Crazy for Music

I like music, you know? But there's something about music-related tschotchkes that just baffles me. I mean, come on:




On the other hand, I love this image:


I feel like my grandparents would send a card with this image on it. I have one with cats, fully dressed, eating cookies. Divine!

Aaliyah Cover

I saw this video on the REFERENCE LIBRARY blog. Nice!

Love Notes

The other evening on the crowded train home, I stood by a man reading a note written on graph paper. What caught my eye was the kisses - three sets of mocha lipmarks dotted the page that was already jam-packed with text. The man looked like he was re-reading it, thinking about each sentence as he went along. It must have been a good one.

I thought about the ways we communicate now as compared with the pre-internet/SMS era, and I remembered the letters my grandmother wrote to my grandfather while he was on the road. It wasn't what they talked about, but the tone and intimacy of the written words, spelled out fully and thoughtfully in handwriting on old stationery. I am sure this man on the train would not have taken the same pleasure from an email version of this letter, even if there were kisses attached in a PDF.

A Comforting Phrase

Until this weekend, the term “Rest in Peace” never meant so much to me. In reading the inscription on gravestones, the abbreviated version seemed even harder to understand – I’d just read it as “rip,” which conjured up images of torn cloth and dismembered limbs. It felt all wrong to me.

But in learning of my great-uncle’s passing, someone said those words and for the first time they knocked the wind right out of me. I sighed and crumpled over as I finally understood what they meant to me. For a man who had so much trouble sleeping – and eating, and breathing, for that matter – it was so relieving to know that he would finally be comfortable.

We are not a religious family, and we instinctively cringe when people say things like “We are praying for you!” and “May God have mercy!” Phrases like this assume so much. “Rest in Peace,” on the other hand, is not a religious sentiment. It doesn’t mention the great beyond, nor the great nothingness, but instead emphasizes that the person’s demise brings them a level of comfort they couldn’t have here. It acknowledges a basic human desire – of finding rest when exhausted – that I think everyone can understand.

REST IN PEACE