Marginalia by Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

quick music post

i've only heard this one song from The Middle East, but i can't get the part at the end with a group sing-a-long out of my head! also, anything with a glockenspiel/xylophone makes my heart go pitter-pat. :)

ugh, the lyrics are so sad though! i guess it's about their grandmother dying of cancer. but the lyrics are beautiful and heartfelt, and they do not make you pity. i think my favorite lyrics are these:

and you'll find somebody you can blame
and you'll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
and you'll find the peace of the Lord.

first photo shoot!

this is my debut as a photographer. i have known for a long time that photography was something i wanted to learn how to do. and of all things to photograph, people are what i want to take photos of. so i was so pleased that my friends who are having a second child allowed me to use them as photographic guinea pigs! they have the most precious 2 year-old, Jackson, and the parents are Kristi and Eric. they make great photographic subjects, so I was very lucky. even Jackson smiled when we asked him to! these are some of my favorites from the shoot. the top is my favorite of just Kristi and Eric.
this is my favorite of Jackson and his mommy.
this is my favorite of the three of them!
this is my favorite of a series with jackson on eric's shoulders.
ha! i love Jackson's face in the one above!
this is a good one holding her belly together!
and she is so beautiful in this one. what a gorgeous pregnant lady!

it was such a pleasure photographing them. enjoy!

summer music

there's lots of great stuff out there that i'm enjoying--if i were a better writer, i think i would want to become a music blogger, because i just love listening to new music and sharing it!



this first music post is for an album that won't be out until the fall (august 24, 2010 to be exact), but i stumbled upon it and absolutely love it! this is S. Carey, the drummer from Bon Iver, coming out with his debut album All We Grow on Jagjaguwar records. this song is so beautiful. He has a whole orchestra of instruments that play along with him (clarinets, vibraphone, flutes, piano, drums... just to name a few i can pick out), which totally melts my heart since i'm a former trumpet player/band nerd. check out this beautiful song called "In the Dirt".

and now for something completely different! this is a solo act from San Francisco. i love that it actually makes you feel like your drifting off into space. crank it loud!

words spilling off the page

I've been reading a lot lately, which is one of my passions.

I just recently finished 2 books which I absolutely loved.

The first was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This is such a humble account of what could have turned to be a very self-righteous endeavor: her family living a whole year eating only local food or that which they produced themselves. They had a few exceptions, for example, coffee and organic whole wheat to make their homemade bread. Her family sets the goal, and accomplishes it well, growing closer together and learning about the effort it takes to grow food in a sustainable way. Kingsolver helps you to feel part of the undertaking, sharing stories about her adventures with livestock (chickens and turkeys!), the monotony yet joy of pulling weeds, and watching the kaleidoscope of colors emerge as her heirloom vegetables bear fruit.

The book really inspired me to want to grow things myself. I am also inspired by the undertaking of promising to eat locally, and hope I can do better. Check it out.

Another book I just finished that really warmed my heart (and was almost impossible to put down!) was Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. It's a retelling of the book of Hosea, set in the 1850s in the gold rush in California. Angel, a prostitute from childhood is whisked away from bondage by Michael Hosea who marries her. The story alternates between breath-taking and heartbreaking as Angel goes in and out of bondage. I found myself identifying with several of the characters: Paul, Michael's friend who is self-righteous and wrongly judges Angel; Angel, who can't ever imagine herself as worthy and who goes back to her old life and way of thinking as a dog returns to vomit (Prov 26:11); and Michael, who loves unconditionally, but still sees the need for grace and forgiveness in his life. I hope someday to be able to feel the inner guiding of God's Holy Spirit as clearly as Michael Hosea does.

I wasn't always impressed with Rivers' writing in this book, but I heard it's not her best as far as writing goes. I think I'll have to check out her Mark of the Lion series. If you want a story that so clearly shows God's redeeming love, this is a must-read!

may photographic inspiration

This is a photo by an acquaintance of mine, Lindsey Vinson. I think it was taken by a film SLR. I love the soft light and the short depth of field.
This photo is awesome because of the coloring, and it's a great action shot! It really makes me want to put on some floaties and jump in the pool right after her!
This was taken by another acquaintance of mine, Elizabeth Davis. I love this family, the Harlachers! This is Audrey and her baby sister Natalie. Natalie is probably the happiest baby I've ever seen. Check out Elizabeth Davis Photography.

new music to check out

There are a couple of new albums coming out that I would like to hear more of. This is a debut album coming out for Sleigh Bells called Treats. They use a lot of feedback and buzz with their dance-pop sound. I really liked their song "Crown on the Ground", and there are more songs that have come out on the interwebs recently, like "Tell 'Em". Their album comes out May 11, 2010.

I have not been the hugest fan of The National when I first heard of them in 2007, but having heard some of their album High Violet which comes out this month, I think I'm interested in giving them another try. The New York Times ran an article on them, and at this point is streaming some of their music: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/magazine/25national-t.html

Also, a lady that writes for a blog I love to follow http://theblisslist.typepad.com/blisslist LOVES The National, so I had to give them a fair shot. High Violet will also be released May 11.