A Sweet Unrest

And all the trouble of a BA in English Literature

I've found a lot to like on this one.  I don't know much about them but wonder if they their parents had a Sundays record or two kicking around- is it just me?  It's hard to pick a track to share, if you like this you might check out Argonaut, Betty Wang, and Friends of Friends too.  I got the whole album from amazon for $5.  

Hospitality - Liberal Arts

I've got a very fickle Internet connection these days but will be by to visit as many of my favorite places as possible while it's happy x.

Spinning

 My little one had a birthday last week.  If this doesn't sum it up I don't know what does.

Spinning by Kevin Griffith

I hold my two-year-old son
under his arms and start to twirl.
His feet sway away from me
and the day becomes a blur.
Everything I own is flying into space:
yard toys, sandbox, tools,
garage and house,
and, finally, the years of my life.

When we stop, my son is a grown man,
and I am very old.  We stagger
back into each other's arms
one last time, two lost friends
heavy with drink,
remembering the good old days. 

 

I can't read it without crying - perhaps it's that feeling I sometimes, on a bad day, have of my own life being pretty much over, my remaining years flying into space.  

But how we love them. What are you gonna do, eh?

xx

Dance the night away

A lifetime ago (circa 1999) when I was working girl with a wardrobe consisting solely of black-on-black and high heels, I stumbled across an Internet quiz that promised to reveal the secrets of my inner being in just 10 simple questions- to be answered all in song lyrics.  Oh yes.  Clearly this promised to be  much more useful than any quiz I'd ever seen in the pages of Cosmo and I got typing.

I can't remember the entire outcome, only the most important thing: when I got to the end, the quiz told me that the title of the song whose lyrics I'd used for Question 4 summed up my Philosophy Of Life.  That song was Van Halen's Dance The Night Away.  I liked that immensely.  And while it occurs to me now that I might have had a 'workplace image problem,' I liked that when a few of my colleagues wandered into my office to see my results, they laughed because they thought it suited so perfectly.  It may have been one of my finest moments- it was certainly a relief to see myself as something other than a bookish, brooding indie chick.  

I think a lot of their music, and most especially this, sounds wonderful today.  Like crazy carefree summer.  I don't dare put the song up but this way you get to check out DLR's moves-  see about 2:14!  

Their giggling progress

I am addicted to Instagram - it's kind of like Twitter only with pictures so there's no worry about spelling/being witty, making it perfect for parents of young children and other perennially exhausted individuals.  I also recently learned how to make nifty photo collages on my phone.  Here you see the result of my two new pastimes.  You might notice the prominence of glitter nail polish, an emergency measure after the sad thoughts of last week.  Similar to tea, there is no situation glitter nail polish can't improve.  

And the same is true of favorite books.  Edwin Morgan's The Second Life is one my new (poetry-era) favorites and it's got everything, all the big things, but I have been resting my eyes on this sweet, simple snapshot.

Linoleum Chocolate by Edwin Morgan

Two girls running
running laughing,
laughing lugging
two rolls of linoleum
along London Road-
a bar of chocolate
flies from the pocket
of the second, and a man
picks it up for her, she takes it
and is about to pocket it
but then unwraps it
and the girls have a bite
to recruit the strength
of their giggling progress.

The Second Life is out of print but many of the poems are in this.