Friday, November 13, 2009

Dynamo



I wish the rain would stop,
she said.
Isn’t that from a movie?
he quipped.
I’m not sure but I wish it would.

They’d been here before
and would probably go there
again.

They both knew it is too
cold now, too cold for them.

A wind swells and circles.
He has no heat to steal,
but she hugs him anyhow.
It’s too cold too hold on long.

They’d be back,
maybe,
when the weather was right.
For tonight the metronome drive home
lulls them back to each other.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Not Quite a Church, Maybe a BathHouse.

Suckin' too hard on ya lollipop,
Oh love's gonna get ya down.







Mika is a true guilty pleasure. He's painfully happy and bouncy but infectious. Even his serious more somber songs don't annoy or seem trite. Sadly he only makes it to NY once a year. This year it is on October 16th and I will be there. If you can get yourself a ticket, he is the best performer I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot.

This is one of my favorite Mika songs. He just released a new album and I was sure this would be one it,(mostly because in concert he announced it would be.) However, it isn't. It makes me sad and annoyed, so this live version will have to do.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Dum Vita Est Spes Est



The universe takes care of me.

I stumbled on this poem a few years ago, and have been trying to remember it all day. I finally found the text, so here it is.



xx

Tonight I Can Write



I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses
on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.

Pablo Neruda

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Constants



Nothing endures but change.
Heraclitus

Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau


Heraclitus would have us all in the flames, and Thoreau would have changed his mind already, but would claim that was the point.

Either way, they're both right. As far as I'm concerned the world is our own perceptions. The way we interact with our lives dictates the path, and finally the outcome. Even if a piano drops on your head, you made some choice to put you under it.

I'm no good at change. It scares me. But, it is when I am making changes that I am the happiest. I think it may be time for something to give. What, I don't know, but something.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The church of, M. Ward.

I'm going to start something new, with the working title, "the church of."

This is featured in today's.




In the Apollo concert, he sort of yelled, "Then why is the night so long?" I've been looking for a live version like that, but more looking is necessary.

Stickituitivness




What is the difference between people who decide to do something and do it, and those who try and try, but never seem to finish.

Hell if I know. If I did I would be way more effective as a human being. However, the desire to be the former type of person is forcing me to try new things to reach some sort of productive end.

These are the things are far as I can figure, that are needed:
One, the desire to do whatever it is you’re aiming for. If you asked a six your old to finish their bowl of ice cream, odds are there would be no fight. Ask the same six year old to finish painting a fence; you end up with a Huck Finn situation. When you get older though, you see reasons to paint the proverbial fence. The reasons aren’t always as nice as pure enjoyment, but they’re often enough to get the job done.
Two, remembering the reasons you are doing something. It is easy to remember in the objective way, but the emotional drive is sometimes hard to hold onto. Maybe a certain amount of obsessiveness is useful. Easygoing people are rarely rallying ceaselessly for causes. Reminding yourself of your reasons will make your stomach sit up and take notice, but that’s ok, as long as you get something done. That is just the first stage of the game. When you make a habit of doing the things you have decided to do it gets easier, and your nerves relax and it becomes business as usual.
Three is strength of will. Once you have a reason to do something and remember what it is, you have to just do it. Nike aside, there are always reasons not to. It’s hard and it sucks, but doing what you tell yourself you will do is an amazing thing. When someone else reneges on something, you don’t trust them anymore, and there is a loss of regard. It goes for yourself as well. As Plato says, “The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is of all things most shameful and vile.”
That brings us neatly to four. Make being productive into a habit. If you are used to coming home and watching hours of television while eating fried chicken wrapped in bacon, you will want to go home go home and want to watch hours of tv while eating fried chicken wrapped in bacon. As the good book says, “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” The way you are may not be, and often isn’t, the way you are the happiest. Change is hard, but usually worth it. Making anything that takes effort a habit is hard. It’s usually harder mentally than anything else. It is much easier to break habits then make them, so three (mental diligence) never really goes away, but it must get easier.

“Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut