the hoyden

The Bracelet Club

2011-08-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

I wear blue for my friend, Danny who is kicking the crap out of cancer.

Thanking the Butterfly

2011-08-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

Last week at my manager conference last week I heard about the butterfly effect from Andy Andrews*. This week I got to live it.

The butterfly effect was a scientific paper first published to professional scorn in 1963 by Edward Lorenz. That paper claimed that a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a latter state. Or, as it was more flashily dubbed, "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" The answer, as proved by physicists much later, is a resounding yes. The butterfly effect is now a law, the law of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Or, when it comes to the mysterious science of human relations, because of our interconnectedness everything you do makes a difference.

Everything you do makes a difference.

The point was slammed home to me by meeting my sweetie's sponsor for the first time. Since the fella's people are sparse and widely scattered this was closest I'd yet come to meeting family. He was a delight, a 10 of the nicest people I know, super upbeat type and we had a rollicking good time full of all sorts of special treats but if we'd have met for 5 minutes at the Wash-o-rama the effect would have been the same.

I know for a fact that I would not have the best thing in my life without this person being there first. Because of his one yes years ago (non recovery me imagines a sponsor to be part lighthouse, part safety net, part angel on your shoulder) and all the resulting kindnesses my life was changed forever and for the best. So that's what I said, clumsily and through tears. It's not often that things align so neatly to give you an opportunity to express what you ought and I'm so grateful to have gotten that chance.

So thank you Edward Lorenz and thank you sponsor.

*Do yourself a favor and go to YouTube and watch Andy Andrews butterfly effect talk. It will make the world smaller in the best possible way.

Captured. Again.

2011-08-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

There are pictures with the kids.

Pictures where he's acting like a kid.

Adult humor pictures.

And not so adult humor pictures.

There's a lot of those. Sleeping pictures.

And lots of still lifes of co-mingled stuff that stand for so much more.

After two years there are (literally) hundreds of pictures. And there's been lots of comments lately about all the crazy/nutty/funny/ and downright exhaustive number of pictures that I take of him. Some time ago he recalled my previous post about pictures of him ("Captured") wrong. That one was from my perspective about why I needed to take so many pictures and he remembered it saying I don't know why he likes a lot of pictures but that's not what it said at all.

I know very well why he likes a lot of pictures. Besides the fact he's a ham with a side of ham, huge chunks of his past are lost, gone forever. Between the head injuries, drug abuse, imprisonment and more moves than the US Army, it-both the memories and nearly all tangible reminders-is all gone.

I can't restore those pieces, no one can, but I can capture the now, the tiny bit of his life that is shared with me. No matter how silly or prosaic-this week it was the first pepper we picked from the garden and a ridiculous one of him in a cowboy hat & boxer shorts-my camera is ever ready. It pins my social butterfly down and captures him, if only for an instant, in the life he has now. I can't bring back all he lost but today, today will be preserved.

I Haven't Swam Enough This Summer

2011-08-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

(photographer unknown)

Amen Brother Neil!

2011-08-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Be proud of your mistakes. Well, proud may not be exactly the right word, but respect them, treasure them, be kind to them, learn from them. And, more than that, and more important than that, make them. Make mistakes. Make great mistakes, make wonderful mistakes, make glorious mistakes. Better to make a hundred mistakes than to stare at a blank piece of paper too scared to do anything wrong..
Neil Gaiman

The only think I would add to this is that it applies to more than just writing. Too much in this world is left untried for fear of making a mistake.

One Hundred Names for Love

2011-07-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

What would you do if the thing that attracted you first to your beloved was suddenly, perhaps irrevocably, taken away? What if the mind that had captured you, wholly and completely, was gone and all that was left of your clever author husband was an invalid who could only say "mem, mem, mem"?

Think about it.

That was the decision that faced author Diane Ackerman when her husband of 40 years, David, was felled by a stroke. Her memoir One Hundred Names for Love tells what she did when, in an instant, she went from wife and partner to caregiver, translator and sole decision maker. How she coped and found the key to unlock the words still trapped in David's mind makes for a lyrically moving, mature, love story.

Of course, it's beautifully written, it's Diane Ackerman, who has written as many books of poetry as science but what makes this her best is the personal mapping the cartography of loss:

"When asked about the secret to our decades long duet, I sometimes teased we stayed together for the sake of the children-each was the other's child. And we were both wordsmiths, cuddle-mad and extremely playful. But who can say why two people become a couple, that small principality of mutual protection and regard? Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits. In time, a pair invents its own commonwealth, complete with anthems, rituals and lingos-a cult of two with fallible gods."

and her description of caregiving (I'm only a minor league caregiver but I think her description spot on):

"It was also arduous for me not to feel impatient and resentful at times in the role of teacher, attendant, nurse:caregiver. That word should weigh more that the others on the page, sag it down a bit and wrinkle it, because the simple sounding job frazzles as it consumes and depletes. Not that it's only gloomy. Caregiving offers many fringe benefits including the sheer delight of nourishing and grooming, sharing and playing. There's something uniquely fulfilling about being a lodestar, feeling so deeply needed and it's fun finding creative ways to gladden a loved one's life but caregiving does buttonhole you; you're stitched in one place."

Happily, through tireless work, David regained his speech, mostly, and has published several articles and books since the stroke but even if he hadn't One Hundred Names for Love would still be inspiring.

(Also notice and appreciate the cover of this one-there really are 100 names.)

Well Said, Katie West

2011-07-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

"So if you want to talk to women like they’re sub-human, ejaculate catch-alls, this may not be the place for you. I’m just not really into that. Unless I ask for it. So just remember, a woman prancing around in her underwear is not asking for you to send her a picture of your penis, nor is she hoping for you to touch her. But she made you want her?! That’s okay, it still doesn’t mean you can take her. You can just do what I do when I watch Rihanna videos: appreciate how ridiculously sexy she is, maybe (probably) get off, buy her album in appreciation of her awesomeness, hope she continues making art. FOREVER. Okay, you don’t have to do all that, that’s just what I do. EDIT: I’m not saying it’s bad to compliment women! You should totally keep doing that all day every day! I’m saying when you start to move your body on top of a woman’s (or anyone’s) without her permission, whether verbally, virtually, or physically, you’re a dick and you need to sort that out.
Also, can we just let each other be sexy as fuck? Can we just let ourselves do that? You can still be intelligent AND naked. You can still be full of soul AND naked. You can still be responsible, accountable, respectable AND naked. We don’t have to separate our sexual bodies from our brains and our hearts in order to be considered GOOD. Don’t demand that of people, don’t demand it of yourselves. Because it’s bullshit."

If you've not expereinced the Internet wonder that is Katie West check her out. But be prepared to spend some time-you're gonna be there a while.

About Art-by Kim Addonizo

2011-07-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Remember

2011-07-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, Vincent, yes

2011-07-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

"love many things, for therein lies the true strength and whosoever loves much performs much and can accomplish much and what is done in love is done well." v. van gogh

Yep, It's Love

2011-07-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

"Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “hey babe! i like you okay. do you wanna grab lunch? i think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!” It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is fucking love."

With him I don't mind the quiet and I'm happy to ride shotgun on any errand, no matter how dull.

Yep, it's love.

Poem for Today

2011-07-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

Yes, Indeedy

2011-07-10T19:21:00.001-07:00

And They're Off!

2011-04-29T22:00:00.001-07:00

In honor of Derby Week (and cause I'm a word nerd) I offer the following English phrases which have racing roots. Offer these tidbits over your julep to wow your Derby guests. If it takes their attention off your handicapping that's just a bonus.

in the homestretch-the stretch is the last part of any race, the part right before the finish line. Hence, if you are in the homestretch you are almost done.

upset-Upset was actually a horse, the only horse to beat the great Man 'o War, traditionally considered the greatest racehorse ever(see above). It happened in the 1919 Sanford Stakes. After a lousy start (some stories claim he was actually pointed in the wrong direction) he got trapped on the inside (his regular rider was suspended under a cloud of suspicion after the race) and, despite a tremendous rush in the stretch, couldn't catch Upset. So, any time a heavy favorite loses, it's an upset.

get the lead out-in races, especially handicap races, horses are assigned a weight to carry. The theory is if all horses were weighted perfectly they would all finish together. This weight includes the jockey and equipment, any missing weight is made up of lead bars that are put under the saddle. In the bad old days before cameras, when there weren't enough stewards to watch every single stride, jockeys would chuck the bars over the rails when they were out of sight of the stewards. And yes, weighing in before and after a race followed shortly after.

Happy Derby y'all!

2011-04-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

I found this in my library book today. The fact that I found a note in a Scottish mystery recommending, Mary Karr, one of my favorite memoirists, blew my mind. I love being part of a community of readers, all wildly different and varying, with a passion for the written word. It made the world feel smaller in the best possible (Griffin & Sabine) way.

Thanks Beans & Sonya, hope you're both reading something amazing right now.

Confessions of an Accidental Pinup

2011-02-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

First, let me say I am so not what you think of when you think pinup. One of those women best captured by words like ripe. Fleshy. Curvy.

Me? Not so much. Think cute. Bookish. That're more my MO. Yet last spring I was a runner up for Miss Beatersville-primped and victory rolled to the max, posing with cars and broadly smiling.

How did that happen? easy. I became a pinup the same way any girl does. I decided to. Nobody is born a pinup, though admittedly your Heidi Van Hornes and Marilyn Monroes do have a shapely leg up, they decided too. More than any prop, any pencil skirt or cherry bustier the most important ingredient to being a pinup

or a writer

or a Senator

is the will to do so.

My name is Louisville Slim and I'm a pinup.

photo by Boudoir Louisville

makeup by Katie Grant

hair by Georgia @ Jerry Heston, Louisville

Love is a Mixtape

2010-08-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have known about this book for a long time. I have known who Rob Sheffield is from those VH-1 marathons and always liked what he had to say. But somehow I never picked this book up till now. Shocking, really, given the title and my fervant belief that a mix tape is the best gift ever.

"Have you ever been in a car with a southern girl blasting through South Carolina when Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Call Me the Breeze' comes on the radio? Sunday afternoon, sun out, windows down, nowhere to hurry back to? I never had. I was twenty three. Renee turned up the radio and began screaming along. Renee was driving. She always preferred driving, since she said I drove like an old Irish lady. I thought to myself, Well, I have wasted my whole life up to this moment. Any other car I've ever been in was just to get me here, any road I've ever been on was just to get me here, any other passenger seat I've ever sat on, I was just riding here. I barely recognized this girl sitting next to me, just screaming along to the piano solo.

I thought, There is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment. I could count the places I would not rather be. I've always wanted to see New Zealand, but I'd rather be here. The majestic ruins of Machu Picchu? I'd rather be here. A hillside in Cuenca, Spain sipping coffee and watching leaves fall? Not even close. There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is this girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we drive fast enough the universe will lose track of us and forget to stick us somewhere else.

But I've read it now and was floored by its depth. See I missed the part in the subtitle about loss so was unprepared for its frank, unvarnished look at bereavement. I thought it was a love story, and it is, but it's also so much more.

"I never planned to get married when I was only twenty five and I'm not sure exactly how it happened -neither of us officially proposed, or anything dramatic like that. It started off as a playful fantasy we talked about. Then the fantasy became a plan, the way fantasies sometimes do, and the plan became a future. It didn't hit us as the climax of anything, just the celebration of something that had already happened to us. I guess we hoped the celebration would help us understand what had happened."

The trouble with coming so late to the party is that I can't offer myself as Sheffield's #1 fan, I wouldn't even be 101 at this point. But please count me among the many for in his blurring of love and music I read a kindred spirit.

Ground Zero Mosque-What I Believe

2010-08-18T05:10:00.000-07:00

First of all let's get a few facts straight. This arguement is far too fraught with emotion and overheated press coverage to avoid high feeling entirely but I want to be clear.

1) The proposal is not just for a mosque it's a whole community center. Yes, it will include religious worship but also conference facilities and a health club.

2) It's not at Ground Zero. As the above picture shows it's two blocks away on a side street. I'm not saying that area was uneffected by the attack on 9/11, it was a Burlington Coat Factory store that was so heavily damaged it had to close, but it's not actually on the site of the former World Trade Center. And at only 13 stories once the Freedom Tower is built I think it will actually be pretty dwarfed.

3) The group who want the property have a similiar facility that's a neighborhood fixture further uptown. It's an older, smaller building and they are looking to expand because it has been so popular. These folks aren't new to the neighborhood or looking to build there only to make a point. Yes, they are Muslims, unlike the 9/11 hijackers. They were Muslim the same way the Crusaders were Christian-a fringe element that gets the tenants of a great religion horribly, horribly wrong. As former President Bush said (and don't we make strange bedfellows) "Al Quaida is not Islam".

I marshal these 3 arguements to support my position not just for allowing this community center to be built but for supporting it wholeheartedly. Seperate from any showy memorial actually on site I think this kind of thriving normalcy is exactly what that neighborhood needs. I think it would amply and neatly demonstrate the very qualities that make America great-freedom and tolerance-that angered the attackers in the first place. In my opinion, life goes on is the most powerful finger we can give the terrorists.

And, as this arguement gets more and more heated, I would also offer that memorials are always tricky. Think back to the contest to design the Vietnam Memorial. Maya Lin's winning design was hugely controversial, called 'ugly' and 'the black gash of shame'. Now, 20+ years later, it's a highlight of the Mall in Washington and Lin's design is seen as nothing short of revolutionary, completely changing the way America, and the world, think about memorial art.

Everyone wants a say in this, which is fair as 9/11 happened to all Americans, but I hope in the spitting heat of arguement we can again demonstrate what the late Shelby Foote called 'our great genius' - compromise.

Let's Do It Y'all (a reblog)

2010-08-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

Join the Wish Stephen A Happy 40th Birthday Project

Please reblog. This is my kid brother Stephen. As you can tell, he loves his birthday. He turns 40 on September 1st and I thought it would be fun if people sent him postcards and/or contributed to his birthday Tumblr to wish him a happy 40th.
He loves his birthday, photos of himself, and cheesy television. Anything combining those things is welcome, and he’d love postcards from where you live or featuring something related to his interests, too.
If you’re good at photoshop or can just add a funny birthday caption, you can contribute something to the HappyBdayStevie Tumblr—multiple subs are encouraged, especially when you read the next paragraph.
He’s really into certain facets of pop culture, especially The Three Stooges and ’70s and ’80s TV. Photoshopping him into, say, a scene from The Three Stooges, Three’s Company, Happy Days, Gimme A Break, Full House, Good Times, Lost in Space, BJ & the Bear, Magnum P.I., Night Court, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, Mr. Belvidere, Webster, A Different World, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, or Diff’rent Strokes would absolutely rock his world. Yeah, I know; this is gonna be fun.

I’ll be giving him the cards and revealing the Tumblr on his special day, Sept. 1, 2010, so that’s the deadline.

Send postcards to:
Stevie Klym
P.O. Box 656
Woodstock, IL 60098
I only ask that you keep any submissions, virtual or paper, clean and kind in language and imagery. If you have questions, hit me up here. Thanks.

Lean on Pete

2010-08-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

Not since John Steinbeck's The Red Pony has a horse been so effectively tortured in the name of literature.

When the horse (read symbol of freedom) is a broken down navicular Quarter Horse named Lean on Pete and the journey involves all a protaganist's worldly possessions numbered in pocket change and canned goods you know you're firmly in Willy Vlautin territory.

Not only is this book tear inducing, it is also panic attack inducing. Anybody who has ever lived on a knife edge budget, anyone who never once took anything from an evicited person's pile for fear it would someday be them, will see their worst fears realized in this novel.

But, we are firmly in Willy Vlautin territory so there is hope. Hope that tomorrow might be better. Hope that a lucky break is just around the corner. And, again because we are in Willy Vlautin territory, that lucky break might be something as small and prosaic as a kind word from a stranger. Or a meal. Or a ride. (Again, shades of Steinbeck especially the kids with the candy scene from The Grapes of Wrath.) I wouldn't presume to speak for the author on matters of religion but I bet his creed starts and ends with The Golden Rule.

One thing I will presume to say is that Willy Vlautin did not write this book to change anyone's behavior-regardless, it has changed mine. Since reading it I have kept the watchful corner of my eye out, looking for those people who, like Charley, might need the small everyday gifts that I am able to give. That all of us are able to give when our eyes are opened enough to see the opportunities to do so.

Captured

2010-08-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

I wasn't supposed to take the picture in the first place. There are strict rules about what I can and can't take pictures of.

No surprise photos and especially no sleeping photos.

But.

When you live 2348 miles apart and your dates all have a finite end to bump headlong into with a seperation looming, these kind of pictures become more than just pictures. No matter how blurry or poor their quality they capture that time and when that time is weeks or months over they allow you to go back, if only briefly.

Plus, like most live wires when stilled, he's just so arresting when he's asleep. Whether it's a nap on the couch (quilt pulled up to his chin), under a book (he's not a reader at all but wanted to know what my love of Antarctica was all about) or this one.

We were away on a rockabilly weekend and had been running hard in the hot sun all day, enjoyed three bands, got ourselves thrown out of the closed pool then tumbled, laughing, back into our room for a bath. In the time that it took me to take my face off he was asleep in the tub-all six foot three of him, water running over his feet, his head resting the in soap dish. Yes, he's naked but it's not a sexy picture at all-not with that farmer tan. No, it's a tender one. A wholly private moment, captured and preserved as a talisman againest future loneliness.

Thanks from a Grateful Reader

2010-07-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square.

I first came across To Kill a Mockingbird in Mrs. Curley's eighth grade English class in 1981. It was fall and Chapter 10, the mad dog chapter, was included in our English textbook. There was an illustration, too, of Atticus which made him look like a cross between Max Van Sydow and Yeats if I remember correctly. I was charmed by the chapter and must have told my mother about it for a few nights later she pointed out that the movie of the book was playing on the late show and she said she'd let me stay up to watch it with her as a special treat. My mom was not a reader but loved movies. She was a night owl too and every night we kids fell asleep to the muted sounds of commercial television drifting up the stairs.

Like most people I love the movie but I don't remember that being my first reaction. Having only read the one chapter I had no idea about the legal battle that forms the framework of the story and so was completely shocked no, appalled by Tom Robinson's fate.

(SPOILER ALERT. Please, if you don't know the story do yourself a favor, stop here and instead of reading this blog go read the masterwork that inspired it.)

He didn't do it! How could they find him guilty when he didn't do it? (The whole reason why Mr. Ewell would need a scapegoat kinda went over my head. What can I say? 1981 was a different time.) 14 year olds are very hung up on fairness, as you may remember. It wasn't till I read the book again, repeatedly, as an adult that it became more to me than just the brightest cherished memory of a motherless daughter.

What many don't remember is how unsentimental and laugh out loud funny the book is. The movie that Horton Foote wrote, though lifting much dialogue absolutely intact, is considerably sweeter than its source. Scout in the book is one of the most clear eyed, sharp tongued protaganists in all of modern literature. Doubt me? Try listening to the audio book as narrated by actress Sissy Spacek.

"See what you've done?" he said. "Hasn't snowed in Maycomb since Appomattox. It's bad children like you makes the seasons change."

I wondered if Mr. Avery knew how hopefully we had watched last summer for him to repeat his performance, and reflected that if this was our reward, there was something to be said for sin. I did not wonder where Mr. Avery gathered his meteorological statistics: they came straight from the Rosetta Stone.

Few pieces of art hold up over time. To last a piece must continue to offer something new with each visit. After 28 years-years of being called Boo myself, the To Kill a Mockingbird mousepad, the Maycomb Neighborhoodie, reserving the name Harper in multiple families in case a had a daughter of my own-I still haven't reached the bottom of this book. And I hope I never will.

So Happy Anniversary Nelle Harper Lee-50 years after its publication your book still rocks my world.

I'm Back

2010-07-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

My blog hiatus is officially over. Thanks to all my loyal bleaders, especially the ones in Asia, who kept on commenting and contacting me even in my absence. I can offer no good reason except the above. Date #4 was delightful and long but there are still things to be worked out-time to write being chief among them. I anticipate when we are in the same space always that issue will resolve itself.

A Year of Mornings

2010-03-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is a simply lovely photo book. Two artist friends, one living in Portland, Oregon and one living in Portland, Maine, decided to collaborate on a photo blog which they named 3191 for the miles that seperated them. Their goal? Every weekday for a year before noon they would each post a photo. The subject matter was wide open and there was no prior discussion or knowledge of what the other was doing. What resulted became an Internet word of mouth phenomenon as people from all over the world tuned in to marvel at this experiment in light and synchronicity. These friends had only met once in person so it's amazing to see how complimentary their styles and subject matter were. The photos are peaceful and pretty, full of that pure morning light that makes even the most prosaic still life beautiful. It's a read that is both soothing and inspiring.

Kitty Feets

2010-03-15T15:00:00.001-07:00

A-dorable.

English Por Favor

2010-03-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

I love to get comments on this blog, especially from people who only know me online (I always wonder how they found me) but have to say, rather shamefacedly, that I only speak one language so if you want me to understand what you've written you've gotta do it in English.

sorry.

My Guy

2010-03-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

My guy is cool. As David Mamet wrote, "My guy is so cool when sheep want to sleep they count him."

(A cool story aside. My guy has a hip Fedora, very Tom Waits like and if you were to say "hey, nice Tom Waits hat" he can flip it over to show you the inscription on the inside which reads "Harley, nice hat. Good trade. Tom Waits.")

But that's not why I love him.

My guy is smart, the kind of smart that comes from a full throttle life and the hard earned lessons learned along the way.

But that's not why I love him.

My guy is the most Christian person I know, though he hasn't seen the inside of a church in years. He takes people as he finds them and his path cuts a wide swath. A priest is as likely to know his name as a bartender or a homeless man.

But that's not why I love him.

My guy is funny, I mean I've got a cramp, pass milk through your nose funny. Girls wanna do him, guys wanna be him-he's a human sparkler. Once met, he's not likely or easily forgotten.

But that's not why I love him.

No, I love him because when he crossed my radar a year ago and we got to know each other and even more so when I finally met him months later I recognized in him what the Spanish call "mi media naranja"-my half orange. Or as he once said, I realized I was missing someone I didn't think existed. (At least with my head, I don't think anyone, no matter how cynical, really gives up on finding someone in their heart.) He is the love of maturity, one that only works because we found each other now. We came to each other with our eyes wide open and surprised ourselves, finding a fresh, eager space in our tested and scarred hearts.

And that means everything.

Happy Birthday A! I love and adore you and send you festive wishes for the best birthday yet..

About Appaloosa

2010-01-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

RIP Robert B. Parker.

I just finished listening to Robert Parker's Appaloosa. There's construction on my commute from now until, well whenever they're done I guess, so I'm laying in a good supply of audio books to get me through.

In Appaloosa Parker tells the story of Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, itinerant lawmen who are hired by by the alderman of Appaloosa to protect the town from Randall Bragg, a local rancher who has taken over. It's postmodern in that the men say "fuck" and that much of the action and momentum is emotional instead of plot driven but traditional in its themes of the murkiness of law and order and of the honor in the code of friendship between men. In fact, I would say it's as good a story about friendship as Lonesome Dove or Monte Walsh which is high praise indeed. My dad compared it to Tale of Two Cities, which he is prone to do any time there is even a whiff of self sacrifice. Parker's characterizations are so strong there is never any question of what will happen, only of how it's all gonna go down-the sense of inevitability made me drive around the block or take the long way more than once.

Appaloosa is flawlessly performed by Titus Welliver of "Deadwood" fame and really you couldn't have asked for a better narrator. Not only does he already have a "western" name, Welliver has a great low voice that is well suited to the story. Like many actors who also perform audio books he does do voices but he doesn't go crazy with it. Since "Deadwood" is essentially over except for the closing movie perhaps HBO could produce this. I'd sure watch it.

Oh, Hitch

2010-01-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

In light of the death of Robert B. Parker yesterday I am reposting a few of my appreciative entries from the past. Thank you sir for the gift of Everett Hitch.

Now I'm as much a Jane Austen fan as the next chick, maybe even more so since, as an occasional fiction writer, I fervently acknowledge her as a foremother. (If you remember your literary history novels started as a strictly feminine art form.) But after seeing the movie of "Appaloosa" on Monday I gotta say you can keep your Mr. Darcy, for a literary soulmate, one who is just the right combo of tough on the outside and tender on the inside, I'll take Everett Hitch every time.

Oh yeah.

Sometimes

2010-01-14T16:22:00.000-08:00

Thoughts I'm Sending West Today

2010-01-13T06:44:00.000-08:00

Or, as the Hem song I adore and have been mentally sending westward for weeks goes:

"think of every town you've lived in

every room you laid your head

and what is it that you remember?

Do you carry every sadness with you?

Every hour your heart was broken?"

(diary entry by sealegs)

Remember

2010-01-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

My Tiny Voice

2010-01-05T03:41:00.000-08:00

WFPK is the super cool local listener supported station that I'm permanently tuned to. When I moved back home last year (well, in 2008 now) I was happy to be back but lonely in a displaced kinda way and FPK was a huge solace. They have a segment called "Off the Record" where a member of the local music scene picks 5 songs and talks about them. I was flattered when 2 of my loyal bleaders nominated me. Once I stopped laughing at being considered 'part of the Louisville music scene' I had a fabulous time considering all my choices and recording my piece. Many thanks to Marion and Brad for letting me play with them and making it sound so great. The following is what I wrote about my songs.

This is Sam Miller. I frequently write about music and review local shows at my blog The Hoyden: Musings from a Loudmouth Girl. I'm the kind of listener who gets fixated on a song until I unravel all its emotional strings. There's a name for that-captured by a song. So here are 5 songs that have got their hooks in me:

First, my psych up song "Scared Straight" by The Long Winters. Whenever I'm staring down a big task or the great big world is making me feel small, this is what I'll be playing, no, blasting. Part soul, part rock, all heart this song has a terrific build with lots of soaring swoops that never fail me. It's the most restorative secular song I know.

I'm a torch carrier from way back so it's no surprise I love, love, love Ryan Adams. He does bittersweet longing better than anybody. One particular favorite is "Oh My Sweet Carolina". I saw him perform it years ago at a show in LA and cheered long and lustily at the line, "I miss Kentucky and I miss my family" cause, well, I did. When I got the bootleg weeks later I was dismayed to hear the people standing around the recorder letting the hick jokes fly. Paying good money for a bootleg on which you are personally mocked? Priceless.

Kathleen Edwards' song "Alicia Ross" tells the true story of a murder victim killed and brutalized by a neighbor. The song is masterful in its economy. Alicia goes from "the girl with the forgettable face" to "the girl they'll never forget" in just 5 minutes and 6 seconds not because of any deeds she did but rather by the cruel and singular way her death took away all possibilities for what she might have done. It's a chilling song for its matter of factness but its true heartbreak is that the murder isn't the worst violation nor the descretion after-no, the worst violation is that her mother will never know the truth of that happened. I am not a parent myself but that feels right to me and gets more right the more I listen.

The National's "Fake Empire" was given to me on a mix and completely stuck. I asked other fans of the band, everyone I knew who was familiar with the song-why? Why is the empire fake? After a year or more of consideration it wasn't till my long distance love was here in my space and place for the first time that I think I cracked the mystery. We were unwinding after a party, laughing till 4am, feeling like the only people on the planet when I thought, with a sudden clarity, this is what The National were singing about. The empire is fake cause it's an empire of two, a construct between two lovers. It's wholly real because their feelings are genuine but in no way an actual empire.

The latest song to obsess me is Richmond Fontaine's "You Can Move Back Here". I love this song like I love pressing on a bruise (it hurts, it's cool, it hurts, it's cool). One of music's greatest joys is the song that comes at just the right time that says either what you need to hear or what circumstance won't allow you to say for yourself. It's both delight and relief. The lyrics couldn't be any simpler. You know the Robert Frost line about home being the place where they HAVE to take you in? Well, lead singer and lyricist, Willy Vlautin, does Frost one better-trust a man whose novels deal so convincingly with life on the bottom to offer absolute acceptance and total support. And his delivery of the 'please' is just heart wrenching and hands down his most evocative singing ever. I want to pack my bags just listening to it. And listening to it. And listening to it.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T03:28:00.000-08:00

I've got a good feeling about 2010. Trust me on this one.

Books That Stuck

2009-12-27T08:20:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back my dad made one of his many 'retirement has it's pleasures' lists (I do come by it honestly) this one of books that made a difference to him, that stuck with him and that never fail to please when he recommends them to others. He challenged me to do the same but limited me to only ten. So, after some pondering and painful cuts (Sorry George! Sorry Ann Patchett!) here they are for the man who gave me many of them and made me the reader I am today.

10 Apples Up on Top Dr. Seuss

This one is the subject of my earliest book memory and one of my first memories period. Judging by the house I must have been 2 or 3 at the time and my parents had gotten me a subscription to the Dr. Seuss equivilant of the Book of the Month Club. My mom got the mail that day and called out to me that I had a package. I remember grabbing it from her and running down the hall, skidding on the hardwood floor at the turn and flinging myself on my bed with delight. The book inside was 10 Apples Up on Top. When evaluating the whole Suess ouevre now perhaps not the best (the Grinch or Put Me in the Zoo are probably my faves now) but I never fail to smile when I see this book's cover.

Where the Sidewalk Ends Shel Silverstein

I don't think there's a reading child that came up when I did in the 70's that didn't have this book on their shelf. It's a tribute to Silverstein's genius and the basic unchanging nature of childhood that so many kids today still have it on theirs. After reading the man's biography it's easy to say he was writing for kids to make up for his own childhood and the distance he felt from his own daughter but I'd also argue, living in the Playboy mansion or no, he was just a big kid himself.

Little Women Louisa May Alcott

One of the classic girl reads which can pack a wallop if you catch it at the right time in life. Like Watership Down (later on the list) and the Little House books it's full of archetypes that force the young reader to consider themselves. Are you an Amy? Are you a Meg? I wanted to be truly good like noble Beth but was, and am, Jo all the way (the hoyden of ALL hoydens). Even though I know well the coersion, fianancial and editorial, that led Alcott to write her best known work and I am a member of the legion who find the romance unsatisfying (why can't you end up with the one you can run with who also makes you laugh?) this book still speaks to me on a deep, deep level. And more so after reading Geraldine Brooks' terrific reconsidering March.

The Lottery Rose Irene Hunt

My sixth grade teacher, Miss Valone, read this one aloud to us, something that couldn't happen today given the grim child abuse storyline. I am heartily sorry for that as this one clued me in on how unfair life is, which is a lesson that can hardly be learned too early. And unlike some other childhood faves, Hunt's story holds up to adult scrutiny as well.

Watership Down Richard Adams

In eighth grade I checked this book out from the library incessantly-check it out for 2 weeks, rest a week, 2 weeks more and so on. My dad finally took pity on me and bought me a used mass market copy (which I still have though it's held together by rubber bands). One of the ultimate quest stories, it's good at any age but especially when you are young and impressionable. I wanted, of course, to be a storyteller like Dandelion but am also a huge fan of Blackberry and Hazel. One of my favorite work memories came from a former staff whose book lovers would occasionally call me Sam-rah as a tribute,which is about the finest compliment I can think of for a leader. This is one whose layers of meaning keep getting revealed the more you scrutinize, a sign of a true classic.

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

In eighth grade literature class we studied the mad dog chapter which I enjoyed and went home to tell my mom about. A week later the movie was on the late show (these was pre VCR/DVD/Netflix days) and she let me stay up to watch it-a rare treat. I was by turns excited, fascinated and saddened. Thus began my love affair with this story which, given my TKAM mousepad, Macomb Co. Neighborhoodie and reservation of the names Harper & Atticus for possible progeny, continues to this day. If you haven't read this you should. The audio version read by Sissy Spacek is also highly recommended.

Jacob Have I Loved Katherine Paterson

One of the best young adult outsider stories ever especially when you recognize the irony that Sarah Louise mostly isolates herself-the battle for self acceptance sometimes being the hardest a person will ever face. Paterson doesn't write bad books but this is my favorite and the one I come back to oftenest.

The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger

There was a time when I would reread this one every year. Though I am long past that now (Holden seems kinda annoying when shot through my current adult perspective) I wouldn't part with my copy nor could I not include it here. Holden said then, and continues to say today, you are not alone which is one of the most important messages any art can carry.

Endurance Alfred Lansing

Despite its lack of photos (remedied during the Shackleton renaissance of the early 90's) this is still the definative story of the Endurance expedition. Lansing wisely just tells it straight recognizing it needs no embellishment or exclamation points-everything needed to thrill and inspire the reader is all right there in the facts.

Northline Willy Vlautin

This one is as important to me as ever. I still listen to the soundtrack daily and I still evaluate my emotional progress againest Allison's. And I still don't consider my debt near paid.

Embrace the Light This Holiday Season

2009-12-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

Yes, Dr. Vonnegut. Absolutely.

2009-12-19T10:23:00.000-08:00

Now a Word from Our Sponsor

2009-12-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

Sound Like Anyone You Know?

2009-11-25T05:16:00.000-08:00

Romance DIY

2009-11-24T19:20:00.000-08:00

We met cute in a long lovely story so heartwarming it could be Chicken Soup for the Soul worthy if not for the gritty bar setting. And the leather jackets. The whole saga is best saved for the special synchronicity issue but the abridged version is my best friend, who as Stephen King might write has more than a little bit of the shine to her, met him in a bar in Seattle and felt as strongly as she's ever felt anything in her life that he was going to be important to me.

So then what? Where do you go after a bolt of lightning from the clear blue? How do you woo someone you've never met or spoken to who lives 2348 miles away? How do you distinguish yourself from a crowded field and convince Mr. Been There Done All That to "pick me, pick me"?

Now unless you're Cyrano de Bergerac all romance is DIY but I'll say up front that I'm a big fan of old school wooing. E-mails are great and I couldn't do without the phone but give me a letter or a big splashy gesture that leaves nothing open to interpretation any day.

Fortunately, as frequently happens in the life of any music lover, just the right song came along. The song that said exactly what I wanted to say, the song that my heart vouched was true. In this instance it was Lisa Hannigan's "I Don't Know" . It's a sweet song about being twitterpated, about being love with the idea of someone before you know them well enough to well, know. The whole thing is basically a laundry list of what the song's protaganist doesn't know but would like to about the person who has captivated them. I feared it was too twee and girly to be actually liked by the intended recipiant (remember gritty leather jacket) but I hoped, with the right presentation, it's message would at least be understood.

But how to present it? Burning a CD, copying the lyrics or sending the video via YouTube were possibilities but all lacked the immediacy of grabbing someone's arm, cramming some earphones over their head and saying, "you gotta hear this song" which is what I really, really wanted to do. Him, listening to it for the first time, me, watching him listen-my entire body language saying, "this is from me to you." After some pacing with the song on near constant repeat I decided I'd make a songbook.

I'm no artist, I write but I do love to dabble in the visual mediums especially the ones kindest to the untrained like digital photography and assorted papercrafts. My hope was that even if the end result was not as polished and professional as it was inside my head the novelty and heartfelt spirit would trump any artistic crudity. I worked on it for weeks using my antique typewriter and sheaf after sheaf of vellum. Vintage photographs, photo corners and glue sticks-the craft supplies were spread all over. And when it was done, I liked it. It was very much like the song-small but winningly sincere and really, really sweet. Just the thing (I hoped, I hoped, fingers crossed) to represent me.

I showed it to my friend who of course had the advantage of actually meeting him and she said, full of shine again, "If you give it to him he will fall in love with you". That gave me pause, the little project had taken on a life and momentum of its own, as projects do, which almost made me forget the orginal purpose. Love would be grand but how about exchanging phone numbers? How about a chat first? But I had come too far and invested that wee little book with too much affection and importance not to send it. So off it went, so heavy with hope there ought to have been more postage charged.

The response? To quote the song, my first gift to him, "If you want to, I am game".

Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WwaPv1rZiQ to hear "I Don't Know"

This piece was originally written to submit to Underwired magazine for their DIY issue. They passed so I include it here with thanks to Nancy who suggested it.

On Richmond Fontaine's "You Can Move Back Here"

2009-10-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

I love this song like I love pressing on a bruise.

(It hurts, it's cool, it hurts, it's cool...)

One of music's greatest joys is the song that comes along at just the right time, that says either just what you need to hear or what circumstance won't allow you to say for yourself. It's both delight and relief and likely makes for some intense, heavy rotation, press REPEAT listening. (Sorry neighbors!)

It's that way for me right now with Richmond Fontaine's latest song, "You Can Move Back Here" the leadoff song on the new record "We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River" (love that title!) I'd say leadoff single but have they ever had a single? Really? Don't think so.

The lyrics couldn't be any simpler. You know the Robert Frost line about home being the place where they have to take you in? Well, Willy Vlautin and company do him one better-trust a man who writes so convincingly about life at the bottom to know just how to offer absolute acceptance and total support.

"There's so many people there
you quit calling home
and now your voice is shaky and weird

You can move back here
we all miss you
please
you don't have to be anything here
at least you'll have the Western sky
and me on your side

cities and subways that run all night
and everything costs so much
alone with neighbors on every side

you can move back here
we all miss you
please
you don't have to be anything here
at least you'll have the Western sky
the Western sky"

Yeah, the lyrics are simple, they seem even more so after typing them all, but it's the music that drives the message home in this song. The marriage of the tinking piano and the rising-falling-rising-falling chorus of background vocals (neither a Richmond Fontaine staple I should point out, the boys are trying new tricks with this one) makes for some of the most immediate, arresting listening out there. And Willy's delivery of the "please" is just heartbreaking AND HANDS DOWN HIS MOST EVOCATIVE SINGING EVER.. I want to pack my bags just listening to it. And listening to it. And listening to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o36gt8t2Mxw Hear it for yourself in this half great, half silly (Don't laugh Willy! And what's Paul doing?) video.

True That

2009-10-25T20:13:00.001-07:00

“ Fairy tales, are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated.
— G.K. Chesterton

2009-10-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

Leave It To a Poet

2009-10-17T08:45:00.001-07:00

"Love itself is a bit like that: you can describe your beloved until the tongue tires and still, in truth, fail to get at the particular quality that has captured you. We give up, finally, and distill such feelings into single images: the bronzy warmth of one of his glances, or that way of turning the head she has when she's thinking and momentarily stops being aware of other people. That, we tell ourselves, stands for what we love. But it's perfectly clear that such images explain nothing. They serves as signposts for some incommunicable thing. Being in love is our most common version of the unsayable; everyone seems to recognize that you can't experience it from the outside, not quite-you have to feel it from the inside in order to know what it is." -Mark Doty

Puzzling Out the Fake Empire

2009-10-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

"Fake Empire" by The National. It's such an odd little song.

It was given to me last year, the last song on an otherwise quiet, contemplative mix. I was laying on my bed in the dark (better for close listening), looking out at the moon rising through the flowers in my windowbox. Listening, wondering-why these songs, why this order-what was the giver trying to say? After 9 songs of still music when this song started I had to get up and move. The whole CD was great but this one, this one stuck-probably, because as Nick Hornby writes in his excellent Songbook, I hadn't solved it yet. I asked other fans of The National, everyone I knew who was familiar with it, why?? Why is the empire fake?

It's such an odd little song.

It starts with a dischordant jangly piano, played in synchopation at both ends, but not in the same rhythm, for an effect that stops just short of cacophony. It jars the ear but also grabs it like music you're not hearing clearly in a dream.

"stay out super late tonight

picking apples, making pies

put a little something in our lemonade

and take it with us

we're half awake

in our fake empire

we're half awake

in our fake empire

tiptoe through our shiny silks

with our diamond slippers on

do our gay ballet at night

bluebirds on our shoulders

Here we really start to build with the foreshadowing of other instruments yet to come.

we're half awake

in our fake empire

we're half awake

in our fake empire

And now, drums. Crisp, almost martial, imposing musical order where there wasn't. Driving, so driving in fact that it's hard to keep still and keep listening. And then other instruments dive in.

turn out the light

say goodnight

stop thinking for a little while

let's not try to figure out

everything at once

it's hard to keep track of you

falling through the sky

we're half awake

in our fake empire

we're half awake

in our fake empire"

The music is faster and louder and faster with horns kicking in, almost frantically in a musical tumble. Frenetic, yet energizing. The order the drums imposed breaks down entirely but the effect is not displeasing.

And why is the empire fake? The emotions seem genuine so why is the empire fake? After a year or more of thought it wasn't until my long distance love was here, in my space and place for the first time, that I think I cracked the mystery.

He makes me laugh, this man (have I ever laughed so hard?) and one night as we were laying together after a party, cracking up till 4am, feeling like the only people on the planet, I thought-with a sudden clarity-this is what The National were singing about. The empire is fake because it is an empire of two. Like the Romantics (movement not the band) and their idea of a world of two-"replete with thee" etc.-the lovely, dreamlike world described in the song is a construct between two lovers. It's wholly real because their feelings are true, but not in any way an actual empire. But, like people in the song I'll too choose to be half awake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQE7-2r3vg

photo by Carrie Radford

God, I Love People Sometimes

2009-10-08T18:44:00.001-07:00

Today as I was standing near the registers at one of my stores speaking with another employee I quoted Yoda, as I often do, "Try? Do or not do, there is no try." But I got the wording wrong and was quickly corrected by a customer who pulled up his long sleeve to reveal the quote tattooed on his arm.

Holy crap! What are the chances?

God, I love people sometimes.

To Have Without Holding

2009-10-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

Learning to love differently is hard,

love with the hands wide open, love

with the doors banging on their hinges,

the cupboard unlocked, the wind

roaring and whimpering in the rooms

rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds

that thwack like rubber bands

in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open

stretching the muscles that feel

as if they are made of wet plaster,

then of blunt knives, then

of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes

of grab, of clutch; to love and let

go again and again. It pesters to remember

the lover who is not in the bed,

to hold back what is owed to the work

that gutters like a candle in a cave

without air, to love consciously,

conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing

me, but you thrive, you glow

on the street like a neon raspberry,

You float and sail, a helium balloon

bright batchelor's button blue and bobbing

on the cold and hot winds of our breath,

as we make and unmake in passionate

diastole and systole the rhythm

of our unbound bonding, to have

and not to hold, to love

with minimized malice, hunger

and anger moment by moment balanced.

-Marge Piercy

Yeah. That.

2009-09-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

Fill My Senses

2009-09-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

Where I Am

2009-09-23T05:35:00.000-07:00

Lovers Alone

2009-09-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

Pull on Yer Big Girl Boots and Dance

2009-09-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

Ruby Dee and the Snakehandlers

Natasha's Bar & Bistro

Lexington, KY

September 17, 2009

In the the dictionary under boot wearing, fringed awesome you'll find an Austin band called Ruby Dee and the Snakehandlers. Their upbeat show last night in Lexington was terrific. With Ruby's charm turned up to 11-she's as graceful with a drunken heckler as she is two stepping around the stage (she's also a nimble wordsmith "I'm yer girl/yer my feller/ I look swell/you look sweller" was a particular fave)-and Jorge's guitars (both small and large) turned up loud you really couldn't go wrong. Their country/rockabilly sound is rather like the Knitters eating chili on a field trip to Bakersfield and was instantly appealing to new and old fans alike.

Standout songs included "Red Earth, Cold Pines" with it's heartfelt story about being inspired by a roadside cross on a harrowing winter drive and an impassioned cover of "Suspicious Minds" that led to underpants tossing and a shared look at our table that could only be read as, "He's with us, Elvis is with us."

Do your ears and spirits a favor and check out Ruby and the boys-live or on disc they're good fer ya.

On a personal note, their rocking two sets at Natasha's in Lexington was a highlight of my sweetie's visit. To see his new (read truer) self reconnect with old friends, his whole body engaged in the music, to be so close to what is key to the heart of him was precious beyond just going to a show. I'm not yet fortunate enough to have my avocation and vocation be one so to bear witness to that is like grabbing a cord plugged in strong. No matter the job, it's always a kick to see someone do the work they're meant to do.

Learn Something

2009-09-15T05:31:00.001-07:00

The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.
- T.H. White

Yep, Sounds About Right

2009-09-14T04:59:00.000-07:00

The Rarest Gift

2009-09-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

" I decided I really am gonna be moving North. Like I always wanted. Just draw a line and go. A Northline. The further North the better...I figure the further North you go the better it'll be." -Willy Vlautin

It all started with Willy Vlautin's novel Northline.

Damn, how much of my recent life can be traced back to that book?

Well, seemingly everything. There needs to be a new word coined for that kind of impact cause that's miles beyond a seminal book, galaxies past a touchstone and light years past a lifechanger.

It was March. The date is lost to me right now (it can and will be rediscovered) but it was a Friday during Lent. My friend Carrie called to say that Willy's band, Richmond Fontaine, was playing at the Tractor Tavern that night and she was going to go and see if she couldn't thank Willy in person for his participation in my 40th birthday surprise (see "The Greatest Gift" ), for the gift of Northline, for everything. She asked what I would have her say on my behalf. I said that there weren't words enough but that Willy should be told that the book still means everything to me, I still listen to the soundtrack daily and that not a day goes by that I don't shake my Reno snowglobe and think about Allison Johnson. She also requested I send pictures of my 'Willy Wall' in my living room and of the birthday suitcase all spread out, which I did.

Some hours passed-me in a state of low grade excitement-wishing I could be there too but half glad to have a proxy, this proxy, who had marshaled the whole birthday thing in the first place. Then the phone rang, hours too early for the show to be over given the time difference. I was nervous that the next voice I would hear would be Willy's but it wasn't. It was Carrie apologizing (unnessarily so) for not being able to pull it off. She then went on to say that something else had happened that she needed to tell me about.

And then she told me to sit down.

Now the thing to know about Carrie is that, as Stephen King might write, she has a bit of the shine to her. There have been many times in out 20+ year friendship when she has known something she she had no way of knowing. Except somehow she did. And because of our history my mind is way more open to her than almost any other person. Which is good cause what she was calling to say was, "Tonight I met a guy in a bar who is going to be important to you." Which, if anybody else had said..yeah. But because it was her I replied, "Talk about it."

This is how it happened.

Carrie's husband, Thor, was skidding to the end of a spectacularly shitty day and so wasn't up for the whole rock n' roll thing but was game to go see if they couldn't catch the band at loadin or soundcheck just so Carrie could say her piece. They didn't catch them so ducked next door into Hattie's Hat to wait to try again. As they were waiting a group came in, rockabillyed to the nines. Carrie and Thor struck up a conversation with the guy closest to them (amazing what the right band namecheck will do) whose name was Harley (of course it was) hoping they were another act on the bill. They weren't, they were actually playing somewhere else but after a few minutes of chatting Carrie asked, in her never-met-a-stranger way, "Harley, do you like a good story?" and then went on to tell him all about me, the birthday surprise and their night's mission. His response? He asked, "Do you trust me to do a favor for you?" before taking my e-mail, her iPhone with the pics and heading off to the Tractor to work his contacts and try and make the meeting happen.

Now Carrie is mighty persuasive, after 20+ years no one knows that better than me, but the thought of a man I had never met, with a show of his own that night, just setting out on this errand knocked me back. It knocks me back still. Such a kind, big hearted gesture. A gesture that both amplifies and mirrors Northline, though he had never heard of it. How many people would have done the same? Not many, if any at all I think.

Harley, too, was unsuccessful but at that point this other, seperate, story took on such greater significance that I wasn't disappointed at all. Instead I was left marvelling at the world made smaller in the best possible way.

Postscript

Was Carrie right? Hell yeah, she was. I had to write and thank Harley for what he had done (of course I did) which led to a corrospondence and phone calls-lots and lots of phone calls. Finally in July we met (insert YouTube clip here) when I went to Seattle to watch Carrie's boat and child while she went to Japan to make a movie. After months of long distance I thought I knew she was right but when I saw him in the Seattle airport I really knew and when I took his hand in the car it was with the hope of never letting it go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOPb4UtUVLE

Pop Quiz

2009-09-11T04:19:00.001-07:00

Rare Work

2009-09-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

It's a unique relationship, that of the blogger and the reader. As a blogger myself I have often considered it from that side of the fence and outside of one nasty incident where a friend was stalked through these pages, it's mostly been a positive one for me. But these past few weeks I've been pondering the other side.

What I look for in a blog is easy. Easy in the famous pornography answer way i.e. I know it when I see it. My regular haunts include everything from birds to young adult lit to crafts to sex. I'm engaged by good writing and an interesting point of view (fabulous pics are a huge plus) but more than anything you know you're reading the right blog when you find yourself reflected back-what you would have said, something you had just been thinking-on your daily visit.

So it is with me and Nightmare Brunette.

First, there was this, right when I was seeking to capture that phenomenon with a word:

mamihlapinatapai
noun • a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.
The word is from the Yaghan language

then the quote from the above entry (repeated here cause it's just so damn good):

I wanted to stare uninterrupted and touch, not because his scars were freakish or ugly but because they were remarkable. The success of his healing was astonishing. I wanted to feel connected to it, the strength and cleverness that had gone into keeping him beautiful.right

when I came home from nursing a sick friend. Yeah, it was almost spooky but spooky in a 'we're all one' kind of way. I think it's safe to say that Nightmare Brunette has my number.

Whether it's breaking my heart with this description, a description sure to touch anyone who has acted out their own sorry version:

Again, we decided it was over. He said he couldn't bear the unhappiness and while he once saw a way to make things right, he couldn't see it anymore.
"I'm not angry," he told me.
"I'm not angry either," I said, shaking my head, tears leaking into my mouth. "But I don't know how to fix this."

or this, which echoes my own complaint about adult life:

When I was about 8 or 9, my extraordinarily wealthy best friend had a birthday party. A limo picked us and several other girls up and drove us to her grandmother’s gaudy seaside home, which had a large rose garden, a heated indoor pool, and a baffling mirrored corridor which spiraled upon itself until it came to the grandmother’s bedroom. We ate cookies, played mad libs, swam in the pool, and climbed out her window onto the roof. That’s one of the ways I find my adult life lacking—not nearly enough spontaneous taking to the sky.

And finally this, which spoke to me, to my emotional basement. Me, whose first tattoo was the Chinese character for courage-a permanant reminder that I can be brave for when the fear comes, which it does almost every day:

I thought of how different I was a year or two ago, what I dreamed then and wanted and believed about the future. I didn't say it aloud but I felt the thoughts punching my chest: I should have been braver. I should have done it alone. I made so many mistakes. How terrible it is to sit with the knowledge of the ways you've made yourself less because you were afraid.

Yes. Yes. A thousand fucking times-yes.

Nightmare Brunette. Do yourself a favor and check out her site & blog.

(Adults only please)

Love This

2009-08-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

Good Grammar is Cool

2009-08-29T19:28:00.000-07:00

Me Likey

2009-08-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

"It's very distracting, a loved person, and makes the planet managable. The planet, which is so large and lonely and blue, and also hurtling through dark empty space. All of which you can feel when you are alone.

I'm not un whole. I am not half a person. But being with someone is energizing and relaxing, the opposite of coffee. It organizes me. The doubleness amplifies things, but in a way called softening.

I love having a boyfriend. Men are not like cars or pets-the opposite. But having a man in one's life is like having a car in America-easier. A home without a man in it? It gets a little museum-ish. Not bad. Beautiful, and very, very still. Stewarded only by women, objects, life, can get weird to the touch, overly pristine."

-Heather Selles

Let the Right One In

2009-08-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

I screwed up. I don't know how to put it more unvarnished plain that that. I trusted someone who was not to be trusted, someone I myself described as "not one to be counted on" and now am being made heartily sorry for doing so.

My tangled mind keeps flashing on a movie I watched a few months back, a Swedish vampire movie called "Let the Right One In". The title references the fact that classical vampires never break in. Bound by surprisingly inflexiable etiquette (you would have thought after thousands of years the undead really would have found a way around that) they must be invited in. That's one reason why they are such insidious, get-under-your- skin kind of villians. We are made willing, even eager, accomplices in our own downfall by their easy charms. We offer our necks, our selves.

So it was with me. I invited the vampire in then was shocked when he tried to bite me. He didn't-except for the emotional wallop which has been extreme and the toll on my relationships with my nearest and dearest-I am fine. Left saddened and shaken, but fine.

(Makes me think of the fine line from The Bottle Rockets' "Smokin 100s Alone"-"happy that she kicked him out/but sad that he is gone")

But in that charged moment everything changed. Like a narrow miss on the highway-one thing done differently and it could have been much, much worse.

Now, he's gone.

As I predicted months ago he is so not the kind who stays. And now, because of how everything all shook down-my last words "I don't understand you", his reply "I know you don't"- I find myself in the very lonely position of being unable to mourn this loss of a friend. I feel the sting, of course, but when a friend proves to be the opposite no one who loves you wants to hear you miss him, forget even trying for empathy. You can't even offer any positives at all for fear of turning into "that girl". "That girl" who discovers that when someone has charmed you into being on your knees it can be damn hard to stand up again. Another apologetic crying "that girl" backed into making excuses for a man's bad behavior. That or owning I screwed up, I chose unwisely, I let the wrong one in.

I choose to own it. No matter the blow to pride, to peace, to faith in my own judgement.

I own this.

Thus, I screwed up, I chose unwisely, I let the wrong one in.

I Sing the Body ill

2009-08-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

It has been my privilege recently to get close to not one, but two, cancer survivors. Now these men are so interesting, fascinating and just plain flahoolick* that being a cancer survivor isn't even among the Top 5 most interesting things about them.

And yet.

Watching them both dogged by the spectre of new illness this week I am just..well, I'm gobsmacked. As someone with 3 chronic conditions I thought I knew from coping and bodily gracelessness, about simultanously caring for yet hating the machine-your most intimate machine-that is failing you. But apparently, like a lot of BIG LIFE LESSONS, there is always more to learn and admire. The grim set of a jaw when the shooting pain comes, the sigh, then the John Wayne Handbook stoic picking up a burden thought long since left behind. If it's true that the only way out is through, and I believe that it is, I'm glad I have these two to lead the way.

These were my thoughts as I watched and tried to help where I could (and where I was allowed to do so) and then when I stumbled home after I found this on one of my favorite blogs (the incomparable Nightmare Brunette):

"I wanted to stare uninterrupted and touch, not because his scars were freakish or ugly but because they were remarkable. The success of his healing was astonishing. I wanted to feel connected to it, the strength and cleverness that had gone into keeping him beautiful."

That's really what I wanted to say. What she said.

*Flahoolick-an Irish word meaning openhanded, generous, expansive i.e. something inherently cool in and of itself. A Ferris Wheel lit up at night? Flahoolick.

Namecheck Win!

2009-08-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

From Lizzie HERSELF (!):

"I do think available bbq is a solid decision-making parameter

Don’t get me wrong — I love the book reviewers. But I love the bloggers MORE, because they have no filters, and let’s face it, who do you want to sit next to at a party. Here are some lovely online mentions of the book over the weekend:
From Librarian Avengers:
If I suffered from Pageant-Mom syndrome and wanted to create an exact replica of myself from the raw material of some random pre-teen girl, I would begin my narcissistic experiment in literary manipulation by having her read all of the books celebrated in Shelf Discovery.

And from The Hoyden! (Exclamation point mine):
I also want Lizzie to be my friend because she is, under her full name, a poet with huge gifts with language (just making a gift package featuring her “Bells” to my long distance sweetie RIGHT NOW) and when I e-mailed her for real to beg that she come to my town on her tour, she e-mailed right back to ask if Louisville had good barbeque.
GIRL. AFTER. MY. OWN. HEART."

Lizzie, Pick Me! Pick Me!

2009-08-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

How much do I love Lizzie Skurnick?

A LOT.

How much do I want her to be my friend?

OMG.

If she and I were characters in one of the young adult books she lovingly (and surprisingly clinically) dissects in her new book, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, I would WANT to be the cool sidekick friend-quick with a quip and sage advice-but I FEAR I would be the stalker girl-walking too close, invading her space, saying in a pleading voice like nails on chalkboard, "What do you think, Lizzie?"

Oh, how I laughed when I read this book. How seeing those covers, which I would have sworn long forgotten, took me right back. Reading way past bedtime (hello secret flashlight!), the steamy passages breathlessly getting read and reread. And reread. How the spines got broken in such a way so they opened just to those parts. (hello Ralph! and Ralph? Really Judy Blume?)

I want Lizzie to be my friend because she totally would understand why, at least once a year, I check out all the Little House books from the library and read them all in one setting. I want Lizzie to be my friend so I can bore her with my theory about how Laura being the son Pa never had stood her in good stead later in life after Almanzo became an invalid. Lizzie would also understand and applaud my Madeline L'Engle shelf and we could spend long hours discussing why I am a Polly and she is a Meg. (If you don't know what I'm talking about you should GET TO READING).

I also want Lizzie to be my friend because she is, under her full name, a poet with huge gifts with language (just making a gift package featuring her "Bells" to my long distance sweetie RIGHT NOW) and when I e-mailed her for real to beg that she come to my town on her tour, she e-mailed right back to ask if Louisville had good barbeque.

GIRL. AFTER. MY. OWN. HEART.

Happy 4th Y'all!

2009-07-04T17:28:00.001-07:00

There Will Be No Accompanying Photo For This Post

2009-06-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

I can now honestly say I know Victoria's Secret. Are you ready? It's F-I-T.

Let me back up and say that on my best friend's visit this spring (she's one of those continential, splitting her time types) my breasts were the object of considerable talk. First there was the Oaks dress, which flatters me in every way but especially in the bust.

People were taken aback.

See, as well as running with a pretty crowd (as I believe I have mentioned before) I run with a busty one so my assets, such as they are, (somewhere between peach and grapefruit, producially speaking) had perhaps been, how shall we say..overlooked. There was actually a comment from the BFF to the effect of I didn't have a rack so much as a ledge or maybe a small shelf.* And yes, I have gotten the "more than a handful is a waste" line from more than one man. I know they were trying to be kind but really, it's one of those lines that only sounds kind. It's kinda like "it's not the size it's what you do with it" for women.

But finally, much like my inept hanging skills that leaves practically everything in my house crooked (I just start pounding, she uses a level) she had had enough of my ill fitting and tired bras. I was dragged, kicking and screaming as I remember it, to the mall to take care of this offensive business once and for all. As she scoured the store to get a girl I stood by the door muttering," I don't want a girl" over and over. (I thought it was going to be WAY more hands on if you're picking up what I'm laying down. ) But after the measuring was done and pronounced I was so glad because the look on her face when she heard and even more when she saw was classic.

34C and it's all me. Oh yeah.

*Before you think her too harsh let me offer that old friends get a pass in this, that's the cool things about old friends. And her comment also came back to bite her big time in the shape of a saddlebag zinger that made me laugh so hard I got a cramp. Neener, neener, neener.

Filthy Gorgeous Things

2009-06-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Their self description pretty much says it all, "Filthy Gorgeous Things is an online magazine about sex for artists, thinkers and sensualists."

It's my favorite new online thing. I like it's mix of photography, art and history. (Did you know the first porn was found in Pompeii? I didn't.) I like that it was started by 2 women. I like that it features one of my favorite bloggers, Nightmare Brunette (a real life courtesean). But mostly I like that it engages all my pink bits including, no, especially, that most important one-the one between my ears.

Filthy Gorgeous Things. Check it out-adults only please!

photo by Cynthia Cortes-who rocks!

The Dogleg Turn I Missed

2009-06-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

"It's plain there was a dogleg turn I missed, the one that would have landed me in the wedding dress. It doesn't matter how much I hate the dress, of course, or this grand affair. It's only that love-something pure and less groping for glamour-still holds a certain promise, and I've done bad by it."

Julianna Baggott & Steve Almond from their novel Which Brings Me to You

Yes. Absolutely. I thought when I read this passage for the first time earlier this year. The first chapter of this book is so pitch perfect and terrifically written that I kept rereading it every time I went to the library. (Sadly, I seemed to be the only one who ever checked it out. It also never came out in paperback-??)

I thought of that passage again tonight as I was taking my walk, thinking back on the events of the day. It's my friend's birthday and I told him whatever he wanted, we'd do. (I'm a firm believer in spoiling people on their birthdays.) He asked if we could take a drive out to Bardstown, his hometown. Among other stops, we dropped in on his grandparents and had a lovely, truly old fashioned visit complete with sweet tea and cookies. His grands are great people, warm and funny, just the kind you want to make a call on. I was nervous, as I always am in those situations, and not at all dressed for grandparenting but they made me feel at ease. Seeing their affection for each other after 50+ years of marriage, and their obvious, unabashed delight in a surprise visit from their grandson, made me sad after though and more than a little envious. Yes, if I married tomorrow and lived to be 101 I could be married for 50 years but, since I'm alone and blogging in my PJs on a Saturday night, let's just say that possibility seems remote.

Not to say I'm giving up, I am not. Getting to spend time with another person recently, who although very cool, can only be described as emotionally becalmed has reinforced more than ever I want to be with someone. And I so I feel any effort to that end, no matter how clumsy or inept, is not just important but imparative. So I will keep trying in the hope that, like the protaganists in the above quote, I won't end up alone at THE END.

Barbaro Statue-More Popular than Earned

2009-06-21T17:53:00.001-07:00

After Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro died his owners, the Jacksons, wanted him to be buried at Churchill Downs, the site of his greatest victory. They comissioned a statue which was unveiled earlier in the Spring Meet. It's a lovely statue, the first racing one ever to feature the horse in full flight with all four hooves off the ground (one of their requirements, the other being the statue must feature jockey Edgar Prado too). It stands right outside Gate 1 and is a photo hotspot and a nice welcome to a local landmark.

But.

Before I sound hardhearted let me say first that I thought Barbaro was a good racehorse. Like a lot of racing fans I was rooting for him to recover after his injury in the Preakness. I even sent a get well card to the Bolton Center but a statue...really? Shouldn't statuary be reserved for the truly great? The undisputed great?

Barbaro really only won 2 races of any consequence which is a pretty skimpy record for a permanent memorial. I think it's fair to say that he's more well known for being a landmark test case patient than a racing superstar. And yes, I'd much rather see a statue in that spot as opposed to a beer stand or a line of port-a-potties but I also feel that this kind of real estate is valuable and any kind of memorial should be carefully considered. And if that makes me hardhearted well, then I guess I'm hardhearted.

What I'm Into

2009-05-26T10:57:00.001-07:00

I offer three new (to me at least) fun sites for whiling away the interwebs time. More addicting and timesucking than Facebook Scrabble and especially handy while waiting-in the school pickup line for example.

F My Life (http://www.fmylife.com/)

Brief true (supposably) tales of poor souls whose troubles are far, far worse than your own. Great for that schadenfrede, "neener neener neener" high.

Today, I was leaving work when some creeper start following me. When he asked me for my name, I immediately gave him a fake one. He just laughed and proceeded to say “I hope to see you soon.” He used my real name. First AND last. I was still wearing my name tag. FML

Picture is Unrelated (http://www.pictureisunrelated.com/)

Crazy, great wtf pictures from all over. Further confirmation of what we all occasionally suspect- we are the lone sanity in an insane world. Warning: some of these photos may be scarring-once seen they cannot be unseen. (example seen above)

Texts from Last Night (http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/)

For still more schadenfrede glee check out these batshit crazy texts from people having a far worse night (and life) than you.

(281): Any toy can be an adult toy. Location, location, location.

She Did It

2009-05-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

Now can we please stop with the endless loop of stories about the dangers of fillies racing colts already?

Racing is a dangerous sport, as I have said before it is the only sport where the ambulance actually follows the participants as they compete, but there is no evidence that fillies racing againest colts is any more dangerous than any other race. Or a workout for that matter. Yes, there's a certain physical type necessary for this particular challenge-big, bruiser fillies tend to do best againest the boys, but that's true of any challenge. As Rachel Alexandra's new co-owner said, "It's not boys vs. girls it's champion vs. champion."

I was also pleased by Mine That Bird's second place finish, he proved himself to be the opposite of a fluke-a game little guy who, now that they know how he runs best, should have some more success in his future.

Whether it's at the Belmont or not, I look forward to whatever these champs do next.

Good Word for a Monday

2009-05-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

God Bless Calvin Borel

2009-05-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

Or "50 to 1 Baby!"

Every track has at least one. A local jockey, loved by the natives, but mostly unknown elsewhere. They toil, exercising horses in the mornings (and not just the champion types either) and riding every race in the afternoons. Occasionally they find themselves on a quality mount, usually because of the quirks of chance or their long years of networking, but more often than not the longshots and also rans are their mounts. Even more occasionally, they find themselves with a monster win.

That happened for Louisville jockey, Calvin Borel, a few years back with Street Sense but that success (he got to meet the Queen and everything) is dwarfed by his preformances this weekend. On Friday he rode superstar Rachel Alexandra to a 'Secretariat at the Bemont' like 20 length victory in the Kentucky Oaks (you had the love camera adjustments necessary in the stretch just keep her competition in the frame with her). And then yesterday in the Derby, Borel triumped with one of his patented rail hugging rides (they don't call him "Bo-rail" for nothing) on 50-1 longshot Mine That Bird. Hopefully this Oaks/Derby double trick will earn his skills their due respect by placing him in august company like Isaac Murphy, Eddie Arcaro, Don Brumfield and Jerry Bailey. He's more than a little guy (and I'm talking profile here, not stature) who got lucky once-he's a good rider.

But more than that, and more importantly than that, Calvin is also good people. Anyone who saw him chatting up and cuddling with the Make-a-Wish Foundation girl on Oaks Day and holding her and the trophy up in the Winner's Circle could see he wasn't just being nice, he was nice. Yeah, his crinkle eyed 1000 watt smile is out for Grade 1 race victories sure, but also out for the paddock birds who call out to him on a $5000 claimer running in the 4th on a no stakes Tuesday. After his first Derby win he threw some of his racing goggles to his self described #1 fan, Jamie Harris (I've seen them together and she likes him, she really likes him.) After his weekend victories he did the same. Harris said it best when she told reporters, "we love him here on Derby Day and every day."

God Bless Calvin Borel.

(photo totally stolen from ESPN.com)

Have a Great Derby!

2009-05-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm so enjoying this Derby Week. It's different to live here while it's going on as opposed to just visiting. Everywhere you go-the grocery, the gas station-people cheerfully call out "Have a great Derby!" as naturally as if it were Christmas or Thanksgiving. I was at the thrift store down in the hood on Thursday (my Derby outfit was a $10 dress and $3 shoes-dirt ass with style being my motto) and the customers were all merry, chatting about what they were going to wear and eat. These people were SO not going to be found in the Turf Club or Millionaire's Row. These people live in Portland and their parties were more likely taking place on grassless lawns with cars on blocks and chained pit bulls (hate to be stereotypical but it's true) yet they were excited, happy and demonstrating way more Derby Spirit than any VIP just flying into town.

I. LOVE. THAT.

My Old Kentucky Home indeed.

Superstar

2009-05-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

She took my breath away. I saw her in person earlier in the week and can say she truly does have "the look of eagles" the old horsemen used to talk about. Don't even try and beat her, just enjoy watching her run.

Happy May Day!

2009-05-01T11:23:00.001-07:00

Check It

2009-04-29T19:15:00.001-07:00

The 3/50 Project is a grass roots movement that hopes to encourage consumers to shop local by suggesting each buying individual spend $50 per month at 3 local businesses they would miss if they went under. Their information offers very compelling evidence about how shopping locally puts way more money back into the local community than shopping chains or big box retailers. Also, they don't say it but I will-it's also much cooler. Check out their site for more info and suggestions.

Message for Today

2009-04-28T07:08:00.001-07:00

Pretty zen for Methodists...

Bathed in Beer and the Bard

2009-04-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Lucero

wsg/Titus Adronicus

Headliners Music Hall

Louisville, KY

April 25, 2009

Well, I'm a member of the tribe now.

After years of being a fan I finally, finally saw Lucero live. Hard rocking, hard working, and full of hard knocks, they were as good as I'd hoped. And that was just the first song! Then they proceeded to amaze and delight for two full hours leaving me twice the fan as when I walked in. I've always admired the marriage between their lyrics-to call them simple sounds like an insult but all I really mean is they are full of the inevitability of good writing-and singer songwriter Ben Nichols' voice-which sounds like he's on the raspy cusp of losing it even though it's a super strong insrument. It's really what makes Lucero Lucero. I especially liked the two war songs, which in their sea of heartfelt songs always seemed especially so, a new song called "100 Miles South of Lonely", my favorite, "That Much Further West" and the sloppy group singalong of "My Tears Don't Matter Much".

Loud. Raucous. And funny! Good rock music and lots of laughs is an excellent combination. Something else amused me too. You know at most shows when the guitar techs come out to tune all the instruments then the good looking young hipsters come out and actually play them? Well, with the exception of Ben, who really is quite humina humina, the rest of the band looks like the techs just took over the stage and refused to leave. I love that. Cause if you've been to a show where the techs get invited to play you know those are the drop dead rockingest songs of the show.

Loyal fans? I don't know that I've seen more loyal and I'm a fan of some artists known for their fans' rabidity-The Hip, Springsteen. There was even one crazy mad stagediving fan who had the band name tattooed on his skull. I thought I was nerdy for wearing my Lucero t-shirt! Yep, there were more tattoos than a prison and a biker bar combined. I, with only 3, definately felt under inked. I had heard that Louisville and Lucero had a special relationship with a long running history of beer throwing and that was definately in evidence. It made for a lot to clean but the bar sales must have been healthy.

It was also hot, very hot. One person I was standing near took a temperature reading with their I-phone (yes, there's an application for that) and declared it 106 degrees which I don't doubt. It did not dampen anyone's enthusiam though least of all the opening band. I guess when you name yourself after Shakespeare's most violent play you'd better bring the drama. And the bodily fluids. I can't say much about their songs besides they were fast and distorted but because the lead singer was standing sideways to the audience we got the full view of his prodigious singing/spitting. I feared electrocution. They stayed onstage during Lucero's set too to help sing and play and occasionally fling themselves into the crowd.

All in all, a great time one I also enjoyed because it was the first show my brother and I ever went to together. Yeah, it's kind like taking a hot cousin to the prom but it was a pleasure to share the fun and have someone to elbow when you saw something crazy or stupid. Lucero is chock full of crazy and stupid-my kind of crazy and stupid and I'll definately go see them again.

Heaven is a Better Place Today

2009-04-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ready to Accept

(Cisco)

June 17 1995-April 20 2009

86 races, 14 wins

"My heart has joined the Thousand,

for my friend stopped running today"

-Richard Adams

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

2009-04-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

"Which is to say:

I want it too, the impossible lighter side book. I will always be a woman whose first child died, and I won't give up either that grievance or the bad jokes of everyday life. I will hold onto both forever. I want a book that acknowledges life goes on but that death goes on, too, that a person who is dead is a long, long story. You move on from it but the death will never disappear from view. Your friends may say 'Time heals all wounds'. No, it doesn't, but eventually you'll feel better. You'll be yourself again. Your child will still be dead. The frivolous parts of your personality, stubborner than you'd imagined, will grow up through the cracks in your soul. The sad lady at the Florida library meant: the lighter side is not that your child has died-no lighter side to that-but that the child lived and died in this human realm, with its breathtaking sadness and dumb punch lines and hungry seagulls."

This is the best, saddest book ever.

I loved Elizabeth McCracken's novels (The Giant's House and Niagara Falls All Over Again) so much I was delighted to see that she had a memoir. I was somewhat less delighted when I realized the subject matter.

"Somehow every one of those things happened at exactly the right time for me. This is why you need everyone you know after a disaster, because there is not one right response. It's what paralyzes people around the grief-stricken, of course, the idea that there are right things to say and wrong things and it's better to say nothing than something clumsy."

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination tells the story of her first pregnancy which sadly ended with a stillborn baby. It's a tribute to McCracken's skill that I felt like I shouldn't be reading this memoir, it's so personal and frank. Especially since the first time I read it (I've now read it three times) was on of those flawless stunners of a spring day. For someone to share the exquisite pain of their soul when outside was bursting with life just seemed wrong. Better to read it on a raw, cold day like today. Better still to read it at 2am when you can't sleep for troubles of your own.

"As for me, I believe that if there's a God-and I am as neutral on the subject as possible-then the most basic proof of his existence is black humor. What else explains it, that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city."

I didn't cry when I read it, I was moved way beyond tears. Her tone, which is matter of fact without sacrificing any feeling, prevents it from careening into the purple and her calm diagramming of loss makes her experience relevant to everyone, even if you're not a parent. As Mary Oliver writes:

"some deep

memory of pleasure, some cutting

knowledge of pain".

Those are all you need to appreciate this book. If you have ever lost anyone you loved, I recommend this book to you.

How Deep in the Valley

2009-04-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

"How deep in the valley must you go

to find what your footsteps already know?

The way on is the way out, there are signs to follow

there is deep in the valley and I'm bound to go

How deep in the valley must you stay

to know why your footsteps led you that way?

The way on may be truly to stand in one place

and the let the deep of the valley fill you with grace

Treat yourself lightly, treat yourself kind

you got nothing to worry on, you will be fine

you will leave this place laughing

and somebody will cry

there is deep in the valley, wonder not why

Wonder not why go and wonder not to stay

if it takes me and I follow or if I lead the way

it can come when it wants to but it might have to wait

there is deep in the valley, I don't hesitate

I don't take it too lightly

but it don't weigh down too low

there is high on the clifftop

and there's deep creeks below

there's a green shade you can't miss

where the spring water flows

there is deep in the valley

and I'm bound to go"

-sarah harmer

for Carrie & Cisco

April 17th Photo Project

2009-04-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

My friend Tom asked everyone to take a photo of something they were doing yesterday and send it to him for a little project he was doing. That's totally my kind of thing so I was psyched, even more so when I realized why he asked for the 17th specifically-it was his wedding day! (If I ever take the plunge again I'm totally stealing this idea.) I took loads of pictures all over my neighborhood but finally settled on the above. It's the Good Fairy statue at Cave Hill Cemetary, which is right across the street from my place. A cemetary seems an odd place for wedding day pics I know, but it's one of the most beautiful places in Louisville. I hope Tom and his Emily felt this kind of joy yesterday.

Saying Goodbye to "The Wire"

2009-04-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

I wrote the post below a year ago and am reposting now since I only just finished watching Season 5 (guess unemployment was the rainy day I was waiting for). I am impressed, if I do say so my own self, with how much what I wrote then holds up.

I liked Season 5 but it wasn't my favorite. I loved the newspaper stuff with Clark Johnson (the grammar stuff with the actual newspapermen was of course a real turnon for a word nerd like myself) and seeing how some old faves turned out-Bubbles' redemption is particularly sweet after 5 rocky seasons-but I do have some serious qualms. Chief among these is the whole fake serial killer subplot. I don't question that Jimmy could and would come up with such a thing but I never bought Lester buying into it no matter how badly he wanted to bring Marlo down. I also was more than a little put off by Omar's death. I knew it was unevitable, so had no problems with that, rather it was the way he died that I take issue with. He had been built up as a local legend, 'the cheese stands alone' gunslinger, over the first 4 seasons and I was hoping his death would be a suitable match for his strict code of honor. Having him killed by a kid in an incident that had nothing to do with the rest of the plot might have been realistic and might have furthered what the creators wanted to say about the impermanence of the individual vs the permanence of the problem but it didn't satisfy. Some things from Season 5 that did:

-the interaction between Herc and Prop Joe in Levy's office, a classic "Wire" exchange.
-Prop Joe and Snoop's deaths, unlike Omar's they suited their characters well. Michael & Snoop's last exchange was particualarly poignant.
-I liked seeing so much of Steve Earle's Waylon even if Earle's acting can best be described as tic-ey. And his version of the theme song was a fine one.
-Marlo's reaction when he hears about what Omar has accused him of, finally the emotive payoff viewers have been waited for.
-Jimmy's mock wake-another classic "Wire" moment.

Again, to all involved, hooray and thanks.

So "The Wire" is weeks over and I'm only now writing about it. While I appreciate leaving on their own terms, long before any shark jumping, I am sad to see it go. I've been so bummed that it's taken me this long to try and work out what I wanted to say about it. I can be a slow processor sometimes, when things matter very much. Good thing I'm a blogger and not a journalist.

And my sadness is even premature-since I don't have HBO I have to wait for the DVDs so I actually have one whole season to go. (Though I do know some spoilers, I've been trying to keep my head down but it's hard to keep my head that down.) It sounds like a hardship but I've grown to prefer it that way. The HBO shows I like almost all require the ability to go back to get their full import or to at least catch the lines I miss when I'm laughing too hard to catch them the first time. At this point I can't imagine watching them just once and then having to wait months or years to see them again. (Though I guess it is cable so there probably is a certain amount of repeats. Not like "Jaws" on TNT kinda repeats but still.)

So here, in random order, the top 10 reasons I love "The Wire":

1) Catholic. It's a very catholic show-catholic in the lower case "universal; all inclusive, having broad sympathies; liberal" sense. Alley to State House, corner boy to Mayor-it's all there.

2) Bearing Witness. This phrase has been co-opted by many but it's actually a strict religious term from the Quaker faith, the last of that faith's 5 Stages. "Bearing witness requires that we experience the life of another and then take compassionate action. The actions we take when we bear witness don't have to be large. We change our world by bearing witness to what is in front of us daily. Because everything is interconnected, nothing is trivial or inconsequential. Our small moments of authenticity have large impacts we are often unaware of." Or like it says on "The Wire" soundtrack "and all the pieces matter."

3) Love of Place. I'm not sure what is about Baltimoreans that breeds such loyalty but they do like to represent, don't they? Obviously the makers of the "The Wire" have a bone deep love of the city but it watches like a kind of ragged love that's showing the wear of years . The kind of love that allows them to be critical but also to knock any outsider down who would dare say the same. They're mad, but they haven't given up and the viewer is left with the impression that they never will. Baltimore is not my place, I've never even visited, but I feel I know it because these artists have shown it to me.

4) Funny. It sounds strange given the subject and themes involved but I would say, despite all the praise heaped on it, "The Wire" never got its due for being funny. And not just because comic relief in a good drama is relished because it's thrown into such stark relief by the contrast, no, it's just a damn funny show. Funny in that laugh that catches you by surprise way, like life is funny.

5) Team. Yes, the credit list of the show's participants is long and deep but it seems like everyone involved, from the cinematographers to casting people to probably even craft services were all playing at the top of their game. Insert your own favorite championship team name here __________-the right people at the right time with the right opportunities well, that's when the magic happens doesn't it?

6) Different. Watching "The Wire" is not like watching other shows. If you doubt it remember how you feel watching episode 1 of a new season. You're rusty and out of practice, unused to having to pay attention to every minute. (Like they say, "and all the pieces matter".) What seems like a throwaway line now might very well come back to kick you in the teeth in Episode 12. That's not like other shows-hell, I can fold laundry, blog and still not miss a beat on "House".
(It's not lupus dammit-it's never lupus!)

7) Exclusivity. Always more of a critical darling than a ratings fave, a situation that can breed some fabulous TV if my watching history is anything to go by, "The Wire" has some very passionate fans. Maybe not as many as the makers or HBO would like but passionate none the less. The last time I was home, at a dinner party my folks were hosting, one guest just bursts out in the middle of the meal, apropo of nothing, like he could hold it in no longer, "I think "The Wire" is the best television show ever." Yeah, fans like that might not have made the show any better but they certainly added to my enjoyment of watching it.

8) The Personal. I started watching the show with someone I love and even though things have changed in ways that make it hard to watch now (like a lot of great things it's not so great to watch by yourself without someone to elbow and say "Isn't this great?") it still stands as a part of life together, hopefully one I will fully enjoy again some day.

9) No Unmourned Deaths. Granted I am missing a season but, unless I am overlooking something crucial, there are no unmourned deaths on "The Wire". Sometimes the mourner is a character (McNulty for Bodie in Season 4) and sometimes the viewer via the unblinking eye of the camera (the empty mini fridge in Season 1) but, back to bearing witness, no unmourned deaths. And given it's tenor and the dark subjects it tackles that's an extraordinary achievement-a kind of communion with the audience that goes beyond merely watching a show.

10) Optimistic. That word might seem as misplaced as funny but much in the way being brave is described as someone who is terrified but does it anyway, I think you could say the same for a person made cynical and bitter about a situation who then spends years of their life making art cataloging the ways they were made cynical and bitter. That actually sounds like a kind of cockeyed optimism to me.

So goodbye "Wire". Thanks so much to the creative team who brought it forth. I look forward to enjoying it and perhaps more importantly, being challenged by it, for years to come.

The Devil's Garden

2009-04-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

If I'm reading it right there's a thread running through Ace Atkins' new novel The Devil's Garden, a thread of pure enthusiam-a whizz bang, gee gosh 'can you believe I get to tell THIS story?' thread. And considering the story-Dashiell Hammett a Pinkerton in 1921 San Francisco investigating the Virginia Rappe/Fatty Arbuckle scandal (yeah, it's true!)-one can see why. How has this story not been told before?

On the shoulders of his two previous historical novels (White Shadow and Wicked City) Devil's Garden once again shows Atkins not just to have a keen eye for detail but also the gift of marrying it to a fast paced narrative with well drawn characters that leave way more impact than its premise might at first indicate, especially for those readers who grew up with the lurid Hollywood Babylon version of Arbuckle-the beast! the champagne bottle!

And Atkins' portrait of Hammett, called Sam here, a hardbitten lunger trying to support his young family while still staying true to his principles, is also finely honed when you consider how easy it would have been to overplay that hand. In fact, for my money the only misstep in the whole book is Daisy Simpkins, the white blonde federal dry agent with the smokin gams. I don't know, she may very well have been exactly as described but exchanges like the following smack more of what could have gone terribly wrong with this premise in lesser hands than reflect how good a job Atkins really does.

"Daisy raised her head and smiled at him. 'Aren't you going to kiss me or something?'

'Or something'"

So yes Ace, this one is truly worth a steak dinner. Hell, it's worth the whole damn cow.

********************************************************************************
After reading all the materials for Devils Garden (and some of the prepublication stuff for George Pelecanos' new novel as well) I'm feeling a bit like some of the crime writers I love best are distancing themselves (intentionally in Atkins' case-his first series of mysteries aren't even listed on his book flap anymore) from their first detectives. And yeah, I get that. These guys have honed their craft in public after all-any clumsiness, thin plots or the like have all been duly noted by us, their loyal readers. I know I'm damn glad that my first novel is in a drawer rather in print but can't help but have a soft spot for those guys-the Nick Stefanos, the Nick Travers. Their scrappy can do it yourself attitude are what attracted us to these authors in the first place. Even if they have moved way, way on (in the best possible way) can we not treat them with kindness? Perhaps we could have some sort of Justice League/Superfriend/Hall of Fame organization to showcase and highlight their contribution? I'm just sayin, I got a soft spot's all.

Holiday Greetings

2009-04-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter Ya'll!

It is National Poetry Month After All

2009-04-08T12:01:00.001-07:00

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

1.When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,

I mourn'd and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

3. In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings,

Stands the lilac bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with perfume strong I love,

With every leaf a miracle-and from this bush in the dooryard,

With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

A sprig with its flower I break."

-walt whitman

Heaven is a Better (Sounding) Place Today

2009-03-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

My music loving soul is so sad to hear that Maurice Jarre has died. He was one of my favorite film composers. ("Ghost", "Lawrence of Arabia", "The Tin Drum") He was best known , of course, for "Lara's Theme" from "Dr Zhivago", which no one can deny the beauty of, but I always preferred his "Building the Barn" from "Witness". It's a stunner that does the rare trick in film music of both perfectly matching the onscreen action and standing alone as a beautiful piece of orchestral classical music.

I have said for years that if I ever married again using "Building the Barn" as the processional had to be part of deal. It works thematically and musically, with the best build-from rumbly low beginning to the soaring end-ever. (Building-get it?) To have the bride walk in at the trumpet's climax-just when you think the song has built as high as it could possibly go, it goes still higher, the roof on the barn if you will-I think that would be jawdropping.

So rest in peace Mr. Jarre and many thanks for the gift of this song.

Gilding the Lily

2009-03-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

The Passion
Southeast Christian Church-Louisville, KY
March 26, 2009

I was asked to go, the ticket paid for, so I went. I like the pageantry of Easter as much as the next person-my idea of a perfect Easter is being blissed on the couch, stuffed to the gills with chocolate bunny ears watching Jesus movies one after another.

Southeast is Louisville's megachurch (I've been in smaller stadiums and I'm Catholic-you know we like a big space) and they spare no expense with their production. Horse, camel, 2 burros, sheep and a trained dove (how'd they DO that?) all present and accounted for. Not to mention the moving sidewalk, put to clever use as Jesus & the apostles spread the word, and the cast of (literally) hundreds. A multimedia and multisensory production, it seems like the producers haven't met a special effect they didn't like or weren't willing to put to use for their purpose.

Which was sort of my beef with it. (Besides the song, oh yeah did I mention it's a musical? that had the line "Death where is thy sting" from the gospel of....Shakespeare?) It was hard to genuinely feel much being constantly beaten over the head, hard to listen to the true meaning of the season with so many bells and whistles. The previous Friday I went to the Stations of the Cross at my church. It was me, the nun running it, her nun friend, a lady with a walker and the entire 5th grade class with their kindergarten buddies. It was modest, not a special effect in sight, but I think I got more out of that about the Passion, and its sacrifice, than out of all the pageantry the megachurch threw at me.

Reason #437 Why I Love Louisville

2009-03-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

My building is right behind Burger's Market, an old school neighborhood market whose tag line is "The best of everything". They are good neighbors if a bit expensive. Their green beans? Best. Ever.

They also have Tab. And Fanta.

I don't need any of this stuff (why would anyone want to pickle a walnut anyway?) but it's good to know it's there, just in case.

To Save Me

2009-03-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

This week the flag of my disposition is low and my mouth is full of loss. Yes, it's true I lost my job but I also lost something far more precious and irreplaceable, a friend.

The next sound you hear is them sawing off the branch I had so nervously crept out on.

There is no support system and language for this kind of loss. Yeah, for us singletons there's a certain amount of people coming and going but not friends. Your friends are always there for you, that's why they call them friends. That's why this loss is so hard to wrap my mind and heart around. Because it's not supposed to work this way-it's wrong, wrong, wrong especially for a relationship that was sparked by an act of kindness out of the clear blue sky.

Being a friend is a strength and point of pride for me-I am very tribal. If you're a member of my pack there's nothing I won't do for you which makes having to cull stuff wrapped up in this loss nothing less than brutal. The CDs are sacrosanct of course, even if I never listen to them again, but I threw the envelopes away. The pictures have also been changed out. The voicemails are still there, for now, and I haven't done the Facebook defriending yet either. Those will have to come too, with time.

The flag of my disposition is low. Or as the song goes:

"So, how much difference could it possibly make
how much effort could it possibly take to save me
to save me, to save me, to save me
save me from sailing over the edge"

-M. Ward

Goodnight Ryan II-Impressionistic Musings

2009-03-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

It all started in 1997 when I discovered Whiskeytown's "Stranger's Almanac" at the Borders where I worked. We had a counter dump for it and I was attracted by the rose (later so important in Cardinals graphic design) and the semi on the packaging. I fell for this record pretty quick, none of that annoying 'getting to know you' business. For years, until I moved back last fall, I had to play it every time I drove home as soon as I crossed the border into Kentucky so that "Inn Town" was blasting out over the hills between Cincinnati and Louisville.

Most of my Ryan memories are wrapped up with my friend, Marla, who was as big a fan as me at least until the Cardinals incarnation (she's allergic to twang). We live far apart now and I don't get to see and talk to her as much as I like so listening to Ryan is also like being with her.

Other memories:

-Talking with Ryan in a Detroit alley after a show. The boy was, as the expression goes, drunk as 10 Indians but spoke passionately about Joyce Carol Oates' Detroit set novel, Them (he is the son of an English teacher). That was when Marla, who's a ladybug (ladybeetle!) person gave him a ladybug pin which, I think, confused him some. I joked with her about being a G-rated Plaster Caster fan person, handing out ladybug pins instead of making X-rated molds. Surprisingly, she didn't really think that was funny.

-Seeing him back to back-Cleveland the first night, then Detroit. How Cleveland was so joyfully racuous-Ryan in a jacket and tie ripping up the Stones' "Brown Sugar" (that was after that cover was included on an Uncut complilation)-I think it's still my favorite show. Then the next night, in Detroit when we were with our respective sweeties how much less fun the show was and how we kept insisting, "But he was so good last night".

-Getting a semi drunken phone call from Marla when she lived in Maryland and was in a bar with Ryan and the rest of the band postshow.There were actually a lot of phone calls from shows-I remember another one she went to where she called me at work. I was standing at the registers listening to..was it "Come Pick Me Up"? Wishing I was there but feeling like part of me actually was through the combined magic of friendship and the telephone.

-Going to LA to see him on the "Gold" tour with The Counting Crows at the El Rey to commerate/celebrate Marla's divorce. It was a great, celeb-filled trip. Buried in the 3 hour show was a stunningly beautiful version of "Oh My Sweet Carolina" during which I cheered long and lustily after the lines, "I miss Kentucky/and I miss my family". Then weeks later when we got the bootleg we were shocked and appalled to hear the snooty LA types let the hick jokes fly. Imagine, paying good money for a bootleg on which you are personally mocked!

-There were lots of bootlegs, back when that concept actually existed. Some wacky song versions, some that sounded like they were recorded from the ice bin in the bar. The crazy "Burrito Song" that somehow rhymed 'Raul Malo' with 'burrito'...

-The wacky between song patter that came from the potent mix of stage fright and being high, my favorite being the conversation Ryan and my pal Dean had regarding being like brothers and riding dirt bikes behind the Mini Mart. Ryan also had one of the best heckler responses I've ever heard when he said, "We have to pretend we're not friends now" to shut up one particularly loud fan. And of course, the inevitable shoutout for "Summer of 69" during a certain career phase. I was glad when that phase was over.

-Yeah, it was pretty stupid to call one album "llor n kcor" (rock 'n roll backwards) but I still have the shirt anyway. And I gotta say there are some good songs on that record.

So many memories, further proof of how insinuating our favorite artists are and how there is virtually no corner of our lives they don't touch. Bye, for now, David Ryan Adams. All my best to you. I'll be watching.

Goodnight Ryan

2009-03-21T16:36:00.001-07:00

I've been feeling very nostalgic about my boy Ryan this week it being both the most recent time I saw him and (supposably) his last show. I guess 8 shows in 4 states over 12 years, 13 records, inumerable singles and 10 bootlegs will do that to a fan. It's hard to be objective so I'm going to seperate the actual review from the rest of my impressionistic musings.

The Cardinals w/Ryan Adams

Louisville Palace

March 16, 2009

First let me say I like the Cardinals as much as anybody and I'm pleased, as I've said before, that Ryan has straightened himself out and is happy living clean and sober. But as a concertgoer, well, sometimes I wish for the bad old Ryan. The Ryan who could heckle back with the best of them. The Ryan who would play the same song twice in a row, once off tempo, once on, just because he could. Yeah, it could be annoying-the down side of the wacky between song patter-but it was always interesting.

Monday's show at the Palace? Not so much.

Now there were some great moments-"Come Pick Me Up"* was fabulous and such a surprise so early in the show, Ryan hit notes in "Wonderwall" I haven't heard in years and "Two" was also beautifully done-but overall there seemed no thought given to pacing at all which left a big draggy group of midtempo songs all clustered together. I realize that with the name change, taking first billing away from himself, Ryan was attempting to be just the Cardinals. And if they had the chance to do more records together they might have gotten there-Neal Casal's 3 songs were fine songs. They just weren't, truth be told, especially in light of the announcement that this was to be the last tour, what we all came for. I was hoping, and I bet I wasn't the only one, that this show would be less Cardinal-centric. That they'd pick up a few more pre-Cardinal songs not Whiskeytown of course but "Firecracker"? "Wish You Were Here"? Please? As a final hurrah? But no.

So goodbye David Ryan Adams, I'll look for you on the printed page and hope that you'll have a change of heart about the music.

*I would gladly stand on a therapist's coffee table and proclaim "Come Pick Me Up" to be the best codependant, fucked up relationship song ever. Begging for someone to steal your records? Now that's messed up. Shot through with bittersweet longing cut with cold acknowlegment of the inevitability of just how badly everything is going to end, it's one of Ryan's absolute best. There's a reason people yell for it at every show and it's not just because it drops the F bomb.

Now I Know Anything is Possible

2009-03-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this.

Let me make sure I've got it right.

Ryan Adams, my rock n' roll boyfriend, married Mandy Moore.

Ryan Adams, author of such lyrics as "cotton candy in a rotten mouth/you're so fucked up/you know I couldn't help but have it for you" married Mandy Moore.

Mandy Moore who starred in a movie based on a book written by Nicholas Sparks.

N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S S-P-A-R-K-S.

Ryan Adams married Mandy Moore and is now one degree away from Nicholas Sparks.

Now I know anything is possible-the sky is open and absolutely anything is possible.

A Reliable Wife

2009-03-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

First, I need to say I have a total thing for mail order bride stories, specifically those of the West. They're kind of America's version of Cinderella. I even wrote my own version years ago. It's girly and romantic yeah, but being a girl I guess I don't have to apologize for that. The genre gets an entirely different spin though in Robert Goolrich's new novel, A Reliable Wife. In it, a desperate sporting woman responds to a Wisconsin man's ad for the reliable wife of the title with a sinister plan to win him, marry him then poison him, returning from the wilds a wealthy widow. What she hadn't figured on is that the man has designs of his own and their relationship becomes a sick and twisted dangerous dance with the reader never sure who will prevail.

It's a dark book, one I enjoyed as much as one can enjoy such a story. However, flashes of Goolrich's previous book, his memoir The End of the World as We Know It, kept coming up. That book started as one of those wacky Southern family memoirs that just seemed, well, wacky until about halfway through when the author wakes up to find himself being raped by his own father. The rest of the book, as you can imagine, was a brutal read.

Now, I would never presume to tell someone how to get over a trauma such as this. Whatever exorcisms they need to do to come out on the other side, I can hardly imagine having to carry that around. However, as a reader sounding the same notes over and over in book after book is a dicey proposition. Yes, you certainly can rewrite your life over and over in each new book (see Pat Conroy, Augustin Burroughs or Dave Pelzer) indeed you can make a whole career of it, but unless you're bringing new stuff to the party you're going to lose me.

And now? Now, I'm going to reread Sarah Plain and Tall about four times to get the taste for mail order bride stuff back.

JTE Redux

2009-03-07T07:47:00.001-08:00

So yesterday I just happened to be listening to the radio on my day off when they announced that Justin Townes Earle was playing a show last night, a show I had heard nothing about, which is exactly how it happened the first time I saw him last Halloween.

That would have been sign enough to get me there but coupled with the fact he was playing in my parish church, after the Friday Fish Fry I was going to attend anyway...well, I'm no theologian but if anything says "Girl, get yer ass to church" that would be it.

Though seeing someone play honky tonk in a church was a first (I noticed that Justin and his partner in crime, Cory Younts, both dressed up this time-no trucker hats in church) it makes sense. Yes, it's a progressive parish (one of the reasons I picked it) but it also makes sense, to me at least, cause music is its own kind of religion. Think about it-it's belief in something bigger than yourself, something that remains mostly unseen, something that speaks to your heart and builds its own community.

Or it least it feels that way when you get pew butt 3 songs in.

Like last time, the interplay between Justin and Cory was a delight that leavened the sorrow painstakingly chronicled in many of the songs. Yeah, I bet the road can be a drag that seems neverending but it must also be such a delight to be making music all over the world with your best friend. When they did their mandolin flavored cover of the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait", funny enough by itself, Cory cracked Justin (and the rest of us) up with his sly sideways glance at the church's statue of Christ during the lines, "Jesus rides beside me/he never buys/and he smokes" .

Also like last time, I teared up during "Turn Out My Lights" (aka the Methadone Clinic Girl song) this time without the cover of darkness to hide them. That song just undoes me every time. Other highlights included the intro to the unflinchingly honest "Mama's Eyes" where Justin explained how his mother was Steve Earle wife #3 and "though I am absolutely my father's son more importantly, I am my mama's boy", "They Killed John Henry" (I've figured out there isn't a song about John Henry I don't like) and the lovely closing cover of Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1928".

Where I Am

2009-03-07T07:43:00.000-08:00

Facebook Meme Makes the Blog (or see #10)

2009-02-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

The following was a Facebook meme that I worked so hard on cause I wanted mine to be as charming and illuminating as my friends Lisa and Carrie's were. I'm not sure mine lives up to that but I am nonetheless including it here.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you and I am soo glad you have come into my life.(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

25. I have three tattoos but usually appear fairly cleancut a juxtiposition I personally enjoy. They're all very meaningful to me (even the boring one) and I hope to get more when I can afford to do so. And to those people who say "Well, what about when you're 80?" I say that's a buncha hooey. They become a part of you-I'm always happy to see them when I catch a glimpse but other than that they're just a part of me.

24. My favorite and lucky number is 18. I tend to the superstitious a bit-right now it's hawks. If I see a hawk on my way somewhere I always feel like it's a good omen. I also wish on stars. A lot.

23. Some people are cat people, some are dog people. I'm a menagerie person-if I see it, I want it. (See a yak, want a yak.) Hopefully, I'll have the space to do something about that some day.

22. As of a few weeks ago I am a shape note singer. At the end of our first finished song someone at my group said "You're a shape note singer now." I can sing 4 songs now so I'm really a shape note singer.

21. I am a music, movie and book person. If you don't like any or all of these enough to keep up with my near constant stream of Tourette's like references, well, we probably won't be friends. You don't have to like the same ones I do, I like it better when there's just some overlap, but I don't trust people who aren't into at least one of these. What do they do for fun? What do they think about?

20. One of my passions is, inexplicably, polar exploration-especially the travels of Sir Ernest Shackleton. I have a shrine to that man, a daily reminder about the power of endurance and passion. I look at it and it makes whatever I've got going seem minor and eminately do-able.

21. Things I'd save in a fire:-the cat (natch)-laptop-my birthday suitcase-mix tapes & CDs-photos

19. I'm single but am always brought up short when someone refers to me as 'unlucky in love'. Wha? I have loved and been loved by so many great men-one flew me to Chicago for the day so I could see a whale because I never had. That doesn't feel unlucky to me.

18. I am an extroverted introvert which means (I think) I'm shy but not so you'd notice. I think I have Situational Social Anxiety-I can give a presentation to a crowd with no problem but freeze up when I have to make a phone call to a stranger. I know, it's weird.

17. I have a bartender face. People just want to tell me things, deeply personal things I don't usually want to know. Not sure why that is exactly and if it's the reason I have always had a desire to bartend even though I'm absolutely sure that it's not a glamorous gig.

16. Words are everything to me. Lyrics, the back of a cereal box, my cell phone manual-I want to know them all. I especially love the personal vocabulary shorthand you develop with someone close. How I can just say 'Margaret' to certain friends and they know exactly what I mean.

15. One of the hardest things I have ever done was speak at my friend Scott's memorial service but I'm so glad I did. It would be one of my St. Peter arguements for sure. Another would be the fact that when my friend was admitted to the pysch hospital when we were kids I made sure she had mail every day for the month she was there which when you don't have a car and they don't deliver mail on Sundays is saying something.

14. I listen to the soundtrack to the novel Northline every day. It's that necessary and important to me.

13. Though I would not call myself an artist I love to dabble in all sorts of creative things. Papercrafts are my favorite since they are most forgiving to the untalented (plus the fact that paint chips are the best free art supplies ever) but I also enjoy photography. Right now I am building my first Cornell box as a gift for my friend George.

12. I have 3 automimmune diseases. Managing them is not always easy and I'll be the first to admit I'm not always the best patient but as it has been amply proven how good I can feel when I do buckle down, I am doing much better on that front. Dealing with my malfunctioning body has also given me a keen interest in medical matters-nothing I love better than a good medical story. I believe it will make me an excellent senoir citizen.

11. I love to shop at thrift stores. I always say anybody can take $200 and go to Barneys and come out with something cool, the real challenge is to take $20 to the Salvation Army and do the same.

10. Though I can work very hard I also have a huge lazy streak. I think that's why I get along with cats so well.

9. I have a really good memory which is good for a writer but can be bad in relationships. People really don't want you to remember every single thing they ever said. It kinda just pisses them off.

8. I rarely ever remember any of my dreams so when I do am compelled to relate them no matter how boring or mundane.

7. Like a lot of people I behaved very badly as a younger person and I feel like I'm trying to live in such a way now as to make up for it. I'm not sure that is actually ever possible but, like trying to be a good Christian, I believe am I better for the striving.

6. I have always been different, as long as I can remember. Like a disability, I believe I have learned to compensate for it so long as I do the extra mental translating. But, no matter how hard I try, several times a year at least I'll do something that throws other people for a loop. I often think that if science could just flip open my head that they would be shocked and declare me the highest functioning crazy person ever though I am aware that just the fact I think that means I'm probably not really crazy.

5. I would very much like to have a nude portrait taken, not for porn purposes (though I think "shape note singing" would make an awesome listed hobby on a porn site right next to "long walks on the beach"). No, just to capture my self in my body at this point in my life.

4. On one of my earliest report cards in the parent comment box my mother wrote "I hope Samantha will learn to live by the Golden Rule all her life". I think of that often. I also think of what my old friend David Patton told me once, "Better to regret something you've done than something you haven't". I think that's personally very true though I must admit I've used it as justification for doing something questionable on more than one occasion.

3. My immediate goals are finishing my book, finding a job that satisfies, a lover, a house and a dog. But not necessarily in that order.

2. I'm a crier. Movies, cards, even manipulative commercials get to me. You don't have to jerk the tears out of me, I'll give em to you in buckets. I'd love to be more stoic and tough but I don't see that happening. But what most people don't get is that that is just the first go to response. Crisis, I cry, then I do what needs to be done. Don't think I've gone to pieces or anything.

1. In high school my yearbook quote was going to be "happy is the man who can laugh at himself for he will never cease to be amused" but I changed it at the last minute for a Springsteen quote. If I had it to do over I would stick with my first choice.

(Sometimes) You Gotta Love People

2009-02-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

The first time was on Valentine's Day. I was celebrating with my closest friend and her daughter at, of all places, the Golden Corral. And we weren't alone, it was packed. As we were getting our drinks and waiting to be seated my friend struck up a conversation with the man in front of us. (She does this, she and her daughter are SO the 'never met a stranger types'.) He was speaking of his wife, telling us they had been married, "14 years, two months and ten days. Never a cross word the whole time." As we were marveling and digesting that he said, more quietly this time, "Wouldn't trade her for every winning lottery ticket."

Say it with me, awww. Now, that's what Valentine's Day should sound like.

The second time was the other day at work. We had been having a discussion the previous shift about the worst song ever and I was making my case for Richard Harris' "Mac Arthur Park". A classic, perhaps stereotypical, choice I realize but... It's. So. Bad. (I still don't get exactly what the hell that song is getting at.)

Then that got me started on "Orca", my favorite bad movie ever, which also stars the inimitable Mr. Harris. I can't speak of that movie-the horrible overacting and scenery chewing, it's blatant attempt to cash in on "Jaws"-without getting all exhausted by paroxysms of laughter. So then when I went to let in my co-worker she was holding up an LP. It was "The Love Songs of Richard Harris" which she had found the afternoon after our conversation for 99 cents. I was delighted-it was the best, most thoughtful gift. It's horrible and wonderful at the same time.

Kinda like people.

Touch Me

2009-02-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

"Touch is the oldest sense and the most urgent."
-Diane Ackerman

Touch has been on my mind a lot lately. As the previously drought stricken will marvel at new rain-something formerly prosaic that seems positively relevatory in its reappearance-I've been reveling in touching. The deep unadulterated pleasure of being touched. How all the cells in your body sing out in a verse that is both a clamor (more!) and a hallelujah (amen!). How the cells light up like newly juiced Christmas lights, on the here and there of you.

Seperate from anything X-rated, just the celebration of the simple pleasure of having license to hug someone whenever the feeling strikes. To punch them in the shoulder or butt them with your head as you're walking down the sidewalk. Don't tell me we're not animals, don't tell me that when, after a soul suckingly shitty day, all you want is a big enveloping hug so warm its cloaks you from all the world's cold.

As Mary Oliver writes:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."

And my soft animal loves to be touched.