Hello, what a spring! What have I been up to? Mostly walking down the beautiful sidewalks listening to “Body Movin (Fatboy Slim remix)” by the gd Beastie Boys on repeat. I’ve also been hard at work dissolving various tethers, un-getting the wrong ideas, and tying bows in my timeloops. I learned some archery and pétanque and decided aim is a secret key to life, and I saw a band I’ve been waiting to see since I was 14 years old but I can’t tell you about that because I’d never stop talking. Forget about it! I will remember it forever.

I consider it my job to be inspired and stay inspired and seek inspiration. My bosses are me and the universe. My hours are 24/7. That’s what this newsletter is about and for.

To me, inspiration is the sensation of total presentness within a wave of love that does not obscure dark things but wraps its wings around them. One day I was very sad and a car drove by me, and a passenger blew bubbles out the window. I walked through the cloud of bubbles in my sadness and I felt that feeling, inspiration. Resuscitation, life’s mouth to mine, breath blown into my lungs. LOOK: LIVING, GOOD

A few years ago I saw Mary Lattimore play her song “And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me,” and she told the crowd it was about the time she won an art contest as a small child and got to meet Big Bird, and he wrapped her up in a hug, and — paraphrasing — she felt wonderful and alive there in the surreal pressing blindness of Big Bird’s wings. That’s what inspiration is to me.

My life changed the day I watched the annual grease pole climbing competition in the Italian Market. There’s a 30-foot pole in the piazza, erected 40 years ago for this purpose, which they grease up with lard to make it unclimbable. Groups, many formed on the spot, take turns building human towers around the pole to reach the top, where there are dangling prize meats and prize cheeses. The big ones hug near the ground, and the limber ones climb up each other's faces and shoulders to get the meats and cheeses. It can take hours before any group succeeds. Most of the time they get sooo close and then — nO! — the slightest snap, collapse begins, the slow greasy slide. But when they finally do it, my god, what a rush.

Standing (jumping, yelling) there in the crowd I knew it was finally time for me to watch Claire Denis’ Beau Travail. You ever see a movie so beautiful you get a stomachache every time you think about it?

Stomachache, heart in the throat, etc

I fell down a Peggy Lee hole in May (thanks to my friend Bixa who pushed me in by playing "Me & My Shadow" on Dreambox).

I started listening to Lee's 1962 record Is That All There Is? while walking outside at golden hour, which is a perfect experience I recommend. I needed more, so I perused her big catalog and picked my next record by the title: Sea Shells, because I love seashells very much, though I Like Men! was a strong contender for secret reasons.¹

Lucky me: Sea Shells is a departure from the rest of Lee's oeuvre, featuring her low crystalline voice over nothing but harp and harpsichord. Just the three sounds, together and taking turns.

Sea Shells is sung like Charlotte from her web, drifting in and out of minor keys. It has that sense of being wrapped up in a wind that throws melodies in unexpected directions, like I hear in Molly Drake, Sybille Baier, Connie Converse (with some of Connie's humor, too; see "Little Old Car").

There are two tracks of 7th & 8th century Chinese poetry translated into English, spoken over harp in between the only version of "Greensleeves" I've ever been invested in and a jaunty original instrumental called "The Happy Monks."

The last song is so short and sad it leaves me bracing against my kitchen sink, gazing into the middle distance. Bliss.

AND she’s who Miss Piggy’s based on?? ? ?? ?

Pair with: Crowlink, the vibey 2021 EP that Shirley Collins released at age 86 (proving I still have a solid half-century to develop my music practice).

Speaking of:

I love when a song has no credited writer, just says traditional. What's better than a song so old and beloved it belongs to everyone? I love a traditional song cuz it'll be like "come to my door, chicken, bone, baby, rock, why do you call to me, come inside" and rip your heart to pieces.

I got possssseessssed by this one Bulgarian folk song a while back — here’s a playlist (spotify) of all my favorite recorded versions in a particular order that turns it into the extended remix annie edition, which is how I like to listen to songs. If you have any favorite traditional songs, send them to me I beg.

++ More Bulgarian folk songs here to send you straight to heaven

In Q2 I loved Ali Smith's newest novel Gliff, about two siblings, a horse, red paint, tyranny, etc. I always get a ticket for whatever train Ali Smith is driving. The train goes strange and clever places, and then she comes down the aisle and punches my ticket with a scene so moving I have to close my eyes. I admire what she does with her anger and love. The rumor mill tells me she's releasing a followup to Gliff next year called Glyph, which is very Ali Smith of her.

That reminds me: writing fan mail is on my to-do list for next quarter. What luck to live contemporaneously as a fangirl!!! I black out when meeting my heroes (I basically threw up on Joanna Newsom) (I also saw Björk at the merch table at a Joanna Newsom show one time and I had to run away) (in 2026 I plan to embody what I imagine to be Björk’s approach to fangirling, which involves nondualism, but I’m not ready yet) but writing letters? That’s for me. Who would you write fan mail to?

Hot out and I love sidewalks again. They make me think of everything: rocks, fish we evolved from, years (e.g. 2025), human habitat, machines that crush, gravity, friction, object discreteness, death, holding hands, flamin’ hot cheetos, phase-change materials, etc etc

Here’s some pix from times Philly sidewalks stopped me in my tracks. Side walk with me:

Watch: How CEMENT Is Made (youtube)

"Am I being annoying? Am I taking up too much time? Am I making a fool of myself?"

WELL, SEE YA

Love,
Annie

p.s. I’m on instagram now @anniehuntington <3