Francesca Woodman "Polka Dots" (1975-76)

If I could use one word to describe my existence so far it would be "undone."

The world doesn't see me clearly. I don't see myself clearly.

I'm a dark smudge, indiscernible. 

i am made up of the shadows of other people

Francesca Woodman, Untitled (Self-portrait with chair), 1977-1978

the witch puts you in the corner

and you 

like the others

become a ghost 

stay v clarity

stay v clarity

"Stay" by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber is a certified BANGER. And it is almost a perfect pop song. The verse leading up to the first chorus is just TOO short. Not surprising since it seems artists make shorter songs now to get more plays on streaming services. I also think this could be indicative of our instant gratification-obsessed culture. GIMME THE DROP AND CHORUS NOW, but there is no build-up of tension. The Kid drops a verse that is actually shorter than the chorus.

That's why Bieber's verse is legitimately perfect.  His voice lingering on the words "love" and "stay" invoke feelings of vulnerability and desperation. He is begging for another chance, and his pleading climaxes in the song's second chorus, except for this time, the hook is earned.

Listening to "Stay" reminds me of a banger from way back - "Clarity" by Zedd ft. Foxes. In a way, they are very similar. Two songs about a potentially doomed romance with EXPLOSIVE choruses. However, "Clarity" is an 11/10 pop song. Zedd's production, Foxes' on the verge of tears voice, the wordless chanting looming in the background, all of this culminates in a dramatic drop that's takes you back down to the bottom, almost as if the song is indicating the romance is as doomed as Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill. 

Henri Matisse - Open Window

 

Soul Mates

"I don’t know how you are so familiar to me—or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before—in another time, a different place, some other existence.” - 

Lang Leav

Victor Sparre - The Blue City

One day we will embrace under the stars. 

Fingías

I still remember listening to this song in a car with you......you said the lyrics were sad.

slow fade into a dream

Here is a very simple, small playlist full of wistfulness and yearning. 

REVIEW: "I Belong in Your Arms" by Charlift

There's a whole lotta different love songs out there, cataloging the different stages of love and the feelings that accompany them.

"I Belong in Your Arms" by Charlift definitely encapsulates those early stages when you realize (or maybe not) that you're falling in love.

It's buoyant, floating in midair, with moments of brightness, but it's also a little out of control. That frenetic energy mirrors perfectly that feeling of helplessly falling for someone. 

The random lyrics and imagery invoke that feeling of being so infatuated, that your brain malfunctions, that you become tonguetied, because you're too dazzled. The only thing you can think, say, and want concretely is, "I belong in your arms."

I used to write about music when I was younger - like around 10 years ago. Something about those teenage years makes you do that I guess.

And then in my early 20s, I was posting legit sad girl music with fucking SOUNDCLOUD links, like, what the hell past me? Did you not have Spotify?

Well, I have Spotify now. And I think I want to start writing about music again because I don't know.

I have been numb for a long time. And I'm starting to feel again.

REVIEW: Hereditary (2018)

 Wrote this in 2018 lol

Hereditary is a masterfully crated, yet deeply unsettling directorial debut from Ari Aster.

The film presents itself as a taught, psychological family drama in the beginning – we open to the funeral of a family’s matriarch. Yet, the family does not mourn their grandmother, nor do they celebrate her life. Her daughter delivers a brief, cold, and distant eulogy and that is the most grief anyone in the family shows. There are no tears. Her granddaughter nonchalantly munches on a candy bar at the funeral. The grandson when asked by his father if he misses his grandmother, smiles smugly. The family expresses their grandmother’s death with as much emotion as a person would if they had suddenly realized they left their keys at home or if they had to take another route home from work due to traffic.

It becomes apparent that the grandmother’s death is but a minor inconvenience. It also becomes apparent that something isn’t quite right with the family, yet no major reasons can be pinpointed. There is a sense of uneasiness elicited in the viewer and that feeling only grows throughout the film.

Two prominent psychological themes are woven throughout the film. The first being the deterioration of the familial structure due to the inability to cope with loss and grief. The second being the deterioration of one’s self due to mental illness. Both themes are brilliantly played off each other, creating a feeling of suffocation and dread as you watch the characters completely collapse in on themselves.

Yet there is a darker undercurrent to the film. It plays with our fear of the unknown. With our fear of the shadows and specters and figures which may lay within them. With the Eldritch horrors awaiting us in the night.

This film was amazing. But it was completely unenjoyable to watch. It was too real, too visceral, and completely oppressive in the atmosphere. I can’t recommend this film to anyone unless you want to take a long, hard look into the void and if you decide to do so, the void will look back.

For Jane

By Charles Bukowski

225 days under grass 
and you know more than I. 
they have long taken your blood, 
you are a dry stick in a basket. 
is this how it works? 
in this room 
the hours of love 
still make shadows. 

when you left 
you took almost 
everything. 
I kneel in the nights 
before tigers 
that will not let me be. 

what you were 
will not happen again. 
the tigers have found me 
and I do not care.

A Girl

By Ezra Pound 

The tree has entered my hands, 
The sap has ascended my arms, 
The tree has grown in my breast - 
Downward, 
The branches grow out of me, like arms. 

Tree you are, 
Moss you are, 
You are violets with wind above them. 
A child - so high - you are, 
And all this is folly to the world. 

music pt. 2

(w)atashi mo.

Essay 2

The Space Between

            We all have a role in life. We are all responsible for something. At least, that’s what you taught me. If parents have but one responsibility, it is to ensure that somehow, in some way, their children will end up happier than they did. If you think of people in term of building blocks, the foundation for every child is their parents.  

            If I learned anything from you, it is that life takes a lot from you but doesn’t give much back. You taught me that I had to work hard for everything, even for the tiniest amount of something. I mean, that was all you knew. You had a successful business in Vietnam- you owned a little barber shop. Thinking about you cutting people’s hair and trimming their beards, with your goofy smile, makes me smile. You even fixed bicycles on the side when your barber shop wasn’t busy. I remember seeing a picture of you; you were smiling and standing in front of that barber shop with some of your friends. You were all about work back in Vietnam but you were happy.

            But things happen. Kids happen. Once I was born, you realized that the little barber shop in Vietnam wasn’t going to be enough to support a wife and young daughter. You, me, and my mom, who was pregnant with my little sister, all left Vietnam to live, what you believed at the time, a better life in America.

            You arrived to the United States poor and you spoke no English. You had to support a wife and two young daughters. You found a job working as a janitor at an electrical plant in Grass Valley, California. I remember never seeing you much as a kid. You would leave early in the morning and come home late at night. When you came back, I would give you the biggest hug. You were always such a slight guy, but back then, I thought you were the tallest guy in the world, and it always made me happy to see you beaming down at me, with that big, goofy smile.

            Being a kid, I didn’t realize how hard you worked. I didn’t realize because you never complained. Mom didn’t work, so you had to get a second job. It was necessary, with a third baby on the way. You worked as welder during the day and a janitor at night. I saw even less of you. You were but a sliver in my existence. I spent a lot of my time as a kid, waiting for you to come back home.

            As I got older, I finally started to fully realize how poor our family was and I finally realized how hard you were working. I asked you about what your life was like before you moved to America. You told me about the barber shop and your little bicycle stand. You seemed so happy recounting the experience, so I asked you why you moved here. You smiled and told me it was because you knew that your children would have a better life here, you knew that we would be happy. I was satisfied enough with that answer, but even back then, I didn’t realize how your hard work was slowly taking bits and pieces from you.

            I moved up to here when I turned eighteen. I didn’t know what I was doing or what I wanted to be. All I knew was that I had to leave California and become my own person, separate from my family, separate from you. You and mom wanted me to be a doctor but I knew that’s not what I wanted. I was very unsure about a lot of things but I was sure I was never going to be a doctor.  When I came to visit for Christmas that year, you were surprised at how thin I had become but I was also surprised at you. You still had that same bright smile, but the gray in your hair was more pronounced, you moved a little slower, and you weren’t so tall. We didn’t talk much during my visit but you were still the friendly, kind guy I knew my father to be. Still, during my flight back home, I couldn’t help thinking that there was more than just a few states separating us.

            I told you I was going to school but I was lying to save face. I was working full time at a restaurant.  Even though it was my very first job, I was prepared for it. That was due to the model of hard work I had grown up seeing in you. I worked hard and I didn’t complain. These were the things I saw you do, so I followed suit. I became a stronger person that way. I used to be so shy and unsure, but working, even at a restaurant, instilled a lot of confidence in me. I realized that, like you, I could handle responsibility. I also realized that I could live without you. I had always felt like such a burden in our household and it was freeing knowing that I didn’t need to depend on you anymore. I let go of my foundation, resolving to figure out my life.

            But things happen. Headaches happen. Memory loss happens. One by one, life took things away from you and you ended up in the ICU on life support. All your life you worked so hard to end up at that point. The doctors said it had been a brain hemorrhage. They said that you were brain dead, that the only thing keeping you alive was the machine. They told your family that letting you go peacefully was the best option. We took the best option. We pulled the plug and cremated your body. I watched my foundation crumble and turn to dust that day.

            When you died, I realized what your work had really meant. I realized that what you wanted for me to become in life wasn’t a doctor or anything in particular. Work was never about making money for you. It was always about taking care of your loved ones and ensuring that they would be happy. You never cared about what I would end up doing, as long as I was happy and living a good life. You were my foundation. You created it. You molded it. You made me strong. You did all of this to make sure that I could survive without you. You did all of this to make sure that life wouldn’t devour me whole. I am surviving and pursuing my dreams, even though you are not in my life anymore. Your work paid off.

West Coast

Move baby, I'm in love

The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter

By Li Po, translated by Ezra Pound

WHILE my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse;
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:         
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.        
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look-out?

At sixteen you departed,        
You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,       
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the west garden—
They hurt me.         
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you, As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

This poem still breaks my heart and I don't know why.