because, the light filters through the trees in a way that you’d forgotten, making beautiful silhouettes that you no longer take for granted.
because, we wear our beauty so proudly, most of us achieving that moment before flaunting it, leaving just enough for the imagination. New York bodies…so lithe and beautiful and bathed in sunlight. Who doesn’t live here that doesn’t love each moment that the sun shines enough to beat against their skin. Maybe its respite against the bold winters.
because, I feel like I’m seventeen again. These moments always feel like they can last forever, even when my age and my wisdom knows they can’t. I can feel beautiful and young and a part of it all. Some how this here and this now gives us this gift.
because, I drink wine in the park like I’m making love in broad daylight. Bottles everywhere. Abandonment. We just simply don’t care.
because, babies run through the parks and because we can pet random dogs in front of cafe’s on lafeyette and feel that its our rite to be as happy as they are when we greet them.
because, I can gather my friends on any given day and we have no excuse or rhyme or reason. It isn’t a holiday or a birthday, we just wanted to savor those last few moments and watch the sun dip down perfectly between the trees. Wax poetics about where the summer went and how fast it passes.
because, for hours everything can be possible and nothing forgotten.
because, these are the moments we live for. The moments we live HERE for. Breathing. Beating.
And because I could possibly ode New York summers forever. Because, it gives us a reason to keep living here through the harsh coldness and the angry pedestrians. Because, where else will we go.
You know it once you lived here, New York love is very different than any love you’ve ever experienced from experienced in any habitat that you’ve ever lived… Its worth the struggle.
I have an original copy of Mocking Bird Wish Me Luck by Charles Bukowski, purchased at City Lights before I was born or maybe when I was too young to care. It as given to me on loan but never returned, because like the writer says “loaning books encourages theft.” (I have to look up that quote because I don’t remember who said it, only that I skimmed the article in the New York Times unable to concentrate on the words because of a whiskey hangover and too much time spent reading on the internet.) When it was given to me I never read it and I can’t remember why but I watched a documentary on Bukowski and heard him read with that stoic stern voice of his, that sad old man voice he seemed to possess all his life. But I’m reading it now and sharing is caring:
if we take–
if we take what we can see–
the engines driving us mad,
lovers finally hating;
this fish in the market
staring upward into our minds;
flowers rotting, flies web-caught;
riots, roars of caged lions,
clowns in love with dollar bills,
nations moving people like pawns;
daylight thieves with beautiful
nighttime wives and wines;
the crowded jails,
the commonplace unemployed,
dying grass, 2-bit fires;
men old enough to love the grave.
These things, and others, in content
show life swinging on its rotten axis.
But they’ve left us a bit of music
and a spiked show in the corner,
a jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,
a small volume of poems by Rimbaud,
a horse running as if the devil were
twisting his tail
over bluegrass and screaming, and then,
love again
like a streetcar turning the corner
on time,
the city waiting,
the wine and the flowers,
the water walking across the lake
and summer and winter and summer and summer
and winter again.
Each morning I reach
my fingers, tentacles of light and sound.
There are daydreams with more scope,
Where the pale flowers still stretch
un-wilted by heat.
Each night I whisper;
your ears are willing accomplices.
Silent as the beating of butterfly wings,
(silent as butterfly wings beat)
that cause tsunamis in the Philippines.
There are much bigger pools to drown in,
none so much as our response ability.
Panama | Brooklyn Zoo - Ol Dirty Bastard Cye | Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers - Chubb Rock, OC, Jeru The Damaja OJ | Jockin’ Jay-Z(Dope Boy Fresh) - Jay-Z Eyejammy | We Live In Brooklyn, Baby - Roy Ayers Ouxu | BK Anthem - Foxy Brown Jen | Brooklyn Sky - Digable Planets BK | Brooklyn - Mos Def Sam | Murda, Murda - Jay-Z feat. Memphis Bleek & Geda K Liz | Hello Brooklyn - Jay-Z feat. Lil Wayne George | The Boogie Man Song - Mos Def Marcia | The Stoop - Little Jackie
This week we tip our hat in honor of Boom’s big move to NYC (if she doesn’t move to Brooklyn I’ve threatened to disown her and remove this post). Our internet-friendship began a little before her trip to Paris in January and picked up a lot of steam right after mine (she’s been the first person I talked to on a daily for months now), being that I was an internet-friendship-virgin I couldn’t believe how perfectly it translated into real life.
Lets just say her couch has seen more than its fair share of me these past two weeks.
I knew this mix was going to be heavy on the hip hop tip but I hadn’t picked a song by Monday. When I played the first track on the Little Jackie album I immediately thought of how much fun its going to be when she has her very on stoop for us to play own.
When LizBurr made her muxtape this morning I thought, “Why haven’t I made a themed mixtape” outside of my usual run of the mill these-are-summers-songs-I’m-jamming-to. (Which I made sans links almost exactly a year ago.)
My second inspiration was the Captain’s Crate Retro Soul Summer post a while back. That being said I obviously can’t take that much credit for it, but its fly and I like it none the less. Without further ado…
I still remember the day I first downloaded Emiliana Torrini’s Fisherman’s Woman last year all the way down to the exact outfit I was wearing. I was staying with my friend in Bushwick at the time (during my two months of couch surfing) and had taken the day off. Instead of working I’d spent the pajama clad day streaming movies in her small crawlspace of a loft room and uploading music to my iPod.
Walking through Soho to meet my soon to be ex-boyfriend to see a play and grab dinner, I pressed play and the first cords of “Nothing Brings Me Down” began to play. It was one of those moments where you’re never sure if the song is enjoyable because of its craftsmanship or because it perfectly speaks to your psyche. I listened on repeat for months, not making it to the rest of the album until later that fall. I fell in love with it after spending a few nights listening to it on repeat drifting in and out of sleep till all the lyrics resonated in my head.
Nothing Brings Me Down
I’m using this as a preface to say that I’ve downloaded Emiliana Torrini’s newest album: Me and Armeni, and am once again succumbing to the psychic powers of her first song “Fireheads.” This time though with intentions if making it through the rest of her album.
Fireheads
She has that soft child-like Johanna Newsom-esque voice, which you can go ahead and put in the “type of things teeny likes to hear” file.
I’m excited for the next few nights of listening.
(ps: I’m always willing to share)
It is the color of light,
The shape of sound high in the evergreens
It lies suspended in hills,
A blue line in a red sky.
I am looking at sound.
I am hearing the brightness
Of high bluffs and almond trees
I am tasting the wilderness
of lakes, rivers, and streams
Caught in an angle of song.
I am remembering water
That glows in the dawn
The motion tumbled in earth
Life hidden in mounds.
I am dancing a bright beam of light
I am remembering love.
(Ajana and I watched Love Jones again tonight, which I admit has slowly made its way into my top ten romance movies. I’ve always been curious about who wrote the final poem that Nia Long reads at the end of the movie, I’d read somewhere that it was Sonia Sanchez, but it was this woman whose poetry I think I quite enjoy)
This week’s edition of The Exchange bands together songs from our cohort’s respective hometowns. Or home-metropolitan areas. Or at least their home-states, I would hope. Please listen to it on Muxtape, or download it for your archives through Rapidshare.
Jen | Hip-Hop - Dead Prez Panama | Kryptonite (I’m On It) - Purple Ribbon All-Stars BK | Lifted - John Legend feat. J. Ivy Sam | Heard It All Before - Sunshine Anderson George | Don’t See Us - The Roots Liz | Orange County Girl - Gwen Stefani Eyejammy | Everyday (Rudebwoy) - Kardinal Offishall feat. Ray Robinson Marcia | I’ll Bet You - Jackson 5 OJ | How to Survive in South Central - Ice Cube Cye | Geen Verschil - U-Niq feat. Feis & Yootha Ouxu | Insomnia - Pete Philly & Perquisite
Big props to Gary. I used to walk past the “Jackson” house during the summer with my brother and my cousins when we lived down the street from it. “I’ll bet you” was written by George Clinton and recorded by Funkadelic as well.
Every summer there is that one song by a female vocalist that I want to put on repeat and listen to till the sun comes up. Usually songs I sort of stumble on by happenstance at live shows, soundtracks to films or shows I love and friendly recommendations.
Near the end of May papa blazey sent me a muxtape and told me to check out the first track, I was hooked. The song was sublime, the lead singer’s voice is perfectly balanced between downtempo and the fullness of a jazz chord. Sumptuous, even while it retained its almost lazy quality. It fit my mood at the time perfectly. I ran out a few days later and copped the whole album. I was a girl in love at first listen.
The most wonderful feeling in the world of course is when you find something you enjoy and suddenly its everywhere. I’ve just downloaded the Koop album. A couple of the tracks featured Yukimi Nagano and while both the tracks sound amazing and the voice slightly familiar. I couldn’t place it. Apparently Yukimi, the lead singer of Little Dragon, is a guest on lots of fantastic albums.
Little Dragon-Twice
Koop ft. Yukimi Nagano-Whenever There is You
Hird ft. Yukimi Nagano-Keep you Kimi
Side note: Meg will be happy to know that she’s swedish like new fave Lykke Li and also supposedly dating fellow swede Jose Gonzales.
