• Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations,  Required Reading

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Correspondences by Anne Michaels and Bernice Eisenstein. Yes, this is one of my dissertation texts (at least it is right now), but it is also one that I genuinely love.   Watching… Modern Family. I finally got around to watching this show and it has rapidly made its way onto my list of “sitcoms I love.”   Listening… Løvenskiold’s score for La Sylphide. I went to see The National Ballet of Canada’s production of La Sylphide last weekend, and it was stunning. The set, the costumes, the dancing…all gorgeous. I’ve been loving the score this week, and I’m thinking I need to include it on my playlist for my flight next week.  …

  • Recommendations,  Required Reading

    Read This

    Required Reading. One of the poems in one of the collections I am working on in my dissertation (assuming the dissertation becomes something real and not another failed project, for if I collect anything at all it is failed projects and this one is starting to seem like it may be another piece for my collection) is “The Heart” by Souvankham Thammavongsa, from Found. This poem is particularly striking. I don’t know what to do with it yet, but it resonates with me. I’ve tried to replicate it here as best I can, but you should really pick up the book itself. It’s beautiful.   THE HEART,   the real   heart,…

  • Recommendations,  Required Reading

    Read This

    Required Reading. McSweeney’s is so frequently spot on with their content, and this piece is no exception. I cannot quite explain how accurate I find this article. And I so enjoy the names for the various panic attacks. Broti Gupta’s “My Panic Attacks: A Performance Review“. WORK PRODUCT In Q1, Broti’s panic attacks were timely, well-organized, and produced outstanding work, including Making Broti Cry During a Charmin Commercial and Broti Asking a FedEx Employee If He Was Mad at Her. After Zoloft was brought on there were a few bumps in the road (Broti Breathes Deeply and Counts to Ten, and Broti Chooses Not to Eat the Cheez-Its She Found in Bed), but recently the drug has been…

  • Mantras,  Quotations

    Quoted

    This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don’t get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can’t do anything, don’t get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it’s ready to come undone. You have to realize it’s going to be a long process and that you’ll work on things slowly, one at a time.” — Haruki Murakami

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Sylvia Plath. I’ve been in need of things that comfort me, things that feel familiar. Thus the turn to Plath this week after a turn to Keats last week.   Watching… Broadchurch. I’ve been on a BBC kick lately. This series is compelling and fascinating and incredibly beautifully shot.   Listening… “Summer Dress” by July Talk. I’ve actually been listening to the whole album on endless repeat in my headphones any time I’m commuting, but this is one of my favourites. I’m obsessed with Peter Dreimanis’s voice; it’s so gravelly and raspy and incredibly sexy and it doesn’t match his face at all. And Leah Fay has one of the…