the most reckless of abandon

It feels so much like summer right now. And I am so in the mood for Thao. Thao, once known as Thao Nguyen, and sometimes combined with The Get Down Stay Down, is a folk singer-songwriter with the Kill Rock Stars label. She is now based in San Francisco, but was originally from Virginia, and I think you can hear hints of country influence. I crave her music for driving around on a sunny day. Her voice is sort of startlingly clear coming out of a such a little body.


I like how this one looks like one of those puzzles with the pieces you slide around. (Those things are impossible.)

There is an alternate version with claymation people made out of ice cream.

lovelovelove



Here's a poem I wrote for Ms. Steele's class last week about an underrated pleasure.


To the Open Road

Driving with the windows down
Golden strands of heat fling past
the open frames of the windows.
It’s just me now, a summer watercolor
in linen off-whites,
feeling the wheel beneath my palm—
the firmest, freest thing in the world.
Sometimes I yearn for a rural sky,
for open spaces, room for heartbeats and muscles.
Driving a truck up a narrow road nestled between green hills,
I am a red reminder to these city folk
—in slick wax and glass
who clutch coffee and cellphones—
that something open still exists.
I feel the lurch of the engine as I speed around a curve,
wanting almost to
point the wheels and press down—
if just for the seconds of
weightlessness rushing in
before drowning under twisted metal;
if just for the intense smile of the sun
blowing raucous through my airborne hair;
I realize that there are no buckled-in voices to object
or agree.
The thought whistles past
as my mind stretches out like fabric,
a sheet on a breezy clothesline,
a canvas sail on the bay.
To the Open Road:
I know you are tired of banjo string croons and motel lullabies,
this is only a note of gratitude,
for being infinity,
for being a lover with arms wide and long.

Fear and Convenience
Chivalry
Geography