there is no word.

There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store
with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack
that should have been bagged in double layers

—so that before you are even out the door
you feel the weight of the jug dragging
the bag down, stretching the thin

plastic handles longer and longer
and you know it’s only a matter of time until
bottom suddenly splits.

There is no single, unimpeachable word
for that vague sensation of something
moving away from you

as it exceeds its elastic capacity
—which is too bad, because that is the word
I would like to use to describe standing on the street

chatting with an old friend
as the awareness grows in me that he is
no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,

a person with whom I never made the effort—
until this moment, when as we say goodbye
I think we share a feeling of relief,

a recognition that we have reached
the end of a pretense,
though to tell the truth

what I already am thinking about
is my gratitude for language—
how it will stretch just so much and no farther;

how there are some holes it will not cover up;
how it will move, if not inside, then
around the circumference of almost anything—

how, over the years, it has given me
back all the hours and days, all the
plodding love and faith, all the

misunderstandings and secrets
I have willingly poured into it.

Tony Hoagland

easy.

But how it really went down was:

“Sidney Korshak, please.”
“Yeah?”
“I need your help.”
“There’s an actor I want for the lead in The Godfather.”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t get him.”
“Yeah?”
“If I lose him, Coppola’s gonna have my ass.”
“Yeah?”
“Forty-eight hours ago he signed for the lead in a picture at Metro—The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
“Yeah?”
“I called Aubrey, asked if he could accomodate me, move his dates around.”
“Yeah?”
“He told me to fuck off.”
“Yeah?”
“Is there anything you can do about it?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“The actor…what’s his name?”
“Pacino…Al Pacino.”
“Who?”
“Al Pacino.”
“Hold it will ya? Let me get a pencil. Spell it.”
“Capital A, little l—that’s his first name. Capitol P, little a, c-i-n-0.”
“Who the fuck is he?”
“Don’t rub it in will ya, Sidney. That’s who the motherfucker wants.”
“Where are ya”
“At the New York office.”
“Stay there.” 
Twenty minutes later my secretary buzzed. “Mr. Aubrey’s on the phone, Mr. Evans.”
“Jim?”
“You no-good motherfucker, cocksucker. I’ll get you for this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know fuckin’ well what I’m talking about.”
“Honestly, I don’t.”
The Cobra cut me off. “The midget’s yours; you got him.” Hanging up he horn on my ear.
Immediately I called Korshack.
“Yeah?”
“Sidney, it’s Bobby.”
“Yeah?”
“Aubrey just called.”
“Yeah?”
“Pacino—I got him. What happened?”
“I called Kerkorian.”
Kirk Kerkorian at the time was the sole owner of MGM. He never involved himself  with the day-to-day running of the studio, a provision written in cement when Aubrey took the presidency. Kerkorian was totally involved in building his Las Vegas empire. The MGM Grand was near completion, but he was going through a financial crunch as construction costs were considerably over budget.
“I told him Bobby needs some actor for The Godfather, that his schmuck Aubrey wouldn’t let you have him. He tells me—get this, Bobby—’Sidney, I’d do anything for you, you know that, but my deal with Aubrey is he’s got total control. It’s Aubrey’s call, I’ve got to say no in it.”
The operator interrupted. “Mr. Wasserman’s on the phone, Mr. Korshak, says it’s urgent.”
‘I’ll call him back in ten.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, I asked him if he wanted to finish building his hotel.”
“Yeah?” 
“He didn’t answer, but he asked who the actor was. I told him. He never hear of the schmuck either. He got a pencil, asked me to spell it—’Capital A, punk l, capital P, punk a, c-i-n-o.’ Then he says, ‘Who the fuck is he?’ ‘How the fuck do I know. All I know, Bobby wants him.”
“That was it?”
“That was it!”
His other phone rang. He didn’t even say goodbye.
That’s the inside, inside story of what eventually became—mind you, against my better judgment—possibly the greatest “sense of discovery” casting in cinema history.

music is only in the piano when it is played.

Starting a new book is a risk, just like falling in love. You have to commit to it. You open the pages knowing a little bit about it maybe, from the back or from a blurb on the front. But who knows, right? Those bits and pieces aren’t always right. Sometimes people advertise themselves as one thing and then when you get deep into it you realize that they’re something completely different. Either there was some good marketing attached to a terrible book, or the story was only explained in a superficial way and once you reach the middle of the book, you realize there’s so much more to this book than anyone could have ever told you.

You start off slow. The story is beginning to unfold. You’re unsure. It’s a big commitment lugging this tome around. Maybe this book won’t be that great but you’ll feel guilty about putting it down. Maybe it’ll be so awful you’ll keep hate-reading or just set it down immediately and never pick it up again. Or maybe you’ll come back to it some night, drunk or lonely — needing something to fill the time, but it won’t be any better than it was when you first started reading it.

Maybe you’re worn out. You’ve read tons of books before. Some were just light weights on a Kindle or Nook, no big deal really. Others were Infinite Jest-style burdens. Heavy on your back or in your purse. Weighing you down all the time. Maybe you’ve taken some time off from reading because the last few books you read just weren’t worth it. Do they even write new, great works of literature anymore? Maybe that time you fell in love with a book before will just never happen for you again. Maybe it’s a once in a lifetime feeling and you’re never gonna find it again.

Or something exciting could happen. Maybe this will become your new favorite book. That’s always a possibility, right? That’s the beauty of risk. The reward could actually be worth it. You invest your time and your brain power in the words and what you get back is empathy and a new understanding and pure wonder. How could someone possibly know you like this? Some stranger, some author, some character. It’s like they’re seeing inside your soul. This book existed inside some book store, on a shelf, maybe handled by other people and really it was just waiting for you pick it up and crack the spine. It was waiting to speak to you. To say, “You are not alone.”

You just want more of the story. You want to keep reading, maybe everything this author’s ever written. You wish it would never end. The closer it gets to the smaller side of the pages, the slower you read, wanting to savor it all. This book is now one of your favorites forever. You will always wish you could go back to never having read it and pick it up fresh again, but also you know you’re better for having it this close, inside you, covering your heart and mind.

Once you get in deep enough, you know you could never put this book down.

Gaby Dunn.

(Starting a new year is a bit like that too. You basically know how things are going to unfold. I mean, it’s a new year, but you’re still the same you. But are you really? I’ve always thought the greatest most meaningful changes happen without you even realizing it. You go on with your life thinking you know who you are, you’ve got the past as your teacher, but one day a terrible moment of lucidity comes, and I mean that in the best of ways, and you suddenly realize you don’t like plamplemousse anymore, or you’re done with Murakami, or some other more important stuff. It doesn’t happen in the first day of the year of course, maybe it takes a couple of months or even another year altogether. But it’s there. The seed has been planted and you’re not the same. You don’t know it. And perhaps that’s really the beauty of it all.)