I want to open up these silent cords, move your heart to tears of joy

I will throw myself into the ocean
Dive head first into a pearl factory
Clams will work me till I’m lovely
I’ll become a diamond in the sea



Ruby Parasols show Saturday night

on my favorite park, and missing eucalyptus trees.

The Kettle Song (in the park)

Sounds of Lyon Fell | MySpace Video

Please check out my dear friend Trevor's latest project, music I honestly would love even were he not my friend. And if you happen to be currently living in San Francisco, try to catch a show!

i'm just trying to be a human being

The Glass House, 15 April 2008



Everyone I see I think I've known before
From the opera house to the grocery store
My love for them I cannot ignore
Like a human voice in a quiet morgue

But I don't want to wear no dead man's suit
I don't want to wait until the moon turns blue
I don't want to dream if it won't come true--
If there's something in me, well, I guess it's in you

[Photo thanks to PennLive.com]

West Hollywood, 12.06.08

Over the Rhine

"is there only one religion
the kind that whispers
when nobody comes around?
the world can wait
the world can wait
i want to drink the water from your well
i want to tell you things i'll never tell..."
-The World Can Wait

[i find myself] in rainbows

08.20.08
White River Amphitheatre

[a short list of films greatly appreciated by the author since January]

The Darjeeling Limited (how I love Wes Anderson).
I'm Not There (the Bob Dylan biopic--Cate Blanchett is incredible; plus good screenwriting, camera shots, acting, and soundtrack, of course).
Transamerica (a compassionate, endearing, and hilarious look at life as a transgendered person, in the form of a cross-continental roadtrip; Felicity Huffman won an Oscar for this one).
Becoming Jane (the slightly exaggerated story of Jane Austen, and with a sort of painful and true ending; and yes, I realize I love Anne Hathaway far more than I probably should).
Everything is Illuminated (Elijah Wood plays a young Jewish man in a very funny and poignant search for pre-Holocaust lost roots in Ukraine).
The Painted Veil (an on-location beautifully filmed and rending love story between a young British bacteriologist fighting a cholera outbreak in rural 1920s China and his less than affable, unfaithful bride (Naomi Watts). Edward Norton at his best).
Girl with a Pearl Earring (a treat for the senses).

(And by now, hopefully all readers have seen Juno, Into the Wild, and Once.)

it won't be long now, baby

Friday night we went to see our friend Joe play at a Santa Barbara coffee shop. Musically, it was good listening: his sound is a sort of Conor Oberst/Iron & Wine/Sufjan/A Weather conglomerate, but he also works with his own harmonies and enlists those of friends Brett and Phil (see blogroll). The song lineup was thoughtful, too; in between, he told us the true story of a teenage girl who committed suicide a few years ago.

I write about it because, to be honest, it was kind of a difficult show to sit in on. The story woven between each song felt sharp, private. It was as if the suicide had just happened, and the girl's family were the ones on stage, the ones testifying to the pain and despair we find in each other.

I think it's more comfortable when we don't have to look so hard for the hope, when redemption sits placated and prominent on a throne. I think it's a little awkward for Joe to sing songs like these. We're not used to such bareness! We look at our feet and try not to find ourselves familiar with our aloneness; we smile tight little smiles to soothe away despair.

Joe sings, "These roads won't last long...and at least we'll have some stories to tell." I pray we adopt his honesty along the way.

"Afterwards Aaron came out front and talked and played some Dylan and the Spider songs, and a few others. He has this mustard seed kind of faith. Like he's constantly second guessing himself- such a small faith, so qualified you'd think it would be invalidated...but it was strong...

I wanted to ask him about being afraid of God and why following Christ is so painful. But then again he talked about how pretty much "life is shit and I have joy and its from this big thing people call God and that's about all I understand." I feel like my life is ringing. I don't know what to make of myself. Nothing perhaps. Aaron was talking about colleges and marriages and kids and how that's good, go live what you need to live, try what you need to try, but ask yourself if that's really what you're looking for and talking about how it all fades, we all die. And I've heard that a million times but never by someone who looks like they're living it. And I've never heard someone advocate singleness so explicitly before.

Shadow am I. There was this one moment where this girl just getting shoved past me and kinda looking panicked and...well, I'd say I put my arm around her but it was kinda just how the push of the crowd went at first. But I don't know...this is gonna sound really weird and cliché, but it felt right to be defending/reassuring someone in that crazy mess, and also just to be with someone in it. It wasn't sexual at all...I give up trying to explain it...but it was very different from the moment later when this girl is dancing on my arm and I'm like "is she hitting on me, does she even realize I'm here, and this is making me feel very uncomfortable but I want that touch." Oi.

I don't know...do you guys ever feel that way...like if someone kissed you on the cheek or touched you, you'd just fall apart and start crying...I don't know...I've had way too many moments like that this semester, though most of the time the touch never comes anyway. And sometimes I feel like my self-control is killing me."


James sent us this message about seeing the same show Trevor and I just saw (only in Oklahoma). We (my roommate Bethany and I) read it and cried. We pulled our other roommate in with us to strum guitar and sing a quiet song, to pray sparse, stuttering prayers. We held each other for a few precious minutes.

What else can we do but go on, but try to see His face? There is nothing else, there is nothing else. And I don't know what to do but to keep going, to cling to these moments like surface gasps of air, like water in a parched land, like something to hold as we drown. We follow, even as we carry each other.

we'd sit in the room, listening to albums on vinyl
burning incense
talking about shows like we were savvy critics
playing mix tapes to sing along
thanks for sharing mewithoutYou with me all those years ago, sam.



Trevor and I drove down to LA last night for the show. mewithoutYou was only opening, but even those 30 minutes were so beautiful. Thrice was amazing, of course, and even though I was, confessedly, a bit skeptical of Brand New, they were so emotionally charged and raw during their whole, long set. At least live, I am sold on them.

Nelly and a friend met us outside The Wiltern for some genuine Chinese bean-sauce noodles at a hole-in-wall place and then bad but welcome cups of coffee from Denny's while we waited in line. We saw Aaron going through the trash (read my favorite interview with him here: http://www.bustedhalo.com/features/BustedAaronWeissmewithoutYoupart1.htm) and awkwardly said hello. He offered us pieces of pizza, but we were so full.

The drive home held more music, especially Radiohead (of course), crunchy green apples and good conversation. There's nothing really to say, except that I want to be part of this truth-telling, this way of writing things so true that it hurts and offends and feeds all at once. I want to eat truth like bread each day. I want to swim in it like the ocean, feel its waves crash around me. I want to know it communally, with others. I don't know how these musicians write songs that are so true- how they verbalize that we're "playing around with matchsticks when we could be utterly changed to flame," that we "do the best we can." We're so small and weak and incapable, but He says we'll overcome. Oh, doubters. "We desire truth in the inmost parts," a friend reminds me. And I want to remind others.

There was almost a desperation hanging over the entire show... a desperation seeping into us, a desperation we partook in.


"i was once the wine, and you,
you were the wineglass
i was once alive, when, when You held me"