Chemistry

Love and commitment--to anything or anybody, craft or person--are simply not enough. It takes something more, something elusive, something intangible to create chemistry. This is what it looks like to me:

I'll never, ever be able to say it better than this

Here is my song for the asking.
Ask me, and I will play so sweetly, I'll make you smile.

This is my tune for the taking.
Take it, don't turn away - I've been waiting all my life.

Thinking it over, I've been sad,
Thinking it over, I'd be more than glad

To change my ways for the asking.
Ask me, and I will play all the love that I hold inside.

-Paul Simon

Craft meets heart

When one gains complete control over one's craft, it's the heart that comes through. While I keep working on it, witness the great Ellen Burstyn.

How one Sunday became heaven and D Major all at once

My hands are two travelers, they've crossed oceans and lands,
Yet they are too small on the continent of your skin.
Wandering, wandering, I could spend my life
Traveling the length of your body each night.

Oh, oh, Jupiter.
Oh, oh, be still, my little heart.
Oh, oh, love is a flame, neither timid nor tame.

Take these stars from my crown.
Let the years fall down.
Lay me out in firelight.
Let my skin feel the night.
Fasten me to your side,
And say it will be soon.
You make me so crazy, baby,
Could swallow the moon.

-Jewel Kilcher

Where I go post-concert

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

-E. E. Cummings

The Coast

We are standing in the early morning sunlight
In the harbor church of Saint Cecilia
To praise a soul's returning to the earth,
To the Rose of Jericho and the Bougainvillea.

This is a lonely life.
Sorrows everywhere you turn.
And that's worth something when you think about it.
That's worth some money.

To prove that I love you,
Because I believe in you,
Summer skies, stars are falling all along the injured coast.

If I have weaknesses,
Don't let them blind me now,
Summer skies, stars are falling all along the injured coast.

Leaving the shadow
Of the valley behind me now
All along the injured coast.

This is the only life.

-Paul Simon

Let It Be or: How I Learned to Stop Watching, Start Feeling, and Love This Film

The brilliance of Julie Taymor...

A Quiet Place

What do we need to make us friends again?

We're not so very far apart.

What makes this emptiness?

Tell me when these silences began.

Long ago, you were all strength and life and joy to me.

All magic. All music. All of life to me.

You were my charm and all delight to me;

My heart and mind; you were my love, the sun at night to me.

And what has happened to dull the mystery?

And where is our garden with a quiet place?

Why can't we try to find the way again to peace and life?

Can't we find the way back to the garden where we began?

-Leonard Bernstein, "Trouble in Tahiti"

What C major sounds like today

Good days, bad days, I've had a few of those.
Same old story - I know how this song goes.
At least I did, but now I'm not so sure.
Nothing's in its place; nothing's certain anymore.

Birds fly, trees sway - why can't I be like that?
Happy knowing what I am, in fact, and leaving be?
But truth has been obscured.
I am only human, and I'm always wanting more.

And the world is a place, and I pray it's on my side,
But I'd find greater comfort if I just lay down and died.
I don't know what's become of the boy who once knew sunshine.
What's become of the boy who knew sorrow but was strong?

-Nerina Pallot, "Mr King"

Nerina Pallot

Why this is not the number one song on Earth is entirely beyond me.