Handing Down Depression

Stanford University School of Medicine has dedicated its entire new spring issue of their magazine Stanford Medicine to Children's Health. There is a beautiful and hopeful article about the research currently being done into why teens become depressed, and how to prevent it before it can begin. I also love the illustration of the woman, with black clouds under her hat.

Angels and Corsets

Warning: I haven't read this whole essay, but I liked the photo so much, and it spoke to me so deeply of the whole 'tangled swan' ethos, that I had to reproduce it here. Seems only fair to include the article, too, which I will read later today with my tea.

For photo credits, please see the Poetry Society of America's website.

Anthologies and feminisms: are we having a moment or what?

Leda and Lucille Clifton (1936 - 20100

[from Lucille Clifton's The Book of Light, Copper Canyon, 1993]

leda 1

there is nothing luminous
about this.
they took my children.
i live alone in the backside
of the village.
my mother moved
to another town. my father
follows me around the well,
his thick lips slavering,
and at night my dreams are full
of the cursing of me
fucking god fucking me.


leda 2

a note on visitations

sometimes another star chooses.
the ones coming in from the east
are dagger-fingered men,
princes of no known kingdom.
the animals are raised up in their stalls
battering the stable door.
sometimes it all goes badly;
the inn is strewn with feathers,
the old husband suspicious,
and the fur between her thighs
is the only shining thing.


leda 3

a personal note (re: visitations)

always pyrotechnics;
stars spinning into phalluses
of light, serpents promising
sweetness, their forked tongues
thick and erect, patriarchs of bird
exposing themselves in the air.
this skin is sick with loneliness.
You want what a man wants,
next time come as a man
or don't come.

The Book of Light

l.c. r.i.p.

Mary Karr Has Something to Tell Me on Valentine's Day

And I should listen. See my post on Twirlyword:Poems In Motion about what that might be. Friends gave me her book, Lit, for Christmas. I'm not sure why, perhaps it got a good review? Maybe they liked her The Liar's Club. Which I'll have to read next. Or maybe they're secretly telling me that they know I'm staring to crave that one little drink... maybe I need to riff on Harold one of these days. Remind me.


It's Valentine's Day. Here's a photo of a swan I found while cruising my valentine's old pictures. And here we are. Several years of us.

Clothes of Stiched Photos

Kudos again to Accidental Mysteries for finding some beautiful art, so meaningful, so lovely, so weird. I'm posting this to all three of my blogs (here, Laundry Songs, and Twirlyword Poems In Motion) because this artist really touches all parts of my mind/being. It's clothes! It's poetry!! It's crazy (and think of what Agnes Richter would have thought if she had seen these....)

Jane Waggoner Deschner

work with found photographs

New News Today

From Stanford: People with anxiety disorder less able to regulate response to negative emotions, study shows. People with generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, have abnormalities in the way their brain unconsciously controls emotions, a new study shows.

(I'm not thrilled with the image, especially if this is really what my brain looks like, I think I'd prefer green and yellow. Or at least orange.)

From the New York Times: The American Psychiatric Association is proposing major changes today to its diagnostic bible, the manual that doctors, insurers and scientists use in deciding what's officially a mental disorder and what symptoms to treat. Alan Schatzberg, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, provides comment in this Associated Press piece.

What to think about all this? I think gazing at a photo like the one below (Fremont Older Open Space) is a much better way to approach the problem of anxiety. Better yet, let's go for a walk.

Looking for Photos of Agnes's Jacket

Disappointed that there are not photographs of Agnes Richter's jacket in Gail Hornstein's book, I searched the web and found this lovely blog entry:

The Lulu Bird: art inspiration: agnes richter.

Here are photos of the jacket that Lizzie took when she visited the Prinzhorn collection in Germany. Thank you Lizzie. (I really like her blog, too, about art therapy, not all that different from poetry therapy, or whatever else we call the intersection of art, madness, healing, and personal journey.)

Risk of Change

This week I am trying to make sense of all the changes. And all the things that refuse to change. While searching for images of the word 'change' I found this tiny blog, 'Risk of Change at Oregon County Fair'. Not much here, but some wonderful photos of the troupe with that name -- magicians, dancers, make-up artists, etc. And this fine fellow: Odo.


He puts new meaning to my favorite motto: When in doubt, twirl.

Music and the Brain

There is so much amazing work in the world. At the Institute for Music and Brain Science a wide variety of people study music and the brain from different perspectives. Hearing Healing & Helping Through Music is their motto. What could be better! I love their logo, too. So 'brainy'. Even their url: brainmusic. I always knew my brain had its own songs to sing, if I could only figure out how to hear them. (And, no, this is not the same as the ringing in my ears.)

The Center for Arts, Science and Technology at Stanford is hosting a talk this month with a speaker from the brainmusic people. Of course their url is brainwaves! I hope they don't mind my reposting their information here. Nobody knows about my blog anyway, so nobody will even see it! But, hey, nobody, try and go. I'll see you there.

February 8, 2010 - 5:30 PM

"Neurobiological Foundations for the Theory of Harmony in Western Tonal Music"

Mark Tramo MD, Ph.D.
Director, The Institute for Music & Brain Science
Associate Professor of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Adjunct Professor of Music, Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA
Faculty Fellow, Harvard University Mind Brain & Behavior Interfaculty Initiative
Research Affiliate, M.I.T. Research Laboratory of Electronics
ASCAP/NARAS
www.BrainMusic.org

March 1, 2010 - 5:30 PM

"Music, Memories, and the Brain"

A talk exploring music-evoked autobiographical memories and associated emotions

Petr Janata, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, UC Davis Psychology Department Center for Mind and Brain

Music-evoked autobiographical memories and associated emotions are poignant examples of how music engages the brain. Janata binds music theory, cognitive psychology, and computational modeling to generate intuitive animations of music moving about in tonal space (the system of major and minor keys). He then shows how the unique tonal movements of individual excerpts of popular music can be used in conjunction with neuroimaging experiments to identify brain networks that support the experiencing of memories and emotions evoked by the music.

Not Some Iridescent Grateful Butterfly

Change is hard and scary. Even if we know it's good for us, it still stings. Even "good change" can wreck havoc with mind, body, spirit, sense of self, sense of humor. I love Dar's song about change -- I love how she pokes fun at the "mystic" nature of change, how we can try to make ourselves feel better by trying to make ourselves and our experiences more important. I also love how her song isn't called "It Will Be Alright" -- as in, things will get better, you're going to be okay -- in the future. Her song is about now. You are alright now. You are safe, okay, alive, breathing, with the program, part of the universe, part of the flow of time, right now. Even if you feel like crap, even though it hurts (and some days it just does) you are okay the way you are. Feel bad, feel good, it's alright. Thanks Dar. 'Marching on with this target on my chest. Oh, yes!'

It's Alright

(Dar Williams, from Promised Land)

I know change is a bad thing,
Breaks me down into a sorry sad thing
Not some iridescent grateful butterfly.
I'll resist with defiance,
Not the valor of a mystic silence,
I will fight the dizzy spiral of goodbye.

And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright

Please don't say you don't love me,
Never dangle any sword above me,
With the kind of change that severs me in two.
Give me amberizing glasses.
Could you slow it down like molasses,
As I salvage my old self away from you.

And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.

Because I have seen insane things,
All those grand, historic paintings.
Morning light on polished swords and burnished pride.
Anxious smiles encased in whalebone,
Spines of steel from head to tailbone,
Cannons poised to blast the turning of the tide.

It's a sad and a strange thing.
But it's time and I am changing.
Into something good or bad, well that's your guess.
I'm my own sovereign nation,
Dedicated to a transformation,
Marching on with this target on my chest, oh yes,
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.


Listen to this track on Rhapsody Music.

Change for me today looks like exercising, resting, being gentle with myself, letting go of control, all things that should be good for me, but are still scary because they are unknown. I dare you to look.

Turn and Face the Strange

(David Bowie, born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947)

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell t hem to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

I know it's 'strain' not 'change' -- but it works my way, too. Maybe he wouldn't mind.

Outsider Art

As I'm reading Agnes's Jacket, I'm learning all about art work created by people in institutions for the insane. This story will take several posts. The photos are astonishing. I hope to see some of these exhibits in person some day.

According to Wikipedia (I'm too tired to do my own research tonight) "A defining moment was the publication of Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the mentally ill) in 1922, by Dr Hans Prinzhorn." Here are some images I copied from the Prinzhorn Collection's website.

According to the website, "The core collection comprises approximately 5000 pieces of art created by approx. 450 patients of psychiatric institutions. These pieces comprise mostly drawings, water colors, writings, like letters, notes, drafts of books and exercise books, which were often self-manufactured, as well as oil paintings, material manual work, collages and 70 wooden sculptures." What a wealth.