beautiful and sad sometimes go hand in hand

Insomnia

The moon in the bureau mirror
looks out a million miles
(and perhaps with pride, at herself,
but she never, never smiles)
far and away beyond sleep, or
perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,
she'd tell it to go to hell,
and she'd find a body of water,
or a mirror, on which to dwell.
So wrap up care in a cobweb
and drop it down the well

into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.

-Elizabeth Bishop

open-ended question

i went to a reading tonight at this FABULOUS bookstore in soho, mcnally jackson. they hold free literary talks/discussions/readings almost nightly. wonderful.

tonight it was daniyal mueenuddin and justin torres reading samples of their [remarkably wonderful] work. at the end in the question and answer session, daniyal talked about his process of writing and his theory then of why so many writers are alcoholics [haha]. "it's impossible to write all day, and so you've written for hours and suddenly it's 11 am and you have the whole day before you. the comfort of warm drink is so tempting."

is it not so brilliant and true? this exhausting process of creation and thought cannot feasibly be sustained for a full day - i mean what can be sustained for a full day? and so i'm wondering about the actual passing of time. i admit i often feel completely overwhelmed by time, by hours meant to be "filled" - even that idea is abhorrent, that time is just to be filled up in some way. and so for artists, how much more difficult? how do you gifted artists who contribute to this blog deal with such a question of comprehending with the very hours that lie before you?

you don't have to answer, i was just so intrigued by the way he put it. interesting, no?

(oh, and lovely xarissa sent me this gorgeous article about david foster wallace, someone who i think thought and struggled a great deal with this question. he's incredible my gosh.)

!!!!

So I really love the band Love, like a lot. Especially since you can say things like, "I love Love." When I was in Paris I would sing "Alone Again Or" to myself walking through the cobbled streets of Montmartre, probably eating a crepe and wearing a beret or something. Anyway, I also really love the Shins. One of my favorite all time songs is their "Gone for Good." It is so simple musically--like three or four chords--but, good grief, it is a nearly perfect speciman of a song. Searing lyrics, catchy melody, beautiful vocals... So imagine my happiness when I discovered their Blogotheque where they 1) cover "Alone Again Or" in the opening credits and 2) sing "Gone for Good" WHILE WALKING THROUGH MONTMARTRE. So in love.

pre-summer jubilation

Today it felt like the beginning of summer, even though it was the beginning of spring. The air was still and just heavy enough to want chlorine, swim suits, hot patios steaming. So now I'm thinking about David Hockney and his pools, which perfectly encapsulate the concept of an "L.A. pool." Growing up in California I spent a lot of time in or around pools. For that and many other reasons, I love them. Which is also one of the reasons why I loved our summer of pooling and pupusas before Trish and I left the mountains for DC. So here are two stunning Hockney pools and an excerpt from a larger essay I wrote about heartbreak, spelunking and, of course, pools.




"After years of desert summers, my friends and I knew the locks and unlocks of each apartment complex pool within a five-mile radius of Provo. We knew the parts of landscaped hills that would stay firm beneath our feet as we hopped fences, dodged neighborhood watches.We took advantage of it—two, sometimes three, pools in a single afternoon. We swam, sunned, and burst into impromptu water dances. “‘R.E.O?!” Ryan would yell, water pooling at his feet and trunks clinging to his lean legs. Ashley and Lia, two pairs of brown eyes brimming with sun, would splash their consent while the rest of us would whoop and holler as he slammed the tape into the deck and cannonballed back into the pool. Twelve pairs of arms linked to make pinwheels around the shallow end. Water whirled and glinted sun-smacked rainbows all over our skin. Right hand stars formed in the middle as we circled and crooned, “Can’t fight this feeling anymooooore!!!” with our voices cracking, our eyes crinkled and mouths jubilant inverted triangles.

That summer the sun was everywhere. It shone with a ferocity I could not define. My shoulders went brown, as did the part in my hair, even the spaces between my toes. I was new, golden, flying down the leafy streets on my three-speed cruiser. The sun bleached out all the grey of Utah Lake and winter. I danced on my side of town until the windows shook and fogged with the breaths of so many sweating bodies. I cuddled on couches and picked at heaps of grass in Sara’s front yard where we’d talk the moon straight out of the sky, reveling in our power, in the surprise of sprinklers misting over us. The dew on the grass. Everywhere glimmering with starlight and water."

And what would this post be without The Song Itself? Oh the magic...

Sweet Execution

JuiceBox, an online literary journal with its heart in the right place (and by that I mean it celebrates the beauty in mundanity, and I Love that), has just published an essay by Cassie Keller Cole, a talented writer and dear friend with the best name an authoress could ask for, don't you think? You can read it here, and I hope you do, because this essay is pithy.

Mae Sot Storybooth: Part 1

blind pilot

i sure like these guys. here's some reasons why:
1. they went on a bike tour last year, towed all their instruments up and down the west coast.
2. they're from portland
4. they use banjo, upright bass, vibraphone, violin, and occasionally horns
5. their songs make me glad

"We Are the Tide"

un cadeau [2].

un cadeau.

So I have been reading Nietzsche for 6 straight hours...

So when I found out that the theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey is really called Thus Spoke Zarathustra after N.'s cryptic, apocalyptic novel of the same name, I might have listened to it about 10 times in a row. After years and years of ignoring of a zillion measures of silence, the composer had the good sense to give the timpani a solo. Bless Strauss's kind-hearted soul.

And then, because I am at school at 9:30 on a Friday night, I listened to a lot of Debussy. Cause there are few things to keep me sane now that I have devoursed my entire canister of salt and vinegar Pringles, my diet coke, and my vanilla wafers.

daily dolly

um, i know i post about dolly a lot. but i can't help it, i just really love her. here she is being amazing with emmylou harris and linda ronstadt:

and now being amazing, armed with a banjo:

Amber Albrecht

lives in a beehive in Montreal...

m. ward + saint-saens = sweet perfection

i can't believe i never noticed this before, but m. ward's "fuel for fire" has a little chat with saint-saens "the swan." what?! stupendous. unfortunately i couldn't find the album version anywhere online, but if you get a chance, you should listen to it. it will lift your heart in all the right places. this acoustic version isn't too shabby, though:

Say Me in Dashes

Here's one more poem I love from Lance Larsen's Backyard Alchemy:

Say Me in Dashes

The inlet you swim shelters a flotilla of ducks whose beaded
heads beg you to count them. The stippled field burned

across one corner brings back your wrongs, etc. Or mine.
Listen, I have used second person to camouflage my fear

of scrubbed light, of sky reaching down to collar me
like a riled border agent checking tourists for forged papers.

Just now, I'm doing backstroke, but if I let myself rise
from the grave of first person, I might also glide like a snapping

turtle deciding which toe of this sorry swimmer to bite.
Or a sentence in a Victorian novel fallen against the belly

of a pregnant dreamer on shore, turning now to devour
a delicious direct object. Why is it, whatever I look

at turns hungry? When Christ multiplied the loaves,
he committed as many catastrophes of meaning as there were

open mouths. What the multitude gave back filled
twelve baskets. What they refused filled seven horizons.

I'm no different, crawling atop what is vertiginous and wet
and holy and calling it water. Occupying a floating city

wrapped in skin but calling it body. Say me in dashes, lift
me till I rise out of waiting the way rain drizzles down.

sometimes i miss california a whole lot

(zuma beach, one of the most wondrous places i know. especially when it's quiet at sunset like it is here)

(it was even good for some kitsch and retro)

Something I Wish I Wrote

My brilliant friend Katherine gave me a book full of lovely things a few weeks ago and I'd like to share an except here. The book is called vacansopapurosophobia 2: the fear of the blank page (awesome title, right?) and it is a collection of creative writing by young students who are part of the 826michigan project. It is basically a book full of things that older kids like us probably wish we had written. Take, for example, this short story by nine-year-old Leilani Tuinukuafe:

***
big idea

I was walking home from school. Then this big idea came in my head. I stopped at my mailbox to check to see if there was any mail but my idea didn't work because the mail was already in the house.

I walked sadly to my front porch. I rang the doorbell with my shoulder because my hands were full of sadness. My mom answered the door.

I asked her, "Did I get any mail?" but she wasn't listening so I decided to get a snack instead of crying. When I sat down at the table there was a little white envelope. I climbed on the table to get a closer look.

The letter was small and it had my name and my little sister's name. I felt a happy chill in my body. It had a stamp on it that looked like a bride. I ran to my mom to show her the letter but there wasn't any room for me to sit by her. I was so excited that I sat on the edge of the couch. I slowly opened the envelope. The letter looked sparkly and white. When the envelope was fully opened my eyes started to get full of happy tears.

On the cover of the letter was a beautiful girl dressed in a sparkly dress. On the side of the girl it said, "Will you be my flower girl?" I was so excited that I fell on the ground. A big smile appeared on my face. Yes! I wll be your flower girl, I thought.

I started to get a little scared because what if I tripped or fell and everyone was staring at me. I didn't even know how to walk down an aisle. I haven't even been to a wedding. The good thing was I was going to be a flower girl with my little sister instead of by myself. I guess it's okay, I said to myself. Now, each time I look at the letter, I smile.

***

I rang the doorbell with my shoulder because my hands were full of sadness? Dear heavens!

What are some things you wish you had written or created?