Live In Yourself.

Words for Monday, courtesy of Mina Loy: "Forget that you live in houses, that you may live in yourself."

A few recommended reads for the week:
-Exquisite dirt.
-My most recent interview for Sight Unseen, with Ladies & Gentlemen Studio.
-Beautiful words from Ai Bihr, via Apiece Apart: "In Japanese we say, ‘ashita wa asu no kaze ga huku’—tomorrow a new wind blows. Tomorrow is a new day."

Photos via my Instagram.

Arriving / Departing.

"The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time." David Bowie

 See also: Bowie's 100 Favorite Books / "'What' is my motto."

 Photo by Lynn Goldsmith.

Quarters-of-a-Second.

I'm in Detroit for the weekend, exploring a new city for a few days before summer comes to a close. Any and all recommendations, if you have them, are more than welcome! In the meantime, I thought I'd share a blurb from an essay by Sheila Heti called "Stealing Glances," which I found courtesy of Cass Marketos, and which describes the anxieties we sometimes feel about making eye contact (and what she calls "quarter-of-a-second-long relationships") with strangers on the street.

We are naturally curious about other people. From the start, as babies, we are drawn to the eyes of our parents. Imagine a cat, neurotically trying not to look directly at a passing cat. We need eye-to-eye contact. We want to see each others’ faces. It is why we take and keep photographs, watch television, hang portraits in our homes. There is something terrible about looking at each other, only to have reflected back our own (and the other person’s) thwarted, repressed desire to look. 

Somewhere we have failed magnificently. Our culture is such that a greater value even than freedom is productivity, utility. I was having a conversation with a friend about leisure, and she was saying how much she enjoys doing nothing, just wandering aimlessly around her house, thinking. “I find it so productive,” she decided. Even an activity we enjoy precisely because it is not about production we must ultimately justify by way of its productivity. This being the situation we find ourselves in, how can we ever justify to ourselves or to each other the value of those most fleeting relationships, lasting at most two seconds long, with a stream of people we will never see again? What is the utility of the quarter-of-a-second-long relationship? 

Find the rest of the esaay, here — it's beautiful. Have a wonderful weekend! Photo by Emily Johnston.

One for the Books.

Today: lightheartedness before the weekend in the form of Literalogue, a postcard and print series designed to help curious readers discover books they'll love. The collection showcases five centuries' worth of great writers, along with memorable quotes, facts, and handy lists of similar authors for those in search of their next great read. Lastly — in a strange and charming twist — the authors are grouped by literary movement according to color-coded noses: orange for the Naturalists, purple for the Aesthetics, lime green for the Beat Generation.

See more (and back the project) on Kickstarter.

Also, for fellow writers out there, I loved this list of "most important" advice from famous authors. This gem from Murakami stands out in particular: "Every time you write, ask yourself: Could this scene take place in a hot-air balloon? If the answer is yes, then it probably should.”

Have a wonderful weekend.

Stitch Therapy.

This hand-sewn book by artist Emma Parker stopped me in my tracks this morning. Its embroidered pages depict some of the more difficult emotions we experience in childhood: rejected, corrected, excluded. Its photos, transferred to cloth, are faded and grainy; its haphazard red threading brings to mind the ink of a teacher's pen.

Says Emma of her tools of choice: "I work frequently with thread and cloth as I love the metaphors they offer. Textile-related words and phrases such as 'unraveling,' 'knitted brows,' 'patch up,' 'hanging on by a thread' and 'repair' come to mind when describing aspects of the human psyche." She writes, "Art making is a ritual, maybe a little 'magic' even...[through art] I feel that there is the potential to change poison into medicine."

Find more of Emma Parker's work on her website and blog, Stitch Therapy.

See also: Daré all a Lucé, a series featuring vintage photos poked full of holes to disarmingly magical effect. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Grounded in Stillness.

Words for the weekend, from Pico Iyer's TED book The Art of Stillness (which was the first book I read this year, and one of the most memorable): "At some point, all the horizontal trips in the world stop compensating for the need to go deep, into somewhere challenging and unexpected; movement makes most sense when grounded in stillness. In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention."

--

Wishing you a very happy holiday weekend. I'll be back next week with new Non-Career Advice, Recommended Reading, and a POV — thanks so much, in the meantime, for your patience and support as I've shifted gears here a bit. I'm now posting 2-3 times per week instead of five in an effort to be more thoughtful about the material I'm sharing (and to accommodate what's become a busier work schedule) — it's an evolving adventure, and I'm so grateful to have you along on it with me. Thank you so much, as always, for reading!

Photo by Max Wanger.

Primary Things.

For Friday: hypnotic words from Eileen Myles (whose book The Importance of Being Iceland is currently sitting on my windowsill), accompanied by equally mesmerizing images from Julia Robbs (whose collages for #the100dayproject have been the highlight of my Instagram feed these days).

Though on the boat, I write, I shoot. On the boat, let's face it, I'm held. In its waves, its vagueness, in its water. I see only water. Water doesn't answer. No land ahead. Just water. So my dilemma shrinks to secondary and abstract. How will I live. I want to stay in this primary thing that moves. (Thanks, Cassie.)

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, wherever you may be. Happy May!

Days to Seize.

Words for the weekend from poet Billy Collins, who delivered them as part of a speech to the graduates of Connecticut College in 2008:

"In the wake of the terrorist arracks on September 11th, many people, especially in New York City, spoke of how the event prompted them to make adjustments in their personal lives, to speed things up. An engaged couple who had planned to marry the following year decided to get married the following week. Plans that had been put off jumped to the tops of people’s lists. Without knowing it, people were simply following the advice that poetry has been delivering since the Roman poet Horace wrote the words carpe diem quam minimum credula postero — seize the day and trust little in the future – in the first century before Christ. Some of us require a catastrophic experience to remind us that we are indeed alive. Some need major surgery to realize that life is precious. Some have to go through a windshield to see that today is all we are given. Others know this from their reading of poetry—a somewhat less traumatic experience.

And the corollary to carpe diem — a vein that runs deeply through the rock of poetry – is gratitude, gratitude for simply being alive, for having a day to seize. The taking of breath, the beating of the heart. Gratitude for the natural world around us — the massing clouds, the white ibis by the shore. In Barcelona a poetry competition is held every year. There are three prizes:. The third prize is a rose made of silver, the second prize is a golden rose, and the first prize: a rose. A real rose. The flower itself. Think of that the next time the term 'priorities' comes up."

Find the speech in its entirety, here, and have a wonderful weekend. (Next week: non-career advice continues, a new POV on Friday.) Photo by Emily Johnston.

Were / Are / Will Be.

I knew I wanted to share a passage from this Andrew Solomon speech the moment I read its first paragraph (thanks very much to Kathy Lee for passing it my way). It's called "The Middle of Things: Advice for Young Writers," but I think it's relevant to anyone following a creative path. Below, my favorite bit.

Life is most transfixing when you are awake to diversity, not only of ethnicity, ability, gender, belief, and sexuality but also of age and experience. The worst mistake anyone can make is to perceive anyone else as lesser. The deeper you look into other souls  — and writing is primarily an exercise in doing just that — the clearer people's inherent dignity becomes. So I would like to be young again — for the obvious dermatological advantages, and because I would like to recapture who I was before the clutter of experience made me a bit more sagacious and exhausted. What I'd really like, in fact, is to be young and middle-aged, and perhaps even very old, all at the same time — and to be dark- and fair-skinned, deaf and hearing, gay and straight, male and female. I can't do that in life, but I can do it in writing, and so can you. Never forget that the truest luxury is imagination, and that being a writer gives you the leeway to exploit all of the imagination's curious intricacies, to be what you were, what you are, what you will be, and what everyone else is or was or will be, too.

I love that so much. Read the full speech at The New Yorker, and have a lovely weekend. (Also, thank you for being understanding of my erratic posting lately — will be back on track soon!)

Photos by Emily Johnston, whose spectacular new work can be found here.

Ordinary/Alive.

I'll have a POV for you next week (I promise), but while I sort out the wrinkles, I thought I'd share a few words from William Martin, which I spotted here and loved.

Photos by Max Wanger.

"Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself."

Yes. Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Recommended Reading / 19.

Every Monday, words to start the week. 

This week: Architecture for Dogs, a collection of 13 structures designed by well-known architects with specific canine breeds in mind. The sheep-like puff pictured above was the brainchild of Kazuyo Sejima (who designed New York's New Museum), and is meant to mirror the bichon frise, "with its fascinating fur, but one size larger." The dachshund's structure on the other hand, was designed by Tokyo's Atelier Bow-Wow to help short-legged dogs see eye-to-eye (literally) with their owners. Best of all, dog lovers can download blueprints to recreate each design at home (though beware: difficulty levels are high). Photos by Hiroshi Yoda.

Three more, just because:
-"Twitter-sized fiction." (Thanks, Bekka.)
-A haiku written by a very clever nine-year-old. (Thanks, Miss Moss.)
-My elementary school teachers would make us start a sentence over if we used the word "like" (as in, "she was like, I'm telling!"). But linguists say the word has become "one of our language's most popular methods of talking about talking" — and it's not going anywhere.

Also, a couple of recent posts for Conde Nast Traveler: best books about Italy, and favorite under-the-radar bakeries in New York City. I'd love to visit this one.

More recommended reading, here. Have a happy Monday!

Recommended Reading / 18.

Every Monday, words to start the week. 

This week: a post from Winesburg, Ohio, a blog I came across a few weeks ago, the archives of which I devoured in nearly one sitting.  In this entry, dated December 7, writer Cassie Marketos (who also happens to be a former college classmate), tries to recount the books she's read over the course of many travels. There's Colin Thubron's Behind the Wall, whose pages fell out all over the beach in Eastern Thailand; Donna Tartt's The Secret History, finished on the prow of a boat; a paperback with a title she can't remember, that she traded for a sandwich in Spain.

I love this because Cassie's words are beautiful (and so are her images), but I also love it just for the idea. In winter, when the cold keeps me confined to a seven-block radius — and non-work-related reading is often limited to what I can manage in the ten minutes before sleep —  it makes me want to read more, travel more, trade more, move more. See for yourself, here.  (And, please, if you have any book recommendations of your own to share, do!)

Three more, just because:
-The best hugs on film.
-A table with deer's legs (and a bench inspired by a pretzel).
-Interesting: "The unique trait of Sapiens is our ability to create and believe fiction. All other animals use their communication system to describe reality. We use our communication system to create new realities. Of course not all fictions are shared by all humans, but at least one has become universal in our world, and this is money. Dollar bills have absolutely no value except in our collective imagination, but everybody believes in the dollar bill."

More recommended reading, here. Stay safe and warm in the storm tonight, fellow East Coasters.

Not Poems, But Patterns.

Hello from Montreal, where I've spent the past three days eating French fries in hot gravy, reading (this, currently), and standing ankle-deep in snow. I've been meaning to post a POV or Weekend Note since yesterday, but amid the distractions of a city so lovely that even a 10-degree day can't mask its charms, I've managed to produce only a few scatter-brained sentences. (Another lesson learned as a writer: sometimes you just can't force it.)

So I thought I'd share words by someone else — words that I stumbled on recently and loved. They're from Eileen Myles's The Importance of Being Iceland: "I hope you all find yourselves sleeping with someone you love, maybe not all of the time, but a lot of the time. The touch of a foot in the night is sincere. I hope you like your work, I hope there's mystery and poetry in your life — not even poems, but patterns. I hope you can see them. Often those patterns will wake you up, and you will know that you are alive, again and again."

See you Monday.

Recommended Reading / 17.

Every Monday (or in this case, Tuesday), words to start the week. 

This week, from Paul Cronin's Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed: Words of wisdom from the filmmaker himself, including "develop your own voice," "carry bolt cutters everywhere," "thwart institutional cowardice," and, best of all, "get used to the bear behind you." See the full list at Kottke, here.

A few more, just because:
-Tilt-shift paintings. (Thanks, Dad.)
-New York City from a height, in winter and summer.
-Superheroes in solitude and animals mid-sneeze.
-"I am rooted, but I flow."

More recommended reading, here. Photographs by Lena Herzog.

Let Me Librarian That.

I've always been a fan of accidental poetry — from Times-based haiku to verse conjured by Google autocomplete — and so I love these shots from the New York Public Library's Instagram, which show the often oddly poetic questions asked of librarians over time. Follow along on the NYPL feed, here, and look for the hashtag #letmelibrarianthatforyou. The first one below says it all.

See also: non-accidental poetry in seashells and the spines of books.

Recommended Reading / 16.

Every Monday, words to start the week.

This week, from Joan Didion's 1975 commencement speech at UC Riverside: "I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it."

A few more, just because:
-Wild deer and a Brazilian cockatiel named Jack.
-Honey bourbon apple cider.
-Words from Pema Chödrön: "Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know."

-And lastly, here's an interview I did for a blog called Happy and Heartworking, which is about "finding out who we are and doing it on purpose."

More recommended reading, here. Have a wonderful Monday! Photos by Max Wanger.

Recommended Reading / 15.

Every Monday, words to start the week.

This week, from Fast Company: a glimpse into the life of "the world's busiest Santa," who appears at up to 200 parties in just over three weeks during the holiday season, whose beard and belly are au natural, and whose name is, in fact, Santa. Says the in-demand Saint: "There are times when I get tired because I just feel weak and old. But I look forward to this one month all year long and that's how I know I should still be doing it, even on days when I'm weary." Read all about it, here.

A handful more, just because:
-First sketches of iconic designs.
-The world's most spectacular bike path is paved with stars.
-For those prone to cold and flu: immunity soup, and a homemade cough suppressant laced with ginger, honey, and black pepper.
-Jaw-dropping words from Nayyirah Waheed: "I want to live so densely. lush. and slow in the next few years, that a year becomes ten years, and my past becomes only a page in the book of my life."

More recommended reading, here. Have a happy Monday — and thank you for your patience with my less-frequent posting these days. Besides being quite a bit busier than usual (and embracing the happy hubbub of the holidays), I'm also trying to be more intentional about what I post here.  If something's not ready, or not quite right, I've chosen to hold off —  more time and thought, I figure, means better material in the end. Thank you so much for understanding and for reading. It's such a pleasure, as always, sharing this space with you. Wishing you a wonderful week.

Recommended Reading / 14.

Every Monday, words to start the week.

This week, from Hotel Club: illustrated idioms from around the globe (plus, explanations as to what they mean). "The midday demon" may be my favorite; however, I also love that to the Finnish, having a frog emerge from someone's mouth means that he or she has said something inappropriate, and that in Spanish, the act of rejecting a potential partner is referred to as "giving pumpkins" (the squash was once considered a libido killer). Find the full list of ten, here.

Three more links, just because:
-Underground gifs.
-Adventurers of the year.
-Five New York City families share their favorite holiday meals (the Jewish-Japanese Christmas hits especially close to home).

More recommended reading, here. Happy Monday!

Recommended Reading / 12.

Every Monday, words to start the week.

This week: a beautiful blog post by Sam Shorey on laying claim to the cities we live in (and the fear of loving a new place after experiencing the pain of leaving the last). I've always felt an urge to hang on to the cities I've called home, and though I live in Brooklyn currently, I find myself missing it every now and then, as if I've already left. In her post, Sam — who recently moved from Amherst to Seattle — wonders: how long can you live in a place before you say you're from there? Read more on Ashore — one of my longtime favorites — here. 

A handful more, just because:

-The first-ever weather forecast. 
-Awful Library Books, including Practical Muskrat Raising, Be Bold With Bananas, and Help, Lord — The Devil Wants Me Fat. (Thanks, Messy Nessy Chic.)
-Pinning Pablo Neruda like crazy: boom, boom, boom.

Also, a few posts I've done elsewhere:
-Beautiful NYC shop interiors.
-Off-beat gifts and unusual wrapping paper finds.
-Global comfort foods (and how to make them).
-The beginning of an ongoing destination-based book series.

More recommended reading, here. Happy Monday!

Weekend Note / 03.

Weekend notes are short-form POVs.

One night this summer, long before I knew of Marie Kondo and her philosophies on keeping a tidy home, I did a thorough purge of my apartment. I discarded anything I no longer found useful, beautiful, or, for one reason or another, didn't feel like me. This included a dress festooned with navy blue sequins; blank calendars from 2011, 2012, 2013; a high school gym shirt. It had occurred to me not long before that I might not stay in New York — or this apartment — forever, and suddenly, all of these things felt like weight, too cumbersome to carry. My parents had done this recently, before downsizing to a smaller home this summer. They shocked my brother and me with their ability to let go of possessions we'd carried with us for decades, over the course of many moves. Even the artwork we'd done as children was carefully photographed, saved to a hard drive, and then thrown away. "We have the memories," they said. "That's all we need."