Kimya Dawson

I first heard of Kimya Dawson after hearing her song Anthrax from the Body of War soundtrack. Wait that is not true, I guess I truly first heard her , as you probably did from the Juno soundtrack.

Image from Amie St.

The haunting disjointed lyrics, her unconventional voice, and simple guitar chords had me interested enough to do some research.

this is just a test take it with love and you will pass
you will be rewarded if you do your very best
nothing ever goes as planned so don't take anything for granted
if you do the world will kick your ass

I had a difficult time finding any of her music through torrents except for her kids’ album Alphabutt, a series of silly children’s songs. Kaia and I have been listening to it almost everyday on our way to school, and we both are falling in love. It is so funny to hear Kaia ask for songs by name and sing along.

I am not sure if singing about monkey farts is appealing for people with out kids, but Kimya does take a few asides from her immaturity to subtly teach us some lessons. Two of my favorite songs are Sunbeams and Some Beans and Happy Home (Keep Writing).

Here is why:

If you're breathing you are living
If you're living you are learning
So write and write and keep on writing
Just make sure your life's exciting
Write and write and keep on writing
Just make sure your life's exciting
Write and write and keep on writing
Just make sure your life's exciting

I can wait to teach this song to my students!

it was his heart that made my friend great
Not his muscles, his money, his job or his name or his fame
See my friend isn't famous
He is just a good person who grows what he eats
And if you have a mouth then he will try to feed you
And if you are cold he'll put wood in the stove
Grab a quilt and some warm flannel sheets

If you are into weird hippy kids music with a message, then give Kimya Dawson a listen, you and your kids will have a blast just getting silly:

we were somewhere

Not sure why my friend at We Buy Balloons doesn't post his work at his own blog, but he asked me to read over this vingette and post it if I liked it. Well, I liked it. A lot. So here it is:

we were somewhere in the bay area hills, tucked away from all the traffic and bridges and parents. I'd just turned 10 and was on my first overnight summer camp. i remember drinking endless cups of soda, soccer games on fields huge and green, and i remember making a kite and tying it with red yarn to my finger and i remember voices around a small fire, the smell of burning wood, the rawness of dawn, playing paddle ball with a girl with short blond hair, silver dust caught in clothes, a pool with two intertubes drifting along a corrugated surface.

but it's the last night i remember most. we'd begged our counselors to let us sleep outside the cabin, to let us take our sleeping bags out to a clearing just above camp. impossibly, they agreed. and so i lay on my back, in a field full of bodies, all of us silent and awake, the night air cool against our cheeks, clouds low and thickening in grey tufts, wandering overhead, backlit by stars too many to count.

i must have stayed up nearly the entire night. just watching the black dome above me, a single satellite hurtling somewhere, stars suggesting some faint form, some silhouette i recognized but couldn't quite name.

i heard everyone around me breathing in slow, even tones. asleep now against pillows damp and aglow under the moon. i turned my flash light on and beamed it overhead. trying to add one more star to the sky. hours passed, entire universes appeared and scattered and appeared. my light somewhere among the riot.

and now, two decades later, i so badly want that night to be with me still.

because there are moments when i want to know what i was saying. my light caught something up there. i don't know what, but something. i need to know what it heard, what message i'd blown across stars, what story i tried to share.

whatever it was i knew then, i've lost. the only mark i've ever made was streaked into the sky that night.

while it stays alive, i'm alive.