What About the People in Toledo?

I am listening to Glen Hansard sing his heart out. It's kind of addictive, no?

As my brother said, "Either he inspired Damien Rice or vice versa, right? They've both got that thing where they kind of build to a wail by the end of the song."

It must be an Irish thing.

Here is my Glen Hansard story. I listened to the All Songs Considered podcast from about a week or two ago which broadcast the concert of The Swell Season album, from the 9:30 club. It was the first time I'd listened to an entire concert podcast for a band I'd not heard of. It was one of those rare, instant, musical epiphanies where you say "I have to listen more of this." I looked them up and realized the connection to The Frames (whom I'd never actually listened to), and remembered something about an indie movie, but pretty much just wanted to download songs from the album the two of them recorded. Listened to it all the way up to New York (I went up to NY yesterday for a meeting about the reading we are doing at page-to-stage), had the meeting, met up with my brother and Shanz, looked at movie listings, and decided to see Once. Which I kind of knew had something to do with the music I'd listened to all morning, but was more of a draw because it was set in Ireland and I wanted to see that on screen. So then the movie starts and it's Glen Hansard, all Glen Hansard, all the time.

He's very charismatic on film.

It's a really lovely film. Very honest. Very simple. And his music is stunning.

Backing up a bit, I had a very festive weekend. Saturday night we honored a birthday. Sunday afternoon we celebrated the end of summer. Good friends and good food and good conversation all around. On Monday the equestrian headed off to Ireland and I readjusted to having all sorts of solo time. In my mind I imagined a sudden burst of productiveness. It hasn't happened quite yet.

But the New York meeting was useful and productive and it was great to hang out with my brother and the Shanz. They showed my their new hood--Astoria, Queens--and we had fabulous paninis and crostini at a neighborhood place (Go! It's really good, and cheap, and BYOB). I crashed on their brand new fancy-shmancy air mattress and was so sad to have my alarm go off at 5:10, so that I could leave the house at 5:45 and make my 7:00 am train. It felt like I'd never slept, like I'd just lay my head down, when the phone alarm started beeping. I hate that.

I did sleep pretty steadily on the train ride back, awakened each time by the conductor's announcements: Newark Airport! Philadelphia! Wilmington! Baltimore! and then readjust, sip my vitamin water, curl back up, sleep again.

I am both amazed and horrified by my ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time. Someday it might not be a good thing. Ironic because, as a young person, I was riddled with insomnia. Still am, sometimes. And yet--give me a train, a plane, a bus, a back seat? And I am out.

I have such mixed feelings being up in NY. Part of me is always like, "Why did I leave here? Why don't I live here?" but then going to the Sunshine movie theater down in the Lower East Side I look around, and I get so overwhelmed by all the little hipsters in their skinny jeans and scrunchy boots and greasy looking hair that it's like eating too much frosting and having to pucker up your mouth because it is just so much of the exact same flavor. I know that it's not like this everywhere in New York, and is certainly better in some of the boroughs, but I just want to see like--a normal pasty person from the mid-west in an outfit they bought from Kohl's. Like, an every day person. And then sitting down to previews and each indie film is about a person/couple/family/single-girl who is just that much quirkier than the one that came before them.

Seriously.

We're idiosyncratic! We're quirky! We're not well shaven! We behave in unpredictable ways in relationships! We say things that are inappropriate, to people we shouldn't say them to!

The preview for the new Ethan Hawke movie came on and I had to gulp my diet coke just to clear my palette.

And I bet I'd enjoy these movies. It just feels like urban-hipter-angst overdose sometimes.