Why oh why have I never listened to Andy McKee before today?
I’m like,
(Source: whatshouldwecallme)
(Source: fearlessknightsandfairytales, via star-kisses)
"...he believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music."
And just like that, I have a new favorite artist.
(Source: kaliopa, via everythingyoulovetohate)
Minus the typo, this is pretty fantastic.
“What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heartbeat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood? If you were extremely excited your skin would turn green, and if you were angry you’d turn red, obviously, and if you felt like shiitake you’d turn brown, and if you were blue you’d turn blue.
Everyone would know what everyone else felt and we could be more careful with each other, because you’d never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you’re angry at her for being late, just like you want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, “Congratulations!”
Another reason it would be a good invention is that there are so many times when you know you’re feeling a lot of something, but you don’t know what that something is.”
— From Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
I’d definitely be tie-dye today.
“…she wants to know if I love her, that’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet…” — from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.” — Maurice Sendak
There once was a mom
Who no one could guess
The years that she’d lived
Or how she rocked every dress
She was rare for her time
She did triathlons and yoga
She only slept to plan
And I have no other rhyming word but toga
She was born in Long Island
You can tell when she’s mad
Not that that happens often
Mostly with Matthew or Dad
She’s moved 18 times
Times 4 little misfits
That’s 72 times consoling
When the back hand of change hits
But the thing I like best
About this babe they call Betty
Is not all that she does
But all she does to stay steady
When brothers and sisters
and generals and such
Are calling and falling
Desperately needing a crutch
She’s a one-woman business
A government, a class
They should sculpt her a statue
Made of cookie dough or brass
Because no one knows now
Nor will ever know
How she does all she does
Without a wrinkle to show
So here’s to you mom,
For an unknown amount of years
None of which show on that face
All of which deserve cheers.
“The best thing for being sad is to learn something.” — Camelot
I haven’t seen Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close only because I found out it was a book right before the movie came out and told myself I’d read the book first. I’m one of ‘those’ that can’t honestly enjoy a book if I know what happens. I can count on one hand the number of books I’ve willingly read twice and generally don’t like seeing the same movie more than once either. It’s not that the only novelty I find in a book or movie is that it’s contents are unknown, it’s more that I can’t ever experience the story the same way as that very first time. And I prefer to keep it that way. Once I know the whole story my brain proceeds to form it’s own offshoots and judgements. (“Liz, that sounds like pretentious bullshit but go on.”) The exception is when I haven’t seen the movie or read the book in a long enough amount of time so that I’ve forgotten most of what happens. Though my brain does not ignore the fact that this book/movie was not entirely memorable and the rewatching/reading is thus affected.
But back to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. I also tried to wait to read other books-into-movies like The Help, Something Borrowed and Step Up 3D, (wait, what?) before seeing the movies but eventually admitted my “Books to Read” list was not getting any shorter. But I stuck to my guns for this one. I’m 108 pages in. And I’m already pret-ty, pret-ty positive this book will be on my top five list until JK Rowling and Shel Silverstein agree to collaboratively write the next few books in The Hunger Games series.
Here’s a taste:
The next morning I told Mom I couldn’t go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I’m sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What’s everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry —” “Who’s Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and I zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no raison d’être, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theater, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper…” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn’t leave while I was still going. “…domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity at school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years—” “Who said there won’t be humans in fifty years?” I asked her, “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” She looked at her watch and said, “I’m optimistic.” “Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.” “Why do beautiful songs make you sad?” “Because they aren’t true.” “Never?” “Nothing is beautiful and true.” She smiled, but in a way that wasn’t just happy, and said “You sound just like Dad.”
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
-Wallace Stevens