Creative Non-Fiction (Both Auditory & Weekly): The Mountain Goats - Sax Rohmer #1

This one is a little more rough-draft-y than some others (especially my piece about the Atlantic City boardwalk). It more closely resembles the raw writing in my notebook in style/sentence structure, which is sometimes useful to share. In any case, enjoy!

Few people understand why I love getting to the office early, at least an hour before nearly anyone else. Maybe precious few love waking up early, stepping off the bus while the sunlight still has its morning colors, sitting surrounded by empty desks, but that just leaves it pristine for the rest of us.

In the middle of all this emptiness, though, still missing the morning coffee I’ve temporarily abandoned to kick a caffeine habit, the space starts to absorb my productivity. Minutes pass as if falling through a sieve. If I don’t fill the air with something substantial it will create a vacuum that carries me all the way until 9:00.

Luckily, no one is there to form opinions on my music selection.

John Darnielle’s voice, anything but universally likable, sends an electric charge through my chest straight down to my bellybutton. I find myself mouthing the lyrics, drumming on my desk, dying to feel his words vibrating in my throat but settling for triggering a chain reaction in my synapses. Somehow his words just cover me in the English language, make me delight in my native tongue, just the same as staring out the bathroom window early in the morning in my old college apartment made me amazed at my own ability to perceive color. Rusting tin roofs, red painted wood on the side of a garage, green Victorian house next door, everything peeling and faded under the big open sky.

When I close my eyes, tilt my head back, open my mouth just a little during the chorus I realize how much I should listen for the door, for footsteps out in the lobby that might signal prying eyes. Because soon, very soon, this will end. The door will slam one, two, three times, and the workday will begin in earnest, human energy flowing all around me.

Creative Non-Fiction (Both Auditory & Weekly): Jay Sean - Down

Despite quitting caffeine this week, I still managed to write!  While survival without my morning coffee has been painful at best, I'm hoping this little detox will do well for my health.  Anyway, without further ado, the song of the week:

I’m trying to write about the Atlantic City boardwalk , with its air hung low and heavy and thick. My body slows under its salty residue, vaporized pieces of the sea adhere to my pores. Fish and garbage and funnel cake battle for airspace overhead and the smell falls on me like someone just threw a blanket over my head in a hot attic.

Throngs of people push past one another, most of them drunk or high and just young enough to be lost in their own sea of miniskirts and stilettos. Pop music struggles to be heard, struggles for relevance in the cacophony, ends up sounding caricatured like that person in the group who just never feels heard. Except no one quite expects Jay Sean to struggle for the floor, creating a backdrop that gets lonelier and lonelier against the din, the carnival lights, the ambulance that has pushed past the revelers to collect a man who has overdosed beneath a dark and decaying pavilion.

I’m trying to write this in my head like the one person in the corner actually listening to Jay Sean, ready to nod and say “oh yeah, I got you, ‘baby don’t worry / you are my only / even if the sky is falling down.’ I was listening.” I’m writing this in my head because I’m waiting in line for the bumper cars, half-listening to my friends and everyone else’s, such a flood of conversation.

Dropped in the middle of all this humanity—the humidity, the thin and hopeful pop music, the flashing lights and bells and carnies trying to sell a seat on a barstool with a water gun—yes, this crush of humanity, I wonder how it’s escaped everyone. I want to open my eyes wide because maybe this is the end of the world. This place seems like the last sad, bombastic, completely bizarre outpost of humanity, as if beyond the light pollution orb of this noisy pier is just nothing—everything ending.

Yet everyone is going on like this is just another fun party, no impending apocalypse except maybe for that drunk girl writhing on the ground. Suddenly the haze feels too heavy, like I can’t stand, and I feel desperately lonely for a quiet night inside, far away from this carnival where everyone comes to overdose, to pay another human being to push them in a cart, to take a group picture with the casino lights smiling in the background.

Everyone still keeps talking, eagerly awaiting our turn to hand over those paper tickets for a ride, haphazardly crashing into one another as the floor and ceiling throw off sparks out of time with the music—another party.

Creative Non-Fiction (Both Auditory & Weekly): Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should've Come Over

As in: maybe I’m too young / to keep good love from going wrong.  Too young to hold on / too old to just break free and run.

I thought I'd start off the tradition with something appropriately dramatic.

To my sweetheart, the drunk:

(pardon the reference, this isn't to my sweetheart and there's no drunk)

At the end of the week I realized my problem had sprung from a lack of music.  I had experienced chronic failure to inject it into my veins, to let it explode my heart within my chest, to open my throat wide so it could come out.  I had spent the week adrift, my feet never on the ground, my soul standing with one foot outside the door.

Now here I was, stretching my voice to reach into the playlist I’d so aptly titled “Songs I Wish I Could Sing.”  Since the house was empty I could actually half do it, experimenting with range and emotion, letting my voice bounce fearlessly off all the walls.  Even as I was relaxing, releasing, digging in and supporting these songs with the strength of my body, I was wishing I could do this for someone else.  Wondering why song, like my rawest emotions, bruised itself continuously against an invisible wall every time I tried to project it in the direction of someone I loved.

Oh, but then I thought of you, too.  Imagined you at the piano with this lovely creature of a piece that was so full of heartbreak.  I wondered, having never heard you use your voice that way, if you could—or more appropriately, if you would, if you would want to.  If you had ever experienced a desire for song that verged on...could I say it?

Music is such a visceral, physical pleasure.  Everyone I’ve fantasized myself into song with should know it, but that’s where it all collides, leaning defeated against a wall inside, somehow keeping a straight face while fighting to burst free.  It engages in an interplay like lovers hidden in a tiny room, one about to cry out, the other placing an extended index finger over that sly smile, the one that says “this is ours, don’t let them hear.”

Eventually, of course, the song had to end despite itself, despite repeating lines of “it’s never over” (my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder).  As it faded away into the next song it set me down firmly on my feet, the ground feeling solid for the first time all week.  

New Feature! (Music Vignettes)

Back when I was writing Words + Images, I made a strict blogging schedule.  I did this primarily to draw traffic, having read somewhere that a predictable schedule increases readership.  About the time I realized my "blog nights" were starting to control my social life and it seemed like a second job, I shut the blog down and reconsidered, eventually landing on this format.

While I doubt Mix Tapes & Scribbles garners me the same kind of Official Blogger rep, I feel better about its goals and intent.  At the same time, I do miss having some kind of structure and connecting thread.

For now, that thread is going to be a weekly creative non-fiction piece.  I'm excited because it's a gratifying genre and this feature will keep me producing small pieces of writing on a regular basis (this feels more and more necessary as novel editing progresses).

Since I talk so much about writing in here, it's apt to give my strong feelings about music a platform.  Each vignette will be told through a musical experience (clues in the post title).  I'm hoping to have the first one up sometime tomorrow (and on Sunday or Monday every week thereafter), so look out!

Accepting Rust

So a lot of exciting things are going on!  As a brief summary, I checked another item off my list of things I absolutely have to do in 2010 by seeing CRUMBLE (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake) at Single Carrot Theatre on Thursday.  I liked the play and thought it was well-executed on all fronts, so nothing but good news there.

In other good news, Piano Day is almost upon us!  I'm fulfilling a lifelong dream on Wednesday, when I'm expecting an antique piano to arrive in my dining room.  There will be a post about the piano's history, plus photos of its arrival.  Yay!

However, before I get into all that (there will be time enough midweek), I've been thinking lately about perfectionism, aptitude, and attitude when it comes to creative work.  I've said it before and I'll probably say it many more times: I struggle with perfectionism as an impediment to my work.

Despite all I've said about it, though, I've never mentioned the one case where aptitude won out against perfectionism in my life.  When I was nine years old, I decided to learn to play the flute.  It wasn't my first instrument or my last, but it was by far my best.  For many years, I planned on playing my flute as a career, getting a BFA in music performance and signing on with a major symphony orchestra.

The flute was/is the one art I have ever felt, deep in my heart, set me apart from the crowd in a big way.  Yes, I gave poor auditions and yes, I played obvious wrong notes sometimes.  But I never felt I had met my match among my peers.  This was something I felt unequivocally great at--when I tried to be the best, I was.

However, by virtue of self-doubt (as always, I wondered if I had the focus) and/or listening to other people, I didn't get that music degree.  To this day, I gravitate toward people with performing arts degrees because I feel I relate to them on some basic level, but if I chime in too much I end up feeling like an outsider.  A fake.  A wannabe.  After all, anyone can be a big fish in a small pond.  Every teenager wants to take the stage for thousands of people.  But I never really showed the world what I had.

At the same time, I know few people with performing arts degrees who have made it their primary career.  In fact, if I look at my two closest friends with BFAs in performance, both are working for non-profit organizations, just like me.  It's possible--maybe even likely--that I would have ended up in the very same place with or without the music degree I always wanted.

These days, I spend a lot of time singing and playing the piano, mostly because it's a great solo combination. I don't need to rely on a group of fellow performers to give me context.  But I can't help but wonder if falling in love with being a mediocre singer is, in some sense, an easy way out.  Not that I don't enjoy or shouldn't do those things, but no one is ever going to watch me sing and approach me afterward to say "that was incredible.  Really incredible."

And by the same token, it hurts a lot to know that at this point, no one's going to say that after seeing me perform on anything.  Not playing for four years while I went to college really set me back, and it's hard to get out my flute without focusing more on what's not there than what is.

I'd like to touch on this again, and more: the knowledge that I'm free to do anything I want, but I'm often impeded by the feeling that I've turned my back on something fundamentally important in my life.  I really need to own the spot I'm in and make it what I want, but that's hard work indeed for a self-critical perfectionist like me.  I'm interested to know if this is a common struggle for people who devote a lot of energy to a creative art in their younger years, only to be set back by a demanding degree program, a lack of a piano or fellow musicians, or a pure and simple lapse.  Everything comes back eventually, but it's hard to face the reality at first.  It's hard to realize you've let a great tool get rusty.

Singing New Songs

Recently I recorded another song phrase in Evernote with the intention of fleshing it out later.  I did this a few weeks ago with another song, actually wrote down the lyrics to the whole thing shortly after singing a single phrase.  I can feel an organic process developing here, and I like it.  I haven't mandated or structured this, I've just let it happen.  Part of me realized that making songs is sort of like my other writing: lots of rewrites, lots of revision, polishing pieces and making them into a whole later.

It's reassuring to know I can develop a process that feels good when I used to discourage myself so much -- thinking if something wasn't perfect I had to scrap it.  Refusing to believe in rough drafts for songs and poetry.

I've written about relaxing before, and how performers need to know how to relax their bodies to be at the top of their game.  Writers need to relax too, occasionally writing with the whole arm, always letting the words come out uncensored.  After all, tense writing seems an awful lot like strangling your sound with anxiety when your're trying to sing.

At any rate, in the near future I may try to get some of my song ideas off the page.  While wandering an antique store last Sunday I suddenly found myself playing a piano, which shocked me a little.  I didn't realize until I'd already picked out a line or two what I was really doing, what it meant -- small pieces of my life are coming back to me one by one.  If I just relax and forget about all that could be holding me back, things just happen.

Just What You Ordered: A Disjointed Post About My Weekend!

This weekend I...

Went outside at 8:30 on Saturday morning, weeded the front bed, and enjoyed my coffee on the porch steps while surveying the neighborhood and taking in the little details that make everyday life so beautiful:





I also started singing a new song and actually bothered to record a little snippet of it in Evernote so I'd remember it later.  With my 2010 goals in mind, I'd like to try my hand at working it into a finished product at some point.

Earlier this evening I sat down to my daily writing and got through about three quarters of a page in my notebook before my writing muscles started burning with exhaustion.  All in all, not too bad given my right arm is just barely regaining usefulness.  I'm hoping for a tiny bit more every day, but I'm not going to push the fatigue too hard lest I evoke a return of the sore and sleepless nights.

Not part of the feature presentation here but getting an honorable mention for the weekend are: succumbing to the nesting instinct and planning home improvement projects with tape measure in hand, leveling both my main WoW characters, and overcoming my fear of telephones to discuss possible writing projects.  Whew!

Last but not least, you may have noticed I somehow -- don't ask me how, really -- managed to get a camera up to my face even though I'm unable to lift the top half of my right arm off of my body.  Oh, and I'm still wearing a sling.  Ssshhh!

The Kinetic Sculpture Race in Patterson Park was really too much not to photograph, even though I'm not really an event photographer.  I took around 150 photos (I think), a small sampling of which I uploaded to a little photo essay on Flickr.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Disability & Disorientation

There have been plenty of times when I've said that I generally lack ambition.   In art school my professors talked about a drive to create, an insatiable need to keep working.  They even used it as a cautionary note about choosing a partner who would understand and give us the necessary intangible room for art-making.  I always thought that that was something that applied to other people, not me.  After all, I had never created anything great. But times like this, more than anything else, show me what that need to create really means.  


Most of my friends keep telling me I'm lucky.  I'm lucky to have so much time to sit and watch movies, reruns of Weeds, to read a book or just not to do anything.  And isn't that really enviable?  Don't we all want extra leeway at work, plenty of down time, guilt-free television watching, an excuse not to accomplish anything for a while?

And maybe we do, generally speaking.  Maybe I do.  But when it comes down to it, I just can't enjoy it. I can't.  


Do we call that an unfortunate excess of ambition that I'm suffering from? Maybe.  All I know is when I wake up in the morning and realize I have all of these songs, all these words running through
my head and I'm not able to get them out in the way I'm used to, it's hard to get up and get going. I feel extra needy of support from my friends.  When I'm by myself, I start feeling like life means less,
somehow. This is really unusual for me. Usually, alone time is full of creative energy.    


This is all to say that being prohibited -- physically or otherwise -- from creating in the way we are used to can be very traumatizing for an artist.  It removes part of our sense of belonging in the world. I'm not sure how to get around this.  I guess the only choice is to find ways of creating anyway, ways of doing what I do anyway, despite physical limitations. 


So far I've a few things that work.  Among them:

• Voice memos.  Unable to write as quickly with my left hand, I've spent more and more time hiding in far corners of the house whispering voice journals, secrets, letters I'll never send.  This amounts to my daily writing exercises, and even though speaking is hard to acclimate to, it's something.
• Talking about my work.  Some of these Evernote voice notes are about my manuscript, and I'm seriously hoping for a chance to talk some things over with a writing buddy sometime soon.  At least then I'll be able to create a list of work to do when I can really type again.
• Karajan!  I may not be able to practice my usual stack of songs on the piano, but plunking out things by ear should be fine, right?  Playing by ear has always been my weakest point, so I shelled out 15 bucks for this iPhone/iPod Touch app and wow, was it worth it.  I've spent the past few days drilling on intervals and recognizing augmented, diminished, and suspended chords.  This is what it's going to take for me to realize this is just another skill, and not a terribly hard one for me to learn.  I want to write out a piano version of "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod" by the end of the week.

Other than that, I'm just left to wait it out, watch those movies, and hope my best friends are able to make a little special time for me while I wander around like a lost lamb.

YouTube Artist: Approaching Respectable Job Title?

Sometimes I think I have an addictive personality. While it's true that I can't live without caffeine in my life I've learned over the past few days that a narcotics addiction is just not my speed. I've spent three days hovering in oxycodone dreams, thinking I should write a press release for work or return an e-mail or two or maybe get some writing done.  It's not until I try to do these things that I realize all the sharp edges of my mind have been dulled. I'm not even taking a high dose, but then again I do have a reputation for being a lightweight. 


Today I decided it was time to step it down and start getting back to my normal old self. I still haven't had the inclination to write a word or sing a note or even really read a whole lot of books since my operation on Wednesday, but I did find something really exciting this afternoon.  It's called Musicians Wanted on YouTube and it looks like a program created for people just like me in terms of their career aspirations. Seriously. Check out a couple of their promotional videos.  This looks like it could be really, really cool.  Just another example of how huge and how open the playing field has become in an online media world that encourages us to do and be what ever we want.




On a seemingly unrelated note, thanks to Dragon Dictation for giving my left hand a break from doing all the typing. This post was born 100% spoken word.

A Few of My Favorite Things...

In a little over eight hours, I'll be in surgery.  I started to write a blog entry about that, but what a downer, right?  I've had an awful day on account of being preoccupied by my fear of anesthesia and medical procedures.

So guess what, I'll write about the finer points of my day, like writing myself notes so I remember to try to figure out Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod by the Mountain Goats on the piano.  In an attempt to make my evening somewhat enjoyable, I sang along with everything, including the continuous procession of songs playing in my head.  Hell, once my arm is in that sling tomorrow singing will be one of the only things I can do largely unhindered (though the sore shoulder might make it a little hard to breathe).

This evening reminded me of my previous post on music as a coping mechanism, and this is one of those times when it was great to come home from work, sit down at the piano, and figure some stuff out.  Focusing on telling stories through song took the weight of my stress away, and I think I really relaxed for the first time since this week started.

Writing about my experiences and making music have been my standby coping mechanisms since the first moment I had anything real to cope with.  Not surprisingly, they're the only two things I chose to do tonight (in addition to watching American Idol, that is).

Good Things Today:

Every morning begins with Zeke's coffee for me.



One way you and your partner can be mutually inspiring is for one of you to be productive (and joyful about it).  My daily piano playing has begun to rub off on Doug, who has a whole repertoire of songs he's learned by ear and memorized.  He can't read music, but he can play Ben Folds Five's Brick now just from watching me practice.  Anyone want to play Name That Song for this video?



Got this in the mail on Friday.  After reviewing my favorite songs and seeing that they're all more or less right in my range, I'm way excited to try singing them.



A CLEAN DESK has made me so much more productive at the office, and I'm ready to start feeling those effects at home, too.  My desk hasn't looked like this in a long, long, time -- I feel like I've opened up a whole new world for myself!

Catharsis

A few years ago, I knew someone who was Chinese and played the violin.  She was really passionate about music – playing, sharing with others, everything – and I knew this because it was so clear in her eyes every time I saw her.  When someone close to her died, she stopped playing for a little while.  This she explained, was because her culture dictates that one shouldn’t engage in anything cathartic during a period of grieving.

I remembered this at an odd time, just sitting on the bus on the way to work today.  It gave me pause because throughout my life, I’ve used music as a cathartic vehicle that way: an escape from grief and struggle.  I always thought it was a good thing, a way to stay grounded, and I think it’s fascinating to consider a cultural viewpoint completely opposite.

If anyone else out there has used art – be it performance, visual, craft, or anything else – as a sort of cathartic outlet during a difficult time, I’d like to know your thoughts on this.  Does it allow us to escape, experience a lesser magnitude of grief?  Is this a bad thing?  Cultural traditions surrounding grief and loss are really interesting to me – for example, the Jewish tradition of covering all the mirrors in a house where someone has died so mourners needn’t be self-conscious about showing their feelings.  Again, this seems to encourage a sentiment of embracing emotion, letting it carry you for a time, and letting it go.

For me, I’ve often said music is the one thing that carried me safely through some really rough (read: angsty) patches in my life.  I don’t want to think about how I would have felt without it.  I don’t view that as escapism, I view it as self-medication in the best way, like exercising to increase your endorphins.  I view it as taking care of myself.  But I can also see how someone might argue it’s an act of running away from the full impact of my emotions.

Thoughts?

Inspiration #23: Company

I've been one lonely lady in an empty house for the past few days, but there are a couple things that keep me company.  Playing the piano until the little muscles in my fingers are all sore can be very therapeutic.

Inspiration #17: Song

Sometimes practicing your best version of Boxcar Racer's Letters to God is all you need to make the day seem great, right?  If I had someone to accompany me I might consider posting a video just for fun -- maybe later in the month, if I decide not to be shy.

Inspiration #14: ...This Guy

Yesterday when I wrote about people doing unexpected (and unexpectedly awesome) remakes of popular songs, I thought I might have to share this.  It's from a recent episode of American Idol and might just outdo Paula Abdul's original for me.  I love watching people take risks and pull them off, which is exactly what Andrew Garcia does really well here.

Inspiration #13: YouTube

Throughout most of my grade school career I planned rather intently on getting a performing arts degree.  When I was in ninth grade, I even printed out the application packet for Berklee College of Music so I could practice filling it out, see what they were looking for, and make sure I was prepared when I had to apply for real in a few years.  I read about life in Boston and decided it sounded like the kind of city I'd like to attend school in.

When I found myself in an empty auditorium I would stand on the stage and imagine myself performing in front of thousands of people.  It felt like the one thing I needed in all the world -- not in the way that every 12-year-old wants to be a rock star, but in the way we fine arts people really feel intensely about our craft.  It's our need to create.

How or why that life plan got derailed isn't important here, but I've spent some time in my life since then reconciling my dreams with the reality.  I never went to Berklee, and I'm certainly not performing now.  I do marketing and fundraising for a cool non-profit in Baltimore -- I love it, but one could certainly define it as a "day job" given my background.

But there's something that exists now that we never even dreamed of when I was in high school: social media.  Thinking about my "team sports" post from a few days ago, I feel like all is not lost in terms of being able to share that kind of thing.  I don't need to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra as a career to feel like I've gone down the right path in life.  Like I said, I really do like my job.  I'm working on writing a novel.  I'm doing things that genuinely make me happy.  And if I could be just a little bit like this girl, doing 180 degree reinterpretations of songs and looking unbearably cute and happy, I think that'd be just fine by me.

Inspiration #10: Team Sports

I know I just wrote "team sports," but don't run away!  I was sitting at the dinner table tonight looking at my guitar in the corner when I thought -- again -- about how unfortunate it is that I don't play more.  The thing is, playing guitar is sort of like snowboarding.  You can do tons of cool stuff, it's awesome fun, and everyone likes to watch you do it well, but behind the scenes you've got to log a lot of time falling down and not doing so great.


What makes it all worth it to me, though, is being on a team.  During my life I've run three miles every day to be the best I could be on a sports team, endured intense pain playing my violin through a shoulder injury in musicals and operas and orchestra concerts, logged hundreds of hours in World of Warcraft because I like the role I can play in a group with my friends.  


People sometimes call me anti-social, but the truth is when I push myself to excel at something, it's usually because I value my role in a team.  When our high school put on a fantastic performance of Fiddler on the Roof, I needed to feel like a small part of that was because of me.  When we're in a crunch time at the office, I need to feel like my contributions are the best they can be.  I can't see someone on my team struggling with a project without asking how I can help, staying a little late, and maybe stepping a little bit outside my job description.  


Likewise, when I decided to do National Novel Writing Month in November, I made sure I told my friends all about what I was doing.  Their support kept me motivated (no one likes to bring home bad news), and when I had succeeded at this tremendous individual challenge I took the next plunge: I asked for some heavy review/editing from trusted friends who are smart, know what good writing looks like, and most importantly are able to be 100% honest with me about my manuscript.  Now that I feel like more people than just me are invested in this project and its success, failure or giving up is just not an option.  I'll work as hard as I need to to make sure I finish with something truly great.


Now I want to figure out how to bring that spirit back into music and performance.  Opportunities to perform in groups come easy in high school and college, but in the years since graduation I haven't found an engaging group of people I can be close to and make music with.  That personal connection over hours of doing something you love and refining a technical skill is really important to me, and somehow I don't feel like I'm willing to let it get away.  Some of my best friends and best loves have been forged over music. In fact, one of the first ways my husband and I bonded as friends at age 19 was over a piano in the practice rooms at Lehigh University.


The thing is, it's not like I don't have talented friends -- I do.  It's just a matter of figuring out how to bring it all together.  But that's another inspiration entirely, so maybe I'll think more about it tomorrow.

Inspiration #3: I Like You

Having silly little crushes on people always makes life more fun and interesting, especially when it's the kind of feeling where you just want to make them a mix CD and talk about music for hours over some Yuengling Black & Tan.

The last time I felt this way about someone I made a playlist and decided not to make it official because that person...well, they wouldn't have loved it in the way I wanted them to.  Anyway, today I was inspired again to make a playlist, sing along to it while making dinner (french onion soup with little toasts and goat cheese, since you asked), and imagine burning it to a CD with a little note attached.  And maybe I will!  If I like you, I've probably made a mix tape for you at some point -- or a mix CD in recent years, since times have certainly changed since the days of painstakingly recording mixes on my boom box.  My favorite music -- and the pieces of it I think you'll love -- is sort of how I explain the finer details of who I am.  And if I've ever really, really wanted to compile a bunch of music and throw it on a CD for you, it means I'd really like for us to get to know each other a little better, I just can't quite find my own words to say so.

Inspiration #1: Old College Try

Over the weekend I started to feel like I was in a little bit of a creative rut.  I think it's easy, as we're focusing on getting to and from work, cleaning the house in the aftermath of holidays and winter vacations, battling flu outbreaks, to forget to just feel inspired on a regular basis.

I used to keep sketchbooks where I'd write down random thoughts and ideas, sketch little abstract figures and designs, and glue in interesting clippings from all over.  Now I tend to keep a writer's notebook that is much more focused if not in subject matter, then certainly in content.  The pages are filled with, well, scribbly writing.  When given license to keep whatever sort of artist's diary I can, I've chosen to be a writer for now.

However, I'd like to use this blog as my sketchbook for the month of February, including one thing every day that inspires me.  It might be a poem, a lyric, a photo from my day, a performance, a joke -- anything.

Today -- as I do many days -- I found myself admiring John Darnielle's lyrics.  He fronts a band called the Mountain Goats, who are somewhat little-known but have a pretty sizable cult following.  My husband hates the Mountain Goats.  A lot.  And I'll grant anyone the truth, that John Darnielle isn't the world's best guitarist or singer, the instrumentations on my favorite songs are pretty sparse, and in general the music may be an acquired taste.  But his lyrics are very honest and literate and descriptive in a way that I feel gets to the very core of his subject matter.  In anything I write, I hope to achieve those passages that can cut through you like a knife -- I think we all do.  Anyway, here are the words to one of my favorite songs by the Mountain Goats: Old College Try from their album Tallahassee.  I particularly love the simile at the end.