I received the DVD of the movie Once as a Christmas gift from a dear friend, who knew I had tried to see it in the theatres when it came out but never could manage the time - the recommendations came to me from too many directions to ignore...
My daughter and I watched it together a week or so ago (my second viewing, her first) and there is a scene in which the male character begins playing his song and encourages the female character to chime in on piano and vocal accompaniments - Sarah looked at me and said, "yeah, sure... what are the chances of that happening?".
I dreamily gazed back at her and proudly said, "in my world, that happens all the time"... and I experienced a rush of memories of songswaps and house concerts and campfires in which I was privy to people who had never before met sharing songs and intuitively adding instrumentation and voices, with angelic results - I cannot verbalize enough how truly blessed I am to run in circles of magic and harmony (pun absolutely intended... :-)
[Added 2/25/08 - Wasn't it great to see Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová win Academy Awards last night for "Falling Slowly" from the small indie film Once... and how cool was it that John Stewart called Marketa back to give her speech when she didn't have a chance initially?!? - what an inspiring moment for independent musicians and artists everywhere who are playing their own kind of music. A YouTube video of their Oscar performance and acceptance speeches here and here:
Glen Hansard: "Thanks! This is amazing. What are we doing here? This is mad. We made this film two years ago. We shot on two Handycams. It took us three weeks to make. We made it for a hundred grand. We never thought we would come into a room like this and be in front of you people. It's been an amazing thing. Thanks for taking this film seriously, all of you. It means a lot to us. Thanks to the Academy, thanks to all the people who've helped us, they know who they are, we don't need to say them. This is amazing. Make art. Make art. Thanks."
Marketa Irglova: "Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you." ]
SONG: Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova (from the soundtrack of Once)
BOOK: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin
POEM: Promise of Blue Horses by Joy Harjo
A blue horse turns into a streak of lightning,
then the sun --
relating the difference between sadness
and the need to praise
that which makes us joyful, I can't calculate
how the earth tips hungrily
toward the sun - then soaks up rain -- or the density
of this unbearable need
to be next to you. It's a palpable thing -- this earth
philosophy
and familiar in the dark
like your skin under my hand. We are a small earth. It's no
simple thing. Eventually
we will be dust together; can be used to make a house, to stop
a flood or grow food
for those who will never remember who we were, or know
that we loved fiercely.
Laughter and sadness eventually become the same song turning us
toward the nearest star --
a star constructed of eternity and elements of dust barely visible
in the twilight as you travel
east. I run with the blue horses of electricity who surround
the heart
and imagine a promise made when no promise was possible.
QUOTE: "Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder." ~ E.B. White
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Falling Slowly (Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Words (Between the Lines of Age) - (Neil Young)
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Home Depot (Nick Annis)
BOOK: Be Jane's Guide to Home Empowerment: Projects to Change the Way You Live by Heidi Baker and Eden Jarrin
POEM: Ode to Hardware Stores by Barbara Hamby
Where have all the hardware stores gone — dusty, sixty-watt
warrens with the wood floors, cracked linoleum,
poured concrete painted blood red? Where are Eppes, Terry Rossa
Yon's, Flint — low buildings on South Monroe,
Eight Avenue, Gaines Street with their scent of paint thinner,
pesticides, plastic hoses coiled like serpents
in a garden paradisal with screws in buckets or bins
against a brick wall with hand-lettered signs
in ball-point pen — Carriage screws, two dozen for fifty cents —
long vicious dry-wall screws, thick wood screws
like peasants digging potatoes in fields, thin elegant trim
screws— New York dames at a backwoods hick
Sunday School picnic. O universal clevis pins, seven holes
in the shank, like the seven deadly sins.
Where are the men — Mr. Franks, Mr. Piggot, Tyrone, Hank,
Ralph — sunburnt with stomachs and no asses,
men who knew the mythology of nails, Zeuses enthroned
on an Olympus of weak coffee, bad haircuts,
and tin cans of galvanized casting nails, sinker nails, brads,
20-penny common nails, duplex head nails, flooring nails
like railroad spikes, finish nails, fence staples, cotter pins,
roofing nails — flat-headed as Floyd Crawford,
who lived next door to you for years but would never say hi
or make eye contact. What a career in hardware
he could have had, his blue-black hair slicked back with brilliantine,
rolling a toothpick between his teeth while sorting
screw eyes and carpet tacks. Where are the hardware stores,
open Monday through Friday, Saturday till two?
No night hours here, like physicists their universe mathematical
and pure in its way: dinner at six, Rawhide at eight,
lights out at ten, kiss in the dark, up at five for the subatomic world
of toggle bolts, cap screws, hinch-pin clips, split-lock
washers. And the tools — saws, rakes, wrenches, rachets, drills,
chisels, and hose heads, hose couplings, sandpaper
(garnet, production, wet or dry), hinges, wire nails, caulk, nuts,
lag screws, pulleys, vise grips, hexbolts, fender washers
all in a primordial stew of laconic talk about football, baseball,
who'll start for the Dodgers, St. Louis, the Phillies,
the Cubs? Walk around the block today and see their ghosts:
abandoned lots, graffitti'd windows, and tacked
to backroom walls, pin-up calendars almost decorous
in our porn-riddled galaxy of Walmarts, Seven-Elevens,
stripmalls like strip mines or a carrion bird's curved beak
gobbling farms, meadows, wildflowers, drowsy afternoons
of nothing to do but watch dust motes dance through a streak
of sunlight in a darkened room. If there's a second coming,
I want angels called Lem, Nelson, Rodney, and Cletis gathered
around a bin of nails, their silence like hosannahs,
hallelujahs, amens swelling from cinderblock cathedrals
drowning our cries of Bigger, faster, more, more, more.
QUOTE: "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." ~ E.B. White
