From Garnish to Gut.

You quickly understand your life is not all that bad by watching just the last 25 minutes of The Shining. 

I've often wondered why horror movies had such devoted fans.  I know it's not really because you horror film watchers need to feel better about your own lives.  Or maybe?  Or, maybe you appreciate the score.  Many horror films I've seen have some of the best scores in movies.  And they (can be) cerebral, primal and physical.  I think that the real horror playing out in society would obviate the need.  Somehow, the madman-gone-public tragedies at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Co. and then, newer Newtown and its even newer Boston, it's taken the optimism for a safer society, and the fight, right out of me.  They say some people like to be scared, to get a charge off it. I believe it.  People just want to be scared in different ways. They jump out of airplanes, they go into the burning building, they make unpopular social and political stands, they blow the lid off of NSA domestic spying operations, they martyr.  Being scared may not be the primary reason, but it's part of the cockail, from garnish to gut. Would it make sense to say I'm scared that I'm scared? Do you get off on horror movies? Are you scared? Why?

Listening Loudly: the Parts and the Sum of The Joy Formidable

It occurs to me at the end of the 2nd song at the Joy Formidable's March 29 concert at Union Transfer in Philadelphia that they are definitely all that I'd hoped they'd be and then some.  By the end, after the enthusiastic gong banging, the public sharing of the band's fruit tray, the endearing Welsh accent, the loud, hard but eminently listenable and catchy music, and the fact that drummer Matt is a magical two-armed octopus on speed you understand it was very special indeed.  

This was one of those shows where you start out being enthusiastic of the obvious hard-playing talent and sweet-but-not-underrepresented singing of Ritzy, and you lean over to you friend and say something like "Ah, I feel like I'm watching a younger Courtney Love at the very top of her game without all the psychodrama!  She's really so good!"

And then you calm down a bit from that and realize, oh wow, hey, Rhydian is a rock-solid performer on each and every song.  He does so much, brings so much to each song so you lean over to your friend, and say something like "Damn, check him out, he's brings it to the wall each time!"  You add in something redundant and obvious like "He rocks!" and "He's really so good!" But then, when its over too soon and they have a harpist gently playing a tune which sounds like Whirring, and fuck you hope it is, because, well, that's a great song too, and then it is, and then the rocketship that is Matt's playing takes off for its final flight you lean over to someone - really, anyone - who is next to you, and you don't need words, you beam at them and shake your head and affirm, "WOO HOO!" and as a final coda, scream "YYYYEAH!!!!!"

And there you have it folks, the Joy Formidable: each member purely worthy and entertaining singly, and really, so good, as I may have mentioned before.

Go.  See them.  "It means that I can be happy for you.  Happy for you. Happy for you. Happy for you...."*


*(from their song the Greatest Light The Greatest Shade)

the tendency to do nothing
nothing - is worth attempting
why help?  why cry?
it sounds so low
but its not as low as I can go
but oh there are things I like
amusements, lifestyle and tricks
cheap licks - these are
such a seismic shift in approach.

its hard to even remember the old days existed
except as anecdote
something I hardly ponder
gone and extinct
the wonder

but I make more money
and I've almost shed the cautionary guilt
I can only imagine how that must look
dance in the kitchen
drink wine, masturbate, make dates
and honest feelings about details

I wanted more, much more?
I can't answer that question
more living more meaning more feeling
and that cache' from the stuff I couldn't shake soon enough
the otherness, the earnestness, the hap-hazard, skip-walked
I've colored over all that, but I still see my shape there
outlined in chalk.

welcome, And I'm like

There's a new blog on the block, something I've been rolling around in my psyche.  Now my husband knows my affiinity for describing the DNA of things or people or my state of mind in my own way, whereby I utter things like,  "This song, this song is like if you took Rocky and Bullwinkle and them strapped them down with a suicide vests and told them they have just 3 minutes to live.  The next three minutes, that would be this song."  My new blog, And I'm like attempts to just let that run loose like the madwoman it was born to be.  Its fun, I promise.  Come join and post what you (or it, whatever the "it" is) is like....

Rock, Block

You know, I used to think there was divine providence  humming around around me all the time.  I would catch it, occassionally, like a firefly in July.  I'd be poor, on my last dime, and for no particular reason my parents would send me a hundred dollars.  I'd be stuck in a K-9 cop car, hitching a ride to the nearest gas station with my boyfriend's pot contraband stuffed into my backpack and the dog barking furiously in the backseat and the officer never suspecting.  I'd be suffering a nuclear explosion of fear before a flight takes off and the person next to me showed kindness.  I'd found someone, a friend, who told me once to close my eyes, see comfortable, and open them and look into the mirror in front of me, so I could see what comfortable looks like.  I would find a safety valve friendship who would save me from doing worse to myself.  Divine providence.  A footbridge, not a magic carpet.

The line has been disconnected for me the past 6 months. I've been doing some rearranging, negotiating, and its led to a sort of fog in the air.  I pray it hasn't been chopped, merely unplugged.  I don't see it, therefore it's not there.  And then tonight, by a fluke, which is the preferred delivery method of divine providence, I read something from a gem of a not-very-often-heard-from author quoted in a story I've been reading.  And it reminded me, I may feel deadened, but I'm still here.  I may not feel like writing, but I still feel like I have something to say.  And it winked at my very despair at feeling all of this, which is exactly what I needed. 

"You are a little soul carrying around a corpse." Epictetus


Why, yes.  Thank you for noticing.  With fondest thanks to two question marks.
*completely off the cuff, never read-over, unedited post.  if you don't like it or can't understand it, so sorry.

the currency of hours

a homeless man with a shiny behemoth watch
patchy hair, a turtle smile
I am reminded of the last time I felt rich
like that

making your day suck 9% to 13.25% less, courtesy of PS22