Monday, March 31, 2008
so love me now
Sunday, March 30, 2008
no dissolve to a sliver of grey
Saturday, March 29, 2008
i'm not the man you think i am, at all
Friday, March 28, 2008
the love behind your eyes
Thursday, March 27, 2008
don't you wish you never, never met her
***
there's a thing that happens.
you love an album. you get into it - listening over and over, taking in every sound, beat, shift and phrase. you sing along, memorize the silence between each song. you absorb it, you feel it.and it gets into you.
and it gets into you.
a great album tells a story, whether explicit and linear or subtle and discrete. and when you love that album, when it's gotten inside of you and you know the characters, landscapes, lyrics, and rhythms, there's another thing that happens: it becomes yours. you own it, you have a relationship with it. you know each other. it's your music, they're your stories - you become free to put meaning here, add interpretation there, and decide exactly what it's all about (then change your mind with each listen). it's mutual and consensual and very, very private.
and then sometimes you make it public. the album's narrative begets new narratives and you want to share that somehow, let these expanded possibilities be known. a declaration of adoration, a kind of self-serving homage. maybe it takes the form of a cover song, freely or closely interpreted. or the written word: a critical essay, a trenchant article, a dissertation.
but you're not a musician or a critic - you're a fiction writer who loves music, who loves stories. the potential within each song, each lyric. and there's one album that stands out, that you can't shake, that you find as fascinating now as you did when it came out, in 1993, and you were a swoony daydreamy teenager mesmerized by the music's anger, its beauty, its dark and twisted humor. raw guitars, crashing drums, love-wrecked lyrics telling stories of betrayal, revenge, isolation, sex. the seduction, the violence, those moans and howls. that voice. it was a whole other world.
you love what pj harvey's rid of me did then, what it still does, what it can do. so you embark on an experiment. you reenter it, once again listening over and over, sometimes just one song on repeat for hours. you get into it and it gets right back into you. characters, lyrics and landscapes. moods and tones and those feelings. you begin writing. with each song, to each song, from each song. around and near and under and then, at some point, it takes a shape. characters emerge. these two women. these woods. chapters like songs, book like an album. it becomes a new story, years of listening spiraled out into new words and meanings.
this is the book.
it's not about rid of me - it's because of it.
***
and the next chapter is called this:
when pianos try to be guitars
there's a time and a place
this is the viscous heart i hide from you:
but this for you: on the days i hold your books,
the lit syllables of your names on my sill with all
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
ballerinas that have fins that you'll never find
who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?
my "vacation day" yesterday ended up with me working from home until after one am, and this is not some exception to the rule.when an hour of television feels like a luxury there is a problem. i miss having a life.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
twentieth century go to sleep
"if i ever want to fly,
and lovin a music man ain't always what its supposed to be
Monday, March 24, 2008
let me see the daylight
half life ~ duncan sheik
"before the truth goes back into hiding,
i want to decide 'cause it's worth deciding,
to work on finding something more than this fear .
it takes so much out of me to pretend,
tell me now, tell me how to make amends.
maybe, i need to see the daylight,
to leave behind this half-life,
don't you see i'm breaking down.
lately, something here don't feel right,
this is just a half-life,
is there really no escape?
no escape from time,
of any kind.
i keep trying to understand,
this thing and that thing, my fellow man,
i guess i'll let you know,
when i figure it out.
but i don't mind a few mysteries,
they can stay that way it's fine by me,
and you are another mystery i am missing.
it takes so much out of me to pretend
maybe, i need to see the daylight,
to leave behind this half-life,
don't you see i'm breaking down.
lately, something here don't feel right,
this is just a half-life.
is there really no escape?
no escape from time,
of any kind.
come on lets fall in love."
she's so dull
Sunday, March 23, 2008
good day sunshine
"i need to laugh, and when the sun is out,
the next life
adam duritz
Saturday, March 22, 2008
you belong in the zoo
and a song...
after hours (velvet underground cover) ~ rilo kiley
Friday, March 21, 2008
and i haven't felt so alive in years
this movie - modern girls - along with dogs in space and sid and nancy.
this one, though, i think we had the characters we related to, songs (like this one) that we sang along to, and clubs and moments that we recognized as us.
i need to get a copy of this - maybe two - so we can both have one.
i love you, kate.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
all weather and noise
how do you deal with a story like this?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
when i kiss the angel
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
i have your back now, you better have mine
if you wanted to be free
but i won't come out.
but we're trash, you and me
Monday, March 17, 2008
there is only now
devil in the details ~ bright eyes
"and i know the cause,
and i want to stop,
but i can’t do it,
i just can’t do it.
there was love i meant,
there were accidents,
so tell me which is which.
‘cos i just can’t work it out.
but for memory and clarity,
we had better write it down.
i have no way,
of knowing the truth,
with time dissolves.
i put the past into the ground,
i saw the future as a cloud,
if theres still time to turn around,
i'm going to."
as we go drowning
"there are angels,
and you come around to restore my soul
get your dreams just right
"fix your hair just right
put your jeans on tight,
wear a dress,
so i can get it off real easy.
'cause i've been thinking,
i'd like to see your eyes open up real wide,
the minute that you see me.
if you don't come through,
i wouldn't wait for you.
i understand that everyone goes disappearing,
into the greatest grey,
that covers over everyday,
and hovers in the distance,
and the distance,
and the distance...
i've been up all night,
i might sleep all day.
get your dreams just right,
let them slip away,
i might sleep all day."
i have never been much of a girl in the ways you are supposed to be. i do not really know how to do my hair, it does itself most days, and thankfully it is a pretty tame thing so i do let it have its way. i do not pluck my eyebrows, much to my teenage daughter's chagrin. i've never had a facial, i do not do my nails. i know more about doing goth and stage make-up then i will ever know how to make myself up to look natural. i do not have a skin care regime, or even know how to begin to put one together. and in all honesty, i am more comfortable in a pair of pants then any skirt or dress i have ever donned.
that said, there are days i wish i had those skills. that i'd learned to be more of a girl. that i had an arsenol of beauty techniques to battle the bad days, and the signs of age with. and sometimes, like today, when i have actually worn a dress, with pointy girly heels and dark tights. when i've done my hair (or really, had said teenage daughter do my hair), when my make-up took more than fifteen rushed seconds, and when i actually am wearing matching items under my clothes...well yeah, i get it, i feel different. i feel beautiful actually. and it does have a positive effect on me.
it reminds me of this quote from one of my most favorite shows that have ever graced the small television screen, my so-called life:
"sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we hate ourselves. it's good to get really dressed up once in a while. and admit the truth: that when you really look closely? people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually... beautiful. possibly even me."