Ersatz Cafe Review

I actually have no idea what to post right now.

It's been a sweaty day wherein not much got done.

There has been much interacting with screens.

Right now, the offspring are throwing a ball in our small living area.

Earlier, I wrote something in a place I love to go to, so that was good.  This place, Prima (by Prune), has become my favorite writing place during the week--big open tables, hardly anyone there, good drink, decent although limited pastries, good music, a friendly bearded guy running the counter--he brought me water when I didn't even ask for it.

They clear all of this stuff for the morn/afternoon computer users.

Afterwards, S and I walked over to Soho to retrieve my bike.  On the way back we got some groceries and ran into an old friend who invited to dinner!

We really needed to be saved from ourselves.

raise me a dais of silk and down

i would be bringing you this if i could, julie.

here's a poem in honor of julie turley's birthday.

rosetti knows how to lay it on thick, and that's what i wish for julie's next year:  layers of silk & down, carvings of peacocks and feathered nests, golden grapes and thickly fruited trees--all things good and beautiful.

unthinkable abundance.

& i know she's not looking for the kind of love rosetti talks about here, but i wish that she will find that love of her inner artist she's been searching for.

i'm lucky to have her as a friend and a co-blogger, and i laugh and cry every time i read one of her soulful stories.  take some time to read what she's written this week in a fount of creativity.

A Birthday

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

My heart is like a singing bird

                  Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

                  Is come, my love is come to me

Late Thoughts on Fame

Tonight I read fiction at a performance space not far from the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I read two fiction slivers I wrote last summer during my birthday week. Writing them and the others that came that week was supposed to keep me from feeling anxious about my birthday, and I think it worked. On the bill tonight (the theme was collaboration), among others, were some women who I would have long admired and that I would even call famous,a cinematographer, who I know personally (and whose film she screened was unbelievable, amazing), and a performance artist/dancer/circus emcee, who is one of my personal heroes. (Other performances: a trapeze artist performing with a bearded singing drummer, the host and curator dancing with her friend in San Francisco via Skype, film, and more dance. I've posted the pics here.) It thrilled me to be sharing a stage with these women (much like it did to read with Lara in Dec of 2010), and it made me remember that I have long dreamed (since I was a kid, actually) for some kind of fame, which is odd, because I also am uncomfortable in the spotlight and can be annoyingly (I'm told) self-effacing. I've been wondering what fame would look like on me, and if it was something I'd enjoy. I do know that I loved reading my fiction into a microphone for an assembled audience of mostly strangers in an interesting venue (with an awesome deejay. The Modern Lovers were played during the intermission.) Also, speaking of Fame, it's the super duper famous David Bowie's birthday today. And it's also the one week anniversary of this blog--Thank you to the famous Lara--for your collaboration.