Kimya Dawson

I first heard of Kimya Dawson after hearing her song Anthrax from the Body of War soundtrack. Wait that is not true, I guess I truly first heard her , as you probably did from the Juno soundtrack.

Image from Amie St.

The haunting disjointed lyrics, her unconventional voice, and simple guitar chords had me interested enough to do some research.

this is just a test take it with love and you will pass
you will be rewarded if you do your very best
nothing ever goes as planned so don't take anything for granted
if you do the world will kick your ass

I had a difficult time finding any of her music through torrents except for her kids’ album Alphabutt, a series of silly children’s songs. Kaia and I have been listening to it almost everyday on our way to school, and we both are falling in love. It is so funny to hear Kaia ask for songs by name and sing along.

I am not sure if singing about monkey farts is appealing for people with out kids, but Kimya does take a few asides from her immaturity to subtly teach us some lessons. Two of my favorite songs are Sunbeams and Some Beans and Happy Home (Keep Writing).

Here is why:

If you're breathing you are living
If you're living you are learning
So write and write and keep on writing
Just make sure your life's exciting
Write and write and keep on writing
Just make sure your life's exciting
Write and write and keep on writing
Just make sure your life's exciting

I can wait to teach this song to my students!

it was his heart that made my friend great
Not his muscles, his money, his job or his name or his fame
See my friend isn't famous
He is just a good person who grows what he eats
And if you have a mouth then he will try to feed you
And if you are cold he'll put wood in the stove
Grab a quilt and some warm flannel sheets

If you are into weird hippy kids music with a message, then give Kimya Dawson a listen, you and your kids will have a blast just getting silly:

we were somewhere

Not sure why my friend at We Buy Balloons doesn't post his work at his own blog, but he asked me to read over this vingette and post it if I liked it. Well, I liked it. A lot. So here it is:

we were somewhere in the bay area hills, tucked away from all the traffic and bridges and parents. I'd just turned 10 and was on my first overnight summer camp. i remember drinking endless cups of soda, soccer games on fields huge and green, and i remember making a kite and tying it with red yarn to my finger and i remember voices around a small fire, the smell of burning wood, the rawness of dawn, playing paddle ball with a girl with short blond hair, silver dust caught in clothes, a pool with two intertubes drifting along a corrugated surface.

but it's the last night i remember most. we'd begged our counselors to let us sleep outside the cabin, to let us take our sleeping bags out to a clearing just above camp. impossibly, they agreed. and so i lay on my back, in a field full of bodies, all of us silent and awake, the night air cool against our cheeks, clouds low and thickening in grey tufts, wandering overhead, backlit by stars too many to count.

i must have stayed up nearly the entire night. just watching the black dome above me, a single satellite hurtling somewhere, stars suggesting some faint form, some silhouette i recognized but couldn't quite name.

i heard everyone around me breathing in slow, even tones. asleep now against pillows damp and aglow under the moon. i turned my flash light on and beamed it overhead. trying to add one more star to the sky. hours passed, entire universes appeared and scattered and appeared. my light somewhere among the riot.

and now, two decades later, i so badly want that night to be with me still.

because there are moments when i want to know what i was saying. my light caught something up there. i don't know what, but something. i need to know what it heard, what message i'd blown across stars, what story i tried to share.

whatever it was i knew then, i've lost. the only mark i've ever made was streaked into the sky that night.

while it stays alive, i'm alive.

More Attention

Many people I know say that the best way to diffuse Glenn Beck is to simply ignore him and not give credit to any of the things he says, but like a car accident or any other public spectacle, I find it hard to look away. I find myself watching him with a drop jawed awe, the same way I would look at a clown or public drunk.

It wasn’t until tonight however that I realized what a great actor he really is. I sat in my kitchen and actually watched the entire forty-four minute interview he gave did Katie Couric. Throughout the interview I was waiting to throw up my hands and scream profanities at my screen, but what I saw was not the buffoon who normally stirs the pot on Fox, but a somewhat level headed man simply expressing his opinions, many opinions with which I strongly disagreed, but some that I actually agreed with him on. His stance on gay marriage was refreshing for a Mormon, and I have been ranting about the corporatization of American politics for as long as I have been political.

What has left me thinking long after the interview is not how unsettling it was that I found Glenn Beck sane, but what has really got me thinking is why is this not the man on his show? If he is truly concerned about being a voice for “tired little guys” than why does he choose to play the part of the crying bumbling idiot? Why is he making fun of Rachael Carson and trying to bring back DDT?

I feel the answer is more complicated that I want to delve into right now, but it has a lot to do with the manipulation of the “tired little guy” by the very forces Beck derides. This chameleon and his Oscar-worthy performance is simply a tool to sway the opinions of people who have no history or experience expressing their own. This is dangerous. If Beck was an independent spokesperson visiting small towns and talking to people about their lives and their ideas he would be far more effective, but instead he chooses to polarize and radicalize an anger he himself promulgates. In the interview he compares himself to John Stewart and admits he is no journalist, but what he fails to admit is that John Stewart is making fun of the very media machine Beck uses to spout his rhetoric.

I encourage you to watch this interview in its entirety, because Glen Beck is not a jester who can be ignored. He is a much more subversive, dangerous arm of the corporate propaganda machine. A machine that can steer hearts and minds regardless of which party it has placed in power.

Beck is slowly stealing the revolutionary zeal of the true left wing and wrapping it in his own version of reality. The anger he is tapping into is the same anger that could be used to instigate real change in America. The difference is that by denouncing big government and championing the idea of “the little guy” he is reinforcing power of the very corporate entities he says have taken over government. Beck is the tool corporate America is using to radicalize the “little guy” to dismantle the last vestige of the very concept of government.

The difference however between his revolutionary rhetoric and the real thing, is that true progressives are fighting to give the power of government back to the hands of the people. What progressives repeatedly fail to understand is that we should be speaking with the very people that Glenn Beck is speaking to. They are not a mob of ignorant savants. They are a very important American demographic. They are the very people who have been used by corporate America to create the very corporate state they find themselves so dissatisfied with. While Glen Beck tells them that they should dismantle government and place their bets on whatever comes next, we should be telling them to dismantle corporate government and rebuild it on the assumption that they can be the government. We the people can and should govern ourselves. There should be no such thing as big bad Washington, but rather Americans governing themselves based on their own best interests.

Glenn Beck is stealing our independent third party revolution and handing it over to the people who run Fox news, and as convoluted as it seems these are the same people who are in Washington. It takes a certain type of chameleon actor to pull something like this off, and Glenn Beck is just that man.

Glenn Beck demands much more of our attention not less of it. See for your self:


Watch CBS Videos Online

I take back everything I said. Here is our friend playing the part. I love myself some Story of Stuff and here he goes:



Very, very dangerous.

all around the light

it’s the nights when this overwhelming happiness bears down on me, crushing me under the weight of an inexplicable love, a love for every being on earth, a love so pure, i can feel its weight even while it elevates me beyond time or space or matter- in the blink of an eye all hope and happiness merge and blend with an infinite sadness, suddenly there you are, a mere cup filled and drained simultaneously, till the cup disappears and only a river remains- soft music plays, gentle steel strings plucked in time, a voice telling stories which resemble your own, it’s the nights like this when i know i am alive.

Photo by mourner

Away We Go

Another quick story of connections. I love Dave Eggers. I have read everything he has ever written, so when I found out that he wrote the screenplay for the film Away We Go, I knew I had to see it.



The film itself was a above average, but not perfect. I was expecting something that would change my life, instead I watched a movie that was mildly entertaining. No I take that back, it was really good. No, it was just good. I can't tell. I should write a better review, but I haven't got it in me tonight, so I will just say see this film, don't take it too seriously and enjoy yourself.

But the real reason I am writing this post is to share with you how I found Alexi Murdoch. The entire film was scored by this modern day Nick Drake. This soothingly perfect folksy guitar soundtrack transformed this film into something special.

I am listening to the few CD's I downloaded by Murdoch as I type these words, and even after one song, I can tell he is going to be something special. If you like Neil Halstead or Bon Iver check this artist out.



I am sure I will be writing much more about him in the coming days.