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Becky Karush's avatar

I can’t fully remember how I represented myself before social media. Having a baby in 2011 wrote over a bunch of memory. Letters, maybe? A lot of emails? Gardening? I quilted for a while in my early 20s. One abstract quilt each Christmas for three or four years. I had no quilting skills but a lot of time and fabric.

The baby is 11 now, and they are the kind of kid who might like SBB, unless they are already playing Minecraft, so I will be sharing issue 68 with them.

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Plain Jane's avatar

Love this so much, Courtney. Absolutely adoring you bringing Plato, Oscar Wilde, and Whitman into this conversation with Elon Musk. Yes, let's all gang up on the Algorithm and go out and connect. Grateful for you.

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Nov 20, 2022Edited
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Plain Jane's avatar

So true! And I love the idea of Bookstack meetup so much. Maybe it just needs to be a Zoom Friday happy hour. Or Saturday coffee. Something. More to come!

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Emmanuella Chisom James's avatar

Loved reading this so much

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Brian Jordan's avatar

Cool! Thanks. I watched the Apple TV series Dickinson, which made me think Wild Walt, which jumps back and forth between present day and past, could be a cool series.

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Brian Jordan's avatar

Thank you for another enthralling piece. You bring forth such an inspiring spirit. Great dialogue with Oscar Wilde. Imagine a dialogue among Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde (they met in 1882), you and Brandon.

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Nov 21, 2022
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Brian Jordan's avatar

Here’s the scoop: https://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/features/wilde-meets-whitman.html

I self-published a novel about Whitman called Wild Walt and the Rock Creek Gang. I should have titled it Saving Walt Whitman and I might have gotten an agent and a publisher. That’s my best mimesis—the guy who wrote that book.

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Nov 21, 2022
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Brian Jordan's avatar

There is one copy left at Amazon! Or local book stores can order it. Or I’d be happy to mail you a copy! It was selling well at Politics and Prose book store in DC—they had it on the “new releases” table. Then covid hit and they closed the store. It’s characters include some of my favorite writers, the secret Rock Creek Canon, all connected to Wild Walt: Keats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Roberto Bolano, and Richard Brautigan. I fantasize turning it into a Netflix series. 🤪

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Alison Cook's avatar

Very helpful! Just took a social media break all together so that I can remember other ways of "representing" myself. Thank you!

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