Elvis & the Pixies
August 15, 2022
Summer’s stretching on, it feels slow this year like summers from my childhood. Navigating the record heat waves in Europe doesn’t get easier, but we’ve managed the last couple pretty well, we keep the house dark and closed all day then open it all up at night when the temp drops. James and I took a weekend trip to Belgium and stayed at a lovely mountain inn with a pool. JW’s still at camp and James and I have been taking it slow. We spent this past weekend on Shrimpy. James rigged up the umbrella to give us good shade and we tooled down the Amstel and threw the anchor and swam in the canals, the water’s cold and refreshing.
We went to the movies earlier in the week and saw Elvis. It seems like people are sleeping on this movie, but it’s really good and I hope you can see it in the theater, if you can, it’s so worth it. It’s spectacular spectacular in the way all Baz Luhrmann movies are, but it’s also surprisingly moving and touches on some really deep stuff I didn’t know about, for example the connection between the moral uproar over Elvis’s wiggly pelvis on TV and the upholding of white supremacy. I mean I knew both of those things existed but didn’t know how directly connected the two were, and I’m still learning about all the ways patriarchy, misogyny and white supremacy are linked. I went down the rabbit hole and couldn’t stop thinking about this movie for days, which is a hallmark of good art.
I also went to see the Pixies play at Melkweg with my friend Heidi. She asked me like six months ago if I wanted to go and I said yes because I love the Pixies but then suddenly the night of the concert arrived and Heidi was like, it’s general admission we need to get there an hour before the opening band and I was like, ugh, why do I agree to these things that require me to put on real pants and leave my living room and stay up past my bedtime, but I am so glad I went. We were front and center and I got to see a band I love play music I love and it was simply awesome. I loved that all I had to do was ride my bike seven minutes through the Vondelpark to get there, and then on the way home I rode home along the canals through the cool night air under the full moon and it was absolutely magic.
Great art inspires in all the ways you expect, but it brings little surprises, too. Earlier in the week I was listening to “Stay” by Rihanna on repeat while I exercised and wrote and then yesterday morning I heard a neighbor playing it on the piano. It’s like an Alfred Hitchcock movie in our courtyard, the sounds echo through the gardens like in “Rear Window” and sometimes you forget how connected we all are until you hear someone plinking the song you’d been listening to on their piano. I love how contagious creativity is.
JW gets home from camp tomorrow and we can’t wait. Such a long time for them to be away.