recently I’ve been listening to Portishead again because it made me think of my art teacher in high school who I thought was super cool and she mentioned she had seen them play in Paris in the 90s and at the time I thought wow I can’t even imagine being in Europe at all I’m now I live in London a place than I wouldnt have thought I’d be back then so I started listening to them again from this other point in life that feels enitrly new and yet somehow completely purposeful It’s not as if I believe in fate or anything like that but listening to Portishead in London holds a little bit of magic to it that I have no other way of expressing so I am listening again and now as I write this ramble here because I am tired of internet spaces that feel chockablock with ads and people who exist to be walking ads themselves as if that made them some how better than normal people People whose Tupperware isn’t made of glass and they have jobs that aren’t glamorous or ”clean” that cannot be done wearing a jacquemus dress attempting to make gummies out of scratch with a voice so soft and monotone that it rides up into you like a spell So I am listening to Portishead which is a different kind of spell a waking up spell and writing this here now and hoping to find a space where people are just people and not ads.
Dec 20, 2024
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I know it’s a fairly common thing but I’ve recently come so fond of listening to two or three songs before I go to bed. In a way that I kind of just stare at the wall and think of the day and contemplate but I can’t help but feel (I know this sounds dumb) that it’s these like end credits to a really lovely movie. Except it’s my day?!!
I dunno very dumb. I sometimes try to fall asleep with this music playing in my ears or behind my head tucked beneath the pillow so I can prolong this like climactic emotional expression to capstone the day. It always frustrates me when I eventually do have to sleep, turn the music off, and go off to dream in the quiet ambience of my room. My brain does sometimes keep the music blasting even without my earphones though which is very kind.
Music I feel justifies all these things happening in my life. As if it doesn’t hold value if the songs I listen to aren’t played. It’s like you watch a movie that you just love and sorta sit in awe as the credits roll and the music swells. That’s how I feel about my day most nights! At least lately that is. Really lovely music squeezing my brain into an appreciative analysing ritual of the day.
I’m just yapping at this point but I can definitely attribute this to always having this deep urge for my life to amount to something worth telling a story about. I watch so many amazing movies and I think it would be such a waste to have the only amazing experiences I witness come from outside my life. Soooooooooo #romanticiseyourownlife I guess??
Just felt the need to express it. I had a good wall watching session just then listening to Broken Social Scenes album ‘You Forgot It In People’ (too many bangers) and I couldn’t help but speak my mind about it :)
Feb 17, 2025
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I’m human so I love music and it’s important to me but I’m not as curious and connected to the form as I am to writing or film, so the only way unfamiliar music enters my rotation is through listening to a radio show and discovering a song I love through that.
It might seem like an obvious one but just wanted to articulate for myself as it’s interesting to me the way everyone has different relationships to various art forms. I’m not into theatre in a big way and I’m really interested in naming why that is.… i Sense something about theatre being too focused on the actor, without the presence of a camera etc, without the context of location, without landscapes and animals and buildings and magical objects… I know there must be something meaningful in this preference which at the moment just comes off as not being cultured or sensitive enough….which I also find funny so I’m kinda digging my heels in for jokes.
Nov 29, 2024
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Growing up, my parents were divorced, so every other Friday my dad would pick up my sister and me, and we’d spend the evening shuttling back and forth between their houses—about an hour each way. He had a Sirius XM subscription, so the car rides were full of 70s on 7 and 80s on 8. He could hear the first few chords of a song and immediately dive into how it was made, the backstory behind it, or some random trivia about the artists. I still think about him explaining the story behind Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Just a Song Before I Go” or Eddie Van Halen’s solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”
It was such a fun way to think about music—not just as music, but sometimes as these tiny, collaborative moments of magic.
Not all the stories were fun, but they were always meaningful. Like today—I was listening to Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine, most of it for the first time. I now have this habit of reading reviews and learning about how an album was made after I listen—probably because of my dad being such a huge music nerd. This time, it led me down a rabbit hole about her partnership with Jon Brion, the fight with her label Epic Records over its
release, and all the b-sides/unreleased music and lore that I wasn’t expecting. It’s like discovering a missing piece to a larger cultural puzzle—context that deepens your understanding and appreciation, even if it isn’t necessary to enjoy the music. 😌
Jan 7, 2025
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Just finished Being a Chair Essays on Choreographic Poetry by Janne-Camilla Lyster and was blown away by her ability to simplify something as abstract as scoring a dance through poetry. She touches on (bodily) time, dance as a concrete image of another person, and books as tools for inspiration all in under 50 pages. The pieces are split into small prose-poetic musings with a subheading that entice the reader, which include; Forgetting your own name, Time and Space, Hearing a Light, and notably the inspiration for the title — being a chair. Picked this up in Stolkholm when I went over last summer. I hadn’t heard of Varamo Press before so I grabbed the oddly small books. I got another book by them I’ll have to read and see what it’s saying.
Dec 27, 2024
Just read Writing by Marguerite Duras in one go which is often either a sign of my mental health going haywire or a book being so tantalizingly real and/or inspiring that time goes out the window and I am hooked into every word like a calf to a teat in search of protein I was especially drawn into these reflections about writing a book and what it means to a be a writer A contradiction that is both of the world and seperate from it that is a witness and being witnessed constantly in two phases Highly recommend for writers and readers that love reading writing about writing
Dec 21, 2024
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It was as if all the yearning I had cultivated over the years, spending it hundred, and eventually thousands, of miles away from my family had finally subsided. I was sad that Christmas was spent away. I am looking forward to spending it in a new way I do feel a pang of guilt for this feeling tho. As if my body knows what is expected and feels shame for not feeling what one should feel. I miss them of course I do but I also feel happy with the distance. Are those things mutually exclusive?
Dec 23, 2024