These posters were inside their newest issue: The Truth Issue.

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Roma and Michiko, we write, and the words get it wrong. We say bread and it means according to which nation. French has no word for home, …and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people in northern India is dying out because their ancient tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would finally explain why the couples on their tombs are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they seemed to be business records. But what if they are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light. O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper, as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor. Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script is not a language but a map. What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

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The first time I saw Sigur Rós was in 2006 in Austin.  Then in 2008.  Then Jónsi at Coachella this year.  And again, last night. His performance at the Wiltern was so intensely beautiful.  I don’t think there has ever been a more amazing, cathartic musical experience.

It’s been a dream of mine to go to Iceland for a while now. It’s at the top of my bucket list. I’ll get there, soon enough.

The photo is from a Sigur Rós concert in öxnadalur, Iceland in 2006.

Here’s to a good week,

m

I wanted the whole world or nothing. Bukowski.

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N emailed me a great Bukowski quote this morning: “Great art is horseshit, buy tacos.” Coincidentally, I ventured into the hood this morning for an authentic spanish breakfast with an old friend who’s in town.  She said LA reminds her of Mexico.

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