one of the best things about being familiar with an artist’s whole discography is being able to observe the recurring themes their songwriting. we are all attached to certain things and feel certain emotions more than others, and all of that makes repeated apperance in the art we create, even though we don’t always intend it that way. it is so beautiful to notice those patterns in someone else’s art because it makes you feel like you know them a little better with it, as a human being. there is nothing that is more human than art.
“Most great writers suffer and have no idea how good they are. Most bad writers are very confident. Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver, the bat girl in Yankee Stadium. That’s a more fruitful way to be.” ~ Mary Karr [“Lilliputians Examining the Man‐Mountain’s Possessions,” 1865 illustration by Thomas Morten]
• Karr’s work has received tremendous praise for its lyricism and beauty. Reviewing the breakthrough memoir, The Liars’ Club, in the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani noted that Karr’s “most powerful tool is her language, which she wields with the virtuosity of both a lyric poet and an earthy, down-home Texan. It’s a skill used… in the service of a wonderfully unsentimental vision that redeems the past even as it recaptures it on paper.” More: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-karr
• Morten’s best work was unquestionably his monumental version of Gulliver Travels (1865). His illustrations for Swift are both well-drawn and sensitive to textual nuance. According to John F. Sena, these images are ‘extraordinary’ (p.118), especially in their representation of changes in Gulliver’s character as he is transformed from an imperial (and imperious) Englishman into a humble observer of life’s absurdities. Largely neglected, this book is an important work. More: https://victorianweb.org/art/illustration/morten/cooke.html
New audio: You get one “fancy first book festival” in life, which means you also only get one “fancy first book festival that got zoom-bombed by the hardest-core pornography the Internet has ever coughed up.”
Wow, it was awkward! And also kind of hilarious to watch people scramble with settings while hiding their eyes and apologizing… but I guess that’s the thing about being in live music. Everything is in the realm of possibility, and the important thing is how to roll with whatever it is.
After a few mind-searing images flashed by, the moderators reset the meeting, and we were off. Here’s the audio (and now you know what the apologizing is all about).
New podcast: Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight. Being on a podcast is a little like being drunk, and a little like songwriting—you start saying stuff to see what it sounds like and where it leads, and you hope it’s somewhere new and weird, and a lot of times it is. If you have a fun collaborator, like Dan, your chances increase dramatically.
This month we published two nonfiction pieces by Amber Schmidt, both with dark themes. “The Stag” told of a dream encounter between a ghost and a stag in the woods, while “My Release” detailed Amber’s struggle with self-harm. When Amber told me that she had also written songs along the same lines, I jumped at the chance to pair them with her pieces as a sort of soundtrack to what she had written. Below are three of her songs and lyrics: “If I Stayed,” “Mary, A Prayer,” and “Can’t Be Trusted.”
