It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.
In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.
Brianna Lea Pruett commands a very subtle magic. Her latest record, Gypsy Bells, is the kind of thing you should listen to straight through. You should, in particular, allow yourself to relax and be cocooned in her voice, and her delicate melodies. Let yourself be drawn into her stories.
For example: No Diamond Ring, which is the first song on the record, and also the one I found myself humming under my breath as I moved through the city one recent morning. The drums are a heartbeat; the lyrics are a promise; overall it is a savory antidote to over-sugared love songs.
New Life is the second song; here the pace picks up a little bit, and lyrics are a love story that is also six miles of hard road. It is simultaneously beautiful and brutal.
And finally, one song that isn’t on Gypsy Bells, but I am including because it just so very lovely. Pruett is of Cherokee/Choctaw descent, and she’s taught herself to sing in Tsalagi (Cherokee). This is Amazing Grace, in Tsalagi, complete with exquisite harmonies.
Speaking of stories, here she is to share some of her favorites, as well as a favorite record and drink:
A Good Read
I read voraciously as a kid and now I’m reading again, mostly for school, manuals on film editing and filmmaking mostly. Finally got through most of what I needed to for the semester and now I can get back to what I started in the summer!
I always have a small rotating library going around in my car, my studio, my bedroom, and my bag.
I’ve had an Annie Dillard novel in there, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and a writer local to my area of the world that I grew up reading, Gary Snyder, Regarding Wave. After a recent trip to South America I’ve gotten a taste again for poetry in Spanish, which I had a few books of as a teen but after a much-wandering lifestyle all my books found new homes along the way.
Cesar Vallejo’s Poemas Humanos is one I am taking small bites of right now, along with Blanca Varela’s Como Dios en la Nada.
I’m enjoying Alice Walker’s Once: Poems. Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple which is a classic and a great book. Kim Shuck’s Rabbit Stories.
What else? I’m reading Loretta Lynn’s autobiography, I picked it up at her ranch on my last tour, it’s called Coal Miner’s Daughter.
I try to get through a McSweeney’s Quarterly whenever possible, any issue is excellent, number 43 has Charles Baxter, T.C. Boyle, and Catherine Lacey. Recommended. Dave Eggers, a regular favorite. I am usually reading at least four or five different books at a time.
If I really have to choose one, right now, I’d recommend Coal Miner’s Daughter by Loretta Lynn. It’s so straight up, it’s so down to earth. The language and the colloquialisms remind me of my family from Oklahoma and Arkansas a little and so it’s got a familiar pacing and feel for me, but also she’s just a great storyteller.
So this is not a very direct single book recommendation, is it? What’s solid, though, is that I recommend always having a poetry book in your bag or on your nightstand. Poetry is essential to the soul, which craves the backwards, the familiar, the old, the mystical, the unbalanced, the romance. So I think my recommendation from my current reading list is two books – Coal Miner’s Daughter, Loretta Lynn, and Once: Poems, Alice Walker.
A Good Listen
Right now, I am listening non-stop to Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City, out earlier this year on XL recordings. Don’t be intimidated by the review articles or their popularity. They’re great. Just buy it, spin it 5 times, and you pretty much have created a mood for yourself and some permanently good times.
It’s an incredible album for lots of reasons, but I like to keep it simple, no need to explain why. It’s just that good. I listen to it on the drive from my warehouse studio to where I live and back, and though I love Manhattan and it’s from there, it’s got permanent Bay Bridge visual memories for me.
A Good Drink
Mexican Hot Chocolate is an all time best drink ever. You can buy the pre-packaged kind but I like chocolate with no soy in it, it tastes 100 times better.
I usually cook without recipes, I just know how to make a lot of things from loving to cook and being able to throw something together in any kitchen. It’s so fun to do the most with the least. So my recipes always vary, almost never do I use a recipe twice – if I’m really lost, I might do the recipe once, from that point on it’s a free for all, ha!
So I might have different things in mine from this recipe – jalapeno’s, or a teeny tiny slice of habanero, or a special other something or other. This is a good basic recipe for tastes suited to American cuisine.
4 cups milk
1/4 cup Dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder(or the cocoa powder of your choice) [ed note: such as this stuff, maybe!]
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch (optional thickener)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. chipotle powder or chili powder
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of cayenne
optional toppings: whipped cream, marshmallows, chocolate syrup, and/or chocolate shavings
Add all ingredients to a medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat until simmering, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and serve with optional toppings.
Drink this listening to Gypsy Bells and Modern Vampires of the City, with a blanket over you in between drawing with color pastels and reading poetry.
