What I'll Remember Most

The saddest songs are the happiest
The hardest truths are the easiest
Put us both to the test
And tell me if you still need me
And I will swallow these words
And see if I can still believe

The biggest lies are the little ones
When the look in your eyes is the distant one
Angel or demon
You know that they can share one bed
I’ve laid awake so long
I’ve got them both inside my head

This is what I’ll remember most about dying
So many moments like ghosts
Slipping through my hands in vain
You were 80% angel
10% demon
The rest was hard to explain

This American dream may be poisonous
Violence is contagious
Crowded or empty
I walk these city streets alone
Whoever brought me here
Is gonna have to take me home

This is what I’ll remember most about dying
Loading these moments like a gun
Hoping to kill the pain
You were 80% angel
10% demon
The rest was hard to explain


~Over the Rhine

Last Night

Mercy. The mind is a wonderful thing, but at times memory is too forward, too accurate, too sharp and the imagination is too suggestive and the heart is too filled with doubt. Thankfully my brother had been there to (unwittingly and preemptively) save me, like he usually is. I am so un-expressibly thankful for him.

Even with that watery eyed bit, last night was very nice. My brother and I went downtown for Mediterranean pizzas (2.99 on Tuesdays). He was still recovering from all the joy surrounding his big show on Sunday night, and experiencing a lack of sleep, so he was feeling a bit off too. There are things to help these sorts of moods: There were hugs. And cracked pepper chips. Then we went to his house and watched my recently arrived copy of La Vie en Rose. I am so glad that Marion Cotillard won best Actress for her role in that film. I was amazed. And for such a sad movie, I didn't leave with that enormous sinking feeling like I usually would have, but rather I left with a greater portion of the purposefulness that has been welling up inside me lately and a deep understanding of my heart's capacity to love.

For someone who loves the past deeply, it can be hard to keep it in it's place. But when my present and future are filled with such wonderful things, it becomes as easy as pie to refuse the past any more of my time than it deserves. I want the future to be informed by the past, not to be determined by it. I want to draw inspiration from it, not be defined by it.

Some excellent things for me to anticipate . . .

18 days until my best friend Bethany gets married. I'll be the maid of honor in the green gown.

30 days until I get to go to Memphis, a city I love, to see Arcade Fire in a Turn-of-the-Century Opera House with that person who is always willing to travel to concerts with me: Josh. I will introduce him to the Heartland Hill.

46 days until my baby brothers graduate from Belmont. Bio-Chemistry and Molecular Biology for Luke, and Art and Religion and the Arts for Gabe.

53 days until my good friends' wedding. I illustrated their invites.

61 days until Gabe and I finally meet up with Over the Rhine.

66 days until my baby-est of brothers, Luke, marries the greatest girl in the world, Chelsey.

98 days until I stand under the stars in the best city ever with some of my favorite people ever watching my favorite band ever: U2 at Vanderbilt's tiny stadium with Mom, Dad, Luke, Chelsey, and Josh.


I've been listening to City of Blinding Lights on repeat until it has excited my heart into my throat. Mercy. I'm out of control. And it's good for me to not be in control.

For now I'll have to be content to spend the evening with my brother getting Tuesday night special pizzas downtown and watching French films. Bonsoir.

My experimental sketching regimen is going quite well, as you can see from the plethora of images you get bombarded with weekly. The only problem is this: what do I do with all these sketches? Keep them in a book withering away into nothingness? Nope. I want to release them into the world for whomever may want to adopt one.

And they can be adopted rather cheaply, I might add.

You can choose any New Year's Sketch for $55 unframed. If you would prefer a framed sketch, but have neither the time or want to to get it framed yourself, you can talk to me about how much it will cost to get it framed for you. I like to think I am a frugal frame-finder.

This is a really great price for these pieces, and each drawing is the only existing copy! Hurry! You can see all the New Year's Sketches here: http://www.meiskastarner.com/p/new-years-resolution-sketches.html

New sketches!

Over here: http://www.meiskastarner.com/

Ain't this life so sweet?

I'm looking over my calendar at work this morning, and I realize, based solely on spaces filled in by fast-approaching wonderful events with those I love the most, that this may turn out to be the best year of my life thus far. Mercy. And Merci.


Annnnd . . .

I can't stop feeling the urge to sing and quote this:

We Never Change
Coldplay

I wanna live life
And never be cruel
I wanna live life
And be good to you
And I wanna fly
And never come down
And live my life
And have friends around

We never change, do we?
No, no
We never learn, do we?
So I wanna live in a wooden house
I wanna live life and always be true
I wanna live life and be good to you

I wanna fly
And never come down
And live my life
And have friends around

We never change, do we?
No, no
We never learn, do we?
So I wanna live in a wooden house
And making more friends would be easy

Oh and I don't have a soul to save
Yes and I sin every single day
We never change, do we?
We never learn, do we?

So I wanna live in a wooden house
Where making more friends would be easy
I wanna live where the sun comes out

Tumblr

We all knew it was coming.

I have a tumblr, but for now it is just a storage place for all the idea pictures for my new place. Take a peek if you'd like.

http://meiskastarner.tumblr.com/

My city.

I've posted this picture I took driving with my dad before, but I still love it so much. And I love my city.

If you know what's good for you . . .

. . . which you may not, depending on the reader, but if you do, you'll go to this link and view the results of my brother's photo shoot out at The School. We had a great night of photography, music, frolicking, and delight.

This flower was waiting for me on my desk at work this morning.

Staring Contest

I sat on the grass and stared down the moon.
The clouds were sailing slowly past,
Pulling Spring to me.
But first the night would bring a sigh,
Witnessed through glossy eyes,
Because it was too lovely to bear
Without the offering of a single tear.

3.20.2011

Yep.

A "Sheriff"

My niece drew this when she was, oh, around 3 years old (she is now 9). She brought it to me and said, "Look! A Sheriff!"

I was, obviously, puzzled.

"A sheriff?" I asked.

"Yes, he is baking and has a sheriff hat!" she replied.

Ah the beauty. "Oh, a CHEF!"

"Opps."

New Drawings on the Art Blog!

You can see the new New-Year's-Drawings over here. PLUS I have a real URL now, so you can go to www.meiskastarner.com and it will get you there too!

There are worst situations in life than being lovely on a boat with a guitar playing, Irish Johnny Depp.

Can we ever have too much of this poem? No.

Six Significant Landscapes
Wallace Stevens


I
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds.

II
The night is of the colour
Of a woman's arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself.
A pool shines,
Like a bracelet
Shaken in a dance.

III
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.

IV
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.

V Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.

It's in me.

I have always been enchanted by the past. My parents have helped foster that love in me. It has always been very easy for me to see how my parents had done this: my mother would stop and wander through old abandoned houses with me. She would show me old things in thrift shops and at yard sales. My father would drive through the oldest parts of towns that we visited, just to look at the old buildings. He would bring home old bottles he unearthed on various construction jobs.

But I am just now realizing the important role my grandparents have had in making me love what has been. My grandpa is filled with fantastic stories, he is a true storyteller, and he is a navy man, so he has that rugged, sea captain look about him (whiskers and all). My grandmother has been so good to show me all the family photos and has told me all about them while I was scanning them. Her stories include special details that lay somewhere between the lines of perceived and seen. She remembers the sorts of moments I remember, like how the grass felt on a certain day, a delightful coolness you could never quite recover from or forget. And she loves tradition and having all the family over for holidays (like most grandmothers do). It is from these two individuals that my father gets that twinkle in his eyes.

My grandfather bought the school in Ohio where he attended as a young boy. My father bought a historic school a few years ago and my brother is restoring it to turn it into artist/musician/event space (you can follow the process here). We all need to mingle with the past, it just seems like my genes are conditioned to need it. But at least I get it honest.

Even my mother's mother, who I didn't get nearly enough time with, loved to tell me stories up in the hills of Kentucky.

And while the past may sometimes be painful and hard to think of, it is real, and denying the past would be the most unnatural thing in the world for me.

I am in love with the air.
It is most beguiling when it runs around,
And plays with my hair
Or when it sneaks up behind me
And I feel its touch on my neck.

The trees are in love with the air.
It inspires them to dance and whirl and roar
And clap their hands.
It helps them grow ever taller,
As it pulls them up to the sky.

It pulls me up to the sky.

Sometimes, when I am wading in the sea of sleep,
Just before I dive in,
I imagine that the air is gone.
My heart skips a beat,
And then stops.

3.8.2011

Check this out

Lovely paintings.

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day

Golden rod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael's house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes

Casimir Pulaski Day
Sufjan Stevens


Here's a video I took of Sufjan Stevens singing Casimir Pulaski Day in Atlanta when Josh and I went to see him last November. Unfortunately, you can hear me singing too much, and the camera is shaky, but then, it was all part of the experience, so, kindly, get over it. ;)

Owen Jones' One Thousand and One Initial Letters

You can view the whole book here!

Attention!

Mt brother, once again, is being awesome! You can see some photos from a recent fashion shoot here featuring the beautiful Anna Dewitt. He is participating in a show tomorrow night at the Mercy Lounge, which the world is invited to. I am excited.

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

~Ezra Pound