A Sweet Unrest

The Contrast Podcast - CD Swap

This week's Contrast Podcast is part one of the CD Swap.  It was my first time being a part of the swap and it was a whole lot of fun.  I received a great CD from Adam, which helped restore my jangled nerves after the stresses suffered from trying to cobble together a handful of songs that might be both worthy of, yet possibly new to, super cool Marcy and her enormous library of music.  Well, Marcy is also very sweet so truthfully there was no need to worry- I knew she'd be kind no matter what I sent her way.

It was hard to pick a song from Adam's wonderful selection but in the end I went with this one, which I have very fond memories of.  I was an exchange student living overseas when the Nelson Mandela birthday concert thing was on, and the little brother of the lovely host family I lived with went around singing this for days after we'd watched it.  I may have joined in too, who can resist this fantastic tune?

The Special A.K.A. - Nelson Mandela

As always, thank you Tim for making Tuesdays so much fun.

And Yet The Books

Back when I was reading a lot of Edward Hirsch (this and this) I was exposed to so many different poets and I've slowly been working my way through the ones that intrigued me the most.  Czeslaw Milosz was at the top of that list- he's very plain-spoken and luminous at the same time.

And Yet The Books by Czeslaw Milosz

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,

That appeared once, still wet

As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,

And, touched, coddled, began to live

In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,

Tribes on the march, planets in motion.

"We are," they said, even as their pages

Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame

Licked away their letters.  So much more durable

Than we are, whose frail warmth

Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.

I imagine the earth when I am no more:

Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,

Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.

Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,

Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights. 

And I don't have anything profound to add, I just really like this a lot.

The Contrast Podcast - Skin

I have a poem to post so I hope I can get to that soon.  But today is about tunes because there's a new Contrast Podcast out.  This week we continue our musical exploration of the human body with an episode about skin.

I'm always pleased when I can play something by Palo Alto's finest:

The Donnas - Skin Tight

Actually, I can almost always think of a Donnas song to fit any CP theme. They sing about the same thing all the time, but they do it in so many different ways.  This is one of my favorites though.

***

And while I'm here, a little SNL detour. Motherlover was fine, but the best thing about it was that it got me to finally watch the first one.  Now this is funny:    

 

One of the reasons this gets me is that it's only slightly more outrageous than a lot of real R&B songs. They quote a bit of R. Kelly, from this:

R. Kelly - Your Body's Callin'

and it's perfect because he has released songs almost as crazy as  D*** In A Box, only not as comedy.  My friends and I used to belt this one out at the top of our lungs whenever it came on the radio, no alcohol necessary, partly because it we thought it was hilarious and partly because we really liked it.

Anyway, I like that Justin Timberlake can see the humor in his own genre of music. 

The Contrast Podcast - 1963

This week on The Contrast Podcast we are all about 1963.  Lucky for me, Grant-Lee Phillips was born that year so I got to play one of my favorite songs.  This one has such a warmth to it, such understanding for those of us who may feel like we don't know which end is up most days.  Like all his best songs, it manages to be both down-to-earth and transcendent all at once.

Nothing is for sure

Sleep still in my eyes

Fumbling for the door

She doesn't like to face the morning light

Nothing is for sure

As I begin my days

Glasses are a blur as

My world's about to spin the other way

Amen.

Grant-Lee Phillips - Nothin' Is For Sure

The entire album is lovely.

Hard Bargains

This is me having a Dane moment.  Except, you know, without her amazing eye or her mad technical skillz.  But I always want to photograph these places.  I read a little thing in the business section of the New York Times that predicted record stores would be completely gone in ten years.  And that was last year, so only nine years left?  What will become of us?

The inside of this place is exactly what you'd want, and I found this for only  $2.99.  Which is absolutely criminal, and yet much appreciated as I didn't own a copy.

American Music Club - Firefly

The Contrast Podcast - Sirens

This week's Contrast Podcast is devoted to songs with sirens in them.  I listened to it late last night while walking circles upon circles upon circles around our tiny sitting room, trying to settle a very fussy baby.  And I couldn't have asked for better company.  As usual, it's filled with great stories, a variety of wonderful songs and plenty of silliness and it was exactly what I needed.   

I had a hard time choosing between the track I did play on the podcast and something from my much-loved  Sirens of Song compilation CD.  So let's have something from that today.  On a disc full of moody, haunting music, this is usually the standout for me.  

Nina Simone - Since I Fell For You

A Song About California

Last week I spent a few days in Southern California.  As a San Francisco native I think I'm legally required to dislike Southern California but here's a secret: I don't.  Sure, some of the things people say about it seem true- traffic, smog, silicone implants everywhere you turn (and they are mesmerizing.  Even I can't stop staring.)  But on the bright side it's nice and warm and sunny, they have lots of pretty flowers, you can put your feet in the ocean without a wet suit, and the citizens dress with more of a festive flashy exuberance than we do up here in the chilly, nerdy north so people watching is fantastic.

I had this charming tune on repeat well before the trip came up.  It falls into one of my favorite categories of songs- dancey with great lyrics.  It's about your body being one place while your head is somewhere else, something the yoga teachers of the world are forever preaching against but seriously, how hard is mindfulness?  And aren't some things (the DMV, the the security line at the airport...) more easily endured if the mind is allowed to wander?  What is an imagination for?

And ps, this seems as good a place as any to say that I am so, so happy that Leah is back blogging.  She's thoughtful, interesting, on top of everything and she always makes me laugh too.

Tight Knit

Maybe I'm remembering this all wrong because I haven't seen it in at least ten years, but in the movie Like Water For Chocolate there is a scene where a carriage starts off down a dusty road and you see it leaving from behind, and out of the back unfurls an impossibly long blanket that the main character has knit out of her grief and sorrow.  It trails on forever in the dirt behind the speeding carriage.

It's a funny moment, and I get it.  I learned to knit many, many years ago when I was still very young and it was definitely not the cool thing to be doing like it maybe kind of is now in some DIY circles.  I learned at a time when I was a little bit lost, from someone who was incredibly good to me in so many ways, and I feel all of that love return to me each time I pick up my needles.  She gave me much more than the time and patience it took to instruct me (not a fast learner!).   Knitting suffuses my world with a sunny peace when I'm happy.   But more crucially, it steadies me through sorrow.  It's a way of enduring sadness, a place to put it, and when I come out on the other side I've made something hopefully pretty but in the very least useful.

So I knit a lot.  Thank goodness I now have children to foist it all upon!  I don't know what I'll do once they start refusing to wear and use all the things their crazy mama makes, but right now it's wonderful.  The baby can't protest, of course, and the elder... well, the elder continues to disarm me by actually asking me to make him things and seeming rather pleased when they are finished.  

Wending my way to what got me thinking about all this in the first place, I know it doesn't sound very rock n' roll but knitting is closely tied to listening for me because it gives my hands something to do while my head gets lost in lyrics and music and the gorgeousness of it all.  The past two weeks on the Contrast Podcast have been all about new music and I really enjoyed both 'casts (listen here and here).  I played a song by Phoenix but I flirted with the idea of submitting this one by Vetiver.  It's from their most recent album Tight Knit which I've grown attached to as it's full of lovely tunes and this one is catchy and infectious and has much more bounce to it than I somehow expect from them and it's very frequently on repeat over here, no matter what I'm doing.  

Vetiver - More Of This

Could I Look Into A Book...

I've enjoyed reading the answers to this meme that's been going around (here and here) so I thought I'd play too.

1. Which author do you own the most books by?

I had to count and the answer surprised me: Colette!  Mystery series and things like that I tend to borrow from the library unless I'm traveling or find them used, so I don't have any nice sets.

2. Which book do you own the most copies of?

Just one of each, though I do have three different collections of Robert Burns.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

No.

4. Which fictional character are you secretly in love with?

James Fraser.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life?  (Excluding picture books read to children.)

Completely against my will- The Great Gatsby.  We moved a lot when I was growing up and whenever I landed in a new school system they were inevitably just beginning to study it.  Then there was college...

But for pleasure- Wuthering Heights, Gaudy Night, Swann's Way (different translations and I also made an ill-fated attempt with the French), Weetzie-Bat, Practical Magic.  

6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Egypt Game

7. What is the worst book you've read in the past year?

Tara Road by Maeve Binchy.  I'd never read anything by her and she's so popular so I decided to try it out.  It was god-awful and I didn't finish.

8. What is the best book you've read in the past year?

Still thinking.

9. If you could force everyone tagged to read one book, what would it be?

I'm more of a live-and-let-live kind of girl.

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?

I'm American so I don't think I'm allowed an opinion.  

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

None, they never do them justice it seems.

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

As above. 

13. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book or literary character?

If we expand writer to include songwriter then I once had a lovely dream in which I danced under the stars with Francis Reader.

14. What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?

Learning To Fly by Victoria Beckham.  Also lots of nonsensey fashion books with pretty pictures (VB has also written one of these but I haven't read hers.  Yet.)

15 What is the most difficult book you've ever read?

The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvior.

16. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?

If we change this to 'the most obscure place you've seen a Shakespeare play' then I have a story to tell because I once saw Romeo and Juliet in the woods of Wisconsin.  Pure magic.

17.  Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

The French.

18. Roth or Updike?

I'm not qualified to answer.  I've read very little Updike (and haven't liked that) and no Roth.

19. David Sedaris or David Eggers?

Neither.

20. Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?

What?

21. Austen or Eliot?

Both.

22. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

For the biggest gap, see question 20, or my entire blog.  But I'm not embarrassed about it,  I'm actually pleased I've made it as far as I have.

23. What is your favorite novel?

Wuthering Heights

24. Play?

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

25. Poem?

When I have fears that I may cease to be, A red red rose, Words wide night

26. Essay?

On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion, nearly anything by Walter Benjamin.  And Judith Thurman's fashion pieces in the New Yorker.

28. Work of nonfiction?

Heloise and Abelard by Gilson, and I think this is more creative nonfiction (which I have no patience with as a rule) but I thought Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje was beautiful.

29. Who is your favorite writer?

It's impossible to answer, I like different writers for different reasons.

30. Who is the most overrated writer today?

Who am I to say?

31. What is your desert island book?

Won't I be too busy listening to my desert island records (and drinking rum from a coconut) to do much reading?

32. And... what are you reading right now?

I can only read in two-minute increments right now so I am still meandering my way through the March issue of Vogue.

Dracula

I'll be honest, maybe this one caught my eye because my nights have become one sweet blurry Buffy marathon thanks to my newborn baby and a friend with an awesome DVD collection who let me borrow the first four seasons.  I'm set through at least the first few teeth!

I like that it's kind of sensuous and secretive, and I like the juxtaposition of the dream with reality.

Dracula by Salwa Al-Neimi

Protruding, rebelling against the lips, 
the long, pointed, ill-fated fang stared at me, 
(in spite of awkward attempts to hide it). 

Stealing adolescent glances, 
I dreamed it pierced me, pushing deep in the base of my neck. 
I bit my lower lip, flushed, 
but not before blushing under its spell. 

Yesterday, 
Yesterday when he smiled at me, with teeth in perfect alignment 

          (dentistry can work miracles),

I turned my apostate face, 
and squinting, pretended to watch passersby. 

This poem was originally written in Arabic, and the translator's note about the challenges of rendering it in English is fascinating if you are at all interested in just how differently languages can work.