Death. Taxes. Rivers. Firearms. Oil. Freshly-made pasta. Fine woodworking tools. Burlap. Coleman coolers. White oak. Pine tar. Wool. Bacon. Bicycles. Music. The Middle East. Canadian girls. Funeral tents. Gifts to American Presidents. Black and white photos. Holes of different sorts. eBay. Life, and how to live it. Broken thing still for sale. New Old Stock. Trying not to accidentally kill myself in a humiliating fashion.
People who tend to make the people around them better, way better than previously thought possible. Like Steve Nash. Anyone who aspires to eat (or live) with an appetite as voracious as Whitman, or perhaps Jim Harrison.
Pere Ubu. Destroyer. Pelican Daughters. Muslimgauze. Lftr Pllr. Hoagy Carmichael. US Saucer. Low. Mountain Goats. Lavender Diamond. Little Feat. Dead Letter Office. Lou Reed. Go Betweens. Gang of Four. Pylon. Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks. Robert Zimmerman. And whatever we're listening to on the record player when we're sitting on your living room floor. And radio without commercials.
The Apartment. Kippur. All the Real Girls. Deliverance. Theory of Achievement. The Cruise.
Mentos commercials and the McLaughlin Group. Globetrekker. The Wire. Wild Chicago. And New York Noise when the kids (or the oldsters) get to comment on all the music videos.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
James Agee. Walter Benjamin. Christy Mathewson. Eleanor Roosevelt. Willie Nelson. Johnny North. Stephen Colbert. Walker Evans. Pat Hearn and Colin DeLand. My folks and their parents. Robert Kennedy. You.