Monday, December 30, 2013

Saturday, December 28, 2013

He Who Avoids The Light

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9XMd2eAy_4






















Song from The Prestige (click picture)

*

Friday, December 27, 2013

A Letter

A Letter

I have tried a dozen ways
to say those things
and have failed; how the moon
with its bruises
climbs branch over branch
through the empty tree;
how the cool November dusk,
like a wind, has blown
these old grey houses up
against the darkness;
and what these things
have come to mean to me
without you. I raked the yard
this morning, and it rained
this afternoon. Tonight,
along the shiny street,
the bags of leaves--
wet-shouldered
but warm in their skins--
are huddled together, close
so close to life.


*
Poem by Ted Kooser

Monday, December 23, 2013

Dark & Starry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg3vPJh_wFQ






















Song by Lulu Rouge (click picture)

*

Friday, December 20, 2013

Coal For Your Stocking

















Rat Jelly

See the rat in the jelly
steaming dirty hair
frozen, bring it out on a glass tray
split the pie four ways and eat
I took great care cooking this treat for you
and tho it looks good
and tho it smells of Westinghouse still
and tastes of exotic fish or
maybe the expensive arse of a cow
I want you to know it's a rat
steaming dirty hair and still alive

(caught him last Sunday
thinking of the fridge, thinking of you.)

*
Photo by Junker Jane
Poem by Michael Ondaatje

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Play. Repeat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADBKdSCbmiM
















Love this song and video.

Song by Röyksopp (click picture)

*

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Traveling In The Night Car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV_3Dpw-BRY















Photo by marcandrelariviere
Song by Kavinsky (click picture)

*

Monday, December 16, 2013

Tiny Poem






















Somewhere a pumpkin fell
breaking itself
into the shape of a face.

*

Photo by do not bend
Poem by me

Saturday, December 14, 2013

It's Not Christmas Without You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPauO4xdOLw















I have a mixed cd I put together some years ago titled A Strange Little Christmas. None of the songs on it are Christmas songs (save one), but they have become very much a part of the holiday tradition in our house. It just isn't Christmas til this cd starts playing.

This is one of the songs (click picture).

Photographer unknown
Song by Stina Nordenstam

*

Oh, yea...and here's another one.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Prose Poem

Vengeance

The sheer sensuousness of returning an offense. The release. Then no place to go but back into ourselves where suddenly we're cool and numb. That node of anger, that galvanizer, gone. No excuse left to delay living our lives. Maybe only love is as personal. The singularity, the intense focus. Once, though, in existentialism's first grasp, I was content to believe that in time the wicked would hang themselves. Nothing we need do to them. I'd forgotten how hurt won't let philosophy be king, that hurt wears its own crown, wants to rid itself of itself. But so much vengeance is a quiet affair. Just vengeance and me, the cause elsewhere, perhaps in another city, enjoying himself, untroubled by my trouble with him. I've taken him to sleep with me where he's met his proper death. No mercy in that dark realm. And no satisfaction when I woke.

*

Art by Alfred Kubin
Poem by Stephen Dunn

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Dark Ambient Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXt8Gzp_0o





















I find this song comforting yet strangely disturbing.


Photo by Splotchy
Song by Ksine (click photo)

*

Monday, December 9, 2013

A Little Halloween With Your Christmas






















Made a batch of these little guys for our tree a few years ago.

*

Saturday, December 7, 2013

O Lovelies

















Pumpkinrot continues to feed my addiction. Got my birthday presents one day early.

Thanks, love.

*

The Walk Of A Dead Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOgBa2Oij1A
That's some sexy shit.


Song by Massive Attack (click picture)

*

Thursday, December 5, 2013

What You Can Lose And Will Lose



“Everything that falls upon the eye is apparition, a sheet dropped over the world's true workings. The nerves and the brain are tricked, and one is left with dreams that these specters loose their hands from ours and walk away, the curve of the back and the swing of the coat so familiar as to imply that they should be permanent fixtures of the world, when in fact nothing is more perishable.” 


-Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping 
(One of my favorite novels)
Photographer Raphael Fagundes
*

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Where Are We Going?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qne_SoA1_Y






















Photographer unknown
Song by Explosions in the Sky (click picture)
*

Monday, December 2, 2013

We Traveled So Very Far

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PE50PZG5aw
















Photographer unknown
Song by Stars of the Lid (click picture)

*

Sunday, December 1, 2013

We Have Always Lived In This Castle

















We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.


Shirley Jackson
*

Photographer shellygrrl

October Is All I Want






















The original Ballantine cover art, and the illustrations inside:























Homecoming























Skeleton























The Cistern























The Dwarf























The Man Upstairs























The Scythe























The Wind

*

Saturday, November 30, 2013

He Has A Way With Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKwD5YsHmLw






















Song by Blossom Dearie - Remix (click picture)

*

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Watchers






















The art of Francesco Balsamo

*

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Mercury

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDdIRoLSYY
I'm a big Kathleen Edwards fan, and her album Failer is near and dear to my heart.

My favorite song (click picture)

*

Photo by me (Polaroid Spectra with Impossible Project film)


Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Notice

Notice

The monster's through 
taking orders.
He means it,
by god.
Act II, scene III and
he won't be there.
The girl will just 
have to scream without him,
break her own neck,
tear off and eat
her own arm, for a change.

Maybe he'll get a job
at a convenience store,
work nights,
sleep late.
He can be the one to say, 
"Have a nice day,"
smile and wave at kids,
face bills.

*


Monday, November 25, 2013

So Sad 'n Pretty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgU2P6C8-ew






















Photographer unknown
Song by Gillian Welch (click picture)

*

Drifting In Space

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vkj-t1ytzo























Cover of Form Magazine 1969
Song by Trentemoller (click picture)

*

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Only Lovers Left Alive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYcblBXLPR8
I admit, I'm really not keen on vampires...

...but I could totally get into this movie.



Only Lovers Left Alive trailer (click picture)
*

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Miss Havisham's Table




Playing with our new camera.

*

Before Dawn

http://dewtonerecordings.com/track/sub-atomic

Photographer unknown
Song by Martin Nonstatic (click picture)

*

Friday, November 22, 2013

The Wrong House

The Wrong House

I went into a house, and it wasn't a house,
It has big steps and a great big hall;
But it hasn't got a garden,
A garden,
A garden,
It isn't like a house at all.

I went into a house, and it wasn't a house,
It has a big garden and great high wall;
But it hasn't got a may-tree,
A may-tree,
A may-tree,
It isn't like a house at all.

I went into a house, and it wasn't a house -
Slow white petals from the may-tree fall;
But it hasn't got a blackbird,
A blackbird,
A blackbird,
It isn't like a house at all.

I went into a house, and I thought it was a house,
I could hear from the may-tree the blackbird call…
But nobody listened to it,
Nobody
Liked it,
Nobody wanted it at all.


*
Photo by me
Poem by A. A. Milne


Girly Things Make Me Happy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDcEtIaXbfc

















I have a bit of an obsession (addiction) with the vintage full slip + sweater + long socks combo. I own a ridiculous amount of all three and would buy more in a heartbeat. I have loads of my Mama's slips from the 70s - by far my favorite era for clothing - and if I go into a thrift store I always make a beeline for those strange lovelies. If I had my druthers, it'd pretty much be all I'd wear.

Fuck real clothes.

A great Etsy shop for vintage slips
and
The best sock site EVER


Song by Koop (click picture)
*

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Stash

Expired Polaroid 600 film from the 2010 Pumpkinrot Tinies: B is for Bretchen photoshoot.

*

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Excerpt : The Last Scarecrow



It started in the year of the crow infestation, the black beasts picking the crops clean of every budding dime and nickel. Three scarecrows made of sacrificed shirts, work-worn jeans and mildewed hay were erected across the fields - hopeful figures against the great dark growing tide. The sun was lost behind the feathered wingspans, and the crops began to wither and drop, long rows of corn staggering to earth like old men.

The creatures did not eat the poison grain set out for them, and a shotgun blast became ammo wasted as they seemed to turn deaf ears toward the sky. The farmer looked out at the black ocean from his upstairs bedroom window and then to the three still figures on the horizon. He lowered his head and there it lingered for quite some time.

He took to making scarecrows night and day, and in a month he had a dozen spread out across the acreage.

The crows continued to eat but at about that time a certain madness set in, and the rows became littered with blind, dying birds. They had taken to pecking out the eyes of their brothers, and their screeches of anger and cries for mercy rolled across the fields. Black feathers fell as they tangled  midair in a murderous rage, tumbling to earth scratching and clawing and dying. In two weeks' time they were either dead or had flown off, singing a strange and mysterious song as they went.

That had been 40 years ago.


*

Photo by me (Polaroid Spectra)
Excerpt from my short story The Last Scarecrow

Let's Just Go, Shall We?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhqqZN0H7CI






















Photographer kelly_rae
Song by Tango With Lions

*

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

You're Dreaming It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC4H7OzBWfU


Photo by me
Song by Jeff Grace (click picture)

*

Monday, November 18, 2013

Wouldn't You Love To Love Her?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_aYibUx1B8





















I watch American Horror Story. Of course I do; it's twisted, mesmerizing, delicious and full of hidden psychological razors - I admire that. So having an old friend emerge from an episode was a warm and pleasant surprise - Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon.

I was  3 years old when the song came out. I don't know when I became aware of it, but it was a song that played often in our house during my childhood. I remember my Mama, with her long brown hair that went all the way down to the tops of her thighs, singing the song as it played on the turn table. Strange faux gray wood paneling in our dining room, a wall of plants and the hum of the plant light behind her as she swung her hips from side to side with her eyes closed. She was beautiful.

Later the song always showed up at the oddest of times, times when being reminded of home, and centeredness and self were in tall order....Rhiannon would roll in from a passing car, from the jukebox in the corner (yes, I grew up around those), over head in a critical care waiting room, from the "classic" block on VH1 playing in the background.

So when it poured from my TV into my livingroom the other night I couldn't help but smile. It was as if a lifelong girlfriend had come bounding through the door to throw her arms around me and kiss my face all over.

And how right and wonderful it was the other day as Rot and I drove in the early hours with our coffees that she was on my iPod, had been there for years. He was sweet and let me hit repeat as the world began to wake and the fog slowly burned off around us.


Photo by me (Polaroid 600)
Song by Fleetwood Mac (click picture)

*

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Tired Places

In The Corners of Fields

Something is calling to me
from the corners of fields,
where the leftover fence wire
suns its loose coils, and stones
thrown out of the furrow
sleep in warm litters;
where the gray faces
of old No Hunting signs
mutter into the wind,
and dry horse tanks
spout fountains of sunflowers;
where a moth
flutters in from the pasture,
harried by sparrows, 
and alights on a post,
so sure of its life
that it peacefully opens its wings.

*

Poem by Ted Kooser
Photo by me ( Polaroid Joycam)

Friday, November 15, 2013

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Oblivion

Untitled 

Maybe one morning,  walking in air
of dry glass, I'll turn and see the miracle occur--
nothingness at my shoulder, the void
behind me--with a drunkard's terror.

Then, as on a screen, the usual illusion:
hills houses trees will suddenly reassemble,
but too late, and I'll quietly go my way,
with my secret, among men who don't look back.



Photographer unknown
Poem by Eugenio Montale

*

Monday, November 11, 2013