guitar tabs for Jens Lekman's "Cowboy Boots"

ever since i first heard this song i wanted to figure out the tabs. enjoy!

Capo on 3rd fret

Intro - G A D G

G                A
You were in my dream last night
D                    G
Like every night since two years ago
G                             A
I think my dream is trying to tell my something
           D                   G     
And I say “tell me something I don't already know”

G    G/B       Em        A          D
Just buy me a drink, so I can refuse
G                          G        A                   D
To raise my glass to these sad and worn out midnight shoes
              G      A            D
In my next dream I want a pair of cowboy boots
              G         A                    D
The kind that walks the straightest and most narrow route
G/B
Anywhere but back to you

G                     A
Here we are down the same old street

D                G
Here we are with nothing to say

G                         A
My little hand trying to make it into yours

        D                         G
But you put it in your pocket and look away

G               A
I keep my eyes on the sidewalk

D                       G
For something flippable like a dime

G                     A
I wanna know how you forgive someone

D                          G
Someone you've forgiven so many times

G    G/B       Em        A          D
Just buy me a drink, so I can refuse
G                          G        A                   D
To raise my glass to these sad and worn out midnight shoes
              G      A            D
In my next dream I want a pair of cowboy boots
              G         A                    D
The kind that walks the straightest and most narrow route
G/B
Anywhere but back to you
Anywhere but back to you 

Jens Lekman's "Cowboy Boots"

the song i can't get out of my head lately is Jens Lekman's new song "Cowboy Boots." ever since i heard it for the first time at his performance in San Francisco, i've wanted to hear it over and over again.

Jens Lekman - Cowboy boots (acoustic session) by mouxlaloulouda

i scoured the internet for lyrics and guitar tabs, but found nothing (the lyrics out there currently are extremely inaccurate and it's too early perhaps for tabs). so, having listened to the live performances enough times to know the lyrics by heart, i thought i would do the internet a service and share them:

"Cowboy Boots" lyrics by Jens Lekman

you know that thing when you have the same dream

seven hundred thirty nights in a row?

and you think your dream is trying to tell you something

yea you say "tell me something i don't already know"

[chorus]

just pour me a drink

so i can refuse 

to raise my glass 

to these sad and worn out midnight shoes

in my next dream, i want a pair of cowboy boots

the kind that walks the straightest and the most narrow route

anywhere but back to you

here we are down the same old street

here we are with nothing to say

your little hand trying to make it into her's,

but she puts it in her pocket and looks away

i keep my eyes on the sidewalk for something flippable like a dime

i wanna know how you forgive someone, 

someone you've forgiven so many times

[chorus]

i really want to learn the guitar part to this song so i can record a version of me singing it. can anyone out there help me out with the tabs?

the light by which i travel into this and that

Jens Lekman and his drummer, Addison. they played a show at the California Academy of Sciences on Thursday, September 29, 2011. this post is about their performance.

i'm in a delicate state right now. i've tried to write this blog post several times over, over several days (this is attempt #5 6). i never do that, not with blog posts anyway. never. it's weird for me not knowing what to say, but then again, i understand: it's hard to write about things that mean a lot to you, that are deeply personal, that are personally significant. it's hard finding the perfect words to say something that just makes sense to you, something as simple as liking someone's music and how it makes you feel. that's what's going on here. that's what happened when i tried to write a thoughtful post about seeing Jens Lekman perform in San Francisco. nevertheless, something must be said. 

the seasons are changing and i feel lost, like i often do this time of year. there are so many things that i miss and can't return to, and i'm reminded of all those things the most when summer turns to fall. i've spent the last few weeks listening to Jens's music because it makes me feel at home in a place in my heart and memory that doesn't exist in a physical place any more.

i guess that's why seeing Jens perform live is such a meaningful experience for me. it's a physical home for an emotional state.  it's dancing and singing along with others who feel the same way you do.

Jens played a fantastic set, including songs from his new EP and some stuff that might be on the new record (my guess is the songs "Cowboy Boots" and "The End of the World is Bigger Than Love" are on the forthcoming record, in which case i already can't wait for it to be released), and he also played some older stuff, like a beautiful acoustic version of "Black Cab," and one of my favorite Jens songs of all time, and a song i want played at my wedding, "I Saw Her In the Anti-War Demonstration" (videos below). and when Jens played "Opposite of Hallelujah" and he busted out a sample of Chairmen of the Board's "Gimme Just a Little More Time," i swear we both looked directly at each other while we waved our arms in a come hither motion and shuffled our feet in place, while lip syncing the lyrics. Jens also played "A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill," and i sang along and yelled "oh no!" like it is on the record, and then everyone else started in with me, and we did the "bumpa bumpa bumpa bumpa bumpa bumpa BUMP!"s and at the end of the song, Jens clutched the mic tight to his chest and, beaming, asked us "can you hear the beat of my heart?" while his hand thumped a heart flutter on the mic for all of us to hear. he looked so happy to have shared that song with all of us, like we had just made his night because our collective understanding of the song matched his, and that synchronicity was putting a smile on all of our faces.

Jens playing the crowd like a xylophone at the end of "Opposite of Hallelujah"

something else i really appreciated about seeing Jens this time around was the light politicking he did between songs. reading his blog and listening to his music lately has made me realize the subtle politics in his music that are gradually coming more prominently to the surface. during his set, Jens paused to tell us about the debates over a Good Samaritan law in Sweden, healthcare and education, and he sang a love song about an anti-war demonstration. and "Waiting for Kirsten," from his new EP, though ostensibly about missing the chance to see Kirsten Dunst at a local club, is also a delightful song about social equality and a Swedish disinterest in celebrity ("in Gothenburg we don't have VIP lines/ in Gothenburg we don't make a fuss about who you are"). 

i've always thought critics have underestimated the resonance of his music; they get caught up in the surface, distracted by the adorable lyrics (he rhymes "Jehovah's [witnesses]" with "pullovers" and "casanovas" in a way only someone with a sweet Swedish accent can do), without realizing that Jens is writing/singing about some pretty heavy stuff: love, loss, the end of the world, missed connections, life's changes. his work has always had that common theme of working thru life's transitions, difficult times, with a sense of humor and a childlike questioning. his music is liminal, transitional music with some of the despair diluted with fun. it's dancing-because-what-else-can-we-do kind of music. i always label his music "Holiday" when i put it in my library, because that's how it feels to me, like a holiday from my life's worries, but also because holidays as a kid were always those short breaks between the end of something and the start of something else, when you were at home in your old house that you grew up in, but don't feel like you live there any more, and you spent your days lying in your bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about your life and scared about your future.


i had more, so much more, to say. but you know what they say about pictures and words. so here are some pictures and some moving pictures i shot at the show (click on pictures to make them bigger!):

Jens sampling Chairmen of the Board's "Gimme Just a Little More Time" during a live performance of "The Opposite of Hallelujah" (i think this is from his 2007 tour for Night Falls Over Kortedala, because of the girl group with him, and because i remember filling with joy when they busted out that sample during the show i saw in Chicago)

Jens Lekman extract by Wirewool

my college friend Karen and i at the end of the night, happily holding one of Jens's limited edition picture discs in the lobby of the museum.

additional things that must be said:

- i think the most frequently uttered word of his entire performance was "pocket." that in itself encapsulates how much love i have for his music and what great friends Jens and i would have made, if only we grew up in Sweden at the same time.

- i have mp3s to share with you! 

Cowboy Boots (Live) (link goes to another page, right click on mp3 link to download)

The End of the World is Bigger Than Love (SoundCloud link)

Yeah, Oh Yeah! (Magnetic Fields cover)

happy 25th

birthday present to myself this year: seeing Jens Lekman perform solo in a posh bar overlooking the LA skyline.

who wants to be my date?

THE SUMMER NEVER ENDS.

a summer mix from my friend (and yours), Jens Lekman.

i have been blasting this all morning long. it's like an endless dance party on the deck of a cruise ship here in my room. and i'm imagining all the summer dance parties that will no doubt include this song and a plethora of mixed drinks served up in coconut shells. i'm inventing dance moves, babe. have you seen this one? (strikes a ballroom frame, mixes in some tap feet, some salsa hips, ends with a figure skating flourish).

it's the SUMMAH, honey. let's blast this all week long and dance until we can't feel our feet, until this party can't be contained, and the only choice is to move this out into the street so others can see what a goddamned good time we are having. this beat is a virus, baby, and you can't help but catch it.

Jens Lekman, you fiend, you harbinger of smiles and dance crazes, you're brilliant.

listen: THE SUMMER NEVER ENDS [mp3]

(excerpt from) The Summer Never Ends /// I Really Think That We Can Make It Girl /// Nicolette Larsson - Lotta Love /// The Embassy - State 08 /// (excerpt from) New Directions /// Coke Escovedo - I Wouldn't Change A Thing /// Filippo Trecca - La Morte Dell'erminia /// His name is Mikael Carlsson, her name is Alicia Keys /// Lamont Dozier - Blue Sky and Silver Bird /// Cat Stevens - If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out /// Jeff Perry - Love Don't Come No Stronger /// Good News - Australia /// Baby's Gang - America /// American Breed - Always You

Jens samples exhausted music and brings it back to life thru non-sequitur, free range connections. he keeps a blog and interviews comediennes, here.

maple leaves

"oh please God bring relief
even if it's only brief
she says that we were just make-believe
but I thought she said maple leaves...
... and when she talked about the fall
I thought she talked about the season
I never understood at all."

- Maple Leaves [mp3] by Jens Lekman.

that's me three years ago, enjoying a wallow in the leaves with friends.
this became an annual tradition for me and a few friends, oh i miss it so!
[photo credit Se4n.]

i got an email from my friend Sara tonight. she gave me an update on the goings-on back home, the activisms i've left behind, and she spoke of the leaves in the Fall and how spectacular they are. i can hardly believe it: one season spent away from home and i've already forgotten what it means to have an autumn, to feel the weather change and to trade in flip flops for boots, to bundle up and enjoy a walk with crisp leaves underfoot, the smell of summer leaving the leaves, the smell of air pressure changing and the way the woods get damper and colder and the smell of the rocks on the trails.

i miss all those things. i was just thinking about the last week of school last year. i remember one night walking out to my car, it must've been close to midnight, and the stars were out and the moon was brilliant and casting crisp light onto the treetops, and the wind was perfect, just chilly enough to justify wearing my jacket, my hands grateful for the large pockets. it was hushed and peaceful that night, unusually calm, i think finals were winding down and everyone had worn themselves out from studying or partying, or had moved home early. i remember pausing in the middle of the parking lot, craning my neck to stare at the sky, trying to remember what the immensity of that moment felt like. it was perfect. i wanted to live in that moment forever.

i miss the way weather affects my mood. in LA, i don't have good days just because of the way the sun is shining differently (because it never varies) and i don't get to appreciate the way the wind feels extra comforting one day over the rest. i miss those fall days when the weather is such a seductive companion, stealing you away from your work, abandoning work that always remains, always accumulates, to enjoy fleeting moments of sunshine and breeze.

her email made me homesick. i miss the feeling of fall. here, it gets cold enough to make me enjoy my bed's warmth, to make it harder to get up in the mornings, but when i get off from work, it's still 90 degrees out and smoggy. i want to live in a place where the seasons change.

-stef

p.s. i wrote this post with the hope that some of you could send me photos of the changing leaves. it would help me to remember home. send to free [dot] radical [dot] lee [at] gmail [dot] com. thx!

are birthdays happy?

so, tomorrow, the 26th day of December, as is custom for this time of year, i will have my 22nd birthday.

yes, woo-hoo and all that...

but i am remorseful this year, more than any other year before (yes, even compared to yester-year) because this birthday, more than any other, signifies the end of my youth. i've dragged it on long enough, and i find that this year officially closes the door on that splendid carefree stage of youth, and launches me on the track toward adulthood, endless responsibility and trudgery.

looking back, i had it all wrong:
18 = i was "an adult" by legal definition, but lo! - still just a kid, but an empowered one at that - i could rock the vote, buy cigarettes and porn. i was riding out the end of high school, soaking up college like a dehydrated sponge... life was good. no, life was awesome!
19 = not really a "kid," but still a teenager. and living away from home for most of the year, i was far enough from home to still enjoy it when i came back. that is, i could be a kid, while still pretending to have my shit together the rest of the time.
20 = the end of the teenage years, in terms of numerology. a regretful time. but i got in enough wild debauchery just under the wire to make up for the lack of it in all the rest of my two decades of life.
21 = i earn the right to legally imbibe alcohol. the party seems to just be beginning! suddenly i can get into concert venues! the fun places to hang out and party double, no triple, in possibility! downtown Lexington is no longer a void! pass me a pint and turn up the music, all i wanna do is dance all night!...

you see, all those a priori assumptions and fears about my waning youth were unfounded. i put too much weight on the significance of numbers! and sure, this year could be no different, but here's a glimpse at what's in store for me as a 22nd year old:
-graduating from college, leaving my closest friends and the community i've become dearly attached to for a significant portion of my life for a world unknown (i consider 4 years of my 22 years - the first 5-8 years of which don't really count, i was hardly a real human being then - to be quite a significant amount of time, and they've certainly been the most formative)
-getting my first "real-world" job (that is: doing work for a wage that, livable or not, will have to sustain me and all my daily consumer habits), or possibly going to grad school
-living on my own, away from friends and family, and all the sturm und drang that comes with that
-moving to a new city, possibly having to buy a car, and etc. there's too much to think about

you see, i really am still a kid! i don't think i'm ready to be thrust into the world like this, and now turning 22... it just makes me wish i could slow down time for just a bit, just until i can catch back up to it.

i mean, i found clippings from the local newspaper about the Lord of the Rings movies in my room, remembered how much i loved going to see those movies in the theatres... and then i realized the newspapers were dated back to December 2002! that was 5 years ago! i was 16 then! i was in high school! i tried to remember what it felt like to be that young, to have so little in the way of worries, feeling absorbed by the immediacy of everything, having only to worry about getting into college and thinking that would be enough for now (for then...)

how strange it is to be turning 22. and to have nothing left after this but 23, 24, 25, etc. until i reach more decades, and then finally death.

are birthdays happy? maybe they should be... but i'll be spending mine writing my thesis.

meanwhile, i hope you enjoy these gifts [all links yousendit]

"are birthdays happy? or are they just a countdown to death? is there need to worry? there might not be much time left, i haven't lived my life yet!"

"Are Birthdays Happy?" - Jens Lekman

"there's only about 20 birthdays you should be allowed to celebrate. otherwise you are wasting cake and paper!"

"You are allowed 20 Birthdays" - Patton Oswalt

love and youth,
stephanie,
who was 21 when she wrote this


p.s. and all i want for my birthday? a decent enough ukulele, so i can play this song to my self, while wandering around in a nice pullover:

tonight, tonight, we'll crucify the insincere, tonight.

before i went to bed tonight, i awoke to a memory of Jens saying this at his concert in Chicago:

last night i went to bed in a bad mood. the show in Cleveland had some technical difficulties, and i got a little upset, and i went to hide in the bathroom, and some hipster kid came and said some horrible things to me.

but today, i woke up with Billy Corgan's voice in my head and he was telling me 'tonight, tonight... we'll crucify the insincere, tonight.'

and we'll start the crucifixion with "The Opposite of Hallelujah."

i liked that quote a lot. i am struggling to get through some technical difficulties of my own that have me somewhat upset. the man in charge of my senior seminar told me last week that "i'm flirting with disaster," that i "should decide if [i'm] going through with this" and that if i don't turn in my lit review (a task i've found pointless, tortuous, and disempowering) by Monday (TOMORROW!) i am not going to graduate in May.

well, sir, let's begin the crucifixion...
-stephan!e


mp3's:
Tonight, Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins [yousendit]
The Opposite of Hallelujah by Jens Lekman [right click save as (from Secretly Canadian)]

Jens Lekman concert videos

from my dreamy trip to chicago. oh how i wish i could travel back in time, to this night, rather than live the sad present (i was told i wasn't going to graduate...)

sipping on the sweet nectar of my memories,
stephanie

strange times in my life

i don't have time to write a review of the show in chicago that would give Jens full justice, as i was told today for the second time this semester i may not graduate. so, as i try to focus on lit review, lit review, lit review, please read this review i found, which is more or less an accurate recounting of the glorious night that was the Jens Lekman concert in Logan Square Chicago. [the only major point i must contest: the "Pocketful of Money" encore was one of my favorite moments of the whole night. it's one of the first songs i ever heard of Jens' and i remember going "whoa. this is good. what is this?" it sent chills down my spine to hear it performed live!]

video and more fotos soon, i hope!
-stef

===

Oh, Jens. Only you could pull me out of my enclave on a cold, cold night after I’ve spent the entire day on an airplane. And you can scold me for doubting how your intimacy would translate to a venue the shape of a high school gymnasium. You pulled it off and, dare I say, it was the most glorious show I’ve ever seen you do.

I was to the left side of the stage when a burly bouncer told us all to back up as the band were coming through. And they did so in a perfect line of heavenly white and smiles. My excitement woke me up.

Taking the stage in matching white patent lace-up shoes, various white smock tops and dresses and button down shirts, and appliquéd birds, it was Jens and the girls (ok, and Viktor Sjöberg fiddling on a laptop occasionally over there in the corner) here to slay us all. Even though I miss those cozy shows with Jens and two or three others singing softly to us, with the addition of strings and brass, his songs are given the glorious treatment they deserve live.

He played many songs off the new “album” (I hesitate to call it an album as his full-lengths are always compilations of songs, and with “…Kortedala” I had heard a number of the songs in different incarnations previously). “The Opposite of Hallelujah” sounded magnificent. His rambling intro to “Nina, I Can be Your Boyfriend” made everyone collapse in giggles. The way “It Was a Strange Time in My Life” bled into “ Black Cab” caused us all to jump in glee. He didn’t kill the party this time, oh no.

There was a funny moment after the second or third song where Jens told us about the bad ending he’d had to the night before in Cleveland. Apparently some hipster dude had hurt his feelings with misplaced words! Poor Jens had a fitful night’s sleep, but woke up with the sound of Billy Corgan’s voice in his head, “We’ll crucify the insincere tonight…” And with that, Jens didslay the insincere with his songs this night.

In addition to a crisp, uniformed front, the band treated us to a few choreographed moves. It was early in the set that a soul breakdown came on through the laptop in the middle of a song, and Jens and the band beckoned at the audience in a come hither fashion. Ooh. Then during “Sipping on the sweet nectar", the music stopped, a programmed beat came in, and the entire band put their instruments down to flail about onstage as if they were airplanes. How wonderfully appropriate! How I wanted to join them!

“ The Cold Swedish Winter” made the sold out crowd go utterly quiet. I struggled to keep my eyes from spilling over. Who doesn’t want someone to hold through the cold winter nights? And in “ Maple Leaves,” you’ve got to wonder just who is denying Jens.

I think the band played two encores. It finally came down to just Jens and his guitar (reminiscent of the edge-of-the-stage serenades of yore by him and his ukulele). The last song he played was “ Pocketful of Money;” certainly not one of my favorite songs. But the audience sang the deep voice sampled on the song’s record, and it became a call-and-response between us and him, going on and on. When it finished, Jens told us that he’d said to Washington, DC that their rendition was the best, but he confirmed that we had now ousted them!

Viktor took to his laptop after Jens left, and a few people stayed around to dance and see what our darling Swede was up to. He graciously signed loads of posters and took even more pictures, newly bedecked in a grey suit and black scarf. Apparently he even capped off the night with some more strumming and singing at somebody’s house which, of course, I am sorry to have missed, but I am grateful for every experience I have with Mr. Lekman.

jag älskar dig, Jens Lekman

(i love you, Jens Lekman.)





so the show was aMAZing, of course, and Jens was delightful and charming, as i knew he would be. i have tons of videos to share and pictures galore to blow up and plaster walls with, just let me know if you have blank canvases.

oh, and afterward i met him and we talked and he signed a poster for me and asked me how i spell my name and then he said "Stephanie" in a delightful Swedish accent, and i thought i was gonna die or tell him over and over again how much i love him, but instead only managed to say "your set was wonderful" and then i practically floated all the way home on the train, and i wasn't even mugged walking back in the dark!

if dreams were delicious food, i'm in a food coma right now.
-stephanie

this is the dream of Stephanie Lee

dear gentle readers,

it's been a mission of mine - one not so much chosen as thrust upon me by the coincidences of the universe and time - to see Jens Lekman perform, ever since i missed his Pitchfork performance to accompany my friend Dylan as he slowly ate his breakfast at the pancakes house - i ran 3 blocks to the festival from the train stop only to catch the last half of Black Cab - a moment that still makes my heart quiver with sadness and regret.

then i discovered his blog last summer and felt like i'd found a long-lost friend. you know how kids feel misunderstood, they just want someone to talk to, to not feel judged, to feel less alone? that's how i felt when i discovered Jens' music. our lives were coinciding and he was providing a soundtrack - i was unhappy with school and life which had become routine, Jens was sad in his neighborhood and thinking about moving out. i found a ditty kind of delight in his writing, felt less alone for it, and wanted to feel that way all the time. for a whole month maybe, the only thing i wanted to hear in the morning was Jens singing about Jehovah's witnesses and casanova sweaters. it put me in a swing-song kind of mood. it made Sweden seem like the happiest place on earth, if Jens was there.

so here we are now. a year and a half since that moment i ran gasping over the Union Park lawn to realize i was madly in love with the sound of Jens Lekman and his boppy pop band. and now, in a matter of mere days, i will be living in a dream: i was so close to having to give up, when i couldn't find a friend to drive with me to chicago for the weekend, and all the trains and buses from Cincinnati to Chicago were leaving either too early or too late, and very expensive. i was ready to book a 3 am train out of indiana on wednesday to make it to chicago. and then i had no where to stay! the hostels were booked, completely full, and none of my contacts in chicago got back to me. even then, i considered sleeping in parks and on benches, in dark alleys, sleeping in all my clothes and using my backpack as a pillow. the way i saw it, Jens is coming all the way from Sweden to play his songs, i just need to make it to chicago. i had to find a way.

i've had a series of happy coincidences fall upon me: i met with my thesis advisor on Monday morning and told him how i was stressed trying to get work done before i try to catch a 3 am train to chicago. and then he said he was also going to chicago with his wife that weekend and could give me a ride! wow, that's fantastic! i can go up on Thursday and come back with them on Sunday! wow and gee, a weekend in chicago!! this is amazing.

then, i go to try to find a place to stay. i check all the hostels - all full. i'm freaking out, where to go? i email the Western Alum listserv and a friend i know is working at the school of the art institute, and soon enough, i have 3 potential places to stay - with my friend Dave in the loop (that's prolly where i'll end up), my friend Eric who works for some law firm and treated me to heirloom beets when we first met 2 summers ago when i was working at the Field Museum, and then my friend Jason who teaches in Chicago and lives practically across the street from the venue where i'm seeing Jens (where i'll prolly crash on Friday night rather than try to take a train or bus back to the loop from Logan Square - that's how i got stranded in a really bad part of town at 3 am one night 2 summers ago and had to wait at the side of the street for the buses to start running again at 5 - not fun!)

i've been getting calls out of the blue from ppl in chicago looking for indymedia. it's been 2 years since i worked there and suddenly i get 2 calls from people in the last 3 days asking for help on audio podcasts. weird!

there's changes being made to the CTA this weekend, i'll be there right before they put the new fares into effect.

and the weather in chicago is looking beautiful this weekend.

and, i just discovered that both Broken Social Scene AND Sunset Rubdown are playing in chicago this weekend! what are the odds??!

the universe wants me to go to chicago this weekend.
-stef

on hi-at-us

hey!

so, there's a lot going on! oh-so-much is going on! i can't believe i'm still a student sometimes, it's like i'm juggling 2 jobs and 5 obligations, and it just becomes too much to remember to do homework too!

well, there's SFS, which is taking loads of time, what with the living wage committee and research, funding meetings and negotiations, our weekly meetings, planning organizing retreats, applying for grants, and then having to build a homecoming float??!!

and then there's Campus Progress, for which i need to start becoming more available to help regional rep's with their projects, need to organize some projects of my own, and then there's 2 films or documentaries waiting for me to pick them up at the package center (and later screen!), that have been sitting there for weeks because they just keep coming and i don't have the time nor means to pick all of them up any more!! (there are 4 total boxes and packages for me. that's too many to carry on a bike or in my arms...)

oh, and then there's senior project, which fills me with self-loathing because i can't understand the intricate ways in which all these steps are supposed to help me write the paper i basically already wrote. wha??

and then i have to apply for Teach For America, before they won't accept me any more, and i haven't even begun thinking about my personal statement!

there's also my obligations to Talawanda High School every week as a volunteer in their Extra Time Extra Help program. soon the weather will be colder, making my bike rides to the school a little less pleasant. (but thank goodness for Autumn!)

and then, i'm teaching a class next semester! which requires a lot of planning and paperwork and all sorts of bureaucratic gymnastics, as i'm trying to draw a diverse group of students with institutional incentives and perks. and the fact that i'm teaching a 300-level undergraduate seminar makes me feel less and less like an undergrad each day. and as i'm spending so little time in a classroom these days, i am forgetting that, oh yeah, i am still a student, and i still have to graduate and figure out a future for myself.

which brings me to the fact that i'm taking the mother-effing GREs in less than 2 weeks and i have yet to understand what i'm getting myself into!

am i forgetting anything? i've been working early mornings at the radio station during the NPR fundraising drive, which is exciting and fun and a love fest, obviously, but also has me kinda exhausted.

put all these things in a blender, what do you get? one really frazzled undergrad who's had weird heart palpitations every five minutes for the last 1.5 days. at first i thought it was a happy thing, kinda like butterflies in the stomach, but like skipping in the heart. but then i realized that maybe it was a not-so-happy thing and maybe i should take 'er a little easy...

but as my friend Jens Lekman once wisely advised me [in an email about love and relationships more than heart tremors of the life-threatening or stress-induced kind]:

"if your heart is small and fragile then you need to start exercising. pump it up !"

tremors!
-stef

what's broken can always be fixed, what's fixed will always be broken

as some of you will remember, i fell in love with the music of a Swede named Jens Lekman.

and as the summer winds down and blows away, taking my memories of it (the smells, the touch and feels) away, too, i find myself listening to his music again. it always seems to find me in these liminal months, when i'm back in the midst of woods in Oxford, Ohio, awaiting the approach of autumn in the corners of rooms by windows, wishing it would rain to match my mood.

i think this is why i love Jens and his music: it allows me to relax and stop trying to articulate pangs i get about delicate moments, and be satisfied in knowing someone understands, that someone put it to song, with handclaps and gentle harp, and extravagant whistling.

i'm realizing time is fleeting. i spend my days now worrying about classes and homework, graduate exams, finding jobs, rushing to the library to grab all the books relevant to my research before someone else can, waiting for weekends so i can trip over to the woods or to the farmers' market. busy busy, always planning ahead, but never seeing directly in front of me.

i read a beautiful reflection on the death of a friend, on how the smallest details are what you always linger on to remember someone. "glances, touches, purchases, short phone calls, preparing a snack, standing in a doorway, taking off or putting on shoes." same goes for memories of your own life, i guess. all you have are moments.

which is why i return to Jens Lekman every summer, and especially why i listen to him now. he knows what it's like to want, more than anything, to prolong this moment, and every moment thereafter, to long to stretch out the spaces between seconds and climb inside and build a home. "The desire to go back to another time, to swim for a while there, and to cast it in rosy light. The doomed, daft act of revisiting a lost place and gilding it gold." [source]

-stef

---
speaking of moments, i stayed up all night remembering the summer in lost journal entries. i remember i've yet to fulfill my promise of posting writing from my summer travel journals. is there any desire any more?

jag vilja att veta svenska

[literal translation: i wish to know swedish]

hej!

sorry for the lack of posts but i'm back at school now and am already struggling to keep up with my insane schedule: i'm in class 9-9 practically every day. on wednesdays, until 10. thursdays, due to work, i don't get home until 11:30. i miss having a social life. :-(

when i'm not studying or applying for scholarships or programs or doing living wage work, i'm learning swedish.

why? you might ask. b/c it's so much fun! (lots of glossolalial tricks that don't exist in english! and the mere challenge of reproducing such a foreign sound is cognitively distancing. i see a swedish word and have no idea how to find the root or interpret its function, have no idea how to read it without a pronunciation guide, have no idea how to take this phrase and combine it with this other phrase to make a sentence, don't know how to conjugate verbs, how to use conjunctions, how to separate verb parts from their indirect object pronouns... it's terrifying, it's dizzying, it's so completely foreign and nonderivative... it's FANTASTIC!!)

i have been terrifyingly sick of oxford lately, and to maintain my loose grip on sanity, i've been opting for any kind of escape possible. before it would have been film, but since i am taking two film classes this semester, i've been kinda tired of the cine.

one of my ill-conceived plans for getting out of this slump is to take a semester off and travel to europe. of course, this could work out in the form of a study abroad venture, but given the poor choice of classes, and my verging proximity to the daunting senior project, i'm thinking that is not going to be a possibility any more.

but i think a semester abroad/away is exactly what i need. i need a change of scenery. some new faces. new strangers. a new kind of anonymity. maybe some time off to quit my worrying and simply live.

you can call it hedonistic if you want, but i think i'm just trying to survive. my advocacy is burning a whole in my heart and my search for truth has dead-ended me here in oxford.

so i've been doing research on sweden and i must say, it seems a magical place. healthcare-communism and a democratic monarchy (which is probly more democratic than our current system anyway... i'll take a monarch over a despot any day). plus, the swedes have been gradually lessening their dependence on petroleum and nuclear power, relying instead on hydro- and solar power. seems like a perfect fit to me...

anyway, sweden is bouying my spirits. as we all zombie around this campus in our respective existential comas, i am dreaming of sweden and mumbling jag vilja's ["i wish"es] with each breath.

jag vilja...
-stephanie


p.s. stephanie is such a non-swedish name that whenever i say "jag heter stephanie" i feel foolish. will someone suggest a swedish name alternative? the one i like best might get a prize!!

dear rocky dennis,

i wish we could have been kids together. i hope we would have been friends.

i would have chased you around the blacktop at recess. and i would have let you pull my hair, but i would have pretended not to like it. we would hold hands and skip rope and swing together singing songs from musicals we haven't written yet.

we would share bag lunches in the fenced-in grass at school, and pick wild strawberries from the bushes beneath the dogwoods. and we would climb the chain link fences to fall over on the other side.

i would have dreams later when you moved to another town, of the two of us being young again and on the same schoolyard, happy again as we used to be. and we would be flying with our hands clasped together and extended above us and we could perch on branches of trees, like birds, cooing and happy.

i would learn swedish to know you better. i would change my name to be one of the girls you sing about in your songs.

~~~<3
-stephanie

smalltalk

now, i always wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to musical crushes. (sufjan (1, 2, 3) and andrew bird anyone??) it's just too easy to fall in love with a distant talent, especially when you're delirious with heat exhaustion and dehydration, and when they're as unresistably talented and magnificent and wonderful as this. or this...

but mr. stevens and mr. bird, kindly step aside: lately, my favorite artist to pine on has been none other than the incredibly talented, charming, and swedish(!), jens lekman.

when a brief five minute performance is all it takes to exude the charm, personality, and musicality to win me over, you know... it's gotta be love.

i am, of course, speaking facetiously... ;-)

but, i must admit, that of all the artists i have had crushes on lately (including a recent one on peaches... :-?) jens is the absolutely only one i want to get to know in a real way.

before you get the wrong idea about me, please allow me to explain:
i think most die-hard music fans only entertain ideas of meeting their crushes in brief bump-in's, maybe an encounter just long enough to say hi, get an autograph, maybe even a picture... enough to say they'd met a celebrity.

that was enough for me to get over my crush on andrew bird, who i met post-show in newport, ky. it was just enough to get a t-shirt signed ("there will be snacks!"), shake his hand, and come crashing down from clouds of flight. it was enough for my lifetime with mr. bird in my life to let go and move on. mr. stevens i've never met, though his somewhat disgruntled demeanor during the encore makes me think i'd be intimidated and would have difficulty conversing with him.

jens, though, i would like to meet. would truly really like to meet. and not in the crazed fan, "i've been listening to your record endlessly all year will you please sweat onto my hand so i can go the rest of my life without ever washing it so i can say you did so" kinda way. jens i would like to meet in a simple average way, like maybe bump into him at a bookstore or on the street while out grocery shopping in sweden. and i would not be starstruck or wordless because of his stunning good looks, or his famous face, or his graceful demeanor, but would need to struggle to get my apologies in edge-wise (because i imagine he is a gracious person who would apologize profusely, as i do, if he bumped into some stranger on the street).

then, we would talk a little further about trifley things and continue on our way. if we ever bumped into each other again, we might talk again, and i would hope we could sit down to talk about greater things, solve great mysteries, go on dangerous adventures in search of treasures, rescue small dogs from fires and small kittens from too-tall trees.

because i bet you jens is as delightful and charming in person as he is on paper and on stage. he seems genuine. and i bet he's a fantastic conversationalist and friend.

you see, i've fallen totally in love with his writing on his website's journal, smalltalk. i think jens's music is fantastic, but i think he missed a secondary calling as a writer. he's just brilliant at it. the writing is crisp and soft in its honesty, and tinged in the corners with just the slightest detectable trace of swedish, in a way that makes me think of sunny outdoor weekends from my childhood... and makes me insanely jealous. i wish my blog were as compelling and sweet as jens's is... like this, for example:

I am back in San Francisco. This morning I woke up to the sound of a coffee machine going b-b-b-b-blup-b-b-b-b-blup and i was thinking ... poor guy, the girls must be giving him a hard time for stuttering like that. Sometimes I have such an unconscious empathy for dead objects.

his word choice tickles me. and i bet he doesn't even try! like his music, i bet it's all just so naturally quirky and endearing. it's dangerous to put that stuff on the internet for any one to come along and find. it makes people loopy.

it really is a compelling read. i'm reading everything is illuminated, and it reminds me of that. but it is most certainly not affected and is not conceited. the only reason i draw this comparison is that it uses language in a similar way, with the effect of making me smile and laugh to myself. it makes me happy to see language in this form, because it reminds me that communication doesn't have to be so complicated and shrouded in embellishments. it reinvents words and their uses to make them new and twinkly again.

and it's so nice to see an artist with his humility still intact. there are only three performers/performances that i saw this year that left me with a tangible sense of the artists' humanity and their love for their art: the frames, my morning jacket, and jens.

great! another reason to move back to sweden!
-stephanie


jens inspires giving and sharing and general kind-heartedness: a gift of song: someone to share my life with (mp3)

visit jens lekman and acquaint yourself with good. read his journal. it's probably the best artist blog i've ever seen, and i do read a lot of artist blogs. he keeps it like any normal writer would, and not to promote his music or sales (a tactic i find displeasing.)