heartbeat (it's a lovebeat)

music writer melody maker

[owlswallowvowels]

Get This Right - Lilly Hiatt (Royal Blue, 2015) 

Completely fallen in love with Lilly Hiatt. Can’t stop listening to this one.

[owlswallowvowels]

I KISS YOUR CUP

[I KISS YOUR CUP]

I kiss your cup which will not be used again till you come back Loud as a swan’s transport is your voice amplified by the distance in your eyes Snow of thought I am on my back to you and my lids twitch I dreamt that I was mysteriously murdered with narcotics And the dust that makes a Rubens out of you makes me a serpent

- Frank O’Hara

This has long been my favorite poem, and I have long read it as a form of love poem, a yawning, earnest, pang of love. I repeat it to myself when I can’t sleep, loving that little bit of malice at the end that I took to be self-flagellation. And it’s probably because I’ve aged and developed that ache, that cynicism that used to be put upon as a defense mechanism just coats me instead, and I look back and see the lover who’s stormed out in anger, the shouting I mistook to be complete rapture in a lover’s voice, the confusion and daze and static that happens after your head’s stirred the pot as many times as it can, and finally, that familiar imbalance and accusation. It hits too close to home now, always the serpent, and it’s still beautiful and it still stings me, but I remember the times when I wanted it on my body and really it’s already there

[owlswallowvowels]

Music To Watch Boys To - Lana Del Rey

Honeymoon so far is built to be remixed.

The melody lines in this are wonderful; most of the tracks so far have been. They’re just not that dynamic. We all know LDR can carry a sleepy, sultry tune, but I need a beat drop or some sort of river bend instead of these straightforward compositions. The pouty, airy, speaking bridges don’t count anymore and have been completely played out in her catalog.

The full-lipped, drowsy singing style needs to be crisper on this one. It’s so pillowy, you can only catch the occasional quip, and with such a good title, you want to be able to follow the narration. Granted, this full commitment to the production style suits her image so well; I envision Jennifer North rolling out of bed in the full daylight, alone, dolls scattered across the bedside table.

Can’t wait to hear someone beef up that beat and push the strings. 

[owlswallowvowels]

i get in trouble when things get quiet 

dirty cigarettes - beach slang 

[owlswallowvowels]

RIPE - Screaming Females 

I dressed up the horses, set them loose

Sunk the needle deep and took in every drop A violent path and inch in time And ever my device the anchor drops I said peel the skin raw I said peel the skin raw I said peel the skin raw Pinch 'til our feeling's gone I said peel the skin raw I said peel the skin raw I said peel the skin raw Pinch 'til our feeling's gone

[owlswallowvowels]

Flannery O’Connor’s only known kiss

“I have been asked to speak at an academic conference devoted to Flannery O'Connor. It is taking place in her home town, Milledgeville, Georgia. I arrive in the middle of a session. One of the speakers is a young Jesuit. He talks about some letters of Flannery O'Connor's that were not included in Sally Fitzgerald's collection. They were written in 1955, to a young Danish man who was a book salesman for her publisher, Harcourt Brace. 

The Jesuit reads the letters. They are girlish. If there are not triple exclamation points, there should be. She tells the Dane how much she enjoys his company. ‘If you were here we could talk for about a million years,’ she says. 

The Jesuit tracks the Dane down in Denmark. He is now an old man, but he remembers the encounter with Flannery vividly. He tells the Jesuit that he enjoyed Flannery's companionship very much and that one day when he'd taken her for a drive in the country, it occurs to him that she is a woman, and that she would like him to kiss her. 

When he does kiss her, the experience horrifies him. He says that Flannery did not know how to kiss. Whereas when he had kissed other women they had offered him soft lips, Flannery presented him with teeth. He remembered that she was chronically ill and he felt like he was kissing a skull.”

- from “Flannery’s Kiss” by Mary Gordon, Michigan Quarterly Review

[owlswallowvowels]

“And the dust

that makes a Rubens out of you

makes me a serpent”

[owlswallowvowels]

[owlswallowvowels]

After a few years...I have uncovered my Tumblr login.

Heartbeat (It's A Lovebeat) - The Replacements

[owlswallowvowels]

Disappearances in the Guarded Sector - Tess Gallagher

Belfast, Winter, 1976

When we stop where you lived, the house

has thickened, the entry

level to the wall with bricks, as though

it could keep you out.

  Again the dream has fooled you into waking

and we have walked out

past ourselves, through the windows

to be remembered in the light

of closed rooms

as a series of impositions

across the arms of a chair, that woman’s face

startled out of us so it lingers

along a brick front.

  You are leading me back to the burned arcade

where you said I stood with you

in your childhood last night, your childhood

which includes me now

as surely as the look of that missing face

between the rows of houses.

  We have gone so far into your past

that nothing reflects us.

No sun gleams from the glassless frame

where a room burned,

though the house stayed whole. There

is your school, your church,

the place you drank cider at lunch time.

New rows of houses are going up.

Children play quietly in a stairwell.

  Walking back, you tell the story

of the sniper’s bullet

making two clean holes in the taxi, how

the driver ducked and drove on

like nothing happened. No pain

passed through you; it

did not even stop the car

or make you live more

carefully. Near the check point we

stop talking, you let the hands

rub your clothes

against your body. You seem to be

there, all there.

  Watching, I am more apart

for the sign of dismissal they will give me,

thinking a woman would not conceal

as I have, the perfect map

of this return where I have met

and lost you willingly

in a dead and living place.

  Now when you find me next in the dream,

this boundary will move with us.

We will both come back.

[witchesandslippersandhoods]

“And you know, the fact is, nobody knew that they were prosthetic legs. They were the star of the show - these wooden boots peeking out from under this raffia dress - but in fact, they were actually legs made for me.”

Aimee Mullins, on her look in the Alexander McQueen S/S 1999 show.

best designer ever. fact

[nomarsh-deactivated20171013]

[owlswallowvowels]

unrulyduck:

!!! Save the Reblogtopus !!!

[thebeginningwriter]

[owlswallowvowels]

ilovereadingandwriting:

(via Reading /)

[2headedsnake]

[nypl]

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Author Ray Bradbury, whose birthday is today and who once said, “Libraries raised me.” Happy birthday, Ray. NYPL has plenty of books by him and about him. Check one out today. (via nypl)

[lo-fi-miracles]

Visit Original Link

[owlswallowvowels]

lo-fi-miracles:

General Oglethorpe and the Panhandlers

This band is way cool.  General Oglethorpe and the Panhandlers is a jazzy rock quartet from Savannah GA.  In the description of their first album, they said they wanted to “capture the sound” of their city.  I’ve been to Savannah, and I think they did beautifully.  And if you were paying attention in history class, Oglethorpe was the guy who founded Savannah.  He decided it was more productive to ship debtors over to the New World than keep them in prisons.  So even their name is Savannah-themed. 

You dig it?  I do.  If you want more, they recorded a couple songs in their dorm room.  You can download it for free on CLLCT; it’s called Dorm Room Demo.  Their first full-length album, Whistle the Dirges, from which this song was taken, can be bought on iTunes.  It’s much higher quality, since it was professionally recorded.  A few songs off of it can be gotten for free here. Either way, make sure to read the description of their album, cause it’s neat. 

Oh, did I mention that they have a chick accordion player who also sings? 

Thank you so much for the writeup! - the chick accordion player who also sings :)