Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part IX.

Andrew Bird playing in a church.

Themes

The song for the week is Masterswarm by Andrew Bird. Particularly these lyrics -

"so they took me to the hospital
they put my body through a scan
what they saw there would impress them all
for inside me grows a man
who speaks with perfect diction
as he orders my eviction
as he acts with more conviction
than I"

You can hear the song here.

The question for the week - is "discovery" actually an act of creation?

Enjoy your week.

I apologize in advance for the fangirlishness

Dear Universe,

Pretty, pretty, pretty please let me go the PJ Harvey and John Parish show at South by Southwest 2009. Please, pleas, please, pleas, please, pleas, please.

Thanks!
Wendy

PS. Also, I wouldn't mind having Andrew Bird's babies, if that's something you can arrange and you aren't too busy with black holes and global warming and such-like.

Warning: Dancing to this song may cause your brain to re-wire itself

I mean...it's just so...I'm not sure what...it's like...CANNOT.STOP.LISTENING.

I am so transfixed by this. I really think it might be re-wiring my brain. After all, how often do the Eminem-related neurons get to talk with the Eurhytmics-related neurons? NEVER. Granted, the first time I heard it was at Flipside after four days of eating nothing but intoxicants and breakfast tacos, so my judgement might be a little skewed. But it's good, right? You want to listen to it again, right? Plus, I don't know what happens around 1:37, but I do know you should not fight it.

What I'm doing at work

I'm a little obsessed with Jango right now. Also, CocoRosie.

Sounds like a RoBot making Love To a Tree

In case you haven't seen Aaron Behrens from Ghostland Observatory dance before, you should check it out. As my friend Laura said, he has this shaman-Jim Morrison-Iggy Pop-Mick Jagger-Prince thing happening where he PHYSICALLY BECOMES the music. Mreow. Even a sprained ankle couldn't keep me from dancing at their show on Friday.

Cars full of moonlight

I like it when my friends drive me home late at night. Sometimes they play their favorite songs for me. Sometimes they sing along. Sometimes I become hushed and smoothed from the loveliness, from the life.

My lovely metaphova

Lately I've been carrying around bits of poetry like a secret. An unfinished secret I can't share because I don't know where the edges are. Scrawly scrawls, testaments, and pictograms tucked away into books I haven't read, mixed in with notes about pointless meetings, hovering behind the creases on my forehead. The sense of burgeoning returns. The sense of coalescing.

Perhaps it started as I drove away at dusk, asking myself "What I am doing?" Of course, I am always asking myself that, over and over again, with every breath and every unexpected shift in energy. But this time the words were clear and crisp in my mind. Like autumn. "It is just autumn, it is just autumn, it is just autumn" beats something inside me, something looking for reassurance. And when I got to the coffee shop there was a picture of a woman who looked like me on the Dia de los Muertos altar. I tried not to stare at her too much as I attempted to read. Her picture, at the back of the altar, was underneath a sign that read, "Do not light a candle too close to the wall." I can't even light a candle for my doppelganger.

But wait. That is not really where it all began. I want to tell the story of the beginning; I want to find its pulse. I want to feel the beat of the beginning under my fingertips, under the curve of flesh over bone, skin on skin. The shimmery movement. Except the pulse that I feel doesn't seem to be the right one. Perhaps it is a question of beginnings. The human desire for a starting point. My desire for this to be a story, and I, presumably, to be the protagonist. Or the narrator. Maybe it is simply the power of narration that the postmodernists and the neuroscientists blink at, somewhat blinded, pupils tightened, mesmerized by the glare.

What it really comes down to is that I cannot settle on a metaphor. Hell, even "settle" is a metaphor. The verb has 32 different uses, didya know that? Including "to become pregnant; conceive." So, I cannot conceive of a metaphor. I have been carrying around my scribbles, my metaphors like ova, awaiting fertilization. Carrying metaphova around like a secret. Waiting for something to germinate. But it appears that I am not, metaphorically speaking, getting any. So my lovely metaphova can only wait in the mottled light of my ribcage, curled in on themselves like a fist. They can't implant themselves in anything fleshy or bloody or smelling of the earth.

My metaphova. I have been thinking about the stillness near the ground. I have been thinking about tectonic plates. Of things slowly shifting beneath my feet, even though I am standing still. Of things carried by currents. Of currents. Of sea ice breaking free from the Arctic shelf. Of the movement of icebergs. Of icy landscapes bearing silent witness to the sky.

I have been thinking about all the things with wings. All the things with wings. All the things with wings. I have been thinking of birds nesting along my spine, once at each chakra. The hummingbird at my sacrum, the bluebird in my heart, and so on. And the tiniest bird in my mouth, nestled in the curve of my tongue. Breaking stems off my words for bedding. Being fed with each kiss.

I have been thinking about the people I buy birthday presents for. How I want them to nest along my spine, too. I guess in some way they already do; that is where the dreams of them reside. The dream of Chris curled up with the bluebird, the dream of my mother curled up with an egret. The mixing of the material with the immaterial. The mixing of metaphor.

I mean metaphova.

Whatova. This took so long to write that I don't even really feel this way anymore. Except, maybe, for the bird on my tongue part.

This blog entry brought to you by my current song obsessions.

"In time you need to learn to love the ebb just like the flow"

I enjoy people who find this whole being alive thing fascinating and perplexing. Up to and including Andrew Bird.

I may have listened to "Armchairs" about 22 times in the last 5 hours. But, whatever.

What I think about at coffee shops instead of doing whatever it was that I went to the coffee shop to do.

Warning - I am a dork when it comes to language and embodiment. Read on at your own risk.

So I was sitting at Epoch and they started playing Modest Mouse. I started thinking about how Modest Mouse makes me feel a sense of unidentifiable longing, how it sounds bittersweet. Which then led me to thinking about the word bittersweet. It is interesting to describe a sound as bittersweet, since it is a word derived from the sense of taste. But really the meaning of the word comes from using taste as a metaphor for experience - how an experience that feels/tastes bitter can actually simultaneously feel/taste sweet. So I made a brief attempt to find other words like bittersweet, which led to the discovery that one of the definitions of bittersweet is "A dark to deep reddish orange," which I didn't know. (Interestingly, if I had to pick some colors for Modest Mouse, they would not be red and orange. Green, maybe?) Which is now adding the sense of sight to the word "bittersweet," in addition to the sense of taste, which I am now using to describe a sound.

Which then brings us to the lovely doorstep of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, who argue that language is inherently embodied. We use our experience of our bodies to construct language which we then use to create metaphors about our experience of life, feelings and thoughts. Meaning that language is fundamentally about the body, not about the mind, as we tend to think. Meaning we can't understand our minds unless we first understand our experience of our bodies. (I wrote about this over here and here, if you want more language and embodiment dorkiness)

So, in summation, life is bittersweet and I want to go dancing. Which is what I have been saying all these years. Which is what I am always trying to say.

I Love Math

"Comedians, they understand how sad it is to tell a joke, but only clowns are scary, it's the truth."

So I found this band I like - I Love Math - but I am too tired/busy to get all obsessed with them. Can someone get obsessed in my stead and then report back to me? They've got that whole alt country thing going on, although the sound is less country and more indie, so if there is some whole genre of music out there like that, then they probably belong to it.

Thanks!

I'm officially old.

A student who works in our office just asked, "Who is Public Enemy?" My co-worker and I just shook our heads and walked away.

It's crazy jazz harp, man.

Am I going to go to jazz hell if I like Alice Coltrane more than John Coltrane? Because I do.

Ocean of Noise

I am not obsessed with either Project Playlist or The Arcade Fire. But I did find the Arcade Fire song that I am not allowed to listen to because it makes me feel things.

And here are the lyrics, in case you want to sing along while crying, rocking back and forth, and thinking about all your failed relationships. And who doesn't want that, really?

In an ocean of noise
I first heard your voice
Ringing like a bell
As if I had a choice, oh well!

Left in the morning
While you were fast asleep
Into an ocean of violence
A world of empty streets

You've got your reasons
And me I've got mine
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time

In an ocean of noise
I first heard your voice
Now who hear among us
Still believes in choice?
Not I!

No way of knowing
What any man will do
An ocean of violence
Between me and you

You've got your reasons
And me I've got mine
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time

I'm gonna work it out
Cause time wont work it out
I'm gonna work it out
Cause time wont work it our for you
I'm gonna work it on out

Maybe I can listen to those old Springsteen songs.

Let's play a game! See if you can guess the existential theme I am currently pondering based upon the songs I have been listening to.

Next Anticipated Existential Theme: Every piece of land is sacred.

Dear loyal readers (and anthropomorphized characterization of my sweet bloggity blog itself),

I am not sure how much writing I will be doing here in the next few weeks. I think I have entered the ebb phase of my bloggity blogging cycle. I keep meaning to write about the Manu Chao concert and can't seem to actually get around to doing so. It can be pretty much summed up thusly - las únicas palabras que necesito saber en español son mi corazón, la luna, y esperanza.

If you want to know what I am up to, it is probably one of the following: working, dancing, schooling, having trouble sleeping, hanging out with friends, wondering about what it all means, or going to an al-anon meeting. You know, the usual. So, until the writing bug comes around again - peace out, yo.

P.S. Send men!

Las únicas palabras que necesito saber en español son mi corazón, la luna, y esperanza.

Okay, I finally have a little bit of time to write about the Manu Chao concert. Of course, I have never been one of those people who remembers every single song that was played at a show, let alone in order, AND the show was four days ago AND I don't really speak Spanish, so I am not sure exactly what the hell I am going to write about. Other than that the show was great. And that I think Manu Chao and Michael Franti should go on tour together. And possibly take over the world.

Nothing's lamer than posting song lyrics in a blog. But whatever...

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne, she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Maybe I have been here before, I know this room; I have walked this floor, I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, it's a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

There was a time you let me know whats really going on below, but now you never show it to me, do you? (and)
Remember when I moved in you; the holy dark was moving too, and every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Maybe there's a God above, and all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And its not a cry you can hear at night, its not somebody who's seen the light, its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu--jah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu---u---jah

(As usual, it's better with the music. The Rufus Wainright version is here, and the Jeff Buckley version is here)

Okay, so it's not what he's listening to at that very moment, but still...

Do you ever find yourself sitting around wondering what David Byrne is listening to at that very moment? I know I do!

Well, now you can find out! Just visit Radio David Byrne.

Pete Yorn: Continuing to grow on me

"convince yourself that everything is alright
cause it already is"

(It's better with the music)