On most days, when I sit down to write for you, I manage to twist and warp a clever smattering of sentences into something that usually makes sense – and is undoubtedly highly-evolved and entertaining for your brains. Most days. Outside of the professional sphere, I spend a great deal of my personal time around books: reading, dissecting, guzzling words and broadening the ever-blossoming romance of my prowess as a child of literature. Most days. Not recently. Recently I have been spending far too much time in unfamiliar neighborhoods, staying up all night, losing jewelry and decidedly not expanding my literary horizons. Also: wine.
Ok.
I have learned that reclaiming my youth is not exactly a light task but rather a lesson in physical punishment in the name of a first-class life story. Life stories are what we would consider Good Things. So many brightly-colored yarns unspooled dozens of times over the course of our years, retold until they reach a satisfying status separate from ourselves. This is what we call Legacy. Legacy is a solid, crafted vessel that buoys along un-tethered well after we fall apart and relates all the best life stories for us. And sometimes Legacy can sing, too.
This Sunday the Louisville Free Public Library will unleash a deluge of good life stories straight from the source: singer/songwriter legend Loudon Wainwright III will bring his musical stylings to the Main branch, August 26th. Starting at 7pm, this Grammy award-winning folk-singer will serenade fans with work from his forty-plus year career featuring songs from more than 25 albums, including 2009’s High Wide & Handsome and his latest release, Older Than My Old Man Now. Now having survived six decades of human existence and all manners of good and bad, Wainwright will draw from this newest album, centering Sunday’s musical focus on reflections of his family, life and aging – Good Things.
While Sunday’s concert is fresh out of tickets at this juncture, standby seating may be available the evening of the performance – and there is, of course, no shame in picking up a book in the meantime. Grab your tickets if you got ‘em, and soldier on towards a more seaworthy Legacy with Loudon Wainwright. I’ll be somewhere close by probably – and rest assured my own vessel is coming along just swell.
The Louisville Free Public Library’s Main branch is located at 301 York Street. For more information, visit the event page.
Image: Courtesy of Louisville Free Public Library website www.lfpl.org
