November 27th, 2007

An open (love) letter to John K. Samson

It’s a funny thing: I also want to call requests through heating vents. I also sometimes find myself feeling like a float in a summer parade, or a girl in a Miss Somewhere sash. You seem to understand those things you shouldn’t miss. Also days that don’t like us, when all you want to do is drink and watch tv, though the sunlight demands action. You’ve got words for a lot of things I really feel have been needing words, like the 18 North Main and sinks full of bottles and cultery. I really think we could have a good conversation, if we were ever together in an all-night restaurant in a brand-new strip mall, killing time and communicating in questions. I’d like to ask you about the blinking snow in Winnipeg and whether wishing on the pop of a lightbulb actually works. I’d like to tell you that, if I believed in tears, I’d cry at hospital vespers. I think that you write music somebody could use. So, if we ever do meet, let the waitress put the chairs up, and we can talk about the weather, or how the weather used to be.

I’m so glad that you exist
RR

PS—John K. Samson is the lead singer and, more importantly, the lyricist for the wonderful Winnipeg band, The Weakerthans. Almost any song you could think of by that band, or Samson solo, will be an almost perfect poem or short story set to music. The above is a blender of some of my favourite lines—none of it’s mine except the pronouns and verb conjugations, in case there was any doubt.
PPS—It’s a purely *professional* love letter, of a striving writer to an admired one. John K. Samson is married to Christine Fellows who is actually a similarly brilliant lyricist, of lines like “A photo essay on a family in mourning / slightly perforated to better let the light in” “what’s good enough for chickens is plenty good enough for you and I”. Can you think of a better harmony?