For Emma, Forever Ago

I have yet to hear a better album this year than For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver. It's just incredible. Bon Iver is basically a pseudonym for a songwriter called Justin Vernon - after the break up of the band he was in and the painful breakdown of a long term relationship, Vernon retreated to a remote log cabin and recorded the whole record there by himself (in between killing and eating deer!).

The album is just perfect for sitting and listening to by yourself in the small hours of the morning. I've lost count of the number of times this year I've been sat at 3AM just taking in the amazing songs on the record. I can't speak highly enough of it and hope that if by some weird mistake someone reads this that it'll intrigue them enough to want to hear it.

So yeah, go find it and thank me later =)

This is a fantastic live performance on good ol' Later...With Jools Holland of the song Skinny Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHyo33XLP24

Near a Plate Glass Window by Charles Bukowski

In reference to my earlier post about Bukowski, one of my favourite poems from The People Look Like Flowers At Last.

Near a Plate Glass Window

dogs and angels are not
very far apart.
I often go to this little place
to eat
about 2:30 in the afternoon
because all the people who eat
there are completely sane,
glad to be simply alive and
eating their food
near a plate glass window
which welcomes the sun
but doesn't let the cars and
the sidewalks come inside

across the street is a Chinese
nudie bar
already open at 2:30 in the
afternoon.
it is painted an
inane and helpless
blue.

we are allowed as many free
coffees as we can drink
and we all sit and quietly drink
the strong black coffee.

it is good to be sitting some place
in public at 2:30 in the afternoon
without getting the flesh ripped from
your bones.

nobody bothers us.
we bother nobody.

angels and dogs are not
very far apart
at 2:30 in the afternoon.

i have my favorite table
by the window
and after i have finished
I stack the plates, saucers,
the cup, the silverware, etc.
neatly
in one easy pile-
my offering to the
elderly waitress-
food and time
untorn,
and that bastard sun
out there
working good
all up and
down.

Bukowski and Bookshops

Lately I've been reading a lot more books than I ever used to, certainly no bad thing. I think it was partially born out of the calming effect bookshops tend to have on me - wherever I go, in any city, I always find bookshops to be a sort of mini refuge, a (usually) quiet escape from the madness of the high street. Naturally, from spending time in bookshops my interest in reading was re-invigorated and I haven't looked back since.

The first book I bought as part of this reading renaissance was Charles Bukowski's The People Look Like Flowers At Last. The book is essentially a post-humous collection of some of his poetry and I highly reccommend it. Bukowski was always very much in touch with the grimier, dirtier side of life and his poetry is no different - don't go in expecting flowery prose, the poems here are practically short stories, often very direct and uncompromising. Despite the difference between myself and the age at which Bukowski wrote the bulk of this collection I found a lot of relevance in the writing.

Very interesting and thought provoking.