Lessons & Happenings

What happened first:

Last week we found out our apartment is termite-infested and two days ago our water heater broke. 

What happened next: 

1. I massacred a bunch of termites. 

    They quickly sent back-ups. (Turns out there is an infinite army of them living in our walls.) 

2. I tried to reset the water heater breaker.

     The whole breaker-box-thing sparked a big spark. (Electrical fires are bad.) 

You learn things about yourself when things happen in pairs like this. 

What I learned:

1. Living with termites is not as serious as I’d imagined. (In fact, my boyfriend googled termites and found they are full of protein and considered quite the delicacy in many cultures around the world.) 

2. Termites are not delicious.

3. I am not an electrician. 

4. My retirement plan—living in a tent on one of those tiny stretches of land that people with boats frequent on sunny weekends and drink beer and barbeque on—needs to be reconsidered.

. 

5. I love hot water!

______________________________________________________________________

Here’s a poem:

The Termite

Some primal termite knocked on wood

And tasted it, and found it good!

And that is why your Cousin May

Fell through the parlor floor today.

~Ogden Nash

read more Ogden Nash

Ray Manzarek dies at 74

 “We were in love with being alive and wanted to spread that love around the planet and make peace, love and harmony prevail upon earth, while getting stoned, dancing madly and having as much sex as you could possibly have.”

~Ray Manzarek of The Doors  

 

 "Robby Krieger brings in some flamenco guitar. I bring a little bit of classical music along with the blues and jazz, and certainly John Densmore was heavy into jazz. And Jim brings in beatnik poetry and French symbolist poetry, and that's the blend of The Doors as the sun is setting into the Pacific Ocean at the end, the terminus of Western civilization. That's the end of it. Western civilization ends here in California at Venice Beach, so we stood there inventing a new world on psychedelics."

 

Alice Cooper, Ray Manzarek and Iggy Pop at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, 15 June 1974 

Check out The Guardian's picture gallery here 

read more:
The Washington Post
Boston Review
NPR

Writing Playlist

Sure, you have a workout playlist & maybe a playlist for your hot Saturday night dates with your lover. But do you have a playlist of songs you write to?

Check out Granta's playlist series by current Best of Young British Novelists. Here's Tahmima Anam's:
Tahmima Anam: My Writing Playlist | New Writing | Granta Magazine

 Vinyl & Velvia by amamak photography courtesy of Vinyl Junkies

A(nother) Bird Poem I Love

Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

~Charles Bukowski

Bird poems kick ass! 

xoxo

Fashion meets music...

in a steamy alley. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart of The Kills are the hot new faces of Equipment's Spring/Summer 2013 campaign.

Read more at Elle.
And follow Modiste on facebook for more cool fashion-meets-music posts.

XOXO

the books we need

...are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation—a book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

From a letter of Franz Kafka to Oskar Pollak