1. I’ve read “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out,” by Richard Siken at least once a day since first reading it about two weeks ago. Truth be told, I usually read it twice a day. In the first few days, I read it even more. It’s brutally good. Almost impossibly good.
2. It’s a little embarrassing how many times I’ve watched this video of John Roderick performing “Nora” live. I’m particularly fixated on it from the guitar solo to the end. You know that feeling when you’re at a live show and the artist is completely plugged in to what they’re doing? Tapped right into the source of whatever moves them to make music in the first place? You can feel it. It radiates off of them, and it goes right into you if you let it. That happens in this video. Watch him sink into the guitar solo, then watch how his energy has changed when he starts to sing again. The guitar solo–the abandon of it… (Fuck precision. Give me passion over precision every time. Break your damn guitar strap. Drop the guitar. As long as it’s sincere.) And then the way he sings the rest of the lyrics… That shouted “Oh, Nora!” after the solo KILLS ME. That’s how I want my art. Messy and sweaty and honest and passionate.
Yeh – my daughter’s boyfriend was like that. They broke up while he was still at Berklee, and I was the heartbroken one. A friend told me years ago, “Don’t get attached to your daughters’ boyfriends” and, boy, was she ever right. So I pass that on to you.