{"id":44,"date":"2010-01-06T21:56:09","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T02:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/?p=44"},"modified":"2010-01-07T07:28:25","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T12:28:25","slug":"handed-down-or-made-by-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/?p=44","title":{"rendered":"handed down or made by hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each entry I wrote during the Holidailies period had a title that had something to do with the topic being written about, in the form of song lyrics.<\/p>\n

Here are the songs, in case you were curious:<\/p>\n

we all must learn from small misfortune<\/a><\/strong>
\n“The Closing of the Year<\/a>”
\nWendy and Lisa (Toys<\/em> soundtrack)<\/p>\n

the velocity of time turns her voice into sugar water<\/a> <\/strong>
\n“Sugar Water<\/a>”
\nCibo Matto<\/p>\n

and all we ever were – just zeros and ones<\/strong><\/a>
\n“Zero Zum<\/a>”
\nNine Inch Nails \u00e2\u2122\u00a5<\/p>\n

suki plays with leo, sacha plays with britt<\/strong><\/a>
\n“Games Without Frontiers<\/a>”
\nPeter Gabriel<\/p>\n

only a steel man came to recover<\/a><\/strong>
\n“The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts<\/a>”
\nSufjan Stevens<\/p>\n

the shameful lowlands of the way i’m drifting<\/a><\/strong>
\n“The Sun Always Shines on TV<\/a>”
\nA-ha<\/p>\n

a cheap renoir, a fake van gogh, a pop monet, a blue degas<\/strong><\/a>
\n“Jack’s Valentine<\/a>”
\nOver the Rhine<\/p>\n

i love your slinky spoilers, they really speak to me<\/a><\/strong>
\n“Autophilia<\/a>”
\nThe Bluetones<\/p>\n

with half-closed eyes, things looked even better<\/a> <\/strong>
\n“Waiting for the Night<\/a>”
\nDepeche Mode<\/p>\n

there’s nobody on this flat earth would ever want to win it<\/a> <\/strong>
\n“Hold Me, My Daddy<\/a>”
\nXTC<\/p>\n

cold station all of my life, forever i fear<\/a> <\/strong>
\n“5:15 The Angels Have Gone<\/a>”
\nDavid Bowie<\/p>\n

try whistling this<\/a><\/strong>
\n“Try Whistling This<\/a>”
\nNeil Finn<\/p>\n

more and more i’m secretly just me<\/a><\/strong>
\n“Goodbye (This Is Not Goodbye)<\/a>”
\nOver the Rhine \u00e2\u2122\u00a5<\/p>\n

handed down or made by hand<\/strong>
\n“Mystery<\/a>”
\nIndigo Girls<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

So, you’ll see the links back to the entries from this season, along with, as best as I could do, some link to some version of each song – they’re pretty worth clicking through to, in my humble opinion.<\/p>\n

(the hearts indicate entries that were considered part of the best of holidailies – so thanks for that, panel!)<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

Normally I just write my heart out no matter what, when it’s come to Glitter\/Glitterbook – that’s the way it’s always been since I first started writing for the web in 1998. Sometimes I wrote as if the entry were a letter to someone specific, but mostly it was unedited, rambling crap that was a stretching of writing muscles with little artifice or effort – a way to get stuff down before I forgot it all completely.<\/p>\n

I’ve sort of lost the thread, lately. Diminished returns on interactions with people online are a huge part of it – it’s so easy now to self-publish, and just as easy to dismiss, diminish, or filter out someone else’s words completely. It’s all part of the big cycle, but I find I get so little back, an itch that goes unscratched. It’s a weird process, not without a sense of loss, of shouting into a void.<\/p>\n

Paper journals are still a portal, thankfully.<\/p>\n

But it’s still nice to tuck into the warm blanket of routine, when the darkest nights of the year are sub-zero cold and glittering with stars, and attempt to remember what it was like when this sort of thing was food to sustain me, when people said, yeah, I’m listening, and now I want to tell you<\/strong> a story …<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s still nice, even though these past years have been hard and sometimes ugly and very, very empty of things that I counted on and thought were true.<\/p>\n

In other words, I have a lot of work ahead of me. The words want to be written, but when it’s cold and blustery and my stuff is still in moving boxes and I am still crawling out from under the wreckage, it’s daunting to find that safe place where we can all sit around and recount our lives, connect human-to-human.<\/p>\n

Each time you’d pull down the driveway
\nI wasn’t sure when I would see you again
\nYours was a twisted, blind-sided highway
\nNo matter which road you took then<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh you set up your place in my thoughts
\nMoved in and made my thinking crowded
\nNow we’re out in the back with the barking dogs
\nMy heart the red sun, your heart the moon clouded<\/em><\/p>\n

{Refrain}
\nI could go crazy on a night like tonight
\nWhen summer’s beginning to give up her fight
\nAnd every thought’s a possibility
\nAnd voices are heard, but nothing is seen
\nWhy do you spend this time with me
\nMay be an equal mystery<\/em><\/p>\n

So what is love then, is it dictated
\nOr chosen – Handed down or made by hand
\nDoes it sing like the hymns of a thousand years
\nOr is it just pop emotion – Handed down or made by hand<\/em><\/p>\n

And if it ever was there, and it left
\nDoes it mean it was never true
\nAnd to exist it must elude
\nIs that why I think these things of you<\/em><\/p>\n

{Refrain}<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, but you like the taste of danger
\nIt shines like sugar on your lips
\nAnd you like to stand in the line of fire
\nJust to show you can shoot straight from your hip
\nThere must be a thousand things you would die for
\nI can hardly think of two
\nBut not everything is better spoken aloud
\nNot when I’m talking to you<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight
\nBreaks a bottle to christen her
\nBasking in the exploits of her thief
\nShe’s a very good listener<\/em><\/p>\n

And maybe that’s all that we need is to meet in the middle
\nOf impossibility
\nStanding at opposite poles
\nEqual partners in a mystery – Handed down or made by hand
\nWe’re standing at opposite poles
\nEqual partners in a mystery
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each entry I wrote during the Holidailies period had a title that had something to do with the topic being written about, in the form of song lyrics. Here are the songs, in case you were curious: we all must learn from small misfortune “The Closing of the Year” Wendy and Lisa (Toys soundtrack) the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glitterbook.com\/2009\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}