THE YEAR BEHIND AND THE PLANET AHEAD
THE ATTIC — THURSDAY MORNINGS — Guy gets up, walks the dog, trudges back home, feeds same. “Who’s the best dog, Mavis? Who’s the best?”
Guy makes coffee, sits, goes over yesterday’s research notes, and dives in. “Write one true sentence,” Hemingway said. For example. . .
AMERICA — 1969 — As in Hamlet’s era — and our own — “the time is out of joint. . .”
ALAMAGORDO, NM, JULY 16, 1945 — As the mushroom rises, the “father of the bomb” recalls a Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” But at his side, his brother sees a greater peril — ignorance. . .
Or maybe. . .
L.A.— SATURDAY, FEB. 24, 1979 — Broke, bored, bartending at a pizza joint, I did not ask the universe for much. . .
Okay, first sentence, first paragraphs done. Guy gets up, reheats coffee, returns to The Attic (the actual attic for half the year but the metaphorical one during winter when it’s too damn cold and summer when it’s too damn hot up there.)
Onwards. Add a quote here, spin a story there. And always, a little wonder. Wonder if rummagers will like Scott Joplin more than they liked Sarah Vowell? Wonder whether anyone knows who Margaret Fuller is? Sure, everyone loves Mary Oliver and Barbara Jordan, but what about Dick Cavett and Freedom Summer? Willie Mays and “The Twilight Zone?” Wonder whether one corner of The Attic is becoming a swamp of Sixties nostalgia?
Finish the article, head downstairs (or up) to scan the Web for photos — a miracle still. Any photo you want. Patch the piece together, post it, change the ambient colors, find a zippy quote, feature a few old articles, and before you can say “kinder, cooler,” another Attic is open for browsing.
On January 20, 2025, the Attic will celebrate its eighth birthday. Which means that, with time off for vacations, at least 400 articles have been strewn about. Even a casual rummage reveals corners of the American soul and psyche long left for dead by our obssession with the current and the catastrophic.
Look! “The Night Stars Fell.” Whoa, the genius who invented Polaroid cameras? And wait — here’s Rhiannon Giddens. And Molly Ivins. And a whole month on Democracy. Any other surprises?
Over the years, dozens of articles were deleted. Too fleeting, too sketchy. But according to The Attic Index — 2024, 341 articles are still up here. ARE WE KINDER AND COOLER YET? Ya gotta wonder, but you gotta move on. And so, this coming January 20, the Attic is going global. Meet Attic Planet.
Every other week, this old Attic whose dusty corners you’ve come to know will alternate with the brand new Attic Planet, “ for a kinder, cooler world.” And I can barely tell you, after eight years of pulling some 400 articles out of my attic, how thrilled I am about spanning the globe. Because now the two attics can write about. . . (wait for it) . . . anything in the world!
Some twenty articles have already suggested themselves. Among them:
— The Overview Effect that turns astronauts into spokesmen for the earth
— Zarafa — the giraffe who walked to Paris
— Naming the Universe — who named a crater on Mercury for John Lennon?
Like the original, Attic Planet will bring you Wonders and Dreamers and Builders, oh my. There will be articles Art-ish (Rembrandt’s House and Frida Kahlo’s) and Book-ish (Alexandria’s Great Library and Where to See Don Quixote’s Windmills in Spain). There will be Planet Places (“My Guide in Petra”) and Heroes/She-roes ranging from Angelique Kidjo and Chinua Achebe to a delightful assortment of griots and flaneurs. But it gets better.
Four days before Attic Planet debuts, our research team will hit the road. For 6-10 weeks, we will be gathering material from the planet, mostly in the Portugal-Morocco region. While on assignment, both attics may look a little thinner, but each Attic and Attic Planet newsletter will still arrive in your e-mail on Sunday morning. The Attic one week. Attic Planet the next.
So get ready, rummagers! With a new and kinda foreboding year coming up, an expanding Attic will take you to a new and kinda cooler world. If that doesn’t make for a Happy New Year, don’t blame either Attic. Blame our obsession with the contemporary and the catastrophic.
