this, i won't forget.
we went to the first night of the joanna newsom run at thalia hall this past week. she played only skin. and time, as a symptom. and baby birch. and divers. yikes.
her songs make you contemplate both of your sizes. like, they make you feel the way mountains make you feel. tiny and inconsequential in all of space and time. but simultaneously they make you feel like the love in your brain for a single cute boy in 3rd grade is the biggest and most important thing on the planet. and it is! that’s, like, the point of earth. of humans. of spirits. of rivers. of weather.
polly says her songs make you feel nostalgic for a time and place you’ve never been (in). which i immediately identified with. take baby birch. it’s a song that, sped up, is almost trivial and bluesy and like something you’d hear on the atlantic city boardwalk. some shoe shining irish lad. whistling dixie. unironcially. in the 30s. ... but she slows it down. and lands each note. and adds a hundred year old harp. and the melody beckons a family ripped apart by the civil war. “oh my gods. my darlin boy. don’t weep for your leg. it’s only bones”.
we watched her monday evening. in near silence. and i have so, so much more to say about her unique genius. and about the folly of genius. and the misnomer of genius. generally. but.... maybe next week.
for now, a true celebration. of a genius. for her non-genius genesis. like, one don't get genius-level without serious non-genius practice. repetition. focus. constant work. the stuff of worker bees. not, specifically, the stuff of "geniuses" you knew all your life. not the stuff of jacks of all trades. but masters of none. or jacks of all experience. but havers of none. not the stuff of tourists in fields who can spout on about this or that and know how to sound smart or how to defeat someone else's poor logic. but instead the stuff of everyday heroes. of community-historical figures. like i said: fuck hegel. long live hard work. long live joanna newsom. and commitment. and polly novello marie.
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