new orleans revisited

forgive the pun, but this week, in between the stories of health care and senator kennedy, we will be inundated with stories about new orleans. from npr pieces to cnn profiles and new york times articles, new orleans finds itself on the front pages again as the four year anniversary of hurricane katrina approaches. part of me is grateful, of course, for the coverage, and another part of me is cynical about how new orleans is continually defined by the story of the storm, and subsequently given the short shrift of being covered only on anniversaries.

the problems of new orleans are too complex to be visited once a year, and though the storm brought them to the fore, they are endemic and emblematic of the greater problems our country faces. all year round people who live in new orleans and care about new orleans face those problems and try to solve them. i count myself as one of them. however, with no reasonable excuse, here i am "visiting" on the anniversary. the following has in some form been languishing on my virtual desk since may, when i took an unusual trip to the city.


circa MAY 29, 2009.

i miss new orleans... and even though i have had to switch gears immediately and get back on the road, i am clinging to new orleans even as i spend hours in the van. even as i play other music, even as i think thoughts other than new orleans, the experience is still bubbling underneath. why this attachment? what is it about that city that grabs me, that envelopes me, that sustains me. for that is what i felt in the 4 days i was there. every time i visit, new orleans is both a spiritual replenishment, and a challenge to do more with that replenished spirit.

in april, i had gotten a surprising and wonderful email. Future of Music Coalition (FMC), Air Traffic Control (ATC), and Sweet Home New Orleans (SHNO) were inviting me to join the fifth version of their Artists Retreat. i'd be joining a group of artists and activists from across the spectrum of the music business for 4 days of workshops, music, and, of course, food. Our group would include singer-songwriters, old-school punks, spoken word artists and actors, indie rockers, jazz composers, afrobeat masterminds, and classical players. plus, we'd be joined by the people who run FMC, ATC, and SHNO- people who activate, agitate, and articulate the cause of new orleans, among other causes, professionally. i'd been to new orleans many times before- to play music, to write, to record, to visit friends- but i knew that this would be yet another side of the city, yet another way to experience it.

looking back on those 4 days, i am most struck by what happens when you put bright people in a room together. some of us were famous, some of us were not, some of us had experience with activism, some of us did not. yet from the first evening, when we had a "get to know each other" crawfish fry and jam at mother-in-law's lounge, there was a wonderful equality among us. it's a rare thing to go into a completely new group of people, meet and be met, and come out the other side with friends, but that's exactly what happened.

i suffer from terrible jealousy of other artists- i am constantly comparing myself. that person sells more, that person draws more, why is that person famous when i am not. it eats at me, it sickens me spiritually, and worst of all, it paralyzes me. as i've grown older and worked with this feeling, i have discovered an antidote, a serum that i can inject to heal that sickness when it fells me: IDEAS. and there were ideas in abundance in new orleans.

one of the first things we dug into was touring. most of the people in the group made their living on the road. so how can our touring be used as activism? it's a ready-made distribution network; we've already paid for the gas. so, tapping into that aspect was an immediate idea. tying our touring into the green movement was another. as was hosting local activist groups by tabling. if we all make small requests of venues together, then practices from recycling to food to merchandising will change.

it's impossible to be in new orleans, to consider new orleans music, without the buzzword "local" landing on your tongue. new orleans music has always depended on its neighborhoods for fermentation, support, and character. katrina was a brute force that has choked those neighborhoods at the roots. SHNO is working specifically on this problem, and trying to restore neighborhoods one block, sometimes one house, at a time. as touring musicians from other parts of the country, we took that idea and ran with it. we can make each of our shows more "local" by involving adjacent communities and rewarding those in walking and biking distance from where we play. we can give away our skills as writers, composers, interpreters to the communities that nourish us.

the efforts to save new orleans require yet another relationship besides the local and environmental: the political. some of us in the room had extensive experience dealing with legislatures and committees at the state and federal level, some of us had never done anything of the like. (i fell somewhere in-between) one of the best tools we hold is our cultural role as guides of opinion and attention. as artists, our job in communities is to point in specific directions and help our neighbors look the same way, at the same time. so, choosing a cause to educate ourselves about and advocate for becomes just as important as putting a new roof on someone's house. we found out that activism of this sort is easier than you'd think. just learn about it, then open your mouth. the FMC folks shared some amazing stories how the artist can often open doors of power that seemed would never swing and melt the heart of even the crabbiest senator.

so i found, that this is what happens when you put bright people in a room. when egos deflate and the ideas expand into that void, then change can occur. after our sessions, i felt like a part of an army who'd just received their orders and is ready to crash through a wall. there is also the saying that a grateful heart has no room for jealousy or hate or pain. put me in a room like that and my heart swells with inspiration and thanks.

so, yes, we ate at mother-in law's and and i bonded with leah at historic dooky chase's. yes, we toured the 9th ward and met some newly returned residents. yes, we went to the house of a mardi gras indian chief and accompanied him while he sang to us. yes, we spent a late night dancing to a live organ trio on frenchmen street and stumbling home at dawn. and yes, on the final night of the retreat, we played a benefit show at tipitina's.

yes, that was the time line. we did this. we went there. but for me, this time in new orleans, it was the people and the ideas that moved me more than the music or the architecture. it was the play of hearts as we sussed each other out, tried to explain ourselves without our foremost language of music, that made me dance inside. in simply sharing ourselves with our group, we were all capable of being as inspiring in our collective experiences, as we are in our notes, rhythms, writing and performance. so, when on the final nite at tips we cut open our chests to sing and play together, it hit with all the more force. a hurricane of hearts came blowing across the stage and moved every soul in that room.

having come to know my fellow artists without their art, i was all the more moved to see the ease with which luke worked the crowd and played drums, despite a separated shoulder. the way saul's voice rumbled and caressed and said what i wanted to say. the way i was carried away by jolie's otherworldly rhythms and the fierce vision of her music. how martin and mariam sang with their instruments as easily as i breathe, their ears leading them out onto a tightrope of risk, with no net below. how vijay, in his own quiet way, confidently gave us ground to dance on as bonerama worked us into brassy ecstasy. and then there was the force of wayne's guitar, not only loud, but intentional and biting the top of every note. how laura pinned up her braids, wiped her glasses, then tore the roof off the place.

at the end of the night, i went out into the crowd to watch scott. he seemed so right, so himself up there leading the band and singing "shit, shit, shit" over and over again, like some rock god pronouncing us whole from the mountain. amen and pass the community.

summer camp redux

i'm leaving tomorrow to go visit the summer camp that i went to as a kid. i'm helping teach a music class with one of my oldest friends. the whole thing is crying out for more writing, so stay tuned. but i thought i would post this picture. where are you hudson heatley? (on facebook, i know.) i think we were singing "prince of darkness".

trip to utah

i spent the weekend in utah. still a marvel to me of mod-ren life that i can take off for a few days ACROSS THE COUNTRY. i've been doing it for years, but really, its pretty amazing we can do this.

i had two shows, one in the desert of Torrey and one in the mountains of Snowbird. totally different, both incredibly fun.

on friday morning, before my Torrey gig, i went on a long solo hike in the Capitol Reef National Park.

and the gig in snowbird....

katy vs. jill

the internets were afire yesterday about a supposed war between my friend jill sobule and katy perry. katy perry who is so famous right now that i am not sure where the person is underneath the gloss and hype.

the way the internet works, you probably already know the story: jill made a joke in an interview recently. she was fake mad at katy perry for stealing the song title, "I Kissed a Girl"- jill's 1995 hit. and maybe jill was a little fake mad for katy perry's sneaky relationship with queers. you can spin katy either way- does she support queers? er maybe. does she make queers the butt of the joke? er maybe. it's a little disconcerting to say the least.

speaking of dis-concert-ing. i have been to a katy perry show. i saw her in may at irving plaza in NYC. a friend of a friend works for her. an old college friend is in her band. so i went to the show and felt old (i'm fucking 31) and like this had nothing to do with the job i've had for the last 12 years. it was something entirely else.

but i was struck by how good some of katy's songs were. they pushed all my pleasure buttons with their hooks and highly singable choruses. and i am a sucker for a too small room. watching from the VIP balcony, i thought that katy perry was a good musician, and more than that i thought she knows exactly what's going on. she knows her songs are manufactured to be hits. and she knows there is a script written for her and if she sticks to it, she's gonna be famous now and make a lot of money. that's just the way it works.

but look into her eyes and i think she knows the difference between being real and not. and i'd be surprised if she hit back at a proven writer like jill. i think she looks at jill, sees her future, and hopes that she is as lucky as jill to still be doing it, and doing it better than ever, 15 years after a big-time hit.

at katy perry's level the music business is more business than music. but the other part of the story is that it will never stay that way. katy perry as we know her now will fade. she has to. there are too many others waiting in the wings with tighter asses and more pliant wills.

only time will tell what katy perry wants to do with her real self. when her notoriety fades, will she keep writing songs? will she still want that joy of too many people in a too small room, even if its 100 people in a room meant for 50?

i heard another friend of mine, ani difranco, get asked this question about her career: " do you ever wish you had a hit song?" and ani responded by pointing out the term "hit song" was pretty violent. we're being struck with a blunt object called katy perry and told to like it. who wants that out of music?

as for jill, you'll have to ask her how she feels about having her joke turned into fighting words. and you'll have plenty of opportunity because jill sobule is a real artist: articulate, accesible, creative and working every day in too small rooms with me this fall.

SERIES FINALE- episode 4 trailer!

this is your last chance to watch and participate in the live experience of Cabin Fever!

Float On + An Internet Baptism

songs from the water

i'm finding it's a lot of work to produce, promote and perform a live TV show every week. not to mention the final two Cabin Fevers fall in one single week... whew! here's the episode 3 trailer... tickets available at the Cabin Fever Website!!

last chance to buy a subscription + new trailer

it's your last couple days to get the Cabin Fever subscription... you can still watch episode 1 until this thursday.... meanwhile... the episode 2 trailer:

tonights the night!

7/7/09 at 7pm
kind of poetic...
if you havent told a friend or bought a ticket:
http://www.erinmckeown.com/CabinFever

or this tiny trailer!!!

CABIN FEVER!!!

i had this idea: why don't i broadcast live concerts from my house? i mean, i have a really fucking cool house. i love technology and the inter-nets. i've been working on this for a couple months... so here you go with the website:

ERIN MCKEOWN's GOT CABIN FEVER

here's the trailer:



and the schedule:

Tuesday, JULY 7, 2009- 7pmEST
an intimate, acoustic candlit evening in ERIN's living room + tour of her house

Thursday, JULY 16, 2009- NoonEST
interactive, all-request electric set from ERIN's riverside porch

Wednesday, JULY 22, 2009- 3pmEST
ERIN performs classic cover songs about water of all sorts from a rock in the middle of her river. We're not kidding.

Sunday, JULY 26, 2009- 5pmEST
the new album, "Hundreds of Lions", performed in sequence by ERIN and band, from her front yard

Rain Location:
We'll broadcast from the inside of ERIN's Sprinter Touring Van. We're not kidding about that either.

the way it should be

found this stenciled on the side of a municipal power box in athens, GA. i say, "amen".

a new tenant, a new tenet

i found myself today across the street from the white house. i had just finished lunch with Michael Bracy of the Future of Music Coalition, one of the groups that invited me to new orleans, and i didnt want to get on the metro just yet. so i wandered a little bit around the department of the treasury and eisenhower office buildings (under renovation), and around the grounds of the white house. it brought back memories of family trips to see the national christmas tree and to take the white house tour. and it brought back memories of marches i went on in highschool and gatherings on the mall. DC on a wet, early summer day is literally dripping with business. good business. people bustling around, now doing the work of an administration that points as close to my way of thinking as anything i can remember. what a change. i stood in front of the white house and just took it all in. a great leader lives there again. and my heart swelled a bit with a strange feeling: pride.

PS: i saw michelle's garden, and what i think was a beehive. is it possible the white house is making its own honey?

my ancient phone...

... a tweeter asked, was my phone so old i had to dial the operator... well, almost. but 4 years later it's still alive and kicking AND it can twitter, tweet, twat.

words fail me...

this is a postcard we found in schenectady NY advertising just what... i cant say.

on baseball

i've got a tendency to make lists in my life. i generate massive lists of ideas for my manager. i make list after list of potential songs. i make grocery lists, lists of friends to call back, lists of appointments to keep. lists make me feel in control. they help my form-less, self-employed days take on a more formal shape. they help me figure out my priorities. my brain never stops spinning, so lists keep that spinning moving forward, instead of zipping willy-nilly all over creation.

on the list of Important Things I Like to Do With My Time are such activities as play music, exercise, read, and be intimate with people i care about. i dont tend to rank activities on this list for the most part, but this time of year, i am reminded again and again what is the indisputable top of that list. baseball. i would rather talk baseball, listen to baseball, watch baseball, go to a game, throw a ball, or swing a bat, than anything else. come february, when pitchers and catchers report, my life starts to lift a little. when spring training games begin, i smile more and take myself less seriously. and when opening day rolls around, i am positively euphoric. baseball is here!

i grew up going to games with my dad. we usually went once a year, on father's day or sometime close to it in june. the first games i can remember going to were at the old memorial stadium in baltimore. once, when i was 7 years old, i had broken my collarbone at gymnastics. my left arm was in a sling. my dad still took me to the game. we went down to the field after batting practice to get autographs. the orioles big slugger then was eddie murray- often a grumpy and irasicble man. but on that day, he smiled at me and signed my sling.

when the orioles built their new park, camden yards, of course we were there. what a step up from the shabby concrete of memorial! my dad and i used to love sharing a heaping plate of boog powell's BBQ and cheering on what were then very good orioles teams. you can't do this now, but in highschool, i was able to bring my fieldhockey stick to the park with me. i elbowed my way down to the field again after batting practice and leaned over the rail, waving my stick. cal ripken, my second favorite oriole after brady anderson, came over and took the stick from my hands. he held it like a bat, testing its weight. he took a few golf-like swings with it, then he signed it! believe it or not, i played the better part of two more seasons with that stick. i covered the autograph with layers of tape and prayed my stick wouldnt splinter.

as an adult, i have continued the tradition of going to games. my dad does too. we'll be traveling for business and find ways to get to ball parks. he mostly goes to the rangers in arlington, but he's also gotten to see st.louis and the nationals. i took my parents to fenway when i was in college and the redsox weren't very good. through touring, i've been to wrigley several times, fenway, old yankee stadium, shea, the metrodome, camden yards, and plenty of minor league parks. i was even able to see the better part of an orioles game before WALKING to my gig and hopping straight onstage. last week, while in seattle for a music project, i added a new park to my list, safeco field.

i like baseball because it is slow. i like baseball because it is rarely violent, but incredibly entertaining. it's unpredictable. it rewards individual performances, but is ultimately a team game. i like its rules and quirks. i like that every park is different. i like that there are two leagues with vastly different styles and strategies. i love the long season, with all its slumps and tears.

but by far, the biggest joy of baseball for me is listening on the radio. i stream games on the internet at home or in my dressing room, i have satellite radio in my van so i dont miss a pitch. from march to october, the background noise in my life is always baseball. i like watching games on TV every once in awhile, i love going to the park for atmosphere and friends (and safeco was MAGNIFICENT), but for the pure game, it's got to be on the radio. there's something about the emotion and description that the announcers bring. i love the matter of fact narration punctuated by crescendos of action. i clap my hands and shout out-loud when something good happens. i turn off the radio in disgust when my team is sucking, only to turn it back on a few minutes later, hoping for an improvement. i cry at home-runs and two-out, bases clearing doubles.

baseball lets me talk to anyone, anywhere. i cant tell you how many times i have sat in random sports bars and airports and AirportSportBars, all over this country, and had wonderful conversations with people i would never ever talk to otherwise. traveling during the playoffs is especially fun. just like an election, everyone is tuned in, and our collective consciousness is pointed in the same direction. yes, the business of sports is faulty. yes, mainstream sports is biased toward men's games. my favorite pastime is imperfect. but put aside its flaws and imagine the tension of a close game, between teams you love, listening or watching with friends who share your passion. you cant keep the smile off my face or the tears from my eyes.

oh estelle, you were right! (or how to play my songs)

howdy! i wasnt planning on a bloggie today, but a thought occured to me as i was going through some emails from listeners and answering them... several of you have written asking for chords to some songs of mine. at one point, on an ancient version of my site, there was a TABS link. and i had quite a few songs up there that friends had sent in. maybe i will find it again and put it up. maybe one of you wants to become OFFICIAL ERIN MCKEOWN TABMASTER. yes? you can email me: mckeown.the.writer@gmail.com . meantime, i'll throw a few up here that were recently requested...


"you were right about everything"
the song is in A... the form is:

A A/c# F#m E D
A A/c# F#m E D
E F#m D A
E F#m D A
A A/c# D A
E F#m D A

for the outro, i just repeat the last line of the form, over and over. ad infinitum. or ad nauseum.
oh! and it's nice to throw in an Asus every once in awhile. suspend for drama!

"la petite mort (oh estelle)"
the song is in C, but i play it capo-ed at the 5th fret.
so here are the "cheating" chords so you dont have to transpose in your mind.
HINT: the song is in B (capo4) on the "distillation"recording

verse:
G D/F# Em C
G D/F# Em D7
B B Em C
G D/F# Em C D7

chorus:
G D/F# Em C
G D/F# Em Cm
G D/F# Em C
G D/F# Em C D7

in the second chorus, the last line looks like this:

G D/F# Em Am F

and then you're off to the races, solo-ing over whatever you like...

ok, now, here's your assignment... learn to play any of my songs (you can email me for help), make a wee video (a la "slung lo on the uke") and post them to you tube... get creative!

a little bit of a name drop

i have waited as long as possible to post a new blog, because i have been LOVING the responses people have sent me public-ly and privately about the "knee-jerk" post... i have more to say about that... but this morning, i just want to put up something lite. the night i spoke of in the last post, i was opening for bettye lavette. when i met her after the show, she was incredibly complementary and gracious.

"girl, you have written a song about every emotion you've ever had. that is something."

and then we had a great chat about how hard it is to write songs, how important it is to speak your truth that way. and yet, i wanted to know how you could sing other people's songs as convincingly as you sing your own, something i have struggled with, for sure.

"believe them," she said. " you just have to believe them."


and i cant resist posting this one too... guess who, before she got crazy-famous? and whose T-shirt is she sporting?????

knee-jerk

i hardly ever get nasty emails, and i think this is a product of my relative obscurity. to come to my show, to know about my music, you have to work hard, and it's unlikely you'll work hard to find something you want to complain about. so, how odd that in the last week, i have gotten two critical, dare i say, nasty emails from listeners. it's been my policy, based on my slim experience with this sort of thing, to not respond directly. if someone wants to complain to me in person, we can have a dialogue. if they just want to insult me via email, i dont need to engage in that.

one of the emails was about how i shouldnt wear a boyscout shirt (or any other uniform) if i am not a member of that society. however, the other one has inspired some thinking on my part. here's the backstory:

i have a song called "the taste of you". it got released in 2003, on my record "grand". when i play it in concert, i often introduce it by telling a story about why i wrote it. i used to live in providence, which if you have ever been there, you know has a lot of strip clubs. one of them, "the satin doll", was across the alley from where i lived. i could literally go out my backdoor, walk 20 feet, and be in a strip club. which i did a few times. i find going into a strip club, as a woman, a very interesting experience. sometimes it turns me on sometimes it feels like an anthropology experiment, depending on the vibe. i remember going into the satin doll and being completely ignored. i would sit at the edge of the dance bar, with my dollar bills and my watery drink and wait for the women to come dance near me. they never did. only once, in another strip club- "the foxy lady"- was i ever noticed. i was wearing a tiara that said "its my birthday". a woman offered me a birthday lapdance. i thought it over, looked around, and ended up refusing politely because of all the men staring hungrily at the scene unfolding. like i said, a very interesting experience.

so i told this story last week in fall river, MA, when i opened for bettye lavette (!!!). and then i played the song and went on with my show. i have literally told this story at least a hundred times and never had any reaction besides nervous laughter (older straight audiences) or loud guffaws (younger, mixed or gay audiences). either way, it works to set up the tune. and yet, a gentleman in the audience that night was so offended that he had to write me:

While suffering through your sub-textually convoluted tale about nights at the Satin Doll, I was reminded of early African American movie actors who would make fools of their own race on camera.No matter how many jazz chord progressions and clever vocal inflections you employ, the conclusion is that you have tasked yourself to resound the message to a full house that it's acceptable to objectify other females for entertainment purposes.

Holding out a dollar bill to extort bizarre behavior from a fellow human being is beyond repugnant. Maybe you have a special - "Gee, I'm bored tonight" - clause in your moral code, that allows you to randomly minimalize others.

I came to the conclusion some time ago that not all misogynists are necessarily men.

this email has set me thinking how to respond. in fact, there are several ways to view what i was talking about: firstly, there is a very good argument that women in the position of dancers at the satin doll are there of their own choice, are expressing their sexuality as they see fit, and not suffering in the least. my friend gretchen recommends the documentary Live Nude Girls Unite for more info on this viewpoint.

secondly, heterosexuality is assumed everywhere, regardless of gender. as a lesbian fruitlessly expressing desire in the traditionally male guise of a stripclub, i am drawing attention to the pervasiveness of heterosexual privelege. plus i find the image of wee old me in the stripclub, trying on the ill-fitting coat of the "misogynist" dance patron, to be comic.

thirdly, regarding the analogy about race, i am reminded of the great bert williams and his signature song, "nobody". have a listen right now. maybe it appears that bert williams, in blackface as he often was, is a pathetic specimen of a black man making a fool of his race. i dont think so. i think bert williams bravely uses himself, and the only language given to him by society, to artfully and effectually subvert the hegemonic assumption of white righteousness.

i respect the writer of this email for taking the time to express his offense passionately, and i enjoyed the mental exercise of considering and articulating my reaction. but i have a few questions remaining. how would i have reacted if it were a woman complaining? should i keep telling the story? should i turn this guys email into a story? what do you think?

resolution

i've recently been hanging out with some friends who blog much more frequently than i do. they spotlight funny pictures, new toys, cool cover songs, general awe-some-ness EVERY DAY. how do they have time to do this? how do they keep it short like that? every time i sit down to write a blog it becomes a novel of personal growth. can i learn to keep it simple? do i need to? i actually think i am ok with my mostly-monthly blog of great heft (or the cyber equivalent).

i do write everyday. i am a proponent of morning pages- the oft-talked about process of waking up, rolling over, and spewing. i do 5 pages most mornings, with the exceptions of mornings like this one, where i got up at 7am. gasp. thats too early for me to take the extra 30-45minutes it takes me to do my pages. today is my annual trip to the dodge dealer in keene where i get my sprinter-van serviced. it's quite a van, if you havent seen it outside my gigs, and you cant just take it round the corner to meineke for a quick lube. it usually takes half the day. or most of the day when there's something wrong with the transmission. like today. so i am wasting time in the waiting room of the dealer, with the history channel blaring, and rotating cast of grumpy car-owners. who is ever happy to have to wait for their car to be worked on?

the ostensible subject of this blog is "resolutions". new year's or otherwise. in fact, it just struck me "resolution" has several meanings to me. but first, the easy definition. that which we resolve to do. resolutions can be tricky. they are often about change on a big scale. the kind of scale that ironically can only happen one day at a time. "i resolve to lose weight". this, for example, is not a one time statement. it's gonna take a while. i think that's why most resolutions fade. by april, they are a dim memory. or, sometimes they aren't. sometimes, it really does help change something to resolve it at the new year.

last year, my new years resolution was to stop using a set list. which i did. which has taken me most of this year to be comfortable with. at first it was terrifying. despite having written hundreds of songs and having them all memorized, i still worried that i would forget everything i knew the moment i walked onstage. what a lesson to learn to both trust yourself and to access all your knowledge even when you have to do it quickly, with a lot of people watching! from the very first time i tried it (22 jan 08, larchmont NY), i got results. i was more connected with my songs, more engaged with the audience, i played a longer, more dynamic set. the longer i've stuck with this, more has been revealed. i am constantly surprised by the new turns a show can take when you dont script the musical arc ahead of time. granted, this is easier when i play solo, but i've even started to be able to do this with some band gigs, which is really really fun. i think i'll resolve to keep on without a setlist.

this year, for new year's, i played at a fantastic little place in philly, the tin angel. my friend garrison and i did 2 shows, and at each i asked the audience to write their resolutions on a piece of paper at the merch table. here are a few of the ones people wrote down, divided into category:

the ordinary with extraordinary effects:
"to be more organized"
"to make a new friend"
"to be patient"
"to send folks "just because" cards, just because"

the masochistic:
"to go to boot camp 4x a week"

the denial:
"i will not use tobacco in 2009"
"to stop using the f-word in preparation for my child"

the entreprenureal:
"to make erin mckeown's tshirts" (ok girls, i GOT it)

the ambitious and heartbreaking:
"to tell my kids more stories about my childhood, learn to play my harmonica finally, and accept my husband for who he is"


i love this last one. it looks backwards, it looks forwards, and its painfully honest. my own new year's resolution was two part: to stop wearing jeans and to be more of myself, more often. ok, so i said this onstage, which i think means i have to stick with it or 250 people are gonna call me on it. actually the second part is easier. do you know how hard it is to give up wearing jeans? why am i doing this? i think i want to feel like i am stepping myself up. not just haphazardly throwing on the easiest thing. the ordinary thing. the comfortable thing. why am i doing this? does around the house count? what about in the snow?

it struck me, writing this, that "resolution" can also mean clarity. i think anniversaries provide clarity. they let us stop for a moment and look back. how are we different than we were the last time we stopped? what's changed? anniversaries provide awareness and perspective; they enhance the resolution of our view of ourselves. the more we look, the more aware of ourselves we are, the finer that resolution grows. eventually i will be able to witness myself on the cellular level.

"resolution" is also the close of something. it is the final chapter of a saga, it is a completion, it is a point after which we stop struggling and accept. i like that too. a new year's resolution to let go. to give up. to surrender. to let the plot be done. to walk away. easier said than accomplished. but thinking of "resolution" like that, i can let 2008, and all its details, float away. resolved.

happy new year, everybody! may it be your best!

all you single ladies!!!

naked sunday

old friends come back into your life for a reason. i'm finding lately, that they're back to remind me of a person i used to be, who bears some resemblance to the person i am now, from whom i can learn quite a bit, i think.

when i was 20, i left college for a semester. i toured that summer, spending part of my time interning at a label in chicago and part of my time driving around in my car playing coffeehouses. at the end of august, i moved to durham NC. my friend killer got me a job at ladyslipper, a venerable bastion of the independent women's music movement. i worked the last regular job i ever had, filling orders of music, calendars (we'moon, what what!), and books in the warehouse. my co-workers were kaia and STS. we went to biscuitville daily, and i slept on killer's couch. i cant say it was the best time in my life; i hated having a daily job and regular hours, but i was definitely learning lots about a bigger world and dipping my toe into the womyns / womans / womens community for the first time. after the christmas rush, i went back to providence, moved into AS220, and started my career.

i've been hanging out with killer again. she's gone on to have a myriad range of jobs in the music biz. in her current incarnation, she's a busdriver and tourmanager. this week, she's taking time off her main gig and helping me out a little. it's nice to be on the road with an old friend, who also happens to be very good at a job you really need help with. we've been showing each other shit on the internet and finding a little time for thrifting. today's outing will take us to a wig shop in norfolk VA. enough said.

the other day, we were sharing a hotel room, and i, as is my habit, was rocking it semi-nude on the way to the shower. i guess it triggered a memory for killer.

"hey, do you remember naked sunday?" she asked.

no, i certainly did not, but i was curious, so she explained. "naked sunday" was a tradition i had brought with me to north carolina from the co-ops i was living in at college in providence. our co-ops were student-run and student-owned giant victorians on providence's east side, with as many as 20 people living in them at once and another 15 coming to dinner every night. we rotated house jobs and cooking responsibilities. it is still the most satisfying living experience i've ever had. once a year my co-op held the famous "naked party" and we also had, weekly, "naked sunday", where it was ok, even encouraged, to spend your sunday in the buff. to praise the lord, of course.

i had completely forgotten about this. but once she reminded me, it set off a chain reaction of memories of my own. brazenly handing out donuts during reading period, cooking in the crowded kitchen with just an apron on, looks of surprise from unwitting dinner-guests, but mostly an ease with my body and silliness around life that i don't feel so much anymore. huh, when's the last time i felt that light? where is that person with a grin and paunch who didn't care if she had tits, or not? lost somewhere in years of working hard on the road. lost in going from studio to gig to writing. lost in worrying about making the right album, making the van payment, and making sense of a career that doesn't look like my dreams.

sigh. i miss her.

another old friend from that time just found me again (and not through facebook, scrubs). she's getting her doctorate, working on the Hill, and sending pictures of me in a vinyl catsuit and pink feather wig. and pictures of me naked in the bathroom getting the first of many many home-made haircuts. and a picture of my front yard, circa 1998.

my friend the fiz and i were celebrating the end of our sophomore year. it was may, which in providence equals heaven. early in the afternoon, we headed over to the co-op that fiz lived in for some light drinking. we planned to get a little buzz going, eat dinner, then get into the serious party-ing later. around 4 or so, the word "light" had disappeared from our vocabulary, and we were now heavily drinking. i decided to take a break, riding my bike the 4 blocks back home to my co-op. i don't drink anymore (which i am not nostalgic for) but i also don't ride my bike as much either. i know it wasn't safe, but i really did love the feeling of being tipsy and zipping through the streets and hills of provie.

when i got home, i locked up my bike on my front porch with the same bike lock i had had since i was 10, a flimsy chain wrapped in pink plastic. i crawled into bed and promptly fell asleep. i woke up around 7 and went to grab my bike for the trip back to the party. while i was sleeping off my semester and my drinks, someone had come, cut my bike chain, and taken my ride. up to that point, i had never had anything stolen from me. ever. i was a lucky and sheltered girl.

i was definitely still drunk, but i was also 20 years old with a pathologically mischevious bent. i called fiz to tell her what happened, and we sprung into action. first i took what was left of the bike chain and nailed it up over the doorframe of our parlor (yes we had a parlor). i signed, dated, and memorialized my bike. i haven't been in that house in almost 10 years, but perhaps someone can tell me if it's still up on the wall. i wouldn't be surprised if it still was. the co-ops were always evolving and organic spaces. one part crunchy living experiment, one part surrealist installation, it was like living inside a whole foods designed by duchamp.

by the time fiz came over, i had a plan. no one was going to do this to me without having their fire returned. we needed to send a message. a big one. fiz and i worked quickly, barely speaking, our mission unspoken and clear. we found a door in the basement, sealed over the knob hole, and gave it a good coat of primer. our co-ops were student maintained, and at this time, fiz was maintenance co-ordinator. one of her many talents, besides fixing boilers, meeting firecode, and shingling, was a facility with cement. we decided our message would stand the test of time. so while i sawed two 4 x 4s of pressure-treated wood, fiz mixed up a batch of cement. we went to the front yard and dug two deep holes. it was probably 8 o'clock now, getting dark. we had only consumed alcohol and hummus. we were running on our youth, our indignation, and our pure sense of purpose. we filled the holes with fresh cement and planted the 4 x 4s. we gave the door another coat of paint, then took it outside and mounted it on the posts.

i settled on a simple message that succintly summed up how i was feeling. i carefully painted the following;

"THANKS FOR STEALING MY BIKE
....ENJOY THE RIDE"

i added my co-op logo and a few graphic flourishes. fiz and i stepped back to admire our handy-work. yes, it would do. we promptly went back to her co-op and told our story over and over, extremely proud of our sass and industry.

my co-op sat on the corner of waterman and brook streets, a big intersection on providence's east side. for the next several months, we'd sit on the porch and just watch the motorists stopped at the light and their reaction to the sign. there were lots of smiles, horn honks, and "you go!". remember this was 1998. about a month after my bike got stolen, a knock came on the door. did i need a new bike? someone had seen the sign and donated a very fine old fashioned red racer with banana seat. i've never bought a bike again, always trading for my wheels. the sign eventually got painted over, and our billboard became a bulletin board for community happenings and co-op chicanery. i haven't been by in awhile, but it was up for at least 5 years.

i am still the person who loved to walk around naked on sunday (or any day really) and who sent a creative fuck-you after a petty crime. my heat might cost too much for me to be naked as often as i'd like now, and i might have changed the medium for my messages, but that was me and is me still. i am glad for this reminder to be lighter, to remember my younger self, and embrace my inner flaunt.

gratitude

oh i have been a lucky girl this last month... let me tell you why:

i got back from europe at the end of october with november stretching out ahead of me, blank and open. originally i was thinking i would mix my new record during this time, but thats been put off a bit (no worries, its all for very good reason). what would i do with all this time? i think the lesson is that when i let go, good things happen, and they happen with good reason.

it turned out that this was the best possible time for me to be off the road. i was home and not working when i got the last minute opportunity to open for shawn colvin here in northampton. perhaps i ought to have my singer-songwriter card revoked for this, but i had never seen her before and wasnt that familiar with any of her music besides her bigger hits. let me tell you, this lady was bad-ass. firstly, she didnt soundcheck, which always impresses me that someone is that confident or busy or anything to skip that part of the day. she strolled in at 8pm, right as i was going onstage. we said hello in the hallway, and i went out and did my set. then promptly at 9, she took the stage. plugged her guitar straight into her DI and proceeded to play and sing impeccably for the next hour or so. she had said she was under the weather, but i have experienced that enough to sift out the song and the delivery. i was blown away. simple. confident. bulletproof songs. amazing guitar playing. warm and real onstage. may i be so lucky to do this long enough to experience that ease. i want to say, "shawn colvin, who knew?" except that thousands of people totally know already. i'm just late to the party.

a party i am not late to is amy ray. like a lot of other ladies my age, indigo girls were the soundtrack to my life age 14-18. i remember sitting in my tiny blue pick-up truck, alone in the highschool parking lot after a senior night awards ceremony-thing, listening to "nomads indians and saints" in its entirety. and just crying. i dont know why exactly i was crying. maybe saying goodbye to being a kid. maybe i was embarassed by my highschool awards. maybe something i cant name, but there the indigo girls were, with me. a couple years ago i got the amazing opportunity to join amy, emily, ani difranco, actor james cromwell, activist winona laduke, and others for a lobby day on capital hill... i wrote a long blog about it thats still up on myspace. i look back on that day as the beginning of my political consciousness. up to then, maybe i was sympathetic or supportive, but that experience inspired me to get educated, to get articulate and be articulate about being a citizen.

the next night after shawn came to town, amy ray came to town with her FUCKING AMAZING BAND. i dont think i can cuss enough to tell you how tight and rocking they were. amy's solo songs are po-litical, for sure. but they are also highly theatrical. hedwig meets the entirety of the 90's, in a good way. amy is blunt, but always with an ear for the poetry of being honest. after the show, i was catching up with the band, and amy invited me to join them in new york later the next week to play guitar on a tune of hers called "laramie". what a song. go look it up on youtube to see her play it in asheville. it was the last song of the set at the bowery ballroom, and i hopped up, borrowed amy's guitar and joined in. as i was playing, i felt enveloped by the depth of the music around me. i think thats what i took away most from that night... if you put all you have into your songs, and everytime you play them you put all you have into the performance, and you're joined by musicians who give all they have to give, the sum is something else. community is the next spiritual movement. and we arent granted it, it isnt discovered, it is made. by us. we have the tools!

whew! i feel a little carried away when i think about how i felt that night... and yet, my month kept getting better. because i was home and not working, when i got a last minute opportunity to open for ani difranco, i was able to take it. that tour is like family to me, i have been in and around it for so many years, always having huge fun and experiencing big emotions. i did a pair of shows: wilkes-barre PA and boston MA. here is "every state line" from wilkes-barre and "overlap" from boston.


photo by my bud desdemona "bunty" burgin

my father's entire family lives in wilkes-barre, so my 87 year old grandfather got to see me play for the first time. he loved it and i loved that he loved it. our grandparents sometimes only know us through the portal of our parents. to them, all they know is that we are tiny versions of their children, but to side-step that generation and get to hang with my grandfather directly, to have him see me and what i do directly, what an experience. AND he's a big rachel maddow fan. enough said.

so really, how can i sum up the gifts i have been given this month? by one more experience. i spent thanksgiving with about a 100 people of all kinds at the guthrie center in great barrington MA. the center is in the church made famous by the arlo guthrie song "alice's restaurant". arlo bought the church years ago and used to live there. now, its a performing arts center that plays host to a thanksgiving dinner that couldnt be beat. anyone from the community is welcome, and they make a real effort to include members without families or experiencing hard times. it was a beautiful collection of people. this was better than any tedious version of thanksgiving i have ever experienced. no one was going through the motions here, probably because everyone in that room, for one reason or another, was truly aware of the gratitude part of thanksgiving, not the emphatic consumption the holiday usually brings. how powerful, a room a people who were truly grateful.

i am in a deeply searching place right now in my life, and what i am finding i am most hungry for right now is community. i feel most satisfied when i am working to create it. i feel the most love when i sit right in the middle of it. i truly believe that its where we will heal ourselves (and our country). and as i said, we dont have to wait for it to be given. the tools are time, love, and willingness. thats it! now go!

PS: see the movie "rachel getting married".

the morning after

let me say first: hooray! it's done! america has moved forward into something entirely uncharted. a man by his name and skin, if he never does anything again, has by simply being there and winning, lifted a tremendous weight off of our country. i am proud of us for that. deeply proud.

yes, we paid $600 million dollars for him, but we also paid with our loss of standing in the world, the erosion of our economy, and we have paid most dearlywith 4190 lives lost and 30,764 wounded.

here's something i wrote on september 25 in my journal, a black book with a picture of sarah palin in a stars and stripes bikini holding a rifle pasted on the cover. the occasion was a drive through the independence pass, on the way to aspen colorado.

when i travel america, the west, these mountains and huge sky, the sheer diversity of this country- flat peaked brown black white and every color person- i can say, i love america. i love this country. i am proud to be of this land- shaped by the forces of heat and rocks cooled. lichens and aspens in the most unlikely of places. i am proud of this land. and yet the other america- with its flag and armies and flat screens to improve your self-esteem, its markets crushed in speculation and panic- i cannot line up shoulder to shoulder with that. i could never understand how this america could move against another person, ever. what people who dare call themselves a country are those that would do that? would represent that? that's not my land. that is my continental divide.

that day i was literally and figuratively standing on the geographic split of this country. and this morning, i , like many many other americans, feel a sense of healing with that. i really do.

but i would not be true to myself if i didnt also express a few other thoughts. firstly, as michelle shocked says, with a new president, we are just getting a new CEO for USA, INC. another friend put it like this, we are changing the hood ornament on the car. they are both right. and though i am crying sincere tears when the "first family of the united states" is introduced and a beautiful black man and his righteous wife and their daughters come out onto a stage and greet hundreds of thousands of americans, i am also deeply suspicious of the hold that power has and how it clings. represent me, barack, yes. but show me that you are more than this symbol- with all your power, your history, your hope for the future- show me that you can also fundamentally shake up the corporation- add responsibility, fairness, and subtlety to what's usually drawn in the broadest of strokes.

speaking of broad strokes, my abiding feeling today, as this day becomes clearer and last night recedes, is of a profound sadness, disappointment, and disjunction with this new feeling of hope. california's proposition 8 looks to pass, banning gay marriage and writing bigotry and hatred into the constitution of the world's 8th largest economy.

how can people do this? by all exit polls, it looks like the same people that rightly carried barack obama to victory, also used their history-making vote to wrongly legislate the definition of a business arrangement into a fear-based, hypocritical and regressive definition of love. it makes my heart hurt to see this. just as we are symbolically moving past one kind of hatred, we re-inforce another. is there really no conscience that cant see the contradiction?

somewhat related, here's an interview i did last week for the UKwebsite, lesbilicious.com.

obama-rama

yesterday was my birthday. my 31st... i have been saying onstage for some time now that i hope it means the end of my saturn returns. it's a story meant to set-up a new song of mine called "28" which describes how i was feeling exactly 3 years ago when i first noticed my life heaving. heaving... yes, rising up into big hills of drama then cracking and splitting and falling into deep wallows of inner life. if i were a waveform, my amplitude would have increased, and my frequency. it all just got busier.

i'm a big one for dates, so a birthday is an important holiday. my re-start every year. i like new years eve for the same reasons. any holiday has a calendar attached to it, a yearly cycle that overlaps with other yearly cycles, so in my mind we're living concurrent lives always. in our emotional life, our family life, our creative life we are constantly marking anniversaries and moving forward. this year, i wanted to mark my birthday in a deeper way so i decided to fast. today is day 4.

my fast is really a cleanse: you make a mixture of water, lemonade, maple syrup and cayenne pepper and that's all you drink. you can have a cup of tea at night, and in the morning you do a saltwater flush. i wont describe it further, but use your imagination and know that the saltwater flush sucks. i havent felt hungry or down or tired too much, but every hour is different. that's one of the things i like best about fasting. take away the ritual of food in your life, and you have a lot more time on your hands. take away the sensation of being truly satiated- of being "full"- and you really start to be aware of your body in a new way.

i try to stay home alot when i am fasting, it helps conserve energy and it's good to be near a bathroom. but last night, my friend jose ayerve invited me to come play a song or two at an obama rally in easthampton. i hardly get to see jose, and i miss him. he's fucking brilliant. check out this song we made together just this spring. its about 3 way relationships or the redsox bullpen. you decide.

so i hadn't ever been to a political event quite like the one i went to last night. it was much more than party trays of food and socializing. there was the expected table to buy obama pins and stickers and lawn signs and tshirts, but there were also tables where you could write postcards to undecided voters, laptops where you could sign and send online petitions, and a station where you recorded a youtube message about why you were voting for obama.

jose and i did our video together, and i held a sign that said "mc cain: more of the same". in truth obama isnt nearly lefty enough for me, and i get a bit queasy when he rattles on about "getting" osama bin laden. but i think he probably has to do all that to get elected. i basically trust him. i watch him speak- thoughtful, eloquent, intelligent, subtle- and i think, "i can relate to him and i would be proud to be represented by him". what a strange feeling! to feel some positive connection to the leader of your country. i have NO IDEA what that feels like. as my friend phillip price of the winterpills said last night, "i think it feels pretty good." he was wearing a button that said "moonwalkers for obama".

the room was full of people ready for action. the postcard table was busy with people writing actual letters to undecided new hampshire voters. western NH is just a few miles from here, and the easthampton democrats were organizing groups to go there and canvas for obama. other groups were getting people to go to ohio, pennsylvania and other battlegrounds. the point was that even though western mass is super democrat and lefty lefty, there was plenty of work to do.

i felt incredibly inspired being there. and humbled by the energy of the people working to put this rally and countless others across the country together. what an operation! it reminds me first of all, how giant this country is and what kind of effort it takes to corral a simple majority and get going in the same direction. if we had more than 2 parties, i think it would actually be less of a feat. but to get americans to fall one way or another, when we are so diverse, seems to me a mammoth proposition. and yet it's happening. the effort is extraordinary to me, but then you think of the prize. a truly new direction for our country. a new face for the world. a spring in our metaphorical step. the presidency. wow.

trouble the water

i just got back from seeing the new documentary trouble the water. i won't try to summarize it here, just SEE IT.

in a related post, i'm still catching up with my back log of writing... so check out september 16...

what is the sound of a blog?

the clatter of keys. the rattle of thought. i dont know why i havent done this before, but here it is... a blog. please comment and post and engage... i have a backlog of entries to post, so i'll start this spring with a trip i took to europe with one of my musical heros, michelle shocked, and catch you up with the tour i just finished. the posts are dated... so lets look back together, shall we?
x

the bits of real life

even after all the times i have been on tour and come home, i dont think i'll ever get used to the letdown that accompanies the moment you pull into the driveway and turn the car off. tour is finally over and the frenetic pace of life on the road fades. and whats left? laundry, bills, phone calls, the bits of real life that you have put off for the stimulation of being on the road. the silence of your own house and your own mind. no more distractions!

so i'm home. and it isnt like i was out that long. just 2 weeks and we only had 5 shows in all that time. it wasnt a tour about music, it was about the time in between the music, and so maybe this time, its the friends and travel that i miss the most.

the path of ike

we finally heard that our houston show had indeed been cancelled, so we ambled out of the bywater and headed west on RT.10, heading through houston towards austin. all reports had warned us about driving that route, but looking at the map, we didnt see any better way. we made sure we had a full tank of gas and took our chances.

what we saw on the way was quite incredible. as we approached the louisiana-texas border, we began to see caravans of electrical maintenance trucks, cars with gallons of gas strapped to the back, billboards in tatters and other smaller signs of the hurricane. yet, as soon as we crossed the border into texas, the damage was even more striking and immediately visible. no billboard was intact, and more and more buildings were missing roofs, walls, or were partially collapsed.

we stopped at the first rest-stop in texas, which, as we pulled in, we could see was closed. everything was covered in a cracked layer of smelly mud. clearly water had reached here. the whole place stank, though it took us a moment to realize why. as we walked back to the van, we noticed something odd. the parking lot was covered with dead fish and shrimp of all different sizes. the biggest pile of them was centered around a big drainage grate. literally hundreds of fish had come pouring UP through the grate into the parking lot as the drainage system was overwhelmed. as the water receded, the fish were left to suffocate on the pavement. it was an eerie site, an ominous version of the phrase "fish out of water".

as we approached the beaumont/port arthur area, the devastation was clear. the side of a hotel ripped off. whole swathes of urban sprawl without a single light on. we passed an arena whose parking lot, plus the highway approaching, was bumper to bumper full of tractor trailers carrying relief supplies. scanning the radio, we found that most stations had pre-empted their usual programming in favor of public-bulletins and call-ins. we listened in awe as listener after listener phoned in with information on FEMA, hotel-vouchers, food-stamps and relief kitchens.

it was growing dark as we came into houston. the downtown looked lit, but we passed through short stretches of highway without any streetlights and many many gas stations with no power. the scale of what we saw was overwhelming, something i dont think you can get an accurate representation of from the TV or internet. we drove 4 hours at highway speed through affected areas. miles of damage.

it reminded me of visiting new orleans after katrina. you stand in the wreckage, at whatever stage, but you dont touch it. you experience it, but you dont physically engage in it. it's a hollow feeling. i couldnt shake the suspicion that we were trespassing through these towns' post-apocalypse clean-up.

we arrived in austin late night, quiet and somber from our visions. austin would be our home base for the next 5 days.

SUGGESTED READING: ISSAC's STORM by Erik Larson (who wrote "devil in the white city")

i'm headed out on the road again, after a summer of laying low and recording my new record. my partner in crime for this trip is my friend desdemona "bunty" burgin, a gifted photographer who moonlights as a tour manager for me every once in awhile. our first tour together, of the UK in spring 07, featured theft, mugging, and a car accident. no kidding. our second tour was the 9 week marathon "lafayette" tour in the fall of 07. bunts is the perfect tourmate, sweet and capable and funny as shit. you should also check out her photos.

we're heading out on the road for a set of shows with my old friend stephen kellogg. along with his band, the sixers, stephen has spent the last 5 years criss-crossing the country working his growing audiences into a fervor every night. i happened to have a spot in my schedule, he happened to ask, and we are reuniting for a few shows. everytime i see stephen, he sounds better and better, and i dont know anyone who works harder or thinks about how to make their career better, more often. my only regret is that we dont have more shows...

bunty and i left massachusetts on sunday and headed south toward houston, which had just been hit by the devastating hurricane ike. from the news reports we were watching, it just didnt seem possible to have a show there in two days, but we also hadnt received confirmation from the promoter that the show was cancelled. so we drove...

looking at a map, we saw that new orleans was on the way. i've spent some sizeable chunks of time in NOLA and even made a record there in 2004. the last time i was there was december 2006, on a writing trip. getting to go back, even for 24 hours was a treat. we're staying with my good friend, shawn hall, a painter, who also owns piety street studio, where i had recorded "we will become like birds". piety street is in the bywater, a funky neighborhood i have become quite familiar with and fond of. katrina impacted the area, though it did not flood. compared to 2006, it finally looks like the bywater was running on all cylinders again. the same cant be said for other parts of new orleans which are still mired in post-hurricane beurocracy and neglect. it's mind-boggling to think that the great and mighty american enterprise could turn so profound a blind eye to such a beautiful and important place.

shawn is relentlessly positive, but never unrealistic- qualities that have carried her through lots of tough situations. she's one of the main reasons i love new orleans so much. through her, i've seen unique parts of the city through her artist's eye and really grown to feel a connection to her neighborhood.

day thirteen. brussels and home.

i had been to brussels once before, for a night on the way from amsterdam or to amsterdam, i cant remember. what i do remember is loving the town and wishing i had more time there. jan started by taking me to a tiny pasta place next to the opera, which was about a quarter the size of vienna's. i had spaghetti with truffle oil and sausage, a sign of the good food to come.

the first night i was there, we decided to go and hear some music. according to jan, not many of his professional musician friends like to go hear live music. and i can see why. you spend so much work time in clubs, why would you want to spend your down time there too... but i get so much out of being in the same room as anyone performing, that i eat it up and it fires me up. so we went and saw the cuban guitarist ray cabrera and his band. we got there late, so we sat in the front row. now i was the person i laugh at or try to ignore at my own shows. clumsily trying to squeeze in without being noticed by the person onstage. hah! we see you. always.

i loved hearing music where i didnt understand the words, which made me realize how much i had been enjoying being in countries where i didnt really understand anything anyone around me was saying. when your living is words, sometimes its nice to return words to just sounds, not meanings and references and histories.

the next day, we started earlier and went to a fleamarket in the old part of the city. it was surrounded by streets filled with antique shops brimming with amazing stuff. thats one of the things i love most about traveling: going into antique stores. it gives me ideas for my current house, it gives me ideas for my future house, it fires my imagination for the who and when and what of an object. plus, the more jumbled the store, the more juxtaposed the junk, the more i like it. i want to see a door frame on its side next to a sink next to an entire row of theater seats with antique helmets in a case behind. these stores reminded me alot of the antique stores and salvage warehouses of new orleans. something old and waterlogged about the style, not the dry, wheat harvest and open space aesthetic you see in most american shops.

in the afternoon, we went to the museum of musical instruments. it was incredibly thorough, with instruments from every family you could think of, from most continents. and each exhibit had a sound portion, of course, which was also overwhelming. imagine hearing 30 second clips of a hundred instruments in an hour. whoa.

i found myself looking more and more at the tags for the instruments and hoping to see "north america" on any of them. as much as i love being in europe- the food, transportation, people are much nicer- i have found as i have gotten older i have a real soft spot for america. not the politicians or the flag and the heaviness of all that, but the feeling of america. the best way i can describe it is the SPACE of america, the promise of america. i get nostalgic for every mountain, highway, canyon, forest in my country and the inspiration of someplace so big and beautiful and wild and open, unfinished always and wide enough for everything (if also wide in the pants).

brussels has a huge catholic cathedral ("are there any other kind?" asked jan thoughtfully but belgian-like), and last night we went to an organ concert there of music by the composer olivier messiaen. messiaen dabbled in a form of serialism he invented, but was influenced equally by his big time catholic faith and birdsong. in fact he considered himself as much an ornithologist as anything else. the cathedral was totally dark, except for a spotlight on the giantic pipe organ on the wall. we sat right beneath it. what an instrument! i had no idea what i was in for, being new to messiaen and not too familiar with the pipe organ reperatory.

i love it when the music you are listening to outside of your body, the music you hear that is made by someone else matches so perfectly your interior life, your state of mind, that it becomes a seamless experience. what you are hearing and what you are thinking and what you are feeling are all the same, coalescing into the singular sound in front of you. i will forever listen to messiaen and come back to this moment: this moment of regret, disappointment, of confusion, of being a traveler but longing for something to feel like ground i can stand on, for desperately needing someone i can count on, for putting my hopes and desires on someone who couldnt sustain them, let alone their own. this time that finds me still feeling like more around me needs to fall apart and strip down. as lost as i feel in this moment, i think i will have to get even more lost before whatever it is that i am supposed to do on the otherside can become clear. the rumble of the pipes, the squeal of the upper register, the solid stone of the cathedral sending all of it back to me, growing somehow closer to something inevitable.