Sad Sad Song makes me happy - is that wrong?

If a song doesn't pull at my heart strings or pull me onto my feet to dance then I consider it a failure on some level.
I realize I haven't been putting up any tunes that do number two...
(ha)
(am I 5 yrs old?)
...annnnd i'm not going to start now.
But here's a strange and simple song by the excellent M. Ward that straddles the space between... and is surprisingly successful.
You kinda can't help but move to it
but it's... you know... sad.

boomp3.com

You Are Home by Levi Weaver (who knew a badly drawn armless dude could be quite so touching?)

Amazing Things

Recently i've been thinking a lot about our own "best interest" and the choices we make based on what we assume that to be.
Can we ever be so objective as to say what would best serve our interests?
Are we objective enough to know whats best for our friends? Is it our responsibility?
Or are we meant to fail, meant to let our loved ones fail, and learn from that failure?
What if that friends failure is breaking your heart?I recently sent a song, Amazing Things, by Sarah Blasko to a friend in that position.
If you like KT Tunstall or Aimee Mann or Brandi Carlyle... you will go nuts for this girl.
You can preview/stream a bunch of her songs here

Her lyrics nail a human heart to the wall... but wont make you want to fling yourself from a bridge.
Some songs, Queen of Apology and Planet New Year, are distinctly upbeat.
Others, like Amazing Things, are little more relentless in their pursuit of the emotion.

Amazing Things:
boomp3.com
Fallen like a soldier, tragically you are at war
You think you’re not
Caught within a fragment of yourself
Do you think you’re something you are not?

You look like a lover
You feel like a nervous wreck
It cuts in the night
It hurts like an oversight

You long to feel the most amazing things
But you’ve come undone ‘cause you have held it in
Your eyes have seen the most amazing things

Falling like a rock into an ocean
There is something you forgot
Only you decided that you had to go and fight
Until you lost

You look like a fighter
You couldn’t recognise yourself
Now you’re cursing the night
You’re watching the seconds die

You long to feel the most amazing things
But you’ve come undone ‘cause you have held it in
And your eyes have seen the most amazing things
And this love you fear is such a precious thing

licksnarfsnarfitylicklicksnarf

ya gotta click, ya just gotta.
its better than you can imagine.
lick!
if you're watching and rolling your eyes
then you've clearly never experienced what we pugpeople call pugheaven.
and you clearly don't spasm and chase them down the street when you see them
just for the opportunity to speak their snortysneezylicky lingo
and just be glad you weren't there at 1 am in the tomb-like library
surrounded by over-caffeinated stresspacking studiers
when i was sent the link and erupted into oogeewoogeewoos.
i was almost bludgeoned with a text book.

while i'm on this fantastic subject:
how about a shout out to equestrian team mascot and wonderpug, Petunia!
...her tongue is too big for her mouth
dont judge.

The National is The Best

It's especially excellent that I figured out how to imbed songs (below! I'm so pleased with myself!) in time for this post in particular
The National
is a band.
and if you have not heard of them, you will.
and unlike most things of that nature, you should be excited about that fact.
while they're not technically new, the hype around The National has increased exponentially since the release of Boxer, their newest album.
the general consensus is that they're better than bread sliced
and general consensus is right.
Setting aside the fact that Matt Berninger's voice is ragingly sexy, this music is just universally GOOD.
good and a little haunting.
like lying in a field listening to the night
or following headlights driving through the dark
or getting found when you're lost
or arms tightening around you just when you think they're going to let you go.

But hey, maybe thats just me. You listen.
This one is a gem of a heartbreaker.
boomp3.com

and heres a site that has pretty much everything they've done (left click on mp3s)
It's all good but other favs of mine are Fake Empire, Slow Show, and Mistaken For Strangers

New Romantic

maybe i should give up, give in.
give up trying to be thin.
give up and turn into my mother,
god knows i love her.

lines from Laura Marling's quirky and perfect song New Romantic that you can listen to along with My Manic and I, another great one, here
two more by her here.
she writes them. they're unusual. they're beautiful. they're fantastic.
ready for the fun fact that will make you secretly grumpy?
(if youre like me and resent people who have insane talent and succes at an age when you were worrying about the SATs)
she's 17.

unpeppiest cartoon ever

My favorite calvin and hobbes strip contains a little gem of truth that i subscribe to, as im sure my best friends will grimly confirm:
"nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around"

particularly peppy friends like AS and LM know all too well that the best way to cure my grumpies is to attempt a positive outlook
i will back a dumptruck of pessimism right up to your warm cheery campfire and smother the optimism right out of your system.
and it will make me feel great.

why my friends haven't ties rocks to my ankles and thrown me in the Conneticut, im not sure.

anyway, im pleased to post that calvin's maxim exists in all its glorious negativity in a fantastic grown up cartoon called Basic Instructions.
these comic "strips" (squares?) are created and inspired directly by the life of Scott Meyer
and they rock my dry socks off.
theyre like mini manuals for surviving life
but dont expect anything warm and fuzzy.
He posts two strips a week here
here's a few to get you started (click to enlarge):

Still Water

i am always drawn to an artist who can truly capture what it means to be alone-
what those moments in our day are like when the noise dies down and theres no distraction-
when we truly feel our isolation as individuals
lying on your back staring into the dark in the moments before sleep
staring at yourself in the mirror a little too long
so your face starts looking foreign...
or underwater.

and i wouldn't have said that last one unless i'd recently come across alyssa monks

she's the artist who did my current profile pic (to the right) of a child walking on the beach.
ill post a few of her paintings (yes PAINTINGS) below but definitely look through her portfolio.
once you get over the fact that these are not photographs, you might be struck as i was by how she captures human vulnerability
and loneliness
without invoking pathos

there's no escaping the theme of water in her work and looking at those paintings reminded me of that incredible hush i loved as a kid when i slipped under the surface of pools or submerged myself in bathtub water...

i miss baths
i miss that kind of silence
that kind of release

Susan Jacoby Rocks My Secular Socks

at my grandmothers house
eating a grapefruit that she insisted on sectioning with the precision of a brain surgeon.
last night grandmother and i had a long chat about love.
its an interesting topic to broach with someone sixty years older than you
someone who, as far as i knew, had been alone ever since my no-good-war-crazed-genius-inventor-grandfather literally peaced out never to be heard from again when my mother was 13.
i knew she raised my mother alone.
i know shes alone now.
but why would i assume that my grandmother, strong-willed, wise, independent, warm, full of love and endowed with a wicked sense of humor never mind her baking skills, would not have sought out and found another love at some point in the last fifty years?
i shouldn't have...
i don't know who enjoyed the stories more, me or her.
i've always known grandmother was ahead of her time but yikes.
she was doin' in the fifties what they thought was revolutionary in the sixties.
that's all i'll say.
speaking of strong willed, quick witted women... and geniuses:
grandmother and i watched Bill Moyer interview a intellectual of the best kind last night on his show, her name is Susan Jacoby.
she just wrote a book, The Age of American Unreason, that i'm running out to buy.
and i can't recommend it more to anyone who wants to know what the hell is going on with American education, (and not just primary, i'm talking college) politics, religion, and general widespread ignorance.
i know, i know, theres so many of them out there on the topic, but if you only read one, read this.
she was calling us OUT last night in this interview.
young, old, left, right, agnostic, christian, scientologist, wiccan, whatever.
but somehow, even though she's slapping us all up side the head, it feels good.
its more like a wake up call than a whipping
and you want another.

she writes a blog for The Washington Post that I just checked out and it confirmed my suspicion:
she should be running the world.

read about her here
read a excellent excerpt from her book here
read her blog here

and heres to women who know what they want.
(and men! and men! love you too guys!)
no, but seriously.

you cant be serious...

Rebecca Loudon, a favorite poet of mine who happens to be a blogger, recently responded to a comment on her blog with such *snap* i feel compelled to repost it here:

"Jilly" said: ...I hope I get some flowers for VD.
"Radish King" said: Flowers are the perfect gift for any STD.
love, Rebecca

....Ms. Loudon's response is exemplary not only of why i LOVE HER, but also of the spirit that i encourage on this strange pink frosted emotional bomb of a 'holiday.'

here are some cards from a fantastic site that i think keep it all in the right perspective.



point:
anyone who takes valentines day seriously might have something seriously wrong with them
and they should look into that.
yes its a day to express love.
but so is every day.

so love to you all...
me

i loved Best In Show.... BUT.

im gonna go ahead and say this is not natural
then again, what involving domesticated animals is? but still.
here are a few gems from backstage at the Westminster dog show
photos taken from the NYT
dripping in ridiculous...

'KJ' a yorkie from dallas.
in curlers.

'Susan', a mini schnauzer.
getting her eyebrows...topiaried?

'Vikki' the toy poodle.
no. this thing cannot be for real.
that tail actually reminds me of a certain friends highly honkable puffball hat...
though im pretty sure that man would kill me if i honked his poodle's puff.

The Pennsylvania hotel's specially set up doggie area in the lobby.
because apparently these dogs dont do the doo outside.
the making of a new yorker cartoon if I ever saw one.

'Mandu' a saluki... speaking for all her four legged friends?
that's it! i cant take the plumping and the pruning no more!
back it up lady!
this bitch is coming off the leash!

I Wish I Were Six

jennifer zwick's photography is fantastic. literally.
she has an incredible eye for and of a child... not to mention an excellent sense of humor.
i hope you all get a chance to see her work in person some time
in the mean time take a look at her portfolio here.

Light On My Shoulder

list of goodness entry:
february 12 2008 (midnight)
knocking two kids into a snow bank sprinting after someone who did not deserve to have to wait through the night to know that they deserved another chance.

im exhausted
and need to take a shower before i sleep or my bed will forcibly evict me on sanitary grounds. so for now ill just leave you with one song
not poetically saturated like some of her other great stuff,
but its simple and true

light on my shoulder
by susie suh
It's easier to fall and harder to stand
It's easier to cry and harder to laugh,
And I don’t know how, I don’t know why
But you’re the light on my shoulder
When I'm tired
It's easier to run and harder to be still
It's easier to think and harder to feel,
And I don’t know how, I don’t know why
But you’re the light on my shoulder
When I'm tired
It's easier to hide and harder to trust
It's easier to hate and harder to love
And I don’t know how, I don’t know anything
But you’re the temper in my voice
When I sing

What We Are Made Of

i heard it in a trailer for a movie i never even saw: Bee Season
(one of that inexplicable wave of a dozen or so movies that came out about spelling bees.)
apparently the actual issue at hand was not spelling bees but kleptomania...?anyway.
I found myself watching a trailer and feeling my mind blowing... not by the movie, because that was just confusing... but by the song. ugh. THAT SONG!
so i googled the crap out of the three or so words i could remember when i got home and cursed google for not having a function that translated humming into a search.
it turns out it wasnt put on the official soundtrack.
the artist wasnt signed at the time of the movie...
the song didn't even have a TITLE.
it was a mess.
but i found it.
ooooh yesidid.

its by scott mallone
and unfortunately its the only decent song hes ever done, in my opinion.
but its a hell of a song.
something about the simplicity of the piano that surprises into a guitar solo
...and the vulnerability of the lyrics.
and most of all, the reality it speaks on:
does it make us weak if we excuse another person's weakness?
is it a mistake to accept mistakes?
we forgive the ones we love.
right or wrong. we forgive.

listen to 'what we are made of'

insight(?) of the night

it seems that ex's are wreaking particularly high levels of havoc in the lives around me.
and recently, for creative and personal reasons i've been taking a close look at the difference between lover-love and friend-love.
i love hard and with high standards of communication.
but even still, or maybe as a result of that, the lines between the two types of love have never been clear to me
the transitions between the two have never been easy
and the end of either kind has never made any sense.

these are honest, impartial questions
probably even flawed in their reasoning
but nevertheless things im thinking about:

1. why is it presumed and almost inevitable that one person, new and uncertain in our lives, suddenly deserve as much if not way more time, energy, and preoccupation as our best friends, who are long established and secure sources of love and support?
2. why does lovelove tends to end, and badly, while friendlove tends to endure?
3. why is the transition from lover to friend so difficult, even when attempted with genuine desire to make it work? It's just never as simple as subtracting sexuality from the equation.
4. why is friendship, usually wholly satisfying and validating, so often unsatisfying, even insulting, after a downshift from a romantic relationship?

i haven't come up with any answers that makes sense.
BUT
my friendlove, we'll just call her J, had this to say tonight about an ex's bad behavior
(and id call this perfect logic)

i mean obviously he has problems... considering his ass is fucking crazy.

good night loves.

ginger snap out of it

last night i got giggly
its been a while
and it felt great.

somewhere along the way i encountered ginger snaps
and must point out that they are criminally underrated as cookies go.

i'm hung up on a few songwriters right now.
k deep breath
i get overexcited and overwhelmed when i talk about this one...
hes nothing new but for those of you who've never heard him:
HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS.
Ray LaMontagne
first of all: he must have the sexiest voice to hit a mic.
second of all: his songs are so full of the stuff of life it practically condensates on your speakers.

thats his myspace which only has four songs, only two of which im crazy about
(empty and trouble)

here's a link to a blog that has a ton of clips of his older stuff
so even if you have one of his albums you might not know all of that good stuff.

list of my fav's with links to lyrics:
(though his poetry is not really enough on its own. you must listen)

empty (maybe my favorite song ever. maybe. ever.)
lesson learned
hold you in my arms
til the sun turns black
forever my friend
burn

enjoy.
im off to ride some wild horses.

"is that myyyyyyy voice?"

(if you've ever watched emperors new groove you'd know what thats all about...and if you've never watched emperors new groove you should get on top of that.)

Reading over what i wrote last night is reminding me why i gave up on diaries years ago and switched to keeping a list-of-goodness.
something i highly recommend to people put off by diaries.
its no pressure writing and easy to keep current.
example:
january 20th 2004
talking to/sharing gelato di mandorle with little boy in piazza di siena at villa borghese gardens.
(in rome...his mother was nearby, once she established i was not going to steal her son she decided id make a good babysitter and went back to talking to her friends about their husbands. i spent two hours with this kid. its one of my favorite memories of my year in italy)
or
january 12th 2007
a kiss on the back on my neck without explanation while cooking in his kitchen.

anyway, its a very positive thing to look back on. even when old memories of happiness are hard to bear in the face of current realities.
as opposed to diaries (or this blog) that kind of make me want to slap me across the face.
in the case of a journal id rip out the pages and add it to the pile of slaughtered books in my drawer.
but a blogs a little different.
i cant erase a post (i dont think) and technically people are reading them...
i say technically because i haven't quite told anyone about this yet.
but i will.
i just want to understand what the hell this is first.
what is this..this..BLOG of which you speak
i want to find my voice., figure out how to write in this form.
not because i want to sound like a good writer or even a good person...

i just want to sound like ME.

i also want to make it clear that this is not all about me.
i intend it to be a place where you, oh vast audience of zero soon-to-be-more, can read and if you wish, respond to whatever i'm pondering, seeing, reading, listening to...
tell me you agree.
or you disagree.
you enjoyed it.
or you think i should take this waste of your time load of self conscious blather and stick it.

as i said, i'm all about communication.

speaking of which:
read this.

Reed KD is a lyrical god.

speaking of what i'm listening to:
Reed KD

Hi my name is Daisy and i'm a lyrics junkie who gets her kicks from matching an emotion or experience to a song and having them fit perfectly.
particularly if that emotion is painful and the song embodies all things beautiful and horrible about the human condition.
well, now that ive gotten that out there....

i probably shouldn't put this in writing for all of posterity, but i'm serious.
if i'm experiencing something, either a particular kind of heartbreak or a specific sense of loss or nervous excitement, or aching regret, whatever, i scramble to find a song that nails down my mood.

and i don't mean that listening to unbreak my heart a few times will do the trick or that i rifle through my itunes archives for something that's worked before....oh no.
no, i SEARCH and i scrounge and i do extensive cross referencing lyrical hunts until i get a song, known or better yet, unknown, that hits the SPOT. it has to fit with a click.

i like doing it for myself but i love it more when i can send someone a song that describes what i think we're both feeling...and i LOVE when my friends come to me with their thoughts or problems and im able to send them a song later that works.
i don't know why it comforts so much.
maybe its just as simple as knowing that someone else on this planet has experienced whatever it is you feel so alone in going through...it keeps it in perspective.
keeps you (me) from feeling like the worlds biggest mess.

or sometimes a song says something that's a little too raw or vulnerable to say in person.
thats beautiful.
its less 'beautiful' of course if the song perfectly serves as a warning that said person had best HOPE they don't see you in person because you've been working through the phases of grief and you're just entering the rage phase and it's not a pretty part of the process.
thats less beautiful.
but i am all for communication.

anyway BACK TO REED.
listening to his album the first time was intense.
song after song felt like it had been written not just for my aesthetic musically, but for ME as a human with my particular perspective, my set of experiences.

even after identifying as much as i did, i can recognize that that's why hes good.
his songs speak to a common experience but with lyrical gems that keep them from seeming general.

you can stream his album with the above link or buy directly from him through his myspace

'this coastal town' and 'you can call me' happen to be seriously touching me.

'road flares' is excellent too.
its all good...it's all good.
just give it a good listen.

lyrical excerpt from 'you can call me' :

...it seems your memory
has turned to my shadow
so when the suns setting
i cant help but notice that you're gone.

What's this now? Days have eyes?

According to gardenguides.com a day's eye is what the saxons, great race that they were, called the common daisy.
they also say that "the daisy signifies womanly truth, purity and fidelity, and patient endurance."
... that part I'm not sure i can state much of a claim to.
particularly the patience bit...
but without trying to relate who i am to the flower's personality-
i mean i won't object if you insist i do embody "womanly truth"-
i've always rather fancied the break down of the word.
the etymology...?

i think of it as a little reminder to live in the moment.
to keep looking around.
to appreciate the view, to be sensitive.

i do people watch like its my job. that i've got covered.

the other day i was half-heartedly flipping people-channels in food court when i noticed a couple talking across the room and it was clear something big was going on.
I couldn't hear what they were saying but the guy started slumping lower and lower in his chair and as he neared the floor the girl got more and more upright and rigid...
like they were being operated by the tilting of one puppeteers hand.
and i saw the way the girl was gripping her drink
and i thought yeaaah this is going to get good in a second.
but instead she just pushed off from the table and walked out.
the best part was watching him decide whether or not to follow her.
and, when he did, attempt to look casual.

but its not as fun at a party or a bar or a club, when i find myself floating out of body.
it makes it hard to kick back and have fun when you're mentally hovering somewhere overhead.

im sure its all part of why i write plays.
anyway.
the point is.
this is my blog.
i tend to write, i tend to share my feelings, i tend to send out poems and songs i find that i think people will like...they tend to like them...
so someone asked me the other day, 'why don't YOU of all people have a blog?'
and i thought, nahhh.
but now here i am.
and while i'm not sure whats its going to do, specifically, i know it'll reflect what i'm seeing...
what i'm thinking, feeling, loving, loathing, and listening to...