Required Reading: James Lileks

Everyone, I suppose, has daily rituals. Mine include certain web habits: I visit Drudge, stop by some of my favorite blogs, that sort of thing. But one that I never, ever miss is James Lileks' daily ramblings he calls The Bleat. Lileks, in case you've never heard of him, is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and a few others. The Bleat is, I guess, a place where all of his extra words go. Lileks writes as naturally as most of us breathe.

Often The Bleat is, to some, uninteresting: He talks about his daughter Natalie (The Gnat,) his Mr. Mom sort of life, his iPod... And sometimes he writes with biting precision about a political or social issue.

Lileks is also a collector of esoterica: His web site is a fascinating attic full of his old ads, his "Gallery of Regrettable Food," old comics, postcards and matchbooks. You can, and I have, spent hours there.

One of the things he's been doing lately is telling the story of "Joe Ohio." It's a rambling serial about a fictional matchbook advertising salesman of the late 50s or early 60s. Lileks gets the storyline from whatever matchbook he happens, at random, to pick from the pile. Joe Ohio is on a short hiatus; he'll return on April 6.

But the thing that made me write this piece is a simple, typical, turn of phrase in today's Bleat. Lileks is recounting his Easter family gathering in his home town of Fargo, North Dakota. In it, he shows once again that as a writer, here is a person who knows exactly how to hit the keys:

The room that fascinated me the most was off the big hall upstairs – a long dark narrow hallway, a closet stuffed with musty clothing (furs, beaded dresses, heavy coats) and a room where they stored detritus from the previous half-century. An old Victrola with a collection of railroad-spike needles; ancient magazines that looked like they came from another country, blankets, board games that cracked and flaked when you opened them up, a weary bed that sagged to the floor when you bounced up and down. The room was like a net they’d dragged through the lake of their lives and thrown on the dock. No one told you what this stuff was; no one really cared to ask.

You can see it... smell it... feel it, can't you? Go ahead and bookmark the site. You'll wind up getting hooked on the Bleat, and you'll probably spend some rainy Sunday afternoons pawing through Lileks' cyber attic.