ByGD
Last Christmas, I wrote about Desiree’s Dolls at the Ballard Market. Stone took a holiday away from the market from Christmas until the Superbowl, but she’s back with her wonderful dolls now. You can read what I wrote before here or view her YouTube commercial here:
Update: Desiree’s Dolls is now on Etsy.
ByGD
In his inaugural blog post on Bandcamp, Andrew Dubber wrote about the trade-offs that come from being a musical omnivore. On the one hand, you can never listen to enough music to get the depth of knowledge in any one genre that say, a true metalhead may have of Finnish melodic death metal. On the other hand, you get a breadth of music that a specialist lacks. An omnivore can still listen to some Finnish melodeath, but won’t miss out on Sigur Ros. Another joy that comes from omnivory is that sometimes it allows you to see hidden threads in the zeitgeist. Read More
ByGD
Seeing a book on at the bookstore with my friend’s name on the spine gives me a vicarious thrill- but I open the book with a feeling of trepidation. What if I don’t like it? I cannot, like Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries, look my friend in the eye and flatly state, “Frankly, it was bad. You should stick to (insert day job here).” Perhaps that is why it took me six months after the release of “When the de la Cruz Family Danced” to get around to reading my coworker Donna Miscolta’s first published novel. I needn’t have worried. Read More
ByGD
I confess to a contrarian streak. If someone (especially an authority figure) tells me to do something, I will do the opposite. If everyone says to do something, you can be sure I won’t. This is particularly true in subjective matters. For example, I cannot bring myself to read the Da Vinci Code or watch Jurassic Park. When bands that I like finally hit it big, I unconsciously stop listening to them. Years of yoga practice and introspection have revealed this tendency to me, and I have worked hard to resist it. I try to evaluate books and music based on their objective merits and my own taste.
If my emotional maturity were insufficient to quell the knee-jerk reaction against the sway of public opinion, one would hope that hard experience would teach me to overcome this contrary tendency. After scoffing at the hubbub surrounding a children’s fantasy novel, I read Harry Potter link and was instantly converted to a Rowling fan. After rolling my eyes at the slavish praise heaped on Snow Patrol link, I received a pair of free tickets and found myself in tears at their show in support of Eyes Open. But did I learn? No.
I have ignored the buzz surrounding local artists Fleet Foxes for years. Finally, I checked out the latest album from these KEXP link darlings, and needless to say, I was floored. Then I watched the video for “The Shrine/ An Argument.” Not since Radiohead’s Kid A have I had this feeling of stumbling on something wondrous and new.
The Shrine / An Argument from Sean Pecknold on Vimeo.
At last, I have learned my lesson. Although my determined anti-cool stance has saved me from many a one-hit wonder and manufactured ingénue in the past, the cost is too high. By ignoring the recommendations of KEXP’s noble DJs, I have missed out on years of Fleet Foxes. Who knows what other music I have overlooked simply because it came with critical acclaim? From now on, I will follow the middle path between pop culture cynic and mindless consumer.
From now on, I will listen to my betters. Since my undergraduate days listening to KCMU, our local noncommercial radio station where the music matters has never let me down. Ok, so they have rarely scheduled the shows I like most during the hours I can listen to radio, but in these days of podcasts and streaming archives, that is a petty complaint. The DJs at KEXP know of which they speak, and I will trust them. Cheryl Waters, John Richards, Kevin Cole and all the rest of y’all – thank you. Thank you for Fleet Foxes. Thank you for all the bands I have ‘discovered’ since 1992 while listening to your programs. I will listen more consistently, more carefully and more respectfully in the future.
Music provides a soundtrack to my memories. The right music at the right time can open me up to new ideas, emotions and experiences. At times, it provides an emotional anchor, or act as a spark plug to ignite strength and energy when I can’t seem to generate it myself. And that music, as often as not, comes from KEXP. In a sense, KEXP powers me.
And with the first paycheck of 2012, I promise that I, too, will power KEXP.
ByGD
My favorite yoga teacher, Tami Hafzallah, often tells her students to take the variation or pose “that your body is craving today.” For a long time I struggled with that idea. To me, craving meant chocolate or a doughnut. My body did not crave strength-building poses. I would interpret the instruction to mean, “Stretch whatever feels tight.” Eventually, as my yoga practice progressed, I began to realize that sometimes I held tension in different places. Sometimes different activities would accentuate the natural imbalance between the left and right side of the body. At those times, my body craved release of the unusual tension, or even, strength-building poses that would restore balance.
I love my yoga, but two and a half years after pregnancy I was still struggling to even access some of the muscles to engage my core. So this year, I started doing Pilates at Kinesia in Pioneer Square. My sessions were so slow and precise that they often looked more like physical therapy than a workout. But as classical Pilates teachers, Christl and Gay knew how to make those tiny movements count.
I spent many of my first sessions gritting my teeth as I tried to find muscles I didn’t know I had, thinking to myself, “Just get to the end of the hour and you never have to come back here.” At the end of the hour, I would step back out onto the street, ready to leave that kind of torture behind forever, and realize that all the tension in my neck and back was gone. I felt two inches taller and my limbs felt as if they had been reattached in a more functional position. That feeling of perfect alignment and free movement would last for several days. Between sessions, I would go to yoga and find that I could do poses that never worked for me before.
Even so, I never craved Pilates. It was too uncomfortable and challenging to crave. Until now. Over the weekend, I noticed that I was slouching, and when I tried to straighten up, it was hard for me to hold my posture. My ankle felt achy from an old injury and favoring that leg made my calves tight. I found myself thinking, “Only two more days until Pilates, and that’ll fix it.” Then I had to indulge in a moment of pride. I was craving Pilates. I couldn’t think of a more sure sign of progress.