Nrrrd Grrrl / MC Chris

Man, this is such an infectious song. Fun, sweet, danceable. I’ve had it in my head since the wedding we went to in Atlanta where it was played, so appropriately, at the newlyweds’ reception. I hadn’t heard anything from MC Chris since his silly Star Wars days and I’ve gotta say, he’s stepped up his game.

Where You Go When She Sleeps

What is it when a woman sleeps, her head bright
In your lap, in your hands, her breath easy now as though it had never been
Anything else, and you know she is dreaming, her eyelids
Jerk, but she is not troubled, it is a dream
That does not include you, but you are not troubled either,
It is too good to hold her while she sleeps, her hair falling
Richly on your hands, shining like metal, a color
That when you think of it you cannot name, as though it has just
Come into existence, dragging you into the world in the wake
Of its creation, out of whatever vacuum you were in before,
And you are like the boy you heard of once who fell
Into a silo full of oats, the silo emptying from below, oats
At the top swirling in a gold whirlpool, a bright eddy of grain, the boy
You imagine, leaning over the edge to see it, the noon sun breaking
Into the center of the circle he watches, hot on his back, burning
And he forgets his father’s warning, stands on the edge, looks down,
The grain spinning, dizzy, and when he falls his arms go out, too thin
For wings, and he hears his father’s cry somewhere, but is gone
Already, down in a gold sea, spun deep in the heart of the silo,
And when they find him, he lies still, not seeing the world
Through his body but through the deep rush of grain
Where he has gone and can never come back, though they drag him
Out, his father’s tears bright on both their faces, the farmhands
Standing by blank and amazed - you touch that unnamable
Color in her hair and you are gone into what is not fear or joy
But a whirling of sunlight and water and air full of shining dust
That takes you, a dream that is not of you but will let you
Into itself if you love enough, and will not, will never let you go.

Wish List / Jets to Brazil

Thanks to Spotify, I’ve lately been listening to albums that I used to love. While most haven’t aged well, Perfecting Loneliness, the 3rd and final album released by Jets to Brazil, sounds better than ever. Wish List is one of those things-may-suck-but-I-will-conquer anthems that I love so much, with a little more cheer than malaise.

Lovely Head / Goldfrapp

Having slow sex with a ghost is exactly what this song reminds me of. So seductive and unsettling.

I watched six or seven of these during my lunch break yesterday, and I can’t get over it. It hurts my stomach to laugh this much.

I’ll Believe in Anything (Wolf Parade Cover) / Her Space Holiday

Her Space Holiday is honestly one of the most underwhelming bands I’ve ever loved. I think part of their beauty is that they make that underwhelming quality work for them, somehow.

That said, they’ve taken a song that I love for its gravity and made it into a light little ditty. I never would’ve imagined it like this, but that doesn’t keep me from nodding and toe-tapping along.

Cabrini-Green closed today. The article is a little heartbreaking—the place may have been dangerous and violent, but it was home to so many, and clearly they aren’t all excited about leaving.

Cabrini-Green residents have next to nothing, so taking away the only home they’ve known for however long, even in the name of good progress, hurts my heart.

This has been in my head all day.

the one to worry about

I failed miserably at imaging nothing.

Something always came to keep me company:

A small nameless bug crossing the table,

The memory of my mother, the ringing in my ear.

I was distracted and perplexed.

A hole is invariably a hole in something.

About seven this morning, a lone beggar

Waited for me with his small, sickly dog,

Whose eyes grew bigger on seeing me.

There goes, the eyes said, that nice man

To whom (appearances to the contrary)

Nothing in this whole world is sacred.

I was still a trifle upset entering the bakery

When an unknown woman stepped out

Of the back to wait on me dressed for a night

Out on the town in a low-cut, tight-fitting black dress.

Her face was solemn, her eyes averted,

While she placed a muffin in my hand,

As if all along she knew what I was thinking

DOO-WOP

He believes the tar pits hold bones but preserve
no emotions, and he believes space is matter.
He still thinks a kiss with full lips transformative,
the hope of a country boy with an uncultivated
heart, from the era of doo-wop and secret sex,
when the music was corny, cliched and desperate
like teenage love. Who now will admit that poetry
got its start there, in the loneliness that made love
from a song on red wax, from falsetto nonsense.
Who does not know that time passing passes on
sadness? A splinter of a song lyric triggers shards
of memory and knots in his gut. He regrets he was
lashed to the mast when the sirens called. He
believes the sea is not what sank or what washes
up. There are nights the moon scares him.