Chachi Loves Vinyl

Neighboring Sparrow

2011-08-20T18:32:00.001-05:00

ASTW Presents: Four In The Wild | Ruby Kato Attwood | Sparrow from A Story Told Well on Vimeo.

You were two, three, four steps in front of me. I could not stop staring at the backsides of your shoes, peaking out from the your frayed and darkened pant hem. I could not stop staring at your bobbing, careless gait. We trod, stumbling, stamping, tramping through small hills and valleys, through the thick trees on the backside of the creek, balancing on the banks, tiptoeing around darkened holes in the ground, jumping across fragmented portions where the rain had eaten away at muddy bliss. The roots were beginning to show. The undersides of the overgrown walls which lined this stream were stacked with stones and sediment. We'd wade into pools calf deep, rolled up jeans, feet steadfast in soil, toes wiggling and searching in the ancient, lovely, squishy sod.

Where was I?

Your shoes sat on the bank at this point. Socks rolled up, shoved in and forgotten. We took large sticks and made pictures in the sand. We skipped back and forth between flat rocks protruding between banks and stepped back into the water once more, proud of our Summer day balancing act.

Jordache Jump

2011-05-03T15:59:00.001-05:00

Dear Dreary Monday,

I spin around in my chair. I cross my ankles and close my eyes. I try to imagine a periwinkle sky or the bright spectre of a Spring sunrise.

My headphones have become a headband, a musical, whimsical, and stylish work accessory.

SECRET: They are a portal.

When I walk down the hall, my heels twist out in a little dance. The taupe walls pulsate and the halogen lights flex and fumble along to the beat.

--------

Pat Jordache (whom James refers to as a drunk Canadian version of New Order. I would say more Orange Juice than New Order, but it's all relative...and it's all awesome.) has a new record (Future Songs) out on Constellation. Enjoy.

Pat Jordache - Phantom Limb from philip a karneef on Vimeo.

Cover

2011-04-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

The morning starts as if a dream, with downed trees and misty silence.

Thoreau and I tramp down uneven cement and stone. We turn through brambles and glide over patches of green.

What is this day? Where did everyone hide during the storm? I spent late last night pacing the floor in my pajamas and peering out the window, watching the wind and rain sprint and then gust/gush down Jefferson Avenue. I waited for the end of the siren's piercing wail. I would not call this fearless moment. James checked the weather online and when the siren did stop, we calmed Thoreau and then slipped back into bed. As I dropped into slumber, I could hear the ever-fading voice of James telling me where one should go in case of a tornado. I dreamt of water pouring through a cracked window and the dark, musty corner of the basement of my childhood home. We sat at a card table with an emergency radio, playing cards by candlelight.

intention

2011-04-19T15:39:00.002-05:00

For this small space in time, sitting, ankles crossed and toes curled, I feel the weight of those pints and cigarettes, that shoddy conversation, my fake smile.

The elastic curve of my forehead draws up and my breath skims and shakes. Why do I even try to pretend? What brings this flourescent light to my eyes? What blocks out each corresponding memory?

people is place

2011-03-05T17:00:00.002-06:00

Your thin lipped, toothy smile, surrounded by grizzled, tan pallor. Your Jeans, too short, hanging loosely around your minuscule frame. Your spindly fingers grasping the bar, cutting elbows jutting behind you. Bottles line the wall. Posters blanket the ceiling. We are enveloped in the smoke stale air. The fan turns and I am alone. This darkness, this dirty dreary edgy hole. No window. Light floods from the small stage. Light lingers around the bar. Light peeks from the top of the soundboard. Stacks of chairs line one wall, the wall covered in posters and shimmering spectres of the past, thousands of staples. Thousands.

I once had a dream that I was compelled to remove those staples one by one. Hours of bloodied knuckles and splintered wood rewarded with a tetanus shot and a cold Budweiser. As I drained the last drop from the bottle, the walls of the bar started to crack and then crumble. Each in turn fell backward...leaving only the roof above us and beyond it, the starry sky brilliant.

Would you?

2010-09-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

Swing, swing, skip, step into the dusk.

no new enhancements

2010-07-26T23:14:00.003-05:00

but so much more. I've not posted much over the past two years. Sporadic strange descriptions of cloudy, drowsy days, a few favorite videos, mentions of local activities, small bits of news. I plan to write more, Dear Hearts, for this small gathering of friends. No expectations. Just truth through the dusty frames. Just moments of here and there. Some music. Some memories. A few small hopes. And many plans.

10

2010-06-22T20:58:00.004-05:00

I find myself surrounded by wrinkled, sad laundry and warm air and evening light. I am serenaded by Mark Kozelek's ACDC covers and the whirring hum of our new bronze toned vintage-looking oscillating fan. What is this time? What is the time? And where are you? Days and hours and minutes away, in a solemn room, in a neighboring country.

watch signs. keep right.

2010-05-01T16:51:00.005-05:00

a lovely and odd bicycle safety video featuring the music of Jon Brion.

Impressions of the Past

2010-04-06T10:38:00.007-05:00

Absolutely gorgeous video directed by photographer Tim Lytvinenko

Megafaun "Impressions of the Past"
Directed by: Tim Lytvinenko - http://luceoimages.com

Megafaun - Impressions of the Past from Hometapes on Vimeo.

Learn more about Megafaun

Buy "Gather, Form & Fly" on 2xLP or CD

My friend Leah and her Lil Leah puppet on her birthday with the boys from Megafaun at the Bottletree in Birmingham, Alabama. I love this picture. It's magic.

brookwood

2010-03-17T00:32:00.010-05:00

2004 - Charla and Tom stood at the end of my hospital bed. I felt rather tired and under accessorized. A day of steroids can do this to a girl. The white patterned cotton gown and drab bedclothes. The plain striped walls and pale pictures. The exhausted looking television in the corner of my vision. Tom and Charla appraised the damaged/damage and smiled. They knew that I would eventually be okay, no matter what. It had been quite a scare, indeed. I would make it. I would find my way. Tom handed me a copy of Modest Mouse's newest record. And as he and Charla said their good byes and departed, I slipped the cd into my discman and reclined.

...everyone's a building burning
with no one to put the fire out
standing at the window looking out
waiting for time to burn us down
everyone's an ocean drowning
with no one really to show how
they might get a little better air
tf they turned themselves into a cloud

from blame it on the tetons by modest mouse

golden mouthed moments

2010-03-03T16:54:00.000-06:00

I didn't expect it to be like this. Not now. Not during my first quarter back at school. Not in the midst of huge promising projects at work. Not now. But with the stress of it all came this, burning and bending, bashing in all plans.

FOALS // SPANISH SAHARA from dave ma on Vimeo.

I am on the tenth day of my MS relaps-a-cation. I've started a second round of steroids. With my trusty aluminum cane and a pair of padded slippers, I've overcome biting foot pain and an unbalanced gait to get from room to room. And the rest of the time...I lie here on the futon and wait. I rest. And hour after hour passes by. The light creeps up and down the windowsill. The snow keeps melting on the lawn, all traces of winter storms disappearing. And slowly, in their own achingly quiet way, my symptoms have started to melt away as well. Yes. I know it's going to take some time. Even so, I can feel strength returning and the smile returning to my face.

James has been a wonder. He has such patience, and has given me kind and unwavering encouragement. He has this incredible ability to make me burst out into laughter, just when I begin to feel like I'm held captive by the darkest and saddest of thoughts. Friends have rallied round, sending messages of love, stopping by to visit, bringing food and news from the outside world. I feel so loved and so lucky to have this amazing support system. Thank you.

respite

2010-02-13T18:49:00.005-06:00

I, in my whale pajamas and bedhead braids, am suddenly aware.
It's the kidney-bean-shaped, hand-with-splayed-fingers sized numbness just to the looking-down left of my belly button and the coldness of the hardwood floors. The floor is damp with melted snow. I hold my cup and saucer high, sauntering from kitchen through the dark bedroom and into my Saturday. I set down my coffee and crawl back into bed, tucking my arms and shoulders under the edge of the comforter. My bare feet wallow in the tuck of sheets at the foot of the bed.

Where are you going, my Love? What are you doing? Folding back pages and trying not to bend the spines.

I am warm.

Where are you again? Bent over desk, pulling on your beard thoughtfully. You close your brown eyes and open them again to scan and comprehend the words on the printed page before you. You inhale, catching the heated air into your brown, battered lungs.

My mind is swarming and spilling into sleep.

swim

2010-01-17T23:19:00.005-06:00

You turned your fork over with quiet grace. Crumbs traced, fell into tiny raked lines, golden. I took another sip of coffee. I turned to the window. These late nights, the pressure in my head, my left hand stained with ink, my eyes tired and stale, these late nights had to end. You smiled and tilted your head to watch our waitress ramble down the aisle. Her shoes gleamed in their own rigid, florescent loveliness.

Holiday

2009-12-22T08:01:00.004-06:00

500 hundred miles or so into tomorrow, I will turn and stretch in my car seat and look out into the darkness, scanning the horizon for that hint of light, that faded lovely glow in the distance. Birmingham. The Magic City. I will look to James and smile sleepy tears of excitement. Soon I will see our families. Soon I will hold my grandmother's hand.

Christina Courtin - Rainy -
one of my favorite tracks recently posted on Said The Gramaphone.

Winter 1993

2009-12-16T22:09:00.002-06:00

Sometimes, dearest, I just stop. Because I don't understand.

Sometimes I look at my life and say...yes. All of these things.

Sometimes I turn and look at you.

Sometimes I remember that trailer on the edge of town. Sometimes I remember a white bench seat in an old two door, the engine humming in the chilly Winter wind. The awkward windows. The scene on the screened-in porch. Weren't they all scenes. Weren't they all waiting. Why didn't they say one thing. I was in the midst of a Midwestern Austen adaptation. Longing. Silence. Longing. Silence. Whispers. Anticipation. Silence. All in the middle of a god-damned cornfield.

You were there, corn silk hair and gray eyes. You were there, all form and no function. You were there, hands in pockets and digging at the gravel road with the toes and heels of your shoes. I was there and I walked away, cold air burning red into my tear-stained cheeks.

Sharon Van Etten - For You from the album Because I Was In Love

Pied Piper Triumphant

2009-12-01T21:39:00.005-06:00

I reached down to nervously clutch my purse. My hand furrowed down between chair and desk to find a lonely lunch bag. I caught myself and stared up at my Advisor. I had almost captured her lunch. "So..." she smiled and dragged one hand across her hair as she tapped and tapped the mouse. She turned her head to me. Her bangs stood out sideways from her head, a dangerous angle, sharp and satirical.

"Um...I don't know. Um..." We stopped for a moment as I fumbled through the papers upon my lap. I was so ashamed of the amounts of Ds and Fs and what-have-you's on my transcripts, but so proud of the memories that they produced. Every year of incompletes, save one, stood for this lovely, terrific life I led. Every F for a series of mornings, overslept or just delinquent...from what adventures? From stuffing students into my little blue car for seemingly pointless but truly amazing day excursions to St. Louis. To the family farm. To Denver, Colorado. To defunct Utopian communities dotting the Midwest. To shows in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, and New Orleans. To late night rock shows at the Nick. To laying about on rainy days discussing nothing but the weather while Red House Painters beat the din that marched my heart to it's adolescent sadness My only regret is time. That I am 31 and have so much math yet to learn.

"So? What do you think?" She had brushed her unwieldy bangs down. Her eyes peered through her slim glasses. Click. Click-click.

"Yes. I think that's great. Those classes sound perfect."

And with that...I became a student again. At last.

Múm "Sing Along" from Team G on Vimeo.

Trip the Friday Fantastic!

2009-11-20T12:14:00.003-06:00

-friday FANTASTIC shortmix-

Melbourne - R. Stevie Moore
No More Heroes - The Stranglers
Andy Warhol - David Bowie
Kay-ray-ku-ku-ko-kex - Mum
Wake - The Antlers
RR vs D - AU

Layers

2009-11-12T18:01:00.000-06:00

While making bread this afternoon, I swayed a bit, leaning back and forth from foot to foot. Karen Berquist from Over the Rhine belted from my living room "My Funny Valentine." I realized that I could no longer feel my toes. In their place, I felt nothing but cold. Fingers stiff and covered with flour, I forgot, I forgot the flour. I reached down to touch my shoe, just to make sure my foot was still there. Yes. And now my Doc Marten Mary Jane was also covered with flour. The cold is unusual to me. I guess I've been spoiled by 8 years of Alabama weather. Our cavernous apartment has tall windows which still seem to let in little light. I've invested in leggings and long-sleeved knit shirts to put under every piece of clothing that I own. How could I forget? How could I forget the quiet bitter cold of the North? It stole so quickly into my days. The summer hung around so long, lazily reclined upon our living room couch, throwing his drunken stare in every direction. Fans and air conditioning units were installed and shifted from room to room. And instead of the bumbling, snail-like exit I had expected, Summer stole away in the middle of the night, leaving in his place this hollow dreadful chill.

fall falling footsteps

2009-11-08T18:10:00.003-06:00

Fifteen lines on country roads. Fifteen hearts entangled. Turn a corner, down the lane, a darkness overtakes us. Through the brush and tottered trees, through the frozen Autumn eve, breath like cotton, hands curled close, gingerly, we follow.

Fifteen paces over hill. Fifteen miles upon us. Fifteen years we've lived until another night of burning light, of scorching heat, of feigned delight. Another moon leads us to stand around the burning embers. Your face distorted, features sharp, then fading with the flick of dawn.

*************************

J. Tillman - "First Born" from Vacilando Territory Blues from Western Vinyl on Vimeo.

Thank you.

2009-11-01T19:47:00.007-06:00

Two days, 300 miles or so, not enough coffee, a paper bag full of Indian take-out, one hyper-active English sheepdog, one pint of whiskey, fake blood on hospital scrubs, a gypsy, a pirate, a tiger, a frozen lady, a wrecked kiddie car, a bamboo cane, a tiny mustache, a bowler hat, a bunny suit, and a pair of cheap glasses...all make for the beginning of a beautiful birthday.

nein on nine

2009-10-27T22:44:00.002-05:00

We stopped in at the ever amazing Grammers on Saturday night for the Nein on Nine! shindig. Lovely and awesome.
I ran into the 5ch4r7z and his lovely other half in the lobby. The consumption of good beer and an insane array of pretzels and cake (one of which D later pulverized in the parking lot after someone dropped it on his car) and a great amount of inspiring discussion took place. Thanks for inviting us all out. Great evening. Love this video:

NEIN ON NINE! from PROJECTMILL on Vimeo.

Vote NO on Issue 9!!!

Starring Charlie Gibson
Manifesto Written by Mandy Levy
Shot and Edited by Pete Ohs
Music by Bad Veins

theprojectmill.com
peteohs.com
badveins.com
mandylevy.com

corrosion/colors

2009-10-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

I climbed onto the table and stretched out, turning my gaze for a moment as I lay down, glancing lightly and quietly at the huge plastic and metal circular mouth of the MRI machine. My head came to rest upon a small pillow. The radiologist placed a frame over my head and locked it into place. I smiled up at her. "Woman in the iron mask," I nervously joked, staring up at the small mirror attached to the frame. My nose stared back, attached to a smile, attached to my eyes, my crinkled worry-worn forehead, attached to my face. The mirror was tilted strangely. It was supposed to reflect the radiologist's booth outside of the MRI room. It's purpose was to make the patient feel like they were not trapped inside a large magnetic machine, that the patient was still connected to the outside world. I kept staring at the reflection of my nose and thinking, "That is my nose. I like my nose. It's kind of pretty." As I thought these thoughts and kept quite still, the radiologist rolled me back into the machine, and then her voice came over the loudspeaker. "This should take about two hours. We'll take a break towards the end to do the injection. The first scan will be five and a half minutes." I closed my eyes. My breath became a slow rhythmic timer, my only companion. Charged little clicks and whirs resounded, then the pulsating, unending, staccato-ed "BUUURRRR" of the machine.

Give me this new lovely season. Give me cold air and cars rushing by. The leaves will start to turn. We'll sit on our porch in the crisp autumn evenings, smoking cigarettes and singing, squinting and smiling at the people walking past.

"i cross the line
and see a face that can’t be mine
through a long long night
to find a place where we all thrive
where every frail thing can survive
where we can live this dream of life..."

from handkerchiefs by the Winterpills

shortmix - songs to listen to while i cry into my yoga bolster

2009-10-05T20:56:00.012-05:00

Head Home - Midlake from The Trials of Van Occupanther

Famous Blue Raincoat - Marissa Nadler from Songs III

In Silence - Low from Drums and Guns

Lump Sum - Bon Iver From For Emma, Forever Ago

Blue Line Swagger - Yo La Tengo from Prisoners of Love

Madzangara Dzimu - Green Arrow from 4-Track Recording Sessions

Freely - Devendra Banhart from Smokey Rolls

Clothes of Sand - Nick Drake from Time of No Reply

Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) - Peter Sarstedt from The Darjeeling Limited Soundtrack

Self-Portrait in Three Colors - Charles Mingus from Mingus Ah Um

I Give You What I Want - Hope For Agoldensummer from Ariadne Thread

Drive Me To The Center

2009-09-23T20:53:00.005-05:00

Most probably my top pick for MidPoint Music Fest:

The Seedy Seeds - Drive Me To The Center from Soft City Lights on Vimeo.

I can't help it. I heart them like the madness.

Catch The Seedy Seeds @ the Contemporary Arts Center on Thursday, September 24th at 10:30pm.

Blue Ridge Mountains

2009-09-10T17:17:00.000-05:00

Red Squirrel in the Morning

2009-09-03T11:43:00.006-05:00

"Red squirrel in evening,
Red squirrel in the morning,
I'm coming to take you home...."
from Sun It Rises by Fleet Foxes

Sometimes I'm a little late. Sometimes I arrive hands wide open and wandering. Sometimes I turn and finally notice. Sorry it took so long.

These summer days have been long. I'm thankful that the weather has grown slightly cooler. I'm glad that the busy part of this season is over and we can finally enjoy a few weeks of quiet recreation and rest.

After James arrived home from the Vermont workshop, we packed up the car and set off for NYC. I was worried that such a big trip might add to the stresses of the Summer (workshop, broken toe, general hot season MS fatigue) but I think we both found the adventure rejuvenating. Two of our closest friends, Will and Amber, played host and guide for our very first visit to New York. We waited in the sauna-like subway, saw our first city rats, wandered the streets of Chinatown and Greenwich Village, pillaged Yogurtland, shopped in Soho, searched through the stacks in the Strand. The Strand is extraordinary and overwhelming. I found an out-of-print Nancy Mitford novel, Don't Tell Alfred. James wandered a bit, eyes large, taking it all in. It was a bit like the first time we reached the upper room of the Ohio Bookstore. We could have stayed there for hours...but we needed more coffee.

The Antlers CD release for Hospice was that Friday night at the Mercury Lounge on the Lower East Side. The show was incredible. I love the record. The narrative of the record is so powerful and I was unsure if they would be able to replicate that on stage, to interpret something so beautiful in a live (and uncomfortably hot) setting. I should never have had a doubt. They pulled it off beautifully.

Upcoming Events...happening in the near future...as in the next two days:

Tomorrow evening there will be a poetry reading at Sidewinder Coffee in Northside featuring several poets including but not limited to: Kristi Maxwell and Mitch Raney.

Saturday:
There will be a free performance of As You Like it at Eden Park.

Poet Matt Hart is reuniting with his band and playing in the front parlour of the Southgate House? That's the rumour, Kids. We'll be there to see if it's true.

Also, later in the evening we may stop by the Freddie Mercury Birthday Bash at Grammers.

Inbox (14)

2009-08-18T13:08:00.003-05:00

The Birthday of James the Jim

2009-07-24T12:13:00.009-05:00

For James's birthday, I shall post a song about his new ultimate hero:

(Parental discretion is advised (parental units, this means you!(I'm serious!(not kidding.) You can celebrate James's birthday by watching something else heroic (like that movie "The Great Escape" (or for instance the Billy Wilder film "Stalag 17")))).)

(This blog has been approved by the Strunk and White edition of the Elements of Style.)(somewhat)

Scoot, scoot. Hobble, hobble.

2009-07-16T10:29:00.004-05:00

I hear the lovely beat of this song in my wobbley gait across the file room. The hand claps cheer me on.

Dear You -Thursday Clips

2009-07-09T08:40:00.005-05:00

Check out this short interview with Chad VanGaalen on Stereogum. And then download the Black Mold track.

Then watch this: "Molten Light" Chad's latest record on Subpop/Flemish Eye, Soft Airplane.

Also: I've found an awesome replacement for Terry Gross, should she ever decide to retire.

or maybe I just wish that Joe were my grandpa.

This weekend, I'm going to try to make it out to the Sons of the Desert gathering in Clifton. I'm excited that there is an actual Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society in Cincinnati. Check out details at the Chimp Tent

Wednesday Song Awesomeness

2009-07-08T16:17:00.004-05:00

The Besnard Lakes

five little fingers

2009-07-06T11:34:00.004-05:00

Covered in stripes, strips of adhesive, adhering to me, keeping me stable, keeping me safe as I flip through these files, sharp edges with every turn, sharp little revenge for my morning's laxity.

And I'm back...from the holiday weekend, from the dry summer heat, from the strange little things that keep me from taking the time to post. So much I should have told you about. Sorry kids. I'll fill you in now.

We made it through Spring quarter, but barely. Had a great end of the year party at Dietrik's. Said goodbye to a few friends. Did some Spring cleaning. We only had a few days before James left for Birmingham for a week to visit family. While he was gone, I baked. A lot. And listened to music and watched some movies and gardened a bit and then went to see the Dirty Projectors in Columbus.

Beautiful. Amazing. Show. I didn't really get them at first, everything seemed sort of stuttered and discordant and strange. James put a couple their songs on his latest mix and I just didn't get it. But he made me promise to go to this show. I'm so glad that he did.

I've talked about the Sunny Day Real Estate show in St. Louis before, how seeing them actually changed the way that I listened to their music... and actually all music...from that moment that they broke into the first song from How It Feels...my entire perspective changed, it was cloudy and disorganized and all of the sudden, with the writhing bit of guitar and bass and drums, it became this clear and lovely vision of light. James talks about art, how real art should change the way that you see things. This...the Dirty Projectors on stage at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus...was one of those moments.

Can I also say that I love the new video for Stillness is the Move? And no, it's not the balloon panted jumpsuits or the mountain Yak. I actually don't know why I love it at all. But when it ends...I always have a joyous smile upon my face.

shortmix for a rainy thursday

2009-05-14T10:30:00.004-05:00

King Porter Stomp - Jelly Roll Morton
You're Driving Me Crazy - Django Reinhardt
Toby Dammit Part One - 13ghosts
Slide Show - Travis
Monty Got a Raw Deal - REM
Book of Angels - Jim White
Downtown - Dexateens (coming to the Southgate House next week! (playing the parlour))
Katy Song - Red House Painters
A House - Doves

Today I am the dusk.

2009-05-05T18:06:00.007-05:00

If I go about this like I should, you wouldn't get very far. You wouldn't be able to follow me down this particular path. You'd stop in your tracks and look around and begin to wonder and wonder and I would be gone. I would have disappeared from your line of vision, and more importantly, within a matter of seconds, I would have disappeared from your thoughts as well. Today I am the dusk. I'm those gray moments, dulling your surroundings. I am the wilting, careless dream.

Today I am the dusk.

****************************************

One of James' very favorite videos
Bat for Lashes

Little Lost Lolita and the Literaries short mix

2009-04-07T06:44:00.002-05:00

Little Lost Lolita and the Literaries
Originally uploaded by SaraLeah

I felt this tightness in my chest. I felt this extraordinary light headedness. I floated, I fled, I found myself at the bar. The bartender placed a large Arrogant Bastard ale in one hand, a cold glass in the other. I turned with twisted appreciative expression on my face. I sat down beside Lyz and began to consume. The warmth calmed me. The conversation did too.

I couldn't believe how nervous I was. We'd come in about 7:30 to set up. Peter had broken a string on his guitar. I was to use the guitar to guide the David Bowie song. I would fake it. I would strum and turn and sing and hope that no one noticed the small amount of sound coming from my instrument. I think it worked. We sounded wonderful.

Here is my shortmix from the week of the show. My moodmaker, my heartshaker, my constant encouragement. At work, I forget that anyone is around at the end of the day. I listen to this and file and sing my heart out. No one has complained yet. I guess that's a good sign.

Marry Me - St. Vincent
Falling out of Favor with the Neighbors - Through the Sparks
Five Years - David Bowie
What Do - Vulture Whale
Some of them are Superstitious - Midlake
Hold on, Hold on - Neko Case
Annabelle - Gillian Welch
1000 Books - Leslie Helpert
Everything's Different Now - The Innocence Mission
Rebel Prince - Rufus Wainwright

Word with End

2009-04-02T21:31:00.009-05:00

After two fierce full practices we are ready to go on the road...

an entire block and half away...

Tomorrow night, Peter, Brian, Lyz, and I will be debuting our latest at the Catskellar on UC Campus. Here's the info:

Hosted by The Cincinnati Review

Friday, April 3, 2009 at 8:00pm
University of Cincinnati, Catskeller

"Come join us for our first annual Word Without End, an open-mic, cross-genre extravaganza.

Read your own stuff—excerpts or pieces entire—read someone else’s stuff, play an instrument with a missing string, or sob uncontrollably while passing around pictures of your childhood dog. Make YOUR loss OUR loss.

We're hosting a silent auction of once-lost-now-FOUND objects. If you have fabulous crap (like a lone sock, a filthy barbie with matted hair, a pineapple, a hungry hippo) we want it! Proceeds go to the Cincinnati FreeStore Foodbank, which serves more than 160,000 people throughout southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and southeastern Indiana."

Spring!

2009-04-02T21:14:00.004-05:00

I know I've been a little off of the radar since the beginning of March. James was finishing up a quarter. He spent weeks working on a paper for his Ropes class. Think old testament. The connection of God and the kings of Israel. Comparing it to a philosopher's view of the author and a piece of literature. Fierce stuff, lots of research beginning with viewing of George Burn's OH GOD! and Richard Gere's King David (thank god those comparisons were later scrapped, but OH the films. An hour and a half of John Denver in OH GOD! as a deranged shouting puppet with a bowl cut. Glurg.).

So a new quarter has begun. James has started working out his novel. It's Spring. Everything is bloom. All is right with the world.

Musicness and other stuff

2009-03-06T06:45:00.011-06:00

The view from where we stood:

-rows of wooden CD bins.
-the back of a smartly bespectacled woman's head, her hair a strange platinum fluff growing out of brown straight strands.
-a gigantic neon colored Minnie Mouse purse.
-Japanese finger puppets.
-a bin card for Kaki King
-lovely worn and dusty wooden floor.
-a middle-aged man in a military jacket pacing nervously in the latter alphabet of the rock section.
-my black Earth shoes
-Randi's green t-shirt framed by a long black cardigan sweater.
-Two young men with guitars.

Those two young men were from the Annuals. They played a rather lighthearted short set, four songs in total. Wedged in at the end of the sales room, between bins, stood frontman Adam Baker and lead guitarist Kenny Florence. I was taken aback by clean brilliant banter of the lead accoustic. I had anticipated a bit of raggle-taggle acoustic chord flim-flam that I'd seen thrown together so often other bands' in-stores. Maybe I was always just going to the wrong stores. Or checking out the wrong bands. In any event, the midday adventure with Randi to Shake It records was well worth it.

I picked up a few records on my way out ("way out" consisting of an hour and a half of mindless wandering through the bins, wondering what I had even listened to lately, what I had written on that list of albums that sits on my desk at work, wondering what my name was, while Randi thoughtfully fueled my record ramble with a coffee run to Sidewinders).

Latest Acquisitions:
Richard Swift as Onasis

Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day

Jelly Roll Morton - The Complete Library of Congress Recordings

Clem Snide - Ghost of Fashion

St. Vincent - Marry Me

*******************************************************
Future Dates of Awesomeness

Wednesday - March 25 - The Heartless Bastards instore at Shake It Records
Thursday - March 26 - The High Strung @ the Comet

The Birthday of the Ruth and other good puppetness

2009-03-02T07:58:00.006-06:00

Happy Birthday Ruth!!!! Hurrah!!!
May your day be filled with lovely random hugs from bus drivers and incredible mix tapes.

Ruth's Birthday Puppet

********************************************

Randi and lil Randi

Randi and I spent Friday evening at Sidewinder's crafting to the sweet and scary sounds of a death-obsessed singer songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. I can't remember his name, but as part of his mid-set death trilogy he be-wailed Joe Strummer's death and growled about recent death threats of his own. And honestly, over-all he was a very cheerful, almost cheeky individual. He kept thanking us for being there (as Randi and i were the only two in the room for his set...and the whole time he was playing, we were making things out of felt and string - but we did "woo-hoo" and applaud him after every song. That has to count for something.)
I really do love the back room of Sidewinders and would love to see another show there, or perhaps work to organize a reading sometime in the near future.

lil Randi

**********************************

Last weekend Randi and I attended the Knot Only Knitting crafting circle at the Northside branch of the Cincinnati Public Library.

lil Amber in the works

lil Sara Leah

and the end product of last weekend's crafting craziness ---->

lil Amber, Gizmo Aloysius Records, and lil Sara Leah

Scene from the street on a rainy Wednesday morning.

2009-02-18T09:51:00.008-06:00

I had to reproduce it for you in a sketch, because traffic wouldn't permit an actual picture. How sweet and sad, the abandoned little televisions consoling each other on a dreary day.

*************************************

Our Valentines dateness actually took place last Thursday. James and I ventured over to the Southgate House in Kentucky to see the Sea and Cake.

Here is my blobby cell phone representation of the beauty of the Sea and Cake. Apologies in advance:

We sat on the back corner of the balcony. The railing in front of us lined our view of the stage. We shared a Three Philosophers cherry lambic and watched the smoke curl around the room. I felt at home. Tears did not well up in my eyes with recognition of particular songs (which is usually bound to happen with any show that I've waited this long to see). Instead, I closed my eyes. I reveled in the repetition of Sam Prekop's vocals, the intricate drums, my god the intricate drums....the drummer was incredible. I can tell you that I hardly understood a word of what Sam was singing, my ears were waiting for what John McEntire would do next.

*****************************************************************

MARK YOUR CALENDARS, KIDS -
(well, you kids that live in Cincinnati)

February 23, 2009
Juana Molina @ the Southgate House

March 4, 2009
The Annuals @ the Southgate House

March 6-8, 2009
Bockfest!

March 26, 2009
The High Strung @ the Comet

Cincinnati Shortmix: CAC - Tara Donovan Exhibit

2009-02-11T08:55:00.007-06:00

Lovetown - The Glands
Fire - Jason Collett
Chasing After Deer - Midlake
Corpus Christi Carol (for Roy) - Jeff Buckley
Songs Without Words (Opus 19 No 2)- Paul McCandles
Circles - Shortwave Radio
Teenage Phantasm - LYLAS
The Summer - Yo La Tengo
When It Begins - Broken Social Scene presents Kevin Drew

que: MUSIC

Tara Donovan's Exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center:

The exhibit will continue through May 3, 2009

Also note: Next weekend
Saturday, February 21, 4pm & Sunday, February 22, 12:30pm

Minimalist musical performance in response to the materials and forms of Tara Donovan. Visit the CAC on Saturday for a classical guitar and cello duet between local musicians Isaac Hand & Ethan Philbrick and then again on Sunday with a performance by the Flux Capacitors.

Snow Day Infinity

2009-01-29T10:11:00.005-06:00

Wing Finger

2009-01-22T07:55:00.006-06:00

What was once the only thing
Has transformed into everything
Even you...
Even you...

I sat in the dimly lit room without windows. I stared at the milk colored walls, the paper covered table, the plainly labeled boxes of medical supplies. The young resident neurologist sniffed and sighed and asked me another question. I stuttered my thoughts through tired lips, twisting words, reasoning, reciting...this is what happens. Every two seconds I thought of something else to tell him. Half of those things never got told. They didn't really matter. What mattered was the image on his computer screen. My spine, discs angular and beautiful, a column of uneven lines, a white and dark pattern. The spinal cord itself was stained, small splotches, patches, dark little places in the midst of gleaming bright white. The resident flipped through images, the successive MRI's of my spine and then of my brain. The brain was completely clear, but for a few older lesions. I have a very pretty brain.

Walking
We are growing at the speed of light
Every single piece is synchronised
Even you...
Even you...

I've been waiting for the results of a certain test. Dr. Melanson ordered the test after putting together all of my symptoms at our first appointment a few weeks ago. She thought that there was a possibility that I could have Devic's Syndrome. With the myelitis and optical neuritis, it's understandable.

I started researching Devic's in the meantime, reading everything I could, throwing my energy into this new idea. The trouble is that it's not an easier disease....it's actually much worse than MS, with fewer treatments and no preventative therapies at all. I think that I just became so enveloped by the thought of it because it was something different. Something other than what I've been living with for so long. The results of the test came back negative. This is a wonderful thing, that I just have plain old MS. Plain old MS. I should be joyous that I do not have some degenerative disease that most definitely ends in blindness... But that evening after I found out the results, as I stood in the kitchen making supper, I became completely paralyzed with disappointment and frustration. It seems so silly now. It seems ridiculous. But I just wanted a different answer. I wanted there to be a fluke, Dr. Melanson walking in and saying, "You really don't have any of this. You're just a beautifully dramatic hypochondriac."

Teradactyls, abandoned pianos, your stepdad's bongo drums, the snails that live inside aquariums

Doo-doo-doo-doo...

What was once the only thing
Has transformed into everything
Even you...

- lyrics from Wing Finger by Chad Vangaalen from the album Skelliconnection

shortworkday shortmix

2009-01-21T11:51:00.002-06:00

Charlyn, Angel of Kensington - Jason Collett
Page's Instrumental - Hope For Agoldensummer
Night and Day - Billie Holiday
Wing Finger - Chad VanGaalen
Lost Verses - Sun Kil Moon
Foothills of my Mind - John Vanderslice
Blame it on the Tetons - Modest Mouse
Teree La Sebin - Amadou & Mariam

Wednesday Afternoon Adventure

2009-01-15T10:59:00.007-06:00

He stood, fingers inches away from dangling cigarette, cigarette dangling from open lips, hanging jaw, eyes wide, eye brows raised, breath floating up through the cold air. He stood staring at me. Me - Flowing red leather jacket, jeans, lovely woven cap, new snowboots, all of me jumped up and disappeared into the black Rumpke recycling dumpster. Then I popped up, holding the top flap covering of said dumpster with my head as I dug through stacks of newspapers, bags of cans and bottles, boxes, boxes, and more boxes. Moments later I emerged victorious, holding the side of the dumpster for balance with one gloved hand and thrusting my tiny white United Healthcare Insurance Card into the air with the other. My audience stood staring still, across the parking lot. They stood and said not a word, heads turned and tilted - frozen in the moment. They did not surround me with thunderous applause carrying me back to my Honda Civic on their shoulders. No, I crawled out on my own, placed my prodigal card in my wallet. And then I drove away.

Album of the Day:

Cellar Door by John Vanderslice

Papa Guac - Birthday of the Big Dog

2009-01-09T13:58:00.007-06:00

Birthday salute to the man who introduced me to the Beatles, Otis Redding, Burt Bachrach, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, America (the Band), Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Letterman, The Beach Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Williams, Henry Mancini, Bert Kampfert, Paul Mauriet, Bud Shank, Chuck mangione, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Herbie Mann, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Carla Thomas, James Brown, The Temptations, the Four Tops, Wilson Pickett, The Irish Tenors, The Boston Pops, Mannheim Steamroller, the Canadian Brass, The Brothers Cazimero, Krispy Kreme Donuts, White Castle, Steak 'n' Shake French Fries, Ollie's Barbecue, Colby-jack cheese, German Chocolate Cake, Pancakes, Crackerjacks, Beernuts, Coca Cola, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Emily Dickinson, L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ozzie Smith, Bear Bryant, Jesse James, The Pony Express, Buffalo Bill Cody, Billy the Kid, The Grand Canyon, Old Faithful, the Sears Tower, Wall Drugstore, Star Wars, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus, The Pink Panther, Singing in the Rain, The Music Man, The Mighty Wurlitzer, The Fox Theatre, The Alabama Theatre, New Salem, St. Louis, the majority of the 50 States, part of Canada, and so much more....

A recipe for you Dad - On your 61st Birthday

Guacamole - from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

1/3 cup finely diced white onion or scallion, including some of the greens
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 medium tomatoes, seeded and finely diced
1 to 2 serrano chiles, finely diced
Salt
3 large avocados, preferably Haas
Juice of 1 or 2 limes

Set aside a few tablespoons of the onion, cilantro, and tomato for garnish. Grind or chop the remaining onion, cilantro, and chile with 1/2 teaspoon of salt to make a rough paste. Peel and mash the avocado with a fork. Add the onion mixture and tomatoes and seanson with lime juice and salt to taste.

If you're not serving the guac right away, press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface to keep it from browning. To serve, heap the guacamole into a bowl and garnish with reserved onion, cilantro, and tomato.

NMO

2009-01-08T18:31:00.000-06:00

She had me walk in a line, toe to heel, toe to heel. I had to lift up my pant legs, they were so wide. It was the same as I tiptoed across the room and walked only upon my heels. My huge pants just seemed to get in the way. James later said that it looked really funny, but it got the job done. I sat through many other tests today, simple ones, touching my finger to my nose with my eyes closed, pushing my legs and arms against the doctor's strong grip. She is my new neurologist, a specialist at the Waddell Center at the University of Cincinnati Hospital. The interview today was really encouraging. She asked me several questions that none of my other doctors had ever asked me before and ordered some tests (bloodwork) that I had never heard of. We'll schedule the new round of MRI's next week. Maybe Dr. Melanson will be able to tell me something new. Maybe she will just help James and I manage my symptoms so that I can have a more comfortable life. Either way, I'm very happy and excited about the future.

Album of the day:

You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene

Wednesday Morning

2009-01-07T08:13:00.003-06:00

Snow falling. A slight billowing sheen twisting around me as I ventured out to the car this morning. I clutched my lunch, my purse, my snow boots to my chest. There was not enough snow to warrant the actual use of boots. It was nothing more than a scene of winter beauty. An impression of winter. Maybe as the day progresses it will become something more substantial. I would love that.

*********************

Soundtrack for today:

April - Sun Kil Moon

The Soup Mix - The Birthday of the Kirsten - Lady

2009-01-06T06:29:00.006-06:00

My friend Kirsten is celebrating her 30th birthday today.

She's actually not a puppet, but a real girl. This is just Lil' Kirsten (or Lil' Keeks), her birthday fingerpuppet (which she will receive on Saturday. Hurrah!)

In honor of this momentous occasion, I give you the Soup mix, which is actually one of my favorite mixes that James ever made for me. It will be coupled with our new favorite soup, a spinach and quinoa bit of loveliness which is a variation of a soup featured in the January Vegetarian Times.

The Soup Mix

Oceanside - Akron/Family
Dragonfly - Low
Basin Street Blues - Miles Davis
Who Needs Forever? Astrud Gilberto
Stars and Sons - Broken Social Scene
The Song is You - Charlie Parker
But Not For Me - Chet Baker
Poughkeepsie - Over the Rhine
Dylan Part II - Akron/Family
Tears - Django Reinhardt
In A Sentimental Mood - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars) - Astrud Gilberto
When It Hits My Blood - John Vanderslice
What I Don't Believe - The Minus 5
Fruit Tree - Nick Drake
Another Song For a Blue Guitar - Red House Painters

Spinach and Quinoa Soup

1 Tbs olive oil or 1 Tbs butter
1 1/2 medium sweet onion diced
3 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 tomato chopped
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatos with basil, garlic, and oregano
2 large handfuls of spinach
1 small handful of parsley (optional)

Heat olive oil or butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and saute until translucent. Stir in broth, salt, and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil. Add quinoa, reduce heat to medium low. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Stir in tomatoes and spinach leaves (and parsley) simmer 5 minutes, uncovered, until spinach and quinoa are tender. Season with pepper if desired. Serve immediately.

Birthday Wishes to my High School (Dream) Boyfriend

2009-01-04T20:25:00.003-06:00

Hope For Agoldensummer @ Workplay May 2008

2009-01-03T13:51:00.002-06:00

The Heartless Bastards @ the Northside Tavern - Dec 2008

2009-01-02T22:27:00.010-06:00

The Heartless Bastards @ the Northside Tavern

Halfway through the show, our friend Dietrik yells "Erica (the lead singer) I want to have your babies!!!!" Doesn't matter that we're standing right in front of her. He later does a handstand on an enormous bulls eye in the street in front of the Northside Tavarn. Beauty beauty beauty for our first real show in Cincinnati.

let's face the music and dance - New Years Day 2009

2009-01-01T20:32:00.012-06:00

wwwwwww -- wish

RRRRRR ----- Resolutions

- post every day ---- WAIT ------- what? Yep. I'm totally serious. I write on this blog every day, but rarely publish because I feel so much of it is unfinished or rambling and wandering aimlessly a through a mine field of music memories. I don't want to hurt you. But I also have so much that I really do want to share with you. I keep putting off finishing and organizing posts because by the end of the day it seems like such a huge task. I will post every day this year. You may get just a picture and a few silly love songs, a recipe and a mix tape, or my random thoughts on the latest events in our little lovely lives. Be prepared for an explosion of workplace cartoons and blurry show pictures. Muddy mixes and life soundtracks. Oh. You're used to that aren't you? Well you get MORE! Hurrah!!!

- stick to the MS Diet - (HOLIDAYS ARE BAD!) I opened my Microsoft Outlook at work the other day and realized that during a cashew brittle and sugar cookie overdose I had added to my task list:
* eat cookies
* eat more cookies

I try to pass all of the holiday goodies on to my deskmate, Nea. But sometimes IT'S SO HARD.

James and I have also been going out to eat a great deal in the last two weeks and the majority of the restaurants are not diet friendly.

It's so important to keep on this diet. Yes, it's nice to lose weight, but that was never the point. Cutting out the carbs and sugar and vinegar and mushrooms and yeast is supposed to keep my immune system from getting all out of whack. All of those lovely evil things may be the triggers, causing my immune system to declare war on my beautiful spinal cord.

So, even though I try to fool myself into thinking it's okay to cheat...it's really not. I'm the fool for eating the pecan pie and sweet potato casserole. I'm just risking so much for such a silly thing. So I'm going back on the diet full force. Please send me recipes. Please keep encouraging me. I want to be as healthy as I can be. I will beat this disease.

--------------------------------------
2008 Mix - Cincinnati Mix
I made this for James. I put it together the night before he left for Cincinnati to find our apartment. Over the past several months, I've given it to several of our new friends. To me it is the spirit of this whole beautiful crazy transition. It's succession of melodies are the spinning, rolling miles, five hundred miles to a new life.

one of these things first - nick drake
sweethearts on parade - m ward
sara - bob dylan
they cannot let it expand - midlake
loving you - judy holliday and gerry mulligan
pacific theme - broken social scene
no cars go - arcade fire
roscoe - midlake
dead ends - chad vangaalen
chinese translation - m ward
you ain't got a hold on me - mark kozelek
drunkard's prayer - over the rhine
around and around - mark kozelek
go down easy - over the rhine
TBA (can't remember the title) - red house painters
by the time it gets dark - yo la tengo
1 2 3 4 - feist
to go home - m ward

If you were a river of whiskey, and I was a diamond jar....

2008-12-10T23:41:00.004-06:00

Tiny seizures. Tiny sparks. In the dark, as the fan hums in the distance, as James' quiet breath leads him into his restful oblivion, I cannot stop. I am tense. I am drained. I turn. There. Suddenly a jabbing sensation invades my left calf and charges up through these strange tunnels, myelin covered wonderlines, and draws up hands and feet and back and shoulders and...there it goes. Gone.

And then another, my ear - down the side of my head to my shoulders, hands and feet. My eyes smart momentarily, but I brave up and stay the jolting of my body causing Jim to turn and hold tight, as if to hold me down, like it would make a difference.

Nothing makes so much difference as a good nights sleep. That difference is something that I've been fighting for so long. Even now, as I sit in this chair writing you and listening to Claire Campbell play her saw, her sister Page in quiet harmony, the minutes pass, the morning comes so quickly. I am left weighted.

"I can feel my life beating slow, I can feel my life beating low, I can feel your mind, It's right in line with my mind..." - Hope For Agoldensummer, New Whiskey River, Adriadne Thread

I'm still braving it every day at my new job. I have a few wonderful co-workers who trade tasks with me when I need to stay off of my feet. The bottom of my feet are all pins and needles. My boss said that if I needed to wear houseshoes around the office, I can...as long as they're not bunny slippers.

When I come home, James is there. If I feel like I want cook, most times whether or not I have the strength, I do. If not, he takes care of everything. Slow motion. Slow motion these days. Waiting for all of the little symptoms to disappear. We don't know what this is really, a mini-attack...my body warning me to take it easy. Some days I convince myself that I am invincible, that I have all of the energy in the world. I overdo it. James is my sounding board, he's my common sense, he's my tucker-in when he finally convinces me to rest.

I'm in the midst of my second attempt at drawing a Holiday card for all of you. If they don't make it into the mail by Christmas, I'll email them. They'll be beautiful, I promise you.

Love you Kids. Send me suggestions for GREATEST HOLIDAY ALBUMS.
I'm working on a mixtape.

SL

All I Do Is Dream of You

2008-11-15T16:53:00.013-06:00

Time rolls by. Too quickly. Halloween. My 30th birthday. My mum's 59th. I've started a new job. And here I am, weeks later, headphones on head, smiling and dreaming of Indian food on a Saturday night. Oh, and writing you.

On my mother's birthday, the 5th of November, she text messaged me early in the morning. This is very new to her, the text messaging, but she does it well, with meaning. "On my twenty ninth birthday you were my present. HB to me." I stood in the kitchen, drinking my coffee and staring at my phone, grinning brightly, twisting the corner of my pajama top and wishing so much that I could travel 500 miles in an instant to give her a birthday hug. It's still so strange to me, being so far away, that I can't just get in my car and within 15 minutes be anywhere in Birmingham. Now I wander the neighborhoods of Cincinnati, searching for familiar landmarks and traveling through the twisting, ever changing roads. I've become more familiar with this fair city and in many ways it is so much more extraordinary than Birmingham. But it's not the same. I'll come to love it more and more, I know, as I discover all of the amazing things it has to offer. I will still miss home. I'll miss all of the silly things that seem to make this season of the year so special.

I believe that I've mentioned my strange and lovely obsession with Fred Astaire in previous posts...or at least hinted... Well, on this mix he bursts out in every other song. I couldn't help it. The Baking Mix is essentially a Fred Collection with a sprinkling of EMI Standards.

Which should come first, the recipes or the record?

Yogurt and Honey Quick Bread (adapted from recipe by Dr. C. Orian Truss

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp whole wheat flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)
2 heaping tsp baking powder
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp of salt
1 egg beaten
1 cup plain yogurt
2 overflowing tbsp of honey (YUM!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut butter into dry ingredients. Mix together egg, honey, yogurt until a little golden and soupy. Add this mixture to dry ingredients and mix well.
Form into loaf. Throw a little extra flour into loaf pan, shake it around a bit coating bottom and sides (I prefer to use the wheat flour). Throw the loaf in the pan and make a diagonal slice across the top to prevent cracking (it still cracks, but my-oh-my it's delicious)

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

THE BAKING MIX

I've Got Beginner's Luck - Fred Astaire
Taking a Chance on Love - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra with Helen Forrest
I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket - Fred Astaire
Yours and Mine - Teddy Williams & His Orchestra with Billie Holiday
Let's Face the Music and Dance - Fred Astaire
If Dreams Come True - Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb & His Orchestra
Cheek to Cheek - Fred Astaire
All I Do Is Dream of You - Gene Kelly with Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown
The Way You Look Tonight - Fred Astaire
You Were Meant For Me - Gene Kelly with Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown
They All Laughed - Fred Astaire
How About You - Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney
You're All the World to Me - Fred Astaire
My Reverie - Larry Clinton and His Orchestra with Bea Wain
Never Gonna Dance - Fred Astaire
You Are My Lucky Star - Gene Kelly and Betty Noyes
Dearly Beloved - Fred Astaire
Stairway to the Stars - Glenn Miller and His Orchestra with Ray Eberle
You Were Never Lovelier - Fred Astaire
Almost Like Being in Love - Nat King Cole

Oat Bran Sweet Potato Muffins
from Pat Connolly's Yeast Free Cookbook

2 and 1/2 cups raw sweet potato
2 and 1/2 cups oat bran
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1 cup water
3 eggs, separated
2 tbsp melted butter (I tend to accidentally brown it, which works fine)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub, peel, and grate the sweet potato or put through food processor. Grate enough to fill 2 and 1/2 cups. Place sweet potato in mixing bowl and add oat bran. Add Baking powder, cinnamon, and allspice. Mix well. Make a depression in the center of this mixture and add water, eggs, and melted butter. Beat egg whites and fold into batter. Fill 12 greased muffin cups. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Serve with butter or margarine - I prefer butter. It's beautiful.

I freeze the leftover muffins that we don't devour immediately. Then on rushed mornings I can turn on the oven, throw a couple of sweet potato muffins on the rack and by the time I'm super pretty and ready to head out the door, they're hot and ready.

The Great Chili Bandit and modern bookness

2008-10-30T10:59:00.005-05:00

The orange-pink cast of the futon cover brings a sort of frosty glow to the evenings. I usually sit on the futon, laptop topping lap, headphones on, watching a Fred Astaire film online, occasionally chatting with friends on Gmail or Facebook, and keeping and eye on Jim the James as he sits at his desk reading his Theory homework. I keep an eye on him. I keep an ear out. Because I know that sooner or later while I'm engrossed in a particularly incredible dance number, Jim will sneak off to the kitchen and eat the leftovers from supper. By the time I realize that he's no longer sitting in his chair and make my way to the kitchen, it's too late. He's standing in the butler's pantry (which is where the refrigerator and the silverware are located, two important components of his plot), eyes peeking around the door frame, eyes wide with a quizzical, innocent expression, face full of tabbouleh/minestrone/guacamole/fritatta/chili. At that moment, the moment I am in the midst of apprehending the culprit, he puts down his weapon (fork or spoon - what I wouldn't give for a Rogers Brothers First Love Spork), raises his arms, waving them above his head and runs in a wavering gallop out of the room, hooting gleefully, like a monkey. I am married to a soup stealing monkey.

I am in love with the Cincinnati Public Library System. The closest branch is only a few blocks away. I walk there almost every day. I'll order books online and pick them up at the branch and while I'm there peruse the movie collection (really diverse and rather amazing) and the racks and racks of CDs. The fact that I could pick up a Cole Porter box set, a Fred Astaire collection AND the latest Broken Social Scene release from my local library makes me very happy.

I've been reading at an astounding pace for the last two months. When we first moved here, I was finishing up Anna Karenina. I've devoured all of the novels that Jim is reading for his fiction workshop:

Bear V. Shark - Chris Bachelder
An Arsonists Guide to Writers Homes in New England - Brock Clark
Bibliophilia - Michael Griffith
Winner of the National Book Award - Jincy Willet
The Black Brook - Tom Drury

I've read several short story collections, a couple of Anne Bronte novels, and am in the midst of Madame Bovary. OH! And I am reading the memoirs of V.S. Pritchett.

I've also been cooking like mad. I have my special MS diet from Dr. Truss to thank for that. I started it in April. It's tough, low carb, low sugar, no yeast(nix most bread), no fungi(kill the mushrooms and aged cheeses). I've had to rethink the way that I eat completely. Luckily, I have wonderful friends who have encouraged me by giving me some great recipes, a few great cookbooks, and constant inspiration to explore the world of food and to not be afraid to try new things via some amazing blogs like Middle West Meals and Bread and Honey.

When James and I first went into to Doctor Truss's office, he warned me that because I was a vegetarian (lacto-ovo), I would most probably lose a great deal of weight and I'd have to make sure to get enough protein. I have gone from a size 16 to a 10 in a matter of months, this is true, but my eating habits before were very careless. They were indulgent in a bad way. Now I can be indulgent in an awesome way. I don't know how to explain it other than to tell you that since I've started this diet, I've learned how to substitute and stretch the boundaries of a dish, to make something as simple as scrambled eggs an exotic delight with the crazy array of vegetables in my fridge and fresh herbs from my windowsill. I never had understood that, how awesome this could be. I've promised Amber that I would post a couple of my recent recipes on here and I shall, along with the track-listings for a few mix-tapes I have made to listen to while cooking. Stay-tuned dear ones.

Incandescent Clouds in a quiet sky

2008-10-01T00:04:00.005-05:00

"Desperado" by the Eagles has been running through my head all morning, and from that haunting horror of a melody comes the memory of recording it in a YOU CAN SING booth at Six Flags Over Texas in 1992. I was on a Youth Trip with a rather awful group of kids from the First Baptist Church of Birmingham. I was a farm-fed Yankee thrown in with a bunch of Mountain Brook/Homewood...I don't even know how to explain them, I'd never seen a group of kids like them before. Polished, preened, and progressive. Designer clothes, perfect hair, lots of gadgets to travel with. I was in faded snowboarding t-shirt, a hand-me-down flannel, and ripped up jeans. I had a walkman and two mix tapes and a few books. They had game systems, high tech music players, and (I kid you not) one girl even had a pocket translator (English vs Spanish). "What's that for?" I asked pointing to it. The svelte southern belle held it two inches in front of my nose and looked at me like I was a complete idiot, "Like, when we stop, so, like, I can order food at the restaurant, or whatever."

I wanted to explain to her that New Mexico (our final destination) was not actually part of Mexico and that when we stopped at McDonalds for lunch the staff would most probably understand her just fine...but I kept my mouth shut. I kept to myself the majority of that trip, my head leaning against the bus window, staring out into the ever-changing landscape. It changed, just as my feelings changed about this journey I was on. This opportunity had been accepted with a song of adventure, a dream of cross-country discovery. Not quite the same as a chartered bus with television and vcr to while away the endless hours on the road. But it kept my companions busy and gave me time to reflect on the predicament that I was in.

When we finally got to the camp in New Mexico, I made friends with a bunch of kids from Reno, Nevada, most of them forced there by their parents. You could pick the lot of us out a mile away, mostly in black and really uncomfortable with all of the hand-holding, song-singing, jesus-ness going on around us. I guess for the most part, it was that feeling of overwhelming "agape" that threw us off because we all knew that once we left the auditorium filled with frenzied kids belting along to cheesy, emotive music while reading reptitive texts from a state of the art slide-projector it would be just like high school again. We were the outsiders in this setting, lonely, tired, bored, somewhat scared, although now as I look back on that creeping, endless week...at least we had each other.

I had an intense crush on William Cotran, a tall, graceful boy with dark eyes and chin-length black hair who would often, between Bible Study and supper, sit on a hill over-looking the Glorietta campus and scribble things into a small black book. I would walk past him, behind him, in front of him, dreaming, dying for some sign of notice. I had decided that he was a great artist, because up to that point it seemed to me that all somber and mysterious men were artists of some sort and at that point in was the visual arts that fascinated me the most. When I finally got up the nerve to go speak to him, he told me that in fact it was not a tree that he was sketching, but the forest beyond the horizon that he was describing. Poetry. At this moment, I decided that poetry was for me. I went to the camp gift shop and bought a journal and sat there for an hour or so, thinking of words, words, words to describe the grass, the trees, the sky, my shoe, my arm, my pencil....I would use words that I had heard, words that I didn't understand, but that sounded absolutely fantastic. Incandescent. Erroneously. Eradicate.

From that moment until the day we finally arrived home, I never despaired outwardly again. I become a pleasant, quite docile young woman. Quiet. Always scribbling away. I dreamed and despaired (in an incredibly dramatic style) on a white lined page and that was enough.

Recently while packing for the move to Cincinnati, I found this journal and all of the editions that followed. I was amazed at the sadness contained within it's pages. I was taken in by violent declarations of joy and love from such a young and silly girl. Who was than girl? Surely not me. I see within these pages, so peppered by moments that I have now forgotten, vital turning points, new discoveries of music, friendship, young love. Now I am transported. All by these silly, sad words.

Cincinnati Windstorm (or My Life in the Dark) part 1

2008-09-20T16:21:00.002-05:00

The storm had come on Sunday, in huge whipping bursts of wind through our fair city. By the end of it over half a million homes and businesses were without power.

As we sat on our balcony in the silence of the evening, staring out at the pitch black horizon of our new city, James smiled at me, a little weary, a little drained by the excitement of the day. I squeezed his hand and returned an encouraging grin and then got up from my chair and walked inside. In the darkness, in this cavernous room I walked and turned and slowly sat down. I lit a candle and picked up my guitar and began to play, singing light and airy versions of dark and worry-laden songs. It's all I could do. The quiet was unbearable. The silence and darkness and stifled air of this day had to be overcome. I brought but little sheet music with me when we moved and was bored with what lingered in my memory (mostly Red House Painters songs) so I turned to a book of songs by REM, the piano book for Automatic For The People. "Find the River" became a waltz, "Try Not To Breathe" a quiet bossa nova, "Nightswimming" a climbing clumsy jumper, and "Everybody Hurts" (a song I'd never had much use for) turned into a loud and lovely twist of blues. James walked in, pulling his beard with a twinkle in his eye. "I think the whole city is feeling this song right now. Nice."

I love our apartment, with it's huge fireplaces and dark woodwork. I love having my things about me, all of my family heirlooms, the cream and gold of french provincial, the straight lines and dark stain of my grandfather's craftsmanship. Illuminated by candlelight that first evening, they became ever more so dear to me. Our apartment became a home, a refuge, and it was beautiful.

We were afraid to open the fridge. I called my brother for consult and text messaged Morgan "How long will it stay cool if we don't open it?" No one quite knew the answer. What we did know was that reports thus far had said that it may take a week to restore power. I sat in the kitchen and stared at the refrigerator, thinking of the incredible amount of produce just on the other side of that insulated door. I thought of the bright colors, the red of the radishes, the yellow of the spaghetti squash, the green of the serrano chili peppers. I thought of their brilliance slowly diminishing. Ice. I needed ice. Then I could save my poor produce from a terrible fate, if that could be the fate at all, for in truth we had no idea. The state of things inside of our fridge could only be guessed at, theorized with furrowed brows and the forceful wringing of hands. The next morning, James went on to school (UC had power) and I ventured across the east side of city in search of Ice.

"WE HAVE POWER. WE ARE OPEN." declared the handwritten sign on the glass door of the Meier's General store. I parked my car and walked inside to find but little light coming from an occasional security lamp and the Check-out Area. Otherwise, the store was completely dark. And it was comparatively busy for early morning. People were walking swiftly past me. I followed, scanning the aisles as I headed towards the back. Little glimmers of light lit the shelves. I stopped and stared. Every person around me held up a flashlight. They were all shopping with mag-lights in hand and it wasn't as if they were foraging for supplies. I turned to my right and up the aisle in Womens Clothing, a woman stood perusing a rack of shirts, holding her flashlight up with one hand, checking the size and price tag with the other. Maybe she had run out of clean clothes. But she sauntered down past a shelf of jeans and a display of dresses and touched them almost whimsically as she walked by, as if it was a normal day and she was just getting out of the house, as if the stoplights down the street and across the entire city worked just fine (and people weren't driving absentmindedly and dangerously straight through every one), as if every grocery store within a 20 mile radius hadn't yellow-taped their rapidly defrosting frozen foods section, as if every gas station on every corner had a huge refrigerated room full of ice. No one had ice. Not even dry ice. Nothing. I went home to play my guitar.

Revelation at the Comet on a Friday Evening

2008-09-13T00:00:00.005-05:00

Sometime last Summer:

"I'm sorry 'bout the bad reviews, man."

He looked at me with this surprised and suddenly hurt expression. He hadn't expected it from my lips and neither had I as a matter of fact. But I had been looking for a topic to converse about and that seemed as natural as any. Everything I had heard lately, about any album, not just his, had been a little bit tear-apart...as if everyone in the industry was jaded, tired of the next big thing, sitting back, taking a drag off of their American Spirit and waving their hand in front of their face. "Too rock. Too hard. Too much bass. Meandering lyrics." What does it matter who it was about. It became all the same over and over and over. And when I said it to Josh as a topic of conversation, on a warm Summer night on the porch of the Bottletree...it hurt. And it made me sad that the world was so jaded...in just one moment.

To tell the truth, all of those things that I read and heard were nothing. The album was rocking and was hard and had amazing bass and the lyrics were searching and beautiful.

I don't know. When I sat at home the next day, listening to the record and condemning myself for the comments I had made, suddenly I understood everything about this business to which I had latched myself and I didn't love it so much anymore.

Tonight, ages later, as I sat in the Comet next to a new group of friends around a small table in a dark dismal corner, we got into an argument about a particular band and their inner workings. Who was better than whom. What made the best songwriting. The overall creativity level of a man's work. I thought to myself that it didn't matter so much one way or the other. The extraordinary beauty of the work was that it made an impression on one individual, one quiet socially awkward individual who would probably never take a chance to voice his opinion ever again. But it was there in the glaringly beautiful wide open...if for just a moment and definitely under the influence. This is what matters. Not the reviews. Not the published critique of a particular piece. It is what one little lovely person brings home and cherishes about a piece of music, how they connect with the arrangement, how they can read into the lyrics with just one listen. This is what matters.

limitation

2008-09-01T10:27:00.004-05:00

Gold and cream floral bedspread, darkened to a light brown by low blinds. The stiff and fuzzy arm of Theodore Ethan Bear across my face and the scent of Dreft detergent. The smell of soapy warm water and the clank of pots and the clink of dishes and the shadowed leaves peeking in, then waving from the window across the apartment. My gaze rests for a moment upon the leaves' dark forms, a grayish green with strangely bright edges. I lay on the bed with intentions to rest, turning, wanting to read, wanting to get up, wanting to...

"I don't want to have any limitations." I look up, pouting.

Jim the James smiles down at me, a warm smile, a momentary mocking grin passing quickly across his handsome face, warm again. "You spoiled brat. Everyone has limitations."

I thought, I once thought, I believed that I was superhuman. This is the thought of youth, unending emotion, unending energy, never ending life. As we walked up the steps from the park today and I gripped the railing for support, for balance and strength underneath my heavy feet, my heart dropped remembering a day when I could have skipped up those stairs with a smile and without a care.

"You must have patience. It's been a really tough summer. When it gets a little cooler, you can exercise, build up your strength again. Be patient. You'll be okay."

We spend the evening on the porch, then on the futon, listening to Grant Lee Buffalo and Will Johnson, being patient, being quiet, sharing space and love and warmth.

Wednesday

2008-08-28T20:29:00.004-05:00

"Watch the dark clouds bruising
Bellies flushed with water
They swell above your heads

Pull your coats around you
Feel the wind cut through them
Scraping at your bones"

I looked up into the evening sky. The clouds were drifting, making way for a bit of blue. It had been a dark day. I don't know how to explain it, but I'll try. We moved in last Wednesday and have been living in the midst of chaos ever since. Boxes in every corner, wedged between pieces of furniture, in doorways, stacked on top of everything. We unpacked every precious thing we could and to me, it never seemed to end. At the same time, I've been starting a brand new MS medication. Rebif. It is much the same as Avonex, but instead of being a once a week injection which I took on Friday night, I take Rebif three times a week. My friends can tell you, that because of the Avonex injection I would be out all day on Saturday with Flu symptoms. The Rebif is different in this way: it's a higher dosage overall, but taken in lower dosages more frequently. So imagine instead of having one day lost, right now every single day I'm recovering from the shot. It's not as bad, true, but it just makes everything seems so slow, so low. Add in the unpacking, the adjustment to the new landscape, the worry of finding a new job, the...well...I spent yesterday a bit overwhelmed and paralyzed. I can't tell you how wonderful Jim has been (as he always is) through this. I know that we are BOTH going through this huge change and I am so thankful that we are doing this together.

"Statued close together
A precious, tender moment
A solemn, sombre time

Hold her in the falling rain
Hold him like you've never done"

We spent the morning unpacking and the afternoon running errands. He had a surprise planned to help me out of my glum, a trip to a historic theatre in the Mariemont district. I didn't know anything about it. He just packed me in the car and started driving. We got lost. As we were driving and driving looking for the "Staples" (he told me we needed an ink cartridge), surging through the traffic through neighborhood after neighborhood, I just didn't understand. I just wanted to go home, but I didn't want to be at home in the same measure because "Home" was filled with unending boxes and chaos...so I sat in the passenger seat and began to cry. Jim finally pulled into a Kroger's Grocery store bought me a Diet Coke and told me where he planned to take me. I was overcome by his thoughtfulness. We picked up a map, worked out our course and found our way to the theatre. It was beautiful. It was part of a planned community built in 1938, a Tudor-styled outfit that puts Birmingham's English Village to shame. We got there too late for the movie, but it didn't matter any more. We wandered up and down the block and marveled at the main street framed in brown and white, the beautiful trees, the peace of this quiet community.

"Let this be a moment
That you won't forget
That you won't forget
That you won't forget
All your life..." -lyrics from "statued" from the album HOMESONGS, ADEM

I've seen so much amazing intricate architecture since we've been here. Cincinnati is a heaven of turn of the century tenements, huge rambling Victorian mansions, gorgeous landscaping. In the crumbling corners of the city there will appear a towering grand church complete with the open arms of an art deco Jesus braving the front, telling everyone that passes by in fear, lost on the winding streets "It's okay. You'll be okay."

I am okay.

The sky has cleared.

The living room has cleared, with room to breathe and smile and say...tomorrow WILL be a better day,

Party on Jefferson

2008-08-23T23:26:00.004-05:00

As the incredibly loud bass line vibrates through the ceiling, down the walls, and into my head, I lift my glass. I drink the wine slowly. I drink it quietly. I cross my legs and uncross them and cross them again as ashes, burning ashes float down from above. Jim takes my hand and smiles a half smile. His eyes are tired and sad. "I'm sorry, Baby."

No need to be sorry. We moved into our apartment on Wednesday, loading in in record time. Jim's dad Jim, his friend Dewayne (the Cleaner), and his brother Chris passed boxes through our bedroom window from the truck, managed to struggle up the landing with my over-abundance of French Provincial furniture and did not grumble when it came time to transport my beloved spinet piano into our high ceilinged quaint old apartment. Jim's dad Jim even took the time to lift the lid on the piano and play a haunting rendition of a Beatles ballad while standing sweaty and sore in our alley.

The apartment IS charming with it's large bedrooms, old oak fireplaces, butler pantry, and claw-footed tub. What is not charming is what is going on upstairs at this moment. We are in the middle of the college neighborhood, but our apartment is on the high-end spectrum so we expected that the majority of our neighbors would be grad students, serious students prone to quiet dinner parties and cocktail hours filled with conversations on Kant and variations on Miles Davis arrangements. I think that this assumption must have been formed after a few pints of celebratory ale. That's the only thing I can come up with. We are in the middle of post-quarter apocalypse. Last night there was a party next door with (I'm just guessing with the amount of screaming and cheering) more than one keg stand. Tonight, Studio 54 has been revived right above our bedroom. Do we call the landlords? Do we call the police? this is our first weekend here. Do we leave a note for the neighbor in the morning that says "Thanks for the jumpin' moonlight serenade. Hope you don't mind the 8am piano scales." I had actually really wanted to meet our neighbor to establish a proper time for practicing. Right now...as the cigarette ash drifts down from above and the constant blur and banter from the second floor abounds...I don't know that it matters anymore.

Maybe I'll launch into some David Lanz right now. Maybe I'll pull out the songbook for REM's Automatic for the People and flailingly ramble through "Find the River" to my hearts content. I don't think it would matter. I don't think anyone would hear me...except James. And I know that he doesn't mind.

St. V's

2008-08-12T09:11:00.007-05:00

Somehow I knew today would be like this, rainy and dark and quiet. I sit here at my faux granite desk, organizing the sugar and cream packets for the coffee room into little straight rows in their baskets. I stare out the huge gridded glass window in front of my desk as the morning traffic zooms down Red Mountain Expressway. I fixate on the lonely bicycle that has been sitting outside this window for a month and a half, ever since a young man coasted down from Highland Avenue with a broken leg and locked it up on the handicap parking sign before crawling up to my desk. I wonder if he'll ever come back for it. His mother picked him up that day. I guess I'll never know.

Today is my last day in the Emergency Room. On this cloudy, drizzley day there have been far more falls than car accidents arrive for treatment and this is quite uncommon. The Olympic Coverage is playing on the TV across the waiting room. I thought I should give my morning crowd a break. I usually turn it to the Turner Classic Movie channel and hide the remote.

They threw me a party, my wonderful department, a surprise party. Everyone had to come to visit me in the department break room two at a time, as it was a busy day and none of the locations in our department could really do to have one rep leave at a time, let alone two. So I sat at the table, surrounded by chips and dips and vegetables (my co-workers have finally come to grips with the fact that I am a vegetarian) (don't worry, they made a pot of beef nacho cheese craziness for themselves that was simmering in the corner by the wide array of beverages) and waited for my wonderful friends to come, two by two.

I've been at the hospital for 4 years. I know that I have sent out a few character sketches to some of you over the years. I have tried my best to make my job, my work there something extraordinary and fun. I've made posters for various departmental events. I've had early morning Emergency Room dance parties (early on Saturdays and Sundays I would bring in my old soul collections and Wylie Jean and I would go through the steps, the Mashed Potato, the Jerk, etc...) (those were always perfect days, no matter the craziness in the ER). I had finger puppet parties. And made Vulcan (at least my bobble head Vulcan) the unofficial mascot of the St. Vincent's Birmingham Emergency Department.

And yes, sometimes B.H. Party Vulcan got a little drunk-ed off of the triage nurses ready store of alcohol swabs and attended said finger puppet parties. Hilarity ensued. I assure you.

B.H. and I will miss our home away from home terribly. So very much. There was never such a place as this. There were never more caring and amazing co-workers.
I am so thankful that I got spend these four amazing years, four years full of transition, of growing and creating and loving and helping. I will miss everything. I miss you all terribly. Goodbye my dear St. V, my dear Patient Access, my dearest Emergency Department. Take care.

Love,
The SL

Just Like Heaven

2008-07-29T08:32:00.003-05:00

Today I will deliver my letter of resignation to my boss. Two weeks from today I will walk through those sliding glass doors in front of my desk for the last time. Three weeks from today, Jim and I will finish packing the last of the moving boxes into the U-Haul and drive 500 miles to our new home.

I can't believe all of this is happening. For the first time, on this very day, I'm excited. Like really excited. Ecstatic about all of this. I don't know what made the switch. I've been worried and apprehensive about the future, sad to leave my friends, scared... But not now.

from the letter:

"I find that I cannot adequately express to you how much my time at St. Vincent's has meant to me, how much it has changed my life. I've grown so much as a person in my four years of employment with this department, under your guidance and with the support of so many incredible co-workers. There is such a wonderful spirit about this group of people. I find that I am leaving behind some of the most caring and thoughtful individuals that I have ever known. As I make this transition to a new life, halfway across the country, I will not forget what warmth and love I have left behind. I will use these thoughts, these great memories, to keep my spirits high as Jim and I start our next great adventure, married life, school, and employment in a strange new city. Thank you for everything"

Thank you for everything...

I feel like I owe Birmingham a letter as well. I guess I'd better start working on that.

James' Birthday Battle: Beer VS Robots

2008-07-25T08:32:00.006-05:00

A message from Tremendous Mike - Robot Command:

SIMPLE HUMAN --- On this Cosmic Holiday, the 35th Birth Anniversary of the James, the Robot Army will travel from the far reaches of the Galaxy to celebrate (and to take over your feeble green planet). IT IS YOUR SOBRIETY THAT MAKES YOU WEAK. PREPARE YOURSELF. PREPARE TO BE PURIFIED.

(James' arch nemesis, the Koala Commander, has sent Vulcan as a beacon of peace in these trying times.)

Vulcan's Message from the Koala Army (presented with a wrapped box of sacred chicken): "We shall join you in your fight against the Robot scourge. We will bring a funnel. And maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels. And maybe a few Chilton County Peaches. And a good mix tape. Happy Birthday to the Jim."

Marble Staircases, Mini-relapse, and Michael Griffith

2008-07-19T04:41:00.004-05:00

just spent a billion hours with my mother writing Thank You cards for wedding stuff. It took 1 husband being out of town, 1 cute puppy, 1 smallish MS relapse, and one strong cup of coffee to coerce me into doing such a thing. Yep.

1. James is in Cincinnati for the weekend. He has found an apartment for us. He's found a two bedroom apartment with a marble entranceway, 15 foot high ceilings, hard-wood floors, a balcony, a butler's pantry, two fire places... and heat and water are included. Sounds like a dream.

2. Mini-relapse/Restification Summer Edition - came on about two weeks ago. Have had another atrociously boring week and a half off where I couldn't do much (numbness, fatigue, blahblahblah), but My Darlings, I did read two rather wonderful collections of short stories.

A. One is by V.S. Pritchett (1900-1997), a Brit who wrote wonderful dirt about the upper class and made the lower class human. His last works were published in 1989, another collection. I couldn't imagine writing anything interesting when I'm 89 years old. I barely do it at 29. Dear lord, I hope I will still be able to see then...and hear...and that I'll be able to eat my soup with dignity.

B. The other collection is actually a novella and a few shorter works by Michael Griffith.. He is actually teaching a workshop at the University of Cincinnati this Fall, a workshop that Jim will be taking. Mr.Griffith's works seem to be mostly based in and around Baton Rouge. His stories are about communication between people, the chain of communication that links them all, what makes them act out, what makes them dry up. all brought upon by the way affect each others lives, no matter how small this way might be. But it's not just that. There's a delightful cloth of something dirty and dark draw all the way around and through. "Bibliophilia" about an aging Librarian forced to do rounds of the stacks, hoping not to have to carry out the moves she learned in Bouncer School on young lusty teenagers. There's also a young Egyptian hydrologist or soon to be in any event. He would love to be anything else in America other than an Egyptian hydrologist. His list of all of the wonderful occupations he sees goes on and on. I started thinking, why wasn't I an ice sculptress, or a laundress, or a flipper of burgers at Harry's place? I might have to sneak into James' lectures this fall. Do you think I could just go as James, you know, give him a day off. I'd have to grow a beard and most probably wear a tie and dress pants. Nope. My dress pants are French Wide Cuff (therefore they'd never believe it) and I'm not a big fan of shampooing my face. So no. James will just have to sneek a tape recorder in.

So...my dear ones. The lease starts on September 1 and if I get a job before that, we could be moving up to the Ohio-ness of Ohio rather soon. Holy crap, Birmingham. I am moving away. How does that feel? full of Joy and sadness and relief and awesomeness and dreams and light. I'm so full of the future that I'm just about to burst.

I'll start back to work on Monday, just to see how it goes. I'm sure it will be fine. I miss the ER a great deal when I'm away from it. I know that it must seem strange, but I do. I'll be glad to get back. After Monday, dear lord, call me, bombard me with emails, anything to get me out and seeing you before I leave this fair city. I've still several movies to see at the Alabama this summer. A few shows to see. Lots of coffee to drink etc...etc...etc

All my love,

Sara Leah

How Vulcan is celebrating the 4th

2008-07-04T12:59:00.003-05:00

I hope to watch James Cagney awkwardly dance through "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Then I shall retire early. What are you kids up to?

Happy Birthday Leah!

2008-06-24T12:37:00.003-05:00

Hurrah!

Chronicles from an ER on a Monday

2008-06-23T12:36:00.004-05:00

Dear Lady in a wheelchair who won't stop eating the hamburger,

There is no one out to get you.

But I will say this. If you don't stop waving your greasy fast food bag in the air, insisting that your life is in danger...it will be...very very soon.

Sincerely,

Ineda Latte

***********************
WATCH THIS

Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus
*****************************

YUM!!
LOBIO on MiddleWestMeals

************************************

Have you been here yet?
GREEN CUP BOOKS
Bookness Galore!

Birmingham's First Annual Bloom's Day Celebration

2008-06-17T10:24:00.006-05:00

4pm at J. Clyde's on June 16th, 2008

Featuring passages from Dubliners, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake soaked in Guinness and irish whiskey.

Happy Bloom's Day!

2008-06-16T08:20:00.008-05:00

No full Irish breakfast this morning of sausages, rashers, toast, beans, and black and white puddings (which was offered in Dublin in 2004 before the 100th "Bloom's Day anniversary"of the fictional events described in James Joyces's book Ulysses). I broke my water glass getting out of bed and stumbled to make some brae burn apple yogurt for breakfast. A rather long train made me late for work and I have a roaring hangover from the small bit of wine we had at James' family's Father's Day Gathering yesterday. Seeing as today is an Irish holiday, I guess that in the very least I got the roaring hangover right.

This last December, Jimmy Joyce came to visit the Emergency room.

He gave B.O.B. the Frog a present (which contained a bar of lemon soap and a lucky potato)(B.O.B. was very upset because for the moment he did not have pockets to carry them around in).

This evening, James, Leah, and I will find a few pints and some poppyseed cake in a quiet place and read a bit of James Joyce's masterpiece. And then Jim will sleep with his feet next to my head. And Bloom's Day will be at an end.

PS - DETAILS! I need details about the Flaming Lips show at City Stages AND the Mark Kozelek show in New York. Come on! Spill the beans!

Jaimers

2008-06-12T08:25:00.003-05:00

is right now in her 17th hour of labor. Jaime is my best friend. She's been my best friend since 7th grade and she's having a baby. Right now. At a hospital over 500 miles away from where I sit at this very moment.

Excuse me while I freak out a little. I've tons of friends who've had babies. Heck, I helped to bring Canaduh's little girl, Indiana Scarlet, into this world. But, this? This is Jaime. This my best friend, my Shirley, my Diana. She's the Dino to my Jerry. She's the straight man with the great looks and good sense. And yes. I just compared myself to Jerry Lewis. Under the right circumstances, most of my friends would say that's pretty accurate, especially if there is a robot, a fingerpuppet, or a Mark Kozelek within 50 feet of me.

I've always done my best to keep Jaime up on whatever I'm listening to (which really means that since we were kids, I've commandeered the radio whenever possible. Sometimes that didn't work out and thus I know all of the words to "Cheeseburger in Paradise".) and get her out to shows when she'd come down to visit. One night we went out to the Nick to see the Goodies. It was really the first time I'd ever seen that light in Jaime's eyes. You know the light. Here's the best way I know to describe it:

Go to a Flaming Lips show. As Wayne Coyne walks out with a strobe light attached to his chest/People in Furry Bunny Suits run out into the audience/the whole audience throws confetti in the air at the beginning of a song, turn around and look for the light. This certain type of smile. The wheels are turning and there is warmth in that expression.

That is the smile that crept across Jaime's face as Holiday Childress took the stage in bowler hat and three piece suit. I've been to hundreds of shows over the years and that particular show is in my top 10. I've actually seen better Goodies performances, but to see it with Jaime, for her to enjoy it so much, made it something extraordinary.

Wednesday! Wednesday!

2008-06-11T08:55:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure how cool I am with produce distribution in the Emergency Room, but I just couldn't pass this up.

Sheila, our director of Nurse Education got it from her neighbor's garden.

Bloggy Blog Updates:
E* is BACK!
Yesterday - E about Andrew Bird!
Andrew Bird will be playing at Birmingham's City Stages this Weekend!
(Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha is a definite driving soundtrack for me. It always reminds me of mid-day errands in the rain, especially up and down the streets of Southside.)

Chris Mitchell posted about the new set at CBS 42 featuring photography by one of my favorite local blogger/musician/picture-takers Brian T Murphy.

Tonight:
We are celebrating the birthday of Wade Hulsey!

(He's the guy in the background who is apparently so elated about the convo at T&A's house that he's fallen asleep.)(Sorry, Wade, that's the only picture I had of you on my computer.)

Wade has been cooped up for a couple of weeks, recovering from knee surgery, so we're totally excited to get him out and feed him lots of thai food.

Hurrah!

Mark-Paul and Me

2008-06-10T08:17:00.008-05:00

Dear World,

Why is Jason Collett trying to be Bob Dylan for the first half of his newest album?

For the same reason that throughout Dan (Destroyer)Bejar's latest, Trouble in Dreams, he stumbles all topsy-turvy in the drunken shadow of David Bowie. Not that David Bowie's shadow is particularly drunk.

(I'm a terrible drunken ghost!) Maybe Dan Bejar just got it drunk so it would tell him all it's secrets.

I enjoyed Dan's last album, Destroyer's Rubies, so much more. Maybe because of the production seemed so much more...I don't know...lush? It was full of sound, full of landscape, a landscape full of color and texture and light. Trouble in Dreams just seems so bare. I need to give it a few more turns, I think.

Back to Jason. Idols in Exile was disjointed and jubilant. Each song had it's own unique subject drowned or enveloped within an intense emotion. Each was a glipse into a day in the life and no matter how bi-polar those days were, each one, each song, viewed on it's own was valid and beautiful in it's own way.

So the new record. The first half is so rolled up in the Dylan with rambling vocals and low-grade sound that it is actually incredibly boring. But the second half. Beauty.

Once when I worked in the record store in Illinois, there was a young man who often came in to buy records. He thought he was Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach from "Saved by the Bell") and had an obsession with Chris Farley. Once he bought the Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack and discovered when he arrived home and gave it a listen that it was not exactly the same as the TV show theme song. He kept calling me about it over and over and over. Each time he would call, he would watch the beginning of his videotaped episode of Dukes of Hazzard, watch it to listen to the theme song and take note of the rather large "Yeehaw" sound at the end and then listen to the record, which did not include the yeehaw... Each time I explained that although it is different on each recording, one would not change to accomodate the other at any time, no matter how many time he played them side by side. "How can I make them change, Sara?"

"Magic, Mark-Paul."I replied. (We called him Mark-Paul, even though his real name was Joseph.) (He truly believed that he was the actor.)

He called me fifteen times that night. The next day he brought the soundtrack in and exchanged it for another one, reasoning that it was defective. I let him do this two more times, reasoning with him each time that there was nothing defective about the actual recording and just because something is one way on TV, it don't mean that it's the same on CD. He finally gave up. He brought the Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack in to the store one last time and I told him that he could exchange it for another CD. After two hours of deliberating (with an ice cream break in the middle) he brought me the Poison Double Live CD set. "Mark-Paul, I told you that you could exchange it for something of equal value. That cd set is almost double the price."

"I know, Sara Miller. I know. I just want half of it."

Marriageness: The Beginning

2008-05-27T07:39:00.008-05:00

We are now on the third morning of married life. I look at the clock - 5:59am. I jump out of bed, flipping on the lamp, exclaiming "OH MY GOD! I'm going to be late for work!" The Jim exercises his new rights as a husband by completely ignoring my freak-out and pulling my pillow over his head and going back to sleep. Smart boy. (My clock is set 10 minutes fast and it really only takes me about 15 minutes to get ready for work and about 45 to get to work. Therefore I had about 10 minutes of free time to properly freak out, frantically make breakfast, and search for my keys, earrings, and shoes all over the apartment.) I made it to work on time. (Jim is probably smiling in his sleep right now. He knows me very well indeed.)

On the way home from the Redmont on Sunday, Jim and I picked up She and Him (the new Zooey Deschanel & M.Ward record) and Broken Social Scene presents: Kevin Drew. I wish I'd had time to really listen to them. Instead, the Jim and I have spent the last two days either stretched out on the davenport watching old movies (The Thin Man, Auntie Mame, Vivian Leigh in Anna Karenina) or playing the Bed, Bath, & Beyond version of Supermarket Sweep courtesy of our multitude of gift cards! Hurrah!

Pictures! I know! Pictures to be posted of the ceremony and receptions! And of crazy, drunken Bocce Ball Bachelorette Party!!! Hurrah!

all i want is you

2008-05-24T14:00:00.003-05:00

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

-from "All I Want is You" by Barry Louis Polisar

Looking Back - HFAGS Dec 2006

2008-05-15T08:42:00.004-05:00

Hope For Agoldensummer will be playing at Workplay on Friday, May 16th with The White Oaks. Their latest album, Ariadne Thread, was released in late 2007.

Here's a short chachipiece from Dec 2006, brought along by Hope For Agoldensummer's previous album i bought a heart made of art in the deep, deep south.

Laying down the gun....

This morning as I mindlessly packed my little bag for work, I pulled the Hope For Agoldensummer album from the towering stack of cds sitting dangerously close to my bed and slipped it into the inside pocket. I had to bring it with me, because every time I've taken a moment to daydream in these last two days, every minute wonderfully wasted, I hear "Laying Down the Gun" and it has been building and building and building into a frenzied triumphant chorus.

I see my friend Sunni just as she sat on her couch Saturday night, leaning back with Ralph's steel guitar, pushing her golden hair out of her eyes and picking out the all of the tiptoeing, intricate loveliness of every line as we sang the harmonies high and whispered:

"It turns out, instead of blood you've got love songs traveling through your veins. What I found were all the words you ever sang tapped into the bones of your rib cage...."

I think of the first time I saw it performed live, upstairs at the Moonlight, the tense and burning energy turning around the stage. Deb Davis and her xylo. Will Taylor wavering from side to side, cello churning. Claire's eyes are closed. She's sitting straight and tall, her face turned up into the light as she's crying out:

"Instead of stopping our hearts, we play music because we're rock stars.
We come together and we work and we fall apart...."

I listen to the song again and again and it burns brighter every time.

"I play music because I'm in love with silence and sound. Just like a machine I picked my pen...."

And all of the sudden, it stops.

Invitation

2008-05-13T21:32:00.004-05:00

RSVP - chachilovesvinyl@gmail.com

The Marry Mix/ Chronicles from the ER (on a Tuesday)

2008-05-13T12:55:00.006-05:00

I've asked my cousin Brandon to play the music for the wedding. I've been going through my stacks of records trying to pick out songs...how can I narrow it down? Worse, how can I find some appropriate happy music, beautiful music that I love for the wedding? I've realized more and more as I've organized the last years worth of music lying at the foot of my bed just how dark my palate really is. Even the upbeat music tends to be about awful things, like a twist of Magnetic Fields or a ride on the roller coaster of an M. Ward record. M. Ward, with his dancey saloon songs so full of death and disappointment, afterthoughts and whimsically damaged dreams, always makes me happy.

I wish I could write Tiny Mix Tapes for some suggestions:

"Mark Kozelek couldn't play my wedding, the spring flowers made him cheerful."

*********************************************************************

Some guy just walked up to my desk with a baby and said "Hey! We just left the hospital and realized we took the wrong baby...so we thought we'd bring him back." He held out the baby and all of these thoughts started swirling through my head, my face froze and I stopped. "Nahhh Girl. Just kidding! Got you! Got you! Where's the food court?" His family walked up behind him as I slowly pointed the way and they all started laughing.

mothers day and other halves

2008-05-12T12:19:00.014-05:00

My mother got some Neutrogena products, a loofah, some chocolate, and a song.

I sang with her church choir. Actually, I should say that it's my father's choir, since he is the music minister. I'm not much of a church person, even though I come from a long line of missionaries and fire-and-brimstone Southern Baptist preachers, so it meant a great deal that I came (on time) and sang, standing next to my father and near to my mother on that small stage.

Mother. We went shopping, which is usually a quite life-threatening experience, and somehow through the eyelet sleeves and teal blue linen carnage we both survived.

I have to say that I suspect she might have become a Feist fan through the weekend. SHe had to listen to the record three or four times as we drove from store to store and around and around looking for parking spaces. I think I saw her nod her head a few times to the beat, though I'm not sure. She may have just been popping her jaw (she has a history of TMJ). She is definately not a fan of Broken Social Scene although I know that she does enjoy the better part of Jason Collett's "Idol's of Exile".

She tends to scoff a bit at the music I love, at least when we're in public. To her, pretty much all of it is noise. She spends her driving days listening to the sweet sounds of the Brothers Cazimero or to the soundtrack of the 1987 original Broadway production of Les Miserables. Because of her, I know every single word of that musical. Every single word, every note, every stage direction...

Because of her, I also know every word to Lewis Carroll's the Jabberwocky. This talent has come in handy many times over the course of my life, as you can imagine. Very popular with Jim. Also performed at random during parties where much alcohol has been consumed (it is to be understood that this has not happened for some time).

Thursday, Jim and I will run away to the Great Metropolis of Columbiana to get the marriage license. That's so crazy. That's so awesome. And also, Jim tells me that I must change my name...to Sikahip Eel Semaj, which is such a strange name that I don't quite understand. I guess I'll just have to get used to it. Oh. I just got it. It's his name spelled backwards. Nice. It's Monday. I'm a little slow.

Look what I made on Craft Night!

2008-05-08T10:29:00.005-05:00

Shut up! I know. The wedding is two weeks away! Merrilee said it would be a great idea to make a little Jim puppet and have them exchange vows later on at the reception. Yes, the reception at the bottletree that I've not even sent invites out for...I'm so behind. Shut up. You won't mind a finger puppet making booth next to the half eaten wedding cake will you? Super.

I can't stop listening to this:

things mean alot

2008-04-28T07:54:00.010-05:00

I turned the key in the ignition and reached down to release the parking brake. Turning to glance behind me, turning to pull the seat belt across, I smiled and smiled and smiled. It was the first day that I felt this certain freedom. My cloudy eye was clearing, my strength had returned. I was to meet Angela and Leah for an afternoon of shopping and for the first time in so long I didn't need Jim or my brother or my mom to drive me. I cannot express to you the joy of just driving down the street in my small neighborhood, turning on my radio, switching out cds in the stereo...Brad Armstrong's voice slow and steady through the speakers. I have the new record by 13ghosts, "The Strangest Colored Lights". Travis brought me a copy while I was in the hospital. I had heard a version of it last year while I was still with the Bucket. Listening to it, I felt quite blown away. The newest version is even better, the song sequence more refined. One of the many things that I love about 13ghosts is the play that occurs throughout each album between Buzz and Brad. They are like two sides of a coin, Buzz with his spacey pop laced with shredded rock and Brad's crunchy, wheaty alt-county outlined in futuristic tones. The end result is this gorgeous twist and turn of a summer's day, like a soundtrack, like a very lucid dream.

Saturday night, after the long day of shopping, Jim and I drove over to the Bottletree for the Raindrop Music Festival. It was my first show in over six weeks and it was worth the wait. I got so see so many people I've not seen in a long time and two of my favorite bands, Through The Sparks and Vulture Whale. I have to say this: Vulture Whale? ON FIRE. Amazing. Wes McDonald was absolutely hilarious. Les and Keelan and Jake were the ultimate rockness. On the way home, Jim turned to me and said "You know, Vulture Whale is the best band in Birmingham. It's true. They are. And I don't know if they have any idea how good they are." I think they know of the magnitude of their rock and revel in it.

Speaking of reveling, Jim got into the PHD program for Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati. They gave him a full fellowship. Hurrah! This means that my new Mister and I will be moving to Ohio in late August. I'm so excited! I've never been to Cincinnati before, so if any of you know anything about that fair city, please feel free to send me a line.

SL

p.s. Amber just sent me this pic. In her boredom with the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, she's decided to grow a mustache:

I think she should keep on growing it until the wedding. I've always dreamed of a hot handlebar mustache on my maid-of-honor.

April

2008-04-09T13:13:00.002-05:00

I stood to the side of the stage. I stood with one foot in front of the other, hands pushed deep into my pockets. Cherry colored lights beamed down upon you. Heat and smoke surrounded us all. I couldn’t breathe. You caught my breath with your downcast eyes and lazy, quiet voice.

***********

April. Jim handed me the CD and said, "It’s called April." I smiled. The new Sun Kil Moon record. What a way to end such a good day. Yesterday was the last day of steroids. I’m so glad. So glad. Thanks for sticking with me through all of this. I’m so lucky. I’m so blessed. And right now, it’s so good to hear Mark Kozelek’s voice, his lazy, quiet voice and his meandering guitar. This is the first record that I’ve really listened to in a long while. So strange, especially since my whole life for so long has revolved around music. While stumbling through this mess of a relapse, I feel like I sort of lost myself. I feel like parts of my life just toppled while I tried so hard to keep everything balanced. It didn’t matter what I did. This disease is so unpredictable. I hadn’t had a relapse in four years. Four years. I had the small symptoms everyday, the numbness, the dull aches, pins and needles, the fatigue, but I learned to live with it. That’s what you do. You go on. Embrace this strange and wonderful life you’re given. I embraced it. I saw the beauty in it. I made the best of it. I hoped. I hoped against hope that this would never happen again. The Avonex did it’s job at least. It may not have stopped the attack, but it did lessen the severity. And that means all the world.

Tonight Jim took me to Workplay for a dinner and lecture hosted by EMD Serono. It was your run-of-the-mill "You should totally take our disease modifying drugs" deal. Jim and I have been to another of these recently hosted by Biogen Idec. They are all the same. They feed you and then make you sit through a long lecture listing facts and figures from all of the latest research. The dessert was pretty tasty, some sort of chocolate pie. I really did enjoy the evening. I got to dress up and go out with my best guy. I made some new friends. And I got to see this video, a short film by MS Ambassador Kristie Salerno Kent.

Um..."I don't think it's a coincidence that the word Dreams ends in an MS."
Hilarious. (Although, I don't think it was supposed to be funny) Jim and I both agreed that the mall sequence was really great. I think it gave Jim a better understanding of symptoms. It's hard sometimes to describe what I'm going through. From now on, when I'm trying to explain, I'll just pull out my high heels and scuba gear and he can go to town.

Metropol 47

2008-04-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Benadryl was probably not the best idea for the middle of the day. Yet I really thought I needed it to combat the side effects of everything else. And so I lay, curled up, tucked in, upon the white wicker couch in the sunroom. My sleepy tears and nervous hands folded within a large pink pillow. My feet searching along the bottom arm of the sofa for rest. The sunlight spent the afternoon weaving around Jim’s form. His head was bent over multi-colored folders, his hand traced his thoughts with a blue pen. I watched him work a while and then turned towards the wall, the fan swept air coming down and keeping my warm face company. Sleep. Just a little while.

Metropol 47

Flash your smile and face at me
Open your eyes wide at me
Lay down every day with me
Until the long gone days

Speak a native tongue to me
Say some funny things to me
Roll around and laugh with me
Until the long gone days

Take me around the city streets
Find us pretty things to eat
Find us something good to drink
But buy me one more day

One more day to know this place
To kiss your sweet koala face
To love you deep into the night
To feel you underneath me

- Mark Kozelek/Rock N Roll Singer

******************************************************

Mother took me dress shopping last night. Bridal tea for the family this weekend. I don’t know how I feel about it, actually. The trip itself was way too much for me. Funny. I couldn’t wait to get out of this house for an evening, and by then end of it I was begging to return. The dress is beautiful, though. And it will be really good to see so much of my family in one place, at one time. So many of my friends too. I feel I’ve been away too long. I’ve been out today 3 weeks. Crazy. Ah, well.

On Sunday, Dutch drove me to meet Traci for a movie. He retreated to 10,000BC while Trace and I sat smiling through "Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day." It was a sweet movie. The set design was absolutely fantastic. I’ve been watching so many movies from the 1930’s and 40’s lately and have greatly admired the different elements of style throughout both decades. In Pettigrew, they brought all of these gorgeous backdrops that I’ve really only ever seen in Black and White and turned them into dreams of glorious color, of form and function, so vibrant and rich. A few of the rooms seemed ripped straight from "Shall We Dance" and "The Women." I do actually wish that someone had used that incredible bathtub design from homewrecker Joan Crawford’s bathroom in "The Women". Absolutely beautiful and quite scandalous, with the glass sides and everything. Also, if you ever do see "The Women" please explain to me the Technicolor Fashion show and Rosalind Russell’s character.

The Great Escape of Escapism

2008-03-30T01:39:00.005-05:00

I have to ask this first:

Who in the world thought it would be a good idea to invite actress Rose McGowan to co-host TCM’s THE ESSENTIALS? I’ve been watching it every week. I ADORE Robert Osborne. I love to hear what he has to say about film, the little back stories that have been dug up for the feature presentation. I tune in early when watching films on TCM just so I can hear these little tidbits of who didn’t like to work with whom and which co-stars were secretly in love and strange filming locations and how much they went over budget, etc... I do not want to hear Miss McGowan refer to Steve McQueen as an "It" person, admit that she’s not sexist, and say that films like "The Great Escape" are really escapism.

Um...

In any event.
Now that that’s over, I’m going to escapism right back into my Netflix and watch 4 more episodes of "The Duchess of Duke Street".

Restication News: I’m getting around pretty well. My balance is getting better every single day. Jim takes me on a drive most days, to get me out of the house, so I can get a little bit of sunshine. He took me to Barnes and Noble today so I could pick out some stationary. I picked out a few notecard sets that I liked, but got a little lightheaded before long, so we had to go home. I’m going to be working on wedding stuff all this week from my lovely floral couch and I wanted to have some pretty cards to use in correspondence. I’ll have to see if a Parental Unit can stop back by tomorrow to pick them up. I’ll be gathering guest lists for Wedding Partiness. Email me yours if you believe I may not have it, if you’ve moved in the last two years, changed your name, gotten married, or joined the peace corps and just want me to write to you while overseas. That’s all I want. Lots of addresses from the people I love best.

We’ve another whole week until I see the great Opthamologist (who will tell me "Good! At least it’s not worse!") and the Neurologist (who will make me touch my fingers to my nose and ask me to walk in a straight line and then he will hit me in the knee with a rather small rubber triangle and my leg will kick and he will smile because it means that I have good reflexes) and until then I plan to keep my self busy. Not terribly busy. I’ve still got to rest. But I will be eating well (send me some good vegetarian soup recipies!) and getting enough sleep and will be doing my balance exercises. I’ll be walking down the street with Emilybird a bit in the mornings. Then it will be time to get busy, wedding planning, consolidation of my things, boxing things up for my future, getting rid of all of those things from the past (Don’t worry, the Planet of the Apes dolls go with me) (So does the Baby Smurf doll that Dutch brought me back from France 25 years ago). CD organization, poster framing...

OH! And I haven’t told you of my latest project. I’ve boxes of old show T-shirts, from years around crappy midwest bar bands to Greenville College, and the hardcore scene in St. Louis to the festival circuit, to the south, working for the X and the record stores, seeing bands play in garages, late night parties, later nights at the Nick... The t-shirts I’ve held on to were the ones that meant something, particular show, particular band, particular moment etched in my memory and it didn’t matter how battered or tattered they became, I held on. I held on for old time’s sake. So now I want to take all of these beautiful rags and make a quilt. It would be a quilt of my music soundtrack, my music life. Monica is going to help me with the planning. As far as I can see it helps in so many ways. I’ll be doing something that will help rehabilitate this silly slow and weak right hand of mine. I’ll be emptying out several boxes that I could be using for other purposes. My mother will be so happy that she’ll never have to see me in my off-the-shoulder "Vessels of Sin" t-shirt again. And I’ll have a freaking amazing quilt to use in the start of my new household, my new life as Mrs. Jim.

Now I can’t stop smiling when thinking about it. Yes. It’s been a terrible few weeks. SO much uncertainty, fear of what was to come next. Well, toss all of that fear right out of the window. I’m getting better every day. I’ll do my best. And when you see me next, my dear and lovely friends, I’d better be smiling, because I have so much to look forward to, so much to be happy about!

Thursday Night Netflix

2008-03-28T00:10:00.000-05:00

Someone ought to have a talk with my sleeping medication. Tell it to work...or something. This is the third-billionth night since on these steroids that my eyes just haven't been able to close. So here I am with you, full of Sara Leah Late Night 'roid Rage" and wondering why I just spent two hours watching Frank Capra's "You Can't Take It With You" on Netflix. Lionel Barrymore and his crutches were superb (they both deserved an academy award) (or I guess all three of them). The live kitten paperweight was hilarious and astounding. The "Madcap" antics of this freewilled family - chosen well, and could have had the kind of mix-chaos moments that would have made Uncle Teddy (Arsenic and Old Lace) seem as docile as my Uncle Michael (seminary professor and composer). All of the right elements were there, live birds, portrait painting, candy-tasting, darts and target, ballet dancing while executing household chores, xylophone and harmonica duets, firecracker production in the basement with frequent explosions...
Why couldn't they pull this beautiful mess into something more? The script by Riskin ("It Happened One Night" and Mr Deeds Goes to Town") taken from the Kaufman and Hart pulizter Prize winning play" You Can't Take it with you" was to have been worthwhile. These young men were writing the snappiest, most forward and fun thinking comedy around. Was it Capra? Don't know. The film itself has so many signature Capra moments, speechs, monologues of isms and America. The delivery of lines, the set up of shots seems to falter, awkward silences and rambling conversations.
I wish I could understand why through all of this snail-like dialoque and sober plot twists, in the end....I wish I knew why I was still crying. Maybe because I'm always happy for Jean Arthur to find love. Maybe because I was glad Barrymorre once more played his harmonica and with that signal...everything would be alright. Maybe I was just crying with happiness that it was finally over and I could start downloading the Peter O'Toole flick "My Favorite Year"(1982) which I've heard so much about. And since becoming completely captivated with him in the cheery Christ/Murder/Musical "The Ruling Class" (1972), I thought, might as well.

Updateness

2008-03-24T17:45:00.000-05:00

Hello Dear Ones!

I am home. Doing much better. My balance is improving everyday. I've been trying to rest. That's a difficult task, especially today, since I realized I've exactly two months to get ready for the wedding. Craziness. My vision loss seems to have plateaued. The opthamologist stated on Friday that the steroid infusion may have slowed it down or stopped it from getting worse. We'll know more in the next few days.

Keep me in your thoughts and prayers. And thank you so much for all of your words of encouragement and support. It's been tough. But I know that I am surrounded by love and that's made all the difference.

SL

"All I Do is Dream of You" by Arthur Freed

2008-03-17T23:39:00.003-05:00

I wish that I could express to you the strange and wonderful contentment that I get from from listening to Gene Kelly’s quiet croon send this sweet song into a cloud. Nothing at all like the flash and jump version from the party scene in SINGING IN THE RAIN. It was one of the many surprises that I found in the EMI Music Resource : THE STANDARDS. Amber gave this collection back to me before she left for New York. I can truthfully say that I am glad she held onto it for a while. During it’s furlough, I learned to truly appreciate it. For the last 9 months, I’ve been stumbling happily through a rather large catalogue of Hollywood musicals (thank you Netflix), and pulling Jim kicking and screaming all the way...well maybe not kicking and screaming. He loves Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, enjoys a good Stanley Donen or George Stevens musical, and the Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, and Arthur Freed songs keep bringing smile after smile to his handsomely bearded face. In the midst of this whirlwind of song and dance, I picked up a colleciton of Astaire recordings. I listened to it so much that the words of the silliest tap-dancingest songs stuck in my head for days and days. I listened to it at home, at work in the Cancer Center, in my car. I couldn’t stop. I found my feet tapping along under the covers when I listened to it in bed. I’ve always thought my life a musical filled with these sorts of songs. No one bursts into them in front of me, but Jim can tell you that I definitely burst into them enough for everyone else. The constant flow of Musicals in the mail and the Astaire collection prepared me for the gem that I was returned to me a couple of weeks ago. The Standards... Frank Sinatra? Of course. Dean Martin. Yep. Billie Holliday, Cab Calloway, Mario Lanza, Mel Torma, Ella, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett...yes. But oh...Sarah Vaughn...Bea Wain with Larry Clinton and his Orchestra....Kitty Kallen...a little bit of Fats Waller...

Awesome. Total Awesomeness.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I report to Brookwood Hospital for a short stay. A few days really. For any of you who’ve been missing me at the old St. Vincent’s ER, I’’ve missed you too. I’m in the midst of a relapse. They found some dark spots on my spinal cord. Travmo has suggested that I just get it whitened. Just line up some of those Crest Whitening strips down my back and I’m set. Unfortunately, MS doesn’t work that way. I’ve just got to work through the flare up. The steroid infusion that I’m going to get will help me do it. As is usual with Multiple Sclerosis, there’s no telling what caused the exacerbation, whether it was stress or a seasonal illness set it off. I think that it was the egg sandwich that I got from Whataburger on my way home from the Vulture Whale show a week or so ago. Jim doesn’t quite buy that one.

So. Email me. Call me. Come by. Whatever. Let me know how you’re doing. I’ve spent a good week staring at the TV (mostly TCM, but a little bit of Bravo) (What is up with those Housewives of NYC? Could we not just give them Southern Accents, some Vicoden, and send them to Seaside and say that they are the Housewives of Mountain Brook?) (Dude, Bravo would save like a THIRD in production costs doing that show here.)
As you can see, I’ll be ready for a few friendly faces and some good conversation and you can check out my new Whale patterned PJs. They’re awesome.

Love you!

View From An Emergency Department Waiting Room

2008-01-23T21:46:00.000-06:00

It is a dark and dreary day outside.

There is a small, quiet, leafless tree right outside my window. It contains, wedged between it's delicate branches, a tiny nest. What an unhappy little home, probably built over the summer when everything was green and leafy. How was the mama bird to know how bleak and barren her resting place was to become?

Across the highway, upon the telephone lines that tower over the Nick, rest about a hundred black birds. They crowd together, close to the pole. They sit there all day, rain or shine. I often wonder why they don't venture out to perch on the lovely, large trees all around them. I guess that sitting above the constant zooming traffic gives them some enjoyment. It would certainly be some entertainment, watching all of the merging and passing. All of the daring stunts that people pull off these days while driving down the highway.

Turning his wee head towards his companion, Benji Pigeon ruffled his wings, "Hey Harold! Did you see that lady in the SUV? She's amazing! She was talking on her cell phone and putting on lipstick at the same time, all while steering with her left knee. That's so incredible! I wish I had knees."

"And hands, fingers, and a cell phone," grumbled Harold, "so I could call her and tell her that she's about to hit that ugly, bright yellow Crown Victoria...Whoa! Dude. That was a close one."

Harold leaned forward, grimacing. "Why DO they call that 'the bird'? That offends me so much. It doesn't even look like one of our feathered friends. I've seen some kids make some shadow puppets that would be appropriately named that. I love shadow puppets. One time I sat outside of the window at this big house on Highland and..."

"That's so weird." Benji hopped to the side and back again.

"What?"

"Peeping in on a human kid's playtime."

"It's fun! They can do so many things that we can't do."

"For instance?"

"Well...draw pictures, play scrabble, eat peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off."

"We can eat peanut butter sandwiches, Harold."

"If you want to call that eating. If I had hands, I'd pick up one of those beautiful sandwiches...you know I love it when moms cut them in triangles. Cutting sandwiches in half, totally boring."

"I think you think about this too much. Seriously, did you see the way that Grandma I-Forgot-To-Take-My-Meds in that boat of an Oldsmobile pulled out in front of the horse-faced guy in the white BMW? If he hadn't stopped with the hair flipping in the rearview mirror, they might have ended up with a real crunch fest. That was awesome."

"Yes. That WAS awesome," sighed Harold, staring at the tip of his wing. "Peanut butter and jelly."

"Did you say something?" Benji leaned forward.

"No. Nothing."

New Year, New Monster

2008-01-03T07:34:00.001-06:00

Introducing:

Sockfield Orestes Fitzcreature

I stitched him together last night while Jim sat at the glass table in the sun room to work on his computer. My parents have commandeered all of the televisions in their house and stacked them one on top of the other to create a Wall of Sports in the living room. So without a television in the sun room and as I was not in the mood to resume one of the fifteen books I have stacked next to my bed, I decided to create something. If any of you are still looking for something to get me as a late Christmas present...I could use a nice, sturdy thimble...actually, I could use ten of them.

--------
song totally stuck in my head today:

Anyone Else But You by The Moldy Peaches

It's been playing on the jukebox in my head ever since Jim and I saw Juno on January 1.

Attention Birmingham:

2007-12-31T13:36:00.000-06:00

We have been invaded by inhabitants of the Windy City.

But do not be alarmed, we have lured them into the containment unit on Oxmoor Road also known as the HoJo.

Armed with liquid-filled metal projectiles and burning sticks, the Maid of Dishonor and her treacherous Bride guard the doors of this aquarium-like prison.

They are the warriors of the 4th Wedding, filled with spitfire and vengeance and protected by a impenetrable, flame-retardant combination of nylon and polyester handed to them by the Gods. Do not fear, Dear Citizens. You are well protected.

PS....

I can't stop listening to Gene Krupa's Drums, Drums, Drums

New Years Soul Trip

2007-12-31T10:43:00.000-06:00

Jim and I are leaving for Oxford, Mississippi this afternoon. We're meeting up with John Ciba and Rachel and Derek and J.D. at the Wiley and the Checkmates New Years Eve show. This will be our first non-family Adventurfication since my birthday.

I'm so excited! Anyone have any suggestions on where to eat once we get there?

Um...

2007-12-23T03:06:00.000-06:00

I just ate two butterscotch/Chow Mein noodle cookies right before I collapsed into bed. The cookies were made by one of my mother's therapy patients.

1. Does my mother have a good relationship with this patient?

2. Do I really have to reattach my walking boot to trek to the restroom to brush my teeth again, or will the Orbit Gum left in the side pocket of my purse suffice? Shut up. I totally know the answer to that one.

CTD and O: Myrna Loy -> Luise Rainer

2007-12-21T07:45:00.000-06:00

She smiled down at me from yellowed fragile paper trapped in wood and glass. I walked up, gazed at the wall, full of faces, smiling and glazed over, "Gary Cooper, $13.00" "Will Rogers, $13.00" "Eileen Sedgewick, $13.00" and then "Movie Star, $13.00". The faces went on and on, down the wall and spilling out onto the table, but all I could do was look at her. I reached up and pulled her picture down, and turned and walked quickly to catch up with Jim.

"Movie Star, $13.00"

Why does that make me smile so? When we finally gathered all of our spoils onto the checkout table, the snow-white haired, crinkly old lady writing our ticket leaned over as I pointed to the picture. "Can you believe that it just says 'Movie Star'? That's so funny. Myrna Loy? Can you imagine?"

She stared up at me and smiled politely. "Oh IS it? Oh dear, I guess so."

She had no idea. And I guess that scared me a little. And made me a little sad for her.

Myrna Loy solved crimes with William Powell in "The Thin Man series"(1934). Myrna Loy battled brains with Cary Grant in "The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer" (1947) and "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House."(1948)

Myrna Loy vamped it up in a Natacha Rambova penned film, "What Price Beauty?" in 1925. (Rambova was the second wife of Rudolph Valentino) She also appeared in Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer"(1927).

In 1934 she appeared in "Manhattan Melodrama" with Clark Gable and William Powell. The gangster John Dillinger was shot to death after leaving a screening of the film. She also played the part of Billie Burke (Florenz Ziegfeld's wife) in the Academy Award winning film "The Great Ziegfeld". Billie Burke is best known as Glinda the Good Witch in "The Wizard of Oz". Anna Held, Florenz Ziegfeld's common-law wife, was played by none other than two time academy award winner Luise Rainer.

Some November night, shortly after I broke my foot, I sat in the living room watching an array of musical biopics on TCM. I fell in love with Luise Rainer in the midst of the film "The Great Waltz"(1938). As she (Poldi Vogelhuber) becomes aware of her husband's (Johann Strauss II) affair, her eyes fill with tears. She loves him so much and is so devoted to him that she weathers effects of the tumultuous affair. She is brave and amazing. The movie also stars the great French actor Fernand Garvey and opera singer Miliza Korjus (who garnered an Academy Award nomination for her performance).

Luise Rainer

At 97 years of age, Luise Rainer is the oldest living Academy Award winner.

1936 - The Great Zeigfeld
1937 - The Good Earth

below the surface - July 2007

2007-12-20T08:17:00.000-06:00

The rain spills down, buckets tilted from heaven towards the ground. I stand waiting for the light to change, dress weighing down, shoes swimming. Clouds blanket this dark southern summer sky. Clouds form between my furrowed brows. I feel helpless and all at once surrounded by sound. The cracking of water to pavement, the rush of cars two feet from where I stand. I clutch my bag, fingers bound around the handle, twisted with anxious thought.

I've wanted to write about the song that's been rolling through my thoughts for the last few days. I listened to it again and again the other night and thought to myself, that's it...but I'm not sure anymore. The rain does funny things. The rain conjures a spell of winding melodies...

Brown Eyes

tell me and take your time
set free this soul of mine
freeze frame this sedate moment
lie me in your quiet ground

i understand your
tired eyes for these
tired homes and tired trees
i see the pain in those
brown eyes
fires burn in autumn skies

-Mark Kozelek, Red House Painters, Rollercoaster

1995

2007-12-18T22:01:00.000-06:00

I'm on my guard, quiet and turned. I feel the breeze and the damp of the dawn float across the room, across the right side of my face. The left side is cradled in the warmth of my quilt, one eye closed, and all I can think of is the chatter of dry leaves…and the chill. But I keep watching, waiting. Waiting for the sound of the morning train, I’m waiting for a different sort of day to come.

I am weighted. I am weary. I am 17 years old and wondering if I'll ever stop feeling so alone. I keep listening to Glen Phillips' strange hollow tenor tell me of his every hope and disappointment and I nod my head in the dark. I understand. My adolescent heart is bedraggled. Its edges and outsides are as worn and frayed as the ancient, woven paper that covers the walls of this house.

High on a Riverbed

why try
when everything i do seems half right
how can i be satisfied
writing words from someone's else's lies

but sometimes i'm standing here
high on a riverbed
and light breaks through
everything feels good for a while
high on a riverbed

i see myself sometimes
vision is a mystery half blind
i wander through my life
wondering what i could be if i
if i

- Toad the Wet Sprocket, Pale

CTD: Meet Me in St. Louis - Lucille Bremer

2007-12-17T13:32:00.001-06:00

In the dark, warm glow of the Alabama Theatre, underneath the twinkling Christmas lights, my father turned to my mother and whispered loudly "I know who the sister is! She played the good witch in the Wizard of OZ!"

I clutched Jim's hand and bit my tongue. I turned to Jim and we smiled at each other. Judy Garland was sitting there in her red velvet ball gown and Mary Astor was crying happy tears.

Lucille Bremer, the sister in question (center), did not play Glinda, the good witch (Glinda was played by Billie Burke, more on that later). Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) was only Miss Bremer's second film. (Her first film was the Stan Kenton short "This Love of Mine")

In her next film, she co-starred with Fred Astaire, "Yolanda and the Thief"(1945)

(i love this poster!)

and then again in "Ziegfeld Follies".

By 1948, Lucille had made her last film, "Behind Locked Doors", a black and white B-Movie co-starring Richard Carlson("Creature from the Black Lagoon").

She married the son of former Mexican President, Abelardo L. Rodríguez, and retired at the ripe old age of 31.

2007-12-17T11:17:00.000-06:00

Fuzzy Encephalophagi Authors

2007-12-12T22:50:00.000-06:00

Sorry, Loves, about the error in dates on the last post and for the typos and questionable content...

I have an excuse.

James Joyce ate my brain.

This class has been pretty extraordinary. Not because of the excellent teachings, although Bingram was at best quite interesting and informative, but because of how eye opening it was for me. I had taken so much for granted. So often, in my leisure, I've sat for so many hours in front of my computer with a finger forever upon the backspace button and my thumb standing guard by the spacebar. Editing... Thought. Backspace. Cut. paste. Insert thought. Delete. Thought. Thought. Delete. Thought. I love computerness...but - Ohmygod.

I walked out of my final today, the last student out of the room with my hair all crazy, covered from head to toe in the remains of my pencil eraser, actually three pencil erasers...the side of my hand was silver from the lead of my pencil. I'm left handed so I drag my hand across the page when I write. Two hours to write a paper. Two hours to take a simple opinion about a story and turn it in to something wonderful. Let me tell you, folks, that by the end of the paper, my head was lolling in my hand, the other hand was taking turns tearing paper, writing on it and twisting my nervous finger through the front of my hair until I looked like a pale, dirty blonde version of Davey Havok on the Black Sails?Helloween tour, you know, in which he was trying so desperately to be Glen Danzig?

I actually didn't see myself in the mirror, because I was sitting in class writing for my final, but in my head, that's exactly what I looked like, only prettier, in my beautiful new puff-sleeved Bannana Republic winter jacket and instead of combat boots I had one New Balance Tennis shoe (grey and powder blue) and the large metal and foam black boot that I wear because I decided a few weeks ago that it would be a good idea to trip over a roll of tape while walking down the sidewalk in Knowville, Tennessee.

Yes. I am not at Rebecca's party tonight. I am in bed with the covers up to my waist while I listen to Fred Astaire. I am totally exhausted. This has been a crazy few weeks. But my absence from the crazy Sweet 16 + 20 party does not mean I love Bec any less or am any less devoted to helping her conquer the world. 1. I cannot drive and Jim is at home grading papers. 2. James Joyce ate my brain -- after he came to visit me in the ER today.