And that’s when I’m not even really tryin’.

Happy Labour Day, y’all.

“Rosie the Riveter” by the Four Vagabonds:

It took me a long time to be ready and able to write the way I write — I spent years in wildernesses of not-writing and kind-of-writing because I thought there was a way I was “supposed” to write — and that way wasn’t my way. I tried very hard to constrain my unrulyness, to be neat and tidy and rule-following when I wrote, tried very hard not to be too loopy or eccentric or idiosyncratic and so what I wrote was workmanlike, but not more, and about as satisfying to me as getting the laundry washed and folded and put away, which is to say: minimally.

Nobody did this to me; I did it to myself; I wish I knew why. If I have one regret in my life it’s that I have taken so long to learn the lesson that it’s okay — way, way more than okay, actually — to be free enough to be the creature I am and to be free enough to invite all the “hell yes” I can into my life.

Also?

Flowers are purty and when they’re in my field of vision, I am happy.

Yeah. So. Waiting … But you can’t answer cos there is no answer other than, “Nobody, unruly person. Nobody could.” Nope. No answer at all.

“Librarian”, My Morning Jacket:

“Ninja Librarian”, Letterbox Media:

Sewing patterns put it all together.

The sundering and the reconciling … they interest me, both. I maybe love taxidermy because it requires both; I should maybe love the jigsaw puzzle more than I do, for the same reason.

I like to see the discrete segments of objects, to understand how they are, each piece on its own; it’s just as true to say I like to see those pieces joined together. I like to see the shapes the leaves of trees make against the sky; I like to see the quarter-sectioned head in a jar; I like to see black fabric topstitched with white; and diagrams with dotted lines. I like to work out how things can be put together and how they can be taken apart. It’s maybe not unlike being alive and moving through the world and how we come together with people and then are often propelled apart — friends become less friendly, lovers become less loveful, childs become less childy.

butcher & seam … life is full of butcher & seam.

Radiohead, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”:

The Speakerbox Igloo at work:

Selections from O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phile Rizzuto, edited by Tom Peyer and Hart Seeley:

The Man in the Moon
The Yankees have had a traumatic four days.
Actually five days.
That terrible crash with Thuman Munson.
To go through that agony,
And then today,
You and I aong with the rest of the team Flew to Canton for the services,
And the family … Very upset
You know, it might,
It might sound a little corny.
But we have the most beautiful full moon tonight.
And the crowd,
Enjoying whatever is going on right now.
They say
it might sound corny,
But to me it’s some kind of a,
Like an ome
Both the moon and Thurman Munson
Both ascending up into heaven.
I just can’t get it out of my mind.
I just saw that full moon
And it reminded me of Thurman.
And that’s it.

August 6, 1979
Baltimore at New York
Ron Guidry pitching to Lee May
Fifth inning, bases empty, no outs
Orioles lead 1–0

Buns
He has powerful legs and cute buns,
That Henderson.
That was a great shot,
Going to second base there.
There’s nothing wrong with that, White.
That’s a popular expression.
High, and it’s one and one.
His legs were churning.

May 10, 1987
New York at Minnesota
Charlie Hudson pitching to Al Newman
(Replay of stolen base)
Third inning no outs, bases empty
Yankees lead 4–0

Instructions for the World
Watch this.
Forget about the script.
Don’t read. Don’t read.
Ad-lib it.
And I had it upside down.

May 30, 1992
New York at Milwaukee
Scott Sanderson piching to Scot Fletcher
Third inning, one out, bases empty
Yankees lead 3–0

And for Elizabeth Bishop’s “Man-Moth”, go here.

Fashion’s just a financial transaction. It’s going and buying what you see other people wearing and wearing it in much the same way as they’re wearing it, which is probably in much the way shop windows and magazines dictate it be worn. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I do plenty of it myself, but it’s … boring. A ton of the “street style” stuff you see in alternative newspapers or in magazines or on blogs is misnamed, in my view. Because the overwhelming majority of what is being worn in those photographs is just chain-store gear being worn in pretty much the way the chain-store tells you to wear it — it’s street fashion, not street style. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve got NOTHING against chain stores; I shop at plenty myself. But I really like it when I can wear my clothes so they express something about me, something beyond, “Hey, I shop at H&M.” Because, actually, the thing about style is that it isn’t necessarily about your clothing’s provenance. One-off pieces are fab; I love them, very much. But style is a tributary of the great river imagination and if you swim in that river, you know how to take a piece of clothing and wear it in a way that imbues it with the youness of you. Which is why I think style is generosity. Whenever you’re willing to put yourself out there a bit — to stand out in a crowd — you’re saying something above and beyond “I went to the mall today” about yourself. Style is personal. Fashion? Not so much.

All of that being said, I’ll cop to the fact that I’m pretty yummed-up by extremists, when it comes to clothing. Great sartorial oddity makes me very happy, I guess because it’s so personal and really kind of brave, not unlike art-making. In both cases you express something about yourself, expose something about yourself, and so make yourself vulnerable. It’s moving and shiver-making and exhilarating —and sometimes scary — to engage that way — for sure when you’re the person offering that piece of yourself up but maybe even when you’re the person on the receiving end, because it can be disquieting to be confronted with oddity. Ultimately, I very much like the kind of risk-taking, the kind of unguardedness, the kind of generosity, that people who sing a song of themselves offer up to the rest of us. I very much like to look upon people who have a point-of-view and and who look like they have a point-of-view.

Louise Lecavalier performing with Carole Laure in Laure’s video for the song “Danse Avant de Tomber”: