The Inmates Are After Jennifer Aniston

It’s time I share something that I’ve kept buried for many years. I don’t know that you need to hear it, but maybe you do. Maybe you woke up feeling like something was missing from your life.

I am here today to fill that hole. That’s right, boo walker, the literary 3M Bondo wood filler that you didn’t know you needed.

Twenty years ago, when Apple came out with the @mac and @me email addresses, you were given the ability to create aliases. On a whim, I grabbed jenniferaniston@mac(dot)com. I thought it would be funny if I made Jennifer my writer’s assistant and sent emails from that email address, something like:

Here’s where it gets weird, if it hasn’t already. Ever since, once or twice a month, inmates from various prisons around the U.S. have been writing to that address, most often suggesting in various ways that they and Jennifer would make a good couple or that they would love a chance to audition for her next project. It’s always official correspondence coming through the actual prison communication system, the latest of which was requesting a collect call. Yes, on occasion, I have responded. That’ll be a story for another day. Anyway, her popularity with those behind bars sends my mind in all sorts of places.

How tough it must be to be a celebrity on that level. Can you imagine? Also, I wonder if there’s a story there (because I’m always wondering this). What if an inmate reached out to me, the uber-minor celebrity boo walker, and it turned into an interesting tale where we start chatting, then I’m part of a jailbreak, then running for my life, then imprisoned for a crime I didn’t commit? Yikes.

There you go, a peak behind the curtain of an especially looney boo as I approach the final days of my deadline. I hope it was good for a laugh or at least a widening of the eyes. Here’s looney boo in person if you don’t believe me.

With that silliness out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.

I’ve leapt into Elif Shirak’s The Island of Missing Trees, and it starts out with a wondrous passage that I had to share. I’d kept hearing that she’s a wonderful writer, and there’s no denying it.

Here’s how her novel opens up:

Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that the many travellers, pilgrims, crusaders and merchants who fell in love with it either wanted never to leave or tried to tow it with hemp ropes all the way back to their own countries.

Legends, perhaps.

But legends are there to tell us what history has forgotten.

It has been many years since I fled that place on board a plane, inside a suitcase made of soft black leather, never to return. I have since adopted another land, England, where I have grown and thrived, but not a single day passes that I do not yearn to be back. Home. Motherland.

It must still be there where I left it, rising and sinking with the waves that break and foam upon its rugged coastline. At the crossroads of three continents– Europe, Africa, Asia—and the Levant, that vast and impenetrable region, vanished entirely from the maps of today.

A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference.

Cartography is another name for stories told by winners.

How remarkable is that, right? That whole idea of maps deciding who we love and war with. Oh, my. Brilliant. But! I’m having a bit of an issue.

I’m only fifty pages in and was not prepared to welcome one of the narrators, a fig tree. When I first came upon that jarring POV, I was caught off guard, then this morning, I was slightly perturbed, unable to suspend my disbelief. You have to lean in if you’re going to believe a tree has a voice. I sipped my coffee and wondered if I had it in me—if I had the interest—to follow a tree throughout the story.

I ultimately decided that I needed to give it a chance, that my hesitation is nothing but a lack of imagination. I need to remove my blinders and let the fantasy swoop me up and away.

I’ll keep going and see what happens. Of course, I was okay with the dog in The Art of Racing in the Rain. I wrote from a ghost’s perspective in Before We Say Goodbye. Why not a tree?

Elif, if you’re reading this, my own words are not worthy of the flies buzzing ‘round your leftovers, so please don’t take offense to my hesitation.

I have a gem of a film for you. Never would I have known about it had my adventurous, sometimes-too-artsy-with-her-taste wife not pushed it upon my son and me. I’m so glad she did. Trust me on this one. If your heart needs a warm blanket, if your soul needs a boost, here’s your ticket. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is on Amazon right now.

I have so many new discoveries but holding back so as not to overwhelm you. I’ve just learned of Brooklyn-based Big Crown Records, who is putting out amazing soul music. Have a taste here with Mr. Lee Fields. Some call him Little JB, referring to James Brown. Crank that and see if you don’t feel a rumble in your bones.

Let’s go down a totally different lane. Ever since being introduced to him in music school at the College of Charleston, I have adored the composer Philip Glass. His music pounds my heart. So I jumped on monster pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn’s new release called Hourglass. Put that in your ears and smoke it. Here’s a taste of the first track, but I encourage you to take in the entire album. If you listen, like really listen, these musical geniuses will draw tears.

Stunning, right?

I’m two days away from sending my work-in-progress to a group of fearless beta-readers, then I’m stepping away for a reboot. School’s almost out, and we’re popping down to Mexico for some sun and sand and reading. So much reading. Any suggestions?

If you don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks, all’s well. Just plugging myself in for a charge. If you’re bored, drop me a line and let me know your plans for the summer. This isn’t a one-way street!

Much love,

boo