakovsky” to someone simply because it reminded me of them. It’s a sad, heartbreaking poem, and I didn’t even know its backstory, but I wasn’t necessarily trying to make them sad, but to share something sad yet beautiful. I have no idea yet what I’m going to say about The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at Woolly Mammoth but I know I want to write something because it spoke to me, made me laugh, showed me something, including wrestling, I’d never seen like that before. Maybe this is just me saying I have a big mouth, but you probably knew that already.
