Truth Comes In Blows

What Measure Ye Mete

2011-04-15T11:02:00.005-06:00

for Natalie Marti

The last thing she saw
before life was seized
from her bloody and loud
(that is to say lives—
a joy herky six month girl
and a husband who
in the mornings sang)
were yellow cylinder
headlights arcing
a drunken plane
filling her view
wide eyes fixed
in their sockets
grainy irises alight in
brightening spheres
pupils pinching fast
into needle heads
the world gone white
casting behind her family
for the briefest moment
the shadows of all
that would never be

Judging after a decade
the wreckage of that night
I recall early Idaho mornings
late harvest coming on
sitting at the table
glass in hand
watching dust float
in a column of sunlight
unseeable otherwise
like the molecules
of an existence warming
sure and steady towards
some far off boiling point
And no considered
amount of blinking
or neck contortion or weeping
can wash my eyes of
those beams boring
into her skull
kindling in their shafts
rays of motes now impossibly
big, adrift in their long
unpredictable bearings

In the Day of the Great Slaughter

2011-04-13T15:23:00.013-06:00

{poem was here}

Truth Comes in Friends: Nick Gough edition

2011-03-09T18:39:00.008-07:00

In late 2006 my dear friend Kirk Glancy introduced me to a coworker of his, Nick Gough. Kirk and Nick would stay up into the wee hours after work at FedEx and talk fishing, camping, good books, and life. Nick was an English major, like myself. Kirk thought we'd get along and he was correct. We got together for a Halloween party and by the time the night was over it was decided that we would start a reading group together (let's not call it a book club). By the end of the next month we had read one of Nick's old favorites The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. The next month we read one of my old favorites Seize the Day by Saul Bellow. Here we are 37 books later and still going strong. The Glancys, the Goughs, and the Blakes have enjoyed mutual company many, many times since and I'm blessed to have all of them as friends.

If it wasn't for Nick I wouldn't be familiar with the phenomenal poetry of Billy Collins: "This is the first good rain to fall / since my father was buried last week, / and even though he was very old, / I am amazed at how the small drops / stream down the panes of glass, / as usual, / gathering, / as they always have, / in pools on the ground."

I wouldn't know the wisdom of Zorba: “I haven’t the time to write. Sometimes it’s war, sometimes women, sometimes wine, sometimes the santuri: where would I find time to drive a miserable pen? That’s how the business falls into the hands of the pen-pushers! All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven’t the time to write, and all those who have the time don’t live them!”.

I wouldn't have been blessed by the insanely inspiring verses of W.S. Merwin.

Good Night

Sleep softly my old love
my beauty in the dark
night is a dream we have
as you know as you know

night is a dream you know
an old love in the dark
around you as you go
without end as you know

in the night where you go
sleep softly my old love
without end in the dark
in the love that you know

(to be read in some far off day at Christy's funeral, in my own voice - God forbid)

And I probably wouldn't yet have picked up A River Runs Through It. Everyone has seen the film, but if you haven't yet picked up the book you are denying yourself a marvelous experience. To date one of the best books I've ever read.

Brother Gough takes his relationship with the outdoors seriously. I'm ashamed to admit that historically I've been the type who is quick to read about the outdoors and slow to actually take the time and effort to experience them (Zorba would be so disappointed). He organized a trip to Moab a few years ago that was amazing (despite rampant insects, sweltering sleeping arrangements, and a vomit incident on the ride home). His consistent and measured approach to outdoor recreation is as inspiring as it is amusing.

Here's to the love of and love for true friends.

Nick is a proud employee of FedEx and today he is featured on http://www.iamfedex.com/node/735.

HBO, Where Art Thou?

2011-02-22T16:07:00.002-07:00

I have a well documented love affair with the works of Cormac McCarthy, and just found out today that HBO has produced, and is currently playing, an adaptation of The Sunset Limited (link contains spoilers), a two-person play written by McCarthy. I posted about it here. The adaptation stars Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. If any kind and loving soul out there in my community has HBO, please invite me over. I'll bring the popcorn.

Tiny Desk Concerts

2011-02-03T15:17:00.005-07:00

As I sat at my computer today watching/listening to the newest installment of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series, I thought about what an amazing and beautiful era we live in. These artists poised behind an office workstation in a Washington D.C. studio can digitally reach out and share a moment with anyone plugged in anywhere in the world. Tiny desk indeed.

Today's concert is by Stars, which you can check out here. They're nice. But what I really want to share are these two others from months ago that I really love. The first is Andrew W.K. (of "Party Hard" fame). He is a dude who puts himself out there artistically, and just shines here. I also adore his challenging, yet sage, advice that comes after the second improvisational number.

The second one is from Nick Lowe. I love to see a man who is more than 60 years old still crafting thoughtful, precise, near perfect pop songs. "All Men Are Liars." Are you kidding me? Does it get much better than that? Here he is with his silky white hair and silky white voice.

Blake Christmas 2010

2011-01-18T13:53:00.003-07:00

Truth Comes In Covers: Gillian Welch

2011-01-04T16:01:00.006-07:00

"I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house. In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night...Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death."

Proverbs 7

Gillian Welch - Black Star (Radiohead cover)

The Tree of Life

2010-12-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

Oh man. Is it Summer 2011 yet?

Great Stocking Stuffer Idea

2010-12-03T15:59:00.004-07:00

(especially for you Latter Day Saints)

Truth Comes in Covers: The Swell Season

2010-12-02T15:40:00.005-07:00

Here is the Swell Season covering my favorite track from my favorite record of all time.

I've sung this many times in the quiet dark of my basement trying to sound as good as they do here, and failing miserably. Every. Single. Time.

2010-11-30T06:00:00.006-07:00

I posted before about Sufjan's incredible "Djohariah". 12 minutes of guitar solo (and deconstructed guitar solo at that) is not what we've come to expect from this soft and warbly man. But the instrumental section is a perfect compliment to the subject matter of the song, which is entirely melodic and tragic and touching, if you've got the patience to wait around for it. Djohariah (the person) is Sufjan's sister, and has clearly gone through a heartbreaking experience. Has clearly suffered. The lyrics are so personal and immediate, and real. This one is for all the ladies out there (and not in the same way that "I Swear" and "Down On Bended Knee" are for all the ladies out there).

Don’t be ashamed, don’t hide from me now
For the woman is, the woman is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

There is a time when the lights will arise
For the mother is, the mother is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Go on! Little sister! Go on! Little sister!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For you’re beautiful, beautiful
All the fullness of the world is yours

Of course, I haven't listed "Djohariah" here as number one, although I liked it in certain ways as much as anything I've heard in a long time. The song that I'm here to talk about is "Impossible Soul". And, where to even begin? Probably with a disclaimer. This little ditty is over 25 minutes long, so if the thought of investing a half hour into one song is a bit daunting, you're not alone. My heart sank when I first saw the track length. Would it be some kind of jam-bandy noodle fest? (No. Be at peace. I would ask that you not close the window and move on, but to give it a listen. If you choose otherwise, I completely understand. But I assure you, this song is a masterpiece.) "Impossible Soul" is the most impressive piece of art Sufjan has created to date. It is divided into 5 sections, with lyrics in first, second, and third person points of view. It is a window into his creative process, the psyche of Sufjan Stevens. It is introspective, it is critical, it is self-effacing, but ultimately it is hopeful, and encouraging, and motivating, and entirely joyful. Watching him play this at Kingsbury Hall a few weeks ago is right up there with my most memorable of all concert going experiences, and I've had some good ones. There was a truly genuine feeling of community, and togetherness, and confidence, and affirmation. "It's not so impossible!"

Sufjan Stevens - Impossible Soul (mp3)

2010-11-29T06:00:00.006-07:00

There probably aren't any lyricists out there that are as skilled as Joanna. She is ridiculously good. A genuine poet. Check out the final verse from "Baby Birch", a song I interpret to be an ode for all women who are denied motherhood in one form or another:

"There is a blacksmith, and there is a shepherd, and there is a butcher boy, and there is a barber who's cutting and cutting away at my only joy. I saw a rabbit as slick as a knife and as pale as a candlestick. And I had thought it'd be harder to do but I caught her and skinned her quick, held her there kicking and mewling, upended, unspooling, unsung, and blue; told her, 'Wherever you go, little runaway bunny, I will find you.' And then she ran, as they're liable to do. Be at peace baby. And be gone."

That's just one example of a an entire album full of stunning lyrics. "'81" (an amazing song about forgiveness and love), "Does Not Suffice" (One of the best breakup songs ever. That which is communicated in the "la la la" of the song's conclusion is remarkable), "Go Long" (an indictment against that thing in men that is violence and war and hardness and heartless and ruin), "Esme" (I remember reading it was written for the daughter of a friend) , "Jackrabbits"...etc., etc. Literally. Every. Song. Is. Nuts. Now some people don't like her voice. Get over it. Her voice is beautiful. There. That's settled. Perhaps (but only perhaps) my two favorite songs on the album are the following:

Joanna Newsom - Baby Birch (mp3)
Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company (mp3)

2010-11-28T06:00:00.008-07:00

"This is Happening" is an amazing album. It blew me away. There has been much dancing in the kitchen from all members of the family. When the synth kicks in on "Dance Yrself Clean" it is pure joy. Movement is a given. And even though it clocks in at just under nine minutes, it isn't a second too short or long.

I could sit back and throw darts at the album cover and hit just about any song worthy of mention here. "You Wanted a Hit" is phenomenal, as is "All I Want" and "I Can Change". But I wanted to mention "Home", the record's final track. "This is the trick, forget a terrible year." James Murphy, I read, was referring to the death of a close friend in 2009. He closes the song with an amazing buildup by singing "If you're afraid of what you need. If you're afraid of what you need, look around you. You're surrounded. It won't get any better. Until the night."

These two tracks respectively set off and conclude the album, juxtaposing each other musically, and thematically. And he may be absolutely right about it not getting any better.

LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean (mp3)
LCD Soundsystem - Home (mp3)

2010-11-27T06:00:00.003-07:00

"Angela Surf City" is right up there with the best of anything the Walkmen have ever done. Supremely good. The drums are just nails, and Hamilton's vocals are crazy good (as usual). The chorus just kills me. When he sings "you kept your jaw wide and closed, I never noticed before" I thought yes, that is it, they've done it, that is the peak. But no. It doubles on itself and goes straight to 11, "I couldn't see the signs, now I dream of the time..." Whoa.

The first time I listened to "Blue As Your Blood" I wasn't particularly impressed. It thought it was okay. I thought it sounded like some song born to be in a Tarantino film. But after a second listen I found myself craving it. Repeat. Then I realized I was frustrated because he never repeats the chorus, "Black is the color of your eyes. Spanish is the language of your touch..." I found myself wanting more of it. So inevitably I would just play the song over and over and over. Now it is one of my favorites.

The Walkmen - Angela Surf City (mp3)
The Walkmen - Blue As Your Blood (mp3)

2010-11-26T06:00:00.004-07:00

I don't know how many times I've played "Out Go The Lights" this year. I adore this song. One of my favorite lines: "...and when that light turns back again you will remember the way they fall for you like a brick. Oh, but nobody loves you or woos you when you're down or kicked. Out go the lights. Never see that counterpoint. You always looked good that way, you with the one-two punch."

"Goodnight Laura" is a modern lullabye. It's fascinating how lullabies take on new meaning once you find yourself singing them to your own children. I've grown to appreciate them not only as an art form, but for the peace they are born to bring.

Spoon - Out Go The Lights (mp3)
Spoon - Goodnight Laura (mp3)

2010-11-25T06:00:00.002-07:00

I've probably played "Meet Me In the Basement" fifty times this year on my way to Jiu-Jitsu class to get pumped up for a roll. Great build. Here is a good fan made, and band approved, music video. "Sweetest Kill" is my other favorite from Forgiveness Rock Record.

Broken Social Scene - Meet Me In The Basement (mp3)
Broken Social Scene - Sweetest Kill (mp3)

2010-11-24T06:00:00.001-07:00

The album "Teen Dream" was so good that picking the two songs I wanted to feature here was very difficult. Consistently good songs from top to bottom and Victoria Legrand's voice is featured better than it's ever been. So here you go, two songs which could just as well be any two others from the record.

Beach House - Zebra (mp3)
Beach House - Take Care (mp3)

2010-11-23T06:00:00.004-07:00

"Odessa" is totally infectious. Amazing. There will be dancing. And "Jamelia", I love how it starts out so soft, with little punches of dissonant strings, and then just builds and builds into a sonic plea that perfectly complements the lyrics.

Caribou - Odessa (mp3)
Caribou - Jamelia (mp3)

2010-11-22T06:00:00.002-07:00

Two amazing collaborations here from Damon Albarn. "Some Kind of Nature" featuring Lou Reed, and "Superfast Jellyfish" featuring De La Soul and Gruff Rhys.

Gorillaz - Some Kind of Nature (mp3)
Gorillaz - Superfast Jellyfish (mp3)

2010-11-21T06:00:00.005-07:00

Twin Shadow came out of nowhere this year and killed it with a beautiful marriage of 80's and post-alternative production. Both of these songs are so outstanding, I've been playing them non-stop! You'll see that each of the bands in my top ten get two songs. It is too difficult with these artists to choose one favorite.

Twin Shadow - Castles in the Snow (mp3)
Twin Shadow - Forget (mp3)

2010-11-20T06:00:00.002-07:00

This song came out the first week of this year, and I thought then that it would be right up there with the best of the year. A treatise on Charles Darwin, plus opera, plus the Knife, equals pure win.

The Knife - Colouring of Pigeons (mp3)

2010-11-19T06:00:00.001-07:00

Perhaps this pick is kind of a cheat, since it's really just an 80's synth reimagining of one of my all-time favorites, "Else" by Built to Spill. The Electronic Anthology Project is just Doug Martsch taking some of his classics and looking at them through the eyes of M-M-M-Max Headroom, and renaming them in anagram. I've always loved "Else" and this genre is a perfect fit.

The Electronic Anthology Project - Eels (mp3)

2010-11-18T06:00:00.001-07:00

The drums and the brass in this song are so fantastic! The breakdown in this song is pretty much the high point of all Vampire Weekend, for me.

Vampire Weekend - Run (mp3)

2010-11-17T06:00:00.002-07:00

Luke Temple's solo work is amazing, and although I haven't loved his band Here We Go Magic, they nailed this one. "Where'd you find all that time? A place for everything in the house? ...a peice of wood from Noah's ark, a thing collected from the start. And if there is another flood, your house will float on Noah's wood." Perhaps I need to hear this as an ode to my wife. Love, I will eat my words if there is another flood. You will have saved us, since we'll be floating on all that extra furniture we have lying around the house.

Here We Go Magic - Collector (mp3)

2010-11-16T06:00:00.002-07:00

From "July Flame." This is the closing track, which features Jim James (My Morning Jacket) on vocals. Sweet. Strong. Pure. Built to last. Good.

Laura Veirs - Make Something Good (mp3)

2010-11-15T06:00:00.001-07:00

"Dad rock" yes I know. Generally I don't get too into The National, because all their songs sound pretty much the same, all sharing a tempo without too much variation in emotion one way or another. But, I absolutley love this song! And a beautiful (tragic?) elegy to a spendthrift culture: "I still owe money to the money to the money I owe."

The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio (mp3)

2010-11-14T06:00:00.001-07:00

A rumination on the apocolypse. Radioactive teeth falling out of the head, nature's early morning fog combining with the unnatural fog of a nuclear power plant, and that understandable commitment to want to go, ultimately, on your own terms.

Strand of Oaks - Last To Swim (mp3)

2010-11-13T06:00:00.001-07:00

The idea is a good one, likening a relationship to a multi-decade arms race in which two countries amassed egregious amounts of nuclear weapons, where life as we knew it could have ended in a series of earth destroying concussions, or continued on in normalcy (that is, if you want to call the 60's and 70's normal).

The Morning Benders - Cold War (mp3)

2010-11-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Loved seeing them perform the Twilight Concert Series this year. They played this little rocker among many other perfect pop rock songs. Neko Case is pretty much amazing at everything she touches.

The New Pornographers - Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk (mp3)

2010-11-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

The title sounds a bit morbid, I know. However, I have seen the pain of grandparents as they lay in a hospital bed trapped, quite literally, in a body that does not function anymore. Yet their spirits and minds yearn to move on. I have seen families, conflicted as they may be, want the same. It is in that context that I hear this song, which actually makes it really beautiful.

Wye Oak - I Hope You Die (mp3)

2010-11-10T08:00:00.001-07:00

The bombast of the drums coupled with the minimalist piano is amazing here. Not much else to say. Enjoy!

These New Puritans - Hologram (mp3)

2010-11-09T08:00:00.002-07:00

Consider the first line of this song, “One’s not enough” (O.N.E.). Then these other lines: “You don’t move me anymore. And I’m glad that you don’t, because I can’t take it anymore”. Many people might hear this song and think the singer is addressing alcohol and drug addictions. But I think he is like me, and is addressing his embarrassing ice cream addictions. Despite the last 45 five seconds (which get oddly Maroon Five-ey) this is a very fun song.

Yeasayer - O.N.E.(mp3)

2010-11-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Jamie Lidell is such a talent. Although I didn’t love his new album this song got a lot of playing time. Infectious vibe. A primal desire for synchronicity with another human being. In fact, I think that is what the original lyrics said, “My primal desire for synchronicity with another human being” but it was later shortened to “I long to slip into your rhythm and your boom”. :)

Jamie Lidell - Your Sweet Boom (mp3)

2010-11-07T08:00:00.001-07:00

A departure, for sure, from gems like “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” on their previous album. But I really like the mellow, ethereal vibe on this song. I have no idea what it is about, however, other than the feeling that someone is missing.

MGMT - Someone's Missing (mp3)

2010-11-06T08:00:00.002-06:00

This is some serious mood music, and not for everyone. But I love it! The pacing of it is marvelous, the beat juxtaposed with silence. The samples. The single hand clap. This dude is an artist. Have you seen his cover of Feist’s “Limit To Your Love”? Also, probably we’re cousins. Probably.

James Blake - I Only Know (What I Know Now) (mp3)

2010-11-05T06:00:00.001-06:00

It’s fun to see them bust out a synth. I’ve always maintained that Arcade Fire take themselves way too seriously, and they still do in this song (anyone with the will to move can solve the song’s central dilemma), but I still like them. This was my favorite off the album and the only one sung by Regine.

Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (mp3)

2010-11-04T06:00:00.003-06:00

With Damien Jurado we often get hopelessness, but here we get hopelessness coupled with a sort of unconditional love. The song addresses a character with blood on his hands, having lied, caused trouble, etc. There is no evidence he will change, yet at the end there is this loving plea: “Shake off your doubt, grab ahold. Sometimes the hardest part is letting you go. You can always come back when you need. I’ll leave the light on, leave the light on.”

Damien Jurado - Throwing Your Voice (mp3)

2010-11-03T08:00:00.003-06:00

I can’t deny that I’ve got a certain weakness for existentialism. “What is, just is, I know, so we’re trapped by answers.” The idea of the song, I suppose, being that we can look about and see life’s evidence (answers), while mankind, the “citizens”, spend our days searching for the questions. A bizarre form of living Jeopardy! The question James Mercer asks at the end is, “From the moment that we’re born ‘til we’re old and tired, do we ever know people?” A question I asked myself not so long ago.

Broken Bells - Citizen (mp3)

2010-11-02T06:00:00.003-06:00

About as straightforward a rock song as you can get. Three chords. A borderline cheesy profession of love and devotion. And that sweet little syncopation of guitar and drum that comes at the end of each line.

The Black Keys - Everlasting Light (mp3)

2010-11-01T06:00:00.002-06:00

In mourning for the loss of a loved one, comes this line, “It sounds like we would have had a great deal to say to each other. I bet when I leave my body for the sky the wait will be worth it.”

Local Natives - Airplanes (mp3)

Raking the Leaves

2010-10-31T17:45:00.003-06:00

Apparently I have this thing inside me where, come years end, I feel compelled to share with the great Nowhere-of-the-Internets the music that has meant the most to me that year. I try to avoid doing this because I think it is a lame and fruitless enterprise, but can't. And this year is no different. Involuntarily I've been combing my iPod for all things 2010 and have made a list. Ugh.

Like the leaves on the tree in my front yard (here comes an analogy!), songs are deciduous. Each year gives birth to new buds, then leaves of all kinds. Eventually the autumn wind comes along and blows the leaves down. I bag most of them up and the city takes them away. Some fall artfully and dissolve into the soil to become my grass, my vegetables, my air. They continue with me. Then there are those few stubborn leaves that stay on the tree somehow, all winter long. I don't know how or why that happens, but I continue to hear them.

So in the spirit of leaf raking, in the spirit of housekeeping and this (admittedly nonsensical) business of list-making, I've got a November's worth of posts already written and scheduled to publish at the palatable rate of one per day. These are my favorite songs from 2010.

Enjoy! (or flame, as the case may be)

Here are a handful that I enjoy very much, but did not make the cut:

Gauntlet Hair: I Was Thinking (mp3)
Menomena: Queen Black Acid (mp3)
Active Child: She Was A Vision (mp3)
Clogs: Raise the Flag (mp3)
Ratatat: Drugs (mp3)

Led Zeppelin & Patty Griffin go Mormon

2010-10-15T09:41:00.005-06:00

Well, not really. Robert Plant does, however, cover two terrific songs by Low on his new album "Band of Joy". Patty Griffin adds her vocals to the mix. It's official, the apocalypse is near.

Well, let's not hold our breath for a team up with MoTab. (Maybe post-apocolypse. Maybe.)

Robert Plant - Monkey (Low cover)

Feist: Look at What the Light Did Now

2010-10-14T22:40:00.001-06:00

Strand of Oaks - Pope Killdragon

2010-09-15T08:45:00.003-06:00

Take note of this album. It's really good.

Strand of Oaks: Last To Swim (mp3)

In the Way of the Gift

2010-09-12T21:00:00.007-06:00

Dancing on a Very Small Island - Brian Kershisnik

So, first of all, I'm not an indifferent slug of a movie watcher. I'm all about emotional involvement within bounds. In "Raising Arizona" when Holly Hunter and Nicholas Cage are driving off into the dark night with young Nathan Junior, I laugh (I just love him so much!). In "Children of Men" when Clive Owen's getaway car continually stalls as he and those precious women are running from the Fishes, I sit on my heels and groan. And in "My Life", after Michael Keaton's character ruminates on a life of experience, regret, imperfection, and beauty, he is at last wheeled into his backyard for his final birthday party, and I curl up into a fetal position in the corner and weep. Honest truth (except the fetal position part).

Christy doesn't like "My Life" for the exact same reason I love it - the emotional ride. For me, it's catharsis. For her it's forebodings. I respect that entirely. We can't help but think of our own children. How will they turn out? Are we performing our roles well? Do they know how infinite they are? How fulfilling and meaningful they have been to us?

Which brings me to Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, one of my favorite novels. It speaks to these questions. The narrator is an old minister who, after spending a life of bachelorhood, marries and becomes a father in old age. He is haunted by the thought that he will die without ever coming to know his boy in earnest as he grows to manhood. So the book is, essentially, one long epistle to that boy. "My Life" on steroids.

These two sons of ours are a grace I don't think I'll ever fully wrap myself around. I don't even know if such a thing is possible. The minister writes, "There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all." Lord, I suspect that is true. How will I know if I'm telling the right stories? Will they ever really know me? And me them?

The minister says, "In every important way we are such secrets from each other and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable."

"For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in him?" 1 Corinthians 2:11

If this is true, then perhaps I'm speaking Latin, and they English, and their unborn children some future cryptic dialect. This goes beyond mere generation gap. Perhaps we really are, to one degree or another, lost in translation. I hope to minimize that. And I hope to communicate a few things to them. Love is the given, obviously the foremost. I don't doubt that they feel it. But there is more.

One thing that has been on my mind, of late, is expressed so artfully in Gilead. The minister writes, "These days there are so many people who think loyalty to religion is benighted, if it is not worse than benighted. I am aware of that, and I know the charges that can be brought against the churches are powerful. And I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses sheltered and parochial. In every sense, unless it really is a universal and transcendent life, unless the bread is the bread and the cup is the cup everywhere, in all circumstances, and it is a time with the Lord in Gethsemane that comes for everyone, as I deeply believe...It all means more than I can tell you. So you must not judge what I know by what I find words for. If I could only give you what my father gave me. No, what the Lord has given me and must also give you. But I hope you will put yourself in the way of the gift."

I suppose it must be the universalist part of me bubbling to the surface. I want my boys to close their eyes on a sweltering Sunday afternoon in a sacrament meeting (a meeting I loathe to miss) and experience sincere communion, as I feel I have done so often, with God (who is Love) and the Son (who was the ultimate expression of it). And I want them to extend the circle of that experience and see in their mind's eye other people in other houses the world over, some with steeples, some with crosses, some with drums. Some with wafers and wine. Some with menorahs and yarmulkes. Some with prayer rugs. And push that circle onward to our dear friends, who, instead of sitting next to us, are hiking in the mountains in search of their own transcendence. I don't want them to hoard validation. I want to weld with them, together in love, and tolerance, and understanding.

If we can consider this life a gift, we might imagine it hidden, or up there on a shelf just out of reach, or maybe right here in our hands unopenable, without seams. Or we might see it as relationships between ourselves and those around us, our language all of a color, absurd in its beauty, epiphanous in it's proximity. It may be that, or something else entirely, but "you must not judge what I know by what I find words for."

Starting Again in Eden

2010-08-26T17:06:00.001-06:00

Consider the lyrics of Joanna Newsom's "'81". Any thoughts?

I found a little plot of land,
in the garden of Eden.
It was dirt, and dirt is all the same.
I tilled it with my two hands,
and I called it my very own;
there was no-one to dispute my claim.

Well, you'd be shocked
at the state of things-
the whole place
has just cleared right out.
It was hotter than hell,
so I laid me by a spring, for a spell,
as naked as a trout.

The wandering eye that I have caught
is as hot as a wandering sun.
But I will want for nothing more,
in my garden:
start again,
in my hardening to every heart but one.

Meet me in the garden of Eden.
Bring a friend.
We are gonna have ourselves a time.
We are gonna have a garden party.
It's on me!
No, sirree, it's my dime.
We broke our hearts,
in the war between
St. George and the dragon,
but both, in equal part,
are welcome to come along.
I'm inviting everyone.

Farewell to loves that I have known.
Even muddiest waters run.
Tell me, what is meant by sin, or none,
in a garden
seceded from the union
in the year of A.D. 1?

The unending amends you've made
are enough for one life.
Be done.
I believe in innocence, little darlin.
Start again.
I believe in everyone.
I believe, regardless.
I believe in everyone.

The Triumphant Return of Sufjan Stevens, part II

2010-08-21T23:59:00.002-06:00

First of all, nobody else is writing music quite like this. Asthmatic Kitty, Sufjan's label, describes "Djohariah", the final song of the EP, as "a 17 minute guitar jam-for-single-mothers." In reality it is about a 12 minute guitar jam, which segues effortlessly into a more traditional lyric song for the last 5 minutes. There is a lovely and heartbreaking female dichotomy at work here. Desertion, abuse, financial ruin, and shame juxtaposed with birth, victory, beauty, and love. No joke, no hyperbole...I am more moved by the final minutes of this song than I have been by any other in a long time. I say that as a son, a father, a husband, and a man.

No need for expounding. Here are the lyrics. Listen/Purchase HERE.

"Djohariah"

Know you won’t get very far
With the back seat driver in the carpetbagger
With the dagger heart grabber stuck in your car

And the yard is grown to a hilt
And the money spent money spent where it went
Embarrassment, embarrassment to pay for the car

And the man who left you for dead
He’s the heart grabber back stabber double cheater wife beater
You don’t need that man in your life

And you worked yourself to the bone
While the people say what they say
It’s the neighbors anyway
They don’t know what’s good for your life

And I see your head hangs low
In the black shadow, half shadow
Living room is fitting is sitting room is fit for your crying

Don’t be ashamed—don’t hide in your room
For the woman is, woman is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Djohariah Djohariah, etc.

And the time you held to the light
When water ran water ran with the strange attic
And when the walls were wet with your life

And you pushed yourself to the floor
And the spirit went where it went
Hovering discovering uncovering your life, on the floor

And the walls were wet with your love

For the mother is, the mother is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Don’t be ashamed, don’t hide from me now
For the woman is the woman is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Djohariah Djohariah, etc.

Don’t be ashamed, don’t cry in the bath
For it’s the story of, story of, morning glory story
It’s the gloriole that comes to your path

There is a time when the lights will arise
For the mother is, the mother is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours to enjoy

Go on! Little sister! Go on! Little sister!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours

Go on! Little sister! Go on! Little sister!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For you’re beautiful, beautiful
All the fullness of the world is yours

credits

The Triumphant Return of Sufjan Stevens, Part I

2010-08-21T23:58:00.001-06:00

In 1965 Paul Simon dumped upon an unsuspecting world "The Sound of Silence", one of the greatest songs ever written. Beloved by everyone. Seriously, can you show me one (reasonable) person who does not like that song? And it is worthy, scalp to toenail, of all the praise thrown its way over the years.

The song's message has only become more relevant with time. Simon sings of a dark vision cut and complemented by a neon sign/idol distracting everyone "and in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never share." The uncomfortable, damning silence is the communal response of his generation and continues to be so in ours. "'Fools', I said, 'You do not know. Silence, like a cancer, grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach you.' But my words like silent raindrops fell and echoed in the wells of silence." This silence metaphorically sends a message all its own, in many different forms all sharing a common root - at least part of which (in my ears) seems to be a lack of communion and dialogue. Simon says.

Here we are 35 years later, and Sufjan Stevens just released, yesterday, an 8 song, 60 minute EP titled "All Delighted People". The first and last songs are masterpiece bookends. This post is labeled part 1, because it deals with the first track, which his label describes as a "long form epic ballad...a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon's "Sounds of Silence"".

Sufjan jumps right at Simon's vision in the first line, "Tomorrow you'll see it through the clouded out disguises put you in the room...and I remember every sound it made...I'm not easily confused...And the people bowed and prayed. And what difference does it make for you and me? All delighted people raise their hands." That refrain of "all delighted people..." becomes progressively more sad and ironic as the song progresses. Simon pleaded with the people to take his arms. Sufjan responds, "And I took you by the sleeve."

It's not the only time he's taken a sleeve. In Sufjan's song "No Man's Land" (which in was a response to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land") he sang, "This land is not your land, for the right hand takes what it can. Ransacks with the madman. For this land is not yours or mine to have. This land was made for the good of itself." Our culture's obsessive solipsism and it's death grip on the world play a role here as well.

Ultimately the last stanza pokes at those existential questions. This is a bitter confused slosh of a world. "Oh! But the world is a mess. And what difference does it make if the world is a mess? If the world is a mess! I tried my best. I tried in vain. Oh! But the world is a mess!" The back and forth of it is painfully uncomfortable. We tend to reach plateaus in life where we think we've learned to cope & compromise with the unfairness/horrors/messiness of the world. Probably because its finger isn't immediately upon us at that moment. Then it touches us again and sends us spinning. There is a yearning in his voice for connection and communion. "Oh! I love you a lot; Oh! I love you from the top of my heart. And you can see through my mistakes." The last line is a plea for the children, "Suffer not the child among you or shall you die young...", that last ellipses alluding, but not yielding at last, to the song's title.

The subject matter is everything but "delightful". But isn't it an amazing, joyful, awe-inspiring, yea, even delightful thing that this song was even written today? Lady GaGa, despite all her shock and awe domination of music media, is entirely banal. And I'm not advocating that all music must be all Sound-of-Silencey all the time (I will sing loud and strong anytime "Since U Been Gone" and "Irreplaceable" pop up on my iPod). But I do worry, are we missing a dialogue here? Are we as a culture still spiraling downward in a lack of true human communication and connection? All delighted people, raise their hands!

Feel free to listen to the song free of charge HERE. And/or pay 5 bucks and buy the EP.

On Encountering and Countering Restlessness

2010-08-19T15:56:00.007-06:00

Christy had been feeling down for several days. We were in that no man's land where we both knew something was wrong, but whatever the thing - the looming shadow of whatever it was, wasn't nameable enough to me to clearly discern. We both danced around it for a few days. Then a week or two ago she came into the kitchen and asked me, kindly and in her way - completely straighforward, to please compliment her more. All I could do was stand there, not disappear, and nod (because one can not, in that moment, despite complete and unfeigned sincerity say something about how beautiful she looks, or how funny and talented she is, or how artfully she brings out the personality of our children, and how utterly lost I would be without her. Even a dolt could see that it was a time to nod.)

It got me thinking about Bruce Springsteen's "Stolen Car", performed here by Patty Griffin:

Patty Griffin: Stolen Car(mp3)

I met a little girl and I settled down in a little house out on the edge of town. We got married, swore we'd never part. Then little by little we drifted from each other's hearts. At first I thought it was just restlessness that would fade as time went by and our love grew deep. In the end it was something more I guess. Tore us apart and made us weep. I'm driving a stolen car down on Eldridge Avenue. Each night I wait to get caught, but I never do. She asked if I remembered the letters I wrote when our love was young and bold. She said last night she read those letters, and they made her feel one hundred years old. I'm driving a stolen car on a pitch black night. And I'm telling myself I'm gonna be all right. I drive by night and I travel in fear that in this darkness I will disappear.

Clearly I'm Not Ready

2010-08-02T10:35:00.009-06:00

Several weeks ago our Grandma Toni's younger sister Ann passed away. They were close and conversed daily. The morning I found out I visited grandma. She might be the toughest woman I know. Unflappable. Feircely independent by necessity. She migrated from post-war Holland in the late 40's with a three year old daughter following the accidental death of her husband. Never remarried. "I already have a husband" she said. She was the provider. Life was not convenient, but she found a way. She has always been governed by unconquerable faith which has, in its way, "brought forth unto it's own likeness".

I sat across the kitchen table from this remarkable woman. Her eyes well, but won't let fall the tears. "I can't quite believe she is gone," she says. "A thought comes to me, I go to pick up the phone, and then I remember." I don't want anything to go unsaid, yet don't know what to say. She has a deeply personal understanding of how to deal with death and loss. She says, in a moment of candor, something I will not forget. "Everyone comforts themselves by saying - 'She is in a better place. She is with her husband, and those who've gone before'. Well, I'm not ready to move on. I want to be with my grandchildren. I want to see everyone grow. Here is where I want to be."

What a beautiful sentiment. I'm not ready either. This world is both gorgeous and cruel, serene and relentless, generous beyond compare yet completely unfair. Death charms us all in different ways. And so here is a song, written by Vic Chesnutt (R.I.P.), performed by David Bazan.

David Bazan: Flirted With You All My Life(mp3)

I am a man. I am self-aware. And everywhere I go you're always right there with me. I flirted with you all my life. Even kissed you once or twice. And to this day I swear it was nice, but clearly, I was not ready. When you touched a friend of mine I thought I would lose my mind. But I found out with time that clearly, I was not ready. Oh, Death. Really, I'm not ready. Oh Death, you hector me, you decimate those dear to me. You tease me with your sweet releif you're cruel and you are constant. When my mom was cancer sick she fought, but then succumbed to it. But you made her beg for it Lord Jesus, please I'm ready. Oh Death. Really I'm not ready. Oh Death, clearly I'm not ready.

Truth Comes In Covers: Bon Iver

2010-06-24T17:15:00.009-06:00

Here is Bon Iver covering the incomparable, the one, the only, Leslie Feist. Do you want to know how to write a sad love song? Look no further. In fact you may realize that the sad love song thing has been gutted, emptied, and done better than you could ever hope.

"Sadness so real that it populates the city, and leaves you homeless again. Steam from a cup and snow on the path. The seasons have changed from present to past. The past turns whole to half."

Bon Iver: The Park(mp3)

Jamie Lidell

2010-05-18T09:27:00.003-06:00

Among several terrific artists that will be gracing a new stage at the Twilight Concert Series this year is Jamie Lidell, whose album "Compass" dropped today.

Salt Lake City is a great place to live. Can you believe we get to watch this stuff for free?

Strange Powers

2010-05-10T14:53:00.002-06:00

I'll be seeing this when it comes to town (sometime, a long time from now).

BONUS:

The Shins: Strange Powers (Magnetic Fields cover)

Truth Comes In Covers: Regina Spektor

2010-05-04T10:03:00.005-06:00

Regina Spektor covers Radiohead. "A heart that's full up like a landfill. A job that slowly kills you. Bruises that won't heal."

Regina Spektor: No Surprises (mp3)

Living Space

2010-04-30T08:00:00.007-06:00

{poem was here}

Though His Name Is Infinite, My Father Is Asleep

2010-04-29T08:00:00.001-06:00

by Larry Levis

When my father disappeared,
He did not go into hiding.
In old age, he was infinite,
So where could he hide? No,
He went into his name,
He went into his name, & into
The way two words keep house,
Each syllable swept clean
Again when you say them;
That's how my father left,
And that's how my father went
Out of his house, forever.
Imagine a house without words,
The family speechless for once
At the kitchen table, & all night
A hard wind ruining
The mottled skin of plums
In the orchard, & no one
Lifting a finger to stop it.
But imagine no word for "house,"
Or wind in a bare place always,
And soon it will all disappear--
Brick, & stone, & wood--all three
Are wind when you can't say
"House," & know, anymore, what it is.
Say Father, then, to no one,
Or say my father was, himself,
A house, or say each word's a house,
Some lit & some abandoned.
Then go one step further,
And say a name is a home,
As remote & as intimate.
Say home, then, or say, "I'll
Never go home again," or say,
Years later, with that baffled
Ironic smile, "I'm on my way
Home," or say as he did not,
"I'm going into my name."
Go further; take a chance, & say
A name is infinite. Repeat all
The names you know, all
The names you've ever heard,
The living & the dead, the precise
Light snow of their syllables.
Say your own name, or say
A last name, say mine, say his,
Say a name so old and frayed
By common use it's lost
All meaning now, & sounds
Like a house being swept out,
Like wind where there's no house.
Say finally there is no way
To document this, or describe
The passing of a father, that
Faint scent of time, or how
He swore delicately, quickly
Against it without ever appearing
To hurry the ceremony of swearing.
And say, too, how you disliked
And loved him, how he stays up
All night now in two words,
How his worn out, infinite name
Outwits death when you say it.
And say finally how the things
He had to do for you
Humiliated him until
He could not get his breath, & say
How much they mattered, how
Necessary he was. And then,
Before sleep, admit, also,
That his name is nothing,
Light as three syllables,
Lighter than pain or art, lighter
Than history, & tell how two words,
That mean nothing to anyone
Else, once meant a world
To you; how sometimes, even you,
In the sweep of those syllables,
Wind, crushed bone, & ashes--
Begin to live again.

As You Walk Away

2010-04-28T08:00:00.001-06:00

{poem was here}

The Ache of Marriage

2010-04-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

by Denise Levertov

The ache of marriage:
thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it

Light

2010-04-26T08:00:00.002-06:00

{poem was here}

Just This

2010-04-25T08:00:00.000-06:00

by W.S. Merwin

When I think of the patience I have had
back in the dark before I remember
or knew it was night until the light came
all at once at the speed it was born to
with all the time in the world to fly through
not concerned about ever arriving
and then the gathering of the first stars
unhurried in their flowering spaces
and far into the story the planets
cooling slowly and the ages of rain
then the seas starting to bear memory
the gaze of the first cell at its waking
how did this haste begin this little time
at any time this reading by lightning
scarcely a word this nothing this heaven

Youth

2010-04-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

by W.S. Merwin

Through all of youth I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for

or what to call you I think I did not
even know I was looking how would I

have known you when I saw you as I did
time after time when you appeared to me

as you did naked offering yourself
entirely at that moment and you let

me breathe you touch you taste you knowing
no more than I did and only when I

began to think of losing you did I
recognize you when you were already

part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you

from what we cannot hold the stars are made

The Gentle Surgury

2010-04-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

by Malachi Black

Once more the bright blade of a morning breeze
glides almost too easily through me,

and from the scuffle I’ve been sutured to
some flap of me is freed: I am severed

like a simile: an honest tenor
trembling toward the vehicle I mean

to be: a blackbird licking half-notes
from the muscled, sap-damp branches

of the sugar maple tree… though I am still
a part of any part of every particle

of me, though I’ll be softly reconstructed
by the white gloves of metonymy,

I grieve: there is no feeling in a cut
that doesn’t heal a bit too much.

Me To Myself

2010-04-22T08:00:00.006-06:00

{poem was here}

Hurricane

2010-04-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

by Yona Harvey

Four tickets left, I let her go --
Firstborn into a hurricane.

I thought she escaped
The floodwaters. No -- but her

Head is empty of the drowned
For now -- though she took

Her first breath below sea level.

Ahhh awe & aw
Mama, let me go -- she speaks

What every smart child knows --
To get grown you unlatch

Your hands from the grown

& up & up & up & up
She turns—latched in the seat

Of a hurricane. You let
Your girl what? You let

Your girl what?

I did so she do I did
so she do so --

Girl, you can ride

A hurricane & she do
& she do & she do & she do

She do make my river

An ocean. Memorial,
Baptist, Protestant birth -- my girl

Walked away from a hurricane.

& she do & she do & she do & she do
She do take my hand a while longer.

The haunts in my pocket

I’ll keep to a hum: Katrina was
a woman I knew. When you were

an infant she rained on you & she
do & she do & she do & she do

Caught, Reading Too Long

2010-04-20T08:00:00.003-06:00

{poem was here}

This Much I Do Remember

2010-04-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

by Billy Collins

It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,

and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.

All of which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of your shoulders

that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the way stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.

Then all the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from the millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.

Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.

After the Argument

2010-04-16T08:00:00.002-06:00

{poem was here}

The World's Lap

2010-04-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

by Lance Larsen

The world keeps wanting to float off into Italian
frescoes, dissolve into acacias,
fall lightly like dust into the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile the body, tired mule,
pushes the grocery cart through Perishables.
The math is simple.
Spirit + body = a sadness machine.

Subtract either spirit or body and you're left
with a story
problem for actuaries
Guillotines make permanent separation a snap.
Ditto famines and plagues,
ditto waves if you try to cross
the ocean without holding fast to a floating object.

But how to keep the machine happy--
supply it with live clams and dead auteurs?
Dance it through corn mazes
in the Midwest? An owner's manual
would help, but how does one translate
the Upanishads of the clavicle,
and where do you add oil in a sadness machine?

Once in a San Jose park, on vacation, I asked
my daughter, Where are we?
She looked up at me: My dolly sits
on mine lap, I sit on yours lap, you sit
on the chair's lap, the chair sits
on the world's lap. There are a million
ways to say "California." Only a few promise rest.

Dance Yrself Clean

2010-04-14T15:58:00.006-06:00

I interrupt this touchy-feely poetry fest to bring you breaking news from the world of music.

LCD Soundsystem is streaming their forthcoming album, This Is Happening, on their website. Be good to yourself and go listen to "Dance Yrself Clean". Turn up the volume. Perhaps, if you feel like it, move your hips a little. It's easily one of the best songs of the year.

The Poet Without Degree

2010-04-14T08:00:00.006-06:00

{poem was here}

The Babies

2010-04-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

by Mark Strand

Let us save the babies.
Let us run downtown.
The babies are screaming.

You shall wear mink
and your hair shall be done.
I shall wear tails.

Let us save the babies
even if we run in rags
to the heart of town.

Let us not wait for tomorrow.
Let us drive into town
and save the babies.

Let us hurry.
They lie in a warehouse
with iron windows and iron doors.

The sunset pink of their skin
is beginning to glow.
Their teeth

poke through their gums
like tombstones.
Let us hurry.

They have fallen asleep.
Their dreams
are infecting them.

Let us hurry.
Their screams rise
from the warehouse chimney.

We must move faster.
The babies have grown into their suits.
They march all day in the sun without blinking.

Their leader sits in a bullet-proof car and applauds.
Smoke issues from his helmet.
We cannot see his face:

we are still running.
More babies than ever are locked in the warehouse.
Their screams are like sirens.

We are still running to the heart of town.
Our clothes are getting ragged.
We shall not wait for tomorrow.

The future is always beginning now.
The babies are growing into their suits.
Let us run to the heart of town.

Let us hurry.
Let us save the babies.
Let us try to save the babies.

Eating Plastic Food In The Basement

2010-04-12T09:47:00.003-06:00

{poem was here}

After Years

2010-04-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

by Ted Kooser

Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer’s retina
as he stood in the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.

Touch Up

2010-04-07T09:47:00.004-06:00

{poem was here}

April Verses

2010-04-06T17:00:00.001-06:00

Since April is national poetry month, I'm going to put myself out there a bit and share some selections of my own original poetry, alongside works from some of my favorite poets. I've already fallen several rejection letters short in my quest for publication this year, but there's no accounting for taste in the sour, overflowing inboxes of the blind assistant editors who've mistakenly cast me off. :) Out of respect for copyrights, revisions, and my own publishing aspirations etc. I'll only leave my originals up for a week or so before taking them down. And I gratefully acknowledge the copyrights of individuals whose poetry I'm posting. I will happily remove them upon request.

In the world of writing (oh, divine!), poetry is the ultimate craft. There are some great online publishers out there that are doing exciting things for poetry, some of my favorites being: Anti-Poetry, Sixth Finch, and SIR!. Check them out. I often let my inner demons or other obligations get in the way of my writing. I want to be more consistent, and less willing to let the muse get away - more like the fisherman in this outstanding poem by Raymond Carver.

After Rainy Days
Raymond Carver

After rainy days and the same serious doubts-
strange to walk past the golf course,
sun overhead, men putting, or teeing, whatever
they do on those green links. To the river that flows
past the clubhouse. Expensive houses on either side
of the river, a dog barking at this kid
who revs his motorcycle. To see a man fighting
a large salmon in the water just below
the footbridge. Where a couple of joggers have stopped
to watch. Never in my life have I seen anything
like this! Stay with him, I think, breaking
into a run. For Christ's sake, man, hold on!

Out Go The Lights

2010-02-23T07:21:00.006-07:00

One of my favorite songs of the year is "Out Go The Lights" by Spoon. I can't stop listening to it.

"...and when that light turns back again you will remember the way they fall for you like a brick. Oh, but nobody loves you or woos you when you're down or kicked. Out go the lights. Never see that counterpoint. You always looked good that way, you with the one-two punch."

Spoon: Out Go The Lights (mp3)

But in a strange way there is something about this song that feels a little like the verse in Def Leppard's Hysteria. Am I crazy?

The Prodigy + Talking Heads

2010-02-22T17:20:00.002-07:00

It's wonderful to see the unexpected marriage of two beautiful things.

Have Two On Me

2010-02-21T00:34:00.004-07:00

She's pretty weird, very eloquent, and has that voice. She is also an excellent songwriter. Check out these two little beauties below from her upcoming triple album "Have One On Me". Ridiculously good.

Joanna Newsom: Good Intentions Paving Company (mp3)

Joanna Newsom: Jackrabbits (mp3)

Beach House: Teen Dream

2010-02-03T08:16:00.004-07:00

An absolutely terrific album.

Grace Note

2010-01-16T23:35:00.005-07:00

When life becomes less about logistics and figures and checkboxes, then our eyes are light, our hearts tickle, and our day becomes a vision of the beauty that surrounds us, and indeed that is within us, and indeed the music of all that we are a part of, and indeed playing.

"Grace Note" by W. S. Merwin

It is at last any morning

not answering to a name

I wake before there is light

hearing once more that same

music without repetition

or beginning playing

away into itself

in silence like a wave

a unison in its own

key that I seem

to have heard before I

was listening but by the time

I hear it now it is gone

as when on a morning

alive with sunlight

almost at the year's end

a feathered breath a bird

flies in at the open window

then vanishes leaving me

believing what I do not see

Record Club

2010-01-15T08:00:00.001-07:00

Beck, the living legend, has an amazing little thing going on called "Record Club", which his website describes as "an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens."

The album which is the object of the latest installment is Skip Spence's "Oar". We've got a team of Beck (of course), Wilco, Feist, Jamie Liddell, and others lending a hand. (Sweet!!)

Favorite Songs of 2009

2010-01-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

January is always a weird month in music. The shadows of the past year still hang heavy, and no great bands want to release an album the first month out of the gate (unless you're Animal Collective, then you can pretty much do whatever you want). A little late for a year end list? Perhaps, but it's never too late for great music.

Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks
Dirty Projectors: Stillness Is The Move
Animal Collective: Bluish
Monsters of Folk: Temazcal
Cass McCombs: Executioner's Song
Phoenix: 1901
Bill Callahan: Too Many Birds
Sufjan Stevens: You Are The Blood
Bon Iver: Beach Baby
Yeah Yeah Yeah's: Dull Life
The Decemberists: Sleepless
The Big Pink: Velvet
Dirty Projectors & David Byrne: Knotty Pine
Tiny Vipers: Dreamer
Matt & Kim: Daylight
Throw Me The Statue: The Outer Folds

In The New Year

2010-01-08T08:00:00.002-07:00

Proof of Love

2010-01-07T11:13:00.005-07:00

I expected that Christy would have posted this long ago, but she hasn't...so I will do it for her. A few months ago Milo spit up on Christy's pants. It was clearly some sort of theophany, like the virgin appearing in the browned face of an unbuttered toast. Doesn't it just melt your heart?

The Best Button

2010-01-06T14:59:00.002-07:00

Someday I hope to write beautifully, like Ada Limón does here in The Best Button.

Now, off to listen to some Van Morrison.

Colouring of Pigeons

2010-01-06T11:36:00.002-07:00

Could it be possible that the best song of the year has already dropped? Check out the eleven minute monument...

The Knife: Colouring of Pigeons (streaming live from their website)

Favorite Albums of 2009

2009-12-12T15:00:00.002-07:00

15. Ramona Falls - Intuit

Going Once, Going Twice (mp3)

14. Anni Rossi - Rockwell

Las Vegas (mp3)

13. Bowerbirds - Upper Air

Northern Lights (mp3)

12. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

Careless Love (mp3)

11. Atlas Sound - Logos

Sheila (mp3)

10. Beirut: March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland

La Llorona (mp3)

9. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca

Two Doves (mp3)

8. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest

While You Wait For The Others (mp3)

7. Throw Me The Statue: Creaturesque

Ancestors (mp3)

6. Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

Eid Ma Clack Shaw (mp3)

5. The Mountain Goats: The Life of the World To Come

1 John 4:16 (mp3)

4. Cass McCombs: Catacombs

Harmonia (mp3)

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz!

Skeletons (mp3)

2. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Lisztomania (mp3)

1. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion

Summertime Clothes (mp3)

Lyricist #1 - Will Sheff

2009-12-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

I follow the blog of the poet Ada Limón, and she posted recently about an assignment given to her by Indigest Magazine to interview an artist who works in a different genre. She chose Will Sheff of Okkervil River. And I'm so glad she did. He is a truly brilliant lyricist. He rhymes without sounding compromised or cheesy, he uses repetition without it turning to filler, he can use tricks without sounding forced or contrived. He chooses his words so carefully. The lyrics read brilliantly on their own, but are understood more deeply when coupled with the music (not always the case with good lyrics). There might be a danger to approaching songwriting in too literary a manner, lest the words overshadow the song and melody itself. But whether his songs are whispy or loud he always maintains a balance. Will Sheff, a lyricist himself adored by poets.

Here are two examples:

"A Stone" is sad & superb. The narrator doesn't give any reasons why this girl should love him instead of this stone. He doesn't vow to lay her down in a bed of roses, so to speak, or raise her up so she can stand on mountains, as it were. He just flays her with this indictment of misdirected love. The end just kills.

"Unless it Kicks" is a tour de force. How many songs have we heard over the years about the trappings of rock and roll, and life on the road, etc.? None is more forthright about "living the lie" as Sheff is here, but through shared experience Sheff is able to find some jubliance, some wonder, some meaning despite the doomed nature of the whole affair.

A Stone (mp3)
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy (2005)

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling, the loveliest words whispered and meant - you like all these things. But, though you like all these things, you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's smooth and it's cold. And you'd love most to be told that it's all your own. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. And I'm found too fast, called too fond of flames, and then I'm phoning my friends, and then I'm shouldering the blame, while you're picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago. You're out singing songs, and I'm down shouting names at the flickerless screen, going f*&%ing insane. Am I losing my cool, overstating my case? Well, baby, what can I say? You know I never claimed that I was a stone. And you love a stone. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's dark, and it's old, and if it could start being alive you'd stop living alone.

And I think I believe that if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know. And when that queen's daughter came of age, I think she'd be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago

Unless It Kicks (mp3)
Okkervil River - The Stage Names (2007)

What gives this mess some grace unless it's kicks, man - unless it is fictions, unless it's sweat or it's songs? What hits against this chest unless it's a sick man's hand, from some midlevel band? He's been driving too long on a dark windless night, with the stereo on, with the towns flying by and the ground getting soft.

And a sound in the sky, coming down from above, it surrounds you and sighs and is whispering of what pulls your body down, and that is quicksand. So climb out quick, hand over hand, before your mouth's all filled up. What picks you up from down unless it's tricks, man? When I've been fixed I am convinced that I will not get so broke up again.

And on a seven day high, that heavenly song punches right through my mind and just hums through my blood. And I know it's a lie, but I'll still give my love. Hey, my heart's on the line for your hands to pluck off.

What gives this mess some grace unless it's fiction - unless it's licks, man, unless it's lies or it's love? What breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan, floating up from the stands with her heart opened up. And I want to tell her, "Your love isn't lost," and say "my heart is still crossed!" I want to scream, "hey, you're so wonderful! What a dream in the dark - about working so hard, about glowing, so stoned, trying not to turn off, trying not to believe in that lie all on your own."

Lyricist #2 - John Darnielle

2009-12-03T15:00:00.001-07:00

For almost 20 years John Darnielle has crafted intense, uncompromising, original music. Whenever you hear the Mountain Goats you know it is them and not another. As far as vocals go I've never been his greatest fan, but I've come around the long way to that nasal deadpan delivery. And when it comes to lyrics there aren't many musicians out there that can even come close to John Darnielle. He is also staggeringly prolific. The first thing I ever heard from the Mountain Goats was "The Sunset Tree" in 2005, which by that time was already pretty far along in the discography. It marked a departure from his earlier material in that it was the most confessional collection of songs he'd ever released (and I am a true sucker for the honesty that accompanies that sort of thing). A large part of the album's subject matter deals autobiographically with Darnielle's relationship with his abusive stepfather. At one point he sings about a fantasized confrontation with the man, "I'm going to get myself in fighting trim, scope out every angle of unfair advantage. I'm going to bribe the officials. I'm going to kill all the judges. It's going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage." (!). By the album's end, however he seems to be coming to a sort of reconcilliation with the stepfather, and closes it out with this little beauty:

Pale Green Things (mp3)
The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (2005)

Got up before dawn. Went down to the racetrack, riding with the windows down, shortly after your first heart attack. You parked behind the paddock. Cracking asphalt underfoot. Coming up through the cracks. Pale green things. Pale green things.

You watched the horses run their workouts. You held your stopwatch in your left hand, and a racing form beneath your arm. Casting your gaze way out to no man's land. Sometimes I'll meet you out there, lonely and frightened. Flicking my tongue out at the wet leaves. Pale green things. Pale green things.

My sister called at 3 AM, just last December. She told you how you'd died at last. At last, that morning at the racetrack was one thing that I remembered. I turned it over in my mind like a living Chinese finger trap. Seaweed in Indiana sawgrass. Pale green things. Pale green things.

Lyricist #3 - James Mercer

2009-12-02T15:00:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine once commented on how unfortunate it was that The Shins came about at a time when "The" bands were so ubiquitous. It would have been easy to lump them into the mix of wannabe throwback hipsters. For every gift like The Walkmen or The Decemberists there were outfits like The Vines, The Killers, The Ravonettes, or The Strokes (not a fan). And although the exposure they got from Garden State almost became a cruel joke ("You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear." ::vomit::), James Mercer's endlessly creative melodies and equally creative lyrics speak for themselves. The Shins have something to say, and say it poetically.

One of the greatest break-up songs of all time, in my opinion, is Past and Pending. The song opens up in the Fall, the year is dying along with the relationship. Betrayal and infidelity burn in one set of eyes, and the narrator is caught in that painful moment between an idyllic past and lonely future. Anyone suffering from a broken heart knows what its like to "loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines disecting love." The risk the lyrics run throughout is in the complexity of metaphor. Mercer takes the figurative "lines" disecting his relationship and doubles their meaning, sadness, beauty through the lyrical lines he's writing, disecting his love in song.

Past and Pending (mp3)
The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (2001)

As someone sets light to the first fire of autumn, we settle down to cut ourselves apart. Cough and twitch from the news on your face and some foreign candle burning in your eyes. Held to the past too aware of the pending, chill as the dawn breaks and finds us up for sale. Enter the fog another low road descending away from the cold lust, your house and summertime. Blind to the last cursed affair, pistols and countless eyes, a trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running. Feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch. Loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love. Your name on my cast and my notes on your stay offer me little but doting on a crime. We've turned every stone and for all our inventions in matters of love loss, we've no recourse at all. Blind to the last cursed affair, pistols and countless eyes, a trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch. Loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love.

Lyricist #4 - Sufjan Stevens

2009-12-01T16:00:00.011-07:00

I've never regretted the day I went to the record store and slapped down $14.99 (plus tax) for a brand new album called "Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State." (Record stores? What are those?) I'd been perusing various internet music sites and found the song "Romulus", which blew me away. Sufjan Stevens has been one of my favorite musical artists ever since. He graduated from The New School with an MFA in creative writing, where he also won the Chapbook award for fiction. (You can read some of his peices online. I recommend "All The Nonsense of Suffering" and "We Are Sheilded By the Holy Ghost".) Though it may not seem like it, based on the quantity of output, he is a feirce self-editor, which is essential in any writing (lyrical or otherwise).

One of my favorite Sufjan tracks is Vito's Ordination Song. Christy and I have two sons. When I hear this song, I can't help but think of taking each one into my arms, annointing their heads, and wanting for them every good thing, no matter what.

Vito's Ordination Song (mp3)
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan - The Great Lake State (2003)

I always knew you in your mother’s arms. I have called your name. I have an idea placed in your mind: to be a better man. I've made a crown for you. Put it in your room. And when the bridegroom comes there will be noise. There will be glad. And a perfect bed. And when you write a poem I know the words. I know the sounds before you write it down. When you wear your clothes, I wear them too. I wear your shoes and your jacket too. I always knew you in your mother’s arms. I have called you son. I've made amends between father and son. Or, if you haven't one, rest in my arms. Sleep in my bed. There is a design to what I did and said.

linked images = paintings by Brian Kershisnik

Lyricist #5 - Collin Melloy

2009-11-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Storytelling is one of the most time-honored branches of songwriting. And while still pretty central to most genres of popular music, especially pop country music, the form has devolved, in many respects, into a paint-by-numbers routine. Then there's Collin Melloy. Whether its a concept album based on a Japanese folktale or theatrical tracks about seafarers or gymnasts (and regardless of how such stories strike your fancy), you must admit he is a true storyteller. I recognize the trust he has in his listeners. He tells stories full of metaphor and symbolism and action without talking down or oversimplifying.

One of the key tenets of writing is "show, don't tell." In his song "Red Right Ankle" he shows three stories, each one speaking to a different aspect of the same relationship. He doesn't hand it to you in a to-go bag, but instead relies confidently on the interpretation of the listener. That's hard to do without being overly cryptic and vague.

Red Right Ankle (mp3)

The Decemberists - Her Majesty The Decemberists (2003)

This is the story of your red right ankle and how it came to meet your leg. And how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled and how the skin was softly shed. And how it whispered, "Oh, adhere to me, for we are bound by symmetry. And whatever differences our lives have been we together make a limb." This is the story of your red right ankle.

This is the story of your gypsy uncle you never knew because he was dead. And how his face was carved and ripped with wrinkles in the picture in your head. And remember how you found the key to his hideout in the Pyrenees? But you wanted to keep his secret safe, so you threw the key away. This is the story of your gypsy uncle.

This is the story of the boys who loved you, who love you now and loved you then. And some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you, and some just layed around in bed. And some, they crumbled you straight to your knees-- did it cruel, did it tenderly. Some, they crawled their way into your heart to rend your ventricles apart. This is the story of the boys who loved you.

This is the story of your red right ankle.

Retrospective

2009-11-30T11:53:00.003-07:00

I haven’t posted a whole lot lately. Life has been busy, and I’d rather be doing other things, I suppose. But the leaves are down now and every morning I scrape frost off my windshield, the decade's final condensed and frozen breath. And as is customary in death, I’ve been reflecting. On growth and stagnancy? On accomplishments and failures? On discoveries and dreams? On all things transcendent and spiritual? Sure, all those things are fine. But the focus of my reflection has been on the truly important: Pop Music!

This month I’ll post a little more than usual. Most of it will probably be music related. Most of it will be uninteresting to a majority of my friends. Most of it will probably be arranged in the dreaded list format. To begin with, I’m going to share five of my favorite lyricists of the decade, I’ll cover some favorite albums from the year/decade, and perhaps some favorite songs as well. But I don't want to pigeonhole myself too quickly. Are there any requests from anyone who cares (even remotely) about what my reflections are regarding any other aspect of the 00’s as we stand over its open grave?

Where The Wild Things Are - a film review

2009-11-11T22:15:00.005-07:00

(There are Spoilers ahead, of course. And I apologize for the long windedness. The Cliff’s Notes version of this review is that overall, for me, the film was only pretty good, though extremely beautiful to look at. There. You can move your Reader along now.)

Christy and I finally got to go see Where The Wild Things Are a few weeks ago. We were pretty excited about it. How could you not be with that trailer? The Arcade Fire song, Wake Up, which is featured in the preview quickly became one of my favorite songs when it was released years ago and, despite being borderline melodramatic, the song captures the wistful regret of our lost inner-child. “Something filled up my heart with nothing. Someone told me not to cry. But now that I’m older my heart is colder, and I can see that it’s a lie. Children, wake up! Hold your mistake up, before they turn the summer into dust. If the children don’t grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up. We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust. I guess we’ll just have to adjust.” See? The lyrics aren’t speaking to ten year-olds here. They are speaking to the dormant child within the adult who has forgotten how to dream and how to trust instinct and feeling. We age, we get calloused, we scab, and as a result we make the mistake of repressing the better nature of our inner-child. So, children, wake up! Hold your mistake up! Before it’s too late.

And that should have been clue number one that WTWTA was not going to be primarily a children’s movie (as it was marketed to be). We had planned to take our three-year-old, and after reading one review decided against it (thankfully). Visually the film is amazing. Spike Jonze gets such unique imagery in all his work and there are no false steps here in terms of cinematography (like I’m an expert, right?). The soundtrack, by Karen O, is marvelous, including a particularly touching rendition of the Daniel Johnston tune, "Worried Shoes." Spot on voice work from every single one of the Wild Things (James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Forrest Whittaker, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano). All nail it perfectly. Max himself (played by namesake Max Records) did a superb acting job as well. Catherine Keener is golden in her role, and for me her interactions with Max were so meaningful they overshadowed every other relationship in the film. There is one little moment in particular when Max is camped out on his back underneath his Mom’s desk at home. She is making phone calls and by all accounts seems to be an expert at juggling both motherly and professional duties. Max isn’t begging for her attention at this point, but he wants it. He reaches over to her foot and tenderly tugs on the toe of her nylon and they exchange this mother-son look that carries all the humanity you might ever hope to catch on film. Yet in the end the film lacked enough of these moments, and it’s been hard to put my finger on exactly why.

I liked the film, but I expected to love it, and I did not love it. The film’s setup was terrific. From the opening scene until Max gets to where the wild things are (and even for a little while afterwards) the film is strong. But then I went over some emotional drop off, and couldn't ever quite return. My best guess is that the writing was a bit too cryptic, and some of the metaphor was a bit too heavy handed. Christy told me on the way home (and I agree with her) that she couldn’t stop asking herself “What does that symbolize?” which ultimately became distracting. On NPR Spike Jonze mentioned that every one of the Wild Things represented an emotion. Emotions, especially for kids, are tricky to deal with and a lot of my frustration in the movie stemmed from seeing Max deal with his emotions just as one might expect—like a child. Symbolically, his relationships with these wild emotions make sense, but the balancing act on screen doesn’t play out so graceful (and no doubt certainly wasn’t meant to, yet that doesn’t invalidate my frustration). The owls “Bob and Terry” are also a bit of a mystery. My guess is that they were a clunky similitude of the real life relationships that Max doesn’t understand, or perhaps doesn’t want to understand (ie: his mother’s boyfriend, bosses, and his sister’s friends). The thrust of the middle section of the movie deals with Max's efforts in this dream, wherein he is a king with the ability to do whatever he wants, to construct (literally) a perfect world. The old Utopia concept. But he ultimately fails, and after all hell breaks loose with the Wild Things he comes to the very real-life conclusion that no such world is possible. It is the other side of the “Wake Up” dichotomy -- that in our inevitable coming-of-age we wake up to the fact that life is hard, and death is real, and there are lots of hard questions and nauseatingly few easy answers. Interestingly enough, when Max discovers this he is not only better equipped to deal with his “real world” but he actually longs to go back. I felt that the ending, much like the beginning, was strong.

My little 3 year old, Gus, loves the book. When we read it together, there are certain phrases that I’m allowed to say, and certain phrases that only he is allowed to say. When Max is being sassy with his mom he lays down a threat, “I’ll eat you up”. Gus delivers the line with sinister eyebrows and a smile. Later on we get to my favorite, and most telling moment in our little exchange. Max’s reign as king has come to and end and it is time for him to go. His threat from the beginning of the book now morphs into an expression of compassion and longing. I let it out like a sad wild thing, “Please don’t go, we’ll eat you up, we love you so”. And Gus delivers Max’s reply with a curt, matter-of-fact, and almost hopeful, “No.”

Kids are resilient and adaptable (“I guess we’ll just have to adjust”). They need to be loved like all the world, and it should be shown and expressed often. But they don’t need to be pandered to. And adults certainly don’t either. WTWTA, despite its hangups, does not do that.

Let The Wild Rumpus Start

2009-08-19T23:49:00.002-06:00

I'm so excited for this film. I love this book. I love Spike Jonze. And in some beautiful way the trailers for this film give me more faith in humanity. All you artists that are out there creating, and being active, and peeling off the scales from our eyes, thank you. Isn't this life amazing?

Slamming Open The Door

2009-08-06T15:29:00.008-06:00

First of all, many thanks to Melanie for directing me to this amazing, heartbreaking peice of art.

From NPR:

Poet Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno's new collection of poems, Slamming Open the
Door, documents the aftermath of the murder of her daughter Leidy Bonanno.
Leidy was found dead in her apartment in 2003, strangled with a telephone
cord by an ex-boyfriend. She had recently graduated from nursing school.
Two of the book's poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and poet
Sharon Olds calls the work "a gift of power, truth, rage, and beauty."

Do yourself a huge favor and click here to listen to the Fresh Air interview and read some of the collection's poems.

Death Barged In

In his Russian greatcoat,
slamming open the door

with an unpardonable bang,

and he has been here ever since.

He changes everything,

rearranges the furniture,

his hand hovers by the phone;

he will answer now, he says;

he will be the answer.

Tonight he sits down to dinner

at the head of the table

as we eat, mute;

later, he climbs into bed

between us.

Even as I sit here,

he stands behind me

clamping two

colossal hands on my shoulders

and bends down

and whispers to my neck:

From now on,

you write about me.

Personal Motto

2009-08-05T15:33:00.004-06:00

I won't tell you how I got there, but Google landed me on a wiki article detailing some very useful instructions on how to choose a "personal motto". I found the idea very fascinating. Here you go:

Step 1. Decide what kind of person you are. Your motto should have something to do about what you like to do, or enjoy being a part of.

Step 2. Choose a motto that no one else has! It is important that no one else has the same motto, do not choose theirs, and do not tell them yours, until you have it.

Step 3. Don't over-use your motto. You don't want to walk up to someone and just blurt out your motto. It's all about having one when the time is right!

Step 4. Add your motto to the bottom of your emails as a daily reminder.

Brilliant! Sure, step 2 contradicts itself (can't tell it if I don't have it). And nevermind that step 3 (which is completely awesome) contradicts step 4. And don't worry that it isn't very clear why one would need a personal motto in the first place, or in what circumstance it would be "right" to reveal that motto (since this is what it's all about). I'm thinking I should get one.

I know I'm breaking the secrecy implied in step 2, but...any ideas?

Cass McCombs on Job Satisfaction

2009-07-16T22:04:00.004-06:00

There is work. There is play. There is play that is work, and play that is play. And work that is work, and in only one of these lies happiness.

Cass McCombs: The Executioner's Song

Advertising Gone Bad

2009-07-10T10:15:00.006-06:00

I don't know what it is about a baby gleefully holding a razor to his (or her?) face that makes me want to go out and buy the new Gillette Fusion. But it does.

Check out the 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads of All Time.

R.I.P. McNamara

2009-07-06T22:26:00.003-06:00

Today Robert McNamara died. Read about his fascinating life in this NYT obit. Several years ago Errol Morris filmed one of my favorite documentaries of all time on McNamara's life, The Fog of War.