Karen O: “Duet”
Karen O’s Stop the Virgens, a new “psycho-opera” written by and starring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman, premiered this month at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Directed by Adam Rapp — and described by O as “a psychedelic ride laced with catharsis” — the solo project features musical direction by YYYs guitarist Nick Zinner with Sam Spiegel, as well as a guest performance from drummer Brian Chase. While previews of the piece were limited to the lucky few in attendance of the live event, an interview with WNYC a few weeks back brought this stunning acoustic taste of their work. Above, hear Jason P. Grisell and O sing “Duet” live.
October 2011
I want to snuggle with you. I’d like to lie on you and put my head on your shoulder and breathe in the same rhythm that you’re breathing. I want to use one of my hands to rub your head, down to your neck, then to your arm, and then hold your hand. I’d like to rest my other hand on your hipbone, which is my favorite part of your body because it’s a straight and bony hip, nothing like my curvy, soft one.
I’d like to stay there long enough so that our awkwardness goes away. I’d like to feel you give into the moment. Don’t ask yourself if this is too intimate. Don’t worry about sending me signals that you like me too much. Don’t think about what will happen with us tomorrow. Stop wondering if your team is winning and how much longer it will be until I get off of you so you can turn the game on.
Make a joke after a few moments of peace, one of those jokes that isn’t funny because of its sharp wit, but funny because it’s a comment on our current state, designed to make both of us ease further into the bubble of each other that we’re currently floating in. You could say something about how I’m as pale as the sheets, or how your pet is staring at us from the corner, or how the lady upstairs is walking like an elephant. And we’ll laugh together. Not the laugh that we shared in the bar with our friends. Not the laugh that comes when you watch an episode of Flight Of The Conchords. Not the laugh that you force when your boss says something mean. This will be the laugh that you saved just for me, the one that’s vulnerable and soft and sweet, because that’s how you’re feeling towards me right now. You won’t think about what I said last week that made you angry. You won’t feel guilty for that thing you did that I would be upset about if I knew. You won’t plan what you’re having for dinner tonight. You will soak the right now of this up. Our moment.
I’d like you to play with my hair. Don’t pat my head with a flat hand, put your fingers under my hair, on my scalp, and then run them through my hair like it’s a waterfall. Wrap both of your arms around me and give me a long, tight squeeze, the kind where in the last second, I need to inhale but I can’t. Then I’d like you to close your eyes, so I can prop myself over your face and study your features freely without you looking back at me. I want to kiss your jaw line, fondle your earlobes, sweep my cheek against yours. I want to stroke the slope of your nose and your eyelids and admire your eyelashes.
I’d like you to run your thumb over my lips. Cup my face with both of your hands. And I want you to kiss me. This will be a kiss that liquefies from light to deep and then back to light. A seemingly endless kiss that doesn’t lead to anything else. It doesn’t need to. We’ll share it simply to feel the warmth that it brings on its own. Then I want you to roll me over. Lie on top of me and hold our arms over our heads so that I can feel all of your weight, strong and heavy and masculine.
I want you to start at the beginning and do it again.
this is like porn tbh
There is a city beneath this river.
The houses are built from crushed cans
and broken glass, plastered in fish scales.
There are no doors, but windows everywhere.
The people there have gills and glow
silver in the dark. They are digging ever deeper,
expanding downward, where the pressure
is heavy as lead and bones are imbedded
in the mud. They sew drowned leaves and lost scarves
into dresses for their daughters, make necklaces
from feathers and baby teeth. With bloated limbs,
they swarm in circles below the layers of cloud,
air, and water. They are always hungry for bread
or blood. I lived there once. Look. I still breathe
through the slits in my back.Kathryn Hawkins
Raconte Moi Une Histoire - M83
I’m on cooking duty for the family (of four) tomorrow night, so I’d like to know, what’s your favourite main meal?
by Michael Symmons Roberts
(i)
You have a new message:
Kiss the kids goodbye from me
Keep well, keep strong, you know
I’m sure, but here’s to say I love you.
I lay these voice-prints
like a set of tracks, to stop
you getting lost among the tall trees
beneath the break-less canopy,
on the long slow walk you take
from here without me.
(ii)
You have a new message:
I do not want to leave you this
magnetic print, this digit trace,
my coded and decoded voice.
I do not want to leave you.
If I had a choice, my last words
would be carried to your window
on three slips of sugar paper in
the beaks of birds of paradise.
The words would say,
I’m sure you know,
I love you.
Frank Ocean – Thinking About You
anybody anything” is a string of words
I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. “Tell everyone everything” is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there’s someone in here we’re still alive!
So maybe it’s, “don’t be afraid.” We can
rewrite Icarus, flame-resistant feathers,
wax that won’t melt, I mean it, I’ll draw up
a prototype right now, that burning ball
of orange won’t stop us, it’ll be everything
we dream the morning after, even if we fall
into the sea—we are boats, remember?
We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire.” —Ilse Bendorf, Catch A Body
all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth*
*a year’s subscription to National Geographic and a Flickr Pro upgrade
In the meantime, can someone please tell me how to brush out a beehive because there’s literally an entire can of hairspray inside this hairy monster on top of my head.
I’m seeing The Jezabels tonight with Anthony, but I’m not looking forward to it at all. Today is just so, so hot. I am currently wearing a shift because I can’t be bothered pulling on that one extra layer of normal dress, and I’m trying to debate whether or not going out with only this on would be socially acceptable.