well, it’s official.  i’ve just become aware of GAYNGS (thanks to mister dylan of persona la ave) and i am completely and utterly infatuated.  it’s not enough to love justin vernon for his brilliance in bon iver, or volcano choir, or even his self proclaimed work as a solo artist, but now to love him for being a part of the power band which includes members of bon iver, megafaun, dosh, solid gold, the rosebuds and leisure birds.. it’s almost too much for my already bursting heart to handle.  

daytrotter did a wonderful session with these guys, so go check it out.  and then listen to these tracks to have your ears blessed:

GAYNGS - “By Your Side” (Sade Cover)

gayngs//the last prom on earth

come talk to me (peter gabriel cover)//bon iver

well, not much has to be said about this.  it’s justin vernon in true form once again, taking a song written by someone else and somehow transforming into something all his own.  i don’t listen to much peter gabriel, but i’m guessing if i heard his version of this song i wouldn’t be quite as moved as i am hearing it from the lips of justin.  keep it coming justin, my heart has plenty of room for your soul slayage, thanks.

(via the boys over at whale in a cubicle)

last night i went to the cocorosie show.  it was unbelievable.  how they manage to meld genres from opera to beat boxing together into one glorious sound, i will never know.  but it blew my heart and mind off.

in the past week i’ve been to at least two shows that have made me question my entire livelihood.  i don’t know what it is about music, about how it can literally transport my entire being into another world and leave me completely and utterly happy, but i love it.  i have come to realize that there is this magical thing which exists in the world that i long to be a part of, that i long to create alongside those already creating it.  i can’t explain it.  i can’t tell you why when certain words are strung out across notes and over chords, put to a beautiful melody, pieced together by one beat and another beat, and sung instead of spoken a part of my heart that i didn’t even know existed gets completely slayed.  and i can’t tell you why we as humans, as creative or non-creative as we are, all identify with something in music that hits us much deeper than words alone ever could.

i can’t explain it.  but i don’t care.

and i think, more than a dozen times at least, while being totally wrapped up in each of these shows, myself and the beautiful friends accompanying me thought to ourselves, “i want this to be my life.”  and i do.  i want to do this thing; this thing that makes people so completely united with beauty, with life, with truth, with themselves, and with everything else we don’t quite know how to get at all by ourselves.  and there’s a huge part of that desire that terrifies the life out of me.  it seems near impossible, given the fact that i’m not anything close to a good musician, but that’s almost what makes it even more beautiful.  i think maybe i could be, if i really wanted to.

and until i can make this a reality, i am going to continue letting my heart get flayed open by people like cocoon (tomorrow) and bon iver (this weekend) and this girl, who opened for cocorosie-

katie stelmanis

music.  there’s just something about it.  and i don’t have the answer.  but i don’t care.  i just want to be around the people creating it, and eventually create it with them.  and if i can’t, then i will create this same heart shattering, life blowing, i could die happy, everything is beautiful truth some other way.

that is all.

“how is it that you have a chord here and then another chord there, and then your heart breaks open? i don’t know the answer. maybe it’s that music is about as physical as it gets. your essential rhythm is your heartbeat. your essential sound the breath. we’re walking temples of noise and when you add the human heart to this mix, it somehow lets us meet on a bridge that we couldn’t get to any other way.” (Ann Lamott on This American Life #104: Music Lessons)

well, the sickness has finally caught me.  i’m laying here in bed, unable to sleep and unable to breathe out of my nose.  it’s so agitating, to not be able to breathe the way i was designed to.  ugh.  this is going to be a long night.
before i went to bed tonight, as i was looking at myself in the mirror just before washing my face clean of all my make-up, i thought to myself, “why is it that i always look the best right before i go to bed?”  seriously though, more times than not, when i’m getting ready to wash my face and send it back to it’s original state, i curse the night because 9 times out of 10 i look magnificent.  i don’t know what it is, and i have resolved that i may never know the answer, but there is something about that moment right before bed, when i know that no one else is going to see me, and it’s like my face, just to spite me, becomes radiant and my make-up flawless, my hair perfectly in place and my cheeks rosy.  what’s the deal?  so i had this idea (which i have yet to decide whether i will actually carry it out) to take a picture of myself every single night before i go to bed.  and then someday, a year from now, perhaps 5 years from now, i will compose them all together in a video and, not only see myself age, but see myself age in my most beautiful moments.  now that i think about it, it seems like a lot of work.  but it also seems kind of intriguing.  just for the mere the idea of it, really.  
and still, i can’t breathe out of my nose.  but not just my nose, the left side of it.  which is even more agitating.  justin vernon, of bon iver, i have decided, is one of the most beautiful humans to ever live.  not because i actually know him, or think he is physically attractive, but solely on the knowledge that when i listen to the music he makes, i feel like everything in the world is as it should be.  what is that?  what is it about certain things that does that?  sometimes it’s a song, sometimes it’s a painting, or a poem, and sometimes its just a quiet day with the wind softly blowing across your face.  whatever it is, i think i want to make people realize it; i want to make them feel that.  to feel like they could do nothing wrong in that moment; like everything around them, everything inside of them and everything that makes up the small little world that they live in, for even just a moment, has become perfect.  at peace.  justin vernon’s music, bon iver, does that for me.  music, more often than not, does this for me.  
a new year.  what does that even mean?  i find myself asking that a lot these days; sometimes after completely ridiculous instances, such as ‘its a new year’.  or such as ‘would you like paper or plastic?’  why do i even care what that means?  ’i love you’.  what does that even mean?  i don’t think i’ll ever know what every little thing i encounter means in my lifetime.  i had a dream the other night.  i dreamt that me and jas climbed a mountain.  when we got to the top, we discovered a beautiful cabin.  smoke billowed out of the chimney.  we went inside, entered the living room and suddenly wondered why we had climbed the mountain in the first place.  but for some reason, we felt that there was a reason, and sure enough we remembered we had climbed the mountain to meet a great philosopher, a ‘great mind’ of our time.  we waited in the living room and soon enough an old man came out from one of the rooms and joined us.  knowing this was the man who we had been searching, we waited to hear what it was we had climbed and travelled all this way for.  rather comedically, we all stood there, looking at each other, as if to say ‘so, what do you have to tell me?’  after a long awkward silent stare, it was as if we all realized, without having to say a word, the answer to all of our questions.  we were asking ‘what do you have to reveal to us, why did we come here?’  and the old man’s answer was ‘you came here to see me.’  with that, we left and made our trek back down the mountain.  seems pretty cruel if you ask me.  well of course we know we came to see you, are you crazy old man?  i thought you were supposed to be some kind of brilliant philosopher here to tell us the key to life; the answer to the ever burning question, ‘what does this all mean?  what am i supposed to do with this.. this life i have been given?’  and all you have for me is ‘you came to see me’!?!  real funny.  but the more i think about it, this is exactly what we climbed that mountain to hear.  and it was all we needed to hear.  most times, when i am facing something in life, whether it be difficult or mysterious, painful or joyous, i find myself trying to figure out what comes next.  i am always wanting to be one step ahead of life.  if i could just see a little further into the future, then i would be more prepared, right?  but if there’s anything i’ve learned from this past year, from this dream, it is that i already know everything i need to know.  i am here.  i am alive.  i have this moment.  i have these eyes.  i have this heart.  i have this mind.  and climbing up the mountain, as hard as it is, as many times as is necessary, when i get to the top, i have all i need.  i don’t need to know anything past what i am living, right now.  and oh how the view changes on that mountaintop.  i’m no longer looking only just above my own head, i am seeing everything below and around and above me.  my perspective is broader here.  i can seek the answers there and find them, as simple as they may be.  
i want to be brave.  brave enough to climb the mountain every day if need be.  that’s what life is.  and this year is no different.  so that’s what it means.  
god, this music is slaying me.  
i’ll breathe through my mouth tonight.  and i’ll stay alive just fine.  ’i’m not really like this, i’m probably plightless, so i cup the window, i’m crippled and slow, for the agony i’d rather know..’
goodnight…