my lass is breaking, my brass is aching

sylvia plath's copy of the great gatsby

i don't know why, but i get the distinct feeling that sylvia might be embarrassed by the reveal of her choice of underlined passages. maybe it's because recently my friend nabbed my copy of perks of being a wallflower (from a give away pile, i swear) from my room and told me i'd underlined much of it back in the day. how embarrassing. there's something personal about what we underline in books. remember in wuthering heights, when lockwood reads catherine's bible, and she's written mad things in the margins? by reading her notes he's basically reading her diary and then it awakens her ghost. bam.

a glass ladder where each rung has a different horizon inside

nobody updates their blog enough for my liking, least of all me. i'm gonna try to step up 2 it.

a few years ago, on a smokey backyard summer night, some of my friends had an idea for an exhibit featuring an enlarged, crawl-through birth canal. you know, kind of like the giant heart exhibit in philadelphia. then someone said something like "duuuude, philip glass haaasss to be playing as you crawl through."

matthea harvey and philip glass recently collaborated, and let me tell you, i'm glad to see philip glass collaborate with a poet instead of an oversized reconstruction of the birthing experience from the fetus' perspective.

poems and stunning music! this is so awesome! and i'm so jealous! of everyone!

you can listen to it here. there's a short explanation of the process. the music came first, and then matthea wrote the words to go over it. she was inspired by the composer's name, as well as his music, and ended up writing about... glass! cool. it's beautiful, really.

she also mentions a project in which she wrote poems and used images as titles. i'm planning to steal this idea, so, yeah, watch out for that.

freedom!

OMG WTF POEMS TO SELL JEANS WITH. i smell a get rich quick scheme.

but what are you going to do with the hot dogs?

my mom watched the real housewives of new jersey with extreme dedication. i didn't get too into the show; i caught a few episodes when it happened to be on, and it did not fail to entertain. my mother on the other hand is an enthusiast. she digitally recorded most of the episodes, and often walks around quoting the show and then cackling to herself.

then she really lost it.

here: my mother's poem.

Poem for New Jersey

I am paying attention.

Obviously, there has to be something else.

It's not just name change and arrested.

There has to be something else.

Are you stripping?

Prostitution whore!

You were fucking engaged 19 times!

Bullshit!

You fucking stupid bitch!

Don't fucking tell me I'm fucking airheaded and stupid.

Because that's what pissed me off

And then tell me to fucking pay attention.

She doesn't know who the fuck she's fucking with.

And I have no fucking skeletons

In my fucking closet,

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.