Tag: music
New Arrivals, with poetry and music
Submerged in due dates.
Here’s what’s arrived in the center of (my) radar:
and then, from Roberto Bolano
DON’T WRITE POEMS BUT SENTENCES
Write prayers that you will whisper
before writing those poems
you will think you never wrote
Strange gratuitous occupation To go losing your hair
and your teeth The ancient ways of being educated
Odd complacency (The poet doesn’t wish to be greater
than others) Not wealth or fame or even just
poetry Maybe this is the only way
to avoid fear Settle into fear
like one inhabiting slowness
Ghosts we all possess Simply
waiting for someone or something in the ruins
and finally,
MY LITERARY CAREER
Rejections from Anagrama, Grijalbo, Planeta, certainly also
from Alfaguara,
Mondadori. A no from Muchnik, Seix Barral, Destino… All
the publishers… All the readers
All the sales managers…
Under the bridge, while it rains, a golden opportunity
to take a look at myself:
like a snake in the North Pole, but writing.
Writing poetry in the land of idiots.
Writing with my son on my knee.
Writing until night falls
with the thunder of a thousand demons.
The demons who will carry me to hell,
but writing.
all poem like creatures – Roberto Bolano
Surround
recent posts and discussions with brilliant co-bloggers (e.g. multi-sense realism, Anacephalaeosis, unwanted advice, tocksin and others) have reminded me how woven, interactive and co-constructed we are with our environment… which sounds something like this (the awareness and attention and presence of it) to me:
Sunday: 3 new things (to me) as gift recommendations (to you)
I have never engaged “graphic novels” much in a kind of snobbery for text and misunderstanding of modes of expression. This weekend, visiting the library with my children, I snatched out titles that looked interesting and have truly been gifted by them. I have needed a weekend for rest and refreshment, I am thankful it has come. Here are my recommendations:
Trouble Will Find Me by The National
Seriously Mimicking Birds
combined with Bach, Beethoven, Brahms…
if I had to select an album from my lifetime….
perhaps?
a la Sympatico
This week marks (for me) an exciting new release from Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo – they’ve composed the soundtrack for the recent film Prince Avalanche (I’m also a fan of Paul Rudd).
although I haven’t viewed the film yet (I fully intend to) – I was unable to wait to acquire the soundtrack, in fact it was a primary plus in returning to Kansas from the Rockies of Colorado (after the books – see prior post).
Beyond that – it would appear the film offers a sympathetic example of quest in another mode – and the soundtrack definitely does… So, entering a new semester, a season of changes and re-established routines – finding our way forward – quest – here is a sampling of the soundtrack: Prince Avalanche by Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo:
The Weather
In the midst of the compression (oppression?!) of semester-concluding projects, papers, and presentations…any soothing, nourishing gift or break is welcomed – and Gregory Alan Isakov’s very new album is just such and intelligent and refreshing, soothing blessing…PLEASE SUPPORT HIM! – here are a few early favorites:
Birthday Wishes!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY INCREDIBLE SPOUSE
AND HER TWIN!
To my dearest and most beloved : Holly Suzanne – I confess, profess, announce, sing, display, proclaim that my life is altered, changed, extended, enhanced, enriched and “reciprocally molded” by yours! Thank you! I love you! Words really do not do justice to what I yearn to express in this matter. So – Happy Birthday!
And what joy to have your lifelong twin, your originary “reciprocal molder” with us on this day! Happy Birthday (of course!) to you too – Heidi! Thank you so much for journeying to be with us in Kansas this year – and to both of you for allowing the nation to celebrate your wonderful existences with such pomp and blast!
Twinning. It boggles my mind to consider an Other with whom all one’s existing moments have been shared in some genetic and psycho-somatic physio-biological manner. We all arise from “families of origin” – known or unknown. Sets of DNA/RNA, environments, contexts, socio-political realities all conjoin to formulate and tweak, morph and develop us along our passing journeys of existence. With that come difficulties and joys. Traumas and opportunities. Constraints and affordances. Over decades so much of our environment embeds in us it can be hard to discover/uncover/observe/revise the functions and effects of it all. But this is also a great freedom we have. The difficult work of digging and awareness, discovery and revision – “unworking” patterns and pains, “automatic” responses and flinches to the world that have been threaded into us from our own “time immemorials.”
Not having composed this song, all the words surely don’t belong – but the tone, and sister-sentiment – “the story goes…” – and the urging to excise and unpack the “demons,” afflictions, griefs, traumas and so forth – that you two have shared from fertilization and beyond – is my wish for you – together and individually (is that possible with twinning?) …
HERE’S TO YOUR LIVES!!!
how glad I am that they entwine with mine!
Polysemic Stupor 