hey moon, please forget to fall down

northern downpour ~ panic! at the disco (video w/lyrics)

the song

"if all our life is but a dream,

fantastic posing greed,

then we should feed our jewelry to the sea;

for diamonds do appear to be,

just like broken glass to me.

and then she said she can't believe,

genius only comes along,

in storms of fabled foreign tongues;

tripping eyes,

and flooded lungs.

northern downpour sends its love.

hey moon, please forget to fall down;

hey moon, don't you go down.

sugarcane in the easy mornin',

weathervanes,

my one and lonely.

the ink is running toward the page,

it's chasin' off the days;

look back at boat feet,

and that winding knee.

i missed your skin when you were east,

you clicked your heels,

and wished for me.

through playful lips made of yearn,

that fragile capricorn,

unraveled words like moths upon old scarves;

i know the world's a broken bone,

but melt your headaches,

call it home.

hey moon, please forget to fall down,

hey moon, don't you go down."

reading david copperfield with coffee in my hand, and you tell me that i shouldn't drink so late. i remind you that it's early, that it is nearly morning, and turn the page. but the moon is still hanging, dangling, keeping the night company.

just one more page then i'll let my eyes close.

(damn it darling, when did my taste in music let in a few emo notes?

but the lyrics, isn't it always the lyrics with me?)

don't you wish you never, never met her

the prologue from the 33 1/3 book rid of me: a story by kate schatzit might be a bit long, but damn, i so get what she means. i find myself sitting here wondering what album i would choose, what it would say/sing to me, and what characters it would spark to life.

***

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:

rid of me (live) ~ pj harvey

thank you so much, jenn. i had not heard of this one, although i've read other 33 1/3 books - but none like this one. the idea of a fiction written out of an album. damn. yeah, i am going to devour this, i'm sure of it.

how still we stood

our story isn't a file of photographs

faces laughing under green leaves

or snowlit doorways, on the verge of driving

away, our story is not about women

victoriously perched on the one

sunny day of the conference,

nor lovers displaying love:

our story is of moments

where even slow motion moved too fast

for the shutter of the camera:

words that blew our lives apart, like so,

eyes that cut and caught each other

mime of the operating room

where gas and knives quote each other

moments before the telephone

starts ringing: our story is

how still we stood,

how fast.

for an album ~ adrienne rich

we create our own cast shadows

"...when a man's past outweighs his future,

then he's a man standing in his own shadow..."

enter a free man ~ tom stoppard

book of longing

ah. that.

that's what i was so disturbed

about this morning:

my desire has come back, and i want you again.

i was doing fine,

i was above it all.

the boys and girls were beautiful

and i was an old man, loving everyone.

and now i want you again,

i want your absolute attention,

your underwear rolled down in a hurry

still hanging on one foot,

and nothing on my mind

but to be inside

the only place

that has

no inside,

and no outside.

book of longing ~ leonard cohen

against the jutted stars

when i go away from you

the world beats dead

like a slackened drum.

i call out for you against the jutted stars

and shout into the ridges of the wind.

streets coming fast,

one after the other,

wedge you away from me,

and the lamps of the city prick my eyes

so that i can no longer see your face.

why should i leave you,

to wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

taxi ~ amy lowell

life is not a paragraph

keep art alive; art by tiffs

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. don't cry
-the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

storms of sand

“sometimes fate is like a sandstorm that keeps changing directions. you change direction but the sandstorm chases you. you turn again, but the storm adjusts. over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. why? because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. this storm is you. something inside of you. so all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, walk through it, step by step. there’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. that’s the kind of sandstorm you should imagine."

kafka on the shore by haruki murakami

darkness and light

"i've tried to avoid labels, but they always find you." ~ poppy z. brite

"i believe in whatever gets you through the night. night is the hardest time to be alive. for me, anyway. it lasts so long, and four am knows all my secrets. four am is when my dreams die." ~ lost souls by poppy z. brite

"i came to understand that these memories were my salvation. i no longer wanted to know why i had done such things if it meant i wouldn't want to do them anymore. i put my notebooks aside forever. i was different, and that was all. i had always known i was different; i could not trudge through life contentedly chewing whatever cud i found in my mouth, as those around me seemed to do." ~ exquisite corpse by poppy z. brite

she writes the most gory and disturbing details of life that i have ever come across, and yet she does this in the most beautiful of ways. all of it, the grotesque and the gorgeous are all wrapped up around characters that are flawed, rich, and wonderful. some of them still reside in the outskirts of my heart and mind to this day, never quite leaving after i read the final page and closed the book.

ghost and nothing from lost souls, and trevor and zach from drawing blood are still around; and at times pieces of them work their way into stories of mine, in the way that art inspires art.

missing mile, and the way she paints people and places hit me in the way that music does, tearing below the skin at times, and soothing the soul the next.

poppy also wrote one of the most provocative, raw and real biographies i have ever read, capturing courtney love in a way that was unforgettable and relatable, all at once. she is definitely on the list of people i would love to share coffee and conversation with someday, or sit in the back of a dark and dank bar, smoke too many cigarettes and talk about observing and capturing the world in words.

365 loves: poppy z. brite

love

“you can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you.”

a room with a view ~ e.m. forester

reincarnated song

keep art alive; art by kukula

o thou to whom the musical white spring

offers her lily inextinguishable,

taught by thy tremulous grace bravely to fling

implacable death's mysteriously sable

rob from her redolent shoulders,

thou from whose

feet reincarnate song suddenly leaping

flameflung, mounts, inimitably to lose

herself where the wet stars softly are keeping

their exquisite dreams -

o love! upon thy dimshrine of intangible commemoration,

(from whose faint close as some grave languorous hymn

pledge to illimitable dissipation

unhurried clouds of incense fleetly roll)

i spill my bright incalculable soul.

o thou to whom the musical white spring ~ e.e. cummings

we belong to the city

"hi, i'm nancy drew. you must be the hardy boys." ~ mona ramsey

"he's a sweet boy, mona. i approve of him wholeheartedly." ~ mrs. madrigal

"you make it sound like we're married or something." ~ mona ramsey

"there are all kinds of marriages, dear." ~ mrs. madrigal

"i don't think you understand the trip with me and michael." ~ mona ramsey

"mona, lots of things are more binding than sex. they last longer too." ~ mrs. madrigal

i don't remember the first time i read the first book, or how many times i picked it up and re-read it. nor do i remember how many times i have watched the series. i do know that the characters in maupin's book became as familiar as friends to me, or as family. i have my favorites, and the one's i relate to the most, and the ones that i love regardless of what they do because some people you just love like that. i have been a mona to a mouse, and what mrs. madrigal tells mona in that quote always resonated with me. and everytime i read the books i remember how much i love the city of san francisco, and it makes me miss it, and want to go back.

365 loves: tales of the city by armistead maupin

i write tragedies

"on the way back from the post office, i stop at a bank of america atm and withdraw from my rapidly disappearing savings. i then convert my withdraw into a wad of low-denomination bills. i feel like a crack dealer. i have an idea.

your inability to achieve solitude makes you settle for substandard relationships. you don't believe magic is possible in lives lived within traditional boundaries.

i am writing a list of tragic character flaws on my dollar bills with a felt pen. i am thinking of the people in my universe and distilling for each of these people the one flaw in their character that will lead to their downfall -- the flaw that will be their undoing.

jasmine, anna-louise, daisy, mark, dan, stephanie, monique, kiwi, harmony, skye, gaia, mei-lin, davidson, pony, grandma and grandpa, eddie woodman, jim and lorraine jarvis -- everybody's here. even me. and more.

what i write are not sins; i write tragedies. and i am writing these tragedies in a manner that the recipients can easily absorb. and i won't say whose flaw is whose. i continue." ~ tyler johnson

shana was the first person to tell me about douglas coupland, sending me this book to start off with. i read it in two days, and then started it from the beginning, and read it again. i felt like i had found a voice of my generation. that he understood the ugly side of society, people, and families -- and saw the hope - albeit cloudy and dipped in the muck of everything - in all of it. for a good long while i wanted to quote his books in everything, and i went on to fall for many more of his books, and find an amazing group of friends who felt similar, if not the same.

365 loves: shampoo planet by douglas coupland

currently reading: first paragraph

"a few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age-regardless of how they look on the outside-pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. they don't want to be who they are any more. they want out. this list includes thurston howell the third, ann-margaret, the cast of rent, vaclav havel, space shuttle astronauts and snuffleupagus. it's universal."

a case of writer-truth

"but this is what a writer does: his life is a maelstrom of lying. embellishment is his focal point. this is what we do to please others. this is what we do in order to flee ourselves. a writer’s physical life is basically one of stasis, and to combat this constraint, an opposite world and another self have to be constructed daily. the problem that i encountered that morning was that i needed to compose the peaceful alternative to the terror of last night, yet the half world of the writer’s life encourages drama and pain, and defeat is good for art: if it is day we made it night, if it was love we made it hate, serenity became chaos, kindness became viciousness, god became the devil, a daughter became a whore."

lunar park ~ bret easton ellis

they'll have to take two

"i'll be looking for you, will, every moment, every single moment. and when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. every atom of me and every atom of you...we'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams...and when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight..."

the amber spyglass, philip pullman

never believe it's not so

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

"maybe magic is just love. maybe genies are what love would be if love walked and talked and lived in a lamp. the wishes might not come true in the way you think they will, not everything will be perfect, but love will think they will, not everything will be perfect, but love will come because it always does, because why else would it exist and it will make everything hurt a little less. you just have to believe in yourself. look your demons right in the eye. set your angel juans free to do the same thing themselves."

missing angel juan ~ francesca lia block

magic ~ pilot

but i never know if it's real

keep art alive; art by kelly haigh

"we are walking down the street, holding hands. there’s a playground at the end of the block and i run to the swings and climb on, and henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seem likes we’re going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.”

the time traveler’s wife ~ audrey niffenegger

untitled ~ the cure

true love

"all of us have had this experience. at some point, we have each said through our tears, "i'm suffering for a love that's not worth it." we suffer because we feel that we are giving more than we are receiving. we suffer because we feel our love is unrecognised. we suffer because we are unable to impose our own rules. but ultimately there is no good reason for our suffering, for in every love lies the seed of our growth. the more we love, the closer we come to spiritual experience. those who are truly enlightened, those whose souls are illuminated by love, have been able to overcome all the inhibitions and preconceptions of their era. they have been able to sing, to laugh, to pray out loud; they have danced and shared what saint paul called, "the madness of saintliness". they have been joyful - because those who love conquer the world and have no fear of loss. true love is an act of total surrender."

by the river piedra i sat down and wept ~ paulo coelho

music drunk

"for franz music was the art that comes closest to dionysian beauty in the sense of intoxication. no one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on beethoven's ninth, bartok's sonata for two pianos and percussion, or the beatles' white album?"

the unbearable lightness of being, milan kundera