Genealogy

"Genealogy"

This stream took a shorter course—
a thread of water that makes oasis

out of mud, in pooling,
does not aspire to lake. To river, leave

the forest, the clamorous wild.
I cannot. Wherever I am,

I am here, nonsensical, rhapsodic,
stock-still as the trees. Trickling

never floods, furrows its meager path
through the forest floor.

There will always be a root
too thirsty, moss that only swallows

and spreads. Primordial home, I am dying
from love of you. Were I tuber or quillwort,

the last layer of leaves that starts the dirt
or the meekest pond,

I would absorb everything.
I would drown. Water makes song

of erratic forms, and I hear the living
push back branches, wander off trail.

- by Jennifer Chang, from The History of Anonymity (2008)

Only Success Can Fail Me Now

When I was in middle school, my family got satellite Internet. It was a big deal: we lived on unincorporated land without access to public water or sewage. Having dial-up was exciting enough, but I was ready to explore the Internet within our new 200-megabyte-per-24-hours threshold.

Typing that now, I want to laugh.

By far, the most exciting prospect of having "high-speed" Internet was the ability to find new music. LimeWire was finally within my reach! There were about a hundred different bands I wanted to listen to, so I got to downloading. I could queue up two, maybe even three songs for download, and they'd be on my computer in an evening.

I felt like royalty.

Because these early (and admittedly, illegal and ethically-questionable) downloads were so scarce, I listened to those few songs constantly. I can still remember most of them: "Messes of Men" by mewithoutYou, "Saltwater" by Beach House, and lots of other indie pop that I was so proud of.

I still love those songs. To be honest, I'm probably more "hip" and self-righteous today than I was as a thirteen-year-old, but more on this later.

One of the most memorable songs I found was called "Only Success Can Fail Me Now," by Quasi. (Interestingly, the band was formed by ex-husband and -wife Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, later of Sleater-Kinney fame, who had decided they were better off as musical partners.) This song was one of their few I could find on LimeWire, and I snatched it up before listening obsessively. For months, I burned that song onto many mix CDs, because it was "cool" to listen to obscure bands from the Pacific Northwest.

At the same time, it was—and still is—a genuinely good song. Not the best song ever written, and maybe not even the best song on its album, but one that has stayed with me. Even now, a decade later, I find small surprises in the melody; the instrumentation. Who knows whether I'd feel the same appreciation if I listened to this song for the first time today? That's part of the beauty of truly loving a piece of music: it grows with you, through time and circumstance.

- "Only Success Can Fail Me Now" by Quasi, from Featuring "Birds" (1998)

Full Circle

As of this afternoon, I've been at home for exactly six days in the last eleven months. The last time I saw Missouri was in June.

Sitting in the Cleveland airport, I can hardly wait to get back.

- "I'm Comin' Home" by Murder by Death, from Red of Tooth and Claw (2008)

Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild

Last night I had a nutty dream.

I had taken shelter with a bunch of people in a building that looked like a hybrid of South Station and my former high school. We were there because of a bomb threat or something. I was alone, so I befriended this female scientist who looked remarkably like Annette O'Toole. She was there with her daughter, who was maybe like four years old. Everyone in the building was remarkably calm about the whole scenario. It seemed like everyone had adjusted to the anxiety of the situation. Because the atmosphere was so relaxed, this gaggle of kids, the scientist's daughter included, ran across the street to a convenience store. I was looking out the door when everything suddenly got super quiet and then these ear-splitting sirens began. The scientist was nowhere to be found, so I grabbed her kid and we ran across the station, which had somehow emptied out entirely in the course of like fifteen seconds. I carried her down the first promising doorway we found, which was a staircase into the basement. We sat in this space for a moment of overwhelming unease, and then these glass windows above us shattered as a bomb detonated. So we ran around the corner, back under the staircase and away from the open air, and we waited while the bombs continued to get louder and closer. The last thing I remember is trying to keep this girl completely enveloped and protected from debris as everything began to completely crumble around us.

Then I woke up.

I'm not particularly inclined to interpret dreams, but this one left me feeling a little uneasy. For all of the messed-up things I tend to imagine in my sleep, something about the kid in that dream really got to me as I was waking up.

I don't have anything particularly profound to say further about the topic, and will probably forget all about this dream in a matter of hours, but haphazardly typing this out seemed more fun than doing my homework.

And anyhow, this is what I'm listening to.

- "Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild" by Jonathan Richman, from Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild (2008)

No Moleste

Tig Notaro is a goddess among comedy mortals.

In 2012, a bunch of really bad stuff happened to her: she got pneumonia, and then this super-serious intestinal infection, and then her mom died unexpectedly, and then a big break-up with a long-term partner. Then she found out that she had cancer in both breasts, cancer which soon spread to her lymph nodes.

That's a lot.

But, in an unbelievable spirit of resilience, she decided to do a comedy set about it all. In August of 2012, she performed at Club Largo in Los Angeles, turning her miseries into a remarkably funny stand-up performance. The audio recording was eventually released as the album Live (like imperative verb that means "be alive!" and not like the adjective which means "happening right now"). It's great and I completely recommend it to anyone who hasn't yet heard it but likes to laugh or exist. Here is the set on YouTube.

But if you'd rather not listen to life-affirming jokes about cancer, here is another video of her from the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival in 2008. She talks about the "Do Not Disturb" signs in Mexican hotels.

Pet Grief

Dancing the morning away.

- The Radio Dept., "Sleeping In," from Pet Grief (2008)

Cooking with Cormac McCarthy

Pasta. Plain. But Good.

INGREDIENTS:
Pasta.
And salt.
And water.
And Fire.

DIRECTIONS:
Place the pasta in the water and the salt in the water and the water in the pot and the pot on the fire.
In the pot? The fire in the pot?
No. The water in the pot. The pot on the fire.
The pasta in the water?
Yes, in the water.
And the salt in the fire?
No. The salt in the water.
And the water on the fire?
No. The water in the pot and the pot on the fire. Not the water on the fire. For then the fire will die and dying be dead.
Nor will the water boil and the pasta will drain dry and not cooked and hard to the teeth.

The salt falls nor does it cease to fall.
The water boils. So be it.
Cease from placing your hand in the boiling water. Place your hand in the boiling water and it will cause you pain.
Much pain?
Very much pain.

In the pot the bubbles bubble up and bubble some more. The bubbles are bubbly. Never more bubbly bubbles bubbling bubbliest. And having bubbled the bubbles still bubbly.
Or bubblier?
Or bubblier.
Across the kitchen a board intended for chopping. Here. Take it. Chop.
What will I chop? There are no ingredients to chop.
Just chop. Don’t cease from chopping. To chop is to become a man.

After 10 minutes. The pasta stiff and dry and upright no more. The pasta lank and wet and soft. In the eternal damp of water.
Pour water free like some ancient anointing. The pasta left alone in the pot. Alone and naked.
The salt? Where’s the salt?
The salt is gone. Lost to the water and gone forever.
I grieve for the salt.
It is the salt for which I grieve.

Tip the pasta out.
The pasta?
Yes. Tip it out. Onto.
A plate?
Yes. And stop.
Finishing your sentences?
Yes.
Why?
Because it’s so.
Irritating?

Nothing in your memory anywhere of anything so good. Now the pasta is eaten. Disappeared. The pasta disappeared as everything disappeared. As the comma disappears and the semicolon disappears and the inverted comma disappears and the apostrophe disappears and the adjectives and the pronouns all disappear.
Leaving just full stops and And.
And And?
And And.
And And.

-Cormac McCarthy, from the December 2008 issue of Vanity Fair