Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Muuuuuuusic!

Learned how to play a new song on the guitar tonite. It's the first track of the new Conor Oberst record. It's called Cape Canaveral, and it's super easy, G Am Em C D - THAT'S IT. I always fall in love with the simplest songs. Here's a vid of him doing it live in Vancouver. I can't do the picking, but it sounds ok anyway. Now I just need to memorize all those wacky lyrics.

Notable Quotable...

I like this, maybe you do too. Enjoy!

"Life is 10% what happens and 90% of how you react to it. You cannot change your past and you cannot change the fact that people will act a certain way. The only thing you can do is play on the one string you have, and that is your attitude. Your attitude is more important than the past, more important than education, money, life circumstances, more important than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. Attitude will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is that you have the choice everyday regarding the attitude you choose to embrace.”

~ Charles R. Swindoll

Friday, August 22, 2008

Music Friday!

This edition of MF is a tribute to the lovely and talented Regina Spektor. Enjoy!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Reading and Coincidence...

So, right now I am finishing up The Celestine Prophecy, a novel about coincidence and insight, and how people and ideas present themselves in your life for a reason and the exact right and perfect moment. I started reading this book because it had been recommended to me several times over the years, and several times recently, which I took as a sign. Now, I am obsessed with signs and how coincidence is not really coincidence at all. Here is an example:

During a party on July 4th, I had a conversation with a stranger about books, and we came to discuss Tom Robbins. I mentioned that the only book of his I own is Still Life with Woodpecker which I received at a book-swap years ago and have yet to read. She said that her favorite was Jitterbug Perfume. I made a promise to myself to find this book. I went to the library and it is not in circulation in my area, so I let it go and moved on to reading other things. In the last several weeks, I've had not two or three but FOUR dear friends mention this book in passing and I was DETERMINED to read it. I got on Amazon a couple days ago and purchased a used copy which should arrive any day now. TODAY, I opened and read my horoscope which reads:

"AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In addition to food, air, water, sleep, and
love, every human being needs stories. No one can psychically survive
without the continuous flow of narrative through his or her imagination.
And just as there is a big difference between the physical nourishment
provided by a salad or by a candy bar, so is there a wide range of quality
in the stories you expose yourself to. Soaking up the adventures of über-
playboy Hugh Hefner and his three girlfriends on the TV show "The Girls
Next Door" will probably deplete your energy and lower your intelligence,
while reading Tom Robbins' novel *Jitterbug Perfume* may enhance your
mental hygiene and sharpen your perceptions. What I'm saying here is
always true, of course, but it's especially important for you to keep in
mind right now. From what I can tell, you're ravenous for beautiful,
uncanny, uplifting stories."

CAN. YOU. F*CKING. BELIEVE. IT???

The universe wants me to read this book and wants me to read it immediately.
I am going to devour this book as soon as it arrives, this is just too spooky.

Love,
-Mandy

Tom Robbins excerpt...

Love this. Please enjoy.
-Mandy


"If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf
howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as
near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of
hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery.
Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.

"To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and
everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires
expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger,
imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics,
beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down.
These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness,
egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating
ketchup on cottage cheese.

"Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic,
alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not
for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the
unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane
more than a little embarrassing. More immediately, by waxing soulful you
will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what
the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day
basis, folks, it doesn't get any better than that."

- Tom Robbins, *Esquire* magazine, October 1993

Friday, August 15, 2008

Music Friday--Choral Edition!

Ok, so the choral nerd in me is totally hot for Josh Groban. Props for his version of 'On Eagle's Wings' the most familiar and repellent Catholic Hymn of all time. It gets stuck in your head for weeks and you find yourself singing it in the shower like a total dork. I love his voice, though, so in asking forgiveness for my this befouling of churchly music, I shall forgive his cover. Below is a recording of the song Lullaby he did with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I'm not sure who put all the photos of Africa together, but I found it whilst idling on YouTube and thought I would post as a resurgent edition of Music Friday! Enjoy.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Poets and Dreamers

I have a friend from high school, Bill. We shared a creative writing class together and fancied ourselves poets at 17. I always had a crush on him, and thought of him as mysterious and dark. Ten years later, he still writes poems like a fiend, and he inspires me to do the same. So here's a poem for Bill.

here we are
cursing and spitting
teetering on a tightrope
no one told us we would have to cross.

to one side we fall
sinking sad into the past
with its longing and lament
only to pull ourselves up
and over
crashing headfirst with worry
speculation and grimey, grabbing fists
to an unknown future
not yet promised to us.

when there is balance
it is not balance
but quiet anticipation
of the falling and crashing
we set ourselves up for
again and again.

this is not life,
this is a circus.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Happiness...

This is an excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat, Pray, Love -- which I highly recommend to everyone and anyone. I love this bit, and I think it's a good reminder for all of us.

"...People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments."

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Another Spider Post


So, my parents came over today to help me clean out my messy garage. It was full of Luigi's boxes and junk on the floor. We organized my shelving units, hung up tools, swept it out and generally made it awesomely clean. In the process, we found this giant Black Widow behind my wheelbarrow. Normally, I try not to kill bugs, but I have NO soft spot in my heart for spiders, especially ones with toxic venom. I had my dad smash her with a broom, and although I felt a little bad about it, I am glad she's gone. By all means, make a nest and procreate, just not in my garage, because at that point, all bets are off.