Massive Massive Oil Slick
A letter to my friend Nick in Berlin
Dear Friends,
This is a story about reading, and at the same time it’s a reply to the friend who sent me the book.
I’ve been realizing lately that “reading” isn’t just one thing. It isn’t always, or even most of the time, sitting down and proceeding from page one to the end. I’m always reading an array of books, each in its own way.
I’m late with this letter in part because this book I’ve been reading, Massive Massive Oil Slick by Sean Ashton, acted like a spell, it tangled me up and wouldn’t let go.
— Sal
Dear Nick,
Last weekend, David brought your envelope to me at the book fair. “Sorry,” he said, “I haven’t seen you until now.” From mid-June to Mid-September is a slow postal service, but going from hand to hand is the best way for a package to travel.
The thin brown envelope is perfectly ordinary, but it’s something you would never see in the US. The paper is as light as possible, as if it were from the days when air mail paper was translucent to save postage and it gives off a little of the molecular magic of a German stationary store.
Today is cloudy in New York, neither cool nor warm. I’m writing from the courtyard of a hotel, one which was a seminary when I first lived here. It still has the look, but has been given new occupants. Wind has brought down clusters of winged maple seeds and small leaves from a small tree just overhead. An inchworm drops onto my hand and I blow it off with a puff of breath.
I like being around travelers. They give off a sense of possibility and movement. The feeling reminds me of standing in one of those big European train stations—you could make up your mind to board a train heading in any direction.
I’m here with the book you sent, Sean Ashton’s Massive Massive Oil Slick, a silky Ma Biblithèque paperback just the size of my hand from palm heel to finger tip. I love that it was conveyed directly from the Miss Read art book fair in Berlin to the New York Art Book fair. Fair to fair, hand to hand.
By now, I imagine you’ve finished the book but I’m still in the early pages.
Read the rest on my weekly, Free Words.