Let your "killed darlings" into the light
Dear you,
It’s me, SBC, one week earlier than normal because I have things to say and I don’t want to wait to share them with you. If I make them wait while they are spilling like rainbow confetti out of my brain, they might become pale and stale, and lost to a cluttered hard drive. In some way all of my work is rooted in urgency, the exploration of a moment, and connection. So let’s shake things up, shall we? Why yes, let’s. I’m reaching onto my keys to type these words to you and you are scrolling with your fingers and so in some tangential way, we have CONTACT. I’m at my desk, where are you? Seriously, I’d love to know. When you’re reading this letter right now, would you take a photo either of yourself or your current view and write a one line caption of where you are and anything else that feels relevant? Would you be open to me posting your photo in my next letter? What is a letter, without an invitation for some type of correspondence: themomentmagnet@gmail.com
Thread:
Part 1: My friend and audio magic maker Lily Rose Sloane left me a voice memo last week and because she has a good sense of sound design, decided to put on a record to have as a backdrop to her swirling thoughts. After a couple of scratched records, she landed on Designer by Aldous Harding. She put the needle on the record and let the first bit of instrumentation bloom as she stood by the speaker and sang along to the initial phrases of the song (do you say phrases? lines? bars?)..wait it was the hook actually, yeah the hook, and it hooked me! “Fixture picture, I’ve got it, I’m on it, you’re in it, I’m honored.”Lily moved to another part of the room, sat down on her loveseat and continued to talk with the music quiet and mood setting in the background. I loved this so much because: A) this is a very skillful way to sound design a voice memo and B) something about the sound of the hook reminded me of old Crosby Stills Nash and Young harmonies and that made me think of my dad and my dad is dead. He has been for 21 years. The song was a portal, as music often is. I wondered if my dad would like her music. I wished more people got to hear my dad’s music. People often tell me that they like the sound of my voice and I know they are getting a glimpse of the best parts of my dad through me.
Part 2: I’m not even sure if I would’ve fallen in love with Aldous Harding’s sound if I’d found it on my own, but because it was tied to my friend’s voice as she was describing big stuff over the music bed of Aldous’s voice and because it made me think of my dad, it now has a home in me. So, the next day I searched for her name on Spotify and found her record Designer and let it play over the speakers. I was putting away dishes and my 4 year old son was sitting on the floor eating apple slices and pepitas and reading a book. All of the sudden, when that Fixture Picture hook came on, my son jumped up from his book and started running and leaping and twirling around with a big smile on his face. “I love this music, mama!” I put down the dish towel and started running and leaping around the room with him. We circled around each other laughing and twirling and we did that until the song ended and then I played it again and again. Again, mama.
Part 3: I’m writing this newsletter while listening to Aldous Harding’s live performance on KEXP and I’m toggling between listening and typing and just watching. I watch with my eyes squinted because there’s something so unsettling about her face wrapping itself around her lyrics; a feral animal, teetering between trembling sadness and childlike wonder. She’s weary and wobbly, terrified and discovering. Raccoon eyes oscillating between lit up by food scraps and longing. Dry lips, a tender vampire, a ferret wrapped around a tree limb, an embodied un-self conscious artist. At one point, the interviewer asks her, and I’m paraphrasing here:
“ What are your hobbies? Like, what do you do when you’re not making this amazing music?”
“Well…(A pause that feels like minutes) there’s what I want to be doing and what I actually do.”
“What do you actually do?”
“I…(another eons worth of space between the I and this next part) well, I watch….films and look at my phone and I eat a lot of food and I sit in the dark. That’s not what I like to do, it’s just what I do.”
“What do you like to do?”
“I don’t know….I don’t know. (stares blankly at the interviewer)
“That’s okay.”
You can watch this interaction here. It comes at around 18 minutes and lasts for a minute and a half. I found their exchange so moving. Maybe you will too.
Craft:
On editing…and these letters… This is a place for me to let loose the parts of myself that are impractical and a little extra. I take usually between 3.5 and 6 hours for each of these, so there is plenty of editing. But! I am allowing for some of these to be sprawling, because I need a space to subvert the ways that I edit essential parts of me out on the regular. As a mother, some of my needs and desires are edited out of daily life scenes, no matter how radically I try to parent and how much I grip onto my selfhood. As an aging woman working in the audio industry trying to remain relevant, parts of me are edited out too. I want to make this space fleshy and full of edges more than spare and tidy. You with me?
In the audio industry, during the editing process of a story, at a certain point we are told to or tell others to “kill your darlings.” We have to cut parts of the story that we might be really attached to, but that don’t serve the specific story we’re telling, that don’t help propel the story forward. It’s so important to do and also a little sad. What if a whole story was just a series of killed darlings showing off their beautiful irrelevance? I think it’s important to have a space for all of those darlings to live. Interesting to investigate the “killed darlings” in our personal stories that we slough off as we age in order to tidy up the way we move through the world. I like imagining a patchwork of “killed darlings” cuddling up together and showing off. Sometimes it’s enough to be filled with some kind of primal inexplainable delight. What are the “killed darlings” of your own personal story and how can you bring them back into the light? If you’re a radio maker, do you have a special place for your darlings?
7 things since I spoke to you last:
I always want to write: “I hope this email finds you engaged/healthy/well, in the moment,” because that’s how I think of moments. We are in them. But the grammar check wants me to switch it to: “I hope this email finds you well at the moment.” I’m not thinking about the moment as a location, I’m thinking about it as a cocoon. Get it together auto correct. Don’t you know me by now?
Emptied loose yerba mate tea into the huge ball jar where we store it and the green dust powered my face and got into my nose and it felt like I was pouring out ashes, speckled with the dust of the dead, but this wasn’t as sacred as that
Peeling an egg carefully at first, trying to let the little brown shells become even little checkers, trying hard not to loose any egg. It was taking too long so I started kneading the sticking shells with less precision, thus pulling off chunks of egg, rendering it a scrappy haggard orb. Made me think about how I gently brush my kid’s hair until I meet a fussy tangle. I curse myself for losing my patience. Less egg in the sink, less knotty bits in the comb
Reached for a neglected book on the edge of my kitchen table to read while eating my lunch instead of looking at my phone. Felt like choosing to focus on the dinner date right in front of me instead of retreating into my mind, or looking past them into a sea of strangers, speculating about their stories, instead of leaning into my own evolving one
Two red lights sturdily hanging from their pole about the width of my two eyes. My two brown eyes engaged in a staring contest with the two red stop light eyes. Traffic, to do lists, blurring into the background. I will win this!
College student staring at her phone like a droopy flower, while shuffling down the sidewalk in furry pink slippers. New lesbian lovers reach to hold hands as they leave their dorm and head out on the town as a tender new unit. People getting out of class, criss crossing each other with relief, terror, delight. My eyes like a protractor drawing together this geometry of newness and loneliness, paying attention to how and if these lines intersect
Wet socks on a bathroom floor. Will I never learn to keep my socks off while I’m in the bathroom or the kitchen? Will I always have damp socks when I leave my house? What things do we accept as our strangenesses and what things do we transform?
Recommendations:
Find one friend to walk with once a week on the same old road or city street or woodsy trail or suburban sidewalk. Watch the conversations change with the seasons and the outfits too
Take a self portrait after you have sex and don’t share it with anyone and peak at it when you want to remember what it feels like to leave your mind and revel in your body
Evan’s photo projects and his audio adventures
Dedicate a chunk of time every week to an art form that isn’t your primary one, or give some energy to a hobby that gets less attention than the rest
Extra lamps and extra plants. There are ones that are efficient and there are ones that are hard to kill and both bring light
Be open to receiving mail from a relative stranger and then send a post card back. Hi, Ruxandra!
Wear a shirt that you used to wear because it used to make you feel something and see what it makes you feel now
Tell yourself something that you want to remember while looking in the mirror and then turn off the light to seal it, to make it so
Avoid podcasts for a week and get lost in an audio book, or even better…MUSIC
The song Damn by Aldous Harding 25:50 into this live session (the thread continues!) 27:47ish minutes in, her keyboard player starts adding another layer of keys to the song while Aldous plays another keyboard beside her. It’s oh so lovely. The tenderness must be shared with you.
You are loved-
xx,
Sara