Iszy Bitzy Witzy

Scrappy knees, bleary eyes, foggy brain and aching loins. Dust yourself off and brush the cobwebs from your hair.  So I'm not quite as shiny as a new penny, it's a start.

Echo and The Bunnymen - Do It Clean

Photo via CBG

As Fast As I Pick It Up

Tonight chats, so many beautiful thoughts.  About music and its ephemeral relativity, existence, belief, religion, our meaning to those things, our niche in the world, yoga and its most significant influence on journeys physical and otherwise.  So epic and grand, my attempts at summary now would be laughable.  Dear void, you calm me.  But there is something else...

The holidays are so very hard for me and I already feel the claws of grief and loneliness attempting the clutch expedition.  In the last few days, I find myself shrugging my right shoulder with a form of existential Tourettes.  As if this will be enough to keep that demon from clawing its way into my ear.

Like an addict, the meetings keep me sane but it's the quiet paradox that scares me.   An addict can't say no when it's right there.  Did I ever tell you my middle name is Elise?   After Mom died I listened to this religiously.  And then later, even more. This video kills me in the most profound way. 



Photo via eliftanman 

The Fault Lines Run Deep

Tackle one addiction at a time kids.  At least that's what the powers that be always say.  Typically I subscribe more to the All Or Nothing school of thought.  Hence why breaking habits and more so, addictions, perpetually alludes me.  That and I'm also one stubborn rebellious bitch who revels in hedonism.  On an otherwise dull uneventful evening, it's also fun to play the What Can You Substitute For What game.  You know!  Also known as The Barter Game, i.e. I'll trade it for that, if you give me this instead of whats-it.

I don't know much about Moving Units but with lyrics like these, I'm not complaining.

You control me
I'm your machine
You expose me
It's so obscene
But when you touch me with your alien embrace
You know it makes me deny the human race

You control me
I'm your machine
You dispose me
It's so obscene
But when you touch me with your alien embrace
You know it makes me deny the human race

I am your slave... until you throw me away

P.S.  Try this recipe - it's ridiculously addictive especially with oodles of vino.

Christmas Sneer

After a few hours of Christmas carding, my Santa elf kicked in and I had the bright idea to pull out the Do Not Open Christmas box of decorations I've kept hidden from myself.  Well the lights are dead but the wine is flowing.  This song is a definite on my Winter Mix.

Behavior with Andrea Revel - Clap!  Shake!  Jump!

Day of Worship

Are you still out there?  Hopefully I didn't freak you out with my angry swear word inspired rant the other day.  Yeaaah, about that... what could I say that Mr. T can say better?

Surprise surprise I don't attend church on Sundays, instead I like to worship brunch foods in my pajamas so much more.  Incidentally, if you're into this sort of thing, I'm dying to try this recipe for vegan, soy and gluten-free bacon.  Also, jonesing for one of these gorgeous creatures [as a pet, not to eat!]  Such an Eve.

Last night was my law firm's Christmas party.  Have you ever noticed that office parties are pretty much guaranteed to be awkward affairs?  Frenemy coworkers in fancy dress surrounded by free booze is just asking for trouble.   My boss made a weird comment about how "this sort of party is just about the most fun you can have once you get married.  That's my wife right there."  Did I mention they booked Hank Williams, Jr in his "only private event concert of the year"?  I suppose he is some sort of iconic legend to some but I'm sure it will come as no surprise I spent most of my time worshiping my champagne flute, the chocolate-covered strawberries and giggling with my best friend.

The Cuss Post

Fuck diplomacy, fuck logic... it seems most of them don't fucking get it anyway.  Throw your hands up in the air.  ICH GIBT AUF.  What the fuck does it even goddamn matter how diplomatically anyone spells it out??   They're too stupidly small-minded and shrewd-hearted it will never fucking matter anyway.  Such selfish simple-minded parameciums.  Gnash your teeth, punch the table and beg for objectivity.  Bite your tongue even and shout your favorite word.  FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.  When smacking someone is the only remedy...

The Dead Weather - I'm Mad

Duh I'm mad - if I like you just stay out of my way, ok?

Reason #11

Turns out there are some reasons to like those nefarious social networking sites.  Not very many granted, but today became one of those rare I Like This Blasted Site days.  Today The Chapman Family [remember when I posted about them?] posted a video covering Morrissey's [remember when I posted about HIM?] Everyday Is Like Sunday.

Moody, slow and pretty it reminds me of Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and all manner of soft dark things.  With that description, what's not to like??  If you don't, I'm not sure we can be friends.  Kingsley Chapman commented on my post and created instant dialogue; actually he trolled my friend and it's pretty hilarious.

Me: It's slower than the original and very much unlike their other tunes but still so moody and pretty. [X not a peep :)]  

Kingsley:  Why would your friend peep?! Glad you like it though over there in the Land of the Free.

Me:  She hates Moz and The Smiths AND she's over on your side of that big pond. I need you to track her down and school her. Looking forward to hearing the new ep.

Kingsley:  Bet she's not a vegetarian either!  

This would never have happened in my two target bygone eras.  This day,  not too shabby my friends, not too shabby.  For more Morrissey love and tunage, mosey on over to Lazer Guided Melody.  He does my Gay Daddy justice in a way I never could.

The Lull

Cat's Eyes - Bandit

Mondays

The Spell!

Spit.  Yes.   Taste it, writhe.  I'm breaking.

Indecision Tributary

Today my boss spelled my name right for the first time, ever.  I bought a new candle and incense to make my home smell woodsy and warm because your home says a lot about you, apparently.  If we're telling the truth, I bought these smelloids to cover up the cigarette smoke that inevitably fogs my abode while I write these posts.  I've gone through four can openers and three wine openers this year.   Martha Stewart would hate me.

Do you believe in signs?  I can never decide definitively if it's the brain's way of comforting the psyche or the universe screaming, "Look you idiot!  I'm trying to tell you something but you're too blind to see it so here, let me make it really Sesame Street easy."  Bam!  Last night, my squirrely grandmother [who has Alzheimer's] and I had a surprisingly very rare cogent exchange.  Sometimes, our conversations repeat on a loop every two minutes but last night I had a glimpse of the woman who taught me so much.  Forty glorious minutes of my most favorite person in the entire world.  We always used to wax about the world, existence, relationships.  Unknowingly, she gave me the wisdom and words I've been needing to finally make a decision, if I were smart enough I would heed them.

If I believe in signs, this is a big one, along with the fortune cookie I opened but ironically cannot eat, "Follow your heart and you will be happy".  Snorts.  But what if your heart is a tributary?  How do you decide which channel to follow?   There are other signs as well.  Glaring-get-off-your-ass-we're-calling-you signs but when you're standing on the edge calling across the ocean to the other side and the other side ignores you, what do you do??   City shopping is hard, even harder than actual consumer shopping for this indecisive alumni, that is.  I've had my eye on a specific locale for a long, long while but recently I wonder if that would just be a recipe of heartache.  How to please a twin heart?  How to choose between a fantasy and pragmatics, the head and the heart?

Not to turn hokey-dokey over here, just a thought condiment in a random sandwich.  

The Faux Noise - We All Know That Someday We Will Die

The Faux Noise - Save Me

A big big thanks to The Faux Noise for making such catastrophically beautiful music.  Run, don't walk!  Also, please visit LGM, a brutally amazing source of music, and this one's source for TFN and so so so much more.

Lítill Dauði

Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree

Take my body
Put it in a boat
Light it on fire
Send it out to sea

Long held Viking burial fantasy.  My body atop a funeral pire in a boat, not some behemoth ship, just a simple boat with a small white sail.  Set adrift in a Scandinavian fjord, surrounded by high cliffs with archers poised, bowstrings taut, the arrows aflame.  They fly swift and true setting my body ablaze and we, my body and I, float out to sea.  Maybe in a past life.

[Reminder:  must learn Icelandic]

Cinq-O

Parts of this song/video remind me of the opening credits of Hawaii Five-O [the original of course].  It also inspired me to play a little word game.  How many words beginning with F can I churn out before the end of the song? 

Twenty Minutes

Lily pad hop from this to that to this.  Subtract words and feel it.  This is existence, this is happening. 

Henryck Gorecki -Symphony 3:1. Lento - Sostenuto Tranquillo Ma Cantabile

Henryk Gorecki - Symphony 3:1. Lento - Tranquillissimo

Tonight I described my first listening experience of Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs as a journey: curiosity, joy, overwhelming grief, wrap oneself into painful inwardness, an indescribable bittersweetness, confusion, desire, quietude beyond death.  Within twenty minutes.  My friend said, "Within twenty minutes???"  Yes.  Any musician that can do that sans words...  This isn't modern pop lore.  This is.. this is... Stop.  Turn off everything.  Listen.  Hear.

How I can I appreciate anything else?  I'm consumed and ashamed at the thought of listening to anything less elegant than classical right now.  God forbid I hunger for The Stones, right??  Because The Stones, The Doors, Blondie and The Cure are starting to call my name.  Five days of classical... beautiful, poetic, dreamy... so pretty.  But c'mon, ready for something else, aren't you?

[Can it be true?  Have I actually reached my fill of pretty emotional music?!?  Claps hands!!  I'm hungering for something more.  Thank God!  I was beginning to annoy myself, I can only imagine your roll eyes, eh?]

A Siren Call

Tonight a coworker interrupted my librarian state letting me know she was bored and was curious about what I've been up to during our mini holiday vacation.  Who am I to blame her?  Four days from an addiction is difficult, in this case it is her addiction, the law, the rat race, the Babylon Tower.  I answered honestly, "Librarian loopy - reading and listening to classical music."  Which is what I've been happily doing for the last two days.

She took one look at me, when we met at the bar and said, "Oh wow!  You did your makeup.  You never wear makeup at work."  Slight scrowl.  I do wear makeup, I just don't wear myself.  But her comment caused me to reconsider my appearance.  Today, my nails are painted dark cloudy grey, my eyes are eyelined in maroon and I even sported blood-stained lips.  Clothed in my favorite black/grey - I can see why she was taken by surprise.  At work, I am a wall flower, a non-entity.  She asked me why I don't do this during the week.  My answer is simple. Shrugs, "What's the point?"  I am not stupid, I understand the point.  Dress for success and all that bullshit.  But, this place is not my success.  She asked me why also I wasn't reaching out to [in her mind] the many attractive persons in the vicinity, especially after they approached me for either cigarettes or lighters for such.  Even the cute earnest young'un  Taylor was it??  How can I explain to her?  I can't.  I know what I want and it's not CandyLandimensional shadows.

Recently, I've been digging... digging into the brains of friends about futures.  What do they seek?  How do they envision themselves?  There is a fine line we walk as we age.  How do we remain true to our pasts and still further the goals that our [hopefully] more mature selves desire?

 Max Richter - Autumn Music I

There are people in my life who will rejoice when I say, I'm done.  I'm done with so many things.  Done worrying about how it will all work out.   Done trying to define myself in a way that would appease the tongues of so many.  Done denying the siren's call.  It never made a difference, they always saw through my paltry attempts at assimilation.  More and more, I feel my place.  I inch closer to self, that self that has hungered longingly for me to return.  Poor odd little nerd that never left, only tried to wear the others' clothes in the hopes of being accepted.  Even if I'm afraid to admit it, I am no longer afraid to live it.

Unmarred by distance, relationships, fear or alcohol.  None of these things matter anymore.  Whispered and shy, this is the subtle awkward pulsating strangeness of seeing a lover you once knew... Maybe even also like the tenuous tenacity of a seed to stem, pushing its way through harsh soil, through the incomparable depths of grief, the raucous fickle winds of rebellion, the deceptively still pain of stone and finally the relief of fire, I have traveled far to find her.  It is good to see her again.

Strange Thanks*

Being told to give thanks.... Groans.  Being told to do anything sets my mind and tongue on fire.   It seems to be on everyone's agenda in my world... say thanks, love the people around you, count your blessings etc etc etc.  I'm not ungrateful, but come on!  To say I have an authority complex might be putting it mildly; unless that authority is willing to play, banter and misbehave in a way that makes sense.  To Me.  Maybe this is why so many famous naughties intrigue and amuse me so much.

Because of and through them I find my kindreds and my humor to wave my flouting hand.  Fuck Off.

Spahn Ranch - Strange Days [The Doors Cover]

In my country, today is the Day of Thanks, and though I have many reasons to say thanks and to some very wonderful deserving people, I reserve the right to say them at my leisure, without anyone's directive.  Save one.  The You Have To Because You Are Told To.  So thank you, ubiquitous you, for introducing me to so many nefarious and delicious ways to say I am Me.  I will not bow to anything other than myself. 

*Waving my I Don't Give A Shit Flag - you feel me right?  It's all a joke, in case you didn't catch the tone.

None of Our Secrets Are Physical

I had a completely different post planned for you tonight.    It was long and earnest, so poetic and epically dark.  You didn't want to read it anyway.  Instead this is the other song that keeps banging, banging, BANGING in my head.  It's viral.   Hungry... lap it up... lap it up!

Did you hug your clown today? Look!  They're pointing and laughing.  The seal is blushing, he's remembering when you crushed the crackers and shoved them in your pants.  It's not always an easy game.

Of Montreal - The Past Is A Grotesque Animal

Lust, Curiosity and Mourning

I blame winter which is ironic in my little neck of the woods since we don't really experience winter.  I blame winter in theory then.  I'm obsessed.  Obsessed with ravenous feasting on black and white photography, reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, daydreaming of cold cloudy climes and almost tantrically resonating with ideas for my winter mixed cd.

Lately dreams of deserted beaches, carnivorous zombies, long intimate phrases forgotten upon waking, blankets, tangled hair and sweaty limbs.  I love November.  Dark, cozy, mournful, inspired November.

How Close Am I To Losing You?

The National - About Today

Please don't go.

Salt Decadence

In this age of disbelief, cynicism and insincerity I wonder if anyone truly believes in soul mates anymore.  I don't really know the answer to this question [though I have my suspicions] but I'm curious.  This last weekend I met, if not my soul mate, than at the very least a most kindred spirit.  This encounter either fundamentally changed me or reinforced a forgotten belief in connection's intoxicating power.

Most of my early life I was a bit of a selfish, calculating person with a sort of manipulative zeal.  Terrible to admit and even though good reasons may abound for that time in my life, it's still true.  It was losing a lover that shook my core and thus losing all my beliefs at the same time that changed everything.  You can only truly feel your own failings when you see them mirrored in the eyes of someone you love who is lost.  Unforgettable.  It is humility and an intense desire for growth that gives a new perspective - the one of painfully slow progress.

Blonde Redhead - My Impure Hair

Blonde Redhead I will always thank you for being the catalyst that gave me the meeting with a most timely kindred amazingly lovely spirit.  For many practical reasons we will not see each other again as he runs in his direction and I run in mine, with perfect understanding.   But after so much solitude, it was beyond lovely to see myself in the eyes of someone so familiar.   Seen as beautiful, kind and best of all [after so many years in the desert] myself.  His memory will fade as he and I are absorbed into our respective lives but that feeling is eternal.  And best of all?  Always mine.

Tenderly...

Austra - The Villain

I am not a villain.  Shaking my head, pushing my heart in rough directions.  

Hmm I promise a happy sparky summary of my amazing weekend is on the way.  Complete with odd ball hellos and what the fuck was thats and even cuter Oh Oh the soulmate that can never be.  Promise, promise.... it is all coming soon.

Memories In The Corners Of My Mind

So many memories from the weekend, so while I sift my thoughts into words I will rely on a true master of words, Lawrence Durrell.

Hiatus

On the road, on the road... THIS is where I'll be, surrounded by hipsters and audiophiles.  See you guys next week!

Impulse

We Were Promised Jetpacks - Act on Impulse

I can't sleep.  If only I were a patient person.  This is no big deal brain.  Get a clue, a grip or a xanax.  There is something looming; big for me.  Something I want so desperately I almost can't breathe.  I'm scared, because if I want it, then it won't come true.  Superstitious flower to a fault, until I can hold it in my hands, taste it in my mouth... it isn't real.   There are those out there who are so calm in the face of impending happenings.  I am not one of them.  Tomorrow scares me, tomorrow I want my triumphant yelp.

Image via Dead Paper

What Can I Do?

Brazilian Girls - Rules Of The Game

My skin crawls, the loins rebel, the mind queries.  But there is no other way.

Hallowed Thanatopsis

Remember the sound that could wake the dead. 

Remember the time that the sky went black.