“Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend”.
-from Colormekatie, a blog full of sunshine
Have a sunshiney song, too. “Lucky”, by Jason Mraz feat. Colbie Caillat. The ultimate warm, bubbly pop love song.
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Download (right-click, not uploaded by me, as always)
“We wanted to begin a band that sounded gigantic”, We the Living say on their website, but oddly enough, this 3-member indie rock/pop band from Tennessee mostly crafts songs that are beautifully contained and tender, even wistful. Their website is a little too wordy and cerebral (probably an influence of Ayn Rand, from whose book of the same name I assume they got their name) – their first album apparently is split into “heaven” and “earth” sections and their Myspace page lays forth a manifesto about “spread [ing] the idea that everyone needs a personal philosophy”. Since their music is lucid and unpretentious however I won’t hold it against them. Download their newest EP, “Boom Forest”, by signing up for the mailing list. I just did and the EP consists of 5 exquisite songs. Check out “Left and Leaving” and “Re: Stacks” below.
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You can also check out their website and Myspace page
“The Weakness In Me”, Joan Armatrading
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“I envy everything, all of it. I know
it’s a sin. I love how you can shift
in your chair, take a deep drink
of gold beer, curl your toes under, and hum.”
-Dorianne Laux, from “What Could Happen“
Apple And Cinnamon, Utada Hikaru
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In the Sun, She & Him – She & Him is the insanely cool collaboration of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, and this is the single off their second album, set to be released in March
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Blow Me Away, Breaking Benjamin- first single from the rock band’s new album Dear Agony
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Pick Up the Phone, Dragonette – insanely addicting pop hit from the Canadian electropop group’s second album Fixin’ to Thrill
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Good Riddance(Time of Your Life), Green Day
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Scars, Allison Iraheta - marvelous second single from the American Idol contestant’s first album Just Like You
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now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have
hands,and all the hands have people;and
more each particular person is(my love)
alive than every world can understand
and now you are and i am now and we’re
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before–
and shining this our now must come to then
our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands;and i have no
you:and all trees are(any more than each
leafless)its silent in forevering snow
–but never fear(my own,my beautiful
my blossoming)for also then’s until
“I knew before that God gives life to men, and desires them to live; but now I know far more. I know that God does not desire men to live apart from each other, and therefore has not revealed to them what is needful for each of them to live by himself. He wishes them to live together united, and therefore has revealed to them that they are needful to each other’s happiness.” – Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live By
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In Powell pretending to study. I was reading friends’ blogs today and it made me sad. My life has split right down the middle yet again. Should I just lay that entire former part of my life – ICA and all that goes with it – to rest? I’m tired of letting people go, but I’m even more tired of fighting for them. And I’ve never been one for gradual or messy break-ups/goodbyes – give me a clean break if nothing else and I’ll be gone.
I’m planning a donut-making party for next quarter. We’ll see how that works out.
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I’ve been studying Marx, Althusser and Foucault, among other authors, for my theory class this quarter, and interestingly, all three of them saw reality/society as being split into two levels – on the bottom is what they called the base, episteme, or the covert, the hidden forces that are driving society,and above it is the superstructure(Marx) or imaginary(Althusser) or discourses(Foucault). They all seemed to sense or believe that there is something illusory or deceptive about this reality that we’re living in, and so they came up with various complex hypotheses of societal existence to explain this. Interesting, because of course this reality we’re living in is illusory, there is something flawed at the base of our system and, like Neo, most sensitive people in the world can feel that “there’s something wrong with the world” – they just don’t know what it is.
