February242012
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Maria Taylor - Lynn Teeter Flower

This is a recording taken by Maria Taylor’s father when she was a little girl. After she sings her little song, she says: 

Maria: "Thank you very much! We're gonna have some more tunes and um, and we're not gonna stop!"
Mr. Taylor: "Let's stop and listen to that."
Maria: "Ok. Uh, wha... what?"
Mr. Taylor: "Let's just stop for now. We'll do it again later on."
Maria: "Oh. We're stoppin, Momma."
Mr. Taylor: "I think we've gotta hit there."
Maria: "We'll do it later on."
Mr. Taylor: "Let's take a listen on that one."
Maria: "Yah."
Mr. Taylor: "Maria's a blues singer. I just knew it all along."

In this 2008 interview, she explains the track:

My dad had a friend name Lynn and he had a flower shop called “Lynn Teeter Flowers.” That recording was just me when I was little—I’d always sing and make up words to songs. And the story behind how I chose it as the title is that I had finished the album but didn’t have a name for it. I was with friends and we were trying to figure out the title really late at night. Then my dad e-mailed me the song and said, “Look what I just found!” When I heard it, I thought, “There it is! There’s the title.” I just thought it sounded cool.

I wish the interviewer’s next question was: Wow, so was your childhood a perfect embodiment of magic and joy all the time? I wish I could know how it feels to have been a little kid whose parents delight in her so much they not only encourage her to sing the heart out of her silly songs, but record them, and love them!  

My childhood was like sitting next to a miserable, loud, complaining couple in the booth next to me in a Denny’s. And even when the food was actually pretty good, I still had to eat it in the fucking Denny’s. 

(6 plays)
February232012

Anonymous asked: do you know the meaning of dreams? im jw what some of mine mean

I interpret dreams psychoanalytically. None of that “dream dictionary” nonsense. I would need to know quite a bit about what is going on with you emotionally, with your life, in order to feel confident in analyzing your dreams for you. If you’re interested in talking with me, send me an e-mail and perhaps we can arrange something. 

February222012

Some photos of my aerial performance this Valentine’s Day.

5PM

Dream Interpretation, Installment #1: What a beautiful nightmare!

This morning in the midst of a nightmare, I achieved lucidity, as I am wont to do in the midst of nightmares. Something about the absurdity strikes me as so irrational I realize it must be a dream, allowing me to wake myself from the unpleasantness. 

I dreamt there were snakes crawling into my body through my feet. At one point my feet were stuck together by these awful things worming their way inside of me. I tried pulling them apart like the two pieces of bread stuck together by a stringy mash of melted cheese. Once I was free to walk, I found a doctor, a beautiful woman in all white, she stayed calm and pulled from a jar a glowing white worm which she told me to swallow. She said its presence would “overwhelm” the others and they would leave. Then she held a lantern up to my body and my skin appeared transparent, revealing the squirming shadows inside of me, writhing around in my legs and sides, but she said, “It’s okay, they won’t harm the baby.” At this I realized there was something small growing in my womb, it rested peacefully, unaware of what was going on all around.

Soon, these snakes began coming out of my every orifice. The beautiful doctor stood behind me as she pulled them from my body, and I was calm and not afraid, though also not fully present as I put all my faith in her. Then she told me, calmly she told me, “grab that one and pull it out” and I suddenly saw a tiny hissing snake head before my eyes, emerging from my mouth. I grabbed and pulled on it, but it bit my hand. “Smash your fist into the wall” she told me, still calm, and I did as she said. It was just after this that I became lucid to the dream state and I took it all in for one more moment before opening my eyes. 

Most people wake from nightmares upset, but I was delighted! What a dream to interpret! What a wonderful gift from my subconscious!!!

THE INTERPRETATION:

The snakes: I kept referring to them as snakes in the dream, but in fact they were parasites. I once watched an episode of House where he made mention to these parasites that live in desert sands, and if you walk over them barefoot they will crawl into your body through your feet. This information was filed away into my brain and therefore accessible as material for dreamstuff. 

Those parasites are all the bad feelings, all the toxic feelings that have been feeding on me, depleting me, stealing my energy, all those parasitic things, etc. 

And what’s more—“everyone in your dream is you.” That’s a staple of dream interpretation. This beautiful doctor, she is me! My inner strength. The one telling me, “No, these feelings don’t have to be inside of you.” Remaining calm and positive in the face of a troubling situation, shining her light and making me transparent, seeing, not ignoring but acknowledging the bad things inside of me and casting them out. 

And the baby? My future self, perhaps? My better self? Rebirth and all that. Becoming a better person, growing, changing, ridding myself of what’s unwanted and nurturing and protecting that which is. 

In light of recent events, this nightmare gives me great hope. 

2PM

Three Dog Night | by Faith Shearin

In the old days, before houses were warm,
people did not sleep alone. Not even
windows went by themselves into

the cold sheets of night. Rooms were
lit with lanterns and children were
encouraged to jump on their beds,

warming themselves, before they
crawled inside. You might sleep with
your cousin or sister, your nose

buried in the summer of their
hair. You might place a baked potato
in your blanket to help it remember

warmth. A fire would be lit but, after
awhile, it would smolder down
to the bone silence of ash. Everything

was cold: the basin where you washed
your face, the wood floor, the windows
where you watched your breath

open over the framed blur of snow.
Your hands and feet were cold
and the trees were cold: naked,

traced in ice. You might take a dog
to bed or two or three, anything to lie
down with life, feel it breathing nearby.

12PM
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Camera Obscura - French Navy

(13 plays)
12PM

I have the loveliest friends <3 

(but only check the mailbox about once a month)

February212012

While riding a very slowly moving subway

  • D: I get so frustrated because I just don't understand! Why, sometimes it's reliable and runs great, but other times, not at all! I want to research the inner workings of the system because I feel like if I can understand why, I won't get so annoyed when it's not working.
  • me: That's the same reason I study psychology.
5PM
Andy Goldsworthy, Pebbles Around A Hole, 1987

Andy Goldsworthy, Pebbles Around A Hole, 1987

(Source: cavetocanvas)

February162012

CocoRosie - Lemonade 

So creepy and beautiful

February132012
Pablo Picasso - Two Figures and a Cat, 1902.

Pablo Picasso - Two Figures and a Cat, 1902.

1PM

Separation | By W. S Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

February102012

Nightsong | by Philip Booth (1999)

Beside you,
lying down at dark,
my waking fits your sleep.

Your turning
flares the slow-banked fire
between our mingled feet,

and there,
curved close and warm
against the nape of love,

held there,
who holds your dreaming
shape, I match my breathing

to your breath;
and sightless, keep my hand
on your heart’s breast, keep

nightwatch
on your sleep to prove
there is no dark, nor death.

February92012
Having spent the last hour reading Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, obviously a boring textbook for school, I decided to take just the tiniest little break just now to go check the weather and, more directly, the mail, and discovered that THIS has finally arrived! 
I indulged in the first page&#8230;The first sentence&#8230;

&#8220;The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.&#8221; 

And instead of continuing I have to read a fucking textbook! Goddamn the injustice of time! 

Having spent the last hour reading Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, obviously a boring textbook for school, I decided to take just the tiniest little break just now to go check the weather and, more directly, the mail, and discovered that THIS has finally arrived! 

I indulged in the first page…
The first sentence…

“The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.” 

And instead of continuing I have to read a fucking textbook! Goddamn the injustice of time! 

1PM
Ferdinand Hodler, At the Foot of the Petit Saleve, 1893

Ferdinand Hodler, At the Foot of the Petit Saleve, 1893

(via cavetocanvas)

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