Hello friends. A tiny tour route update

The January leg (we didn’t talk) included 6 shows across New Zealand and Australia. Now I’m in Basel, Switzerland for 17 hours. It’s a dreamy place and I’d like to stay longer please. The past week has seen a show in Brussels, two in Amsterdam, and one in Berlin. Next up are Milan (on Olympic closing weekend!), Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Dubendorf, three weeks bouncing around the UK, and ending this leg with two shows at Paris’ La Seine Musicale. That’ll take us nearly to the end of March.

Jenny, Harrison, and Ezra (in age-order) joined the tour for the past week. We ate, drank, and were merry and occasionally tired and grumpy as well.

Here are a few things that have caught my eye (you can get the director’s cut over on Retro!) and then the episode:

At Least

Everybody—everybody should be able to go to sleep

Without fear that their houses are going to be demolished on the top of their heads

At least once in a lifetime

Everybody should feel that they are needed

And tucked into sleep with nice words and kisses

At least once in a lifetime

And everybody should be able to walk to the end of the land

And come back with a bunch of flowers in their hand

At least once in a lifetime

Everybody should be able to walk along the promenade

Proud and content with a bespoke suit

At least once in a lifetime

Everybody should be able to put their hands in their pockets

And bring something more than air

At least once in a lifetime

And everybody should be able to climb to the tallest building in town

And shout to the world, “I’m here! I’m going nowhere!”

At least once in a lifetime

Those are the lyrics to the song “Lifetime” by CHOPCHOP. There is a beautiful audio piece produced by Phil Smith and featuring performance artist and CHOPCHOP frontman Xelís de Toro reading them as a poem. That feature is the first segment of the final episode of Josie Long’s impeccable radio show Short Cuts, which ran for many years on BBC Radio until it was ruthlessly cut short at the end of 2024. It is very moving.

Can I read to you?

When I’m alone I read books aloud to myself and when I’m with my kids I read books to them. My mom read to my sisters and me seemingly non-stop for the entirety of our childhood years and it was a transportive experience that I still find deeply soothing and to be a very enriching way to experience text. Oral storytelling is of course an ancient human practice, and to hear the voice of someone you love wrapping you in the warm fleece of that tradition feels like an important bonding ritual. Vocal timbre is a significant factor in attraction, and humans are capable of recognizing thousands of distinct individual voice-prints.

I’m curious about reading aloud as performance. I struggle with the question of how to balance natural, genuine voice quality with dynamic aural presentation. I think I should try to avoid obvious affect, and question where intentionally crafted performance crosses the line into disingenuousness. Many of my friends use their voice as a primary part of their work, and I should probably talk to them about this.

I would like to read aloud to my friends more often (and ask them to read to me) so here, to get the ball rolling, I would like to read to you.

In Adelaide last month I happened on a copy of Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which I had never read. I grabbed it for a few bucks and found it predictably humorous, tender, bleak, a little sexy, and a little sad. Just now, in Basel, I recorded an excerpt (Part 6: The Angels, chapters 2-3), and here it is.

In which I learn to tie my shoes (for the first and second times)

At age 43 I revised my shoe-tying technique for the second time since initially learning this life skill at a young age. So I have learned this skill three times so far in my life and I remain devoted to the process of continuing to explore the possibilities of efficiency and innovation in this pursuit.

A timeline:

Age 4-5: I first learn to tie my shoes. It is an arduous process, fraught with failure, frustration, and a slow path to consistency and competence. My mother creates a shoe-tying aide—a thin board with the outline of a sneaker and a trellis of shoelace pre-threaded through eyelet holes. Long lace ends allow for repeated practice and experimentation. Make the rabbit ears. Around the tree trunk. Through the gopher hole. Pinch. Hold. Pull. Secure. Adjust. Try again. Secure. Hold. Hold and wrap. Release. Fuck! Too loose. Comes undone after 5 minutes of walking. Re-wrap. Hold the train track while pinching the rabbit ears. Now hold and twist. Quick! Release! Won’t stay. Wrap again. Wrong way.

Age 6-29: General competence is eventually achieved and speed begins to develop. Incredible speed. Daily repetition forges neural pathways are forged and muscle memory solidifies. Still, consistency is elusive. Mysterious anomalies remain present with no clear pattern. Sometimes the knot stays firm and reliable all day. Sometimes it unravels after 10 minutes, one hour, two hours. Embarrassment grows. Self-loathing. Frustration.

Age 29: A revelation occurs. Remember the book of knots you studied as a kid? That you pored over. That you thought you understood? Remember the square knot?

Remember the Granny knot?*

The illustration of the Granny knot always followed the square knot—often accompanied by a red X or some other symbol meant to indicate that it was a mistake. An error. A failure in technique when attempting the neat, respectable, reliable, stalwart square knot. And I had failed at a young age to properly differentiate the two, and what’s more—that the fundamental structure of the square knot was present within the shoelace tying technique I had been failing at all this time. I had been alternately applying square knots and Granny knots to my shoelaces and I never even knew it.

At first I was devastated. I had wasted so much time. So much energy. I had subjected myself to untold mental anguish and shame for so many years. But with patience and support I realized that this revelation was in fact a gift. That I could revise my technique. That the knowledge I needed was available to me and that with dedication and a bit of hard work, I could re-wire those pathways and advance to a stage of virtual full and unwavering consistency. That the unraveling of the laces that had haunted me and hunted my nervous system for decades could be put to rest—forever.

NEXT TIME: I break down the square/unsquare knot dichotomy as applied to shoelace tying, with better visuals and step-by-step instructions.

AND: The revelation develops into shameless bravado (the third wave).

*this antiquated and frankly rather ageist and sexist terminology is no longer in vogue or considered acceptable. I use it here only because my readership is most likely to recall this term and summon up the accompanying imagery, allowing for a vivd and fully comprehensible reading of this text. Grandmothers are to be respected and looked to for knowledge, and experience; and are on the average as capable of knot-tying competency as any seasoned seaferer. In my day-to-day correspondence, I now refer to the “Granny knot” as the “Unsquare knot” and I suggest you do the same.