February 21, 2012
I promise there’s an engagement story.
October 16, 2011
The public library sale was fun. Today, hardbacks were $1.00, and paperbacks were $0.50. Pretty cool, eh?
Here’s what I got:
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
- We’ve been reading a lot of Baudelaire in one of my classes, so when I saw this, I got really excited.
Germaine Bree, Great French Short Stories
- These are in English, and they’re most of the famous ones.
Geoffrey Brereton, A Short History of French Literature
- I bought this one for pretense. Of course.
Annie Ernaux, La Place
- This looked interesting. And it’s short, which means it’s more likely that I’ll finish it.
Other Random French Short Stories
- These are in French. I like short stories. I like French. It only makes sense.
***
T.C. Boyle, When the Killing’s Done
- I hear he’s good.
Don DeLillo, Underworld
- This guy is supposed to be great, too.
Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays
- I haven’t read a lot of her fiction; I’m looking forward to this.
Louise Erdrich, Four Souls
- This is supposed to be awesome.
Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
- I think I have a copy of this in New York City. Oh, well.
Hemingway, Short Stories
- Short stories is pretty much the only way I like Hemingway.
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
- I’d read this before.
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
- I hope this one is okay, too.
Zora Neale Hurston, Jonah’s Gourd Vine; Mules and Men; Their Eyes Were Watching God
- I remember that a friend was reading Their Eyes her junior year while I was a senior in high school. I’ve been wanting to read Hurston ever since.
Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- I read this the summer before my junior year of school for an AP English class. It’s time to read it again.
W.S. Merwin, The Lost Upland
- I like Merwin. I like France. Enough said.
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
- I put off getting this for a long time.
Chaim Potok, Davita’s Harp
- I love the Chosen, hopefully this one will be great, too.
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
- Proulx seems pretty important, but I’ve read very little of her.
Thomas Pynchon, V
- Same thing with Pynchon.
Betty Smith, Joy in the Morning
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was pretty amazing. Fingers crossed for this one.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
- The Red Pony, The Pearl, Of Mice and Men; it’s time for a big Steinbeck book.
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, pocket size
- I think I will always carry this one with me.
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
- I’d read excerpts of both of these for a class, and that was enough to decide that I really, really like Virginia Woolf. I hope she likes me, too.
Definitely, I got my $16 worth today. I know I’m good for the year, at least.
If you want to borrow these or any of my books, let me know. If you’ve borrowed books and haven’t returned them, I’m gently reminding you that you still have them.
And that’s okay. Take your time.
September 19, 2011
Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time’s fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn’t be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.
– Kay Ryan
*****
One of these days I will again post my own thoughts, but Ms. Ryan says lots of great things.
If my mind is space, and time is time, the exact location of my mind cannot be determined at any point in time, not without that location occurring in the past. When I want desperately to be in the now.
This is my uncertainty principle. That’s what I’m feeling.
Rest assured, there’s lots to be said about school (SO. MUCH. SCHOOL) and boys and friends I don’t see nearly enough of. And meeting poets. And autographs. And food. And boys and church. And some boys that aren’t smart. And new friends. And the cooling weather. And swearing at school, though not by me. And running into former seminary students who are so very tall. And staying up until 4am or waking up at 3am and either way letting the silence soothe me. And seeing those people in my life that make me feel like all is right with the world.
Eventually, the past will catch up to now.
Thanks for your patience.
September 15, 2011
BEFORE THE AIR BECAME THE JOURNEY
It is Good Friday
and I am seven.
I don’t understand the priest
who speaks in Latin
or in Polish,
but I like the hopeful smell of
candles burning.
Inching forward
on our knees,
we sway and shuffle towards
the giant crucifix
propped at the railing.
The men’s heads are bare.
The women wear bubushkas.
Everywhere I look
there are soles of shoes.
My turn. I stand
and stretch to reach
the bleeding instep.
An altar boy
wipes away my kiss
with a white handkerchief.
I bow my head
to imitate the old man
who on Sundays stays
for all the Masses,
locked in place
at the altar rail, face
buried in his hands,
hunched over and sad
as if, like me,
he’d done everything wrong.
Someone like him, I think,
could stop the nails
from going in.
September 11, 2011
HOME TO ROOST
The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small–
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost — all
the same kind
at the same speed.
–Kay Ryan
From her interview at NPR at the time she became the poet laureate:
First of all, it comes from the thing we say to other people when they’ve done a lot of stupid things, and now they’re getting their comeuppance. We say, well, your chickens are coming home to roost, and I have no doubt that when I wrote this, I was chastening myself, and I was telling myself this, but unfortunately, this poem was sitting on the desk of an editor in New York at the time of 9/11, and it suddenly took on this terrible added significance, and I had to withdraw it because it seemed cruelly appropriate. . . . Now right after 9/11, that sounded, you know, the blue sky in here, the clear sky, sounded just like the beauty of that day, and those chickens sounded much too much like airplanes.
In relation to the beautiful day it was 10 years ago, here are a friend’s sentiments.
You can view this interactive map from the New York Times to see where people were on that day. You can click on it and write where you were and how you felt/feel.
This is an NPR interview with John Adams and his commission to compose a piece to commemorate the one-year anniversary of 9/11.
This is the first third of the composition:
10 years.
Still healing.
September 10, 2011
And I tried to take notes of the setlist. I have most of the songs down, considering I was writing in the dark and had to decipher my writing. Two full days after the concert.
Lea is a great personality. She’s been in the biz for a long time, and she’s at ease with the audience. The band was great.
No one in our honorable audience seemed to post any contraband video on YouTube. So, here’s concert coverage from everywhere else in my attempt to recreate the experience for you.
It was a lot of fun. My cousin speaks great English. Awesome.
Feeling Good
This has got to be one of my favorite cabaret songs.
-
Hahanpin Ko
I played part of this for my mom, and she at least translated the title for me.
http://youtu.be/bcrcEk-8tgk
-
I Dreamed A Dream
This always makes me want to cry.
-
Pokerface
She said she wanted to sing something fun after turning 40 this year. We had fun with her.
-
Reflection
She told the story to us about how Disney cut the song in half for the movie, so she had to sing it again. And she always sings the full version when she can. Which is perfectly fine with me.
-
(A song I don’t remember)
I Give My Life for You
Yeah, of course girl gets a Tony for this role.
-
The Last Time
-
Blackbird
Very pretty version.
-
(Another song I don’t remember)
On My Own
-
For Good
Wicked will always carry wonderful memories for me.
-
A Whole New World
The volunteer from the audience who sang with Lea during this song had a good voice, but he was nervous and missed a few cues. It was still pretty fun, though. The guy in the video does a much better job.
-
Everybody Says Don’t
So, she didn’t say at BYU what she says in this video. She just went right into this song without an introduction. Maybe she felt it was safer not to say anything.
-
Journey
-
Encore
On My Own – She resang this one with a camera man circling her for footage for a series BYU TV is producing for the spring. It’s called something like “The Song that Changed My Life.” We clapped extra hard, partly because she told us to, but mostly because it’s an incredible song, and she doesn’t ever sound like she gets tired of singing it, even after thousands and thousands of times.
Forget You
I sort of cringed throughout this last song, because I wondered how many people in the audience were aware of the original version, which is the first version I had heard. I felt uncomfortable for the older part of the audience who expected more of the Broadway hits. Anyway, this is a very interesting sign-off song. Just saying.
August 27, 2011
Never in my growing-up years would I have had this conversation with my mom. At least not this way.
I just thought this scene was really well-done.
August 25, 2011
Thanks to Sarah for bringing this to my attention. I may have elatedly sworn when she told me about it.
Follow these instructions:
1. Click on this link.
2. Notice the photo credit. Follow the link to flickr if you want.
3. Listen to Meg Hutchinson. She’s got some great things to sing. And say.
(optional)
4. Read the story around the photo.
August 23, 2011
August 6, 2011
Plugging away still, but I’ve switched over to classical music. Getting down to business.
This is Zoe Keating performing at TEDxSF. She’s featured every so often at Radiolab. Which EVERYONE should listen to.
Cello and a looping pedal and whatever awesomeness and passion that’s possessing her? How can you not love this?
By the way, you can download a copy of the song for free here.
Enjoy.
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