Hello. I am e.n.d. Once upon a time I came from Minnesota. But then I moved everywhere.
Curiosity didn't kill the cat. Complacency did.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
El Bocho Street Art across the street from my old apartment in Berlin.
And a soundtrack below for a Valentine’s Day solo yoga flow.
Happy Valentine’s Day. :)
_______________________________________________________
Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End
R.E.M. - Be Mine
Violent Femmes - American Music
Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine
Blur - Tender
PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke - This Mess We’re In
Tricky - Overcome
Janet Jackson - Love Will Never Do (Without You)
Beck - Nitemare Hippy Girl
The Jesus And Mary Chain - Bullet Lovers
Jon Hopkins - The Low Places
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Four Tet - Angel Echoes
Radiohead - House of Cards
Björk - Possibly Maybe
Jon Hopkins - Small Memory
she walks on in
she walks on by
you bite your lip
and smile
you’re not allowed to be sad
Happy Birthday Jeff Buckley.
He would’ve been 45 years old today.
RIP
fall in light, fall in light.
fall in light, fall in light.
feel no shame for what you are
as you now are in your heart
fall in light
Jeff Buckley | New Year’s Prayer
I was 20 when I first heard In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
I popped the CD into my Volvo probably around 10:30pm, some weekday in June or July, 2000. My friend Adrian gave it to me minutes after I picked him up at his parents’ place.
We drove over to the Federal Reserve building to go skateboarding. I always had my sunroof open. Minnesota summers are hot as hell. Breezes came in. Music went out.
We listened to the entire album on the way there and on the way back. And often for the rest of the summer.
I hadn’t yet moved out of my parents’ place but I had a lot of freedom. They bought me that 1985 Volvo DL. It was my third one. (I got into a lot of car accidents). Each one had a sunroof. Not that I could make demands on them since they financed my early driving years, but I always requested a sunroof. They always caved.
Long since I’ve moved out, happily carless, I have to pack. I’m leaving Berlin next week and moving to San Francisco.
Soundtracks. Lyrics. Déjà vu.
But now we must pack up every piece
Of the life we used to love
Just to keep ourselves
At least enough to carry on
(Thanks, Thom).
“My God. What would the community think?”
heybabetakeawalkonthewildside:
Cat Power - What Would The Community Think
Love.
“Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl,” by Broken Social Scene.
Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that.
Now you’re all gone got your make-up on and you’re not coming back.
Can’t you come back?
Bleach in your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath.
Bleach in your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath.
Bleach in your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath.
Bleach in your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under my window.
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me.
Licensing in Germany means I see (and thus, share) some shit quality videos.
But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this was a favorite of mine over sixteen years ago. I remember when I first saw it.
I loved the colors. I started wearing a lot of colors that summer.
I remember recording the video on a blank VHS tape from MTV and watching it over and over. And at night, I’d ride in the car of my best friend, Kari, and we’d play The Bends cassette tape all night long after we went skateboarding. She got her driver’s license a year before I did. A driver’s license in the Midwest, United States, meant freedom. So together, we drove around free. And every time we popped the tape in, we’d fast forward to play Fake Plastic Trees first and drive fast.
And yes, that’s right, I used to skateboard.
This was my entire summer of 1995.
Beck and Thom Yorke covering The Velvet Underground’s I’m Set Free.
February 26, 2002 - Los Angeles, CA
I’ve been set free and I’ve been bound
To the memories of yesterday’s clouds
I’ve been set free and I’ve been bound
And now I’m set free
I’m set free
I’m set free to find a new illusion
I’ve been blinded but
Now I can see
What in the world has happened to me
The prince of stories who walks right by me
And now I’m set free
I’m set free
I’m set free to find a new illusion
I’ve been set free and I’ve been bound
Let me tell you people
What I found
I saw my head laughing
Rolling on the ground
And now I’m set free
I’m set free
I’m set free to find a new illusion
Been cafe-ing all day with Mr. McNamee and we came across this piece of beautiful.
From “inni” by Sigur Rós.
Arrived back ‘home’ tonight. I bumped into this song again while washing clothes and drinking tea. Found some scenes of Jutland, Denmark to go with it this time. Reminds me a bit of Minnesota.
Wallowing in the melancholy that is a beautiful musical resurrection and a lullaby.
Here is to a better Fall, somewhere.
This gets me every time.
Max Richter - Infra 5
The air is heavy, the beats heavier. I’ve seen things with my eyes you people wouldn’t believe… Need a drink, it’s so hot here I can’t tell whether I’m crying or sweating.
My Mom was a single mother. I am an only child. Eventually she met my Dad. He’s rad.
Throughout my pre-teen years, she was a waitress, bartender, stressed-out college student, and all around music-junkie. So you might imagine that in those first 12 years of just being on our own together, she played a lot of music for me.
I mean, a lot.
She first played this track for me when I was probably 10 or 11. As Peter Gabriel sang of nationalism, manipulation, symbolic games, and finally, freedom, she found a way to use various songs, including this one, to make clear to me what was tolerable and what wasn’t when it came to people, politics and progress. Schooling me at probably too young of an age to fully understand, she planted the seed of early thoughts on egalitarianism, human rights, and just generally, mutual respect.
Records, tapes, eventually CDs, and hours of my Mom saying things like, “Emily, did you hear that? He’s talking about cross-cultural communication, transparency, and conflict”.
Most of the time I was all, “Wait, huh? Can I go outside now and play?”.
But thankfully, those endless hours are probably some of the early reasons I ended up becoming so obsessed with conflict and resolution in various fields and areas of life.
Music was and still is a way for her to passively protest and actively communicate. For me, this is also sometimes the case. She was the one who taught me to read into some songs, identify the symbolism, if it’s there, and when you want, apply it to your own life. Or just learn from it.
Years later, still, nearly every morning a song pops into my head that I have to put on the player.
This is today’s selection.
Oh, the games kids still play these days.
It’s a knockout.
If looks could kill, they probably will.
In games without frontiers, war without tears.
Games without frontiers, war without tears.
Jeux sans frontieres.
I woke up to this in my feed. My ADHD self can’t follow a ton of people on this or Twitter (I can never handle all of the incoming as is!), so a breakfast wake up call to one of my favorite Radiohead B-sides is a nice surprise.
Especially this morning. My windows are screaming sun and blue skies. I heard the punk bakers below me setting up shop. I pressed play while still under the covers.
In very similar weather, I bought this single in Los Angeles when I was with my Mom over a long weekend in early 2002 while she was attending some kind of ‘product marketing insurance conference’.
Gross, I know.
But these trips were common and more often than not, she took me with her. I was always pumped to travel on these micro-domestic journeys. Perfect breaks spent with a person who is still one of my closest friends.
On this trip in particular, I’d take our rental car out of the too-nice-for-our-liking Beverly Hills hotel garage we were staying and I’d drive solo, every day, to Orange County on long freeways. I had every B-side from the ‘Knives Out’ single with me. Heavy rotation, playing while plowing on smaller seaside roads once I reached the good ole’ OC.
I was busy writing, reading and fresh out of a silly break-up. Silly in the sense that at 22 yrs old, you’re still pretty unsure but fairly confident that it’s not the end of the world but the occasional second pops up when you treat it as if it is. Damn emotions! But, it cracks up to just a young learning experience. After all, I wasn’t about to be kept in Minnesota. Break-ups were both tasty and painful at that age. Leaving Minnesota was key. The world was big.
So instead, I was a 22 yr. old who appreciated driving in cars alone to beautiful soundtracks, still searching for CD singles and unreleased bootlegs of live performances in the stores of cities and countries I didn’t frequently visit.
Wondering what a post-University experience would look like in six months, I compartmentalized and focused on writing my undergraduate honors thesis on ‘Debt Relief in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’ and defending it to a committee I feared might not be convinced to allow me to graduate at the top of my class later that Spring.
(I always felt that I sucked at writing. I’m far too passionate to make sense half the time).
Six months later, after sitting and speaking (trembling, really) in a small, hot room for two hours, completely sweaty and still terrified, that said committee was somehow convinced. After hearing my pathetic attempts to define what the ‘moral obligation’ was on behalf of the Belgian and US Government’s duty to relieve the Congo’s debt, I got a harsh lesson in what real Political Economy and Post-Colonial transitions were and they gave my Summa Cum Laude honors. Pointedly and so often, I stood harshly critiqued during the entire defense. Mystified, even after, as to why they rewarded me.
Still, after being challenged so much, I later (and rightfully so), convinced myself that debt relief was definitely the wrong way to go for any transitional economy, country or populous. Aid, too, was wrong and no longer worked in isolation. Period. And any attempt to develop anything only happens within. Within the country, the leadership, and every individual, no matter what the issue or topic. Personal or political. The continent of Africa, included, could only be helped if it wanted to help itself first.
These were all relatively controversial opinions I later went to graduate school with to make more friends and some, well, not so good friends.
Los Angeles, my Mom, some professors, music, and a lot of books.
“It’s such a beautiful day.
It’s such a beautiful day.
Go up to the mic,
Go up to the mic.
Go and get some rest.”
at seanfennessey:
Radiohead: “Worrywort”
from the Knives Out EP
