peevish mama

Of course, a little Beasties in honor of Adam Yauch, MCA, who died of cancer last week at age 47. It’s sad. He’s but a bit older than us and his arc, represents our arc. It’s more than cliche at this point to say that the Beastie Boys brought hip hop to the white kids, but it’s true – the Beastie Boys brought hip hop to this white kid, via the boys at our inner city brother school, U of D. Imagine me, with wild perm and silver braces, bopping around to Fight for Your Right (to Party) before I had any real party experience under my sailor rope belt.

I never got sick of the Beastie Boys and their shaken up beer spraying mug in the camera antics because they grew up too. Their music evolved and so did they, while managing to stay cool and relevant. “They spent their career gently deflating their penis balloon” writes Sasha-Frere Jones in the New Yorker. How hilarious and how apt. It’s true. We grew up. They grew up.

I’ve been reading about Adam Yauch in the last days and I had no idea he directed many of their videos under the pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower and started a production company that produced, among many, the very cool movie about graffiti artist, Banksy, called Exit Thru the Gift Shop – which I loved. In addition to all his work in support of the Tibetan freedom cause, he was a dad and a husband.

So here’s a video Yauch directed for the song, Shadrach, where each frame was painted by hand. It’s gorgeous and was included in the 22nd International Tournee of Animation.

Rest in peace, MCA.

Y’all don’t know this, but I’ve gotta a little thing for producer extraordinaire -Danger Mouse. He’s just one of those really talented, behind-the-scenes music people and everything he touches, turns to gold. Not necessarily in a commercial sense, though he has that touch too; rather, one simply knows that whatever he collaborates on and produces will be good.

He was one-half of Gnarls Barkley with Cee Lo Green, one-half of Broken Bells with James Mercer of the Shins and he’s worked with everyone from The Black Keys to Beck to Gorillaz. He’s everywhere.

This is a song off a new album called Rome, in which he collaborates with Italian movie composer, Daniele Luppi, featuring vocals by Jack White and Norah Jones. It’s a loving nod to classic Italian cinema, but with a modern sensibility. It’s a movie score without a movie and it sounds good to my ears, but then, when does Jack White not sound good to my ears?

Here’s a little warmth for low down in your gut on this dreary spring day.

Oh, my friends, prepare for the prick of tears under the bridge of your noses.

This project by Lauren Fleishman is so beautiful. In Love Ever After, she documents Brooklyn couples who have been married more than 50 years. It’s the sweetest thing. The one that kills me is the little old man who says: Now I’m going on 88. My wife is 85 and I’m only wishing for another 5-6 years of life. That’s all we want.

I wonder – if you have lived a life so full of love, is it possible you are satisfied, filled up, complete, when you reach the end? Wahhhhhhh.

Dessa wrote an insightful, smart op-ed piece in the Strib a few days ago, and though I’ve long known that she’s wise beyond her years, I have to admit I was chastened and a little humbled to read what she wrote.

Dessa takes on misogyny in rap – she challenges the pervasive attitude that disrespect to women is part of the genre and that if you don’t like it, you aren’t hip hop. She’s measured and reasonable, by her own admittance no girl scout in the profanity department, and she knows of what she speaks. She’s a rapper.

Reading, I realized that I have been way too cavalier about some of the music I let into my house and my excuses are vast.

1. My kids can’t really hear the lyrics and if they do, they don’t understand. This is ceasing to be the case, at a breathtaking clip. I know this.

2. The songs are “tall tales” – hyperbolic work that’s not meant to be taken seriously. Some of this stuff is so over the top, so gross, it’s funny. I’m not a prude (about words), I swear like a trucker, I appreciate a clever turn of phrase, a naughty line. Is this any different than some of the stuff Martin Amis writes? Charles Bukowski? Bret Eason Ellis? Norman Mailer? (This list really could be never-ending.) Just because you write it, does it mean you mean it? What of fiction in music? Well, arguably, if your audience is young and impressionable, it doesn’t matter if you really mean it. And in hip hop, it’s not really presented as fiction. Or is it?

3. The women being objectified aren’t real women – they’re somehow made-up women, hip-hop mannequins. So vastly different is their experience from mine, I was missing our basic glaring commonality: that we’re women. And more importantly, that my daughters will some day be women. And debasing any woman, debases all women.

4. The beats are just so good. That’s how they get me. Every. Time.

So am I going to stop listening to hip hop? No. Will I make my kids stop listening? No. Will I be more thoughtful about it? Yes. Will I point them in the direction of better, truer, hip hop – songs with stories and heart? I have and I will continue to do so. That’s easy, with neighbors like Doomtree and Rhymesayers.

Thanks Dessa, for the reminder. Nothing like learning from your minors.

Doctor Dash’s sister, my sis-in-law, Mamartiste – also known out in the world as Claudette Lambert Peterson, is an artist/illustrator. I have admired her work for exactly as long as I have known Dash. I remember looking at a painting of Albert Einstein in his room when we met senior year of college and loving the fact that he sat in a floating chair and was surrounded by winking stars. It’s lovely.

Mamartiste has always worked as an artist, even in the busiest bleary-eyed times of raising her three girls. If she wasn’t creating for the outside world, she was creating for the people she loves. Recently Dash and I received a set of the most intricate and beautiful drawings of dragon flies and moths for our 40th birthdays. They are absolutely stunning and to me, speak so much of her generous artistic spirit. The detail is breathtaking – I can’t even begin to imagine how long she spent on these, how many delicate, painstaking, loving hours. There is no quick for Mamartiste, no half way. WE LOVE.

Her girls are growing and so is she as an artist. She recently pulled together a very beautiful website featuring her work, which I’d like to share with you. We all struggle with finding time in the day to do what we want to do, because contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually end up with all that much extra time on your hands when  your kids go to school. School hours are subject to different laws of time, it seems, than regular hours. At least for the mamas. And for a creative mama, like Mamartiste, who can’t rush inspiration, can’t rush the quiet she needs to create, it can be quite a challenge. But art is her love, it is inside of her and lucky for all of us, she continues to press on.

Wasn’t I just talking about Wes Anderson last weekend? I swear, I was. Gushing, yes, a bit, perhaps.  Probably a shade defensive about the fact that I fall, unabashedly, hook line sinker and anything else he cares to put on the screen for his “hipster aesthetic.” I know it’s a thing, I know it’s supposed to appeal to people like me and you know what? It DOES. It so very much does. I love and adore everything he has done – Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Funny, sad, odd, and atmospheric, his movies are just a feast to me. They are all so beautiful, with such a distinctive visual feel, and yet they manage to take such a tender view of their flawed heroes and heroines. This one looks to be on par. I simply CANNOT wait.

This mural, made by Supakitch and Koralie, is bananas. Absolutely stunning. Their hands are so sure. It is absolutely mind boggling how one would conceive of such a thing, let alone execute it. God, I wish I could do something, anything, with my hands.

Oh, my. It has been a great while since I’ve felt this swept away by a film, by a book. Saint James, Supergirl and I had all read it prior to settling into our seats, so we were absolutely brimming with anticipation of what was to come. The book, a clever combination of drawings and writing, is fabulous. It has all the elements of a gripping story: a loss, a puzzle, a quest, a love. It is a perfect story, presented with tenderness and a generous allowance for sadness. The movie, by Martin Scorsese, not only does this book justice, I’d argue it tucks it onto a pair of wings and makes it soar. Twinkly 1930’s Paris, with these characters is exactly where you want to escape to this time of year for a couple hours, so do it. With kids or without, having read the book or not, this movie is magic. Go see it. Alors, vite!

I’ve got a thing for knives. I love and require a good, sharp knife in order to be happy in the kitchen. I often travel with a knife if I’m going to a rented cabin or home. Supergirl got mad at me once because she found a paring knife in her backpack – I had brought it along to cut an apple at a soccer game and forgot about it. Ya, I know. Not good. In addition to knives, I like things that are handmade, I like writers, I like people who talk about their art, I like the communities that spring up out of unlikely common interests, I like people who lead an examined life and all of that is wrapped up in this very cool short film about Brooklyn knife-maker, Joel Bukiewicz, of Cut Brooklyn. You need a few minutes to watch this, but it’s very inspiring and makes me feel hopeful.

Boy, am I ever excited to see this documentary by Cameron Crowe. It looks so gooooood. I can’t help but think of my friend, Saucilicious who loves and adores Eddie Vedder – always has, always will. Wish we could watch it together with a couple bottles of wine, but she’s in Pennsylvania. Instead I’ll watch with Dash and I’m thinking Saint James too. The boy goes completely still and hyper-focused whenever we catch any concerts or music documentaries on TV. These days I’m all about people who turn their loves into their lives. Both Vedder and Crowe seem to have managed to do that and it’s completely inspiring.

Y’all know I love street art. This is a neat peek into the work of two ladies (Olek and Swoon) who are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art. I especially love what Swoon says about her art being an attempt to construct a space for a certain kind of connection, a certain kind of wonder, a certain kind of unlikeliness and for the things that you think that there isn’t room for or time for in the life that we’re living.

So picture this. A bare bulb – the old kind, with one of those little metallic pull strings hanging down. As I watch this, it’s as if someone reaches into the dark space above my head and pulls the string. Maybe it’s because I’m such a word person, but to me, listening to artists talk about their work is equally, if not more, fascinating than the work itself.

Connection. Wonder. Unlikeliness. For the things we don’t have room or time for in this life.

Amen.

There’s a Richard Linklater film series at the Walker and I plan to catch as many as I can. Dazed and Confused is possibly one of my favorite movies ever. It’s a stoner coming-of-age story, but ever so much more. By turns dark and hilarious, it manages to tell the story of a group of Texas teens with a light hand but huge insight, even affection. Not much happens, it’s sort of a day-in-the-life, but man, are you ever taken there – sitting on the warm hood of a car, shooting the shit with your buds. And Matthew McConaughy is brilliant as the affable, slightly post-peak BMOC. I just love it. Dash and I saw it in a crowded little theater in Boston, a place where it wasn’t out of the question to see a mouse scurrying for cover as you found your seat. More than any other director, Linklater felt like one of us, making movies about us. Like our lives at that point, his movies are short on action and long on conversation and ideas. I swear that I spent most of my early twenties just walking and talking. Nothing about that period of time is as vivid as the rambling. We were young, we needed to be moving, but there was so much to talk about. So we did both. I’m curious to see whether I’ll still find these movies compelling, now that I’m old-ish. I’ll soon find out. I’m suddenly in the mood for a good ramble, though.

Incidentally, if you have elementary school age kids and haven’t watched School of Rock with them, do it pronto. A more recent Linklater movie, it could have been stick-your-finger-down-your-throat saccharine, but it’s quite the opposite. It’s hysterical and uplifting and sorry, but Jack Black can sort of do no wrong in my book. So good.

Isn’t this such a kick? Street artist, Slinkachu, sets up and photographs these fanciful little scenarios that play with perspective. I found this on Unearth, a site that collects street art from around the world. I really dig this site. It’s thought and wanderlust provoking – an antidote to boredom and cynicism. When I feel sick in my gills from what I’m reading in the news and media, a little shot of art is a no fail way to restore my faith in us. All is not lost. Our kids are not doomed. The earth is not screwed. There is beauty, whimsy, humor and heart all over this hot little planet if we’re just willing to look. And even if we are screwed and doomed (which we are, holy shit, we are), it’s good to put that away and see the good, only the good, from time to time.

I found these pictures late this summer when the coalescence of my anti-climactic 41st birthday, Devil Baby’s impending leap into kindergarten and a general end-of-summer antsiness sent me into a tailspin. If you were anywhere within a two block radius of me the last couple weeks in August, you would have been alarmed at my state: alternatively weepy and manic, confused, verbose, morose, fretful, paralyzed, nervous and freaky. Deaky. Apparently, this identity crisis of mine was like a far off train whistle rapidly approaching over the last few months. Lady Tabouli reminded me that I was having these – um – thoughts back at our book club weekend in February. After too much wine, I confessed my angst to the ladies and said something about the fact that I can’t just be this aging party girl who goes to see concerts to feel alive. I needed a PLAN. I had completely forgotten. The ladies don’t forget.

Months, weeks, days. The words weighed heavy on my chest. Bounced around between my ears. Spelled themselves out behind closed lids like Sesame Street letters: WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?

WHAT THE FUCK?

DO I DO NOW?

So here’s what I know: 1. I don’t know the answer to that question, 2. I am not alone – many of us are wondering the same thing, 3. It is ok to take a moment, take a breath, take some time to figure some things out.

You see that number 3 there? That’s where Slinkachu’s pics come into play. Little does he know that a Minnesota mama saw his pictures at a time in her life when the confusion and angst rivaled that of her early twenties. I was amused by them. They stayed in my head. I went back to look at them a couple more times, showed them to Supergirl early one morning and finally found my message there. I felt it open like a flower in my throat: perspective.

Take a step back from your damn self, sister! (This is me talking to myself in my best Florence from The Jeffersons voice.) Get your head outta your fanny and open your damn eyes! You still the mama and those babies need you more than ever. Step back, girl. Step back.

And so I am. Trying.