Ok, I was going to say “I want Tom Waits to read a collection of my verses”. Because (via Krulwich Wonders) I heard/saw this (after the jump):
But having loved Tom Waits’s voice for so many years, what I really want is to write verses that are worthy of being read by Tom Waits. Whether or not he actually reads them.
Oh man… has anyone *ever* written verses worthy of being read by Tom Waits? You’re setting the bar for yourself awfully high!
Forget “worthy”, and focus on “cool” and “fun”. I do, every time I audition for a play or try to write a story. No art would ever be made, if “worthy” was the standard we set for ourselves. Frank Zappa advised, “We have critics to tell us if it’s any good or not, so we won’t worry about that part.”
Waits has always fascinated me. When I first heard him I thought he was about seventy and had smoked a lot of cigarettes and drunk a lot of cheap booze. Finding out he was only about 25 at the time was a shock.
More important than the voice is what he does with it, and more important than that is what he sings.
So, yeah, I’d love to hear him do some of your poetry.
Completely off topic, but still very cool, is a story about a recent fossil discovery allowing a look at Jurassic Cuttlefish ink
Couldn’t help but think of you.