December 19 → December 24
The Green Couch in the Living Room → The Couch in Nana & PopPop’s Living Room
Dear Dad,
This is a letter. Just so you know. (You might be reading the printed copy, but it’s also on the website in case that’s easier).
I’m thinking of this kind of like filling the first few pages of a notebook that you’re giving someone with stuff you hope they’ll like. Page one has a letter, pages 2-8 have some interesting articles and things to look up later.
Except I guess that seems somewhat worse to me because it’s more permanent. Maybe it’s like giving someone a notebook and tucked in the first few pages are some loose sheets that you could choose to tape into the notebook, put someplace else, or just throw away if you want to. Because that’s sort of how this works. I started making this website partially as a thing for you to use, and partially as an easier way to see all of the stuff I’ve sent you over the past few months. But if you decide that you want to just use it as a place to keep writing or education thoughts or whatever else you want, you can absolutely just get rid of or hide the sections I’ve added. No hard feelings.
About the stuff – it’s been a lot. Most of it is (I believe) genuinely good, but even still I don’t know if it’s always really the thing you need. It’s been a long fall, it’s likely to be a long winter, and (as much as really cool stuff about virtual reality or illustration is great) you spend a lot of time reading things and doing things on your computer. So here is a list of twenty-five (because it’s Christmas, damn it) recommendations for the real world. There’s no real theme here, other than that they can’t be digital.
Watching the way that smoke trails out of the exhaust pipes of the car in front of you in freezing weather when you’re sitting in traffic and already late on the way to school.
Finding someplace really quiet and then trying to hear silence.
Holding your hand in front of you and looking at the way light falls on the top of it, then looking at the side of your hand that’s in shadow.
Finding a sticker that someone has put in someplace funny.
The next time you’re having a conversation with someone and it’s really boring, trying to figure out what small animal they remind you of the most as they’re talking.
Walking through JP Center when it’s dark out (to be fair this happens at about 4 PM in the winter, but bonus points if it’s just snowed).
Speaking of snow, catching a single snowflake on your glove.
Looking at the way cats fur changes color and texture (as seen when you fluff it up the wrong way).
Looking both inside and outside at once by looking into a window at night.
Rust patterns.
The sound of people talking outside on a quiet snowy day.
The way a paper towel (a good one, not that generic brand shit) expands to perfectly soak up water.
A good stone.
Trees without leaves that look like kind of like people, and also people without leaves that look kind of like trees.
Getting pleasantly lost.
Mishearing someone in a surprising and interesting way.
The variety of colors that make up the sky.
Picking a random spot in the drum at the Athenaeum, choosing the book with the most interesting-looking spine and title, and checking it out.
Asking the kinds of questions about the world that a five year old would.
Relatedly, isn’t the way that static electricity affects your hair when you hold a balloon up to it cool?
Setting aside time to doodle with abandon.
Smelling something you wouldn’t normally try to smell just to see if it happens to be interesting.
The mirror infinity box at the MFA, or any other mirror infinity you can find.
Writing letters even if you talk to people regularly or are sitting next to them as you type.
Making a list of an arbitrary but highly thematic length.
One additional real-world recommendation: White by Benjamin Zucker. He visited my Liberal Arts in Question class this fall, gave us all books, and talked to us for a while. It was a really interesting conversation, and I spent the whole time thinking it was a book for you. Each two-page spread has a large image on the left, and then text on the right with commentary from various people (fictional, not, etc.) arranged around it Talmud-style. Except that this one you find Groucho Marx popping up in the margins to comment on the story.
I decided I was going to give this to you for Christmas about two months ago (when I was sitting in that class), and then realized when I was driving on the Mass Pike with Mom that I had left it in my dorm room, with literally no way to get it back until I returned from school. Worse, because Zucker’s books never gained much popularity (White is actually the third book in a trilogy, but you don’t really need to read them in order), it was also impossible to buy a copy of Blue or Green (the first and second books respectively) and get it in time for Christmas. So I don’t have it for you. But it does exist in the real world, and I really can’t wait for you to get to explore it. I think you might like it.
Anyway, this letter is getting long.
You should go to www.tully.page to get the rest of this gift.
“New York could hypergentrify itself into one continuous A.T.M. vestibule, or sink under rising oceans, and somehow you’d still go outside and find its residents, over by the deposit envelopes or oyster beds, doing their casually deranged thing."
Soph.