peevish mama

If it involves Richard Linklater, I’m in. He is absolutely the director of our generation. Slackers was the first movie I saw in those turbulent post-college years that truly represented the ramblings – physical, metaphorical and verbal – that my friends and I were on. And Dazed and Confused remains one of my favorite movies to this day. Brilliant, funny, cruel, honest and such a slice. I love it. So much.

Many of us are watching our boys morph from little boys into teens, in that shuffling, mumbling and heartbreaking way that remains utterly mysterious to us mothers. I know what it feels like to be a teen girl, with the big feelings and the torrents of tears and laughter. Too many thoughts, too many emotions and too many words. But what does it feel like to become a man, when you mostly choose to keep it on the inside, letting us see only glimpses of the joy and angst that play catch with your growing heart?

This movie was filmed over 12 years with the same boy. What a labor of love. I am so there.

Of course. Right? One can’t help but feel he should have been given many more years to make more music and collaborate with more artists. Not to be melodramatic but this sense of loss and missed opportunity is similar to how I felt when MCA died. It’s just a huge bummer when a special artist dies – no matter how old, but especially when it feels too  young.

Hard to pick a favorite, but for me it’s Perfect Day. So simple and, well, perfect. Rest in Peace, Mr. Reed.

For a really great essay about Lou Reed by another fave of mine, Emily Haines of Metric, check this out.

And for a really cool BBC  promotion featuring anyone and everyone singing Perfect Day, watch this:

I had the indescribable pleasure of seeing Patti Smith perform this past week at a cool event called Station to Station – a traveling art installation featuring concerts, art and artisans choo-chooing its way from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Unlike my usual m.o., I actually came to Patti through her look first, her writing second and her music third. It seems I’ve always unconsciously knocked off her iconic androgynous style – flat chested, no hips, her tomboy look always worked for me. Still does. I wear many different things, but I am most myself in a pair of Chucks and jeans. That’s what I wear when I want to be free. Or invisible. Or invincible. I was a total nerd and stole a white oxford from Saint James and basically wore the black ribbon outfit pictured above (also the cover of her Horses album). Felt like a goofball and also, a million bucks.

A few years ago I read her quiet gem of a memoir, Just Kids. It’s about her friendship/love with Robert Mapplethorpe, and I must admit it shook me. These people were so extremely outside of my experience growing up – basically finding no other way to live than to completely mesh life and art, so that one bled into the other until they were indistinguishable and often deeply painful. I read it again with the ladies of my book club, the second time leaving me free to concentrate on her words and how she delicately strung them together like the beaded necklaces she and Robert used to wear. Her writing is so beautiful, tender, strong and honest – really just a way to describe her too.

She took the stage with her son, Jackson. (Don’t even get me started on the awesomeness of watching a mom and her boy make music together). She was soon joined by Gary Louris, Mark Mallman and a few other local musicians. She pretended not to know their names, but she did of course. They were utterly and obviously in her thrall – grown men, accomplished musicians, full-fledged rockers just happy and jazzed to be on stage with her. It’s not often, in this society, that a woman of that age gets to command that much respect and adoration. It was inspiring to say the least.

She is simply bad ass. But she’s also delicate and her voice sounds unexpectedly young and sweet. I think that she has lived so authentically her whole life, that she’s one of those people you can see into. She’s complex, she’s a thinker and a creator, but she’s very very clear about who she is and what she is. When you can see and feel someone with that immediacy, their art goes straight to your heart. There are no layers – no artifice – no attitude. Nothing to get in the way and distort the art. She very simply gave us the gift of herself without a lot of fanfare. And that is her power.

She dedicated this song to all of our “loves” and to her love, the late Fred Sonic Smith. Talk about a swooning moment. Top five, people.

Mostly I hate the internet and it’s way of sucking you into pure nonsense – superficial, relentless chatter and information that takes you out of your life and leaves you mired in a loud, screechy limbo. One of my struggles with blogging is the notion that I’m simply adding to the chatter. I know it’s my way of corralling my wandering attention and focusing on the stuff of my life here and now, but there’s always that little voice – who cares?

Sometimes, however, the internet brings you beauty. Something pure, something cool, something you wouldn’t see without a computer. I was literally moved to tears at 9 am on a Sunday morning when I saw this video of Maria Abramović’s performance piece at the MOMA from 2010. She simply sits in a chair in a dramatic red dress and people line up to take turns staring into her eyes. Talk about intimate.

Watch what happens when her old lover and collaborator, Ulay, takes the chair. The story is that they had had a passionate love in the seventies which ran its course. They decided to start walking from the opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and meet in the middle for one final embrace. (Of course, right?) This is them meeting again after all these years.

It’s breathtaking. I’m DYING!!! And I’m so going to track down this documentary.

Via Swissmiss

Shame on me for not responding to Creeper Bud’s text while I was on spring break. She was offering me her two tickets to see Dawes perform at the Electric Fetus this past Tuesday at 6. It’s not that I don’t love Dawes and the Electric Fetus and Creeper Bud, for that matter. It’s just that 6 o’clock on a Tuesday seems dubious when you don’t have your calendar in front of you. As it turns out Creeper Bud left me the tickets anyway and as Tuesday unfolded, a little field trip before dinner seemed like the perfect thing. I’m a firm believer that when there’s a choice to do or not do, you just gotta do. And I proved myself right yet again.

Saint James was at tennis practice, so I took a very neutral Supergirl as my sidekick. She was unfamiliar with Dawes but she’s nothing if not game. Turns out she’s the perfect wingman. When we arrived 20 minutes before the show, the line was snaking around the block, so she yelled at me to let her out and go park. I parked a few streets away and ran to meet her – hustling past all manner of hipsters, girls in bright lipstick and tights and plaid clad folks to find her tucked into the line with her hood up – chill as a buddha.

Turns out the kind of people who make an extra effort to check out a Dawes show in a record store are an affable bunch who think nothing of letting a little kid worm her way to the front. Time and again, people would smile at her, let her through and look back at me to see if I wanted to follow. Who am I to say no? We ended up with a perfect spot front and center – so good that a blogger for the City Pages asked me to text her my iPhone pics. Check out my first published pics in Natalie Gallagher’s great interview here.

Dawes is such a good band – beautiful musicianship and lyrics that get you right in the gut. Watching and listening from five feet away is so intimate it’s almost awkward. Taylor Goldsmith doesn’t make it easy – he’s not showy, and peacocky and flamboyant – he’s humble, soulful and unbearably honest. He is extending a piece of his heart every time he opens his mouth and you feel like you need to accept it with some modicum of care. I found myself staring at his beat up buttercream confection of a guitar, wondering if it had a name, to keep myself from welling up.

My favorite thing was watching them through Supergirl’s eyes. She was leaning up against an amp, her head at Goldsmith’s chest level, still as a stone. The kid who always has one eye on my Instagram and one eye on iTunes and her hands busy doodling and her mouth going a mile a minute was quite literally frozen in her tracks. She got to feel the magic that is a live performance, where the love and energy is flying in both directions, where you feel something shift in your insides and walk away just a little bit different.

And if I played my cards right, she’ll be hooked for life. Stories Don’t End.

Like everyone, this house is awash in drawings and doodles. Stuff from school, scribbles on napkins and scraps of paper. I look at all of it before I recycle it. Often times I take a picture, because it seems a shame to lose the sentiment, the moment in time, the humor, the color or whatever it is that made me stop and smile for a few ticks.

This was part of some 100 project that the first graders were doing and I just adore it. The little perm, the puffy sleeves, the pink shoes, the fresh tennis balls on the cane. We should all aspire to look that good at the ripe old age of 106.

This is hardly what you’d call a discovery. Everyone has heard of Frank Ocean by now and most people who have given this album a listen are smitten by him as an artist, musician and storyteller. I know I am.

On Saturday night in the middle of a very loud crowded dance floor at our school parent dance party/fundraiser, My Little Springroll’s hubby brought up Frank Ocean. Frank Ocean wasn’t playing and I really can’t remember the context aside from some rowdy dancing. In my blurry mind’s eye he was bopping around to a really great song and he just yelled How about FRANK OCEAN! And I was like Ya! OhMyGOD! And we both did a little swoon, eyes to the heavens gesture and yelled out a few SO GOODS, SO GOODS!!! before getting back to the business of getting down.

The point of this little anecdote is that channel ORANGE IS a really great album. One of my favorites for this year, for sure. It’s definitely one that rewards listening from start to finish and it doesn’t get old because every song tells a story and sounds different – which is saying something for R&B.

And, truth be told, it made me happy to have had this tiny music moment with a friend, within a bigger music moment on the dance floor. Because that’s what good music does – it moves you.  It takes you out of your head, back to your past, over to other music, way deep into your body, in and out of emotions and it connects you to other people.

It moves you.

Enjoy Bad Religion.

Photo credit: Ryan McGinley for the NYTimes

I adore a photo booth and I try to take advantage any time we stumble upon one. I just love walking away with a little strip of images – a memory of an outing you can hold in your hand. We have a collection that hangs out in a mug in our kitchen and going through them always makes me smile.

And of course, who can forget the gorgeous movie, Amelie? It’s a beautifully imagined mystery slash love story, told through those photo strips. Swoon. One of my favorites and come to think of it, long overdue for a re-watch. Maybe around Valentines Day.

Something about being in a tiny confined space behind a curtain seems to free people up to be silly, amorous, smoochy and unguarded, which is why I got completely sucked into this little tumblr called Vintage Photobooth. Just look at the hair, the outfits, the jewelry – all clues to a bygone era when people seemed to carry themselves in a more careful, deliberate and genteel way.

I find these faces just fascinating and beautiful and cannot help imagining the circumstances surrounding the decision to step behind the curtain. Girls taking pics for their soldier loves going off to war? Vice versa? A mother and child walking home from lessons? Girlfriends out for an afternoon of gossip and window shopping? A newly engaged couple, giddy with news? A pair of boys in love when it wasn’t allowed?

In that spirit, a song from way back when by Flock of Seagulls. Ha! You know what I’m talking about. Enjoy!

As I type and glance out the window at the white, grays and browns, our emerald green escape seems about as improbable as OZ. Two whole weeks in Costa Rica. The thought of it makes me sigh a big, deep, relaxed, blissful sigh – still, these many days later. It was good, friends. It was what I needed to knit myself back together – to tuck in all the frayed nerves, to smooth over the shards of anger. With the help of my little family and that gracious country, I feel whole. My faith in us – and myself – is restored. At least for a little while.

What did I love about our trip to Costa Rica? Let me count the ways . . .

1. Sunsets. Sunsets are a fact of life and almost a cliche – they happen every day, like clockwork. Mundane, unnoticed, ignored. That is, until you go on vacation. Suddenly, sunsets are elevated to their rightful position – that of a small miracle worthy of our attention. We enjoyed wave crashing sunsets, sunsets on the tops of hills, sunsets with umbrella drinks, sunsets in hammocks, sunsets on dirt roads, sunsets on sandy beaches. But we watched them, together, allowing ourselves to be bathed in gold and suspended in magic for a few minutes.

2. Patience. It turns out we are the kind of people who will stand in the rain for half an hour after a three hour hike to try to get a better glimpse of a Resplendent Quetzal perched on a branch. Also the kind of people who will hang out on a beach for hours at night to make sure a few hatchling turtles made it to the sea. Even though the baby turtles have managed just fine for centuries before our arrival, it felt important. It felt like we helped. This trip rewarded quiet watchfulness, which is a rarity in our lives.

3. Los caballos. It’s actually a great way to cover a lot of terrain if there are small tired legs in the family. And the Ticos make it so easy – no helmets, no waivers, no fuss – just hop on and go. We went on two epic horseback trecks – one through town, jungle and beach, one through jungle and cloud forest. I have always loved horses and it made me puff chested proud to see my entire family on horseback. Doctor Dash’s horse decided to take a dip when we forged a river, drenching him from head to toe and I have never laughed so hard in my life. I quite literally could not breathe. Poor Dash. I’m a terrible wife. A couple hours later, I would find myself galloping faster than I ever have while my horse strained to catch up with Supergirl’s. Again, breathless.

4. Art where you’d least expect. Toward the end of our trip, we decided to spend the day beach hopping among some hidden beaches that we had read about. We had an awesome day – treacherous dirt roads, incredible vistas, three beautiful beaches in six hours – each as unique as a fingerprint. On the way back we stopped in a little town called Punta Islita, where there was supposed to be a fantastic art collaboration between the town and the hotel near the town. Intrigued, we stopped to take a look and sure enough, right in the middle of paradise, was this tiny colony of working artists.

Dash and I have a long tradition of rationalizing purchases in Costa Rica – beginning on our honeymoon when we would let ourselves splurge on cool and fancy hotels we stumbled upon because Hey! You only honeymoon once, right? This time, we bought a painting by artist Joseph Kaknes. He dedicated it to us on the back, scribbling that he hoped it would bring us much joy. It already has. I love this painting because I love the whole day leading up to it and how we found it and the salty Gloucester artist who charmed us in his studio. I love that my kids ran around and played with his dogs while we chatted with Joseph, slowly becoming enchanted by his work. It’s for our fifteenth wedding anniversary. And Christmas.

5. New Years on the beach. Basically we camped out in the sand with our friends in front of a bar called La Vela Latina and drank beer under the stars while our kids ran around. The entire span of Playa Samara was dotted with bonfires and at midnight it was fireworks, all up and down the beach as far as the eye could see. I have never experienced anything like it. It was just magic. Warm, loud, rowdy, frolicky and uniquely Latin. What a way to start 2013.

6. Futbol is a language. Watching Saint James take a deep breath and muster up every last iota of his guts to jump into his first pick-up game on the beach squeezed my heart. He never would have found the courage if he didn’t want to play SO BAD. After that first time, it was a piece of cake. He’d scan the beach, narrow his eyes, assess the level of play, shrug and jog on over. I noticed he’d juggle the ball a few times or do a fancy trick right off the bat as a way of introducing himself. Boys, teens, men, the occasional girl, and the occasional Supergirl, he managed to play almost every day that we were on or near a beach. Good stuff.

7. The view from still. The best thing about traveling is that point when you remember there is another way to do things, another way to live. Costa Ricans can sit like no one else. It’s like an Olympic sport. Every where you go, Ticos are simply sitting, chatting, watching the world go by. They’ll sit on the beach, in front of vegetable stands, in the yard with the chickens, at restaurants, on front porches, at gas stations, in bars, on fences. They are so good at it, that I found it quite inspiring.

This was by no means a sedentary vacation, but we did try to balance out all our adrenaline excursions with a bit of leisure and some long beach days. When I wasn’t body surfing with the kids or swimming out past everyone else or peering into tidal pools, I sat with Dash. I watched the Ticos and I copied them as best I could, and to tell you the truth, the view is beautiful from a point of stillness. You watch your family play and you really see them. You look at your feet. You look up. You breathe, you drink a beer, you make small talk with your hubby. It’s quite simple, really. And I’m going to make a concerted effort to keep up this newly acquire skill. There are other ways to do things and I’m keeping this piece.

8. Us. It didn’t really dawn on me until someone asked us if we had been to Costa Rica before, that we were returning fifteen years after our honeymoon with three kids in tow. Even though we went different places on our honeymoon, it turns out we kind of travel the same way. We like our independence, we like to be spontaneous, we like to go off the beaten path and we like to be where the Ticos are. Even though it wasn’t intentional, I love the symmetry of returning 15 years later with our babes.

It was actually really romantic – so much has changed and yet so much is the same. Dash and I are essentially the same. But now we’ve got 3 cool little people who are game for adventure, curious, brave and completely fun and funny to be around. We had a blast – just the five of us. Getting away has a way of letting us see the us more clearly, right? That’s what I loved the most.

You know how you can go days at a time and you’re so busy that your kids are pretty much a blur. Just little heads of different colors, asking for a signature, jabbering about school, fighting with each other, stealing cookies off the cookie sheet. Even when you finally sit down to dinner together, they carry on in their expected roles: the whiner, the peacemaker, the brooder. Little heads of different colors with different voices, all doing what they always do.

I’m exaggerating, of course, but only to suggest that there are certain times when you see your kids more clearly than at other times. You see them on the inside. You see what makes them tick. You see their trajectory. And when you get these glimpses . . . man, it is good to pay attention and hold on.

This morning I had a half an hour with Supergirl because Devil Baby had chess club. I know, funny. But I predict that she will become some kind of evil chess genius if she sets her mind to it. She will confuse all the nerd boys with her porcelain skin and high ponytails and she will take great pleasure in beating them. Just a guess.

Supergirl and I dropped her off and hightailed it to Turtle Bread for some quiche (protein girls, the both of us). We were sitting in a booth with her facing the window, which meant I got to look into her green eyes, vivid and shiny in the morning sun. We were talking about which boys she might invite to her roller skating birthday party. As I named names, she would react and explain and I realized this child is the epitome of diplomacy and moreover, kindness.

Wellllllll, she’d smile. Not sure we’re exactly on the same wavelength, if you know what I mean.  (Finger air quotes around “wavelength”). I DO know what you mean. But when I was nine I would have called him a freako and teased him on the bus.

Here’s a girl that has figured out the simple truth that it is better to like everyone even if you don’t hang out with everyone. It’s better to see people for who they are, with all their quirks, and be totally ok with them. I’m not trying to make Supergirl sound like Mother Theresa. She’s not. But she is easy on people – she’s cool with people. And as someone who benefits from her positive light and her forgiving eye, I can say this is a good thing.

The picture above was taken at the MCAD art sale a couple weeks ago. She walked around the whole building with us and after a while excused herself to go back to the room where the students were drawing comics for tips. When we finally caught up with her, I sort of lingered back to watch because it was SO obvious she had found her people. She was leaning across the table, chatting with the college students, watching them draw, eavesdropping on what they had to say. I am not exaggerating when I say she would have hung out for hours. I had to peel her out of there with a spatula.

As we walked out she said I like this place.

I know.

Apparently Nevermind was released 21 years ago today. I remember when Dash, Dolly and some other friends road tripped to Boston for fall break, they came back with this CD. It had blown their minds in the car and I distinctly remember Dolly loading it into the six CD changer in our living room, pressing play and letting us listen for a minute before saying listen to that bass! It made me giggle – partially because Dolly was talking like a boy, partially because the music sounded new and weird compared to all the classic rock we had been loading up on during those years and partially because she was totally right.

We were 21 – young enough to claim this album and this band as our own, but barely. For people who were teenagers and preteens in 1991, this is it. All of it. Hearing any song off this album out in the wild (and by that I mean out in the world) never fails to give me shivers. This is music by youth, for youth, of youth.

And just listen to that bass. Lithium.

I’m a Detroit girl. Well, not actually Detroit, per se – I just like saying that – but a suburb to the north. Still, Detroit was my sun as far as cities go. I orbited around, obliviously taking care of the business of growing up, with increasing plunges into the city itself as I started high school. Our brother school was a Jesuit high school called University of Detroit – U of D – and surprisingly, there was little effort to keep us Academy of the Sacred Heart girls away from the boys on Seven Mile Road. Not that it would have worked anyway.

Detroit is a fascinating city and in August when I went to visit my family with the kids, I got to bushwhack a little and experience it as a curious grown-up as opposed to a silly, clueless girl. Normally when I go home I sort of regress to my adolescent state – overcome by inertia, I feel like coccooning at my parents’ house, grazing my way through the pantry, watching tv and twirling my hair – maybe letting out a long dramatic sigh every once in a while.

I’m only partially joking. The truth is that now that the kids are older, I was able to see our visit home through a different lens. Detroit, in parts hopeless and beautiful, is no longer just a place to be ignored, the backdrop for youthful (and dangerous) shenanigans – it’s a place to explore. Just like any other city we would visit. And in this city, we’ve got contacts.

My siblings live in town and as young adults figured out the city – the hidden gems, the rhythms, the fingerprints. My fairy godmother, Gretchen, is a veritable historian. Curious, intrepid and knowledgable – if there’s an interesting nook or a cranny with a story, she has found it, explored it and can tell you all about it. Sweet Juniper, a blog that’s been in my blogroll from the beginning, has been a lyrical yet honest peek into what it’s like to raise kids in the city; he describes a burgeoning arts and food scene, feral homes being engulfed by nature, mom and pop businesses thriving because of corporate America’s aversion to a high risk markets, empty lots being turned into bountiful and nutritious gardens.

She may be a broken down beauty, but she’s got plans.

So this time, in addition to long wine-soaked meals with my family, boat rides and swims in Pine Lake, celebrating two birthdays and squeezing my delicious niece, Manzanita, we did a little exploring. My top three highlights:

Eastern Market: The mac daddy, grand poobah, god father of all farmers markets, this is the oldest market in the country. It’s colorful and urban and cool  - I liked it so much I went twice. Also Supino’s. Best pizza ever. Worth the wait.

The Heidleberg Project. Detroit was literally burning and out of the ashes rose the Heidleberg Project. Artist Tyree Guyton started to fight back with art and created an indescribable polka-dotted neighborhood. Watch this short movie about it – SO FASCINATING! I can’t believe I never went there before. This on my permanent and forever lists of places to visit when I go home.

Fairway Packing Company. My favorite thing of all. Thanks to Fairy Godmother’s hubby, Cabezon, we got to go inside this temple of meaty beauty and see how it’s done. We wore white butcher’s coats and toured the dry age room with all the best cuts hanging out for the area’s best restaurants and clients. The Himalayan salt wall is stunning – a glowing work of art in and of itself. We bought gorgeous steaks, pork shoulder and brisket for the week’s dinners and parties and watched as they were broken down for us. Saint James was all eyes and quiet appreciation. Boy knows his good meat.

All of this was a round about way of getting to this recently released documentary. Detropia explores Detroit’s complicated and painful history, its rise and fall, mingled with the exciting, grass roots, outsider art fringey changes that are happening right now. I can’t wait to see it. I don’t think this sugarcoats anything, which is good – Detroit is better salty anyway.

I’m a sucker for a good documentary and this one looks great. Musings, meditations and analysis of the most basic thing we all want: happiness.

The question of what makes you happy is a good one to ask and answer for yourself. The question itself kind of makes me happy because it’s a reminder that yes, we have some control over this. And frankly, half the battle is simply reminding yourself to look and then knowing where to look. It’s all around us – begging to be noticed so it can work its magic on our souls.

It’s the Jewish New Year and it’s also the new school year, so in celebration of new beginnings, here are some of mine in no particular order:

1. Loud music

2. Dancing

3. Feeding my family

4. Watching my dog romp with another dog

5. Soccer goals

6. My book club

7. A great pair of boots or jeans

8. Knowing that my siblings are finding their loves

9. When cousins get to hang out

10. Doctor Dash making pizza in a frilly apron

11. Two for one bloody marys and the ladies that go with them

12. The change of seasons

13. Children singing

14. Yoga

15. Tiny dancing

16. Cool graffiti/street art

17. Salty cured meats

18. When Saint James roams for hours on his bike with his buddies . .  and then comes home, winded and happy.

video via Cup of Jo

You know the saying about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts? What if each part is SO great that it’s hard to imagine what might happen if you sum it to anything at all? That’s how I felt going into this concert on Saturday night. I felt like anything could happen.

David Byrne and Annie Clark are a match made in heaven. Cerebral, off kilter, deeply musical, borderline geeky and profoundly cool – it is no wonder and also lucky happenstance that they ended up collaborating with each other. I think a lot of people thought that this was David Byrne’s way of launching a protégé, of holding up a worthy newbie and saying pay attention people – I am passing my baton of awesomeness to this woman! But I think their partnerships is more balanced than that.

He is the elder statesman (still smooth as silk despite a small paunch that was revealed when he took off his blazer) and she is young, but they seem like equals with a true creative relationship. Clark brings as much to the table as Byrne and that is an INSANE thing to say when you’re talking about DAVID FREAKING BYRNE! And not for nothing, there’s no baton passing happening. Byrne is not going anywhere.

Their album, Love this Giant, is heady and challenging. I gave it a few listens in advance of the show and there is nothing easy about it. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the concert. They had a giant brass band moving in carefully choreographed routines behind and around the two of them while we were blown away by giant sound, ethereal vocals and confounding lyrics. But the chaos started to take form and settle into these really cool songs that made sense to the ear. After that beautiful show, the album sounds way less obtuse. I’ve got it on repeat.

Personally, I think it’s flattering that they decided to kick off this tour in Minneapolis. From the moment they took the stage they were pretty much saying We’re doing this, people! Keep up! - also super flattering to an audience. And when I say flattering, I really mean lucky. We were lucky to be there, plain and simple.

I didn’t expect this to be a standing-up show and I’m so glad it was because we got to dance. How could you not in the presence of those two freaky dancers? I. Love. How. They. Move. Annie does this robotic shuffle that allows us to shelve her fashion model looks, for a moment, so that we can fully appreciate her art and her virtuosic guitar playing. David Byrne moves just like David Byrne. He simply dances – it’s a physical manifestation of his music, his body’s way of translating the songs. They are both without guile and clearly doing nothing to conform to anyone else’s idea of what something should sound like or look like.

They are both true originals. I’m so glad they found each other. Take a look at Who from their album and listen for those horns –  a simultaneously charming and bad-ass third voice on Saturday night. But you’ll see it’s Annie and David you can’t stop watching. I want more.

Photo by Kathy Quirk Syvertsen

When Red Vogue emailed me this picture she took of Supergirl, I gasped. It’s so beautiful . . . and those legs. Those legs are no longer the awkward flailing crazy legs of a little kid. They are the legs of a big kid. A coordinated, water loving, game-for-anything bonafide big girl.

Oh, my heart. We are on the verge.

I suspect Red Vogue already had this picture in her mind’s eye when she proposed a dusk dip and photo sesh to Supergirl. She knew Supergirl would do exactly this, because Supergirl approaches everything in her life from a place of yes, why not? and then how about . . . ?

I need to be more like her.