Writing for the New Millennium

I watched a small Latino boy play with a large black plastic horse on the train this morning. The horse was oversized, bigger than the boy’s head, and stiff—no moveable parts. The kid sat in his stroller, put the horse on the ground and made it go: “bad-ump, bad-ump, bad-ump,” just like we did in my childhood, before toys involved moving only your thumbs.

Everything these days gets poured into a song I am writing. Like milk. This is my first attempt at a song. It is, perhaps, becoming overcrowded.

Witness:

I read about a phrase of Poe’s: “The imp of the perverse.” Song.

And now a description of Michel Fournier, a man attempting the highest atmospheric skydive ever (25 miles up)—a height from which your blood boils and pours from your orifices. Burkhard Bilger, the author of this New Yorker piece, gave this fantastic description of Fournier: “As he talks, he hunches his shoulders, flutters his hands, blows out his cheeks, and bobs his head—the full arsenal of Gallic mannerisms. One moment he’ll cry out in high delight—Hoo-hoo!—eyebrows peaked like accents circonflexes. Then, suddenly, his lips clamp shut and his eyes glint, like a toad that has swallowed a dragonfly.”

Marvelous.
(Song.)

“Text sex.”
Song.

I will know today if I will have a niece or a nephew. There hasn’t been a boy in my family in forever…points to boy.

Song?
Baby.

“Baby, baby, baby…baby, baby, baby…” Most overused word in a song?

Going to stick with “imp.” Less common. “Imp, imp, imp…imp, imp, imp…”