Saw 2 Days in Paris last night. Highly recommended. Funny. Romantic. Cynical. All at the same time. Julie Deply is the Marilyn Monroe of the literati. Funny glasses and French. Like heaven.

"Barcolle" - Andrea Bocelli

Sigh. Before Sunrise. Before Sunset. And now, two days. Someone take me to Paris, already!

"Porgy and Bess" - Nina Simone 

This is the first weekend in more than five weeks that I have not (select one):
a) fallen ill
b) worked overtime
c) traveled far away from home

I'm amazed at the power of rest and relaxation. It's been just 36 hours since I last worried about work, and guess what? I feel great! Like new! I'm spinning like a dervish. ( Dervishes. Wikipedia tells me that the religion of the Whirling Dervishes sprung from followers of Rumi. Rumi! Imagine that.)

"Don't Explain" - Dexter Gordon 

My friend Mona is leaving DC for good next week. We've shared many happy (read: joyously intoxicated) times at her apartment. Each time Mona had friends over, she'd pour big goblets of red wine and pass around a well-thumbed-through copy of Hafiz's collected poetry. One-by-one, each visitor would close their eyes, slowly fan the pages with their fingers, and read aloud whichever poem they landed on. It was part fortune-telling, part poetry reading, and part seduction.

Spilled Speech

As everyone drifts off to sleep,
I am still staring at the stars.

Separation from you does have a cure.
There is a way inside the sealed room.

If you will not pour wine,
at least allow me half a mouthful
of leftover dregs.

Secretly I fill my sleeve with pearls.
When the love-police detain me,
let your moon come down
and hold me in its arms.

Officer, I know this man.
I will take him home.

Let my wandering end as the story does
 of the Kurd who loses his camel.
Then the full moon comes out,
and he finds what he lost.

These rocks and earth-forms
were originally sun-warmed water,
were they not?

Then the planet cooled
and settled to what we are now.

The blood in our bodies carries
a living luminous flow,
but watch when it spills out
 and soaks into the ground.

That is how speech does,
overflowing from silence.

Silk on one side,
cheap, striped canvas on the other.

- By Rumi, not Hafiz. Sorry. 

Goodbye, Mona. The city will be dreary without you. I suppose Rebecca and I will just have to fly to San Francisco for your annual Persian New Year party.

 "Cry" - 10cc

 

This cold, a harmless cold (right?), has swallowed me whole. Cast me into a sea of strangeness.  I've been running a low fever for a few days now.

"Winter Killing" - Stina Nordenstam

There is something about fevers that makes you feel like a poet. Some broken-down, but prophetic, poet. It's akin to being high, I think. And as I shuffle through my iTunes playlist, I'm noticing that tracks I previously ranked as "two stars" sound entirely different to my germ-saturated, mucus-filled mind. (I originally wrote "mucus-filled ears," but decided that was too gross.)

"Take Pills" - Panda Bear

Passing thought: I like how the British say "having it off." I also like the old saying that you want to "make it" with someone. I've recently begun employing both of these saying in my ordinary lexicon.

"Put Us Back Together" - Headlights

The nose blows. The head throbs. The annoying pleasures of the body, right Walt?

Swift wind! Space! My soul! Now I know it is true what I guessed at;
What I guessed when I loafed on the grass,
What I guessed while I lay alone in my bed...and again as I walked the beach under the paling stars of the morning.

My ties and ballasts leave me...I travel...I sail...my elbows rest in the sea-gaps,

I skirt the sierras...my palms cover continents,
I am afoot with my vision.

- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass

"Futures" - Zero 7 

On Saturday night, during the low point in this battle, I awoke at around 3:30am hearing music in my ears. I was hot to the touch, but cold. And there was this music. This eerie, Walmart-themed music. I thought to myself, "Clearly, I'm hallucinating, because there is no way that creepy Walmart music is somehow playing in my apartment right now." Feverish enough to hallucinate, but lucid enough to know it. I fell back asleep moments later, and dreamt of evil corporations, throngs of registered nurses and angry protest signs.

 "Who Scared You" - The Doors

September isn't a month. It's upheaval. Or renewel, depending on the circumstances. It's when the world pivots back into step, separating ourselves from the sweet tea afternoons of August, embracing sharp pencils, early Monday morning meetings and dry-cleaned dress shirts.

"What Were the Chances" - Damien Jurado 

I'm usually excited about September. It's my birth month. It's back-to-school time. It's when I can finally start to feel productive again, after a long summer spent hungover by the watercooler. A welcome shift in priorities, you might say.

"There is No There" - The Books (Bonus: "Smells Like Content")

But not this year. This year, the summer has given me an emotional hangover. And the fog isn't lifting. In fact, I fear it's settling in.

"September" - David Sylvian 

Things I carry with me, that I know about myself: Frank O'Hara, good wine, China, Jean Shepherd, Are You Being Served?, the warm glow of christmas lights, records, old photographs, my grandmother.

"Ode to Joy. To Hell With It"
- Frank O'Hara
LP, The Dial-A-Poem Poets, 1972 You can find more here.

 From the cover of the Dial-A-Poem: "Open the lines to the poets! We used the telephone for poetry. They used it to spy on you. Poetry plumbers unite! We invite you to do it yourself. Start your own 'Dial-A-Poem' in your own hometown. Get hooked up to the telephones. Call your local telephone company business office; order a system and put on it these LP selections; put on your own local poets and we'll supply you with more poets."