Five stars, read in January 2018. This book was like an electric jolt to me. I was genuinely frustrated every minute that I couldn’t be listening to it on Overdrive, and I wish it could’ve been twice as long. I don’t follow much pop culture, so although I’d heard of most of these stories in…
Category: Music
“To be able to perform music for yourself is a wonderful thing.”
Written Saturday, April 16, 2011, while staying with my family. This morning I’m reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and listening to my brother downstairs playing the piano. I’ve always been jealous of his skill. I taught myself to play the piano as a kid, and had only a month or two of lessons in high school….
Writing’s On the Wall
Memory: Sitting in my car at the Mesquite library, crying into my Schlotzky’s and Starbucks, which I’d gotten because the tiny break room was full of people and the only way I could survive that job was having an hour alone for lunch. Knowing I’d have to go back in to work soon. It was…
True Colors
Memory: I have, at this point, pretty much gotten over the loss of all my closest college friends. But it never fails that hearing that Phil Collins song recalls some of my most vulnerable and painful memories. We used to play the board game called True Colors, and I was almost never the one people…
Hopes and Fears . . . Under the Iron Sea
Memory: Songs from these albums make me think of walking around the neighborhood next to Lakeside Village, pushing Liron in his stroller, loving the quiet streets with weird flowers and stop sign graffiti. Fall 2010.
Perfect Blue Buildings
Memories: All the most beautiful parts of Salt Lake City, particularly Sugar House and the bookstores there. The Counting Crows concert. That period when I was talking to my cousin Sara a lot. Autumn.
Just Kids, by Patti Smith
Four stars, read in February 2017. I didn’t know much about Patti Smith before this and hadn’t heard of Robert Mapplethorpe at all, so this book was a springboard into a huge number of artistic works for me to explore. I’ve been listening to her first album, Horses, since finishing the book a few days…
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, by Carrie Brownstein
Four stars, read in December 2015. I was a little afraid, as I often am with celebrity memoirs, that this wouldn’t live up to my anticipation of it. I knew Carrie Brownstein mostly from Portlandia, but I’d heard of Sleater-Kinney and knew enough about that to be really excited for the book. I was not…
I Have Questions about Into the Woods
I’ve never seen the original production, but I saw the movie when it came out in 2014. Musically, it’s brilliant. Those songs lodge themselves in my brain and I can’t stop singing them for weeks after I hear them. The lyrics, cinematography, cast—everything is fantastic. But I’m not quite sure about the story. I know there…
Meanwhile the World Goes On 