Joni Mitchell in peasant dress with guitar

I love Jack Robinson's photos of Joni Mitchell. I seem to listen to Blue when I'm feeling any strong emotion. Doesn't matter which one!

nostalgia

I think most children of divorced parents find it incredibly bittersweet to look at photos of their childhood. I know I certainly do. I feel this pulling in my chest when I see photos of us all together. That's not to say it makes me feel terribly sad, but there is an indefinable tugging sensation. I think that when my parents separated, my heart was broken for the first time, and looking at those photos makes it ache a little.

One thing I love about my parents is that even though they are separated now, they were together for a long time before they had children.

At around my age they were married and travelling the world together. When they left New Zealand, my Dad had to hide on the other side of the ship so my Mum's very strict Croatian parents would not know they were going away together. They even worked on a kibbutz in Israel (Mum didn't like it and Dad had to spent a lot of time keeping the other men away from her. Did I mention my Mum is really, really pretty?)

When they returned to New Zealand they lived in a dank little flat in Wellington and my Aunty remembers them dancing in the kitchen together while making pumpkin soup. We've found photos they took of themselves, cheek to cheek, holding the camera at arms length. It makes me feel hopeful, knowing that they were that in love, for that long a time.

I found this picture of my dad with either me or my older sister at the beach. I think its quite lovely. xx

called up your number fourteen times/to see if you were home

I LOVE Andrew W K. Especially for showing The Guardian the song which earned him a juvenile restraining order.

"She consumed me with both lust and hatred – lust, because I was truly drawn to her beauty and soft skin, and hatred because she rarely spoke to me, wouldn't look at me much and never gave me a chance to show her my deep affections. I used to call her house just to listen to her say, "Hello?" Then I'd hang up, terrified and shaking with nervous ecstasy."

He goes on to discuss how he wound up having to see a child psychologist, who said he had "a devillish side", and how he recently was advised by his personal life coach to "let it go".

My Destiny

Called Up Your Number Fourteen Times
To See If You Were Home
Home Is Where I'll Find You
When I Find You

Do You Feel Lonely When You're Alone
A Sheet To Keep You Warm
Warm – Electric Blanket
An Extra Blanket

You Are My Destiny
I'll Make You Fall In Love With Me
I'll Make Myself Your Fantasy
Weeping Like The Willow Tree

Drove Past Your Doorway Fifteen Times
I Don't Want To Cause You Harm
Harm – That's What You're In For
If You Don't Open Your Door

So I'll Keep Knocking A Million Times
I Will Knock Until My Knuckles Bleed
Bleed – That Blood Will Leave A Stain
On You Forever

You Are My Destiny
And I'll Make You Fall In Love With Me, Me, Me

spoken word

This article from the New York Times, about a father who read to his daughter every night for years and years and years is the sweetest thing I've read in ages.

"In those nine-plus years, they survived many close calls. When Kristen was still in elementary school, her father and older sister went to Washington. “The phone rings at 10:45 at the hotel and it’s Kristen,” Mr. Brozina recalled. “She says, ‘Dad, we forgot The Streak!’ Fortunately, I always travel with several books and we read right then and there.”

power couple

Did you know Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Lange were a couple in the 70s? That's the kind of celebrity fact I find really interesting. Photo from life.com.

if you can't sleep

Lou sent me a "first listen" link for Volume 2 by She and Him today. The last song, "If you can't sleep", is intimate and comforting, and makes me think of sanctuary.
Pic from mrn;nr.

Vous êtes en moi comme une hantise (You are obsessively part of me)

"We both probably failed to realise a crucial point: everything that was happening was for both of us but the prehistory of our lives – of his very short life, of my long life. Art had not yet ignited our passions, its all-consuming fire had not yet transformed us; it must have been the light and airy hour of dawn. But the future, which announces its coming long before it arrives, was knocking at the window. It lurked behind the lanterns, invaded our dreams and took on the frightening form of Baudelaire’s Paris which lay in wait somewhere in the vicinity. "

Anna Akhmatova on Modigliani from here.

Modigliani drawing of Akhmatova from there too.

love letter

Steve Powers' murals have been all over the internet lately but I only just found his website with photos of the whole series. If you haven't seen them already, go have a look, they're awesome and sweet.

what a great night

My did we have fun this weekend!

I'm very tired and hungover so here are some photos of pretty lights from Franklin Road in Ponsonby.

Things I like today include: cheap hamburgers with extra cheese, Lou and her jet-setting ways, bloody marys, white carnations, fifties skirts, dirty hip-hop, hairobics and the "Requiem for a Gleet" episode of Deadwood. Oh, and my Dad for taking one look at the wasps' nest outside my house and saying he'll be round next weekend to deal to it, and will bring something to spray on the scarily prolific ivy. Thanks, Dad.

PS. I'm thinking of buying some grey marle, two toned hareem pants. My flatmate said they look like an elephant's vagina. She's totally right, I don't even know why I like them. But I do. I like the idea of showing up to work at the Opera wearing two toned grey marle hareem pants - I'll be extremely comfortable, and all my lovely, kindly, Aunty-esque colleagues will be totally amused. And what am I here for, if not to amuse?

since i'm feeling literary

if there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses

my father will be (deep like a rose
tall like a rose)

standing near my

(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my

(suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow)


- e. e. cummings

A teacher told me years ago that I would like e.e cummings, and boy was she right.

he kissed me bang smash on the mouth

And when he kissed my neck I bit him long and hard on the cheek, and when we came out of the room, blood was running down his face. His poem, "I did it, I." Such violence, and I can see how women lie down for artists. The one man in the room who was as big as his poems, huge, with hulk and dynamic chunks of words; his poems are strong and blasting like a high wind in steel girders. And I screamed in myself, thinking: oh to give myself crashing, fighting, to you.

Regarding Ted Hughes, From Sylvia Plath's diaries, via thisrecording

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night was AMAZING!

We went to Animal Collective and danced on couches!

My friend and I were hoisted on our tall friends' shoulders for the encore of My Girls! We held hands!

Our other wonderful friends got engaged during the show!

We drank bubbly after to celebrate!!

Tis was followed by: crisp sund-dried white sheets, first swim of the summer, and the harrowing experience of looking at my "sent" messages from the night before...

I have to say: driving back over the harb

our bridge after an afternoon in the sun made me realise that sometimes there is really no place like New Zealand. No clouds, blue skies, a perfect amount of summer heat, and being able to be at beach within twenty minutes, no matter where you are - its pretty incredible.

HOWEVER: TO THE PERSON WHO STOLE MY FRIEND'S CELLPHONE AND CAMERA AT THE PONSONBY CHRISTMAS TREE: WHAT A DICK. AND AT CHRISTMAS TOO, FOR SHAME. ALL THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE OF THE NIGHT IS GONE.

"he said yes!"

Two of my best friends got engaged last night, congratulations guys!

Despite all the phone calls I'm still not really sure what happened, though Han (maker of said calls) may shed some light when she resurfaces...

Bursting Capsules!!!

is this the epitome of bursting capsules?

Inhae's MY MILK TOOF might be the closest visual approximation of bursting capsules I'm yet to encounter.

Check it: Years ago, Inhae put her baby teeth under her pillow. Then years later, a little tooth appears on her doorstep and home-style adventures begin!

From the top we have the Toofs enjoying Lamorisse’s Le Ballon Rouge; Toof bathtime; a teething Toof and finally, the lil' guys home safe and sound after getting lost.


All images Copyright © Inhae Renee Lee 2009. All rights reserved

geranium kisser

You know those times when you get stuck on one song?
It fits your mood exactly, when it ends you bite your lip then play it again?

Found one. Its called "Two Doves". Its by the Dirty Projectors. Off the Bitte Orca album which I am currently obsessing over. It makes me feel all romantic and like smoking ciggarettes alone on my deck. Which I do.

I really just want to play it to all my friends (especially Lou, cos I KNOW you'd love it, babe).

The whole album is fantastic.

I work for an Opera company, which means I'm learning lots and lots about Opera all the time and discovering what I like and what I don't.

I totally understand that people our age are a bit terrified of it but the more I learn about it, the more I like it. Also, through seeing performances up close (up really, really close) I've gained so much respect for the singers and composers.

So I especially like this aria. Its from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss and it is sublime.

Here's a version of it from 1960. Just wait til those harmonies kick in!

as the weather gets worse...

The last one is my favourite. I can't remember who I took these from in particular, but they are from here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1049625@N22/pool/

oh to be in love

...and never get out again...



"If she loves you, if she really loves you, you’ll know it. If you can wake up to her staring at you and it’s not even mildly creepy, if you catch her smelling the shoulder of the hooded sweatshirt you lent her for an autumn walk at the beach, and not for B.O., if she makes you a pancake in the shape of a shark, if she calls you drunkenly at four in the morning “to talk,” if she laughs at your jokes when they’re funny and makes fun of you when they’re not, if she keeps her fridge stocked with Guinness tallboys for when you come over, if she tells you how she wishes she were closer to her sister and that her dad makes her sad: She loves you, of course she loves you."

- Pasha Malla, from an article in The Morning News








images all from lelove