they really just go super hard at it with the hammers, it's pretty wild
Lekeili 47 - Tiny Desk Concert
“Except a little, in case you were wonderful in your abandon.”
Hello:
Okay, so I am trying to think of other things to write about here besides this one thing that happened to me this morning, because the thing that happened to me this morning was so unbearably corny that if I put it in here both you and I will never forgive me. I really want to avoid telling you about it if I can. It hits such a clear and ringing note in a register that I don't really believe in or endorse and if I tell you then you are going to think I'm trying to "tell you something" instead of just telling you something and I'm not. Weird thing about experiences, how quickly they can pass from being something that happens to you to something you are responsible for.
So I'm trying to think of other stuff. Like: how dumb it is that you have to title a book before it goes out into the world instead of five years after, which is when you maybe finally might start to understand like one or two things about it. Or the surprising, incomprehensibly calming nature of this video I watched two days ago about how to light a long candle. Or how grateful I am to have Katie Heindl's NBA Self Isolation Watch, to see basketball players doing their laundry and shooting three-pointers with balled-up socks. Or the experience of watching every morning from my office window as our next door neighbours send their kids out to slowly break down their garage wall with these big cartoon-looking sledgehammers while their dad frantically practices guitar indoors, the higher tones filtering through the layers of wall between us.
But also I have to tell you about it, I think. This is what happened: I was out on my bike, going up and down the railpath like I have been doing in the mornings, and there was someone standing up on the bridge above everyone making giant dish-soap bubbles with one of those frames that's two big sticks and a couple pieces of string. You know the kind I mean? Summer camp stuff. The bubbles were floating down very gently; some of them were regular-sized and some of them were very big. Dogs were barking up at them and kids were happy to see them and when I biked past I would just kinda glide through for a second. It was nice. It felt like a very pure experience. I was grateful for it even though lately I also am finding it a bit stressful to bike on the railpath because it is where everyone else in the neighbourhood is going to jog and walk their dogs and hang out with their gigantic terrifying families all close together. I feel simultaneously annoyed and guilty at my annoyance as I dodge past dads pushing their strollers and hyperdetermined people in athletic gear with their stiff stares straight ahead and cool young people walking in pairs with their iridescent coats. This morning at some point that feeling got too strong so I just veered off the path and started heading up one of the side streets that runs parallel to the park, which was completely ghost-quiet. No one around, not even a window open anywhere. It was funny to go from one zone to the other so suddenly; I was struck by the contrast. And then when I was just about to turn the corner and go home - I was maybe three blocks away from the bridge at this point - I saw a single bubble floating past me through the air. It seemed impossible that it could have made it all the way up there from the path, but when I looked around I could not see a single place it might have come from. Impossible bubble. Same air as me.
I promise I am not trying to tell you anything except that this happened. But it did, and right now more than ever we must observe the world as it is instead of trying to force it into the shape we'd prefer, or whatever, I guess. Corniness, too, is real, and we must witness it.
Something longer to listen to:
The Best Show on WFMU Hang Ups: number one and number two
Pets, Interiors:
Visit @apartment_poem on instagram for more, or to submit your own.
Roommates and dreams:
(None this time around! Submit petty gripes about the people you share space with OR dreams anonymously to apartmentpoem@gmail.com. You have to do it or I'm just going to start making you listen to mine, and they are not interesting.)
Gentle reminder:
You don’t have to go on Twitter. It's not bad if you do, but you don't have to.
&&&:
Beguiling + Little Island + Page and Panel staff support fund
There's still time to write to your Ontario MPPs about UBI and UBS if you do it tonight - here are some scripts from Simone Schmidt
Organizing materials for the Toronto Rent Strike, if that's your thing
Carlo's basketball corner:
I did not solicit one of these from Carlo in time and now he's busy.
Here is Kyle Lowry singing "My Girl" to DeMar DeRozan.