night on the island

All night I have slept with you
next to the sea, on the island.
Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep,
between fire and water.

Perhaps very late
our dreams joined
at the top or at the bottom,

Up above like branches moved by a common wind,
down below like red roots that touch.

Perhaps your dream
drifted from mine
and through the dark sea
was seeking me
as before,
when you did not yet exist,
when without sighting you
I sailed by your side,
and your eyes sought
what now–
bread, wine, love, and anger–
I heap upon you
because you are the cup
that was waiting for the gifts of my life.

I have slept with you
all night long while
the dark earth spins
with the living and the dead,
and on waking suddenly
in the midst of the shadow
my arm encircled your waist.

Neither night nor sleep
could separate us.

I have slept with you
and on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of sea water, of seaweed,
of the depths of your life,
and I received your kiss
moistened by the dawn
as if it came to me
from the sea that surrounds us.

-- pablo neruda

“The first thing that reading teaches us is how to be alone. Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in the pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in their reach inward…for a way out of loneliness.”

-jonathan franzen

oh, ella.

hey, girl.

pins

it took a long time to wash the hospital feeling off tonight.

in landscape

lucky me, buddy wakefield's book "gentleman practice" found me at fingerprints tonight after buskerfest. i read this poem, "in landscape" and felt so so good about it.








"Thank you. I am coming home to listen.

It is time.

Please, you must forgive me my distractions.

There’s a freckle on your lip, it’s a national archive.

Give it to my ears so you can see what I mean.

Here, hold my breath, I will be right back."

pins

new new new

new episode of YFG. we haven't posted one since...august? it's short, and slightly unfunny except to us, but it's out there :)

raw with love

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
I won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
I won't blame you,
instead
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and I won't use it
yet.


-charles bukowski

seriously, i can't stop.

help! i can't stop looking at pictures of bob dylan and suze rotolo!

In Bob Dylan's 2004 memoir Chronicles Volume One, he describes meeting Rotolo backstage at a concert. "Right from the start I couldn't take my eyes off her," Dylan wrote. "She was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blooded Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid's arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard." (from Rolling Stone)

i feel like i'm being watched.

i am obsessed. ob. sessed.
reggae and barbershop. two fields of my purest geekery.



me: can you believe they made that? i saw them come out in the reggae colored barbershop suits and i said, "please let it be sweat." then it was and i paused it and literally looked around, as if i was being watched.

babe: i know! at first i thought you sent in the email, but now i feel scared. like, are we being watched right now?!

me: but i also feel powerful, like, what else can we make cool?!

i worked really hard on this.

"we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright. "
-ernest hemingway

i just came across this gem while re-reading 'a moveable feast.' thanks a lot, hem.

tomorrow is a long time

If today was not an endless highway
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn't such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again

I can't see my reflection in the waters
I can't speak the sounds that show no pain
I can't hear the echo of my footsteps
Or remember the sound of my own name

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again

There's beauty in that silver singing river
There's beauty in that sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love's eyes

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again

-bob dylan

pins.

home from part one of my vacation, and all can i say is that this is the first time i've come back without forgetting a bathing suit top or bottom dripping in the shower.

happy radio day!

oh, advertising.

also, pretty excited for this concert tonight.

cuteness.

"this is no dream, this is really happening!"

mia farrow during filming of "rosemary's baby"

oh, ira.

"Hermione. Harry Potter to me is a bore. His talent arrives as a gift; he’s chosen. Who can identify with that? But Hermione — she’s working harder than anyone, she’s half outsider, right? Half Muggle. She shouldn’t be there at all. It’s so unfair that Harry’s the star of the books, given how hard she worked to get her powers."

-ira glass

as we were walking home last night:

me: i got to do my very favorite thing today!

paige: (pause) hm. i'm trying to figure out what that is.

me: shower outside!!!

pueblo blessing

Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.

Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.

Hold on to my hand even when I am not near you.

I Have Gone Marking

I have gone marking the atlas of your body
with crosses of fire.
My mouth went across: a spider, trying to hide.
In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst.

Stories to tell you on the shore of evening,
sad and gentle doll, so that you should not be sad.
A swan, a tree, something far away and happy.
The season of grapes, the ripe and fruitful season.

I who lived in a harbor from which I loved you.
The solitude crossed with dream and with silence.
Penned up between the sea and sadness.
Soundless, delirious, between two motionless gondoliers.

Between the lips and the voice something goes dying.
Something with the wings of a bird, something of anguish and oblivion.
The way nets cannot hold water.
My toy doll, only a few drops are left trembling.
Even so, something sings in these fugitive words.
Something sings, something climbs to my ravenous mouth.
Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy.

Sing, burn, flee, like a belfry at the hands of a madman.
My sad tenderness, what comes over you all at once?
When I have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit
my heart closes like a nocturnal flower.

- Pablo Neruda

i don't want anyone else to talk about atlas shrugged, or repost that quote about lord of the rings and atlas shrugged, or claim that it influences the politics of anyone, until they've read it themselves.

makes me a little peeved.

i wish there was a language just we two spoke
and i wish i had a plane
then in our own dialect, and in curling smoke
i'd write you this refrain:

the sky's not large enough, my love
to tell what's in my heart
i'd need a rocket ship, my love,
but i guess the sky's a start.

i made something cool.

look at this handy SPF diagram i made today! see how much i can get done when i have little/no demands on my time?

a note: this is not what the FDA, or my mom, or the dermatologist recommends. i'm just being honest, this is how i roll.

more treats from the pins

letter to N.Y.

In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays, and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

—Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.


-elizabeth bishop

i was listening to the "fresh air" tribute to david rakoff, and he mentioned that he memorized this poem to recite and calm him down during an mri, and then he recited it on air. it was lovely.

me: it feels so good to be on vacation.

jordan: how long do you get to stay on the island?

me: well, i'm off for two weeks. i have five comics to read. there are seven bruises on my body.

jordan: so, whichever comes first, then.

i'll try to extract every ounce of relaxation i can, because in a blink of the eye, it'll be back to this:

which i also love.

a short list of clothes that have left me.

every now and then i realize that an article of my wardrobe has gone, usually with no warning, never to be seen again. i keep a tally of it in the back of my journal, in hopes they'll turn up again sometime. here are a few notables:

1. black/brown long-sleeved thermal. i last recall it the year all of us were drawing all over each other with sharpies. it's possible i left it on a hook drying while camping.

2. white above-the-knee skirt with eyelet hem. i really loved this skirt. it made my legs look tan. no idea where the heck it is. maybe in a box at mom & dad's?

3. cream colored cardigan with flowers on the shoulders. this cardigan was the just-right length. the flowers made me happy. i am pretty sure i dropped it somewhere in the post office on the island, but didn't realize that until i was already back on the mainland.

4. thick yellow cotton cardigan with little yellow buttons. this was an american apparel cardigan for men, it found me at buffalo exchange, i paid $5 for it, and we had a brief but intense relationship that autumn. i lost it over thanksgiving break, and i know exactly where. jordan's family had come to do thanksgiving with us, and i think jen and i and maybe jordan's sweet sister and his mom were sea glassing at pebbly beach while he and his dad were doing something at the lumber yard. we left in a rush to meet up with them, and twenty minutes later two facts came to me: i had left the cardigan at the water's edge, and the tide was coming up fast. so the sea took it, i guess. it still feels lost.

5. short sleeved yellow and white striped cardigan. i don't know why this is on the list, i probably wouldn't wear it even if it turned up, i don't really like short sleeved cardigans because if i'm wearing the darn things, i want the option of long sleeves.

pinterest treats

pre-vacation brain dump

some thoughts as i gear up for a couple weeks of vacation:

i can't tell if beck releasing his new album as sheet music only is brilliant, or lazy.

it makes me happy to listen to this and then this, and see how far jay-z's come, emotionally.

why do i always get a cold at the start of my summer vacation?

my friends and i need studio space:

and this has also been in my brain:

neu chicago side a for dance

clive tanaka y su orquestra

a real human being, and a real hero

my friends and i were under the impression that long beach cinematheque was showing drive on the beach last night, and would have labored under that impression for a few minutes into titanic if we hadn't heard the announcer guy mention something about it just before the movie started. we were all worked up to watch drive, so what could we do? we mustered our dignity, packed up our stuff, went and bought drive, and watched it with all the comforts of home.

i realize i'm pretty late to the drive party, but you know what -- it was good. i felt a little icky afterward from all the kicking in of heads and whatnot, but it was so atmospheric and lovely visually, and had a stunner of a soundtrack.

which is why i won't be able to stop singing this today.

terminal velociraptor

nick waterhouse

i got to indulge my inner 1950's teenager hard last night. i put my hair in the full low ponytail, did the eye makeup and dress, and danced and danced and danced to this fine fellow.

it was an event put on by long beach summer and music, and it was just the right size, with a good crowd, fun, retro DJs, and all the hip, snappily dressed people i always see around the city.

here's a little article about nick waterhouse from GQ about why he dresses the way he does.

the hood's been good to me, ever since i was a lower case g.

thursday night :)

brief thoughts on a long novel.

jordan and i rehashed atlas shrugged over the phone this evening. i initially lamented it's length (that's what she said) because it seems to drive a lot of readers away, but you know what? it's a long novel because it needs to be. it's not a pithy epigram of a work like anthem, primarily because it builds layers of logic upon anthem's succinct treatise on the individual.
i came to the conclusion that the most impressive technique ayn rand employs in atlas is her almost preternatural understanding of when to focus the lens onto small-scale human drama, and when to pull out to the wider drama of the american (and global) economy. each drama both highlights and illustrates the other, and this refocusing helps pace the book.

enough for now. i'll leave you with this, even though it's from the fountainhead, not atlas shrugged.

To say "I love you" one must know first how to say the "I".