you are the person you are

advice from how to think about work from toni morrison (through her father), via laura olin’s cup of ambition newsletter:

That was what he said. This was what I heard:

1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.

2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you.

3. Your real life is with us, your family.

4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.

“Perhaps he understood that what I wanted was a solution to the job, not an escape from it.”

atlantic city

and always nina

recommendations from taylor mac’s creative independent interview:

And always Nina Simone. Always Nina.

That video of her doing “Feelings”? Oh god, it’s so good. That cheesy song and she makes it just the most profound thing ever. And investing all of her heart and she’s not judging it. That’s the thing I love about it that I wish artists and audiences would understand more—the profundity isn’t the job of the writer, the profundity is the job of the audience and the performer. She didn’t judge the material, she didn’t expect the material to change for her, she changed for the material. She understood that somebody had to go through some serious heartbreak to write a song that suggests that they want to live without feelings. She went hunting for the profundity instead of expecting the profundity to be fed to her. That’s what I think audiences don’t understand about theater. They’ve been trained to expect it to be handed to them instead of understanding that they have come to do the work and to be collaborators. That’s what we try to do with 24 Decades—to inspire people to engage in a perpetual consideration as opposed to simple decision making of “I like it, I dislike it.”

Aren’t we all just like young kids though??

oh man LIFE what is it? right after hearing that david berman passed away, found out that an old acquaintance has terrible cancer. more than an acquaintance — a pal i got to know right before i left portland, but then we lost touch. it feels like such a long time ago, almost blurry.  how do you keep up with everyone? everyone who has a spark, how to keep them all close or at least in your orbit (maybe this is what facebook does well?). and why is time so slow but also so fast? it’s slow and fast and terrible.

as alexa said, “Aren’t we all just like young kids though??”

something’s added to the air

to do better

https://www.instagram.com/p/B04WFhcApC0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

oh man no. american water is one of my all-time favorites. just read this july interview with him from the ringer, where it felt clear his struggle was ongoing:

We finished talking after the label office had closed but before the sun had gone down. David wouldn’t be going out that night. He had songs to re-learn, lyrics to remember, only 39 days until rehearsals. Just more than a month before he will try out this new life to see how it feels. He’s really going to try, to make and honor new connections with people. To do better.

two little peepers

sometimes it is pretty here

just a cool saturday night

listening to dorothy ashby, sipping a tiny glass of game of thrones chardonnay (not terrible, tbh), thinking about how easy it is to lose yourself in another person (although is there a self to lose?) (what would adam phillips say?), wearing sweatpants, reading jia tolentino’s creative independent interview AND her grub street diet (“At noon I went to Cobble Hill to go to a barre class. I have conflicting feelings about barre, but I do not have conflicting feelings about Bien Cuit, which I stopped by afterwards for an iced matcha latte”). going to watch captain marvel later with ross, maybe read a short shory and alexa’s essay, eat dessert…a sweet saturday night.

UPDATE: captain marvel, actually pretty terrible

new style icon?

Redd Foxx in front of the Redd Foxx Hair Salon in Los Angeles in an undated photograph. Credit: Isaac Sutton/Johnson Publishing Company, courtesy of the NY Times and Ebony’s photo archives.