I ask you…is there anyone out there who loves Dave Grohl as much as I do?
“I want to see some big, fat, purple hickeys. No one gives hickeys anymore. I used to wear hickey necklaces. I used to wear hickey belts.”
–Dave Grohl
*swoon!*
Last Sunday afternoon, my darling cute piglet husband and I were on a date, and we ended up perusing the shelves at Bluestocking Books, a really fab used bookstore here in San Diego. We walked in and almost right away we each found a priceless treasure to take home with us for our very own.
It was as though these objects had been playing coy with all the other customers who had come to court them, while patiently waiting for us to spirit them away and adore them. For all I know, perhaps they had.
For my sweet Fuckbunny, an unopened, boxed 4 CD set of Django Reinhardt — for whom we both verily live — for $21…and for me, a copy of “Ariel Ascending”, a collection of essays about the life and writing of Sylvia Plath, edited by Plath scholar and biographer Paul Alexander. It was just a tad bit water-warped up on top, but it cost me a mere $3. Three measley simolians for pure bliss — can you even imagine? I was so goddamned excited, I snatched it from the shelf, held it to my bosom in unmitigated glee, closed my eyes — and almost peed right there…hovering next to a twirly metal display stand filled with the clever and illuminating postcards of Stella Marrs. (If you must do snail mail, kids, trust me — send Stella. There IS no substitute.)
The niftiest thing we found, however, was something that we unfortunately couldn’t buy, bag up, and take with us, as it belonged to the owners of the store: a small, worn poster — created by the Syracuse Cultural Workers — listing the many ways in which people can work towards building community. Its message pleased me no end.
The minute I got home, of course, I immediately looked for it online — and I present it here now, for your community-building education and enlightenment.
Learn from new and uncomfortable angles.
And pass it on.
How to Build Community
Turn off your TV
Leave your house
Know your neighbors
Greet people
Look up when you are walking
Sit on your stoop
Plant flowers
Use your library
Play together
Buy from local merchants
Share what you have
Help a lost dog
Take children to the park
Honor elders
Support neighborhood schools
Fix it even if you didn’t break it
Have pot luck dinners
Garden together
Pick up litter
Read stories aloud
Dance in the street
Talk to the mail carrier
Listen to the birds
Put up a swing
Help carry something heavy
Barter for your goods
Start a tradition
Ask a question
Hire young people for odd jobs
Organize a block party
Bake extra and share
Ask for help when you need it
Open your shades
Sing together
Share your skills
Take back the night
Turn up the music
Listen before you react to anger
Mediate a conflict
Seek to understand
Learn from new and uncomfortable angles
Know that no one is silent, though many are not heard
Work to change this
Author: Karen Serney SCW, Syracuse Cultural Workers
http://www.syrculturalworkers.org
Several of the marvelous dames on my lj friends list have listed their current top ten fave songs — and have thus inspired me to ponder my very own.
Of course, being the greedy, guzzling bitchhawg that I am, limiting myself to merely ten just simply didn’t cut it. I am such a hedonist pig.
In no particular order:
1. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding — Elvis Costello
2. Everlasting Love — U2
3. Foggy Eyes — Beat Happening
4. God Only Knows — The Beach Boys
5. I Only Wanna Be With You — The Bay City Rollers
6. Brandy — Looking Glass
7. I Want You Back — The Jackson 5
8. Rocky Top — The Osborne Brothers
9. Reflections — The Supremes
10. Within You, Without You — George Harrison
11. Rock Star — Hole
12. Debaser — The Pixies
13. Ring of Fire — Johnny Cash
14. Hurt — Johnny Cash
15. A Boy Named Sue — Johnny Cash
16. Cannonball — The Breeders
17. Baby Got Back — Sir Mix-A-Lot
18. Blackbird — Paul McCartney
19. Bernadette — The Four Tops
20. Delilah — Tom Jones
21. Across The Universe — John Lennon
22. Sexual Healing — Marvin Gaye
23. Breed — Nirvana
24. My Maria — B.W. Stevenson
25. Galveston — Glenn Campbell
I am currently working on a piece to be submitted to Mamaphonic — an anthology of essays by mamas, who also happen to be artists, explaining just how it is that they maintain their art, their space, their vision — and their sanity — in the overwhelmingly blissful and crazed world that is motherhood.
It is a theme on which I have ruminated deeply for some time, and I was glad for the impetus to finally spit it out when Bee and Maia made their call for submissions. It is a worthwhile and interesting subject, indeed, particularly for our generation — the generation who created and perfected truly independent record labels, DOGME 95, and the zine and self-publishing — and that very much embraces the DIY aesthetic on so many different levels (sometimes as art, sometimes as economic necessity — and more often than not, as both…)
As mothers, we have already created infinite beauty for the world; our children are that perfection.
As artists, we will continue to do so, as well — just as soon as the fucking laundry and dishes get done, that is.
Somebody hand me the Calgon…and a fistful of Percodan while you’re at it, baby.
From Bee and Maia:
Do you have a toddler seat strapped in the back of the tour van? Do you write poetry while the baby naps? Have you discovered that becoming a mother has changed not only your daily life but the content of your creative work? Mamaphonic is an anthology of writing about mothering, the creative process, and reciprocity within the artistic community. The book will include confessions and conversations about the true, exhilarating, entertaining, and difficult aspects of remaining creative while raising kids.
We are seeking literary first-person nonfiction essays of 2,000 – 4,000 words. Queries are encouraged. We are interested in hearing from mothers participating in all aspects of art, writing, music, puppetry, performance, film, photography, independent publishing, or any other creative endeavor. We are seeking diverse views on subjects such as: children as muses, how an artist’s daily life is changed after becoming a mother, how women balance their work and creative process with motherhood, and the specific influence of parenting on career trajectory and expectations. Although we are primarily concerned with the positive influences motherhood can have on the artistic process, we are also interested in the challenges motherhood brings to the working artist and how those challenges are met and overcome.
Edited by Bee Lavender and Maia Rossini and published by Soft Skull Press (http://www.softskull.com), the book will also include a compendium of practical resources for working artistic mothers. Compensation includes $50 and two review copies. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2003.
Please forward this message extensively.
Hard copies can be mailed to:
Mamaphonic c/o Hip Mama PO Box 28870 Seattle, WA 98118
Email queries and submissions:
submissions@mamaphonic.com
http://www.mamaphonic.com
i am a lifelong theatre geek, and although i adore the work of katharine hepburn — and readily admit to a serious worship of sorts in regard to her pose (and oh, what a glorious pose it was, goddamnit) — i have waited a LONG TIME to offer up the following edict…which contains within it my opinion on where this splendid and ballsy dame ranked in the world of theatre and film:
*clears throat dramatically*
now that katharine hepburn has died…every actress in the world may officially move up ONE NOTCH.
rest in peace, dear kate…and know that you will be missed.
Librarian
I have loved a hundred men —
Traveled the earth, sought them out, perused
The cafes, cathedrals, universities, auto
Shops, seaports, and hardware stores, acquiring each
Of them, a hundred strong, judging none
By just his cover. They are catalogued
All, sordid and filed, eager for my hands
To pluck, like posturing books from a potent shelf —
Waiting for me to flutter their pages,
Caress their spine, and preen their gilded edges.
They vie to seduce me with their blurbs, and impress
Me with the grandness of their frontispiece. I mouth
Their names, with a shake of the coils at my nape.
I love them all the same —
One who paints my toenails like rich,
Italian tiles; And One who tells me
My eyes are the exact color of his first
Car, a ’69 Camaro Rally Sport,
With tuck and roll upholstery.
One who stoically bears my shame,
Gallantly returning the videos three
Days late, paying my fines
With coins of his own making;
And One who paints cerulean doors, bakes yams,
And reads Roethke aloud, like a warrior-poet.
One, watchless, who tells perfect time
By a graceful glance at a certain slant
Of light tilting in through a bedroom window;
And One who visits me in my dreams, whispering
Alchemical equations in French, altering
The composition of my leaden heart.
One who can tinker with a car and drink a beer,
While discussing Libertarian theory
And the space/time continuum;
And One who wields a hockey stick
Like a hammer of the gods, then stops
And buys me tampons on his victorious
Journey home from the icy northern rink.
One who charts the stars
From a vessel named ‘Dissent’;
One who roars The Wasteland
As he staggers in the snow;
One who eats thunderous apples
To fill my sullen silence;
One whose cruel, sensuous strides
Knife the air he moves through;
And One who weeps
At the sound
Of bagpipes.
I am their mistress and their keeper, these
Bound brothers, lined side by side
On the possessive shelves of my gallery.
It is my imprint between their covers.
No other book lovers are allowed to browse
My special collection, with their overdue root
Touch-ups, their screeching heels, their false
Beauty marks penciled on like dewy
Decimals, and their endless trails of perfume
On-recon. And if, peering over the top
Of my jealous spectacles, I should ever catch
Them there, sashaying my aisles,
I will raise one vengeful finger to my lips,
And shush them into nothingness.
— Muffy Bolding
and at it again with a vengeance.
They are vermicious little twerps with cloying voices and wall eyes that hungrily follow me to both sides of the room at once…as I split into two halves in a desperate attempt to get the fuck away from their ever-prying inquiries.
Upon their own reluctant, embittered awakening to the day, they immediately demand to know precisely what time I went to sleep — and upon hearing my answer, their mouths curl into a terrifying leer, their eyes narrow greedily, and their lips move as if in unholy prayer…while their fingers shuffle and shift under the covers like spidery, nacreous-tipped abaci, and they slowly count out just exactly how many hours of sleep I got.
It is never enough.
For even if I somehow achieve their strongly suggested 17 hours at a stretch (usually possible only with absinthe, cat-gut sutures, and the blunt side of a pick-axe applied directly to the temporal lobe), they then begin to whine about “quality sleep”, and barometric pressure, and sensory deprivation tanks, and delivering oneself totally and completely — as a martyr to the cross — into the clutching claws of Morpheus…which is ironic, since they themselves rarely dream.
I dream, though…of a world where the fucking Sandman wears no nimbus…and night closes tight like a lid, and the stars splinter and shatter and rain down their icy cosmic guano forever onto the heads of those who would subdue me.
Today was the birthday of America, and tomorrow is the birthday of my dear, Sweet Piglet. I love him so very, very much. He is the most darlingest, the most lovingest, the most brilliantest, and absolutely the most sexiest (even though he doesn’t really know it).
He teaches me all kinds of valuable schtuff — like about cozy, comfy bedding…and the bliss of IKEA…and all the good, cheap hippie food to be had at Trader Joe’s…and the importance of daily hydration…and Olympia…and amazing music…and good pizza vs. bad pizza…and the possibilty of Paris…and the possibility of magic…and the presence of sweetness and love every day of my life.
Oh, and he chows the serious muff, too.
I like him alot (even when I wake up in the middle of the night and, mistaking him for a Ring-Wraith, take a mouse-fisted swing at him). I am going to keep him.
I can’t wait to see what he is going to look like when he is old. Okay, so maybe I can wait — but it will be fun strolling around with him when he is wearing cute, old Jewish man shoes and complaining about his lumbago.
I will feed him homemade matzoh ball soup and tenderly kiss his lumbago for him — whatever a lumbago is.
muffy bolding 