connexion: the selector

Sleepy Insomniac Lullaby Series, Part Two

Vivian Wu in The Pillow Book

Tonight I am at a breaking point, where cursing and crying isn’t going to skin me alive and cool me down. Where there is nothing, no amount of showers or ice and nakedness, that is going to comfort me.

Four days of 3 and 4 and 5 cold showers a day, and 2.5+ gallons of water to drink, so much water that I start to feel a bit ill and can feel it sloshing around in my belly before it sweated out all over me, very little food because nothing but fruit and ice cubes sounds appetizing.

Four days of this is making me see things (clearer?), laying on my bed, feeling my skin soak through the silk and the cotton and my A-shirt, everything is wet, everything is too hot to touch.

And the most frustrating part is that this intense heat, this acute awareness of my skin–all of my skin–is making me want nothing more than to touch someone else’s skin, watch someone else’s goose bumps raise up from ice cube therapy, share saltiness.

And Sonic Youth just makes the frustration worse, like nails dragging across collarbones or teeth scraping secret places, like slipping hands into front pants pockets to trace circles on upper thighs.

It’s this heatstroke itch that’s keeping me up tonight as the temperature finally threatens to break, eyes bloodshot, mouth swollen, pajamas waiting for me in the freezer if I can

just stop.

I’m pretty sure I will see sunrise.

Download: Sonic Youth - Expressway to Yr Skull Live, University of London 30 October 1985, Trilogy: The Wonder, Hyperstation, Eliminator Jr.
Buy the Album: Sonic Youth - The Walls Have Ears, Daydream Nation

Sleepy Insomniac Lullaby Series, Part One

monika jm lin

I am obsessed with lullabies, always have been.

I miss being sung to sleep while my mama rubbed my belly.

There’s so much pampering and comforting touch we lose out on as we get older, it’s a shame.

Let’s have a slumber party and rub each other’s tummies like drowsy Buddhas ’til we fall asleep, giving each other good luck and sweet dreams.

What are your favorite lullabies? Where can I hear them?

Download: Lullaby - Martina Topley-Bird / Tom’s Lullaby - Les Gaucher Orchestra / Mahna Mahna/Lullaby Of Birdland - featuring Mahna Mahna & The Two Snowths / Cradle Song - The Sanshin Cafe Orchestra / Lullabye - Emitt Rhodes
Buy the Album: Martina Topley-Bird - Quixotic / Lee Maddeford, Shewolf Music / The Muppet Show - Music, Mayhem and More: The 25th Anniversary Collection / Putumayo Presents: Dreamland - World Lullabies / The Royal Tennenbaums Motion Picture Soundtrack

Run-On Sentence Int’l Postcard Series, Part Four

This song causes the same body sensations as inhaling nitrous deeply, with eyelid flutters and heart-pounds in your lips, head falling back, hands limp.

It’s similar to the lightheadedness I slip into when I stay up too late to talk to you, lack of sleep an easy trade for even first-person removed contact with you.

Sometimes, I put perfume on before I go to bed, so when I wake up in the morning my used sheets smell sweet–I am semi-consciously creating inviting habits.

Download: Raconteur - Boss Me
Buy the Album: We Can Share

Townes’ own version of his song made popular by Doc Watson.
There is a softness and sadness to his voice that made me fall in love with TVZ in the first place, and it lends itself to this track.
It is most beautiful and most gentle.

Run-On Sentence Int’l Postcard Series, Part Three

Fu-ko Ueda

I have a starbox from Japan that I am trying to put together, and a tiny notebook I am filling up with secrets for you.

A secret that I’ve written and erased three times: tonight I floated in almond-scented water until my fingertips got wrinkly, imagining standing next to you in the dark, the starbox lighting up a sky in my room, and you explaining to me what you know about the constellations and black holes, while my heart gets moon-y and I try to think of a way to touch your hand in that way .

My writing is legible this time–I promise.

Download: The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For You / Nina Persson - Algebra
Buy the Album: The Flamingos - 18 Original Tracks / Nina Persson - Camp

Unfolding, Part Two

On Tuesday morning, Mary winked at me from between the bars.

Eyes open, Providence presents itself everywhere.

It’s enough to make one a Pilgrim, a devotee,

A lighter of candles, an ash-wearer,

an owner of red-and-sore knees and dirty palms,

An Underliner, a your-mouth-to-God’s-ear-er,

A tongue-tied Quaker, a promise maker,

a Promise-Keeper, A challah braider,

A collector of confessional screen rubbings,

a kisser of the ground.

It’s making me all these things +

a note-taker, a letter-writer, a deep smiler, a desirer of connection,

A person certain of my capacity to Meet You.

Download: Blind Willie Johnson - Let Your Light Shine on Me / Jeff Buckley - I Shall Be Released
Buy the Album: The Complete Blind Willie Johnson / Jeff Buckley - Live at Sin-E Legacy Edition

Hanne Hukkelberg is Norwegian magic.
Every review I read compares her to Bjork. Bah. She’s better than Bjork.
Cuter, too.

Remember the Selector?

Remember this band?

Songs for Feet Soles Worn Smooth by Sand and Hot Asphalt, (Run-On Sentence Int’l Postcard Pt Two), Part One

Picture sent to me by my Winter Bee, oh so long ago.

Tonight is another sweating monument to Summer, where I can feel the longing for

mint juleps (powdered sugar mashed into bruised mint leaves, twisting between mini ice-pick sculptures in a woodford reserve bath)

and

ginger lemonade (microplane grater casualty stung by frosty lemonhead candy-kiss)

all over my tongue and

ice cubes lining my wrists and throat just aren’t enough to ease the dis-comfort

while I stretch out on my new silk quilt and pretend there’s an ceiling ocean above me to cool me off and

I set cold-water-washcloth-wet-feet in front of the window fan,

I daydream of banana leaf shade with shared glasses of aqua fresca (jewel-toned condensation) and

hand-folded paper (torn from your notebooks) lanterns strung up through the branches of mango trees

in the backyard of a little rented room with cool tile floors and decide,

If I could just convince you that the arc of my bow-shaped lips is a trajectory worth mapping along your x/y axis,

perhaps I could lure you away to Costa Rica with me

where there are stars plentiful enough to keep you occupied the hours that I, (star jasmine scented, blooms between my fingers and lips), did not.

Download: Towa Tei - Meditation! / United Future Organization - Upa Neguinho / Os Mutantes - Baby (1968)
Buy the Album: Towa Tei - Future Listening! / United Future Organization - Self-Titled / Os Mutantes - Everything is Possible

For the night I bedded the Strongman and learned to swallow swords while lucid dreaming.

Run-On Sentence Postcard, Sent Across the Ocean

on this warm summer night, where the people below my window are drunk and walking by in an ever constant middle of the night stream,

i don’t believe i could play this song loud enough, or cup my headphones to my ears hard enough

and somewhere in the parallel dimension where my past selves live and celebrate the person i am becoming

i am in my old bedroom, with my old dj headphones on, 

plugged into my first ever stereo given to me for my bat mitzvah, my 13th birthday,  

(a huge monolith of a stereo with my first ever turn table)

this tape is running thin

and being rewound for this song over and over again

and my gentle not-at-all-punk 18 yr old-self is dancing,

tangling up in the headphones cord

as i spin and spin and spin, 

until i am dizzy

until i am breathless 

and i fall, pulling the plug from the stereo,

the music loud enough for my brother to run into my room screaming

but i don’t hear him, 

as i lay on my back i don’t even see him

because i am lining up with my right-now-self, 

my lines aren’t even at right angles

and i am smiling.

Download: Bettie Serveert - Kid’s Allright, plus bonus two songs, for deeper nostalgia: Healthy Sick (Sebadoh Cover) & Tom Boy
Buy the Album: Bettie Serveert - Palomine