feb’s obsessions

from my Ghost, which i’m using for the email side of things while wrizzit is for community :)

Books—“Stoner” by John Williams

the hype was deserved…

Only John Williams can write a brilliant story about a man’s life where he does… not much in particular. I can’t really capture what this book is about, but I highly recommend you read it. Seriously. I’m begging you.

Some of my favorite quotes:

A war doesn’t merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that’s left is the brute, the creature that we—you and I and others like us—have brought up from the slime.

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Like all lovers, they spoke much of themselves, as if they might thereby understand the world which made them possible.

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He had, in odd ways, given it to every moment of his life, and had perhaps given it most fully when he was unaware of his giving. It was a passion neither of the mind nor of the flesh; rather, it was a force that comprehended them both, as if they were but the matter of love, its specific substance. To a woman or to a poem, it said simply: Look! I am alive.

John Williams is a beast, okay?

Publications—“Rattle”

well worth the subscription fee.

I recently purchased an online access subscription to Rattle, and I’m so thankful for it. On the site, the editors state their mission is to, “promote the practice of poetry”, which they accomplish.

Their reach is vast and they don’t adhere to a certain style. I can tell Rattle cares about the art involved in poetry and its excellent to see a publication pay and support its poets.

Some of my favorites from their features:

When the Tomahawk Missile Blinked by JaLeah Hedrick

Roach by Patricia Ndombe

When Girls Called by Sam Pierstorff

Art—Helene Schjerfbeck

“View of St. Ives”—Helene Schjerfbeck (1887)

I’m not a New Yorker, nor do I travel much, but I try to keep up with the galleries in the city, since they often curate digital collections of their featured works.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibit right now on Finnish painter, Helene Schjerfbeck, and I have spent so much time just… looking at it. I mean!

I’ll let these paintings speak for themselves.

“The Convalescent”—Helene Schjerfbeck (1888)

“Fête Juive; Sukkot; Feast of Tabernacles”—Helene Schjerfbeck (1883)

“At Home (Mother Sewing)”—Helene Schjerfbeck (1903)

You can find The Met’s gallery of Schjerfbeck work here.

Music—“Constance“ by South Pacific (2000)

imagine a warm hug in an album.

I’m someone who can’t write or work in silence AND my brain can’t music with words when I’m truly having trouble focusing. Mix that with my tendency to get bored quickly and I have to seek out new instrumentals all the time.

I stumbled upon South Pacific’s Constance on accident, but I love it. If you’re into shoegaze-y, lush guitars and soft rhythms, check it out on Bandcamp.