we are all clapping, all of the time

Sometimes a girl has to put down her books and go in search of a song.

Fortunately, this girl didn't have to look very far.

Beyond the Bathroom Choir is a weekly singing group for people who just want to sing, whether or not they're great singers. You can come every week or just drop in when you feel like it. We all have a couple of drinks during the evening, meet new folk during the break and learn songs by ear (in four part harmonies).

I think we sounded pretty darn good during our performance at the Sydney Road Street Party last month.



beyondthebathroom.org

The title of this post came from a recent confusion while learning Pharrell's Happy. There's so much clapping in this song. Clapping in time, out of time... But Pippa set us straight. We are all clapping, all of the time. It'll probably be the title of our biography when we're famous singers beyond the bathroom.

poem love #1

Having a Coke with You

Frank O’Hara

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

visit the Frank O'Hara website here

there will be books

I heard the term aliterate for the first time this week, over at Madwomen in the attic. It really struck me because I think I'm going through a period of it myself. This quote set some kind of recognition off in me: "I look at the books on my coffee table and they're like bricks to me." (from Love Me, Garrison Keillor)

I look at all the books on my desk, bedside table and bookshelves and they overwhelm me. They beg to be read and I pick them up, flick through their pages and desperately want to read them but I don't feel like I can give them the attention they deserve, and the attention that will allow me to fully appreciate the stories and the writing. I have also been writing madly these last few weeks, which surely impacts on my ability (or non-ability) to concentrate on a book. There are too many voices in my head already.

I'm not worried, I know that it won't be long before I'm one with the books again. It's just frustrating.

In my reading group we're reading Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman out loud, so at least my life isn't totally book-barren. Tonight's group was particularly nice because we also got takeaway from the Moroccan Soup Bar (oh yum, chickpea bake) and I got to bounce a baby on my knee.

Other bookish things:

The Underground New York City Public Library website, which is a "visual library featuring the Reading-Riders of the NYC subways." I have always loved seeing people reading on trains and trams and I nearly always want to talk to them about their books, whether they're enjoying it, if it's the first time they're reading that particular book or if it's a favourite. I especially loved this image, of two young people looking at The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

I was reminded of this video, which is a little old but still makes me happy:



Not only that, but I can't wait for you all to read Melissa Keil's Life in Outer Space, which is the first novel to be published through the Ampersand Project and is the first book that I've watched (and helped!) go the whole way from reading pile to edits, to pages, to printer. Not only even that, but I love it.

I also absolutely love Anna and Gareth's What we have been reading posts over at Able and Game.

so apparently it is july

it's cold where i am,

not actually taken this winter, but in january 2006 at a famous castle in france. this is how cold i feel though

but we built a tent in the lounge room.

this is actually my house. we are real grown ups

it's super hot where the rejectionist is

here are some texts from jane eyre

lala over at the joy of mediocrity saw take this waltz and had the same reaction as me. it was so beautifully filmed, a brilliant soundtrack, great cast ... but just a little over-wrought and seemed to take itself quite seriously. the beautiful michelle williams' character margo was really quite unlikable, the handsome stranger kind of dull. there were elongated silences that were supposed to be Poignant but could have used banter. and early on margo gives a little speech that basically baldly states the entire subtext of her character and this was a moment we could have used a Poignant Silence.

i have sonya hartnett's latest book to read, as well as sarah waters' fingersmith and courtney summers' this is not a test, but i spend most of my time on suri's burn book and when in melbourne.

but last night i saw simone felice and josh ritter play and sing and read at readings carlton. it was very nice.