On the twenty-first floor of the Grand Hyatt hotel I stood at the window in my bathrobe looking out at the high-rises and cranes above, mountains in the distance and ferryboats, all the people looking back in at us. I… Read More ›
journal writing
Cord vs. chord, “ribbed fabric, especially corduroy”
I texted Lily a Spotify URL for a song while they were at dance lessons: my other favorite singer Mark (Kozelek), in hopes she’d find a connection with him. For a month I drove to work with the same playlist,… Read More ›
Discreet Music | “Letter for 2018,” Jan. 31
Jan. 31, 2018, Hi everyone, we’ve had a pretty good year here so far, we can’t complain. Mark Smith died (my favorite singer), and so did the wall clock in our den. I bought another one on Amazon but it’s… Read More ›
The super, blue, blood moon blues
We got up at 4:30 to watch it, but it was all cloudy. “Discreet music,” I guess. So much for January.
Dover to Dunkirk, Jan. 31, 2016
And just like that, January was over. It meant we could reenter the Schengen by way of France, spend a night, and the next day return to my mom’s house in Germany. The radiator crapped out on the Opel and… Read More ›
Discreet Music (MES edition) | Jan. 24, 18
I’ve lived out here since ’96 and always had a good attitude about the rain, that it’s just November and December which are hard, that by the time you get to January you’re over the hump. Not true! It doesn’t… Read More ›
Discreet Music | “Brutal Ardour,” Jan. 22, 2018
So on a typical Monday here in the suburbs: Lily (12) starts seeing a therapist and texts me, “My therapist said I shouldn’t worry about finishing my homework tonight.” Charlotte (10) is caught moping over the kitchen island drawing another… Read More ›
Discreet Music | January 14 (Portland, OR)
The funny thing about ambient music is, I can play it over and over again, and never really notice if it’s the same song. And then, there are times I’ll recognize the artist and feel sophisticated, like when I’m seeing… Read More ›
Discreet Music | January 16, 2018
I made marrow soup for the first time (or released the marrow I guess, into a soup). And I took a hot bath and imagined myself settling into it the same as the chicken carcass, reduced. I flickered in and… Read More ›
Discreet Music | January 11, 2018
“Discreet Music” is the name of a Brian Eno album from 1975 and also a new blog series I’m running through January, prompted by a journal-writing theme I started in Germany over the holidays. It’s inspired by the David Sedaris… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 