How Can Lightness Insist?

Let's just say I'm still unpacking my experience of seeing Kay Ryan and Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage and Wole Soyinka last night. I'm still unpacking it in light of all that's going on in my life right now. How unbelievably funny and serious it was, all at once. How just their presence on stage; the feeling that they knew what we were going through, made both Sarah and me cry. 


But for now, I'd like to leave you with these lines and her thoughts on lightness. Flipping the heavy into the light is a Buddhist karmic idea that I've long been drawn to. I'm glad Kay feels the same.

If a fairy makes a fist

who's impressed?

How can lightness insist?

Years ago I wrote a poem that went on too long but started well; it began, "If a fairy makes a fist/ who's impressed?/ How can lightness insist?" And that is what I would still like to know: how can lightness insist? In The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera writes wistfully of the eponymous substance, describing how Beethoven once converted a perfectly inconsequential joke into a "serious quartet." Kundera contemplates how much more remarkable it would have been if Beethoven had achieved the reverse, making "heavy go light."

I don't know why lightness isn't more talked about, more valued, more pursued in poetry. I suspect it is out of the fear that one will be"taken lightly." But I ask, is there a sensation more exquisite than the feeling of having the burden of oneself borne off by a poem? The burden only, note; not the self. One's atoms are mysteriously distanced from one another. That is to say, one still has all one's own atoms, but for the moment they are not the trouble they were.

I think it bears repeating. "Is there a sensation more exquisite than the feeling of having the burden of oneself borne off by a poem?" No, no there is not. One still has all one's own atoms, but for the moment, they are not the trouble they were.  Yes.

A Mumuration is a Collection of Starlings

Here's the deal. There are all these things about the world and about nature that no one ever tells you living in a big city. You just have to get out into the world to see them. 


My friend Sophie posted this video over the weekend and I watched it while we were on Skye. Wow. This was on the River Shannon in Ireland. More from Sophie Windsor Clive & Liberty Smith at Islands & Rivers. 

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Weekend Mellow Music- James Vincent McMorrow

By the time you read this, I'll be listening to blaring bagpipes. But the mood of Skye is much more mellow. So I leave you this fine November Saturday with some Irish goodness from Dubliner, James Vincent McMorrow. 


I love his originals. I've been extremely productive all week long alternating between his Early in the Morning and the new Flo album, Ceremonials. Basically, I'm into the whole album. Especially bonus track, "Red Dust". If you missed it, also check out his song "We Don't Eat" in the beautiful One Year in NYC video. 


But he also does covers and you know how I love those covers. "If I had a boat" is still not a cover, but he's got some Adele! (Below.) He even does a cover of my most misheard lyric throughout childhood, Steve Winwood's "Bake Me a Pie of Love"...I mean, "Higher Love."


Happy Saturday! Enjoy!





Click here for a mini concert courtesy of NPR. 

Dreamy NYC

Have you seen this cool video by Irish filmmaker Andrew Clancy, A Year in New York? I came across it via a friend yesterday while I was posting pictures of my rural weekend. I got lost in all of NYC's urban splendor until suddenly I had a realization that made me very sad. That the "year in New York" this video captured was a whole year when I wasn't there. 


It's sort of silly and emo to go there, especially since I have been so happy this past year. But I think I'll always wish to be in at least two places at once-- and one of them will always be NYC. I just don't like facing the reality of opportunity costs. 


But this video even managed to inspire a sense of love of that train lumbering sideways and then sloping downwards from Queens into Manhattan. It was fun to romanticize it as more of an old Coney Island roller coaster, rather than the infuriating thing that made me late every morning. In general, I loved how much attention Queens got in this vid. (Though, side note, my favorite thing about the new Battery's Down video, "You Must Be Joking" is when VRay sings, "Pretending to love Astoria." On point, Jake.)


Anyhow, check out Andrew's vid featuring "We Don't Eat" from Dubliner James Vincent McMorrow. More on him later, but if you like Bon Iver or Sufjan Stevens, you'll be barking up the right tree. Texans, do not be alarmed. His "If I had a Boat," is not a cover. But I do recommend listening to it.  And checking out some of the rest of Clancy's vids as well. His Irish Voices project is pretty cool. 

Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.

Post title sponsored by Samuel Beckett. Someone close to my thoughts these days as I write a character based on him and play with different ways to open my novel, one of which I'll send off to Jake Polley later this afternoon. I feel you, Sammy. In a book that takes place both in the 1930s and the 2000s where would you rather start? Now or then? Hmmmm..... 


At least it's Friday. And in case you need something to distract you until the weekend officially starts, check out these Friday links:


- Tune into STAR radio tomorrow at 5PM Scotland time to catch me talking about VOTE!, Nicholas & Alexandra and other projects on Standing Ovation. We'll also play songs from both shows! (Non-UK'ers, you can stream online.)


- My beloved Willy's Pub is in financial trouble. I think we were always in financial trouble, but I know I would cry (and I'm sure I wouldn't be alone) if the Rice pub where I misspent my youth had to close down. PS- If it does close, I want my all-team signed Chris Kolkhorst jersey back. 


- Great NYT article about insane bureaucratic visa restrictions that are keeping great artists from working (for free!) in the United Kingdom. I feel your pain, fellow artists trying to work internationally. Oye. 

- This cat-fight between the richest man in musical theatre and the real-life peeps who live at Downton Abbey, I mean, Highclere Castle, gave me a chuckle. (I apologize in advance for linking you to the Daily Mail.)

I could never fast from Fassbender

For the past several days, I've been on a bit of a Fass-bender (See what I did there?) Why is he so attractive? I'm in the process of putting together my initial bibliography for my phd and let's just say a lot of my reading has been rather depressing. So I turned to this half-German, half-Irish stunner to be entertained. Turns out, Fassbender's work errs on the depressing side as well. 


When he isn't being killed by Chavs, Nazi Soldiers,  Charles I loyalists (or possibly Oliver Cromwell) in films, he's killing someone else, turning evil, locking his crazy wife in a tower, or smearing feces on a wall and starving himself... and then dying. Don't get me wrong- he's turning out some fantastic performances, and, hey, at least he looks good dying. 


(Except in Hunger. You guys, I'm not kidding. Have you seen this film? Fassby went on a medically monitored crash diet and everyone around him feared for his life. If  you watch, you'll see why. Near the beginning of the film, during a 17 minute single-take shot, as I watched M's shirtless stomach expand and contract with each breath while talking to a priest, I thought, "Shit, he did drop some weight!" Then! His character, IRA leader Bobby Sands, says he's about to START a hunger strike. And I thought, "You've got to be kidding me! You mean it's going to get worse?!?" Oh and it did. I'm trying to think about what kind of mindset you'd have to be in to do that for your craft. And how come I find this kind of extremism and dedication to craft so (hypothetically, if not actually) appealing? 


Let's hope this extremism doesn't apply to chose charges (later dropped) by his ex who claimed Fassby was abusive. That would just break my heart. 


One more bonus of being in the UK, is that more of his projects are available because they were made here for the BBC, etc. For my US readers who might feel so inspired, you can watch The Devil's Whore (worst title ever, about the English Civil War) and Angel on youtube. 


Also, can I just say how excited I am to see him as Carl Jung? (I'm looking into Jung's treatment of Lucia Joyce at the moment for my phd.) Opposite Viggo Mortenson (his older bro look alike) as Freud?? Only the loathesome Keira Knightley appears to be marring the amazingness of A Dangerous Method. And this is just one of the slew of new movies coming out with Fassby, so expect him to be a star that continues to rise. And as soon as he dumps Zoe Kravitz and moves back to the UK, we can get married. ;) Hope you have Fassb-- I mean-- fab (okay that one went too far) weekend!

Dublin Castle

Dublin looks different than I imagined it. I suppose I thought it looked a lot like Glasgow, and so I was really thrown by all the brick. Even the Castle is largely looming brick buildings surrounding a court yard. It's more colorful than I thought, with one whole side of the castle looking a bit like Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

After our extensive tour of Dublin courtesy of Erin, we chillaxed in the park on an awesome sunny day and tried to prepare for the amount of sun we'll be getting for the next week. Everyone told me Dublin was expensive, but I sort of thought they were exaggerating. They weren't. The drink prices, combined with my company-- the best New Yorkers-- made me feel like we were back in the Big Apple like old times. I could get too used to having these two around all the time. See you in Madrid!

big bad love of larry brown

My friends and I are obviously nerds. We get together on Friday nights and we read our stuff. I mean, we still get rowdy and piss off the neighbors. But I suppose it's from reading our short stories and poems too loudly? 


This Friday, I read Paddington. That's pretty much the only short thing I have. Heard some great poems from fiction writers and poets alike. 


Then, this Sunday, in another raging party, we hung out and watched this awesome documentary about the Mississippi writer Larry Brown. Our dear Brian had it shipped to Scotland from Duke University. (How he managed to track it down there, I have no idea.) 


It will definitely make you want to read Larry Brown. The still photography they used with narration of his some of his short stories was remarkably affective in places. Also, encouraging to see the lengthy lists of his short story send outs-- how often he was rejected. Really do have to have nerves of steel.


Check out Big Bad Love and this documentary if you can! 

(Also interesting. There's a lot of posthumous book publishing going on these days...only 5 more months until The Pale King....sigh)
(PS- the egregious typos I made in this post when I wrote it half asleep this morning have now been fixed. Wow.)

since I'm on a comedy kick now...

I had to take a break from reading, so I thought I'd give you a taste of some Scottish comedy courtesy of Danny Bhoy, and what you might have to look forward to if you come and visit me here in bonny Scotland. 

mentally off to another country

6 months until Scotland, but tonight (and many nights/days before I leave) I'll be spending a lot of time in my mind going to Russia instead of Scotland.

Steven and I are trying to get it all together to have a 45 minute industry reading of Nicholas & Alexandra before I go. I've been feeling so stalled for so long on writing (part of why I'm going to St. Andrews in the first place) but the last week or so, I finally seem to have gotten it together.

Finished Rasputin's big Act II solo (pretty proud of it so far) and we're working on that tonight as well as reworking the big trio that ends Act I.

After that, I'm having dinner with my favorite other Celt, Bebhinn. Irish, Scottish... love it.