A Perfect Song for a Perfect Couple

Milo Greene released the official video for my favorite track off their new album-- "Perfectly Aligned." It's part of a larger film piece they're doing called Moddison. It's a feature length film that corresponds to all the songs. Cool, right? The whole thing is shot in these beautiful woods-- kinda like Canada!


Anyhow, this is the perfect song for a day like today, when I'm celebrating Aly & Dion. Let's go to a wedding!

Monday Music - Summer Mixes from my Brother

London's weather is nothing short of a miracle at the moment. For that, I send up a hallelujah. When the sun comes out, I simply must have a buffet of music to celebrate it. Luckily, this summer is full of great music. I'm not just talking about Milo Greene, Frank Ocean and Passion Pit, etc etc etc... I could really just go on and on... I'm also talking about the mixes my bro has been posting on his soundcloud page. 


It's wild and heartwarming to discover how respected my brother is in his industry. I'm feeling pretty proud. And I am counting down the days until I get to see him in action. The last time I saw him, he looked like this. Although, I think it's safe to say we both still look scarily similar to how we looked when we were ten, his real life face twenty years later is gonna look pretty good to me. In the meantime, I'll enjoy his skills via the internet and share them with you. I hope wherever you are, you're feeling that Summer feeling-- that it's sunny and filled with music. 

Perfectly Aligned

One of the most effective literary devices is the employment of twins. Doubles. Twelfth Night. I Know This Much Is True.  If you read any of my writing, you'll find an overwhelming presence of doubles, sidekicks and twins. I've always been drawn towards twins. A match to yourself. A set of aligned humans. My mom was a twin. I'm sort of genetically in line to have them myself. And, for a very formative time during my childhood, I had a kind of twin myself. 


This confuses people. Technically, my parents had no other biological children with any of their many previous or subsequent partners. But both of them accumulated some step children along the way. Sometimes these people wanted me, sometimes these people did not. I've got stories for days about these people who were and then suddenly were not my family. But there is only one that ever took a punch for me. That I had a kind of strange psychic connection to-- probably because I don't really remember any part of my life before he had come into it. 


From the time I was about four until ten, I was raised alongside a brother who I can pretty much only describe as my step-twin. My mom was sort of insistent about raising us that way. She was always trying a little too hard with it. Probably because of the contentious way she and Dax's dad had gotten together. That's his name: Dax. 


She made us do everything together. Sometimes we resented it, but mostly, it was okay because we had started out as neighbors and friends anyhow. We were born only about a month apart, looked alike, and while our personalities were sort of yin and yang, we'd lock ourselves in tiny spaces and cackle with laughter for hours. We ran wild together. We terrorized the many many neighborhoods we occupied all over Northern California. We hid from my mom together. We used to ride in the trunk of my mom's car... I think by choice. WHAT?


Sometimes, you guys, when I recount, even to myself, the reality of the details of my childhood, I myself do not even believe it. I do not know how I made it out. I do not know what kind of planet I lived on then. Except that for most of the worst of it, (and the best, too) there was this boy who fought with me and for me and hugged me and stuck up for me and intentionally took my mom's focus and anger away from me and onto himself. For many years, he both literally and figuratively stepped in front of flying fists aimed at me. And when the soft part of the back of my head got slammed into the corner of the coffee table, he was there too, trying to help me. There is no way for me to repay him for this. 


He got out sooner than I did. And when he was gone, suddenly, I had the courage to leave too. 


The family I always talk about seeking-- it starts with him. And for twenty years, I've had no way of contacting him. I searched and searched for years, on every social media and google resource available to me short of hiring a private investigator. A part of me wondered if he would even want to hear from me. Perhaps, it would open something he didn't care to revisit. But then finally, recently, he appeared. 


Just having pinpointed him. Knowing he is there. And where there is. To know he is doing well.  To hear myself addressed as sister. And receive the pledge of a brother. "Whatever you need, sis." It's brought a lot of things to the surface. 


I know that the bulk of the raw material of my life and life's-work was created during those years. That is the clay I am shaping and reshaping-- standing back to look  at, evaluate-- going back in to work at again. You get your hands dirty every time. It is the work I will never stop doing. It is the crux of the balance between the heavy that I came from and the lightness I am always trying to laugh my way towards. To make the heavy go light. That's really something. 


It gets easier. It gets harder. It gets more worth it. The really serious heavy lifting we all do to come to terms with the trauma we experience-- it is made worth it by knowing we did not go through it alone, that we helped each other by taking turns carrying the heavy, and that somewhere out there, if you just keep googling, you will find that twin again. 

We All Go Back to Where We Belong - Kirsten + R.E.M

All weekend, I've been loving on the last (tear) REM single, "We All Go Back to Where We Belong" starring my twin, Kirsten in some cool stop-motion photography style action. It's not actually stop-motion, but it often looks like it. I'm pretty sure they just played her the song and filmed her. It has all that awkwardness of knowing you're being filmed, and all the comfort of listening to a song you realize in the middle you really like. 


The song (which sounds a little 70s to me. There's a horn section that lends the song to the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, in my o-pinion.)  is off their first ever definitive greatest hits album. And the title of it could be the title of my life so far...even the dates are exactly correct: Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbarge: 1982-2011.  


I've always had a soft spot for R.E.M. They were at UGA in Athens at the same time as my dad. I always liked to imagine them at parties together. What a conversation between my dad and Michael Stipe might look like. 


And during that first stint of zealous, painfully earnest ambition I had between the ages of twelve and sixteen, I listened the their 1998 album UP (my favorite of their oeuvre-- weird, I know.) on a loop while I wrote my first novel. (Perhaps if I'm ever feeling zany enough [or drunk enough] I'll post some of that little twelve-year-old existential-Buddhist-historical attempt. Don't hold your breath though.)


I will hold my breath for the compilation though. What about you guys? Will you buy it? I find myself frequently missing the 90s. I think it will be nice to have an express train back there whenever I want. 



They also did a version with poet and activist John Giorno. 

A French house party

Some of the most fun we had in Paris was doing the local thing with my friend, Kate. She took us to a lot of great places (more on the later) including a fun birthday party for her friend Margaux in Republique. I'm not normally much of a dancer, but my baby-faced, chain-smoking, blonde, curly-haired French twin, Raphael was so much fun with the playlisting (including La Roux!), I couldn't help but boogie. 

Hope you have a fun Saturday! 

the week of the star

Today, I started my birthday week pamperings with a facial. It was a delight! Basically, I like to celebrate my birthday for the entire week. That's not just because it's my birthday, but so many of my favorite people have birthdays this week too! Including today, which is my dear, lovely, wonderful friend Bebhinn's birthday. 

We were born in "the week of the star" and that's certainly true of bright Bebhinn. When people say that I'm "put-together" I always laugh. Because when I think of put together, I think Bebhinn. She came to us in New York by way of Virginia by way of West Virginia, by way of Dublin, Ireland. And as soon as I met her, one fall day at Carleton V during my temp stint in interior design, I knew I was faced with the great female "two options." The "two options" was instituted at Rice and has always served me well. It goes a little something like this:

If you meet a girl that's really so super amazing that you're inclined to feel jealous, the best thing you can do is make friends with her. That's the second option. And it's the best one. Bebhinn was wearing this perfect white tailored shirt (she's the only person I know who can keep white tailored shirts looking perfect. I mean, come on!) and pencil skirt. And instead of dwelling on how I certainly would have already spilled something on it, I went up to her again and invited her to some event I was going to later that week. And we've been friends ever since! 

While it's her dream to work at Vogue someday, she's been keeping busy the last five years at Oscar de la Renta and Fendi. When I'm lucky, she lets me borrow stuff. And in true Bebhinn-to-Ryann ratio, last year, for my/our birthday, she gave me the most beautiful present I've received (this mother of pearl/python skin O de la R bracelet) which I promptly, clumsily broke. Typical.

I still have the bracelet though. Just like I still have the card she gave me at my going away party that says, "You're a fucking GENIUS!" It hangs over my desk while I write and reminds me that whether the rest of the world thinks I am or not, my lovely, classy, stylish friend thinks I am. And that's enough for me. 

Happy birthday, dear globe-trotting Bebhinn! I hope we can rendezvous in some beautiful European locale sometime soon. Much love to you!

my twin and a garden tea party

Taylor is back! It feels like St Andrews again! We went for a sunny Lade Braes walk today and got some fantastic Butler's. It was so nice out, it almost felt like this garden tea party with my twin, Kirsten Dunst at the Huntington Botanical Gardens. Happy Saturday!

Happy 3rd B-day, Andrew's Blog!

HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY!!

For so many obvious reasons, we love Andrew and everything about his blog. As referenced on many occasions, if he ran for president, I'd Vote for him. A first-rate film maker, an astute and insightful thinker. And I can't think of a better friend and advocate for any artistic project or cause. Every way that I could gush about his talent is just subsumed by what there really is to say about what kind of fantastic person he is. He's quite simply one of the glowy people.

your glistening eyes show the hell you're gonna give 'em when they back off the mic for once and give it to a woman

Sometimes, I'll just be walking along, having a normal morning, and It'll hit me: the gratitude. This morning, it was Kate Floyd. I've been friends with Reverend Kate Hurst Floyd for about 11 years. She so honestly embodies everything earnest, seeking and cool I can think of in this life. Mild-mannered, sweet, genuinely compassionate, fiercely feminist and equality-oriented.

When you think about what organized religion needs in the 21^st century, my answer is easy: Kate Floyd at the pulpit and anywhere else we can put her. She’s thoughtful and cutting and wise and never abrasive.

She’s one of those people you always kick yourself for not being able to spend more time with. She has a soft and understanding laugh. She is a comrade in faith. A simple faith in the world. 

And trust me when I say,  without exaggeration or dramatic flare, that I’m a Buddhist who persists in a belief in a God because of 3 books and 2 people, and one of those people is Kate Floyd.

If I could stream live over the internet her sermons, I’d do it. Oh, wait! I can.  If I lived in Chicago, I’d attend Methodist church every Sunday to hear her.

She and her grad school mates had a little dance that went the Indigo Girls’ “Pendulum Swinger.” It’s an adorable dance. And when it’s easy for me to sometimes feel pessimistic about the world, I think of this song and Kate dancing to it, and then I’m smiling ear to ear and laughing and crying a little bit on the street. Because I know there’s pendulum swingers out there like Kate, (that want to be friends with me!) who not only try to change the way things are with their "passion for justice" and brand of optimistic, diligent progress...but inspire me to swing that pendulum myself.

This video is a bit literal for me...I prefer just the lyrics. But this song could be about any time you'd hang out with Kate. :)

I meet you for coffee
We get together periodically
I got a bad case I can't shake off of me
The fevered walking round wondering how it ought to be
You work in the system
You see possibilities and your glistening
Eyes show the hell you're gonna give 'em
When they back off the mic for once and give it to a woman

I dream like a mad one
Brutal fantasies I catch as catch can
I'm a psychic and a laywoman
I see love and I like to make it happen
What we get from your war walk
Ticker of the nation breaking down like a bad clock
I want the pendulum to swing again
So that all your mighty mandate was just spitting in the wind

It doesn't come by the bullwhip
It's not persuaded with your hands on your hips
Not the company of gunslingers
The epicenter love is the pendulum swinger
She is she is she is

It's fine about the old scroll Sanskrit
Gnostic gospels the da vinci code a smash hit
Aren't we dying just to read it and relate
Too hard just to go by a blind faith
But they left out the sisters
Praying to a father god so long I really missed her
The goddess of benevolence
You should listen to your mama if you have a lick of sense left

Pushed under by the main press, buried under a code of dress
Relegated by the Vatican
But you can't keep a spirit down that wants to get up again

If we're a drop in the bucket
With just enough science to keep from saying fuck it
Until the last drop of sun burns its sweet light
Plenty revolutions left until we get this thing right 



Also see: these excerpts from my novel RISE: May 27th & May 19th

looting in lubbock-- an excerpt from Rise

Lubbock, Texas November 1999 

As the cuckoo clock announced six o’clock, they headed out the screen door, which slammed behind them.

            In Kate’s little red Honda, they arrived quickly at Jazz, where David’s sister Tanya ruled from behind the bar.

            All the walls were covered in deco-pauged sheet music from Jazz classics. Saxophones hung from the ceiling and all the seats were covered in purple vinyl. Meg had never been to New Orleans, but she imagined it was a lot like the restaurant David’s sister owned. Somewhere between old world manners and the schmaltz of Las Vegas.

plastic surgery

If you hang around me long enough, you'll probably hear me rant about plastic surgery. Or more specifically, boob jobs. And while this video is a genuinely disturbing demonstration of some sad self esteem type things, here is one of my biggest issues with plastic surgery: it's not fair.

I know what you're thinking-- Ryann, you have great boobs (why thank you!) why ever would you care about boobs??

It's not fair.

That's right. I said it. I got the boobs-- me. That's what I got. That's my little genetic flourish. You got something too! You got those legs or perfect skin or no bags under your eyes... depending on who you are. But me (and all the other well-endowed ladies) we got boobs.

It disrupts the balance of power when you can pay for yours. Because there's no surgery that make me 5'10 or speed up my metabolism. Not gonna happen. You can get what I have, but I can't get what you have.

Here's why else it's not only unfair, but disturbing-- building femmebots gives men an incorrect idea about what they should expect from women physically. It creates in their already spoiled and reckless brains the idea that women are supposed to look like that. And that they come a dime a dozen. There will always be another one. I get that men like boobs (supposedly). But I've noticed in the last several years, that men are so used to fake big boobs, they actually prefer them to real ones. I heard an actual friend of mine say, "I think real boobs look weird. I only like the way fake ones look..."

???

My comments on plastic surgery are by no means the best or the first on the subject, but they're mine. Just like my boobs. So back off, ladies. :)

A Rich Inner Life

Speaking of letters... 

I go back to them all the time. Not just because of Keats. Or because of my compulsion to write them. But because, at least from one dear, art-filled friend, I have received letters worthy of reading, re-reading, savoring, feeling that someone saw me. 

I remember being 16, 17, 18 and waiting for these letters from what is surely a classical, romantic 19th century kind of friendship. The kind of friendship the modern day would call a stranger. Or an acquaintance. But on a very foggy day in Berkeley, I made a friend for life, even if I did only see him twice a year if I was lucky. A kindred spirit of philosophy and thought and clownishness. 

Mostly, I felt like an alien growing up. I think, actually, he might have been the first person I ever met that indicated there was a whole other kind of people out there in the world who were like me. 

His thing was never even so much about language or eloquence or whatever (not that those were ever missing) but his thing is something else entirely. It’s a point of view. An order. An interpersonal specificity that most people just aren’t capable of, or don’t take the time or energy to create. He can hone in on whatever is uniquely magical about anything.

He took me across the university campus in Arizona to show me his favorite tree, which was like a gigantic rose stem. Teenage boys just don't DO that.

One day, I had a letter that started like this: "Do you know who the Sugarcubes are? They're an Icelandic pop group that Bjork used to front. If you don't know them, I'm sure that they must know you. They had an album in the late 80's called 'Life's Too Good' and I feel certain they wrote it about you."

This among others that I don't have memorized, but remain in a box in my Dad's basement, are the best letters I have ever received or hope to receive. No one has ever said things as nice as he has said to me and about me. No one.

I am so lucky to have him return to my life, at this new transitional time in our lives. Lucky to still be receiving his letters. Lucky that we always seem to show back up, find a new way to communicate when needed most. I remember my theory of orbits. And am so happy he appears to be in mine for good. During this tumultuous time-- for us both-- I hope we can remember the idealistic curly haired blonde twins we were over ten years ago.

hanging with La and my mini me

I'm hanging here in Orange County tonight with the lovely Lauren, along with Charlie and my mini me, Eden. Long live spunky girls with blonde curly hair. I think her sassiness might have even given 4 year old me a run for my money... well...maybe not... I was pretty much a tyrant. I don't have any pics of young Ryann on my computer, but I'll upload some so you can see the complete fake-out I pulled on the world at that age. I looked like a little angel, but the minute you turned your back, I'd run your underwear up a flagpole and scream at a decibel only dogs can hear. Oh, sigh. I miss those days.

Back to NYC tomorrow night. Not looking forward to it. I wish I could just eject myself from that life to a life on the beach (this beach or a Scottish beach, I'm not picky) right now. Maybe I just won't go back....