Only a Nose Through Which to Breathe

Yesterday, the 2019 Man Booker Prize longlist was revealed. Being the investigator of new books that I am, I promptly logged into my Goodreads account, created a new bookshelf entitled, “mbpl-2019,” and shelved the finalists that sounded interesting. This is something I’ve done the past three years, and of the 34 finalists that I’ve shelved, I’ve read a grand total of two.

Obviously, I’ve been keeping well abreast with my TBR list.

My Goodreads Reading Challenge for this year is set to 50 books. Last night, resolved to tackle more of my “Want to Read” shelf (thanks, MBP), I checked out from the library two books that have been on my radar:  reads 32 and 33, The President’s Hat and The Red Notebook, both written by French novelist Antoine Laurain.

All this to say that today, I learned about Cycladic art as it related to the interests of Laurain’s neurologist in The Red Notebook. A comatose patient has no sight, thus, no need for eyes; no speech, thus, no need for a mouth. Only a nose through which to breathe.

My first thought was actually whether I’d previously seen Cycladic art in Frasier Crane’s flat. Will confirm and report back.

Cycladic sculpture

Then, I settled into awe of Laurain for even thinking to assign a Cycladic head sculpture as a neurologist’s desk ornament. Laurain draws a marvelous connection between a primitive art movement that minimizes facial features with a still-relevant medical condition that denies the use of two of four cranial senses. My research on Cycladic art hasn’t expressly hinted at any specific reason for exclusion of eyes or mouths, other than that Cycladic sculpture is archaic, and so related to the purposes of early works like the Venus of Willendorf.

However, I can’t help but be inspired by the simplicity of the Cycladic face. When we strip away the unimportant from our everyday, all that really matters is that we were given another day to breathe. Take a note from Laurain and the Cyclades – embrace what is necessary, and don’t dwell on what isn’t.

It doesn’t matter if we don’t have huge social circles, have bodies that look a certain way, or aren’t the top man in our career field. Our fallen world places a lot of value on status, vanity, and money, all ephemeral and fleeting after wind.

It’s not worth expending the energy to fret about old friends and wonder why they stopped communicating. The people that are in your life right now are the ones that care to be there.

It doesn’t benefit us to hold on to things we don’t need. Sometimes materialism keeps us from larger experiences, or ironically, feelings of satisfaction.

It’s okay to experience failure, that’s what teaches us and motivates us to succeed next time.

But what do we really need? Gratitude, propinquity, faith. Only a nose through which to breathe.

Entry: Slurpee

Entry: Slurpee

(slərp’ē)
Of Heavenous English. Liquid noun.

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1. A cascading rush of fructosciously frozen water.

2. The corporate world’s gift of July 11th brain freezes.

3. The singularly existent reason to brave more than your usual masses on your way home from work.

Lauren Graham’s Top-Secret Hollywood Secrets

In true Gilmore Girls spirit, I’ve been channeling my inner Rory and am currently working through my 27th book of the year (hashtag, Goodreads Reading Challenge). I’m doubly Gilmore-y right now, though, because my current read is Lauren Graham’s Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between. In her part musings, part memoir that actually does read like a too-fast conversation with Lorelai, Graham shares bits of everything from turning a Gershwin song “about playing an instrument into a song about abusing a fish” (p.31), to—in compliance with one of my personal preferences—always shooting her scene with actual coffee in her prop coffee cup.

Here’s a fun bit from Graham’s essay entitled, “You Can’t Be Vegan Just for Ellen.” Caution:  It’ll throw you into literal Gilmore Girls withdrawals even if you’re in good health and it’s not raining outside.

Top-Secret Hollywood Secrets

“1. If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re going to be hungry most of the day, fairly cranky, and irritating to your friends—or maybe it’s your friends who are irritating; it’s hard to tell because you’re so hungry—and you need to be like this every day for about two weeks to see results.

“2. I lost the most weight once right after a bad breakup, and then again while rehearsing a Broadway show. Try to arrange for these things to happen at the same time and then you’ll really be looking good!

“3. Most successful diets involve eating very clean, healthy foods in small quantities, with very few carbohydrates, almost no sugar, very little alcohol, and a ton of physical activity. This combination appears in almost every diet book out there. You can combine foods, count points, or act like you are French, Greek, Spanish, or Beyoncé. While each diet varies slightly, I’ve read every single one of them and I can assure you they all have the above in common.

“4. Bell-bottoms will go in and out of style every few years for the rest of your life. This is a bit off topic, but just another thing I keep meaning to tell you. They’ll change them just enough to make you think you need new ones. You do not. Keep the ones you already have.”

(p. 53) “Plus, I think it should be against the law to feel down on yourself regarding any issues that Oprah is still working on, and OPRAH IS STILL WORKING ON THIS ISSUE [the best diet]. She has rubbed elbows with heads of state and every celebrity in the universe, opened a school in Africa among other accomplishments, made millions of dollars, and helped scores of people live a better life, but, by her own admission, she is still working on diet-related topics. So to sum up: let’s all chillax about it and spend more time being kind to ourselves and doing truly useful things like trying to resuscitate words that were never cool, like chillax.

“Good news! My accountant has just informed me that by imparting all these Top-Secret Hollywood Secrets to you, I’ve now saved you at least one zillion American dollars! Just make sure to mention me when you talk about it on the Today show (Hi, Kathie Lee and Hoda!).”

Graham, Lauren. Talking as Fast as I Can (p. 51, 53). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Penguin Random House | Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon

La paix des cerises

Arrêtez quelques personnes dans la rue, demandez-leur comment elles ont calmé leur esprit et je vous garantis qu’un pourcentage de la population (même infime) répondra avec quelque chose lié à l’indulgence saccharine. Bien que je n’aie pas forcément le goût sucré et que je ne me tourne pas toujours vers le sucre, j’ai trouvé mon propre degré de bonheur à la saccharine. Rien ne calme une âme comme une délicieuse tranche de tarte aux cerises chaude.

En tant que penseur en rétablissement, j’ai appris à valoriser la simplification. Ce sont les petites victoires, comme remarquer ce qui induit le bonheur personnel, qui m’encouragent à continuer à avancer dans la bonne direction. Lorsque je fais une pause dans mon tourbillon pour sortir de mon cerveau et entrant dans mon estomac pour nourrir mon âme, ces quelques bouchées de fruits cuits au four font des choses miraculeuses pour moi. J’oublie mes soucis et la réponse à la vie, à l’univers et à tout, devient soudain la croûte floconneux de tarte maison.

Il ne fera jamais de mal à quelqu’un de connaître le véritable amour d’une tranche de tarte aux cerises chaude.

2018 Firsts and Finallys

Can’t believe it’s already time to close this list and start a new one! This year was a year of tuning in to myself and accepting the whole – scars and flaws are beautiful doorways for growth and wisdom. Cheers, 2019 🥂

2018 Firsts and Finallys

– Finally went back to school! Started working on a copyediting certificate, also finally started working on an art history degree
– Visited my first dueling piano bar 🎹
– Stood at the top of my first mountain, Mt. Washington – for a wedding, no less – and stepped foot onto the AT for the first time
– Finalement commencé à apprendre le français and started a library of French books
– Attended my first (and last) Warped Tour
– Played with a pit band for a musical for the first time
– Finally had pie in Alabama 🥧
– Tasted my first Bordeaux
– Played my first real Austin gig
– Finally became military-time fluent
– Took my first drawing class, started my first sketchbook
– Finally caught Gin Blossoms, The Wombats, Metallica, Paul McCartney, Chicago, Weezer, and Eli Young Band
– Hosted my first Christmas in July party
– Finally found Niagara Falls
– Got my first professional facial
– Went to my first crawfish boil
– Attended my first real wine tasting 🍷
– Took a shot off an ice luge for the first time
– Finally learned to change spark plugs
– Discovered that Toto has pretty great non-“Africa” songs (hint, hint)
– Finally saw the Terminator and Back to the Future movies
– Shoulder “surfed” at a concert for the first time #TheCatEmpire
– Stumbled upon my first European Christmas festival
– Learned how to replace a shower valve cartridge
– Finally wandered around Yale, Baylor, and MIT
– Joined my first real D&D group
– Finally gave in and subscribed to Amazon Prime haha
– Clocked my fastest mile since high school at 9:23/mi (today!) 🏃‍♀️
– New states: Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, DC, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island
– New countries: Canada, the Netherlands
– New art museums: US National Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Yale University Art Gallery, Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt’s house

Happy Talk

By Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960)
As featured in the 1950s series of This I Believe

“I have an unusual statement to make. I am a man who believes he is happy. What makes it unusual is that a man who is happy seldom tells anyone. The unhappy man is more communicative. He is eager to recite what is wrong with the world, and he seems to have a talent for gathering a large audience. It is a modern tragedy that despair has so many spokesmen, and hope so few.

“I believe, therefore, that it is important for a man to announce that he is happy even though such an announcement is less dramatic and less entertaining than the cries of his pessimistic opposite. Why do I believe I am happy? Death has deprived me of many whom I loved. Dismal failure has followed many of my most earnest efforts. People have disappointed me. I have disappointed them. I have disappointed myself.

“Further than this, I am aware that I live under a cloud of international hysteria. The cloud could burst, and a rain of atom bombs could destroy millions of lives, including my own. From all this evidence, could I not build up a strong case to prove why I am not happy at all? I could, but it would be a false picture, as false as if I were to describe a tree only as it looks in winter. I would be leaving out a list of people I love, who have not died. I would be leaving out an acknowledgement of the many successes that have sprouted among my many failures. I would be leaving out the blessing of good health, the joy of walking in the sunshine. I would be leaving out my faith that the goodness in man will triumph eventually over the evil that causes war.

“All these things are as much a part of my world as the darker worries that shade them. The conflict of good and bad merges in thick entanglement. You cannot isolate virtue and beauty and success and laughter, and keep them from all contact with wickedness, and ugliness and failure and weeping. The man who strives for such isolated joy is riding for a fall. He will wind up in isolated gloom.

“I don’t believe anyone can enjoy living in this world unless he can accept its imperfection. He must know and admit that he is imperfect, that all other mortals are imperfect, that it is childish to allow these imperfections to destroy all his hope and all his desire to live. Nature is older than man, and she is still far from perfect. Her summers do not always start promptly on June 21. Her bugs and beetles and other insects often go beyond her obvious intentions, devouring the leaves and buds with which she has adorned her countryside. After the land has remained too dry for too long, she sends relieving rains. But frequently they come in torrents so violent that they do more harm than good. Over the years, however, nature keeps going on in her imperfect way, and the result – in spite of her many mistakes – is a continuing miracle. It would be folly for an individual to seek to do better – to do better than to go on in his own imperfect way, making his mistakes, riding out the rough and bewildering, exciting and beautiful storm of life until the day he dies.”

2017 Firsts and Finallys

I know, it’s been almost three months to the day since my last confession. Can’t say that I’m very sorry for not being active here… I’ve been enjoying the Me, Only life. but I am about 30% remorseful, I miss the feeling of accomplishment that comes from thinking up something to write about, or even taking up the Daily Prompt, and then actually scraping my thoughts together.

Anyhow, here’s something that I completely forgot to share here on December 31st.

While 2016’s big thing was relocation, 2017 kept with the theme and became my biggest year of travel yet – but you’ve already read about that. Cheers, 2018, here’s to many more miles.

2017 Firsts and Finallys

– Finally became roomies with my best friend
– Became Auntie Bethy for the first time
– Finally got a passport, and promptly
– Crossed the Pond, backpacked the U.K. solo, then promptly
– Got literally lost in a foreign country for the first time
– Saw my first musicals on Broadway and at the Globe Theater
– Finally broke down and tried mussels. Ain’t so bad.
– Finally saw my first Degas!
– Saw my first Rick & Morty episodes. Not sure why I waited so long.
– Saw some celebrities in the flesh for the first time: Jimmy Fallon, Ben Platt, David Tennant, Parker Stevenson, Pamela Sue Martin (and attended my first ND convention!)
– Finally went to IKEA
– Joined my first non-profit organization
– Attended my first ACL, first Austin Celtic Festival, and first UT football game
– Finally got to New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Alabama, and Florida, and laid eyes on Canada
– New beaches: Old Orchard Beach, South Beach, Gulf Shores, Perkins Cove, the cliffs of York, the English Channel, and the North Sea
– FINALLY went to 221b Baker Street, crossed Abbey Road, and Saw Plymouth Rock
– Threw my own shows for the first time
– Finally saw ZEDD, Vulfpeck, Haken, The Killers, Gorillaz, and the Cult
– Planned travel specifically for an art fair for the first time (and first Art Basel!)
– BREWFISH IN TEXAS WHAAAAT
– Talked a New England venue owner into bringing in BÖC
– FINALLY ran around Harvard. Bucket list item for as long as it was Rory’s
– First dog vs. skunk encounter
– Toured my first castles in Wales, Scotland, and England
– Attended my first Vegas wedding
– Saw my first polo match
– Air traveled with an instrument for the first time
– Was finally told about Steam! Why’d y’all wait so long?! Got no less than twenty ND PC games for no more than 24 bucks total
– Finally rode a/some subway(s)
– Saw Ernest Hemingway’s, Orson Welles’, Ray Bradbury’s, and John Lennon’s typewriters. They live.
– Gave in to chicken and waffles. Not half bad, but only half great.
– Finally walked the halls of the Blanton Art Museum, Harvard Art Museum, London National Gallery, Tate Modern, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Scotland, Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Art Museum, and Pérez Art Museum Miami
– Had my first real Christmas tree

Sonnet the Third

Your shine compares to Perseus above
My head, and while I ponder everything
You make appear minute, I can’t but love
The small existence of my lone being.
This myriad of scattered thought’s so quick
To coarse through knots of synapse, just to leave
Me stumped once more, irrelevant as tick
Of yesterday… His games… They come to tease
My solo essence. Why do I yet cling
To anxious frailty? You, sweet sky, are still.
I fret. Among my trouble, where this peace
Abounds with patience, come alter my will.

May all that binds me tight, rope taught and strained,
Be as a harmony, be as the rain.

– B. Rider, 2014

 

Entry: Las Vegas

Entry: Las Vegas

(lôs vāɡ’əs)
Of Overpopulated English. Geonoun.

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1. A much-too-expensive electric bill.

1(a). A much-too-expensive everything bill.

2. Prime escapist masking of unhappiness, rejection, and self-loathing.

3. A buffet table of the world’s best buffet tables.

4. The inspiration to introverted solitude upon departure.

Alone.

When you
are alone,
the world’s left you
behind, don’t you find that
Lonely

ain’t kind.
You’ve got your
freedom you want
to hold on to. Don’t you
know… don’t

you know
someone should
hold on to you?
Hold on to you… Hold on
to you.

I can’t
see what’s been
keeping you from
me. You got kicked around,
found a

lonely
sound. Darling,
Please pick yourself
up off the ground, so I
can hold

on to
you, hold on
to you, hold on
to you, darling, when you’re
Alone.

Lyrics by B. Wolff,
Arrangement by B. Rider