May 2011
That awkward moment where it's better down where it's wetter.
…Under the Sea…get your mind out of the gutter, sheesh!
“
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
- W. H. Auden
Bridget Zinn, a writer whose blog I’d followed for years, has died. (She had cancer. She was 33.) I didn’t know her at all except as a fan of her storytelling. Even so, I was reminded of this great poem by W. H. Auden, which I love because it is unafraid to be angry and despondent in the face of loss.
(via fishingboatproceeds)
Listen
Morning Benders - “Lovefool” (Cardigans cover)
Yes please.
Every time my BFF and I heard “Lovefool” by The Cardigans, it was our signal that good times were ahead. This cover is phenomenal, and I think good times are, indeed, ahead. :)
“We get up early just to start cranking the generator.”
—
Generator ^ First Floor by Freelance Whales
Freelance Whales, you have perfectly captured the monotony of my life right now. (via snapevssnape)
(I seriously hope they work the groundhog into one of their next songs…)
Play
WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
Waking up on Christmas morning in the “big girl bed” Santa brought for me.
Oh, New York
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company…
— E.B White “Here is New York” from Essays of E.B White
