On In Watermelon Sugar:

-to me its this blurry thing somewhere between story and poem, this gorgeous meditation by Richard Brautigan, on death and mourning, but also living simply, seeing things simply. There are all these little charming things dotting its surface, it has a shimmer to it, and makes things that are completely unreal -- bridges made of watermelon sugar, rivers two inches wide -- take on meaning, and kind of resonates as if these are things that I would recognize from my dream life.

I think what has affected me the most is a line about a woman who kills herself. "It's for the best .... Nobody's to blame. She had a broken heart."

The fact that I was listening to Band of Horses at the time probably contributed to the moment. But also I think I've been looking to understand something about suicide. And I think Richard Brautigan could say something real about it because he killed himself too.

When I imagine someone whose heart has been broken by mother, father, sister, lover, friends, whose life is seen as an unending string of heartbreaks, and it goes unhealed for long enough, I could see how someone might do this.

There are a few great artists that I can think of quite easily that committed suicide, Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, and we tend to think there is something special about their art, their character, their sensitivity, because they were suicidal, and I honestly can't comment except to say I've fallen into that trap a few times. I know I'm doing the same here. But I think when I read the mourning in this book, I feel like I can sense the author mourning, quite deeply, which in turn moves me. He makes death seem so beautiful. Though, the living in this book is beautiful too.

On Caetano Veloso e Gal Costa - Domingo:

The sky is very blue today, and flat like paper. The sun is generous for the morning. I woke up with a strong urge to listen to Caetano*. I don't know exactly where these urges come from, except I feel it in my belly, where I guess most of my desires come from.

There aren't many albums I pull out from my college days. But I am fairly certain that this album is, will be, a life long love. I've been listening to Domingo (Sunday) for ten years now. It has born so many listens, and different periods in my life. For a music whore, who can fall in and out of love with an album in the space of two weeks, to continually love something for so long is somewhat remarkable.

I first heard it my freshman year in college, whilst lovemaking. Lovemaking as purely as I was capable at that time. The music felt perfect, and I asked him what it was afterwards, and studied the cover, the unfamiliar, unspellable words, so that I would know it at a glance, when I looked for it later.

I am sure that at the root of loving this music, there is a little bit in there that is about loving him. That relationship was perhaps the most peaceful I've had. Even leaving him was natural, and without a lot of pain. The time together was quite sweet, and I look at those three months quite fondly.

I spent months looking for the CD, and if you were to go to Amoeba or Rasputin or wherever looking for it, it may take a couple of tries, even now. I couldn't remember the name of the album, only the cover, vaguely, its colors. A black and white photograph of Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso, sitting below stairs, mid-conversation, Caetano looking at her, Gal looking over her shoulder at someone else, off camera. The photo is grainy, with lettering in flamingo pink and teal blue. I wonder if they were lovers at one time, or something like it. They look so comfortable together. Though I do think that when people make music together, it would be hard not to feel completely intimate with each other.

The album cover also looks ridiculously, amazingly indie-pop for something that was conceived almost forty-years before the word indie-pop was uttered. It could be a Belle and Sebastian cover (except better, of course).

It's just a bossanova disc from the mid-60s, and sounds like a series of wistful sighs. It is dreamy, it is mushy, it is pensive. There is something in the music that sounds like a person waiting for their love. It's very romantic.

The melodies are quite simple, nothing elaborate about them. And the record is rather short, thirty minutes long, and I remember wishing that it were longer when I first got the disc. Gal and Caetano trade off songs, and they both have such a sweetness in their singing, not like children, but capable of the same openness, idealism, hope. It sounds innocent, simplistic, but there is underlying complex emotion. It is not simple music.

It takes a certain amount of bravery to have hope, to be open like that.

I have a tendency to share Domingo with those I want to feel closer to, or to share something about myself that perhaps wouldn't be known otherwise. The album is like a secret I share. I play it for you if I like you.

But I've found it difficult to play Domingo for people, maybe I put too much pressure on people to listen to it, understand it, or need it the way I do. Or maybe this album is too quiet for our normal, social lives, with its superficial noise. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to give these people a copy, and leave them to listen in solitude, preferably on a sunny day, or to wait until they are in the middle of loving.

There is more I want to say on this, but I'm not sure how to put it down just yet.


* pronounced Kye-TAWN-o.

On Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters:

Why is it whenever I read Salinger lately, I have such difficulty putting it down. It's not exactly gripping, page-turning in the ordinary sense. But I often find myself rather lost in it, reading after lunch, and unable to find the right spot to stop. There's a certain relentlessness to its rhythm, and whenever I stop, I find it's often in the middle of movement. Just an ongoing series of feelings and laughs, and curiosity about people, without end until the piece ends completely. So it's a joy to read whilst you are in fact reading it, but the inevitable breaks I take to say, go to work, or, eat or whatever are decidedly unrestive, and I feel somewhat consumed by the experience, which makes me feel a bit out of control for the week or so it takes to read him.

On The Wind-up Bird Chronicle:

I finished Wind-up late two nights ago. And instead of feeling out of sorts, as I often do at the end of long, good reads, I felt satisfied, like I'd just had a great dinner, and I had eaten the right amount.

My favorite character is May Kasahara who is kind of a reflection for the Wind-up Bird, and a soul center for the novel. Like the tennis player in Royal Tenenbaums. Nothing hangs on her but, she's sort of the background singer that makes the whole thing come together. All of my favorite scenes involve her. May tallying up bald men, May in the moonlight. Dark May covering the well with a malicious echoing whisper.

I do not think Murakami knew who she would become when he created her. She starts out as a creepy sixteen year old girl with dark secrets and a great tan, but when she opens up, she morphs into this girl in a great deal of pain and no sense of direction. The whole tenor of the novel changes when Mr. Wind-up gets marked by the well. And May leaves, having been healed by him, and starts to write these incredible, thoughtful, heart-examining letters. Hopeful and young and lovely. It's very read-between-the-lines-y, her healing, her growing into her self, her acceptance of her own soul. It's my favorite thing about Murakami, making me feel particular ways without having to say too much, without hitting me over the head with concepts. Don't get me wrong, his flights into the bizarre are pretty damn cool, there's an incredible energy behind it, but I feel like I get so close to his characters, who are often so incredibly beautiful, lonely, and human. I don't really care what his characters are doing, they could be playing pingpong for 250 pages, I just want to hear their voices.

So for now I'll call this the Wandering Dog, though *glimmering*, Sunrader, Bedrock or Bedlam all sprang to mind. I am not so good at naming things, especially if I don't know how it will turn out.

I wonder if my mother would have named me Cynthia if she had known how I'd turn out. Perhaps "Cynthia" is a fantasy of her 24-year-old heart, who wore all white and did some kind of Emily Dickinson type thing. BUt I don't feel like a Cynthia, and people who don't know me will often end up calling me something else. Elizabeth, Theresa.

Anyway, I feel like I've been responding and reacting to my own name my entire life. Other people make assumptions about you based on previous Cynthias, or whatever that name sounds like to them. Inevitable first impressions. And you want to please people, so you learn to behave the way other people might like you to behave. Though I don't like to wear all white, or wear superhero boots, or put on wings, play goddess.

Well, the name just sprang up, Wandering Dog, and I don't know what it means yet. Though now that I think about it, it does make me think of a dog off its leash, escaped through the backyard fence, sniffing flowers and digging its nose into particularly interesting patches of grass. Impassioned, frenzied sniffing of people's knees and tree trunks. Peeing on things. And for the moment, it doesn't particularly care about going back home.

So the main reason why I started this blog is to talk about music and film and books, though I'm not interested in reviewing things as much as I'm interested in the way it ties into my life. I imagine Murakami and Caetano Veloso will figure large, as well as the words "soft", "gentle", "warm", "melt", and "heart". I apologize in advance for the liberal use of the word heart. And if the currently inescapable drama and sore mistakes of my own life are mentioned, hopefully they will only be mentioned in passing. Wandering dogs don't lament their life.

Currently, I am in the middle of the end of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Ideally I'd hole up somewhere and read the end in one go, sit all tense in one position for a good two hours. As it stands I will probably read the end of the end tonight, the last breath before its death is what the end of the end is like. I'll probably finish, and fall asleep, slightly discontented. At the end of novels, I usually feel a period of discontentment as the experience drifts away. Like I'm mourning. Laying something to rest. I do things like vacuum afterwards, and wonder what is wrong. So I will sleep tonight like something is wrong.

Here is a quote, from page 588. "Just living was itself an act of prophecy."