Summer Refueling

End-of-day trip to the library yesterday. Was looking to grab a copy of Jane Eyre on the main floor, but the only one available was part of a volume of selected works by the Bronte sisters, a tome weighing about 25 pounds. Not to judge reading pleasure by weight, certainly not, but this is summer. A 25-pound Bronte endeavor just doesn’t seem the thing, especially as I’m likely to be returning the book by bicycle.

So off to the MG/YA room to see about a copy there, and to meet up with my daughter, who had already perused the shelves, chosen two great books (The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, and Each Little Bird That Sings, by Deborah Wiles), and was enjoying some teen-celebrity news from the magazine rack.

No Jane Eyre, but that turned out to be fine, as I came across a couple of books I’ve been wanting to read and are good matches for the season: Mitali Perkins’ Monsoon Summer and E.L. Konigsburg’s The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place.

Of course, no trip to the library is complete without a stop in the children’s section, the poetry area in particular. Love just plucking from the shelves. Yesterday’s selections: Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes, and A Writing Kind of Day: Poems for Young Poets by Ralph Fletcher, illustrated by April Ward. I may not be young exactly, but am sure to be inspired.

Ah, books. What are you reading this week?

Bossy Brains

Funny what comes around on my iPod when I hit shuffle. Yesterday it was Laurie Anderson’s song “Baby Doll,” which I haven’t heard in a long while but which felt timely (the song is from the album Strange Angels, issued in 1989). Anyone relate to these lyrics?

I don’t know about your brain—
but mine is really bossy
I come home from a day on the golf course
and I find all these messages
scribbled on wrinkled up scraps of paper
And they say thing like:
Why don’t you get a real job?
Or: You and what army?
Or: Get a horse.
And then I hear this voice
comin from the back of my head Uh huh
(Whoa-ho) Yep! It’s my brain again
And when my brain talks to me, he says:

Take me out to the ballgame
Take me out to the park

See the rest of the lyrics here.

Hear a sample of the song here or here.

Laurie Anderson has a new album out, Homeland, which I haven’t listened to properly yet, but in looking for a clip of the older song “Baby Doll,” I saw this interview on the making of the new album. Her creative process sounds intense! In the clip (below), she talks about constructing the album’s songs from a million sound files. Here’s where the interview resonates with those of us with good support networks: Anderson says the process got to be “too daunting and lonely,” but her husband, musician Lou Reed, said he’d sit with her until she finished it. Says Reed, “Sometimes it’s useful to have somebody else come in, who loves and admires what you’re working on but maybe has a little bit of distance … someone who you can trust, who’s on your side … to help you get where you want to go with the thing.”

Evening

The breeze in the backyard invited me to take a few moments and notice summer.