I <3 NY

NYC is not an easy place to live. The rent is high, the crowds are thick, the subways are stinky, the greenery is sparse. It's easy to find things to complain about. But when you love it, you really love it. I had one of those weekends.

I went to the US Open for the first time on Thursday night, which was so much fun. A perfect late summer evening, quality time with my sister, a full moon, and seeing the last set from four rows back because the match ended so late. Going home I had train issues that could have made me hate the city. When I tried to make the connection to my train, it was not stopping at that station, you see. So I would have had to go in the opposite direction for a stop and then switch. At 1:30 in the morning. Instead, I went out to the street and got a cab--which is a treat for me. Riding over the Brooklyn Bridge and along the BQE, looking out at the city's lights with the windows down, was the perfect end to an already great night.

Other things that I <3-ed about NYC this weekend:

* reading in the sunshine on the Brooklyn Promenade
* the Cyclone
* Nathan's fries
* fantastic fireworks over the boardwalk at Coney Island
* lots of guacamole with friends
* Prospect Park
* the full moon
* the feeling of autumn in the air
* friends
* hearing one of my favorite albums wafting out a window down the block when I walked by
* and literally as I typed the last, a FIREWORK went off outside my window!

A Decade's Worth of Random Thoughts

Two days ago, I opened up the little black moleskine I keep in my purse to make a note, and realized I had only one page left. I bought this moleskine just before I left for my junior year abroad . . . almost exactly ten years ago. And it's one of the things, along with my wallet, keys, and a pen, that I always make sure I have with me before leaving the house.

Reaching the end made me stop to think about everything that has happened in life since I first cracked it open: the year studying in England, my first broken heart, graduating from college, moving to NYC to start my career, family dramas, world dramas, friends made and lost, apartment hunting and moving, books read, re-read, loved, recommended, or abandoned, discoveries of all kinds, friends and family members' weddings & babies. Basically, the period of life in which I grew up. It's neat to compare what's written here with the journals I've kept during the last ten years, too. There's a lot of telling in the journals, but the random snippets from the moleskine are just as revealing and memory-triggering. It's full of notes from talks I've gone to, brainstorming for talks I've given, lines from articles or books I like, funny things friends have said, t-shirt ideas, lines of poetry (most of which never became anything more than that), illustrators I like, authors I want to read, shopping lists, and other random thoughts and observations.

Here are just a few:

words I like: chthonic, tiptoe, lamppost, unfurled

the curl of pianist's back

open by chance or appointment

Umberto Eco: "'who dunnit?' is a theological question"

things i don’t have keys to

Ira Glass: "notice the people who won’t go away"

grocery list: milk, butter, eggs, whipping cream, raspberries, dark chocolate

shopping list: shelves, hammock stand, pillows

Friend: “I don’t like worms, but leeches concern me.”

At final Harry Potter book street party at Scholastic:
Woman 1: "So what’s going on here besides the book releasing?"
Woman 2: "Oh, the book releasing. That explains the capes."

How do you share ebooks? If one sibling finishes book and starts another, how do you pass the finished one to other kid?

Why we do what we do

I read Neil Gaiman's Newbery acceptance speech (in the latest Horn Book) over lunch today, and, as Newbery acceptances always do, it made me a little teary. In a good, "wow I'm so overcome with happiness that books mean so much to people and we get to give medals to writers" way.

And this bit from the very end hits poignantly on the sentiment that makes me feel sure that, however much publishing and books may change with the advances of technology, they'll always be needed.

"We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort.
And that is why we write."

Summer Soundtrack '09

It seems that making mixes is summery thing for me. Here's this year's. Some new bands I've been listening to over the past few months, but also some favorite gems, which I feel are important in any mix.


1. "Be OK" / Ingrid Michaelson
2. "Wake Up" / Arcade Fire
I haven't been able to get it out of my head since the Where the Wild Things Are trailer!
3. "Since U Been Gone" / Ted Leo's cover
4. "Keep Yourself Warm" / Frightened Rabbit
5. "The Ancient Commonsense of Things" / Bishop Allen
6. "Icarus" / Jason Webley
Jason Webley's show earlier this year was one of the best concerts I've been to in years.
7. "Island Garden Song" / The Mountain Goats
8. "Ceremony" / New Order
9. "Billie Jean" / Michael Jackson
I just can't get it out of my head!!!!
10. "Jai Ho" / A. R. Rahman
11. "Wish It Well" / Dead Heart Bloom
12. "Look at Miss Ohio" / Gillian Welch
13. "The Crane Wife 3" / The Decembrists
14. "King of Carrot Flowers Part 1" / Neutral Milk Hotel
15. "King of Carrot Flowers Part 2" / Neutral Milk Hotel
16. "Poses" / Rufus Wainwright
17. "Old Old Fashioned" / Frightened Rabbit
18. "Black Star" / Gillian Welch's cover
19. "Days with You" / Jason Webley with Sxip Shirey
20. "15 Step" / Radiohead
21. "Martha" / Tom Waits
What? It's a good song!

Wild Things

Every times I watch the trailer for the forthcoming Where the Wild Things Are movie, I get chills. And watching the just-released featurette gives them to me, too. I get a little welled up. I think this is because the movie (from these two brief looks at it) seems as though it will capture the deepest heart of the book: the uncertainties, the desire to let our inner selves--our Wild Things--out, and to find the place where that Wild Thing belongs.

My favorite part of the featurette? That Maurice Sendak told Spike Jonze that the movie should be dangerous, because kids deserve it--they can't be talked down to.

Head in the Clouds

I’ve seen a lot of my more tech-minded friends talk of “cloud computing” recently, which is something I have only the vaguest understanding of. But that's okay, because I have my own idea of what the “cloud” is. To me, it’s the invisible something that writers can draw from.

In one of my (long ago) college critical theory classes, we talked about the idea of all authors having an antenna that is always on, always picking up signals from the wider world. This has always stuck with me. Authors have finely tuned observational powers, which always astonish me, and sometimes they are able to observe more than what they can see/hear/smell/taste/touch. Sometimes their observations stretch into that cloud. That’s how some elements and themes can end up in a work even when the author may not consciously intend it. And how there are certain themes that a number of different authors end up writing about at the same time. The most noticed recent example is probably the Kristin Cashore and Suzanne Collins books. Graceling and The Hunger Games both had characters with similar names (Katsa and Katniss), who had to confront killing other characters in the course of their stories. And now, the companion/sequel to each has the word “fire” in it. It’s odd coincidences like these that make me believe in the cloud. I see it often in submissions, too. It’s always interesting to get a number of submissions from different kinds of writers, who are all in different parts of the countries and writing about different characters and plots, that somehow have intersecting elements.

To me, that’s the magical part of writing. Somewhere out there, invisible to the rest of us, all of these stories exist, all of these ideas, emotions, and people whom we readers need to help us make sense of the world, of life, even when we might not know exactly what we needed. And authors are tapping into that cloud, giving those stories to us, maybe sometimes without even being aware of it themselves. It’s a pretty amazing gift, if you ask me.

Oh, What a World

Ever since my morning in the Magic Kingdom last month, I've been thinking a lot about world-building. Walking around by myself made the experience very much one of observing, rather than goofing around, as I expect would have happened had I been with a group of friends.

Part of me--my inner child--was delighted by the whole place. The way every last detail has been planned out, that you never see a "mistake" or false move--it's so complete. That's so impressive, and it's such a total experience.

And yet...

Maybe it's because I'm a grown-up, maybe it's because I've lived in NYC for nearly eight years now, but the other part of me was wondering things like, "But where's all the trash?" "How do they stay so perky all the time?" "What happens behind the Cast Member Only doors?"

The last is the most intriguing. Because I bet that's where the real story is. Where the "cast members" gripe and complain and trade funny stories and, well, live. Everything else is a facade. An expertly detailed one, but one that only stands because of all the inner workings, and what happens behind the closed doors.