playlist 2008

Something I've been doing over the last year is keeping a playlist for each season. I tend to go through intense fixations on bands or albums and when they're over, I take the most prominent, memory-ridden song and stick it in the playlist for that time period. Going back to each playlist later makes me really nostalgic, and I'm kinda into that. I've pared the whole 80-song mess down to a more conventional 22-song deal for those of you who enjoy a. free music b. pre-made playlists c. peering into my life/emotional voyeurism (?). I cut out the embarrassing or otherwise irrelevant songs for the sake of concision and mass enjoyment (outtakes list anyone?!). Some of the songs might seem obvious, but I'm just bein' honest.

I don't think the file comes out in order, but here's what you're in for:

1. Cap'n Jazz - Basil's Kite
2. Justice - Newjack
3. Tokyo Police Club - In A Cave
4. Sea Wolf - You're A Wolf
5. Smart Went Crazy - Funny As In Funny Ha-Ha
6. The City on Film - Astray! Astray!
7. The Knife - Heartbeats
8. Maps and Atlases - Stories About Ourselves
9. Braid - Summer Salt
10. Les Savy Fav - Brace Yourself
11. No Knife - The Red Bedroom
12. Death From Above 1979 - Little Girl
13. Pattern is Movement - Bird
14. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
15. Chairlift - Bruises
16. Margaret & the Nuclear So and So's - Bookworm
17. Notwist - One With The Freaks
18. Tv on the Radio - Dancing Choose
19. Deerhunter - Little Kids
20. Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken
21. Dear and the Headlights - If Not For My Glasses
22. Fruit Bats - Lives of Crime

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=106HM266

and this is what my brother does for fun

apropos

"anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
-kierkegaard

ballpoint

as i print letters
on water color paper

he strings veins and lungs
with flicks of the wrist
and acrylic bristles.
now the canvas has a nervous system
now i can see it beating, patient,
rhythmic.

heaving, breathing
he and canvas shoulder
heavy spectrums,
the vibrating weight of color:
red, brazen, slick
and glaring, strokes like slaughter,
exhaling hard.

under my hand, black ink
settles quietly into off-white.

prometheus' daughter

you inhaled heat
as i crossed my legs
and watched ruin arise
from smoldering ash.

eyelashes bat easily,
scaring moths from the fabric
of your lungs, keeping me
from looking up.

in the cold i noticed my knees,
crooked in the shadow of skirts
and sisters.

my blind hands, small and scared
can't make fire from sandpaper,

still shaken from the echo of locks
down empty hallways,

still bent to the angles of elbow
and hip, your jawbone's downward turn.

a lit match mirrors the spark in your lips,
held silently, kissing the frayed edge of leaves
spread unapologetic on the pavement.

memorial

you came home bandaged,
wearied white. not hiding,
you said. just healing.

I wanted to see where you'd been colored in,
where blood mixed with ink
and skin. I wanted to know how it hurt you.

I wanted to fingerprint your shaken cells,
sore and dividing in silence.

***

you woke up aching,
bindings unraveled
and colors bled.

cradling your arm, I peeled away
the sterile linen second skin,
exposing

bruised and freckled
the tender pigment
glistening pink:

a full peach blooming
in the shade of your shirtsleeve.

silent lives

I slept all day, and now all I can think about is my heart beating through an apple.