Tuesday, January 3

Easy's Getting Harder Every Day

Just posted my long, semi-confessional interpretation of George Steiner's essay On Difficulty on The Laughing Bone. I wonder if I will ever get over this strangeness of posting to Jones's weblog? Feels like wandering through someone else's house. But I know that it is what he would have wanted. I also made a post on Osteo Logos of a recording I found of what has to be a young B. Jones playing a ukulele and singing a song called Mississippi Pickup that he wrote based on a story by Hunter Kennedy. I thought it was highly amusing.

Yesterday I received a disconcerting letter from B. Jones' sister, Nora. She wrote that while she appreciated how much I had done for her brother, she was concerned about some of the work that I might choose to post on the blog.

I will state here publicly that Charles Jones explicitly stated to me that I was to be the sole guardian of his creative works and that he trusted me to publish or not publish them as I see fit. And while I will certainly do my best to exercise the utmost discretion with regard to the privacy of other's lives, I will not be censored in any way.

Yes, difficulties. Seems appropriate to let Iris Dement finish it:

I had a garden but my flowers died.
There ain't much living here inside.
And lately, I don't know what I'm holding on to.
But I'll never make it up to Couer d'Alene.
There ain't no chance of me forgetting my name.
And easy's gettin' harder every day

And it feels like easy, just keeps on gettin' harder every day.