hokelberry! i know i just saw you, but i miss your credulous mug already. thanks for opening up this google doc and for firing off the first letter, even if murph hasn’t yet agreed to take part.
let me start here, murph: landing the gig on orange is the new black back in 2017 afforded me a lot of spare time, and, wisely or not, i spent most of it with my face in a book. after filming wrapped and i returned to the audition pool, i began to reflect on all those free hours, wondering what--if anything--i had to show for them.
might my days of reading have been better spent, say, writing? another year gone, a child on the way, and still no new role secured, i feel certain they would have.
i now find myself itching for meaningful work, <quote-01>where the process is more important than the outcome<quote-01>--probably because i’m currently out of a job and tired of being considered for stuff i ultimately don’t get. i need my efforts to matter.
what a treat it was in your letter, hoke, to drop in on the two of you in that office ten years ago, to spy your shared decision to embark on <quote-02>work<quote-02> that mattered.
so i approach the two of you with this idea of mine, this epistolary experiment. think of all we’ve shared over the years, the familiar cast of characters. think too of what we still don’t know about each other, the discoveries we’ll make along the way. i buzz with the promise of it all.
my initial thought was that we write toward the birth of my first child in the early fall. as fathers yourselves, i imagine fatherhood will be a point of interest throughout our letters--your experiences in juxtaposition with my expectations. but there’s also the upcoming baseball season and the election. wouldn’t it be nice to watch these events play out together on the page? if we dig it, we might consider continuing our correspondence until we see each other again at christmas--a year in letters.
as for the form itself, murph--letters for an audience of two--i’m not sure what to say in its defense. i’m reminded of why i memorize bach without the hope of ever performing it: because i believe that i need to.
let me, to this end, echo hoke’s invocation of the book of matthew with this qualification: christ cared not whether there were two or three, but i do; i ain't doing this shit with just hoke.
at any rate, <quote-03>we got you<quote-03>.
<pull-quote>work<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>You were a big part of that process too, bud: an incredible sounding board, as suspicious and fault-finding as Hoke is gracious and open-minded. Speaking selfishly as a writer, you two are perfect foils--the best possible first readers for TETHERBALL CHIMES.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Wuck, to see you and me through Murph's writerly lens, as characters, as foils, makes me smile a whole lot.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>shut the fuck up, hoke.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>we got you<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>My introduction to “the trust fall” took place at some school-sponsored leadership camp between seventh and eighth grade. I think you attended too, Hoke, though we wouldn’t become friends for another six months or so. “Isn’t this, like, a little too obvious?” I remember saying before scaling the eight-foot stump and falling blindly into all those interwoven arms. It was fun, sure, but it was just a pantomime; “we got you” from the lips of strangers is no lasting vow.<p-comment>
<p-comment>This vow, however, I believe.<p-comment>
<p-comment>On three?<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>where the process is more important than the outcome<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yes! If I didn't already want to write letters with you guys, this would convince me. You gonna leave Wuck hanging on this cross in his undies, Murph?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I mean...like...he's not even using capital letters.<p-comment>
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