chapbooks

hybrid covers

this week...

say hi

Red, Righteous, and Divine

Hosanna

Trying to Understand the Ununderstandable

Trans Am (the car)

If You're Not White

Communist

Lost

Deal Breaker

Rose Garden

Lately

Pissed Off People

What Still Remains

Just For Now

This Little Light

Believe

God Of Thunder

Change

For Years

If I Had A Gun

Suckerpunch

listened to "To Bring You My Love" (for the bazilionth time); so good, some think her best

I read "A Mark on the Wall" by Virgina Woolf for , like, the 3rd time. Just so incredibly clever.

watching the Derry Girls series again; the opening scene of the very first episode... "Are you reading my diary?!"...hahahhahahah

Sam Cooke live at the Harlem Club in Miami, is a thing of beauty. For real. Seek that out online and just bathe in it. I listen to that, probably, 5 or 6 times a month, all the way through. It's better than any meds ever.

I've read "ConsiderThe Lobster" a bunch of times, but every time, DFW's voice rings in a different way. Def...gone too young and too soon.

There's an Everybody Loves Raymond episode where everyone is hacking on Frank, and he just wants breakfast and he says "What the hell is going on here?!". More true words, perhaps, have never been spoken.

heard Illinoise for the first time this week; I don't think of it as hearing "new music", because I do like SS, and have listened to, and thoroughly enjoyed, Carrie and Lowell and Age Of Adz, but I'm admittedly late the the party here. LOVED this record. I may need to make space in my heart (maybe somewhere between PJH, AOF, BD, PS, and ELH) for Sufjan. Man, good record. WOW.

I found out that my mother read The Idiot when she was....get this....NINNNNEEE!; having, myself, just completed Brothers Karamazov and years before, Crime And Punishment, my journey with the Idiot has begun.

Watching the series Barry. Again, late to the party. (btw, I don't really care about being slow to unearth something for myself. I don't need to be on the front end of every new thing. Just sayin'...) But Barry; Bill Hader...hahhahahahhaha. And his character seems super cool and earnest and sincere. To me. For an assassin.

I think Aladdin Sane may be criminally underated. There are BANNGers on that record. Again, must be listened to slightly too loud on headphones for full effect.

I read an article in the Atlantic (RSS feed) reflecting on Pete Hegseth and the Signal...mixup (??). It was surely biased, as is almost everything, we see and read, one way or another, but ya; it was a good example of how we perceive accountability. This is a crazy time for that. Surely for myself, I have not been held accountable for some of my transgressions, but I sure have for some of them. I"m not sure it's a horrible thing to look yourself in the mirror, pretty intently, on the regular.

The Quiet Girl is an all-timer for me. It's not just a movie about how great it is to be finally noticed and cared for. It's also about what a gift it is to notice and care, deeply, for people we love, not just emotionally, but in real tangible ways.

Pasty Cline Greatest Hits; of course modern Best Of albums don't really count as 'albums', right...? Cuz we actually do have albums; but back in the day (Hank Williams etc) it's kinda all we had in terms of albums; my lord, that PC GH...is it ever good

I don't read many modern authors; the list is short, for sure, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, DFW, etc; Stewart O'Nan...his books are dear to my soul. They're all a slow burn, of sorts, which suits me just jolly well fine indeed.

Finally saw Marty Supreme; my sister and I got into it a bit, Sinners vs. MS. I get, 100, why S won the Oscar, but MS...c'mon. Felt like you were right there in NY, you know? Kinda like A Complete Unknown that way.

It's totally my own fault for not realizing what a monster guitar player Paul Simon is; that debut is a thing from the god's

I hadn't really delved into Walden much, but I think I was surprised at how deeply it resonated with me. I suppose I should've have been, considering my penchant for the simple, and uncomplicated. Ya, huge shock on the verdict: Thoreau is good. :-)

Is it odd that The Andy Griffith Show is something I'll likely be watching for the rest of my days? So peaceful and simple, and all those actors are SO great. Just such a tonic, for times such as these, no?

For anyone who is on the road to sobriety, I'd love to know if it gets any easier...at some point. Actually, if it doesn't, I'd rather not know. :-)

So, Julien Baker is pretty much a rock goddess, no? Like such a monster talent, in so many ways, and she SO looks the part, you know? And omg...so conflicted. Clearly she's working through it all, but damn; girl knows how to talk through her baggage.

-there's a quote from George Eliot that goes something like “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” hahahhahahahhahahahah. Mary Ann is indeed an all-timer.

I've been a fan of Nate Bargatze for quite some time. I like the clean stuff; I don't need it...Anthony Jeselnik and Sarah Silverman are two of my total faves, for sure, but Nate's pretty low intensity, and he's someone I could share with my parents. The UFC thing at the White House...I knew he was an evangelical christian, full stop, and I was thinking he, likely....?, would've been a pretty staunch right wing Republican, and none of that would've (or did) stop me from downloading, and paying, and clicking. But that event; he's always said he wasn't political, etc, etc, but at best that demonstrated complete tone-deaf-ness not thinking that didn't send some sort of message to his fanbase, and at worst, he really normalized something I struggle with. Can't do it anymore. And there are others I've said a sad goodbye to over the past years. But this one was tough.

I can only listen to music on the one streaming platform I use (Deezer) one a month, which is the last Friday of every month. Just rules I've set for myself; partially to keep the noise and mental clutter to a minimum, and partly because I"m a little ..."off"...:-). That said, I listened to new records by Jesse Welles and Courtney Barnet. They're both SO aware of what space they fill in this whole thing. Someone said once that CB "has nothing really to say", which I totally disagree with. I just think she's a gentle soul. I think JW is pretty calm too, but man, he's on the warpath. So glad I'm on the same side.

Flannery O'Conner; I've slept on FO. I am now fully awake!

I don't stream much, like almost not at all, but I am working through Cape Fear, the series. The two movies I quite liked, and man...people who know more about filmmaking can tell me more, but does it ever look good. Does it look like film? Is that what I'm supposed to be getting? Or is it just awesome? Super stylish in so many ways. And completely creepy; and I think every Taoist is allowed on creepy thing at time. I read that somewhere (I kid.)

If you're not a Canadian, I think this may still resonate; Summer McIntosh broke that WR a bit ago; it was that one from the early 2000s, the last one standing from what they called the "supersuit" era...these super slick suits that can't be used anymore. Apparently she REALLY wanted that one, and it had been around for a while. And she got it! She was thrilled. Super fun.

on YT, there are TONS of videos about digital minimalism, and how to detox, and get off your phone; they suggest strategies and such...hahahahaha...it's adorable. No shade or anything, just, dudes and dudettes will show you this whole system of how to do it. I have a flip phone, an mp3 player, all my music and movies on my own stored SSDs, zero socials, and zero streaming services. THAT, my friend, is digital minimalism. (By contrast, my beloved little sister and I refer to her iphone as her "life partner" and Chatgpt as her "intern".)

Nanci Griffith has that live album "Live, 1988, Anderson Fair". It's SO good, but there are moments of hilarity in it, some quite intentional because her quick wit, but others surely unintentional. She does 'Looking For The Time', and girl diiiggggs IN! Like, she delivers that sucker from the diaphragm, plays her guts out, and pretty much rocks out (not AOF here, but cum on...pretty vivacious indeed.) Then, right after, goes back to talking in her tiny little dear speaking voice. Super cute. VERY funny to me. Second item

I don't think I've mentioned that I'm a card carrying member of the Casey Affleck fan club (understanding of course that there's not actual card, this is just me being fun.). I watched him talk about his most iconic roles. Geez; just, seemingly, such a dear soul. Humble, soft spoken, and gracious; def saw hints of it in his acceptance speech at the Oscars, but this was cool to see him kinda of go into the weeds a bit.