Thursday, June 25, 2009
Sunday, December 21, 2008
feel what its like to be new

Thursday, October 30, 2008
fill yourself with quarters

mistaken for strangers ~ the national
"you get mistaken for strangers by your own friends
when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights
arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under
oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over
surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wannna watch
another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults
make up something to believe in your heart of hearts
so you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves
so you swear you just saw a feathery woman
carry a blindfolded man through the trees
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters."
this song is amazing, cathartic, and somewhat relatable; though i think part of me realizes that for months and months and possibly years it is me who has mistaken myself for a stranger.
i am taking a much needed break from much of everything internets-related. it is nothing personal, nor is it anything i want to explain. i just need the time to sort myself out, finish this year, and do some work on my life.
so, i suppose i would say this space is currently under construction, or at least the narrator of this reality.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
i did my best to keep my head
but you think about yourself too much and you ruin who you love
well all these claims at consciousness my stray dog freedom
let's have a nice clean cut
like a bag we buy and divy up."
ex-lovers can never truly be friends. there will invariably be the conversations that repeat and replay, each time leaving a fresh mark, a new scar. we all have the past one we let down, who we never were good enough for, who we never felt ourselves with. but honestly, i'm tired of being reminded how badly i failed.
just consider me a stupid girl who tries to still care about people she once loved, and maybe just from now on leave me alone.

Friday, October 24, 2008
everyday we wake up
"everyday i wake up,
i choose love.
i choose light.
and i try,
it's too easy just to fall apart."
a close friend of mine is visiting. he arrived late last night and we stayed up well into the early hours of morning talking about life and love and all the in-betweens. he is like family to me, my adopted brother, and these are the kinds of conversations that make me realize how much i miss him when years pass by of us seeing each other, and also how much i value the people in my life who are friends, family, and chosen family.
it is hard in this life to be understood. and it is even harder to wake up everyday and decide to see the good things around us. to choose love instead of anger and hate, to choose light instead of the dark clouds of negativity. and really, it is sometimes far too easy to fall apart (i know, i've spent most of this year falling apart and feeling defeated that no one was there to catch me - c'mon lucy, don't you know you have to catch yourself???)
anyhow...another friend sent me a link to a review of an aimee mann show and the submarines were the opening act. this video was linked in the review, and listening to it, it just felt like friday to me, it felt like how my heart is feeling today, and how i would like to believe i try to wake up and live my life like.
at least i like to think i try to.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
i can be my own best friend
lua ~ conor oberst & the mystic valley band
"and i know you have a heavy heart, i can feel it when we kiss
so many men stronger than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it
but me i'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split
the love i sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist
you're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back
well, it takes one to know one, kid, i think you've got it bad
but what's so easy in the evening by the morning's such a drag"
the first time i heard lua it was around valentine's day. a good friend of mine sent out these mix cd's for the holiday and it was filled with songs and bands that at the time i had never heard, and would end up completely falling in love with. the libertines were on that cd, and anyone who knows me knows what that band means to me. ted leo and the delays were on that cd. arcade fire, too. i'm telling you it was an amazing cd.
this song - lua - was among the tracks, too.
lua took me apart on the first listen. it seriously dismantled me in ways that certain songs, pieces of art, moments in film, and pages of books sometimes do. i remember having to pull the car over to the side of the road and remind myself to breathe. years before i was so much like this song, so much that tears were streaming down my face while conor's fragile voice trilled out over the strum of his acoustic guitar.
there was so much beauty in the song, and so much desperation. a certain kind of loneliness that you know when you spend nights out far too late in smoke-filled clubs, pressing up against strangers in stairwells and dance floors, making excuses to disappear into the bathroom with chemicals tucked in your purse.
it was years that had past since i was that girl, but i still recognized her. still recognize it tonight. finding the live version, with conor and his new band, was a highlight - and it is well worth the time to download it. i did not think i could love this song anymore then i did, but i do.
"it was so simple in the moonlight now it's so complicated
it was so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight
so simple in the moonlight..."
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
its gonna be alright
one thing never changed ~ the pretenders
"that old train keeps blowing
through the center of this town
restores my faith
when the chips are down
it don't take no passenger
since the streets got re-arranged
but that whistle still blows
because one thing never changed
the boy i was loving
had to say so long
back to a world
where i don't belong
it affected me so
you could say i was deranged
but that whistles gonna blow
because one thing never changed
speak to me
speak to me again
speak to me
speak to me again
that old train keeps blowing
i can hear it in the night
i hold onto myself
its gonna be alright
people come and go
like cars changing lanes
but that whistles gonna blow
because one thing never changed."
i am blown away by the beauty, and sadness, in this song. chrissie hynde is a personal favorite of mine. her voice, it is that one voice, that one vocal range, that i've always found my own voice in. and something about some of her songs, the way she sings them, that just gets under my skin, and stays put.
i've played this over and over since a friend sent it to me this morning. tears come and go, and i play it again. beautiful, it is just tragic, and beautiful.
something about it reminds me of the final scene in the film ghost world. the part where enid goes to the bus stop that no longer is active. the stop where she sees the old man waiting, even though she's told him herself that no bus will come here anymore. and then the bus comes. she gets on and leaves. she is on to something else. is is death? is it meant to represent change? letting go?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
i'm standing up the morning after
elliott smith (1969-2003)
"if only you could just change your luck."
say yes
"situations get fucked up,
and turned around,
sooner or later."
between the bars
"i'll kiss you again,
between the bars,
where i'm seeing you there,
with your hands in the air,
waiting to finally be caught."
angeles
"i could make you satisfied in everything you do.
all your secret wishes could right now be coming true.
and be forever with my poison arms around you."
clementine
"you drank yourself into slo-mo,
made an angel in the snow,
anything to pass the time,
and keep that song out of your mind."
miss misery (early version)
"but it's all right,
because some enchanted night,
i'll be with you."
miss misery
"to vanish into oblivion,
is easy to do.
and i try to be,
but you know me,
i come back when you want me to."
"what i used to be will pass away and then you'll see,
that all i want now is happiness for you and me."
i miss you, elliott smith. i wish i'd had the chance to see you play. i wish i could have baked you cupcakes and told you how much your music has meant to me. that there were nights either/or kept me going, kept me breathing, and made me feel less alone. more than anything, i wish you were still among us, making music, and finding your own bliss.
i hope you found it, wherever you are. thank you for the music. i miss you.
worth reading: everybody cares
Monday, October 20, 2008
waiting in october mix
beauty is tragic and we are forever waiting: an october mix
"all my little plans and schemes,
lost like some forgotten dream,
seems like all i really was doing,
was waiting for you."
"the sun comes in the morning,
and it waits at night,
and i've got the one the only one i know."
"i am human and i need to be loved,
just like everybody else does."
faultlines ~ dirty pretty things
"and all this waiting is just hesitating for nothing, oh-oh ohh.
and the faultlines and all the conjecture from both sides,
why-oh-why can't we change things?
this is destroying me inside.
you know you wanna run away."
ocean and a rock ~ lisa hannigan
"i spoon you into my coffee cup,
spin you through a delicate wash,
i wear you all day."
cobwebs ~ ryan adams & the cardinals
"if i fall,
will you catch me?
if i'm sorry,
sorry enough.
if i fall,
will you pity me?
will you confuse my love for the cobwebs?"
"oh, hold on to me.
i'm gonna get you out
i'm gonna set you free.
to a place that I've heard on the radio.
never sleeps.
i'll get a job in a bar,
you could be a waitress and serve cheap cigars
to fat mustachio men in suits, you'll look cute."
neighborhood #1 (tunnels) ~ arcade fire
"then i'll dig a tunnel
from my window to yours,
yeah a tunnel from my window to yours."
"and we are so fragile,
and our cracking bones make noise,
and we are just,
breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys."
most of the time ~ sophie zelmani
"most of the time i'm halfway content.
most of the time i know exactly where it went.
i don't cheat on myself,
i don't run and hide,
hide from the feelings that are buried inside.
i don't compromise,
and i don't pretend,
i don't even care if i ever see him again;
most of the time."
"well i wish i could kill you,
savor the sight.
get in to my car, drive into the night.
then lie as i scream to the heavens above.
that i was the last one you ever loved.
yes, your skin is like porcelain."
"come on over tonight
come on over this morning
momma says, 'you only fall in love once.'"
guess i'm doing fine (live) ~ beck
"it's only lies that i'm living,
it's only tears that i'm crying,
it's only you that i'm losing;
guess i'm doing fine."
sky ~ joshua radin & ingrid michaelson
"last night, we had a great fight,
i fell asleep in a horrible state,
than dreamt that you loved my best friend,
my heart would not mend,
seemed it was fate."
blue jeans & white t-shirts ~ the gaslight anthem
"and we sing with our heroes thirty-three rounds per minute,
we're never going home until the sun says we're finished.
and i'll love you forever if i ever love at all,
with wild hearts, blue jeans, & white t-shirts."
"i'll still be waiting...
waiting with the orphans,
waiting for the bee stings,
they tell me that success brings,
waiting in the half light,
waiting for your whole life,
waiting for an ideal...
a low deal...
a no deal,
to play your stereotype.
and if you ever find the time,
you know i'm not far behind,
and if you ever need someone...
i'll still be waiting..."
Sunday, October 19, 2008
we are like the sea
lisa hannigan's album sea sew was released in ireland this past september. i discovered it soon after, and have been losing myself in its ocean storytelling ever since. i'm thinking between the over-arching theme of stories from the sea, and lisa's hauntingly gorgeous voice, this is an album that would be impossible for me not to fall for. her previous work with damien rice has played soundtrack and muse to my dreams and writing, over and over again, as well as accompanied kisses and tears of heartache. i am beyond thrilled to have this collection of songs inspiring me, and filling my musically-addicted veins; the following songs, especially.
saying gone down the shops for a walk
i'll bring back some sandwiches and then i kiss your face,
the black and the blue tie it into my laces,
i don't want the wander blocking up the view."
and he'll always be so...
he's like no sleep on the weekend,
and though he is like the sea and he's right to be so,
when i hold tight i sink down deep..."
sea song continues the images of life by the sea. this one feels different, though. it seems as if it holds secret embraces in the side alley by the arcade, and notes etched on the backs of matchbooks, passed under the table with a slight raise of an eyebrow. so many words pass unspoken in just a look. by the ocean the passions alight, and the exchange, it can be swept up into the sea foam, washed out into the seemingly never-ending horizon. and you will forget my name, and i will cease to remember how your arms felt around my waist. we will become the silhouettes and shadows of a weekend away, the loopy-lettered script on the back of a wish you were (still) here postcard. you will tell your friends how i gave it away so easily, and i will never speak of you at all, except alone, in dreams. the way i truly felt about you, well you will never know that either. only the ocean knows, on the songs sung silently to the sea.
and wanted to hold on to the feeling,
and the stretch in the sun,
and the breathlessness as we run,
to the beach endlessly...
as the sun creeps up on the sea..."
lille reminds me of falling in love for the first time. the calliope spun-sugar dizziness that comes in waves, deemed butterflies inside, or some kind of electricity. but to me it felt like running on sand, chasing after you, arms raised and your legs hurting slightly from the effort. you push off and persist in running, but the earth tries to steady you, fights against the movement. but you keep running, you keep trying, the other part of you castings shadows in front of you, and you take them as an invitation, as direction, as the lead you will follow. and when it is gone, when the day ends and that first flutter ends, you will remember it. that love will be the echo that you hear anytime you are held in a lover's arms, you will see it as a reflection as you search for the familiarity, and hope for that same reckless abandon; that same feeling of being finally free.
"i am far away from where you lay,
awake the day while you fall to sleep,
an ocean and a rock away.
i keep you in the pockets of my dresses,
and the bristles of my brushes,
spin you into my curls today.
i spoon you into my coffee cup,
spin you through a delicate wash,
i wear you all day."
possibly my favorite track off of the album, at least today. a long-distance love song, which rings so pure and true, and utterly relatable to anyone who has ever been in love with someone who is miles and miles away. i love the notion of keeping someone tucked into a pocket, or spooned into a morning cup of coffee; the way love sticks to us, and how we carry its precious glow into everything we do. distance is merely an obstacle to overcome, an ocean, or state lines, is nothing when it comes to being in love. this is such a beautiful song.
"put me back in the bottle where the sea meets the sun ,
when the bones and their rattle don't mean anything to no-one.
i had a swing when my salt was my own,
i'd my teeth bared for battle,
til love lost made me dull."
and then there is heartbreak, ending, and the death of love. the ocean is the place for that, too, i suppose. i know i've stood at it's edge with tears streaming down my face, trying to let the waves wash my sadness away. the death-rattle, we all hear it when it is nearing, we try to blink back the vision, shake our heads and make it go away. but just as we have books with happy ever after endings, we have the tragedies, as well. and this, well this is a song for that feeling.
if we never knew the elaborate pain of loss, we would never know the exquisite bliss of love.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
you're like a rain cloud
magick ~ ryan adams & the cardinals
"what goes around,
comes around."
grey carpet and burgundy pillows,
strewn around without concern,
all of it inviting, invisible permission,
to crash into each other,
feet to head, head to feet.
will you teach me to make a lemon meringue pie?
to make magic with an old 50's sewing machine?
how to forget the way his sweater felt,
the tiny balled up threads still clinging to my hair?
my face burrowed into him,
wind blur stung tears,
bottle of red wine,
half buried in the sand,
hand in hand, hand in hand,
make the picture frame crack, stop, dismount.
pull back the nylon shower curtain shame and
mismatched shapes, sighs,
you can't see me if i keep turning, leaping, jumping.
another five pills and my eyes begin to dilate,
the blackness take me over the west faerie bridge,
to the southside, girl, to the southside wind.
and you were there,
and you, and you,
all in this alice in oz and her seven horned dwarves,
weave it all in my veins, in the blood, in my soul,
these are dreams that wake the dead.
and i lie back on pillows,
let my thoughts fall careless in a slip and slide
pattern,
the water spurting out between my legs,
across a green summer grass stain.
you help me forget where the lines are drawn.
tie yourself to me
"yeah, you're not rid of me
yeah, you're not rid of me
i'll make you lick my injuries
i'm gonna twist your head off, see
till you say don't you wish you never never met her."
this has always been one of those songs that cause me to let my eyes flutter shut, and my imagination travel into unknown realms of storytelling. the song plays at being muse to my writing, and i see a plot unfold within the steady bassline, the sensual, albeit slightly disturbing lyrics, and the building rhythm and melody that just takes you over. it feels like seduction, like desperation, like raw wanting.
kate schatz felt the same way, and i cannot recommend the result enough, in 33 1/3: pj harvey: ride of me. here is her description:
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.
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 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, 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 day-dreamy 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.
thank you, jenn, for sending it to me.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
look like its happened again
i see you, you see me (video) ~ the magic numbers
"i never wanted to love you, but that's ok
i always knew that you'd leave me anyway
but darling when i see you, i see me
i asked the boys if they'd let me go out and play
they always said that you'd hurt me anyway
but darling when i see you, i see me
its alright i never thought i'd fall in love again
its alright i look to you as my only friend
its alright i never thought that i could feel this something
rising, rising in my veins."
fires are burning outside, and the santa ana's are making my throat dry. part of me wants to just crawl back under the duvet and sleep the day away; perhaps dream of you.
the other part of me can smell the coffee brewing, and the music is seeping through my headphones as i stretch and wipe my eyes. suppose morning is here, and this is the last day before my vacation. there are things to do, and lists to cross-off, and traffic to sit in (while hopefully singing along loudly to a turned up stereo, albeit the blown out speaker on the left).
and we can always daydream, can't we?
part of me wants to escape into this video though. grab a camera and capture a different day. anyone care to come along?
Monday, October 13, 2008
i got a bad desire
"at night i wake up with the sheets soaking wet,
and a freight train running through the middle of my head.
only you can cool my desire.
i'm on fire."
my current love of springsteen covers, and my new love for this band, is bringing a tired smile to the end of a monday.
it's just me, and i'm playing this rock and roll thing
august & everything after (live, video) ~ counting crows
"you look into her eyes and it's more than your heart will allow
in august and everything after, you get a little less than you expected, somehow..."
and when autumn comes i feel warmer somehow, more alive, and i feel things so deep that my eyes are perpetually tearing. but i cry at everything, every emotion that hits me. some tears are not sad, some tears are the realization that you are falling, like the leaves, just hoping that you'll be caught, and held
and in august and everything after, sometimes when i think hard, close my damp eyes, i believe in wishes, and in you.
i want to find a better place
"the words you never cared to say,
'i want to start a family',
i'm tired of all the people i'm seeing through.
the same idea;
it makes me wonder why i'm here.
watch me now,
try."
when you have found the things you want, and the place you want to be, how long do you wait for it to happen? can you just sit back and wish, when it may take forever? what do you do if what you want is near impossible? or if the timing is just not now?
how do you quell the desire to say, watch me now...try...
Sunday, October 12, 2008
steal my records
come pick me up (live) ~ ryan adams & the cardinals
come pick me up (album version, video) ~ ryan adams
come pick me up (live, letterman, video) ~ ryan adams & the cardinals
"i wish you would
come pick me up
take me out
fuck me up
steal my records
screw all my friends behind my back
with a smile on your face
and then do it again
i wish you would."
you are my sweetest downfall
keep art alive; art by joshua petker
samson (video) ~ regina spektor
samson ~ regina spektor
five minutes in and i feel the collision of desire and death; that cling to you sticky sense that it all leads to an ending of a beginning. all those tucked away reckless notions of self-destruction they peek their dyed heads out to whisper at you; fabricating the realm of fuckwits and faerie tales. want a piece of dark chocolate to go with your next beautiful mistep in judgement? tripping and falling with daisy chains wrapped about each ankle; you pull me along into a trance of indecision. die on the vine, and coerce my skin to wake up. again.
what about me
accidental babies (live, video) ~ damien rice
accidental babies ~ damien rice
"and i know i make you cry,
and i know sometimes you want to die
but do you really feel alive
without me?"
today the music is speaking to me
carrying me off to an embrace of melody
the trigger-gun reaction of emotive lyrical flash-floods
with every song that shuffles towards me
i am gifted something impossible to turn from
or ignore
today i feel the music sweeping through me
lilting, luscious, lush
as i try to wash clean a grey day
a grey mood
a grey me
this one right here plays in the shape of my memory case
causing me to realize that music is so fluid
so full of pieces and words and feelings
often the turn of phrases laden with things i wish i could speak aloud
to you
or to anyone
really
all things left unsaid seem to melt right into the next track
everyone i meet becomes part of the pages of my life
every song i take the time to memorize
and sing along with
becomes the soundtrack behind the images that pass as a day
and some of these i keep for good
so that i can go back
re-read
put on repeat
turn back open the liner notes and have that moment
when a line i heard in my head
is different
and redirects the way i see things now
this afternoon could become
the side of the tape i will rewind
and play
again and again
until the neighbors bang on the wall in pleas and agony
begging to never play that fucking song again
and i wonder now through stinging eyes
how the stories will hold up in the end
will i sit with my grandchildren tugging at my sleeve
holding the hand of the love i take there with me
and will i read to them from the lines on my hands
show them the flickering images of a life
that will still play behind my half closed eyes
will i still remember the refrain before the last verse
of all those remembered melodies
maybe you will be there next to me
laughing
mock at what a sentimental thing i've become
while inside you smile
because we all cherish the stories shared
of our own existence
perhaps you will correct my additions
and enhancements
add in the erased letters that i choose to forget
whisper that the truth does not need painting over
with glitter
or exaggerated pause
but they all know that sometimes
that is just how i am
and anyway
colour changes everything
just like the contents of a song
you and i, we're two of a kind
just another (video) ~ pete yorn
"i love to wear my work inside of my head,
i can’t complain,
but you should never react the way you did,
i feel your time.
you were lying wide awake in the garden,
trying to get over your stardom,
and i could never see you depart us
and you’re my baby…"
one of my all-time favorite songwriters is leonard cohen, if not my very most favorite ever. those who know me well know what his songs mean to me, and how particular songs of his have become interwoven into the very fabric of who i am. i know for certain that his music and lyrics, especially his lyrics, have fastened themselves so deeply into my soul that they filter and flutter out into the way i write, the stories i craft, and even in the way i express things such as love, loss, and wishes.
yorn wrote this song after hearing jeff buckley's cover of leonard cohen's song 'hallelujah', and was inspired to craft one of my favorite songs of his, just another. you can hear it in the first guitar chord strums, but you can also feel it in the meanings between the words, and in the way the melody and verse weave in and out of each other. the stories behind the songs, the muses and landscapes that move an artist, and the way the song becomes its own to the listener (my own stories to this song, they evolve, they flow, and definitely exist) are some of the reasons music means so much to me.
all of it fits back into my long-held belief that art begets art, and that music is the oxygen to nearly everything we create. i know, for me, everything i write has music infused and intertwined in every word and phrase. music is forever my muse, my solace, and my inspiration. i know it seeps into the way i feel, the way i love, the way i let go, and the way i express everything.
and this morning, for many reasons, this song...well it feels like everything to me.
















