MACKDear Mack, I'm sorry I cried. It's like I'm 12 again back on the piano bench. I hope that when you walked out of the coffee shop, after your "I've been walking in a dream," after the hug, that you didn't see one tear out of my eye. Kevin Mcilvoy blends in with the citylights of New York, walking into another dream.
Dear Mack, I love you. Even now I'm crying just thinking the way your eyes rested on, tested, assured me. The way the skin around your eyes crinkle when you smile, just enough worry, and the way your voice is like deep cello to the vanilla latte you brought for me, just enough tired. They say you dwell in solitude. Have you a wife and a kid, a backyard with a puppy named Sammy, Goldie, or Daisy? Is solitary lonely as you grip your pen hard in the city of lights. I know you're not lonely because all your kids love you. I know it. I know it as I know it in that coffee shop, a whirlpool of emotions dissolved by your kindness.
I've never known such kindness, such pure, selfless kindness and honesty in all my life. And you are without veils. And you are proud of the little fissures, madness, idiosyncrasies that make us artisans of the word. I still don't know if I'm special enough Mack, but I'll try my damn hardest Mack, even if it's only because I was special enough for you to take one hour out of your day in New York, to sit down, take time, and tell the girl that "I'm rooting for you...."
And I know you mean it from the pit of your gut, the bottom of your wish, the wish of your being.
Thank you Mack. Once upon a time, a little girl met you, and she loved you she loved you she loved you.
ARI My favorite Jew told me once that Yes of course he knew a lot of dumb Jews My favorite Jew talks a cannon of metaphors, philosophies, tropes and allusions out of his gunshot mind, and by God, the smartest Jew I knew was left broken, crushed, stabbed in the gut by the world he renounced. I want you to stop thinking so much love. I want you to close your eyes and smell the sun just as the way it is, and isn't life just as sweet for us Godless children, because we have each other, our strengths, our whimsicalness. I never knew one who rode the roller coaster of life as mad as you. And this is when I say don't pull the brake on us mid-air. Throw your hands out and embrace. Live, and really love. Really love, and live. I told you so, your eyes are like a kid's. You can't stop smiling and loving this rotten piece of pie we call life even if you try. Live for love, not whim, real love.
YUER Let's go climb a mountain and swim a sea. Seriously. I've waited three and a half years to climb again.
ALL Even if all else fails, remember to breathe!