THE AUBURN CONFERENCE by Tom Piazza

Earlier this month I read LIVING IN THE PRESENT WITH JOHN PRINE, a terrific book. Prine, of course, was an interesting fellow, interesting mostly I think because he was a keen observer with a genuine affection for people. He was a guy you'd enjoy hanging out with. In reading Piazza's book, I realized that Piazza and Prine were similar souls and the book gave me a sense that not only should I spend more time with Prine, something I can do thanks to all the recordings John left us, I also wanted to spend more time with Piazza's thoughts.

While Piazza was writing the book about Prine, he was also working on a novel, one that John Prine wanted to read. John probably read it in heaven while sipping a vodka and ginger ale. I got to read it here on earth.

The book is THE AUBURN CONFERENCE and it is a fun speculation, a consideration of what didn't happen but might have if in 1883 a writer's conference took place at a small college in New York state. The big questions are "What is America?" and "What is the role of American literature?" And Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglas, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others all have something to say on the subject. The conference goes delightfully awry as egos and ideas clash and the discussion expands to include discussions of race, women's suffrage, and the roles and responsibilities of the artist.

Piazza does a wonderful job capturing the voices and the spirits of these varied writers, adding a few fictional folks to the mix including a romance novelist and retired General of the Confederacy. And an unnamed but very recognizable reclusive poet in the audience gives the novel its most quiet, hopeful voice, a sense that America and American literature will somehow endure.

Piazza's novel, which I'm sure made no best-seller lists and perhaps never even made back its printing costs, is a reminder that the dollar is a poor measure of value. MOBY DICK was a financial failure in Melville's lifetime. Emily Dickinson certainly wasn't writing for money. And Tom Piazza wrote the book that his friend wanted to read. I count myself very fortunate that I got to read it here on earth.

The ScumStack Debate

 

Lessons in Slowing Down

 

Superior Heat Wave

 

Spring Critter Update

It has been a lovely spring day here in Superior and our afternoon temps have climbed into the mid-seventies. I got out on my bike early this morning and got some nice pictures of birds against the bright blue sky.

I saw a family of geese over at Barker's Island and our back yard bunnies have been doing what bunnies do, so now it is baby bunny season. We count the bunnies as a major success in our back yard ecosystem, we had a problem with a colony of rats that were nesting under the back yard bike shed. We try to get along with all creatures, but the rats crossed the line when they chewed into the shed and then chewed the grips off Christine's bike. We live-trapped relocated some rats and I wound up killing a couple with my Daisy air rifle (and I did not shoot my eye out!). But it was the bunnies that really won the war of the rats, they took over the burrow under the shed and we haven't seen any rats in the past year. Christine feeds the rabbits and squirrels and they have figured out that we aren't a threat to them. I'm pretty sure that the healthy population of rabbits and squirrels is keeping too much seed from building up under the bird feeders and the rats have moved on to some place with less competition. Some folks say that squirrels are just rats with fuzzier tails, but our squirrels are smart enough to leave the bikes alone.

The bunnies and the squirrels mostly get along, but sometimes they fight over carrots. An adult bunny packs a hell of a kick so the squirrels have learned to avoid direct confrontation, but will steal an unguarded carrot if they have a chance and then run up a tree or hide the carrot some place that they think is safe from the bunnies.

Born to Retire

There is a great quote from Dave Prine in Tom Piazza's book LIVING IN THE PRESENT WITH JOHN PRINE. Dave is John Prine's older brother, the one who taught him how to play guitar and in December of 2022, Piazza interviewed Dave and Dave described what his daily life was like.

"Now all I do is play the banjo and the fiddle, and once in a while noodle on the guitar and enjoy life. I've been retired since '06, and I think I was born to retire. My day is mine, totally. I do what I want to do when I want to do it, and if nothing else, I take a nap. I'm eighty-five now, and I'm not as mobile as I once was."

Dave Prine is a very wise man. When I read those lines to Christine, she agreed with me that they sure echo our experience. I don't play music, but I'm pretty much living my life now in accord with Dave's principles. I think I was born to retire.

The news I care about isn't news on TV, it's mostly what is happening in my back yard. I read my local paper (electronic version) and I talk to local folks to find out their take on things. The big news at KD's this week is that we have a reptile shop opening here in town.

The big news from my back yard has been the fact that several Blue Jays are hanging out, juvenile squirrels are racing around, and new baby bunnies are taking their first cautious steps into the world. That's the news I find fascinating.

Living in the Present with John Prine

Life has a way of not going the way you planned. In February of 2020, John Prine told Tom Piazza, a musician and writer he'd been friends with for a couple of years, that he he was ready to work on writing a memoir. The weekend of February 27th, 2020, Prine and Piazza sat down with a tape recorder for what they figured was the first of a series of discussions about the book. Unfortunately, there were no follow up sessions. In March of 2020, the Covid virus shut down the world. On March 26th, John Prine was admitted to the ICU with COVID symptoms. He passed away on April 7th, 2020.

Remarkably, Tom Piazza took not only that too brief interview and combined it with his recollections of their also too brief two year friendship as well as interviews with other folks who knew and loved John Prine and has crafted a book that is not so much a memoir of a dead man, but something more powerful, a book that feels like the living spirit of the man himself. Reading the book feels like hanging out with John Prine, something that is a very worthwhile thing to do.

John is a great story teller and boy does he tell great stories in this book. And folks who know John tell great stories about John. John tells about meeting Bob Dylan at Carly Simon's apartment in 1971. John's first record isn't out yet, it's still two months away from release. So John is the new kid but he's hanging out with Kris Kristopherson and Steve Goodman at Carly's place and Bob Dylan shows up. Bob has a new song "George Jackson" which he plays, and Goodman, who's a smart Aleck, leans in and says "That's great, Bob, but it ain't no 'Masters of War.'" Bob is cool and doesn't smack Goodman (something I probably would've done) but then Prine to kind of defuse the tension starts playing "Far from Me" one of his (Prine's) new songs and Bob joins in after the second chorus! Jerry Wexler at Atlantic had sent an advance copy of the record to Dylan. Another buddy there, Eddie Olson, (Carly Simon must've had a huge apartment) says "Hey, Bob, there's some people back in Chicago that think John Prine sounds a lot like you. What do you think?" Bob looks at Eddie and then looks at Prine and says "The first time I heard your record I thought you'd swallowed a Jew's harp." Of course Prine cracks up as he recounts this tale.

Prine is always telling stories, like the time Sam Cooke entered a Sam Cooke sing-alike contest because he and his touring band needed gas money. The first prize was fifty bucks. They came in second and won a set of jello molds!

But the book is much more than just fun anecdotes about famous people, it's about John Prine being in the moment, whether he's buying shoes, eating hot dogs (John loved hot dogs), hanging out and loving life. John Prine connects with people in a way that is made vividly clear in the pages of this book. Prine doesn't try to direct his life, he's too busy living it.

Piazza copes with the grief we fans share at the loss of John Prine by giving us a book that feels like the conversation with our friend is ongoing. We'll always have the songs and the knowing smile. This book is like one more road trip with the top down, the radio playing an old song and John saying "You know, this reminds me of..."