Archived 02/05/2022 Substack Archive 02/05/2022
As per the proposal, I said when any artists came up who I had delivered actual tangible mail to I would say who they were (and when). The third (or fourth, depending on the nature of the count) happened to be Jack White at the ten year anniversary concert for Third Man Records in Nashville. I did it mainly because of Third Man Books, but also a series of events capped by Jack White's videos for Boarding House Reach, and a very small smattering of back catalogue, most significantly that he'd referred to God in the feminine. (At the end of TRiMB Jack did this live.) I've a photo/video montage of the Third Man Records 10th Annversary concert, but there's no way to demonstrate I handed letters in two formats to Jack hand to hand when he entered the premises, which was just a matter of timing, right place right time when he walked in the door. (They were separate on red and blue flash drives called red and blue pill, addressee depending, -one to Third Man Books, did get to speak to the editor. Jack's was blue of course.)
These two pending albums will be the first music Jack's produced since I delivered the iBook to him, which may or may not prove interesting. Given what transpired (p. 27 and thereabouts), the titles seem like this might end up being rather fitting. I say might, because if this happens with Jack this time at the needed level of depth it would take to indicate that this connectivity is happening and really exists, with Jack it will be a first. (Note "The White Raven" on Fear of the Dawn; - it so happens I corrected Jack in the letter on the Raven because of one of his queries to natives in Nunavut in Under the Great White Northern Lights. Then a white raven came up: -I texted the rescued white raven to my family and posted it to Twitter when it happened. White ravens are pretty exclusive in terms of where they recur in nature, being the mid west coast of my home island, -not unlike the Kermode bear in the B.C. coastal rainforest.)
What's really interesting is that "Taking Me Back" mentions being handed the mail by a woman as part of the substance of a reconcilement, which is happening whether Jack registered what he got delivered after opening the mail, or not, -and there's enough to presume he might have. (It's not just a white raven, but bees followed by a burning bush, plus (blue) moon symbolism everywhere.)
The video Jack produced for this song has recurring snapshots of an eclipse, which given it was the celestial event that triggered me to contact him in the first place, was background explained in the letter. As mentioned in the book, an eclipse occurred in Dublin very close to when I first met Bono in person in 1999 (p. 1239, meeting Bono 12 days later on p. 1247).
U2's song "The Blackout" on Songs of Experience was indicated to signify the eclipse when its lyric saying, "Blackout, it's clear, who you are will appear" was quoted in a mail out scattered loosely to fans along the 2018 eclipse's path over the United States, which were delivered when the eclipse hit totality over Nashville, eighteen years after an eclipse hallmarked the encounter with Bono in August 1999 (same month). Songs of Experience was the first time that U2/Bono had done enough linking things to signify my iBook using artistic output, meaning it was the first time I might prove visible to any other artist. At almost precisely that moment, Jack White released "Connected by Love" with a giant red moon appearing in the sky, followed by "Corporation". Then U2 appeared at Third Man Records for a recording of two tracks from Songs of Experience (performed the day before my birthday). Anyway I thought all this might signify that if there was an artist I was supposed to divulge this event to first, (in terms of U2 linking into my book for the first time in a significant way), it was possible that even Bono himself might be implicating Jack, so I did it. In terms of eventuating with a delivery hand to hand, it worked.
And the night before I figured the above out and discovered the announcement of Jack's double album release, there was the longest partial eclipse in over 500 years on the West Coast.