I find myself freaking out about my own mortality and its potential impact on the lives of my sons. Lately this anxiety has manifested itself in an obsessive-compulsive desire to amass over a hundred movies in a digital library through VUDU and iTunes. And, so long as the passwords get passed on, I like to imagine my sons getting to know me through the films I deemed important enough to buy, and the music in my iTunes account. But what would they really get out of this? This is just one more thing I can't really control. How sad it is to me to think that I might not be able to talk to them about why I love Linklater films, how Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movie I saw on VHS, or where I was the first time I heard Nirvana. And what about all the stupid little things like how to drill a pilot hole into metal? Or how to drain the carburateur of the lawn mower?
So maybe I'll actually do this thing, little bits at a time, and hopefully more consistently than most of the creative projects I begin and abandon. I once read a Goethe quote on the wall of the Phoenix public library that said something like beginning things has genius and power in it; I hope that's about right. Here goes.
