ned buskirk

all things ned

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Some Xmas Compilations for Your Listening Pleasure

Every year I'm compelled to compile & release Christmas music for my [& your, if you're one of those people who like Christmas music] listening pleasure...

This year, not unlike a couple of years ago, my hankering is for sad Christmas music.

If you're so inclined, download & take a good listen to this sad sack of Christmas tunes titled More Sad Songs for Christmas: http://bit.ly/rUj13i

And, if you're interested in the first album in the Sad Song Xmas Series, download it here: http://bit.ly/scFc6Z

 

I Can't Remember Something Special I Wanted to Write

I sat behind the kitchen counter and stared at you. You were hitting him in the face with an ice-cube tray, hard enough to leave a red mark by the corner of his mouth, and he was letting you. Neither of you noticed me. But it didn't matter. I grabbed a piece of paper from amidst the kinds of shit my mom had on her kitchen counter. I only wanted a bit of space to write in, and I got it - a medium-sized sheet of yellow note paper. It meant I'd have to stop at some point. Otherwise.
But, as it turns out, I just wrote:

"I don't believe you'll ever die."

And after all that dreaming, it was all I could get out.
I stared again.
It felt already fruitless, or pointless, alone, sitting in the midst of that little yellow rectangle. It lost its power. Some of its power. In junior high, I could write a girl's name over and over again, trying obsessively to feel her close, but just feeling more and more space in my chest. A chasm of aching. Me on one end, the name on the other. It went something like that. There was feeling in it... but the more words I wrote, the farther away from me it actually felt. Maybe it has something to do with art and ideas or ideals, and the gap between what you think about and what you create to represent it. The impossibility of the act. And then I wrote:

"I can't remember something special I wanted to write."

I gave up.
I started singing in a monotone voice, because it seemed like I couldn't get anything across in writing: "even underground..." I spat softly... "they'll hear... songs of our soul..." but I trailed it off into a mumbling buzz, because, you're right, the words don't really mean anything. And I couldn't sing it as loud as I was feeling. By then you were both gone. I found myself sitting at the counter alone. In embarrassing silence. Of course. And I guess my thoughts had moved on to something else. Really. Like a duplicated idea of you and a matched idea of that and another version of that, just spinning outward away from the original.
Like writing a name again and again and again and again...