Music Monday : Glen Hansard at Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago.

There are few things I enjoy more than seeing my favorite musicians perform on a summer evening. For the second time in a year, I had the privilege of seeing Glen Hansard of The Frames, Once and The Swell Season - a moniker that absolutely describes the joyful fervency with which Hansard strummed, the crowd, enraptured as they watched him, and the sky, cloudless and full with the setting sun.

Held at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Hansard's performance was  part of Chicago's FREE concert series, Downtown Sound: New Music Mondays. The whole experience was surprisingly easy to navigate. We took the Union Pacific West Metra to Union Station, walked down Adams to Michigan Avenue [against an onslaught of nine-to-fivers headed out to their trains home, but that was our only difficulty] and made it to the park by 5:30, when lines were just beginning to form. [It's rumored that this was not the case for Iron & Wine's performance three weeks ago, which drew lines 4 hours before the show started.]

And did I mention it was FREE? As in, you do not have to pay to get into the park, or even to get a seat close to the stage. Oh Chicagoans, summer doesn't get any better than this. Except, it does: Goose Island is the main sponsor for the event!

With plenty of time to eat and slip into the pavilion before the show began at 6:30, we ate at one of my favorite casual, quick eateries on Michigan Ave, Caffè Baci. Their curried couscous salad was delicious and refreshing after walking in the hot evening sun.

We found seats close to the stage, maybe 10 rows back; close enough to see him, yet far enough that we weren't going to get mobbed as everyone exited.

And it was perfect. His solo performance was just as moving as seeing him with The Swell Season at the Ravinia last July, although I found him much more candid and talkative on his own.

He opened with the heartbreaking "Leave," followed by a new song, "Pennies," which he has written since being on tour with Eddie Vedder [a great combination I would definitely have paid money to see, had I known it was happening] and other songs that I love, including "Low Rising" from The Swell Season's Strict Joy album, and the ever-popular "Falling Slowly" from Once.

Hansard plays with a passion that is both delicate and explosive. He's not afraid to introduce a song with the premise behind it, to encourage the audience to listen closely to the lyrics, and to reveal this beautiful, underlying truth: when we sway and sing together, we affirm those parts of us that are most human.

When he says, "this song was written for a lover - it's for those of you who struggle because they are not pulling their own weight," or "this song is about seeing a person close to you become who they were meant to be. It is a constant revealing, the veils  of who they are constantly being pulled back" and you collectively nod, say "yes, I've been there," it is a communion of thousands that only art can articulate.

[Fun fact: Iron & Wine's Sam Beam directed this video.]

[Images found here.]

Creative Influences

Recently, my wonderful husband and I watched all three Anne of Green Gables movies start to finish. That's right. Matt not only sat through them, but he's the one that suggested we watch them in the first place! On VHS, no less.

I hadn't watched them in several years, so watching each of them again reminded me of my early teens when I watched them endlessly, amused at Anne's often silly yet sincere attempts to become a writer.

Funny as it is to reflect on now, I think it was watching those movies that encouraged me to think about becoming a writer. There are so many influences that encouraged me when I was young, but there was something about Anne's character and her desperate yearning to be a successful writer that mirrored my own imagination and passion for reading and writing.

If I think about it, there were dozens of stories, films and books that influenced me when I was young, that "raised" me as a writer, in a sense. Belle of Beauty and the Beast loved to read, Judy Blume's Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself is about a girl with a wild imagination and a flair for story-telling, Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy encouraged me to journal (although I didn't journal about spying on neighbors and classmates), and there were many, many others. Yes, most of them female.

Further example: last night Matt's bandmates came over to practice new songs. Afterward, Matt's longtime friend and bandmate, Thad, pulled his old video cam-corder and played "old-skool" video footage from their old band. Some of the footage dated back 10 years, to their days of pipe-pants, spikey hair, pop/punk tunes and the occasional "rude-boy" outfit. It was hilarious to see and hear some of their influences, to listen to them laugh about their old haunts, friends, clothes, and how much they tried to be like this or that musician.

Influences can come from anywhere - books, film, music, images, fashion, and more. From stage of life to stage of life - from childhood, adolescence, young adulthood to adulthood - creative influences shape our imaginations as fixed icons that speak to us and later help us remember who we were and what we were like and what we loved when we were young.

After mulling over this concept through the past several days, I came across this quote:

"At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. But at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it." — C.S. Lewis

This speaks more to writing and fiction than music or fashion, but even so, when we think about how art influences us, when we recall those images, words, or sounds that inspired us most, we regard them as a part of what made us who we are now. They speak of life in terms that we understand, and therefore add to it.

So my question for you is : Who were your influences growing up? 

Do you have boxes of tattered and love-worn books from your youth? Old movies you watch on occasion? Albums or songs that throw you back in a time machine of places, feelings, friends, sights and smells? Stacks of magazines with corners folded to favorite looks that you still try to emulate or wish you could wear? 

Write Your Own Story

Oh how I adore my dear co-worker, Kat. Always the design-savvy eye, she saw a notebook at Michael's the other day and knew I would love it. In the lower right-hand corner of the front cover was a small embossed graphic of a typewriter, with the words inscribed, 

"Write your own story." 

So she bought it for me! How sweet is that?

When she handed it to me, I was reminded once again of what an abundantly creative weekend I had. I had the whole glorious Saturday to myself! It was spent admiring the gorgeous sunshine and everything it touched, writing about it, and... painting it. Yes, painting. Haven't done that in ages, so I was both proud of myself and deeply comforted by the fact that I could do it... I haven't lost it - the need, the ability, or the delight I find in it.

Needless to say, the weekend was everything I needed it to be, including Sunday.

Here's my thought: the act of creating, whether it is writing, painting, music, dancing, or even cooking, is an act of dedication. You are dedicating your creative energy to the miraculous story that is your life.

So, I say, create your own story. 

Write your own story. Paint your own story. Sing your own story. Or as my very wise writing friend insisted: Dance your own story. Cook your own story.

Whatever it is you are good at, doing it is a testament to who you are at your core.

Dedicate. Document. Devote time to it. Delight in it.