…and this one of Stevie Wonder’s Overjoyed.

{To watch the video version of Ben Sollee’s Tiny Desk Concert, be sure to click through to NPR. I love the first song he plays called Hurting. Ben is one of those talented, positive Kentuckians who make us all proud of home.}

Listening:
Adele – 21
Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin‘
Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
Matt Duncan – Beacon

I saw this recently and it jumped off the page:

“Arthur Hays Sulzberger was the publisher of The New York Times during the second World War. Because of the world conflict, he found it almost impossible to sleep. He was never able to banish worries from his mind until he adopted as his motto these five words – ‘one step is enough for me’ – taken from the hymn Lead Kindly Light.

…God isn’t going to let you see the distant scene either. So you might as well quit looking for it. He promises a lamp unto your feet, not a crystal ball into the future. We do not need to know what will happen tomorrow. We only need to know he leads us and ‘we will find grace to help us when we need it.’”
-Max Lucado from Traveling Light p. 52.

It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day.

I have loved Nina Simone forever. Love this image of her.  I would credit the photographer if I knew their name.

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I’m really enjoying Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossy Pants.

“…it’s a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go.  You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.”

——

Interested to check out this book on Audrey. Love the illustrated cover:

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And a quote to chew on for the weekend:

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Trish Keenan of the band Broadcast passed away this week. I’m sad to have only now discovered their music. I particularly like this song called The Booklovers.

I almost went to undergrad at UGA. I wasn’t attracted to Athens for the football. For me, it was about music. Georgia gave us R.E.M and The Indigo Girls. Now, Athens has given us Modern Skirts. Not bad, dawgs, not bad. Click here for a preview. I hear a lot of influences- Ben Folds, She & Him, The Beach Boys, Nico. Good stuff there.

If you follow my Twitter feed, you know I’ve been enjoying these remixes from Cut Chemist. Each one is about an hour long. It’s great to have on while you clean, edit, sort, etc.

*Love these photo calendars from Minted.com.

*I received one of these personalized desk calendars from Tiny Prints for Christmas and I love it!

*Been wanting to try out Paper Culture.  Love their clean design.

*We’re catching up on missed episodes of No Reservations thanks to Netflix. {We have been cable free for over a year without really noticing much of a difference.} His episodes on Rome, Paris, The Caribbean and Madrid are my favorites.

*Speaking of clear water, one of my favorite photographers, Jose Villa, posted these images from my all-time favorite place in the world, St. John.  The shoot even features a Sunfish.  I’ve wanted a Sunfish since I was 7 years old.  I leave this link here to have a happy place to click on.

*I finished watching Season 1 of Brick City. If every American cared about their community as much as Cory Booker, and was as willing to work for their neighbor as hard as he does, it would be a different day. He’s an inspiration. No one should be allowed to criticize him until they’ve put in the work. He challenges me to be a better American. The question I must ask myself is, “how do I make my community better?”

*Jason Schwartzman and his wife welcomed a baby. He filmed a trip to the record store to pick out albums for the nursery.  {Hat tip to Tara Whitney for this discovery.} He says a few curse words in the video. Sorry. I like this video because it reminded me of how much I dreamed about what it would be like to be a parent 6 years ago.  I bought things while I was pregnant that she is just now enjoying, but I guess that’s part of it…the fantasy of getting to share the things that you love with your child and the reality that they will have some different interests.  It’s very sweet though. I recently heard an NPR interview with Jason talking about his mom that was so endearing to me.  My favorite part:

GROSS: Did your uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, screen movies for you?

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN: Yeah. Well, my mom I’ll just say really quickly, I love her because, you know, people will ask me like did your mom encouraged you to be an actor? Were you forced into it? And the truth is no. But, at a young age, what I really did witness, because she never forced it upon us, but I witnessed how movies and music can be nutritional, I guess, to a person. I would come home from school; she would always be downstairs with an old movie on. Every room in our house had a different book open, face down. There would be music on in one room, even though she wouldn’t be in it, and she would kind of just go from room to room and pick up and read and go and listen and go downstairs and watch. She needs that. It’s still the same way. If you go to my house, the same house I grew up in, she’s there with movies on, music playing and books everywhere. And so I witnessed how important these things can be to you.

*I’m really enjoying Jay-Z’s Decoded. He’s a genius and I love the way he can deconstruct why some music/poetry resonates. I love his attention to design in the book.

For more of this sweet family of Jorge Narvaez, here is a link to their page. I love that he writes that although he and the girls’ mother are not together, they work together as a team.

It reminds me of the Astrud Gilberto album when she sings You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice with one of her babies. At the end you can hear her say, “You know, I have to thank you because I’m proud of you,” and you hear the little answer, “yeah.”
It’s perfect.

If quiet is not quite your jam tonight, download Target’s free holiday mix The Christmas Gig, here. It will keep you awake while you search through the junk drawer for one more pair of batteries, or that screwdriver that’s just small enough.

Pink Martini has a new Christmas album that’s a lot of fun.

Ben Folds has a new album, too called Lonely Avenue. One of my favorite novelists, Nick Hornby wrote the lyrics. Love this video of them chatting about working together. It’s what art should be: a collaborative conversation where we help each other be a little better.

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I’ve been reading Human Chain, Seamus Heaney’s new book of poems. I particularly like this one:

“Had I Not Been Awake”
by Seamus Heaney

Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Patterned with quick leaves off the sycamore

And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence:
Had I not been awake I would have missed it,

It came and went so unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Returning like an animal to the house,

A courier blast that there and then
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
After. And not now.