On The Road Again

I'm back on the road. This time I'll be on the west coast for the San Francisco Renegade Craft Fair. It takes place Saturday and Sunday from 11-7 at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavillion. Come say hi!

Friday Music Muse: The National- Bloodbuzz Ohio

I am loving The National's newest album, and this is by far my favorite song:

Bloodbuzz Ohio

Stand up straight at the foot of your love
I lift my shirt up
Stand up straight at the foot of your love
I lift my shirt up

I'll rest my eyes till the fevers outta me
I'll rest my eyes to the rivers in the sea
I'll rest my eyes till the fevers outta me
I'll rest my eyes to the rivers in the sea

I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I'll never marry but Ohio don't remember me

I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know

I'm on a blood buzz
Yes I am
I'm on a blood buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God I am
I'm on a blood buzz

Lay my head on the hood of your car
I'll take it too far
Lay my head on the hood of your car
I'll take it too far

I'll rest my eyes till the fevers outta me
I'll rest my eyes to the rivers in the sea
I'll rest my eyes till the fevers outta me
I'll rest my eyes to the rivers in the sea

I'm on a blood buzz
Yes I am
I'm on a blood buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God I am
I'm on a blood buzz

I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I'll never marry but Ohio don't remember me

I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know

I'm on a blood buzz
Yes I am
I'm on a blood buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God I am
I'm on a blood buzz

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_national/#share

Bright Star

The other evening the sunset was too beautiful to miss, so Woody and I snuggled on the bed and watched the big star say farewell.




Reflections

Tonic

Last night we went to the Tonic Room to watch our guitar teacher Geoff Dolce perform. D and I had fun just walking around Lincoln Park taking photos and talking about silly things while we were waiting for the show to start. The performance was incredible and the venue was really tiny which we always love.

Cute cute

How cute is this Elsie Belle necklace???

Tuesday Poetry Post: Carl Sandburg- The Road and the End

I shall foot it

Down the roadway in the dusk,

Where shapes of hunger wander

And the fugitives of pain go by.

I shall foot it

In the silence of the morning,

See the night slur into dawn,

Hear the slow great winds arise

Where tall trees flank the way

And shoulder toward the sky.

The broken boulders by the road

Shall not commemorate my ruin.

Regret shall be the gravel under foot.

I shall watch for

Slim birds swift of wing

That go where wind and ranks of thunder

Drive the wild processionals of rain.

The dust of the traveled road

Shall touch my hands and face.

*image from here

Sky blue sky

Yesterday we found ourselves in New Buffalo, Michigan, and I couldn't pass up this photo op. The color and scale of this structure were far too eye catching.

Underlined: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

I absolutely loved this book. It made me crack up, tear up, inspired me and made me proud to be a distance runner. There were TONS of passages I underlined in this book. It was hard to pick my favorite, but I really loved the story about Emil Zatopek. This guy loved running:

"There was this Czech soldier, a gawky dweeb who ran with such horrendous form that he looked "as if he'd just been stabbed through the heart," as one sportswriter put it. But Emil Zatopek loved running so much that even when he was still a grunt in army boot camp, he used to grab a flashlight and go off on twenty-mile runs through the woods at night.
In his combat boots.
In winter.
After a full day of infantry drills.
When the snow was too deep, Zatopek would jog in the tub on top of his dirty laundry, getting a resistance workout along with clean tighty whities."

I also loved this description of his running form:

"He looks like a man wrestling with an octopus on a conveyor belt."

This has to be one of the greatest running stories:


Zatopek was a bald, self-coached thirty-year-old apartment-dweller from a decrepit Eastern European backwater when he arrived for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Since the Czech team was so thin, Zatopek had his choice of distance events, so he chose them all. He lined up for the 5,000 meters, and won with a new Olympic record. He then lined up for the 10,000 meters, and won his second gold with another new record. He'd never run a marathon before, but what the hell; with two golds already around his neck, he had nothing to lose, so why not finish the job and give it a bash?

Zatopek's inexperience quickly became obvious. It was a hot day, so England's Jim Peters, then the world-record holder, decided to use the heat to make Zatopek suffer. By the ten-mile mark, Peters was already ten minutes under his own world-record pace and pulling away from the field. Zatopek wasn't sure if anyone could really sustain such a blistering pace. "Excuse me," he said, pulling alongside Peters. "This is my first marathon. Are we going too fast?"

"No," Peters replied. "Too slow." If Zatopek was dumb enough to ask, he was dumb enough to deserve any answer he got.

Zatopek was surprised. "You say too slow," he asked again. "Are you sure the pace is too slow?"

"Yes," Peters said. Then he got a surprise of his own.

"Okay. Thanks." Zatopek took Peters at his word, and took off.

When he burst out of the tunnel and into the stadium, he was met with a roar: not only from the fans, but from athletes of every nation who thronged the track to cheer him in. Zatopek snapped the tape with his third Olympic record, but when his teammates charged over to congratulate him, they were too late: the Jamaican sprinters had already hoisted him on their shoulders and were parading him around the infield. . . . Zatopek found a way to run so that when he won, even other teams were delighted. . . .

images from here and here and here

New Product Line

Here is my latest line of necklaces I just finished. They are wooden geodes I carved and filled with colorful beads. The wooden sphere is .75 inches and hangs from a 20 inch sterling silver chain. They are currently available in my shop for $25!

Friday Music Muse- The Tallest Man on Earth: The Sparrow and the Medicine

They call him the "Swedish Bob Dylan" and I must say,
he has some special lyrics.
I saw The Tallest Man on Earth perform last Saturday
at Pitchfork and he was fantastic.
It was hard to pick a song.  There are so many lovely
lyrics to choose from.
So I went with The Sparrow and the Medicine:


When you mend the patches of my clothin'
You know every thread goes through my heart
Guessin' that the river's gonna dry up
Well, I said that's not the reason why we part

Lookin' 'round the corner where I left you
Wonderin' whatever led me there
Knowin' that a quiet, unconscious feeling
Could be bought to drown a memory anywhere

                  
She said, "I don't want your medicine and
I don't need the sparrow in my heart"
When I'm covered by the thunder
I get rid of all your breath deep in my lungs
                     
Spreadin' the wind apart

And when I touch the ceiling on a spring day
Wishin' it could heed up every crow
So that they could lift me by my shoulders
Take me from this frozen lake and let you know

Just that I want to be your medicine
I want to feed the sparrow in your heart
When I'm covered by the thunder
I'll get rid of all the breath deep in our lungs
Spreadin' the wind apart

Hell I'm still standing 'round the corner where I
left you
Diggin' up a quite sufficient track
Never know when you're behind that angle
With a tranquilizer gun in your sweet pair

Oh I want to be your medicine
I want to feed the sparrow in your heart
When we're covered by the thunder
we'd become just one and feel the lightning shard
Spreadin' the wind apart

*photo from here

Underlined: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominque Bauby

"My diving bell has dragged you down to the bottom of the sea, with me."
~Jean-Dominique Bauby
From the beautiful book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

*image from here

Made by me

Tulle and Rocks...(agate to be exact)
Available in my bridal shop!

Tuesday Poetry Post- T.S. Eliot: The Hollow Men

T.S. Eliot, you rock my world.

The Hollow Men
by T.s. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.



    
          A penny for the Old Guy
    


        
              I
        

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

        
              II
        

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

        
              III
        

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

        
              IV
        

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

        
              V
        

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

                  For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


                  Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

                  For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

*painting by Howard Penning

Pitchfork 2010

Pitchfork was a blast. I heard great music, hung out with fun people, sold my wares and felt content all weekend. The highlight was probably Modest Mouse on Friday night, but I also really loved The Tallest Man on Earth.
It was hot. Real hot. But it's summer and on days like these I think of this Bob Dylan quote and shut my mouth:
"If you think the summer sun is too hot, just remember at least you don't have to shovel it."

This was Emerging Thought's booth, where I was selling my jewelry and hanging.

Underlined: BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara

I read this book during my first trip to Europe. I was alone, but never lonely, and completely nourished by the art, architecture, food, and literature that was smashing into my brain every waking hour of that first trip. I had just met a boy. (Little did I know I'd later marry him.) One of his favorite books was BUtterfield 8, and I took this to feel closer to him, and to get to know him better. It's pretty special getting to know someone through the things that move them.

That winter I took my favorite line from this favorite book of his and made a wood cut. It was pretty ugly I must admit, but I meant well, and he seemed to like it, and I'll always remember this line:

"Often she would sit at home with a book of poems in her hand and she would be looking in the direction of the window, a dreamy look in her eyes. He would look again and again at her, wondering what pretty thoughts had been started by what line in what poem. Then she would say suddenly something like: "Do you think I ought to ask the Hobsons for Thursday night? You like her, don't you?" Liggett supposed a lot of husbands were like him; two or three, at least, of his own generation had confided to him that they didn't know their own wives. They had been married, some of them, as much as twenty years; reasonably if not strictly faithful, good providers, good fathers, hard workers, and temperate. Then after a year or so of the depression, when they saw it was not a little thing that was going to pass, these men began taking stock of what life had given them or they had taken. Usually men of this kind began counting with, "I have a wife and two children..." and go on from there to their "investments," cash, job, houses, cars, boats, horses, clothes, furniture, trust fund, pair of binoculars, club bonds and so on. They were--these men--able to see right away that the tangible assets in the Spring of 1931 were worth on the whole about a quarter of what they had cost originally, and in some cases less than that. And in some cases, nothing."

Music music music

For all you music loving Chicagoans who will be at Pitchfork this weekend, I'll be selling my jewelry at the festival through Emerging Thought's tent. Emerging Thoughts is an incredible company run by one of the most generous people I've ever met (Thank you Lauren!) Come check out my stuff and all of the indie designers Emerging Thoughts represents!

Friday Music Muse- Vetiver: Farther on

It was a good time
Good time to stop and watch the city breathe, doll
You know, now we're lost
And have nothing to lose

I remember simple things
How's a building get so tall?
No one way to explain
Since we have not yet seen all

The sights there are here to see
Only them will we finally revel in

The good times
Good times
Oh, the good times
Shouldn't be this hard to find

When I see the people standing there
Shy, cerebral in the lonely air
Disenchanted, stony eyes
Bored to tears, but dry inside

Farther on, they'll collide
Intimate, but still strangers
The dangers in each other's eyes

I remember simple things
How's a building get so tall?
No one way to explain
Since we have not yet seen all

The good times
Good times
Oh, the good times

*image from here

Too Close

We live pretty far up in a high rise, but when my dog starts barking at helicopters, I get a little concerned that the chopper is too low.



This bird was hovering in our neighborhood for about an hour yesterday evening. It was quite loud.





Woody Guthrie wasn't happy.

One (EARLY) Sunday morning a few years ago we woke to the sound of this chopper RIGHT outside our balcony. It was moving an air conditioning unit.

Life and Death

Woody Guthrie would have been 98 today. Happy Birthday Woody.


"A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it or it could be
who's hungry and where their mouth is or
who's out of work and where the job is or
who's broke and where the money is or
who's carrying a gun and where the peace is."
- WG

*photo from the official Woody Guthrie website