Eternal Love, Hollywood, Fla

(via the NYT interactive section- what they were thinking)

Michelle Trebow, 59:

I have dysphagia, which is an illness of the esophagus. It is progressive and irreversible. Eventually I won’t be able to swallow at all and will require a feeding tube. Everyone in my family is gone, so I had been totally alone in my illness. But then I met Danny at our assisted-living facility in May. He had just been transferred here from hospice, and the first time we looked into one another’s eyes, our souls locked. I love Danny’s quietness and his acceptance of the situation we are in. We decided to get married and vowed to take care of each other to the end. The facility director wanted to throw a party. She took me shopping — we found a prom dress on sale — and she did my makeup and hair. We married on July 2, 2011, and all of the residents came. Some even cried during the ceremony, and everyone danced afterward. It was the most beautiful day of my life. I’d been married before, but this was different. I realized, it does not matter when you meet the love of your life — all that matters is that I got to meet him.

Danny Clauson, 53:

The very first moment I saw Michelle, I thought, I’m going to marry that woman. I was bowled over by her beauty. And then I fell in love with her spirit. Less than a month later, I asked her to spend the rest of my life with me. I’ve lived a hard life: I’ve been married before, but it did not end well. Since then, I’ve been homeless and am now dying from liver cirrhosis due to hepatitis C. I’ve suffered a lot and was ready to give up. But ever since I met Michelle, I wake up happy.

Postscript: Michelle Trebow died on Nov. 18.

Interviews by Liz Welch

Photo:Maggie Steber

Vertigo

“Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall. “-Salman Rushdie

things that never left

Via NPR

“Photographer Jon Crispin has a fascination with things that are left behind. Those are his exact words. “Even as a kid I was trying to get into places I shouldn’t go,” he says on the phone.

In the ’80s he was basically given free rein to document abandoned asylums in New York state. He has also worked closely and often with the New York State Museum, including on some Sept. 11 preservation projects.

Crispin’s latest fascination is with old suitcases — discovered by the New York State Museum in an attic of the Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, N.Y. “The cases were put into storage when their owners were admitted to Willard sometime between 1910 and the 1960s,” Crispin explains on a Kickstarter page, where he is raising funds to continue photographing. “And since the facility was set up to help people with chronic mental illness, these folks never left.”

Sitting in a beach cafe next to you in the warm rain.

all aflutter

I adore The Moth podcast. If you haven’t listened, you should.

I just listened to one story about about Bill Clinton and an egg timer, then another entitled “The Undertaker’s Daughter.” Both of these made me laugh out loud. They are simply brilliant!

What is The Moth?

“The Moth – hailed as “New York’s hottest and hippest literary ticket” by The Wall Street Journal – is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. It was founded in 1997 by the novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to recreate in New York the feeling of sultry summer evenings in his native Georgia, when moths were attracted to the light on the porch where he and his friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales. The first New York Moth event was held in George’s living room and the story events quickly spread to larger venues throughout the city. The Moth has presented more than three thousand stories, told live and without notes, by people from all walks of life to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Each show features simple, old-fashioned storytelling on thoroughly modern themes by wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors.”

Read More

inspivids

Inspivids is a website dedicated to films that inspire thought and action.

it is a beautiful idea.

a bride married to amazment

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom; taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

California is a Place: Scrapertown

” In order to become a member of the Original Scraper Bike Team, you must: Be a resident of Oakland, CA. Be at least 7 y/o or older. Retain a 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA), Create your own Scraper Bike…(It Has To Be Amazing, Or Else You Can’t Ride.) A single file line when riding. After 10 rides the Scraper Bike King and his Captains will decide if your bike is up to standards and if you can follow the simple guidelines. After your evaluation we will consider you a member and honor you with an Original Scraper Bike Team Shirt. Only worn when Mobbin’ Stay posted for all upcoming Scraper Bike Rides…” – The Scraper Bike King

 

Scrapertown is  short documentary from California is a Place , a series of stories produced, directed, and shot by Drea Cooper & Zackary Canepari.  It is fascinating,  well told, and beautifully shot.

 

How to Dress Well: Love Remains

Check out:

How to Dress Well: Love Remains:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pitchfork Review of HtDW’s new release

“…The conceptual foundation is interesting, but Love Remains succeeds because you don’t have to think about that stuff to absorb its peculiar magic. For one thing, it has an arresting surface-level prettiness that offers an easy way in. “Ready for the World”, a sort of half-cover of “Love You Down”, the silky 1986 slow jam by the Michigan group Ready for the World (it was also a minor hit in the 90s for singer INOJ), sums up the How to Dress Well aesthetic. The lyrics are indecipherable, suggesting that feeling where you’re trying to sing an old song you love but can’t remember the details, so you mumble along with the melody; the percussion is crude and indistinct, and somehow sounds halfway between a sample and a bad recording of hand claps in a bedroom; a sampled voice from elsewhere repeats through the track, sounding both machine-like and human. Interesting questions come to mind– Is this a cover, and do I need to know the original? Why is it so distorted?– but it’s also easy to let “Ready for the World” wash over you, which turns out to be true of the album as a whole…”

Here is the whole review.

 

Growing Pages: The Passage of Time and Connection to Place

Sarah Henson is a Georgia born, Southern raised and

San Francisco based artist to watch!

Her work is something out of my dreams.