Nights were spotted then, too, and longer:
In our living room linoleum,
digesting an apple in the middle of an
earthquake, I bounced towards the radiator, off walls stained
yellow from the bug spray, and the skeletons of
countless unaccountable cockroaches
veiled and very dead on the floor. I was laughing: you, looking at me petrified, put down the phone.

America has no stains or cockroaches. America is white as a plastic bag.
When you call, my iPhone sets off earthquakes in my coat pockets.

Nights are spotted here, too, and longer:
In new cities, dreaming of old apartments,
Never look back.

(This is pretty old, 2009 maybe?)

photo by N.V.

If he could
he would tell her how highways at night are like roses—
white roses facing east and red roses facing west.

He might move on to a metaphor–
about how her face is a page he’s been longing to turn,
or her gaze a blanket too beautiful
to count stars under (that is his way).
And when things got slow, he could
lift her up with something strange, or sweet–
like did she know that the cappuccino
she is sipping slowly under the awning
gets its name from the hooded frocks of the Franciscan friars?
(Those were a similar shade of brown
as the drink, and the deep dark of her eyes.)

Where others shut themselves, he opens;
he is like newly-bottled wine,
a coastal Pinot Noir, with a hint of raspberry lingering
in the aftertaste of simmered citrus–
too young, too sweet
for this year.
He will spend his nights in quiet rooms,
bent over clicking ice to print fresh rings over old poetry,
wishing, in the words of Ira Gershwin
or Lorenz Hart,
that his romance didn’t need a thing to start
but her and conversation over coffee.

I am not like this.
I think of ordinary things, like chocolate labs and laundry on a Thursday.
I have never read Keats or Wordsworth
or Joyce’s Portrait;
I will not write you sonnets
or sketch your silhouette on an evening train.
And when you laugh and say,
“You know so many words!”
I will not tell you it’s because you are a butterfly;
(it makes no sense, you won’t get it)
even though I see how with each time
your name cascades down my throat
it melts me, like the syllables in far-fal-la–
(which is Italian for butterfly,
and the most beautiful word I know).

No, love is a simple thing,
as commonplace as socks or bad weather.
It is the blueprint
of a house before that is even built,
where nothing can be lost in its dark corners
or laced beneath the wings of its patterned wallpaper;
(after all I should not wish to misplace myself
in the mere impossibility of you).

So, I got you some highways. Care for a monk?

(July 16, 2008)

Happy New Year!!

Nina

One.

On the way home from school
I told you I’d read in a book
that an octopus has three hearts.

it was Wednesday
and you were mad because I had thrown stones
at the schoolyard blackbirds
with some of the other boys. So you swore silence
as we, two fireflies in the carpool lane
pushed through an hour of lilac
towards a gorgonzola moon.

these things I learned from you:
never light a candle with your last match.
make sure you know what hands really mean
before you use them.

Two.

as a child it surprised me to learn
that there are things smaller than dust.

there are things irrevocable and
lost upon the stone-age of roses:
things lost upon the dark interval
between the fire and
the thin layer of black ice
to which we so effortlessly return.

it is light that feeds our world, not stone.
light that lends flight to birds, light that belies
the stark beauty of our biology;
light that fills our hands
with light.

until it does not matter
if we go from dust to ashes, or the other way around;
the wind picks up whatever little it can carry.

Three.

These things I learned from you:
your blue curtains and the dark rain
speckled with dark birds.
your bed, un lit
by the afternoon sun
cascading from the casement windows.
it takes
three hearts
to breathe.

and it reminded me of a morning, once
in the heart of Grand Central station
when I passed a woman
busking in the cradle of marble,
and I could not understand

how you, my lark, so effortlessly sing
while we, with our broken bags
silence everything but our phones.

Four.

The room still breathes with the smoke of you.
of fresh laundry or the book you left open,
your water-lilly hands, the agents of unfolding
struck as a match against the skeleton of night.

these days we are the preferred members of our own private darkness
shy birds, unfeathering ourselves
for blind strangers with binoculars
perched on the neighborhood trees.

in this world where there is so much hunger
we would like very much to sleep,
but forget how.

NV 2010-2011

(long in the making, I just found it on my desktop)

Command Z Command Z Command Z…

No matter how crippling your condition, we’ve got the perfect set of crutches for you. Fully seasoned (definitely been used before), weather tested (they’ve been hanging out on our patio for about two years), I know those look like bloodstains but they’re actually birdshit, well-cushioned bars of steel, built to heal. These babies are the real deal! Not only are they fine examples of state-of-the-art crutch craftsmanship, but they’re antiques as well (they came with the apartment. We’ve considered carbon dating). And they can be yours.

Crutches.

What’s that, you’ve heard there’s more to the offer? That’s right Mama–these babies are ABSOLUTELY FREE! Lead free, gluten free, ad free, we’d make them hands free but that would defeat the purpose, and yours for only $9.99 + shipping & handling!! (Hidden costs not included. Promo not available at all locations. At least not any that you could get to).

But wait! Call now and we’ll include a second pair of crutches, at no additional cost. Why settle for just one pair, when you can have two? That’s right, two pairs of crutches. Charm the ladies with your swagger. Share a pair with the kids for full-throttle family fun. Recovering from surgery has never been so stylish. All this can be yours, and more: just give us your credit card info.

Second pair of crutches.

The word is on the street. These babies are so fly, you’re gonna wish your legs were broken all the time! Please don’t delay: supplies are limited, and can go fast. Unlike you.

Call today.

NV 3/10

(If this doesn’t make Best of Craigslist, I am kidnapping Craig’s first-born child. And would somebody please take these things off my patio.)

If this shirt ever gets printed, it is going in my closet in a heartbeat.

]]> http://eatmangos.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/ac-in-the-dc-turn-it-up/feed/ 0 ka11isto 37153916-6be9-4877-b350-ec241f964775 http://eatmangos.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/they-didnt-teach-me-about-this-in-modal-counterpoint/ http://eatmangos.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/they-didnt-teach-me-about-this-in-modal-counterpoint/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:56:55 +0000 ka11isto http://eat-mangos.com/?p=783 Continue reading →]]> Dear JetBlue,

Just because I can read musical notation doesn’t mean you can ask me to check into tomorrow’s flight in musical notation.

Staff paper and some bar lines would help though.

Sincerely,
Nina Vyedin

P.S. The movable clef at the bottom of the page was a nice touch:

It’s spring break but it’s been more like a spring Martinu marathon with opera workshop coming up, so I’ve been spending many glorious hours holed up in my state-of-the-art recording studio/rehearsal space (which also doubles as the master bathroom; but that’s clearly not its primary purpose), singing French arias to various personal care products while holding a travel-sized bottle of Listerine. It’s supposed to be a rose. We do our best.

I find in classical music the same retreat as I do in recording: you take something challenging and you break it down and breathe it and live and sleep with it until you have achieved a whole new level of mastery, a pinnacle of perfection. Of course, nobody else cares. The world will go on turning despite the fact that you’ve now got all your glockenspiel hits perfectly aligned; wars will continue to be waged and your favorite celebrities will still get still wasted without giving the slightest dang about your aria. But you feel, for a moment, that one small part of this crazy world has been made to work as it should–as if one piece of this great puzzle has been solved, and by you. And you’re just a little stronger, a little more in tune because of it, which explains why you’re willing to go do it all over again when the time comes.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen of the jury: the legendary, dare I say epic spring break of 2010. I’ve been volunteering the rest of my time running errands in the city, driving the little ’99 Corolla down 280 North while slowly discovering the soundtrack of my life (namely, this album that I bought for three dollars at a Mountain View used book store, track 5, on repeat*), trying to teach myself to live smaller, to worry less about the road and where it’s taking me and to feel more of the sun creeping up against my left arm, and the season opening up all around us.

(See, this is what happens when you own Walden on audiotape. It comes up in your iTunes shuffle with alarming frequency, usually followed by RENT or Aaron Carter.)

Oh California, you’ve been too good to me.

Welcome to my lair.

(*In fact, you can download a bunch of free awesome live recordings of this band, courtesy of Daytrotter. What would I do without Daytrotter? Oh, that’s right, cry.)

–Mat Callahan, in his absolutely brilliant commentary on the state of the music industry.

(For those unaware of the Insane Clown Posse, you can familiarize yourself with this video. It might help to remember that they were once signed to this Disney record label. Yep. Just like Miley!)

(Photo from David Mayfield’s Twitter, via the Avett Brothers’ forum.)

February 7, 2081
Greater Republic of California

Dear Board of Trustees and Esteemed Faculty of the Music Department at Vassar College;

As I am writing you, I am in a state of wonderful health and nowhere near the end of my long and lucrative life. However, in the event of my eventual departure, I would like to direct my estate to leave in your safekeeping a much beloved personal musical instrument of mine, hand-selected from my vast and highly prized collection. This specimen is a rare jewel in the world of musical antiques, and I can only hope that my contribution will bring much joy and enlightenment to the realm of higher education.

Here are the specs of the instrument in question:

C.K. (short for “crappy keyboard”) is a five-octave Casio manufactured in the late 1980s. He is equipped with exactly one hundred synthesized patches that can make him sound like a truly blood-curling specimen of a flute, a somewhat nauseating banjo, an almost acceptable amateur string orchestra, as well as a lovely little music box. Much like the beautiful Viennese keyboard already in your possession (the one with the pedals that provide impromptu Turkish rhythms) one can select from C.K.’s hundred and one pre-programmed dance beats, ranging from salsa to disco to three entirely different kinds of hip hop. Lastly, C.K. comes complete with a song bank that features such gems as “The Saints Are Marching In,” and the theme song from the 1988 Japanese film classic, “Totoro.” A fine specimen of late 20^th century craftsmanship!

If you are unsatisfied with what the instrument represents, allow me to demonstrate some ways in which C.K. will fit splendidly into your collection. I notice that you have in your possession a Pratensis harpsichord from 1610, which was once fashioned to look older by a reseller of vintage instruments. Much like the Pratensis, you could say C.K. has been made to seem older than he is by the broken RCA input: I have found this problem to be easily fixable by simply hanging a 20-ft coil of quarter-inch cable on top of the RCA adaptor (I am sure you have a suitable version of such a cable in your collection; I realize most instruments today can be linked wirelessly to their respective amplifiers using Google Rock). To add to the vintage feel, I will make sure that he comes into your possession extra dusty, with a set of original and perfectly authentic Duracell batteries still intact, ready for thorough academic research.

You may be wondering why I volunteer this particular instrument as contribution. What makes my little keyboard so special that he can stand alongside a 17^th century harpsichord? Well, what keeps him from such a post? All things age the same: creators die, companies vanish, production ceases and availability grows scarce. Time has a funny way of bringing mystery into things. In three hundred years, my keyboard will be a relic, and the era that created it more distant, more intriguing. Even as we near the end of the 21^st century, children are collecting mp3s in the same way that I, seventy years ago, quivered at the sight of gently-used vinyl. Is the older thing more important to us? Is it more interesting? Harder to come by, sure, and with a higher price tag, but is that fact alone enough to keep us from being fascinated by both? Or do we hold one generation’s contribution to be more important that another’s? Do we prize any one era of history above the rest?

I don’t believe we do. I believe that the real reason we value antiques like the Broadwood piano or that sweet little clavichord I remember Professor Libin playing is because of the stories they tell: stories that are older than ours, stories that will continue to evolve beyond us and perhaps in spite of us. We find comfort in this, in knowing we are one pair in a long line of hands, one owner of a thing that is too elusive to belong. We find beauty in the idea that the things we create, or perhaps even just the things we touch, will have meaning beyond us, meaning that somehow contains us–perhaps we also find peace. Anything with a history will always be valuable, because the rich and constantly turning lives of these objects is perhaps the closest we humans get to immortality.

Which is why you should take my keyboard.

Sincerely yours,
Nina Vyedin

P.S. Your new correlate in the study of Ancient Rock sounds fascinating. I believe students today will benefit greatly from studying the ways of the Masters. After all, it’s not often that you hear a college choir take on the lost works of Led Zeppelin, and I look forward to attending the performance in the newly renovated Martel Hall this spring. I hear you finally installed strobe lights! How very quaint.

While googling the lyrics to…well, I better not say to protect my musical reputation…I chanced upon the following pop up window. It read: “I have slept with over 17 girls in 6 weeks using this technique.” “This technique” being a series of lectures and videos telling guys who are “socially awkward” how to make themselves more appealing to girls. Now, I’m not one to fall for consumer scams, but I’m flattered that the scammers see us women not only as valuable objects, on par with free purple Macbooks and $10,000 prize giveaways, but also as something to be tampered with only by those in possession of a secret technique once developed by the ancient ninja yogi masters. Please Webster, lay down the definitions. Clearly, seducing us is a delicate art form that may only be mastered by careful study of the fine print of the Black Book of Seduction.

Hear that boys? You better shape up. You can learn more about it at www.becomeaplayer.com.

No, really.

Despite my father’s constant denial of my status as an educated human being due the the fact that I have yet to finish reading The Three Musketeers (okay, French guys, horses, monarchy…I think I get the gist), I spent a great deal of my childhood reading and have become familiar with a fair number of books. Thanks to my twelfth-grade English teacher, I have also gotten through my share of obscure European novels that follow odd philosophical trends no one else seems to know about, which automatically make me sound smarter because that’s what happens when you bring up the words “phenomenology” and “penultimate” in class. However, never in my entire literary lifetime have I run across something as deeply disturbing, and yet so enticing, as this. I simply must read it. It sounds absolutely brilliant.

Last but not least, a link off one of my Facebook friends’ profiles, a Google list of one-hit wonders of the ’60s and ’70s. Not gonna tell you how many hours I spent on here. Too many.

Happy Monday,

N

When we became wildflowers,
we spent our afternoons on a hill–
young leaves searching skyward,
buds seeking sun, waiting for blossoming.
And though we could have opened up
as roses in our red dresses, alone in towers of thorn and hip,
we chose instead to bloom in the key of violet,
which they say
is the unforgettable color of sadness.

Hearing this, some will insist
that the prospect of flowers, strewn
across hills and afternoons
depends solely on the language of bees—
of would be’s and maybies and probably won’t be’s.
I say, however, that leaves,
falling carelessly with each passing season,
leave secret scars on the bodies of trees.
Far better to be a flower: we shoot
our own roots down, our own stems upward.
We strain to grasp both soil and sky with little hands.

So don’t wither, darling, over lost petals
and perennial things. Fill instead
your crown with shades of jade,
sating the palisades of your skin as you
break down the sweetness
of life drawn from pigments strange, within veins pulsating warm,
developing in dusky rooms the complexity
of your own dark reactions,
releasing with each new breath the harvest
of the light
that is you.

NV 5/09