How Marcus Fell in Love ❤

Remember how a few weeks ago I dreamt that Ryan Gosling and I fell in love? Well last night I dreamt it was Marcus Mumford. You know, the man responsible for this:



And this:


Well I dreamt we fell in love. Correction: I dreamt he fell in love with me, and I totally played it cool. I was practicing a song on a rickety upright piano for an upcoming concert, and when he asked me what song I'd chosen to play, I was so embarrassed that it was one of his, that I switched and told him I was playing "Loch Lomond." I knew this was a smart choice because 1) I could already play it like a boss and 2) I figured he'd appreciate my love for Scotland.

So naturally I asked him to come sit on the piano bench with me and help me with some chords.

*STAR STRUCK* (but still playing it cool).

He was totally into it.

Anyways, in some grand mixup, he suddenly disappeared (thanks a lot, dream). But don't worry, by dream's end I'd fallen in love again...

...with one of the 13 dwarves from The Hobbit.

Troubling?
Yes.

Trees that Tower and an Album Called Babel

Last night found us wrapped in blankets beneath the big tree, hiding from errant raindrops, listening to Mumford and Sons, smiling like we have secrets, smiling like little kids.

The album is a family and every song afire with a passion all its own. There is no resolve like the kind in "Holland Road," no hope like that in "I Will Wait," and no love like "Not With Haste." They demand and they promise and then leave the believing and the loving and the rallying to you.

These are the songs of the prodigal son. These are the songs of the wandered. These are the songs of the ones who ride triumphant into love with hands open and brave hearts brave and unfailing.

music monday (mumford & sons edition)

All Mumford. Their new album comes out tomorrow. Can you blame me?

1. "Home"
2. "Ghosts That We Knew"
3. "Below My Feet"

Queen of the Sink (and Other Stories)

And today I learned how to disassemble a sink.

(Carrot peels + our disposal = no good. Hence, an opportunity for me to learn how to unscrew pipes and fish out food and force myself not to throw up when warm and carrot-chunky water comes gushing out the pipes, over my hands, and splatters in the pan and onto the cupboard walls under the sink. Just this much closer to being a steel-stomach mom someday.)

Other things I'm proud of from this week:
1. Getting gas last night instead of putting it off again. I always put off getting gas. I've never yet run out of gas, which is why I perpetuate this unsavory habit, but I live in constant fear that one of these needle-on-E days, my gas tank will revolt and say, "We've had enough of your bad habits."
2. And I went to get gas attired in black stretchy pants and socks. I was already in my car, it was late at night, I was comfy, and I knew if I stopped at home to "make myself presentable" before foraying out into the world to fill said gas tank, that what would actually happen is me crawling in bed and going to sleep. Hence, in my stockinged feet and stretchypantlegs, I went to the gas station. No shame. And apparently no fear about my socks touching gas station concrete ew.

...

.....

Wow, five minutes later, I can't think of anything else to add to the "proud of" list. Things I'm not so proud of though? Eating that whole pan of brownies (what the?!), watching reality t.v. with the roomies (I don't regret the roommate part, just the reality t.v.), staying up 2+ hours too late every night (serious problem people)...(what is this, confessional? I seriously need a theme for this blog or else this is what it inevitably denegrates to: Carolyn's Confessions. I guess you've gotta say them somewhere.)

Sigh.

Tomorrow is Mumford & Sons' new album. (Here's stuff I've written before about this band that I love so much.) You better believe there's gonna be a celebratory Music Monday tomorrow.

. . . . .

you went left
i went right
as the moon hung proud and bright

{mumford & sons}

music crushes, 2011

one time, my friend nick, a real music guru if there ever was one, said he'd marry eisley's voice if he could.  i've had a good handful of music loves this year...come to think of it, i probably hear their voices at least daily.  how often can you say that about a person--that you hear their voice daily?  good thing their voices are so loveable...

in chronological order, and for your listening pleasure, i'm coming clean--admitting all my [musical] crushes of the year.  dear men featured here, your voices are beautiful.  they've made the melodic fabric of my visions and of my imagination for the last 365 days.  i would marry each and every one of your blessed voices. 

ROBIN PECKNOLD

of FLEET FOXES

the following song first debuted at music at ten, courtesy of jake who's always up on stuff like new songs available for free download.  totally enamored of fleet foxes' first album, i downloaded A-SAP, then proceeded, michael-style, to listen to nothing other than this one song, on repeat, for everyday.  late one night, after the fort days of february, i was sitting in the dark with friends (this sounds very hipster.  it wasn't.  just bored and enjoying music.  on the floor.  in the dark.  okay fine, it was totally hipster.).  i accidentally switched itunes to visualizer mode and thus opened a new world of wonder!  first, the colors of the visualizer are rainbow.  second, the explosions and vibrancy of said rainbow shapes are synced with the rhythm and intensity of the music!  there are some things words cannot explain.  not many, but some.  this is one of them.  try it.  download the song, switch to "jelly" mode in visualizer, turn off all the lights, turn up all the speakers.  mesmerizing, enchanting, captivating, hypnotizing, ensorcelling, bewitching.  not to mention the whole bit about orchards.

oh and then i saw fleet foxes specifically robin pecknold perform in london.  in a theatre with all the seats removed, with amazing acoustics.  and when that first riff of sun giant rippled acoustic through the crowd....silence and harmony and perfect music.  there aren't many moments of perfect music in your life.  that was one of them.

MARCUS OLIVER JOHNSTON MUMFORD

of MUMFORD & SONS

ohhh, marcus mumford.  where ever did you come from.  i don't even remember how i found you...  but oh your voice like honey from the alps, oh your stomping like a party underground!  this was what caught my eye:



this is what endeared me to you (specifically at "rage" (1:36) and at 4:10 when you may or may not be crying):



and this is why i keep listening:

MATT BERNINGER

of THE NATIONAL

when i listen to this, i am walking to portobello road, through kensington gardens.  i am ordering curry at the shop around the corner.  i am sitting next to preston and andrea at the gloucester tube stop, on our way through the evening to the national theatre stopping for galaxy bars and cadburys with hazelnuts.  i am walking the bridge to the globe.  i'm running back to my flat and bedroom after class, my bedroom that smells like humidity, grabbing two clif bars, and meeting everyone at the door for the day's gallavantings.  i am riding to the victoria stop singing, "squalor victoria."  i am on the train to scotland, i am at primark, i am walking to portobello road, through kensington gardens.  his voice is the sound of london--the rain, the busses, the rooftops over queen's gate terrace while i wait for my laundry to dry.

CHARLIE FINK

of NOAH AND THE WHALE

charlie was my other london lover.  he came across europe with me too, hiked up to murren with diana and i, made me rethink my loving.  other than that his lyrics are sheer and utter brilliance, i have nothing to say.

JUSTIN VERNON

of BON IVER

okay so this crush is no new revelation (or crispy realization, if you know what i'm saying), ever since that first night at dinner group, sooo many years ago, when amanda g. queen of the world and i listened to "for emma, forever ago" three times straight through while making enchiladas...that's how long this crush has been existent.  but i didn't truly recognize the depth to which my affections ran until i was sitting on a bed, overlooking a bay on the italian coast, listening to "towers" for the first time, not knowing who the artist was.  that song left me with mouth wide open, giggling and shaking my head, like a new dream that is so familiar in its perfection, but so captivating that every note is both a revelation and an ancient promise you've known all along.  this song is the naked waves blue and glistening.





i chose to post the version with only the album cover.  the others have too much to look at and it takes away from the unexpected delight of unexpected words like "onus" and "swampy", "towers" and  "honeycomb," and how they weave their way together into an impossibly tangled and impossibly delicate world, building itself around you with every line.

ZACHARY FRANCIS CONDON

of BEIRUT

this romance started way back last summer 2010 with "postcards from italy."  it continued, obsessed and unashamed, to this fall, when i discovered this gem and couldn't stop singing it/thinking about it/whistling it/playing it/thinking about it more.

and then i read about zachary and how cool he is, and now i mostly want to marry his voice AND him, not to mention every one of his albums, and whoever the guy is who plays the horns (seriously awesome, guy).

if i had more time and it wasn't an hour and a half past my new-year's-resolution bedtime, i'd talk about all the words these men have written that i've punched out, letter by letter, so many times in the typewriter-that-is-my-brain that they're embedded deep, deep in what i believed this year.  words like

gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn.  if i had an orchard, i'd work till i'm sore.

and

so now i've grown older than my mother and father when they had their daughter.  now what does that say about me?

serve God, love me, and mend.

and

i could see for miles, miles, miles

if you give a little love, you can get a little love of your own.  don't break his heart.

,

when love comes a-calling, don't forget the tune.

love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free!  be more like the man you were made to be.

and still, the sweet london march, through side-streets new and unexplored:

stay out super late tonight, picking apples, making pies

this seemed to be the year of songs that break-down halfway through into their real selves.  "helplessness blues," "sigh no more," "postcards from italy," "fake empire," "towers."  they all do it.  and come to think of it, this seemed to be the year that broke me down halfway through into my real self.  broke down the "what i thought i wanted to be" so the "what i really want to be" could come out, foot-stomping, accordion-squeezing, orchard-picking and all.  broke down so that my real dreams (like maybe ditching academia for creating my own path) could be colorful and promising and adventurous.

...get over your hill and see what you find there, with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

{backpacking 3}: the cliffs of INSANITY!!!

monday june 13, 2011

ahh, dreamy no?

...

okay i'm putting more because i can't resist those eyes like the sea after a storm.

moving along, day three was the bus tour to the cliffs of moher, more commonly known as the cliffs of insanity! from princess bride.  we went with a group called barrett tours because the more popular paddywagon tours don't run on mondays (add that one to the list of things that went wrong in limerick).  barrett tours = a guy and his wife (last name: barrett...who'da guessed) decide they've had enough living in england.  so they move to ireland and buy a bus and start a tour company.  i hope i marry someone who would at least occasionally entertain ideas of doing things like that.  because what with my longing for an ice cream truck, i mean....

on account of the tour was lots of seeing beautiful sights and very few deep thoughts by carolyn, i think the most true-to-the-tour post would be to just let the pictures tell the story.

BUT FIRST.  to get the full effect of the day on the cliffs, you must be listening to this song of the day.  i sang/whistled/hummed/head-sang it allllll the live long lovely day.

(if her voice doesn't melt your heart, you have a rock heart.)

1.  leamenagh castle  (or the signs by the castle, which were cooler than the castle, promise.)

2.  caherconnell stone fort (again, awesome view)

3.  poulnabrone tomb...a burial site from 3800 b.c.  (if this makes you think of lord of the rings, you get a free ice cream when i get my ice cream truck)

4.  gus o'connors pub in doolin

5.  the cliffs of moher

a sound of music moment on the cliffs ("...cuckoo! cuckoo!")

wait wait wait, what was that face, diana?  

(and to think.  it had only been three days at this point and already she was ready to shove me off a cliff.)

6.  waiting for our bus to dublin...pretty diana.  

we met a really cool guy (first real person met) at the bus station who lived in dublin and worked reviewing music for a newspaper.  ginger hair and tan cords.  a plaid shirt and quite the brogue.  we talked music--told him about my love for mumford&sons, to which he rolled his eyes and said he's had about enough of them.  the shock on my face elicited the following: "well, it's like beyonce.  i mean, you guys hear her all the time, so her music isn't that different to you.  that's how mumford & sons is for us."  good point, ginger man.  although i do love me some good beyonce every now and then.

boarded the bus, turned on my eva cassidy, and this is what is got...

and this is why eva cassidy is so important: because she's kind of buried way down deep inside, so when i hear her music, a flood of memories and feelings come back to me.  warm feelings.  feelings i'd imagined up as being tied to vistas similarly imagined.  what "fields of gold" feels like.  not just what it looks like, but what that must feel to be there.  and something in there about a tender-hearted boy and golden summer evenings and falling in love that years and years ago i imagined.  and here i was, riding through evening sun across these fields, remembering those dreams.

birthday wishes

tonight, on this the eve before my 25th, i wish for

rainbows.  obviously.

an orchard

a field of poppies

a carousel

a room of colorful birds

cuddling in blankets and watching lord of the rings and pillsbury cinnamon rolls

someone to let me drive their ice cream truck for a day or two

a bed & breakfast to run for a few years

marcus mumford to fall in love with me

a mustache mug

that wearing fake mustaches could be an acceptable accessory some days

and already, before it's even technically my birthday, three happy things have happened:

1) a package from home covered in stickers that say things like "way to go!" and "super kid!"  thanks for loving me, family.  (no, i haven't opened it yet.)

2) having someone tell me that they like my photo-graphees because "even the pictures without people in them feel like they have people in them."  (thank you, for making my night, sweet friend.)

3) chelsea, liz, camille, andrea, holly, amberly, and cami bursting into the kitchen upon whose counter i was sitting and prancing around the island singing disney's happy birthday to me...  for three minutes.  i haven't laughed that hard in months.

of crepes with cheese, the giddy thing called man, and seeing wizards on the tube

i am one hundred percent certain that these three people sitting across from me on the tube on monday are adjunct professors at hogwarts.  

monday i taught all of class.  like, all of it.  all 75 minutes.  we talked about merchant of venice...via speed dating.  i make shakespeare relevant.  (smiley face)  

then we congregated at flat one to go to the creperie in hampstead and highgate cemetery (attempt #2).  this time i got the crepe complete (no mushrooms, just ham and cheese and egg and lots of garlic).  i died of crepe-love.

we made it to the cemetery...this time SO MUCH FASTER than last time.  except the western side we learned is only open for a tour at 2:00 every afternoon, so attempt #2 for highgate failed.  so we went instead to the eastern side of the cemetery.  which i guess is a half-win.  (it was actually beautiful.  i am fully satisfied with our cemetery experience.)

the headstones all had the neatest inscriptions on them.  i loved this one, ethel may whiteman's:  "i trace the rainbow through the rain and feel the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be."  

the cemetery was full of ivy, headstones overgrown in the stuff, trees clothed in it, trails hidden by vines and branches.  i wandered through it to a little secluded area where you could barely tell the headstones from the bushes.  

when i looked up, the treetops, such little flimsy trees it suddenly seemed, were bending back and forth in the wind.  rather violently actually.  it was a blustery day and the tops of the trees showed it.  and then i looked back to where i was, by the trunks, by the grounded roots, and it was still and calm, like you'd never believe there was a wind at all.  

sometimes in those "through the rain" moments, when i can feel the wind blowing right through me, and i feel thin and bare and leaves all aflutter, it helps to remember the roots are stable.  there is peace at the foundation.  there is peace in the rings we've built year by year into strong trunks.  and when it's rough and riotty all up top, it can still be safe and calm and quiet deep down below.

i also found so many names in the cemetery to add to the "names for daughters" list.  and one "name for son".  none of which i am including here, after the lily fiasco of '10.  in which i started sharing the name lily with people and suddenly errbody's naming their daughters that.  (i know, i know, i set the trends of the world.  what can i say.  a girl's gotta be careful with that kind of power.)

walking back from the cemetery we went through the park.  it was too lovely a park to keep walking so we bench-sat and bench-talked.  and i told stories about teaching high school and how going home to my family is one of my favorite parts of life.  

which was followed by (what else) sweet crepes at the cremerie.  (yes, this did require two extra rides on the tube.  we mean business okay.)  here's the thing: the sweet crepes...they're not all that.  the current concensus is that cheese on crepes is greater than or equal to chocolate.  the sweet ones were essentially chocolate chips with crushed hazelnuts and cream.  nothing special.  and certainly nothing picture-worthy.  sorry sweet crepes.  unimpressed.

howEVer, we did learn that there is another of these creperies in south kensington, close to where we live.  this means a new tube stop for going home (despite the fact that walking from south kensington to home may or may not include a walk through a very long and dark and creepy corridor...)  we're willing to sacrifice for crepes.

tuesday (trumpet noise)

MUCH ADO at THE GLOBE!

two favorite parts: during the wedding scene, an actor threw flower petals from the top balcony of the audience.  they were swirling through and around and inside the globe and the happy (soon to be unhappy) couple paraded through them up to the stage.  it was magical.  really though.  i do not use that word lightly here in london.  too many truly magical things to be throwing it out for things that are only semi-magical or pseudo-magical.

favorite thing number 2: geoffrey from fresh prince of bel-air was leonato.  that's right.  i kept waiting for him to do the carlton.  he never did, but still a special moment for all us americans in the audience.

i'd say this is the best performance we've seen so far.  beatrice and benedick (benedick especially) won us all over.  such great acting, such great humor (thank you, shakespeare, for being a genius).

also, a note to those who may be going to the globe any time in their lives: be a groundling!  i had a 30pound seat for the first half of the show, and here's what happened: you can't see their faces, you can't really hear them, you fall asleep, the people in front of you are too tall, etc.  no bueno.  every other show at the globe i've stood on the ground by the stage.  so back i went.  and suddenly the show came alive for me!  really though.  i became part of the show.  benedick looked at me when making a joke like, "hey listen to this one!"  and i did.  and i laughed.  because, for all the globe, it was suddenly a joke just between him and me.  

plus the groundling tickets are only 5P.  go there.

and one more thing about much ado.  you know the song "sigh no more" by mumford and sons?  yes, the one i am obsessed with.  that one.  well did you know that pretty much the entire song is stolen (or maybe borrowed, from one english heart to another) from much ado about nothing?!  it's true!  

"sigh no more, no more", "one foot in sea and one on shore", "man is a giddy thing", "serve god, love me, and mend", "live unbruised, we are friends".  it's all shakespeare, baby.

AND sigh no more is what old mumford named the entire album.  marcus mumford, i love you.

(*a special shout-out: i have recently converted a fellow-study abroader to mumford and sons.  and when benedick said, "serve god, love me, and mend", me & fellow-study abroader looked at each other with big smiles across the globe.  it was a special moment, brought to us by willie and marcus.)

so then we went and got thai food.

these are the bird of paradise napkins at the restaurant.

worth a picture because 1) they're BIRD OF PARADISE NAPKINS.

and 2) they incited the following conversation:

preston:  what is this even supposed to be?

carolyn:  a bird of paradise.

preston:  it's a bird?  noooo, what is this, the head?  the body?  the tail?

carolyn:  no, it's a flower.

preston:  so it's not a bird?

carolyn:  no, it's a bird of paradise!

preston:  you just said it wasn't a bird, but that it was a flower!!!

carolyn: PRESTON!  a bird of paradise IS a flower!

the thai was good (khobkhun was the name.  gloucester road) but the servings were pretty small.  if i go again, i'll order a dish for each person at least.  

also there was no mango&sticky rice on the menu.  which i'm still puzzling over.

the best part of dinner was staying long after we were done eating to play silly games of stumping each other with movie and actor references.  i never knew how movie-illiterate i am until i'm with all these people who know movies i've never even heard of...and all the actors and actresses in them.

but i did manage to work joseph gordon-levitt (of "angels in the outfield" fame, for those who may be unfamiliar with his work...hehehe) into the mix.  twice.  triumph.

a brief pause for a hipster photo moment:

and now unpause for gelato!  tonight went pretty much like this:  so we're done with the play...let's go get dinner!  so we're done with dinner...let's go get gelato!  so we're done with gelato...let's go find chocolate bars!

here's what we found:  our hampstead creperie, but the south kensington branch!  

and guess what...they have many more crepes than the hampstead one AND gelato.  new favorite.  (i am a little panicked though that even if i got gelato every day here for the rest of the study abroad, i wouldn't get around to every flavor.  ahhh!)

 

(i opted for peach today.  it was unbelievable.  really though.  i can't explain.)

and then off to home to "do homework" 

(aka: find theme songs for our skit in class tomorrow, including the top gun anthem and careless whisper.  it's gonna be goooood.)

post-scriptus: blogging lately has been essentially travel[b]logs.  i post pictures and thread them together with rather thin esplanations (like inigo montoya).  sorry.  my 2:34am brain can't write poetry or witticisms like it once could.  i will try to be better.  but for now........serve god, love me, and mend.

lovely little irish stories

this summer i am going to

via

ireland:

the mystic land of leprechauns and luck, of singing songs across the glen, of names like limerick, killarney, and tipperary, and best of all, of heartbreaking ballads of love and the sea.

i am completely enchanted by any song that smacks of irish sentiments of home and hearth and return. i wonder if the reason i like josh ritter's "kathleen" is because it might have lineage through the irish "i'll take you home again kathleen", and if fisher's "i will love you" is so poignant because it draws on the ballad, "till the stars fall from the sky." for many of the same reasons, mumford&sons is my latest irish-esque fix. the preface to them being glen hansard's "falling slowly." before that it was coldplay's "swallowed in the sea," and before that it was billy joel's "and so it goes." all of these songs that sink deep, even from the first listen, ...they are irish in heart. and perhaps somewhere way way back, before i can remember "first listens", back before my brain told me there was a separation between the music i heard and the emotions i felt, there's danny boy (you will not be disappointed by clicking on this link). the last verse are some of the most homesick and lovely words e'er.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying

And I am dead, as dead I well may be

You'll come and find the place where I am lying

And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me

And all my dreams will warmer, sweeter be

For you will bend, and tell me that you love me

And I will sleep in peace until you come to me.

others i love are "the wild mountain thyme":

I will build my love a bower

By yon pure and crystal fountain

Yes and on it I will lay

All the flowers of the mountain

Will you go? Lassie, go?

And we'll go together

To pick wild mountain thyme

All among the bloomin' heather

Will you go? Lassie, go?

and the water is wide (aka: o waly waly).

The water is wide, I cannot get oer

Neither have I wings to fly

Give me a boat that can carry two

And both shall row, my love and I.

(i'll save "loch lomond" and "my bonny lies over the ocean" [which i think has been abused by most people's singing of it] for a post on scottish folk songs.)

and finally, perhaps the most moving of them all, marta keen's "homeward bound."

In the quiet misty morning, when the moon has gone to bed,

When the sparrows stop their singing and the sky is clear and red,

When the summer's ceased its gleaming, when the corn is past its prime,

When adventure's lost its meaning, I'll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture. Chain me not to the plow.

Set me free to find my calling and I'll return to you somehow.

If you find it's me you're missing, if you're hoping I'll return,

To your thought I'll soon be list'ning; in the road I'll stop and turn.

Then the wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end,

And the path I'll be retracing when I'm homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture. Chain me not to the plow.

Set me free to find my calling and I'll return to you somehow.

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,

When the sparrows stop their singing, I'll be homeward bound again.

to add to these, tonight i found "lille." it's by lisa hannigan, born in kilcloon ireland, and i think it (her voice, the sentiments, the video, the words, the story) is magical.

...and you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea.