I have been listening to Billie Holliday most of the evening. I have a 2 disc collection of her recordings and I find such healing in her voice, possibly more than in any other singer's.

 

Her voice...even if I could find the right words to describe it, I'm not sure they would do justice. Listening to her is like finding a balm for your own loneliness, like feeling, however temporarily, suspended in safety.

 

This article from NPR talks, among other things, of how Billie learned from listening to singers like Louis Armstrong.

 

Phil Schaap, curator of Jazz at Lincoln Center, says Holiday "speaks to your heart. She catches your ear. She reaches your mind, and she does this with an emotional power that, of course, is genius and is beyond words."

The emotional power of Holiday's vocals comes from the way she sings the melodies. It's about rhythm and phrasing, which Holiday learned from listening to the best.

 

You can read all of the article here:

 

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/19/131451449/billie-holiday-emotional-power-through-song

 

 

books and people...

So, this post may ramble because I'm so tired to the point of almost being nonsensical. If anyone ever invents a sleeping pill that actually works and doesn't mess with your mind and body, well...it would be wonderful. And if that miracle pill could cause you to sleep and not dream, that would be even more wonderful.

A whole bunch of things are running through my brain...mostly just related to people...like how I wish people would just be more straightforward, no matter if their reasons for not being so are actually good.

Honesty is always better than lies and real hatred better than fake love. And people can lie with their mouths and their words, but never with their eyes and their body language.

And waking up is part of what happens when you finally begin to see things as they really are, not as you long for them to be. And when you begin to see things as they really are, you're less likely to be surprised by pain.

It's not that you prefer hate to love (hate is never better than love) but that you prefer reality to mind games...and, sometimes, books to people. You know where you stand with books (after all, they're inanimate and have already been written), but not always with people.

Personal growth is good and very important, but sometimes it's not so bad to go back to who you used to be. There was a time when I was shy and quiet and always kept to myself and I think I was much happier and more mature then...because I didn't expect much and I found all my peace and contentment from within and not from how I felt about other people.

One of the best places I found that kind of inner peace was whenever I read Charles de Lint's fiction. Somehow I've drifted away from his work, but now I'm back and I'm glad for many reasons, but mostly because (as it says on Amazon):

“His stories are good for the heart and soul…he reminds you of hope and strength and Beauty and Grace that you may have forgotten.”

Memory and Dream is one of my favorite books of all time and I've read it at least five times and am probably going to read it again this weekend. There are some reads you never get tired of re-visiting. And the world of Charles de Lint is always one you want to live in...because it is so often full of love and goodness.

From Publishers Weekly

The Otherworld tends to lurk just out of sight in DeLint's (Moonheart; Spiritwalk) works, waiting for some chink to appear in the facade of his characters' lives and allow its spirits entry. This latest work is no exception; here fantastic creatures gain access to the bohemian village of Newford through the work of Isabelle, a talented young painter. Apprenticing herself to the troll-like master painter Rushkin, Isabelle learns to paint amazing creatures-creations that subsequently take on a (possibly evil) life of their own. When circumstances cause a friend's message to reach out to her from beyond the grave, Isabelle must confront her own delusional revisionist history and decide if she has the strength to use her art, and the courage to do what she must. While Isabelle's delusions and the book's implication that artists are superior beings become somewhat repetitious, DeLint is otherwise in top form here. His multi-voiced, time-shifting narrative (the story spans 20 years) beautifully evokes a sense of creative community, making it almost possible to believe that the rarified aesthetic atmosphere might well be capable of conjuring up a spirit or two.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

And because one review alone can't do Memory and Dream justice, here are some more:

From Booklist, American Library Association, October 1994:
It is hard to imagine urban fantasy done better than it is by de Lint at his best, and this book shows his imagination and craft at their highest levels. De Lint's folkloric scholarship is as outstanding as ever; he never lets it slide into academicism or pretension… Memory and Dream deserves the highest recommendation and the widest readership.

From The Edmonton Journal, October 1994:
Easily Canada's top fantasy scribe…a major international force in the genre. Here is a biped who has steadfastly avoided stereotyping in his work from the beginning…de Lint has developed a considerable talent for injecting magic into everyday contemporary life. 

From Quill & Quire, January 1995:
De Lint takes a hard look at reality in Memory and Dream, especially at the personal burdens we all carry. He seamlessly blends urban landscapes, with all their sometimes ugly complications, with a magic that feels so true it's hard not to believe he knows something the rest of us don't. 
 
http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Dream-Charles-Lint-ebook/dp/B00IA9U7OM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1426883585&sr=1-1&keywords=memory+and+dream

classichollywoodcentral.com

Greta Garbo...it's so tempting to romanticize someone so seemingly aloof and alone, but after reading a recent article in the Boston Globe that referred to her "apartness," I had to read more about her because I hardly know anything about her at all.

I've seen many of her films, but way before that I knew she wanted to be left alone (or to be more specific: "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference.")

I have always been drawn to reserved people and not just because of the mysterious air they exude. There is always more to people than meets the eye, perhaps because, as Garbo herself once said, you need to keep some things to yourself>>>

There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.

Both this article:

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2010/04/the-garbo-next-door-200004
 

and this (from Wikipedia) add to the mystique and sadness of her solitude. But as old school Hollywood (when less was more) and mysterious as it might seem, she was still a real woman who did deserve a right to privacy and probably suffered far more than she ever let on...

In retirement, Garbo generally led a private life of simplicity and leisure. She made no public appearances and assiduously tried to avoid the publicity she loathed.^[113] As she had been during her Hollywood years, Garbo, with her innate need for solitude, was often reclusive. But contrary to myth, she had, from the beginning, many friends and acquaintances with whom she socialized, and later, traveled.^[114][115] Occasionally, she jet-setted with well-known and wealthy personalities, striving to guard her privacy as she had during her career.

Still, she often floundered about what to do and how to spend her time ("drifting" was the word she frequently used),^[116] always struggling with her many eccentricities,^[115][117] and her lifelong melancholy, or depression, and moodiness.^[118][119] As she approached her sixtieth birthday, she told a frequent walking companion, "In a few days, it will be the anniversary of the sorrow that never leaves me, that will never leave me for the rest of my life."^[120] To another friend she said in 1971, "I suppose I suffer from very deep depression."^[121] It is also arguable, says one biographer, that she was bipolar. "I am very happy one moment, the next there is nothing left for me," she said in 1933.^[121]

Tonight, I'm just now catching up with last Sunday's papers. This article from the Washington Post caught my eye, mostly because I have a soft spot for the misbegotten and unusual-looking and because I love vegetables:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eat-the-crooked-carrot-save-the-world/2015/03/13/d6899452-c7fb-11e4-a199-6cb5e63819d2_story.html

 

nerves and nightmares

Salvador Dali

I have been having the most horrific nightmares the past few nights so I'm drinking coffee and planning on staying up late tonight because I can't bear to fall asleep anymore, even though sleep is exactly what I want most in life right now.

I think it's all a vicious cycle, emphasis on the "vicious." Not sleeping and being nervous leads to nightmares and bad nerves, which then leads to more not sleeping which leads to more bad nerves which leads back to the...well, you get it.

I am ashamed to admit that I have been having a glass of wine, sometimes more than one, a night to help me sleep. I guess because I don't have much experience with alcohol I didn't realize it can actually cause nightmares, though I've had nightmares since I was a little girl and am not sure alcohol is the sole cause. 

No matter, the cause, though...I'm through with the wine. I don't like how it makes me feel.

Anyway...today I have extremely frayed nerves so I'm trying to go to my Happy Place even more than usual and also using this article to help:

 http://www.wikihow.com/Not-Get-Nervous (with emphasis on the second step):

2

Go to your "happy place" or visualize success. Happy Gilmore wasn't full of it when he used a visualization technique to quell his anger before making a golf shot. You can use a "happy place" visualization to remove yourself from a place of nervousness and visit a stress-free place of happiness, whether it be a shopping mall or a deserted beach.

• Visualize yourself succeeding in the thing that is making you nervous. Positive visualizations can turn into actual successes if you truly believe that you can succeed.
• Remember to think happy thoughts and utilize your imagination to imagine positive rather than negative situations.

As for nightmares, if you suffer from them (though I hope you don't), I found the following articles helpful:

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/nightmares-in-adults


http://www.charminghealth.com/applicability/nightmare.htm


And this really old thing (the copyright looks like 1946) on guilt and nightmares:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19461215&id=bk9QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Tg0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2558,564535&hl=en