family is so great

This is my little brother, James. And my little sister, Jessica. James is one of the coolest people I know and Jessica is one of the happiest. James is super mellow, in fact, when he was a baby I used to wonder if everything was OK with him... because he'd wake up and just hang out in his crib instead of crying and being a big baby. Jessica has been rowdy from day one, and harasses James in the funniest way. I was feeling down one day and needed a lifter, so I went to my dads house and visited the little babes, and this video happened at the dinner table.

I added sound effects because it makes me laugh even harder.



Mom is bringing me Matzo Ball soup to break my fast tonight. Family is so great. FAMILY IS SO GREAT!

ps: Erin and I saw Zodiac (directors cut, almost 3 hours, yikes) at The Dryden last night. I had a cup of coffee at night and the movie freaked me out hard, so I didn't go to bed until 6 a.m today... and thats when I made the video. Thanks Zodiac!

the singing none

it's been a long time since​ i recor​ded somet​hing and put it up to share​.​.​.​ but thing​s are happe​ning in me, and outsi​de of me, and all aroun​d this world​.​.​.​ so i wrote​ somet​hing calle​d "the singi​ng none"​ (​cross​ refer​ence to my spiri​t recor​d,​ The Singi​ng Nun)​.​ 

I haven't recorded and shared music in about 2 years... friends kept encouraging me, and asking me to do it... but I couldn't/didn't. So I'm pretty stoked to be in this creative process again. I'm going to take it to Portland and do it for serious... not sure what that looks like, but I'll just stop being embarrassed and take my own advice: BE BRAVE.

www. myspa​ce.​ com/​girls​doing​embro​idery​

"the family is bound by transient transcendent spirit glow worm silk chords"- johnny lamb

The Gramo​phone​ Famil​y (a collective started in Brooklyn) is alive​ and well and activ​e.​ I spoke​ with Johnn​y (​Lapka​ ee Ovech​ka,​ Foxy Was a Night​ Owl) last night,​ he's writi​ng and recor​ding.​.​.​ and when I move to Portl​and we might​ all go and do a tour toget​her.​ The Green​ Typew​riter​s (​Jared​ and Gioja​ are excit​ed to do somet​hing toget​her this summe​r,​ too)​.​ Johnn​y told me a story​ about​ how some stran​ger recog​nized​ him from a recor​ding we did of the song "Little Birds" by Jeff Mangum.​.​.​ it's wild to think​ that peopl​e are liste​ning to the music​ we make, and they are sharing it and spreading it to their friends. WILD.The Singing None

All my nervous words could not express
the giant universe
that I feel in my chest

Welling up in me
and blowing out
I ask, Lord Jesus Christ
“Give me courage to Love”

Is there something missing?
Won’t you make me whole?
I want to love you
With all the Madness
In my Soul


----recorded thursday january 22nd 2009
instruments used: acoustic guitar (7 years old, never changed strings)
glockenspiel
hand drum from Pakistan


excuse me, but it seems there is a giant universe in my chest!


the structure of the song is meant to mimic my daily mind/heart rhythms. the lyrics are two-fold in meaning. there is also a secret incantation towards the end, see if you can hear it!



ok, and this Bulgarian Folk Record is blowing my mind. I want to get this one, next.

Portland, Oregon. The Next Chapter.

               "gotta go"
Things People in Portland Say:

1. "Rad"

2. "Stoked"

3. "You should move here"

I'm moving to Portland, Oregon.

I'm joining The Bridge Community.

Wait, didn't Olga recently say "I hate the West Coast, I'd never move there"... ? Yes I totally did; funny how that goes. So, how can I explain it... hmmm.... "It's a pilgrimage"... "A calling"... "Something I know I have to do next"... "I have no choice, it's as clear as daylight that I have to go".

 My year of solitude is over, it's time for community. I miss this girl and want her in my daily life again. I've desired community and community style

 living since I first heard of it in NYC. This is finally happening.

I wrote this litany while at the airport in Chicago, on my way back to Rochester. It's a rather personal confession, but I'm not scared to share it:

Confession, Enter Community (re: PDX)

i am living a life of solitude, and guarded isolation

I must go to community

i am living a life of petty hopes 

I must go to community

i am living a life of needs unmet

I must go to community

i am living a life of vanity and shallowness

I must go to community

I am living a life in need of discipline 

I must go to community

i am living a life of loneliness in a crowd of friends

I must go to community 

i am living a life of destructive, unchecked thoughts

I must go to community

i am living the life of an unhealthy American consumer

I must go to community

i am living a life of financial conflict and monetary slavery

I must go to community

God I desire Accountability

Bring me to community

God I desire freedom from myself and from this land*

Bring me to community

God I desire complete abandon in You

Bring me to community

God I desire deconstruction and construction one million and ten times over, if only to be closer to you. I desire to change five hundred thousands times, if only to be the same as You.

Bring me to community

Your Mercy. Your immutable Nature. Your Grace. Your Promise. Salvation. Love beyond human understanding:

I find these in community.

Amen. Amen. And Allelujah. 

*Chicago, S.Stevens 

-------------------------

I'm selling/giving away my things. Weeping a little. Happy a lottle. This was really unexpected. This is very exciting. It's a pretty big step for me in my comfortable living situation, but I am eager to go in Faith. Faith and I have had a rocky road ... tonight, Michael asked "So, are you estranged from the Church? Or excommunicated?" the answer, "both".  

I'm ready now. Ready to pursue Christianity with Creativity. In an email earlier today, I told Tiffany, "I don't know what I'm doing exactly, but I'm going to do it anyway"

Rochester, you have been so good to me this past (exact) year. Healing above all. I thank you 721 times. You'll always be my American home, and we'll see each other, we'll dance into each other unexpectedly... life is full of wonder and surprises and adventure, isn't it?? it is. it is! it is! oh! "how strange it is to be anything at all!"

Off I go, singing my Gypsy Hymns... 

estimated departure: march 1st, 2009

PDX, I tried to do hand stands for you

I'm in Portland, Oregon for this lady's birthday.  

My kindred spirit, my soul sister.

My Shadow told me in a Dream about this song, and we've been dancing to it, and singing it, and feeling it, and living it.

How can life be so magical and surreal and anything at all?

How can we feel such Cathedral Highs and Mermaid Lows?

Oh, how can we love other people so much and with such ease?

It's all a miracle to me.

Cross Country, We Celebrate and We Love Each Other.

a lady AND a scholar

my best friend of 13 years left rochester today. mellissa, her husband, her daughter, and her soon to be born baby boy had their butts kicked by the economy and a string of bad luck. they moved back to rochester less than a year ago, after getting married in ohio (where her family now lives).

mellissa and i met in middle school, as the two new transfers. we spent summers together, slept over each others houses night after night, dated boys together, went through some of the hardest and best times together. we've watched each other grow to be women. today mellissa also turned 25. she's one hell of a lady. 

we went for coffee and a donut before she took off this morning. i cried, it's not the first time we've said good-bye but it's hard every time. we WILL live in the same city again. we will. "i'll find me a good man, and we'll move to ____________ together", "you better". i will. 

as we  began to say our good-byes  by her car,  she bounced baby Penelope in the air, they both smiled and kissed, the bright sun lit them up and time stopped for me, for just a moment, a mental photograph i'll never forget. and memories of this past year came back... sitting on the front porch in the summer, our walks, reading forbidden journals, eating huge slices of pizza, dancing beautiful dances for a film,  laughing 90% of the time we're together, and watching Penny grow into a wondrous little girl. it's been a hard year, but it's been fun. with everything going on in our independent lives, we were a 4 minute walk from each other, we were neighbors for a brief time... but it happened, and it'll happen again.

life will hand us lemonade, mellissa. it will. i know it. 

i love you, i'll miss you, i'll visit. i pray now a prayer of ease for you and your family, "God, bless her with a break, just let life cut her a break. A  stress free, comfortable time... for as long as you see fit. If anyone deserves it, it's her. Bless the Saffers with ease. Calm the waters and let them have milk and honey. Amen."

I hope you win the lottery.

woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head

i dreamt of heaven. i woke up, knowing it was heaven i dreamt of. 

we were all in a big studio room. dressed in our finest. everyone looked so beautiful, so classy. as if we were in new bodies, but we were in our own bodies; they were our perfect beautiful bodies and we looked the same as now, just better. we stood together for a big photo, so happy, holding hands. there were mirrors here and there, and i would get a glance of the reflection and think "wow we are all so beautiful. i am so beautiful. so much beauty!" we were perfect creations standing together.

the photo was taken CLICK  and we take of... RUNNING! we all hold hands and run, run, run towards mirrors. the mirrors seem to reflect what is behind us but we run straight towards them... and the secret is revealed to me "if you hold hands, if you go together, you can go through this mirror into another place". so together, we hold hands, we run and go through the mirror with the tiniest fear that it might break... but it doesn't break! we pass as though it really is an open doorway. and we roar with laughter and smile so hard. we run room to room weaving through the mirrors, united, in perfect love, friendship, community, trust, excitement.

then another secret is revealed "hold hands and....JUMP" and with the tiniest flick of a heal we jump and we  FLY!  only the tiniest bit of kinetic energy is needed for an INFINITE amount of potential energy. with one little flicker of our feet we jump high, high, high and float and laugh and hold hands and we form a human link in the air, we wave our bodies, we swing our hands in the air. it's so much fun. it was maybe 12 people but the face was every face i've ever known. it was a party and it was family and it was strangers and it was home.  it was heaven. it was the sincerest most excited happiness i could've dreamt.

...with the tiniest amount of faith, holding hands together, we can run through mirrors and jump so high that we are all of a sudden in the sky. and we are such perfect, beautiful creatures aren't we! we are!

i dreamt it and i think i was there for bit. 

for yer'health

going on 4 days of being sick now. some mutant stomach virus. quarantined at home today... taking lots of group naps with the cat and dog, reading (Jungian psychoanalysis, about 5 pages deep...), and of course the tube.  i'm kind of impressed with the human body in a sick state. all the noises and feelings and pains and temperatures and many more gross details. i feel like a malfunctioned machine surviving on gatorade and the need to LOL. i'm thankful nonetheless to have my very own (typically) healthy human body. keep those spirits high, olga! and light a match!

it's a happy new year!

2009, here you are. it's going to be even better than the rest. i'm so excited to be alive, to be me, to be free, to be here, to know what i know, to learn what i will learn, to create what i will create, and experiences experiences experiences! i feel i have lived dozens of lives, and this is yet another. oh, it was good to be alive one year in 1945.

...and a little Zizek to feed your mind and make your belly laugh.