Feist, Pine Moon
That chill feeling that only a foggy Autumn night and some Feist can give you.
Download, then get a good night’s sleep, then wake up after hitting your snooze ten times, then let the dog into your room and snuggle for an extra half hour because it’s too cold to get out of bed.
To the poet of color or the female poet, to the gay or transgendered writer in America, and even to the white male writer born outside of socioeconomic privilege, a difficult question arises: “Whose language is it?” Where the history of academic and cultural institutions is so dominated by white men of means, “high” language necessarily comes to mean the language of whiteness and a largely wealthy, heteronormative maleness at that. The minority poet seeking entry into the academy and its canon finds that her language is deracialized/sexualized/gendered/classed at the outset…It’s true that minority poets are permitted to bring alternative vernaculars into our work…
But this leaves me and perhaps others like me in a slightly awkward position. I don’t possess a vernacular English that’s significantly different from that of plain old Midwestern English. As such, it seems I’m able to write from a perspective that doesn’t address certain realities about myself, and this makes me queasy as anything. The voice in my head is annoyed with the voice in my writing. The voice in my head says I’m disregarding difference, and this feels like a denial of self, of reality, of a basic truth.
” —Jaswinder Bolina, “Writing Like a White Guy: On language, race, and poetry.”
Interesting enough to read all of. The only problem I have with this way of thinking (which is the way of thinking) is the preconception that upper middle class white is the accepted normal. Sure, our culture makes the white male the standard for “normal,” but by thinking that you are different from him and therefore have to write differently, well, that just makes me uneasy because it seems to be perpetuating his position of power.
(via Emerson’s FYWP blog, via The Poetry Foundation)
I always get the feeling that a grand romantic gesture will fix all of my problems.
Florence + The Machine, Take Care (Drake Cover)
Florence Welch covers the Drake + Rhianna song produced by Jamie XX.
Best line:
It’s my party. I’ll get high if I want to.
Sounds good enough to download.
The Dodos, So Cold
These guys will always remind me of my college years in Virginia, exploring music, traveling hours to go to amazing concerts, and listening to The Dodos on WNRN (the best radio station ever), while working, painting, and dancing like a maniac.
Download this previously unreleased track
Nadia G.
Agreed.
Birdy, 1901 (Pheonix cover)
I am thankful for all of the ladies whose lovely voices have been the soundtrack to my year: Adele, Florence Welch, Birdy’s covers.
I dunno. So I read this article.
Here’s a taste:
Messing with traditional gender roles hardly seems to matter at this point—you’re already messing with the very fabric of society! My god, think of the children!
(via Rookie. It’s an online mag.)
Filmmaker Mike Mills talks about his father, who came out when he was 75. (via nprfreshair)
That’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve heard in a long time, and I’ve been reading a lot of poetry.
