Fiona Apple - "Largo"

I was recently rid of a man again
So I caught me a cab to see Flanagan
I told the cabbie 'To the alley in back'
I told myself coming would keep me intact

Flanny shouts from the second floor
As I crossed the lot to the kitchen door
I see Guillermo and give him some lip
And I cross to the bar, Ellen pours me a nip
And I look to the stage it's the rock of rage, as Jon is on

And how could I listen without wanting to be with them,
And how could I have thought that I was ever alone?

I feel like singing and drinking and stuff
And I don't wanna care if I stumble or cry
Handle me like family and that'll be enough,
To keep me from dying when I want to die

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

I'm hopping scotches with Loretta and Bob,
But, but barely containing my rapturous song
Jon's calling names here like Santas reindeer
On Palmer on Leisz on Sarah on Sean

I love watching the Watkins when there rocking with Garza
I want to be part of the band though
And when Mr. Tench is on the bench I want to be the piano

I feel like singing and drinking and stuff
And I don't wanna care if I stumble or cry
Handle me like family and that'll be enough,
To keep me from dying when I want to die

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

From the Gospel of Luke

“AND when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

- Luke 17:20-21

Anti-war Poem

“It’s 5 below zero in Iowa City tonight.

This year I found a warm room
That I could go to 
                                  be alone in

& never have to fight.”

- Ted Berrigan, from “Anti-war Poem”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery - from "Letter to a Hostage"

“…lulled by the comings and goings of the deferential maid, we drank with the bargees like worshippers of the same church, although we could not say which one. One of the two bargees was Dutch. The other was German. The latter had previously fled the Nazis, pursued over there for being a Communist, or a Trotskyite, or a Catholic or a Jew. (I cannot recall for which label the man had been outlawed). But at that moment the bargee was far from being just a label. It was the man inside that mattered. The human essence. He was, quite simply, a friend. And we were in agreement, as friends. You agreed. I agreed. The bargees and the maid agreed. Agreed upon what? About the Pernod? About the meaning of life? About how pleasant the day was? We did not know how to express this either. But the depth of this agreement was so fully and solidly established, so biblical in its essence, even though impossible to put into words, that we would have gladly upheld this flag, sustained a siege and died behind machine guns to protect this essence.

What essence…? I have to admit it is difficult to explain! I fear I can only capture the reflections, not the essential elements. The inadequacy of my words will obscure my truth. It would be equivocal to claim that we would have readily fought for a certain quality of the bargees’ smile, and your smile and my smile, and the maid’s smile, which by some miracle of this sun, despite great adversity over so many millions of years, culminated, through us, in the quality of a convincing smile. As often as not the essential is weightless.”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery - from "Letter to a Hostage"

Ruth Stone - "Curtains"

Curtains

Putting up new curtains, other windows intrude. As though it is that first winter in Cambridge when you and I had just moved in. Now cold borscht alone in a bare kitchen. What does it mean if I say this years later? Listen, last night I am on a crying jag with my landlord, Mr. Tempesta. I sneaked in two cats. He screams, "No pets! No pets!" I become my Aunt Virginia, proud but weak in the head. I remember Anna Magnani. I throw a few books. I shout. He wipes his eyes and opens his hands. OK OK keep the dirty animals but no nails in the walls. We cry together. I am so nervous, he says. I want to dig you up and say, look, it's like the time, remember, when I ran into our living room naked to get rid of that fire inspector. See what you miss by being dead?


- Ruth Stone