Author: Elizabeth Ü

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Te reo Māori lesson 1: it’s not pronounced “may-OR-ee”

Not into a long read? Click here (and then on the little speaker icon) to listen to a Māori speaker pronounce the word Māori correctly.

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It feels important to preface this essay by saying that as inquisitive as I have been since moving here, I still have a very limited understanding of the complex and interwoven effects of colonization, the Waitangi Treaty, race relations, and increasing rates of immigration on the many different people who live here in New Zealand. I share what little I’ve gathered below not out of any sense of authority, but out a belief that comparing notes and having open conversations about these issues is one way to pay respect to the people who were here before I arrived.

The history of colonization here in New Zealand Aotearoa included, as it did in so many places, a prohibition on the local Māori language (also known as te reo Māori, which translates to “the Māori language”), complete with punishments for those who dared to speak it. Te reo Māori might have disappeared completely had it not been for the language revival efforts of Māori leaders in the eighties.

Knowing this, and as someone who fully inhabits the world of words / language / metaphor, I’d like to do justice to te reo Māori as a way to honor the culture and the people who lived the longest in this place I now call home. And so I have very much appreciated the opportunity to pick up a bit of this language at work, and in particular, from my boss Pat, a proud Māori who regularly mixes Māori words in with English when he speaks.

At first, our relationship around te reo Māori consisted of him relentlessly correcting my attempts at proper pronunciation. Continue reading “Te reo Māori lesson 1: it’s not pronounced “may-OR-ee””

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Hey Ya, Hey Ya

Someone at work just shared this Hey Ya cover, and I’m kind of blown away by the sound mix. It’s just so… vast.

I’d never heard of KAMAU so did a bit of poking around; in addition to discovering that he’s Canadian, I found his observations about this song via SoundCloud:

Hey Ya is the epitome of absolute duality between the energy and content within one song. It’s, sonically, the happiest song, with the saddest content that we can all relate to, a breaking heart…a sinking romance. Andre 3000, almost prophetically, foresees the fact that nobody will pay attention or even notice that he’s in pain “Yall don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance.”

Continue reading “Hey Ya, Hey Ya”

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Clear as mud: Black Willow, Mississippi Mud, and FBI informants

LomaScott very rarely plays songs more than once in a sitting, so the fact that we’ve now listened to Loma‘s Black Willow six times in a row is no small endorsement. I agree: it’s infectiously beautiful, darkly haunting, the lyrics are provocative… definitely worth playing over and over, and there’s something about the album cover art, too.

I finally decided to look for a video and Lo, not only does one exist, it’s in a similar vein as the ones I have posted twice before:

And the plot thickens! The video’s first comment on YouTube is from (actor, producer, and writer) Daniel Martine, who points out that the song sounds eerily similar to a song called “Mississippi Mud,” a Black Blood and the Chocolate Pickles song with a grim history:

In his comment to the Black Willow video, Daniel continues:

The story is about the death of black students who protesting [sic] at Jackson State in Mississippi in ’70. Not long after Kent State shootings happened. But it didn’t get the press of Kent State, because they were black students.

I can google up no evidence that Loma may have meant Black Willow to be a straight up homage to the song and/or a rememberance of the events that took place at Jackson State, not to mention the inequality of the response thereafter compared to shootings of white students. But I could understand that the band could have gone there Continue reading “Clear as mud: Black Willow, Mississippi Mud, and FBI informants”

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Creativity = (Stock and Flow) + (Morning Pages)

I’ve been digging Austin Kleon’s work lately. There is so much excellent fodder in both Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!, and I highly suggest subscribing to his e-newsletters for a regular dose of even more goodies.

The concept he stole-then-shows that intrigues me the most is that of Stock and Flow:

Stock&Flow
A page out of Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered; I stole this image from his blog.

Being the nerd that I am, I pored over the original Robin Sloan Stock and Flow article he references, along with its excellent comment thread, which then led me to Continue reading “Creativity = (Stock and Flow) + (Morning Pages)”

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Life is Magic, Where is My Rabbit?

I’ve been playing Fraser Ross nonstop the last couple days. Scott figured out that he’ll be playing a house concert in our old neighborhood next week AND there were still tickets available, so I’m very excited about that.

The whole album is rich and melancholic and lovely and there are more upbeat, fun moments as well, which remind me a bit of parts of the Farallons’ Outer Sun Sets EP.

If you want a quick taster, here’s one that makes me want to jump around:

 

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Watch Cold War on a big screen

ColdWar Though we missed most of the New Zealand International Film Festival because of our trip to Maine, we did catch Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War on closing night. I loved it even more than Ida (every shot in both is composed like a photograph I’d want to spend time in front of at a museum) because of the music. Highly recommend you see these in a theater if you can!

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Book review: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

OliveKitteridge

We were going to be visiting Scott’s family in Maine and I’d never been there before, so I wanted to read something that was set in that state; Scott did a bit of research and suggested Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. Extra points for a Maine novel written by a Maine author!

This book reminded me of:

I kept thinking back to Anne Tyler (Ladder of Years especially, not that I can remember a single detail other than how the book made me feel) and Alice Munro’s Still Life in terms of the female character’s experiences. Alice Munro again because the novel is a collection of short stories that could very well stand on their own. And Wendell Berry because of Strout’s choice to illuminate one small town through the eyes of several very different inhabitants and their very different stories… though to be fair, I think Strout covers a lot more ground in terms of humanizing a wider range of characters and situations.

This book got me thinking about:

…the many different ways aging relationships can go.
Apparently I had unconsciously assumed a very narrow spectrum of feelings and/or options available to people that had been in a relationship for decades, because I was very pleasantly surprised by the number of representations in this book.

…the fraught nature of parent/child relationships.
So many of the characters and scenarios reminded me of just-slightly-more-extreme versions of people and relationships in my own life Continue reading “Book review: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout”

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I want to talk to someone about Wendell Berry

LoadingBrushI love Wendell Berry. I think I’ve read more of his books than any other author’s. I’ve had the honor of seeing him speak on three different occasions. When he came and spoke to a rapt crowd at a packed barn in my (then) small town, I was thrilled that he signed my post-it-note-laden, cover-is-delaminating, I-recommend-it-to-everyone-who-expresses-an-interest copy of The Art of the Commonplace. I have had nothing but massive respect for the man and (most of) what he stands for.

With that context in mind, it kills me to admit any crack in my admiration for Mr. Berry. Now that I’ve started examining that crack, however, I’m realizing that I’ve had a few misgivings all along. This has sparked a familiar sort of grief: the grief that comes from removing someone from a pedestal I had them on.

In the first essay in The Art of Loading Brush (Counterpoint, 2017), “The Thought of Limits in a Prodigal Age,” Mr. Berry repeatedly compares screen addiction to drug addiction, but worse “because it wears the aura of technological progress and social approval.” Continue reading “I want to talk to someone about Wendell Berry”

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My favorite mindfulness app is Pocket (or: how to stay focused AND always have excellent reading material on your person)

Insight Timer is my first recommendation when people ask me about meditation or mindfulness apps, but it’s not actually the one I use most frequently. When it comes to actively strengthening the muscles of focus and attention, Pocket — yes, the app that lets you save articles and videos from the web to check out later — is my favorite.

Pocket App

What is mindfulness? Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John writes:

Mindfulness is becoming aware of the distractions in our daily lives, in our minds and hearts.

When we become aware of our distractions we are empowered to make a choice. We can either indulge in our distractions or come back to the task that we were initially focused on.

Developing mindfulness in our daily lives allows us to function at our full potential.

Meditation is the most widely-recognized tool for cultivating mindfulness. I’ve been meditating more-and-less regularly since 2009, and this practice has definitely helped me become more aware of my well-worn thought patterns, knee-jerk reactions, and compulsive behaviors… ever-so-gradually opening up more choice in terms of how I respond to the the things that life brings my way.

Surprisingly, using the Pocket app has also significantly deepened my awareness of the things that distract me, and given me a greater ability to focus… and not only while I’m browsing the internet.

I realize this sounds absurd, so before I continue, consider the following scenarios: Continue reading “My favorite mindfulness app is Pocket (or: how to stay focused AND always have excellent reading material on your person)”

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Aimless Love: a poem by Billy Collins

Aimless Love
by Billy Collins

This morning as I walked along the lake shore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door—
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor—
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

Original source: Billy Collins, Nine Horses, Pan Macmillan and Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003, accessed via Pan Macmillan on 9 August 2018. Continue reading “Aimless Love: a poem by Billy Collins”