Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
“You can see this intention to go toward the right wing in politics that’s taking place. But it will only bring us to a darker place, and a rainier season. Whenever humans lose their courage, it’s always followed by all kinds of tragedies.”
Ai Weiwei, artist, as told to the New York Times
Blame it on starting college studying music AND creative writing, but I will always be a sucker for poems about music. Beethoven quartets are my summer listening anyway, so this is perfect:
String Theory
I have to believe a Beethoven
string quartet is not unlike
the elliptical music of gossip:
one violin excited
to pass its small story along
to the next violin and the next
until, finally, come full circle,
the whole conversation is changed.
And I have to believe such music
is at work at the deep heart of things,
that under the protons and electrons,
behind the bosons and quarks,
with their bonds and strange attractors,
these strings, these tiny vibrations,
abuzz with their big ideas,
are filling the universe with gossip,
the unsung art of small talk
that, not unlike busybody Beethoven,
keeps us forever together, even
when everything’s flying apart.
I finally made myself fix the cuffs on this guy and just finish it already, so I present the first finished sewing of 2016:
Pattern: Archer Button Up Shirt from Grainline Studio (really well drafted in the shoulders and body–fits like J. Crew)
Fabric: Liberty Tana Lawn in Mitsi, bought back in 2011
Construction Notes: I added an inch to the sleeves and body but didn’t really need it, although the sleeve length came in handy when I had to re-do the cuffs. I used French seams on this instead of flat-felled (copying a J. Crew Liberty shirt I already had) and got lovely pearl buttons from Fashion Sewing Supply.
Feelings Of Delight vs Relief It’s Finally Done Feelings: Equal.
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
-John Muir
1. My grasp of higher math ends with algebra (which isn’t even higher math), so I’m completely in the dark about how this is done or its implications, but hey–fractals that end up looking like Buddha! Buddhabrot Fractals.
2.Yep:
3. I read about this meditation practice after Fukushima in 2011 (the person used it to help with her grief) and then forgot about it until recently, when I was overwhelmed with the sad and the bad in the world. I’m not someone who practices meditation regularly but I tried it and it was intense. But good. Tonglen meditation: Keeping those who suffer in our hearts.
How about some Benjamin Britten to get us to the end of the week? This is from his Friday Afternoons song series, written for the school his brother taught at, and it is a delight. (It was also used at the end of Moonrise Kingdom, where it was also a delight.)
Doc and I were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Dalai Lama speak at the University of Utah yesterday. It was about as cool as you’d think it would be to hear His Holiness speak in person, even if our seats weren’t all THAT close.
My favorite part? He was presented with a medal from the University and I believe requested a visor for the stage lights, so he wore them both together for most of his talk, like the O.G. monk he is.
My second favorite part? This part (taken from the paper’s coverage this morning, since they paraphrased it already):
“My brothers, my sisters, you should not think of world problems as huge and that one individual cannot do much. This is wrong thinking.” A peaceful world starts with one person, then spread to one family, then 10 families, then 1,000 families and whole communities. “That’s the way to change society,” he said. “I feel it in my heart.”
The Great Salt Lake may be a little stinky, but it always puts on a good show.
And it’s going to be 99 degrees. Stretch out on it like Toby on the rug upstairs:
(I’ll have some solstice at the lake pictures for tomorrow, since we’re headed there for sunset. Happy longest day of the year!)
1. We did it again. Celebrate it–because celebrating everything will make your life better.
…your brain consistently remembers only two things about an event: the emotional peak and the ending….[so] if you make sure to always end happy times or tough challenges with a little celebration, you already have half of what it takes to make great memories.
2. The kind of literary criticism I can get behind.
3. Monday is the summer solstice AND a full moon, which only happens about every 30 years. Watch it at Slooh or head outside yourself.