Monday Inspiration: INGRID!

Going to see Ingrid Michaelson tonight!! Live music just makes me feel mmmm mmmm good :-) and she puts on a heck of a show! In just one hour, I can shed my corporate skin and soak up some sweet sweet muzac!!

Mad Girl's Love Song

BY Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Insomniacs are Smarter!

But you don't have to take my word of it (in my best Lamar Burton voice)! According to a recent Psychology Today article, people who deprive their precious minds and bodies of shut eye are the true geniuses among us.

"Net of a large number of social and demographic factors, more intelligent children grow up to be more nocturnal as adults than less intelligent children. Compared to their less intelligent counterparts, more intelligent individuals go do bed later on weeknights" Published on May 9, 2010

Ah-HA!! To all of you who question my 1am emails and late night Facebook posts, read it and weep!

:-)

But there are some serious consequences that come with all that sleep deprivation...like morning crankiness and killer caffeine addiction. Check out Cristin O'keefe Aptowicz' hilarious poem - "Ode to My Morning Cup of Coffee"

"Ode to my morning cup of coffee -
I buy you every morning at the same place
They know me and have the cup ready
before I even approach the counter.
Some days the subway runs slow
and I don't have time to pick you up
We categorize this days as being BAD!
Life without you, coffee, isn't life at all
It's a terrible fog
A slow motion movie about the wind..."

Enjoy, my fellow night owls....I mean...geniuses:-)

Blogger Hates Me

...and somehow deleted my template. Apologies for the stark whiteness of the page for the past few days. We're back up with a new and improved template. Hope you like:-) I was getting a little tired of the old one anyway.

smooches!
sb

Memorial Day Wedding-Ness

There is nothing like a string of bad relationships to cure a hopeless romantic. It happened to me. I was jaded. I had become a bitter, cynical chica...then my beloved wedding season started! Months of helping my friends check out dresses, pick out colors, reminisce about when they first met their beaus culminated in a weekend of back to back wedding-ness around Memorial Day. I couldn't stop with the aaaw-ing:-) All of the white. All of the beauty...the pure, unadulterated smell of sweet love in the air. It was just want I needed.

Love is real, good people. Breathe deep and believe! Check out my stunning friend Kimba below:-)

love is real
it is not just in long distance commercials
or something that you thought you felt back in high school
so i will turn black and white,
become that horoscope you're reading
it predicts
that something good is on its way. -Kathy with a K's Song, as performed by Jason Mraz

Monday Inspiration!

Acoustic music always seems more sincere to me than the overly produced pieces...Love this clean take on Taio Cruz' chart topping "Break Your Heart"...and love Susan Justice!! Plus we have the same name...:-)

Hope this inspires you to re-imaging something in your life today! Enjoy!

The Fishies are Drowning in Oil

Like many of you, I have been sitting around absolutely helpless as a simple oil spill morphs into the largest environmental disaster this country (possibly the world) has ever seen. Honestly, there is not much to do but wait and see how quickly (if ever) they are able to stop the spillage and save the wildlife. It's a pretty bleak scene on the nightly news these days.

But, in situations like this, where there isn't a silver lining in sight, we artists must create. It is the only path to healing. Check out this awesome poem about the aftermath of the, now infamous BP spill, by Nordette Adams.

Oil
BY Nordette N. Adams

That bird don't know me.
If I met that bird
on a beach, it might christen me.
That bird might drop bombs like karma
on my head or peck my ankles with its long beak
if I cornered it, if I limited
flight.

Look at its eye!

Look at the tinge
of affliction managed.
A human closes fingers around a feathered neck,
siphons out a throat,
helping, hoping to help,
healing.

Humans.
We like making holes in the deep blue sea.
We like seeing illustrations of our compassion
in the aftermath of chaos.

We like fixing things that need to be fixed
because we like fixing problems like
our shortage of fossil
fuels.

That "bird is normally white with a yellow head"
but now it's slick. It's black,
but not cool like jazz trumpet grooves.
It's denigrated.more

Who is Nordette Adams? - an excerpt from the Examiner

Nordette Adams, who is the New Orleans Literature Examiner and also a poet and fiction writer, rarely directs readers to her own literary works; however, given the interest she's seen recently in her poem "Oil," she makes an exception today. This disaster has endangered wetlands, marine life and other wildlife, including brown pelicans, the Louisiana state bird. Adams's poem focuses on just one bird as it examines humanity's creation of more problems while seeking to solve one.

Photo by Les Stone, ibrrc

Pride

BY Yusef Komunyakaa

Crowned with a feathered helmet,
Not for disguise or courtship
Dance, he looks like something
Birthed by swallowing its tail,

Woven from a selfish design
& guesswork. As if masked
With a see-through caul
From breast to hipbone,

His cold breath silvers
Panes of his hilltop house
Into a double reflection.
Silhouetted almost into a woman,

He can beg forgiveness now
As he leans against a window
Overlooking Narcissus’s pond
Choked with a memory of lilies.

Yusef Komunyakaa, “Pride” from Talking Dirty To The Gods. Originally in Poetry (October 1999).

Another Reason I Wish I Lived in NYC

My 9-5 sometimes finds me in the "city that never sleeps." Sadly, it's never when I need to be there! And Page Meets Stage is a need. NEED, I tell you!! I've posted a few poems from the monthly event here, but didn't grasp the full concept until now. Check out this totally kick A description of the event below that I lifted from the site.

Page Meets Stage is a monthly poetry series that pairs more page-oriented, academic poets with poets who come from a more spoken-word or performative background. Both poets are on stage at the same time and read back and forth, poem for poem, sometimes answering each other and other times taking the conversation in a different direction.- Excerpt from the website

Loves it!!

They have one tonight, but I won't be back in the city until June. Booo! I'll have to be more strategic about future trips. If you're in the NYC area, please check it out. I love/ hate living vicariously through others, but I will, if I must:-)

Dropping Truth on your Dome!!

Remember the Last Booty Call on Earth?

"Even when he cannot remember his name
or even his own address,
my number clings to his mind –
distant but clear"

Yeah. That one. I've been getting a few questions on why and how that poem came to existence and thought it best to address it in the public webisphere:-) I was able to explain the poem's origin and much more to a friend a few months back and thought I might re-post my response here.

You can read the full poem after the jump.

enjoy!
sb

ps...I'm oh-so stoked that people are reading the blog and that it's making them think. ::Blessed::

The simple fact is that most women, myself included, have self esteem issues. Sometimes these are relatively small and interfere, only minimally, with our daily lives. But sometimes, our skewed sense of self is debilitating and makes us do things that our wiser selves would blush at...We go back to the men that hurt us because laying in the arms of even the wrong guy can feel like "love." We crave that false sense of uniqueness that even the wrong male attention brings...to remind us that we are not just another body roaming the planet. That, even if only for an hour or a day, we are somebody...desired and desirable.

And I say "we" because it has been me and at times still is. It's funny how, even with this sort of emotional clarity, I still fall for it. It's almost like I'm carrying my raw heart in my hands, waiting for someone to help me carry it the rest of the way...and before finding out if the guy is trustworthy or even simply worthy, I hand over my heart...all of my love...and pray that he will handle it with care. Most often, he does not. Whether it is because he cannot or chooses not to, I can never know for sure.

So there it is. It pretty much boils down to low self esteem and insecurity. On the bright side, I'm learning that the more I start believing that I deserve better, the less tolerant I become of anything less. Hence "the last booty call on earth" post. I'm also learning that I am lovely and lovable...internalizing that shit and making it my mantra...reminding myself that I was created for nothing less than true love, by a God that is so much more. -susanbaba

Monday Inspiration!

I recently started reading Julia Cameron's the Artist's Way and, among other things, she really stresses the importance of indulging your inner creative. The workbook asks that you do these "artist dates" once a week where you do something fun and random...but also recommends that you begin to surround yourself with things that stimulate and inspire you on a daily basis. So, I've decided to add a regular feature on the blog called MyInspration!! It will highlight sights, sounds, videos, etc. that truly stimulate the senses and give my creative brain a kick in the pants.

yipeeeeeeeeeee!!

First stop - AdoreDAILY

Random. Colorful. Thoughtful. Inspirational.

Enjoy:-)

Love is Like Sunshine

The first CD that I have ever purchased twice is the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Seriously, that CD is the truth...and, when I discovered that it was missing for good, I marched my little hiney to the store to correct the matter. That has been the only CD that has so moved me that I couldn't tolerate its absence, even for a day. That was nearly 6 years ago.

Now, the same feeling has waved over me again. I accidentally loaned out my new Andrea Gibson Yellowbird album to a boy I no longer see. Rookie Move!! (as my bf likes to say...haha)

Anyway...after kicking myself for forgetting to burn it to my computer, I decided to suck it up and order a new one. This chick is just that goooooood!!! Thanks to the beautiful people at CDBaby, I was able to download this mug instantly. Gotta love technology:)

And, since I'm in an Andrea mood, check out this beautiful piece below. It's from her 2006 CD When the Bough Breaks.

I would kiss you in the middle of the ocean
During a lightening storm
Because I would rather be left for dead
Than left wondering what thunder sounds like

I'm not looking for someone who can save me
Life rafts might keep you afloat
But they rarely get you anywhere
And I've got places I want to go
....
Love is like sunshine
Sometimes you have to get burned to know you were there
I wanna know that I'm here

::sigh:: Simply beautiful!

If You Can't Beat 'em, Prose 'em

Cincinnati is the absolute worst place for people with allergies. The city is situated in a deep valley, surrounded by hills on one side and the muddy Ohio River on the other side. The springs are rainy and full of pollen. Mix it all together and the city turns into a deep stew of sinus oppression. It's torture. Torture I tell you!! But, instead of crying all spring long, I've decided to celebrate the unavoidable:-)

Thanks to our 15th Poet Laureate Charles Simic for adding a bit of peotic flare to my view of these antagonists of allergy season...Enjoy an ode to Dandilions!


Dandelions
BY Charles Simic

We were fabulously lucky.
We became dandelions.
Before we were even born
We kept wishing to be dandelions.
Next we found ourselves traveling
Out of the great unknown.
We rode down in a train
Sixteen coaches long,
We sat prim and proper In our golden yellow dresses.
Others came as black widows,
Little monkeys, and red birds,
And of course many ants,
Snuggled together and looking glum.

Television is a Drug

My oh my! I generally watch very little tv...not because I'm one of those bourgeois intellectuals who pretends not to like it. No. I honestly don't have the time. My extracurriculars keep me more than occupied. If I'm lucky, I'll catch a quick clip of American Idol or Bridezilla, but those times are few and far between.

After watching "Television," though, I think I'm better off without it. Sheesh!! you have to watch the video below to understand what I mean. This visual interpretation of Todd Alcott's poem is positively brilliant!

Thanks to Brad for getting me hip to this great vid.

enjoy!

Television is a drug. from Beth Fulton on Vimeo.

DON'T Freak Out! You're at the Right Place:-)

Hello lovelies. As you've probably noticed, the Evolution of Paper has a bit of a new look :-) I just got tired of looking at this old mug and needed to shake things up a bit. Me likes!! It's bright, colorful, and just the pick-me-up I needed to hop right into spring. What do you think?

On a separate, but related note, I'm also committing to posting at least one piece that I have written every week. eeek!! That means you all have to return the love and share your comments. Deal? Deal!!

Have a happy and blessed weekend!!

sb