Photos from a day traveling through Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
Category Archives: Misc
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
I’ve relocated to New York after a spur of the moment college graduation and a couple of convincing emails to my parents. My cross-country trek that cartwheeled into my new job has left me a little winded but I plan to (finally) regularly update the ol’ RT from now on. I’ve changed a couple of things here as you can see and my posts probably will start dabbling more into my personal life–which, hopefully, will become much more interesting considering the big move–so expect more exciting and trashy things to come!
Phantom Energy
Artwork: Tim Hodkinson (via butdoesitfloat)
Short Story: Robert Swartwood
Music: Sun Lake Rinsed by The Ruby Suns
She called it phantom energy. She said it was costing us money every month. A few cents here and there, sure, but it all added up.
“Everything adds up,” she said, walking around the apartment and unplugging random things. “Like this record player. How often do you actually use this thing?”
She yanked the cord.
“And this toaster. I can’t even remember the last time we made toast.”
She yanked another cord.
I didn’t say anything. I thought it was only a phase. I let her have her way.
Then I came home one day after work and sat down and pressed the power button on the television remote.
The television didn’t come on.
I got up and walked to the TV and found that it had been unplugged. So had the DVD player. So had the stereo system.
I went room to room. Everything had been unplugged.
I found her upstairs in the bedroom. She lay fully clothed on top of the bed. Her head shifted slightly when I opened the door.
“Shh,” she whispered. “Can you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Just listen.”
I listened.
Where My Boyfriend Lives
Photo: Folkert Goter
Music: Natural Tune by Efterklang
Short Story: Tara Laskowski
Where my boyfriend lives, the grass grows sideways — not up but into itself, like fingers entwined, like slow hula dancers. In his town, the people sing when they are dying. His mama makes roses bloom when she whispers to them; his dad keeps fire in a jar on his bedside table and releases it at night, sneaking up on it again in the morning when it has tired.
Where my boyfriend lives I visited just once, on a Thursday, when the streets are cleaned and a young man, hair slicked back by spit, stands just outside the doorway of the barbershop and hands out free candy to folks walking by. I took one, a chalky peppermint truffle, light as air. For the rest of the day I shot icicles out of the ends of my fingers. My boyfriend laughed at me and stepped on the heels of my shoes. That night we watched lightning, his dad’s jar flames skipping across the sky, tripping over each other, eager to find a party.
Where my boyfriend lives, letters are written on banana peels. The ones my boyfriend sends me talk about ordinary things like the color of my eyes, the sound of steel digging into dirt, the need for everything to have a name. The letters are short and sometimes long. They talk about how when we are older we will move somewhere exotic.
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Sufjan Stevens, “All Delighted People (Original Version)”
Sufjan unexpectedly doused his musical boon upon long-awaiting fans from whatever aural plane he now resides. Drenched with his familiar, idiosyncratic sound, All Delighted People is a sparkling embrace after five years of mixed signals. It is magnificent.
The first track of the same name is essentially a summary of Sufjan’s musical prowess: incomparable song structures, lyrical agility, and unrivaled instrumentation. His vocals do take quite a noticeable reshaping. Where once was a voice that wandered only slightly above a whisper, is now one imbued with a new sense of urgency and a beautiful unrefinement. It warbles and cracks and wanders about.
Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original)
I’ll finally have the pleasure to see him live, in Boston and in New York, and I really don’t know how I’m going to breathe while doing so.