The half remembered wild interior of an animal life

So many words under my tongue, so many half silences

2019-03-29T02:51:50Z

It's up and available to the public! NEW LOMA SONG!

This video has both fire and cats and is thus undeniably great.

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MOOD

2019-01-05T19:55:45Z

When you were a child
You were a tomboy
And your mother laughed at the serious way
That you looked at her
And from your window at night
There were the stars’ little fires
And the armory lights

You were tracing the lines
Of a globe with your fingers:
Cool rivers, white wastes
Desert shores, and the forest green
And a limitless life
In the breath of each tide
And each bright mountain, rising

But now the boys are away
And such kicks they are having;
Slashing away at the forest walls
With their bitter knives
Sparks bloom in their eyes
And they never look tired
Will they never look tired?

On cliffs that tower from the rising seas
Their bonfire glow
Where a tiger lies
And, cleaning their weapons
They laugh at his useless
Claws, and all:
It is a beautiful night
To be born to this life
And grind his every bone to powder!

Do you remember
Do you remember

She carried you down to the edge
Of the dark river and said:
Though the water is wide
You will never grow tired
You are bound to your life
Like a mother and child
You will cling to your life
Like a suckering vine
And like the rest of our kind
You will increase
And increase
Past all of our dreaming

A horse without rider
Lungs without breathing
Day without light
Song without singing
A song

Shearwater - "Home Life", 2008

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Blessed Solstice

2018-12-21T19:43:17Z

May you be warm and safe this longest night and for all days to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNk-ZeDMQDU

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Feed the singing ornithologist

2018-10-31T00:32:01Z

After much cajoling from practically everyone he has ever met, Jonathan Meiburg finally set up a Patreon to fund his two bands, his bird book and who knows what all other projects are going (there's already another Loma album being mixed holy shit and he's probably gonna go somewhere weird to count birds again soon).

Of course it went up last night and then Patreon was down for an hour which has literally never happened in the whole time I've used the site. Not even funny. But the sites back up now and you can click the following link for a glorious photo of JM being king of the crows:

https://www.patreon.com/user/overview?u=14432839

If we give him enough money maybe he will tell us how to befriend large birds.

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I'm just saying...

2018-05-21T00:12:45Z

.... that IF I spent a huge chunk of this weekend watching Hank Green's playthrough of "Dream Daddy", it is NOT my fault. I was knitting and I needed something on in the background and I had a LOT of knitting to do! Blame the people who keep having babies, requiring me to produce tiny clothing items as gifts! And my mom for asking for a REALLY complicated scarf for her birthday.

I made two entire hats in the last 30 hours and now I'm going to watch an internet entertainment mogul woo some goth dude named "Damien" who is made of pixels and cliches because this scarf is nowhere near done (a caution to knitters, if you see "three color linen stitch" and think it looks really cool, keep in mind that it is extremely time consuming and maybe not ideal for large projects.)

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Blather about figure skating and homophobia

2018-03-12T00:24:23Z

Since the Olympics the entire planet is covered with Adam Rippon's face, he's being touted as a gay icon, an icon for all, his "give no fucks" attitude is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm really enjoying it but as a long time skating fan I'm also feeling angry and sad. Why? Because I remember Johnny Weir's career and I remember how badly he was treated for being the same kind of person.
In 2004 Johnny won his first national title. He repeated that 3 times in a row. He was top 5 in two world championships. But he was also outspoken and flamboyant and covered in glitter. So, despite his success and promise, by the 2006 olympics all anyone knew about was that he was "controversial" and "inappropriate." He was, on paper, a far more successful skater than Adam Rippon has ever been.And YET the USFSA who is in charge of all figure skating in the US did their damndest to bury him. He won a bronze medal at the world championships in 2008 but somehow that didn't remotely matter in 2009; he was sick at nationals, did poorly because he'd just gotten out of the hospital, and they declined to place him on the world team. Let me repeat, the same association that placed Ashley Wagner on the 2014 olympic team despite a 4th place finish at nationals and no real international success, the same association that placed Rippon himself on the 2018 olympic team despite a 4th place finish at nationals and only moderate international success, that same association declined to put a skater who had medaled at the world's the previous year on their world team? Why? Because Johnny Weir wasn't the image the USFSA wanted to present. US Figure Skating threw the full power of it's influence between Evan Lysacek. Evan rarely spoke to the press. Evan never wore glitter. Evan never smiled. Evan had a girlfriend. Evan was manly and straight. Johnny was not. Heading into 2010 no one expected Johnny to make the olympic team, despite his considerable talent and the fact that he was still performing consistently. US Figure skating wanted him to be seen as a has been and they made that happen but somehow he made the team. In fact, he made the finals at the olympics and all of us who were watching know that he should have challenged for the bronze medal. Instead he finished 6th behind two far worse performances. Afterwards judges and officials were heard saying that they hadn't expected him to do that well or they would have pushed for him to be higher up, but why? Two years earlier he'd been number 3 in the world! (the fact that the judging is so fucked up that officials can promote the winners they want to the judges and get their way is it's own many year long rant.)
After his competitive career was over Johnny was able to talk more about how he was treated by US Figure skating. (He wrote about it some in his memoir) Knowing what I now know it makes so much sense that he was never quite able to achieve what EVERYONE expected him to achieve when he appeared on the scene. How is someone supposed to focus and put their best foot forward when they are being psychologically abused by the organization that is meant to support their efforts? How do you succeed when you know the people who should be backing you want you to fail?
In the end Johnny is doing ok for himself. He still skates in performances (though not often in the US; he gets booked on tours in other countries but somehow here he isn't wanted.). He announces all the figure skating broadcasts on NBC. He has a podcast and promotional deals. But what he never got was a fair shot at the skating career he deserved and the accolades that go with it.
None of this is to take away from what Adam Rippon has done. When I say that Johnny Weir was ranked higher in the world, understand that the difference between number 5 and number 10 at their level is miniscule. I don't mean to undermine Adam's talent and I'm thrilled he's getting what he is due for being a great athlete and an entertaining person, even more so because he's immediately grabbing it and using it to make the world better for queer teens. I just wish that US figure skating had gotten it to together to see what an asset someone like that could be 14 years earlier.

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So like, there's this band.

2017-09-29T02:58:46Z

"Put down the knife. The night is here
but still is spinning out stars in it's wake
and that stubborn light pools in your heart
warm and nacreous baby
the milk of sighs and dreams"

Shearwater "Backchannels"

If you've known me for a while you know that I periodically find a band to latch onto with the fervor of a thousand kittens in a tuna cannery. So a while back I was listening to Welcome To Nightvale and it came time for "The Weather" which is when they feature a song, usually by an indie artist. The song was "Quiet Americans" by Shearwater and it filled me with a burning need to buy everything they've ever recorded (still working on that; turns out I'm about 18 years late to the party).

This is another one of those bands that has a revolving cast of musicians but always the same primary songwriter. I kind of hope the current crop stays together for a while.

Rumor has it that's Jonathan Meiburg's actual barber in the video, shaving his head at the end. Wonder what that phone call was like: "Can you cut my hair quickly in a weird location?"

Jonathan Meiburg is that very thing that is most important to me in music, a stellar lyricist. If you like that quote at the top of the page, all the lyrics are like that. Listening to them is like rolling around on velvet, but the velvet is socialist, environmentalist and very angry. But still velvet. So... kind of like reading a Cat Valente book but in music form. Also, the dude is an enormous nerd who is super excited about birds. Here he is waxing rhapsodic about grackles:

The lovely voice reading the question is Emily Lee, the keyboard player. She is omnipresent on twitter, a joy to talk to and shares my love of youtube natural history series The Brain Scoop. It's nerd all the way down in Shearwater.

You should listen. Yes you.

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