The ALIVE hour: Recent Episodes
Chloe Riley
The ALIVE hour is an audio journey about how we all get up and keep moving every day. Remembering together how to feel. How to take five minutes to just be here, in the world, right now.
We’re surviving. Together. Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
thealivehour.substack.com
And in winter, she says, if you’re quiet you can hear a heartbeat…and I am and I do, but it’s so faint. Like a baby mouse fighting to be born. Or a leaf trying to go back in time to when it hadn’t already fallen. And I lean in closer and I pull it all to me but still it’s almost like silence. Like snow falling on a mound of itself. Like all the stars of the universe as seen from a crag in the farthest parts of the world. That’s it, I think. That’s it. It’s so hard to hear because it’s so far away. How can the parts inside us be outside our grasp - they’re right there. They’re right there. They’re right there. The blood flowing back and forth. The organs churning. A perfect little engine but I don’t always feel like I’m driving. And I lean in again and I hear the purr, smell the oil slick, bask in the exhaust. And wonder: what kind of road trip am I on, anyway? And where do I get off?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com
In this episode, I’m partly playing a hippo “musical instrument” that I made from a box of mac and cheese.
Does my cardboard hippo really make music? Is that what music is?
Is music for children different than music for adults? What do they hear that we can’t?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com
It’s been a minute! Welcome back to The ALIVE hour (and spring) ☔️
The music in this episode comes from this very inspiring and awesome Substack via visual artist Erik Winkowski. Shannon Colón, friend and creator of Somebody Might Enjoy This, recently alerted me to Winkowski’s Substack and it is just a total delight, a feast for the visual and audial senses.
How can one not want to pick this up and play with it? (As much as one can pick up and play with something that only exists online..) So that’s what I did 🎶
This video features magnetic poetry bought in January at Illinois’ Morton Arboretum…which, sidebar: who remembers magnetic poetry? I find it…v fun and inspiring and all kinds of weird and interesting. This video also importantly features a hummingbird charm from Ellyn F., and much less importantly features cherry tomatoes from Jewel-Osco.
About me: I like to make audio / videos / GIFs about: people I care about; tiny things; nature things; and alive things. If you’re new here, hi! If you’re old here, hi! HI <3 👋🏼
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com
The ALIVE hour has been about a lot of things so far, but one of them that I come back to over and over is this idea of getting quiet enough to allow the very quiet things deep within yourself to come up. And then taking the time to listen to those things, give them space, nourish them like little tiny seedlings who are just starting to reach towards the light.
Often I find this process:
-
Surprising
-
Moving
-
Kinda scary
-
Profound
It’s something about the hearing. I feel like I “hear” when writing, too, but it’s different somehow. Listening to the audible sounds of what comes up ends up being cathartic, even more so than writing, for me.
This time of year lends itself to beginnings and endings. Something about the cold, especially living here in Illinois. Everything all holed up. The inherent quiet. The waiting.
This is the last episode of Season 3. I’ll be taking a break to enjoy the winter, back with more in spring. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, ditto all the rest. Keep a bright light going in the dark times. And as always, thank you for listening. ⭐️🎄
(And here are some festive drawings from members of the magic club! Ho ho ho! Enjoy!)
Illustration: *Shannon ColónAudio mixing + music: Chloe Riley*Music excerpt: The Decemberists, A Beginning Song
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Is death funny?Maybe parts of it?It’s like:So terrifying, you fall over laughing?So terrified of falling over forever, you laugh?Pee your pants funny?Big drawn out joke at the wake funny?Ha.Ha, ha.HA!
Or maybe more like:What else can you do?Finding yourself at a loss — laughing.
A fun mailed thing is about to go out! Become a paid subscriber to get your special print edition of The ALIVE hour delivered this Christmas. Ho ho ho! 🎄💌💨
Illustration: *Shannon ColónAudio mixing + music: Chloe RileyExcerpt from “Brutality of Fact” by Keith ReddinFeaturing David Odell Harmon*
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Dreams.
Why are they
So interesting to us and So totally boring to everyone else? Are they not lived experiences?Or is it more like finger paintingOn the inside of your brain? I don’t know.ButI like themAnd I like thinking about them and talking about them.They often feel like…Friends.
This ☝️, via “The Medium is the Massage,” a very smart, bizarre book about how media and technology are warping us all. (And written in 1967!) I also just ordered “Cheap Copies! The Obsolete Press Guide to DIY Hectography, Mimeography & Spirit Duplication,” which is coming to me in the mail via the great people at Half Letter Press soon. Print, print, print. What does that look like in almost-2023? What is valuable to you? I hang on to postcards sent by friends, cool handmade cards, art projects I made in fifth grade. I definitively do not hang on to all of the bank statements and medical bills I still get mailed to me, despite repeatedly making known my desire for “paperless.” Le sigh
Speaking of print: I’ll be sending out a round of Christmas printed goodies to subscribers in the coming weeks. If you’d like to get in on that action, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Or consider giving someone else a gift subscription. Tis the season! 🎶✨
**
Illustration: Shannon ColónAudio mixing + music: Chloe Riley
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
My friend and I got to go to Disneyland together recently, and it was probably the most fun I’ve had in years. It was that feeling: when you somehow land the gift of this thing you had no idea you needed. Sheer, rip-roaring, all-day fun. The kind of fun that you sip on long after the day has passed.
I think the other joy, outside of riding the coasters and licking up the pineapple whips, was the privilege of being with a friend for a full day, just the two of us. Making discoveries together, being in each other’s rhythms. And screaming at the top of our lungs, over and over again, at the electricity of the unknown.
It was, needless to say, a very good day.
A chanced-upon sand smiley face. My friend added the hair.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
What does it meanTo miss a connection?Was it always there and you just didn’t see it? Is it a fantasy? An invention? A one-way street?Or is it something more than that.A hope. A wish. A vision of life that turns out magically.A new world where you’re holding hands, strolling the streets. Waiting for what life will throw at you. Together.
**
Illustration: Shannon ColónAudio mixing: Chloe Riley
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
These small moments. Like pressing your face up against the glass: you can see them, but you have to look hard, have to make the room to see them, have to fog up the mirror and breathe them into life.
One small moment for me: Walking through the square in my town and seeing the bulbs being planted. Like staring next spring straight in the face.What are…
Your small moments?
Illustration: Shannon ColónAudio mixing: Chloe Riley
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Hi, welcome back. 👋 Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. 🎶
I’ve been noticing in myself, in creating a new season, that there’s an idea about how it “should” go. About how it went in the past, how it it’s supposed to be now, how it can be in the future.
I don’t have as much time to spend on it. On the newsletter, on episodes. I keep asking myself: “Is that bad? Good?” Different. It feels different.
And it also feels new.
“Is this the learning?”
Illustration: Shannon ColónAudio mixing + music: Chloe Riley
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Hi. 👋 It’s been a minute. Stay tuned…✨🌊
**
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Introduce yourself to a cloud.
Just try.
What happens is —
You have this sudden realization
Not everything is a cartoon.
Some things have weight and indeed they’re
Heavy.
A bag of sand
A human thigh bone
Wet dirt tilling itself upwards.
But other things pass through your hands so quickly it isn’t
until you’re falling
that you realize how valuable is the smell of the
Ground.
How much home it’s been.
How it’s sniffed you out since the start
How it doesn’t lie though you lie
in it
Eventually.
And also just —
How much mist
Almost everything else.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colón
Audio mixing + music: Chloe Riley
Song: Daniel Johnston
Things found in real life
These ghostly bubbles, hovering near this fan:
Things found on the internet
This mini documentary following children who attend grief camp — designed solely for young people who have lost a parent. The film’s heart is Yaren, 10, whose mother died when she was 6.
This thought from master of the bizarre John Waters, reminiscing on the collective theater-going experience of yore:
The audiences were all together, high, at midnight in cult-movie theaters. That is why it’s so different: that group experience of discovering something at the same time.
Magic things
Today’s episode features a song written by this man. Today’s magic edition features a song written + performed by the author of this newsletter.
Check it out here + consider becoming a paid subscriber. We’d love to have you in the club. ✨
Welcome to the end of season 2. I can’t tell you all what it’s meant to make this and to have you as listeners, cheerleaders, friends. Thank you for your support.
We’re going to take a short break from weekly posting to further finesse the upcoming seasons, but don’t you fret: there’s plenty of great stuff ahead. (Including a live, in-person ALIVE hour event.)
Stay tuned.
And thank you, again + again, for listening. <3
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
It’s a disaster just how much
the fear flickers in my mind
All the time
Clocks ticking
Hissing more really
A nest of snakes I’ve woken
By stepping on them all simultaneously
Hi
Hi snakes
Hi ssssnakessss
It’s such a puzzle, a switch I can’t seem to hitch off
Naked if I don’t protect myself
Naked if I do
Even a child of four can see what a loss that is
Boo
Boo hoo
Boo hoooo hoooo
There’s no use crying they say
But I gobble up tears like
So much manna
The nectar the honey
Food
Good
Food
Good God Food
I am a god
I am
I have the manna
I dictate to the snakes
I control the clocks
It’s so obvious now
Such a fit
How did I miss it?
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colón
Audio mixing + music: Chloe Riley
Narrative: Libby Battaglia
Things found in real life
This wallpaper detail of a boy herding his goat:
This magnificent tea with all of its cute little things (milk, honey, hot for hours):
Things found on the internet
This excerpt from the Sandra Cisnero essay “Eleven”:
What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.
This observation from writer/director/life observer Sarah Polley:
So I realized that I’m a grown-ass, forty-three-year-old woman and I am actually in control of this production right now. The truth is that I’ve had agency and choice for a long time, I just didn’t notice.
This milk and cookies cake, made by New York Times columnist Roxane Gay in tribute to her younger brother, Joel, who died last year.
Don’t limit your cakes to birthdays or special occasions, Gay says. Eat them whenever you want.
Magic things
See the photo from today’s episode on The ALIVE hour, magic edition, here. ✨
Bake the cake. Eat the cake. Don’t wait. <3
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There’s a deepness and a darkness and the
Darkness goes
Deep
There’s a winner and a loser
And awakeness and a sleep
Dreaming and I’m seeing and I’m losing my
Place
Face it little honey all the volume’s gone dim
A shimmy and a shaking
And a singing that hymn
It’s like a song I can’t remember but it’s stuck in my
Brain
And the rain it washes over
And my body goes hum
And the pain goes slosh
And the feeling goes numb
And I reach for your hand
And the sand runs quick
And it’s almost over now
And they lay it on thick
And the drops run down
And they drop
drip
Drop
And the go gets grabby and I stop
Slip
stop.
And I can’t see you now
And I guess I never will
The room’s done spinning honey
Still.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colón
Audio mixing + music: Chloe Riley
Narrative: Molly Dunn, via an upcoming memoir
Things found in real life
This house in a moon:
This shadow of myself:
Things found on the internet
This interview with philosopher / soothsayer / keen observer of humanity Cornel West. Much good in here, but specifically this:
You preserve your moral integrity and tell the truth. And then the worms get you. Because they going to get you one way or the other anyway. Might as well go with some integrity and with style. Right?
This found bag, posted by cartoonist Roz Chast:
This essay from The ALIVE hour illustrator Shannon Colón:
I’m inspired by how explicit my dog is with what she wants. I’m moved by her present and persistent nature. It seems so easy for her to express what’s on her mind. I want to feel comfortable sharing my needs too, and sometimes I don’t even know what they are.
Instead of creating excuses, what if I’m the one stretching by the door? What would my dramatic yawn sound like?
What is the sound
Of your dramatic yawn?
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Come on baby
Take my hand
Stick with me
Make a plan
Where we going
Brighter days
Handsome heavens
Truer ways
The road’s ahead
It knows our song
Ain’t no right path
Ain’t no wrong
It screams us forward
Yells and shouts
Does the boogie
Turns it out
One hand in
And then the other
Come on sister
Shake it brother
You know this dance
You’ve seen it done
Dark days over
Hello sun
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing: Chloe Riley
Music + Narrative: Michael Ervin
Things found in real life
This question from Louie Anderson’s book “Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, But You Can Read Them Too”:
This construction man, with a smattering of gold glitter:
Things found on the internet
This piece from New Yorker critic Richard Brody looking at the use of archival materials in film — how a director can choose life (or not) through their relationship to the very materials they work with:
By eliding themselves from the process—by putting voices on the soundtrack untethered to the recording device, images without regard to their source—filmmakers render their relationship to archival materials impersonal and inanimate.
What’s missing from most approaches to the archive is filmmakers’ own sense of discovery, of experience, of being in the presence of a miracle.
The film Swan Song, about a retired gay hairdresser who leaves his retirement home to style a demanding former client who has passed away. Read my friend Steve Nelson’s review here, as well as this interview here with director Todd Stephens:
I kind of wrote "Swan Song" in a way as like — in order to tell myself that I could still do what I loved. Pat has lost his purpose at the beginning of the film, and he's just kind of, like, passing the time till he passes away. And, you know, life is short, and we need to dance while we can.
Magic things
Like the music from today’s episode? Want to listen to the whole piece sans words? Head over to The ALIVE hour, magic edition here. ✨
And thank you — every one of you — for listening.
We need to dance while we can.
<3 C
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Better melt out
Than burn away
Better belt out
Than slow decay
Better rust than not
Better image
Better blot
Better catch it
Than let go
Better ice better snow
Than the other numbness
That doesn’t go
Better hand better hold
Better warmth than all the
Mounds of gold
Better fur better
Mounds of purr
Better hang on
Better tight
Better feel it all
Than fight
Better know it goes away
But better love it
Anyway
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / music: Chloe Riley
Being ALIVE
The story of two friends choosing life (in 10 images)
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Close your eyes and count to three
Tell the wonders that you see
Then close your eyes and count to ten
And tell us just once more again
Close your eyes and now to six
Steel your bones and feel the fix
Spread your mouth and count to four
Crack the window, peel the door
Lift your chin and how about three
You know it’s you I know it’s me
Flap your ears and fly to seven
Heaven is what rhymes you know
And what of one
And how about two
Blue. And done.
Better run
Here comes five.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / music: Chloe Riley
(with Barbara Bohn)
Things found in real life
This message, brought to you by a Chicago nail salon:
This book from Louie Anderson (his last), in which he writes letters to his long-dead mother.
(And this post-it, which is not my handwriting, but which I found and am now sticking on things):
Things found on the internet
This inadvertent email poem from my dad:
The message on this video ad:
These words from this five-year-old boy:
You gotta say your affirmations in your mouth and your heart.
You say, ‘I am brave of this meeting! I am loved! I smell good!’
You gotta walk big. You gotta mean it. Like Dolly on a dinosaur. Because you got it.
These words from Janis Joplin:
I’m scared. I think, ‘It’s so close. Can I make it?’ If I fail, I’ll fail in front of the whole world. If I miss, I’ll never have a second chance on nothing. But I gotta risk it. I never hold back…
This relationship between this racing horse (now dead) and this donkey (still alive):
By all accounts, the two animals locked eyes and sent each other telepathic messages about hanging out together for eternity. From that point on, they were glued to each other, even sleeping in the same stall.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Help oh can’t you help me see
The way to past eternity
The stars and moons inside me dance
And call to me to take a chance
But stars just don’t know how to be
The human in the human me
The limits of the human skin
The pain that washes out and in
Teach me stars, oh, how to die
Take my body, make it fly
Take my mind and crank to 10
Make me long for Mars again
Earth is lulling, earth is low
The wheel it spins but still goes slow
You’re far away but seem so near
Muddy and you’re all so clear
How can it be, how can it?
If stardust is this very planet
If stardust lurks inside my heart
If I never ended, how to start?
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / narrative: Chloe Riley
(with Louie Anderson talking to Terry Gross)
Music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
The “objects you gravitate towards,” via a question posed in this episode from last week:
“My mom's taupe kid leather gloves”
“I wear my dad's winter hat every day”
“A wind-up toy set from my Grandparents era as well as toys from my own childhood that I hold onto”
“A teacup and saucer that belonged to my late great grandmother. When I sip tea from it it’s like having tea with a family member I never met”
“A special B-rabbit that has been with me almost 50 years…and my mom's old Irish cardigan. When I need to wear it I can feel her arms around me and it smells of her perfume”
(Photo, Robyn — B-rabbit)
(Photo, Lyn — An old lamp that holds toys from childhood)
This truck that has something to say:
Things found on the internet
This audio slideshow about one man’s search for “the beautiful future” after his uncle’s death:
This newsletter post — about how the author can’t stop watching post-apocalyptic films, especially since the beginning of the pandemic:
She can't stand the post-apocalyptic scenario—the world completely imploding in on itself—and I love it because I'm pretty sure that's already happened and at least in those films, we're getting on with it already. She's trying to preserve, and all I see are ghosts. Her approach is hopeful; mine is, too.
Magic things
Oh yes. Magic things. Like these magic badges, handmade with materials that you’ll hear on today’s episode. Oh, and also made with love. The episode and the badges. Already in the mail for paid subscribers:
To see more badges (and receive one of your own!), consider becoming a paid subscriber. There will be lots of delights, you won’t regret it.
xoxo
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Hello nobody!
It’s me, you
How blue
How alike we two
You say it’s dreary
I say that too!
To be all of everything, myself,
And now, you too
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / narrative: Chloe Riley
Music: Chloe Riley + Mark Riley
Things found in real life
The “What I Want is to be Feral” blood orange smoothie from my friend Katie (no measurements of course because, feral)
The “What I Want is to be Feral” blood orange smoothie:
coconut milk yogurt
plant based milk, full woods
frozen blueberries
1 blood orange
vanilla
cinnamon
agave
And if you’re feeling super full woods, use a second orange, a cara cara, in place of the agave. cheers,
(Photo, Katie)
This heart chocolate and this cookie on this plate:
Things found on the internet
Is anyone else starting to create inadvertent Worlde poetry?
(Try it yourself. Pass along this way if you’re feeling frisky.)
This delayed New York Times obit of Chicago artist Lee Godie, an eccentric who lived on the streets and made a prolific amount of art, including hundreds of photo booth self portraits. (I also wrote about her several years ago here):
I always try to paint beauty, but some people say my paintings aren’t beautiful. Well, I have beauty in mind, but it isn’t always easy to make paintings beautiful.
This conversation between Louie Anderson and Bob Saget, both of whom died this month. A lot of love here.
Louie: My intention for books is: Can it help me? And if it can help me, maybe someone else can get a little light out of it.
Bob: I think that’s how you approach everything, that’s why it’s so wonderful.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
A recipe.
Take two oranges.
Halve and gut.
Blend beyond recognition.
Then wait.
Find the thing that makes them oranges.
And tenderly knit back together.
Once whole again
— The oranges, that is —
Take your strong arms and gather up good greens.
The beautiful, lush kind.
The peppery and unforgettable kind.
Two dump trucks full.
Spread yourself wide and hold onto them so very tightly
— The greens that is —
Then drench, thoroughly, in everything you’ve got.
Everything in you.
Everything that counts.
Once this is complete
— And it may take years, mind you, or several lifetimes
Whichever comes first —
Then
— And only then —
Marry great, good greens with masticated whole oranges
Take one big bite
And die happily, lovingly, well.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / narrative / music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
Your letters back which look like this:
And this:
And this:
And these excerpts from the smiley face letter above:
My fear is one day losing time and that the feeling of being rushed will swoop in.
For the first time and after multiple attempts, I made my first origami heart. And I give it to you. Know that even when life is rough, or you feel scared to talk so the world may hear your voice — you are loved.
Things found on the internet
This extraordinary newsletter from the novelist Sheila Heti, which lays out a decade of her diary entries in alphabetical order to create a work of not quite fiction, not quite memoir. Here is A through C.
The self’s report on itself is surely a great fiction, and what is a more fundamental mode of serialization than the alphabet?
This profile on the now 100-year-old Françoise Gilot — painter, writer, former spouse to Pablo Picasso, exquisite wearer of red:
As young women, we were taught to keep silent. We were taught early that taking second place is easier than first. You tell yourself that’s all right, but it’s not all right. It is important that we learn to express ourselves, to say what it is that we like, that we want.
I see life as a labyrinth. You don’t fight it. You go where it takes you. You go the other way.
This ongoing + strange obituary section from the New Yorker. This one profiling a 340-year-old tree:
“It’s dead, yes,” Waskiewicz said, “but I prefer to think that it’s just not vertical anymore.”
Want to say hi? Your options include:
Snail mail: 104 N. Benton St., APT 302, Woodstock, IL, 60098
Email: thealivehour@substack.com
Magic ALIVE hour telephone, coming soon to an ALIVE hour near you (for paid subscribers only.) Stay tuned
Talk to me. I’m listening. <3
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Well girl your
Mouth is full
Can’t take one more bite
That’s what.
You like some
Fat little squirrely thing
Can’t get enough
That’s what is
What.
Saving it for later?
What later?
What save?
Allow me to introduce you to Now
Now girl Now
Ain’t no later b**t
Ain’t no future b*t
Them’s for rich people
Planning
Saving
Future
Bank
What do you think this is exactly?
You think you on some yacht?
You feel the breeze
You sailing
The wind touching you
You feel touched
Snap out of it Now
Snap
And don’t make me the bh
Don’t give me that look all sour
I ain’t the one who did it
I’m just the messenger
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / narrative / music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
My own hand, waving back in the evening light of the lampshade
The little pink baby stitches of this mended shirt
This red against this white
Things found on the internet
This essay “Some of Us Did Not Die” (passed along via my now-Vivaldi inclined friend Katie):
When the pandemic began, I couldn’t listen to what I used to listen to. Songs, especially their lyrics, from before the pandemic felt like a mockery, worse than denial. I didn’t have words for what we were going through. So I stopped listening to words.
I had to empty my mind of words so that my heart could learn a new language.
The song Wichita Lineman. Have you ever listened to this song? Kind of sappy, with that sound of being right on the cusp of the 70s. Strings. Haunting for being so superficially uplifting. It pulls you towards it.
According to this, it contains the “greatest musical couplet ever written,” but you be the judge.
He said we hang on to songs because they are part of our “identity construction,” and that we are always trying to use them to get back to our lost paradise.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
O sky
O earth
O man
O time
O game we play
O winds that rhyme
O everything inside my head
O all that’s living, all that’s dead
O far away
O here and now
O shaking branch
O broken bough
O all before
O all beyond
O tree and life and duck and pond
O what it is
O what can be
O you
O you
O me
O me
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Music + story: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
Everything blood orange. Like this cheese feast atop this handmade wood board — a Christmas gift from my uncle:
Also this blood orange smoothie recipe via my friend Kate (and her friend Katie) who are both food geniuses. (Recipe here)
This winter missive:
Things found on the internet
This Betty White tribute:
Graced with bright eyes and a wide, dimpled smile, she radiated delight: delight to be working, delight to be alive, delight in conversation, delight in animals, but also delight in wickedness. She could turn a lilting voice to sharp ends, and a combination of these effects applied in different proportions — of innocence masking experience and experience informing innocence — would serve her through her career.
This article on spiritually-oriented New Year’s resolutions:
Every time we act, our actions affect more people than we actually see. One of the hallmarks of Catholic social teaching is solidarity, recognizing that we are all connected as human beings and that our own well-being is tied up with the well-being of others. One small way to live that out is to pause before taking a particular action to think about the third person who will be affected by it.
So, for instance, if you send an angry email to someone, you will be affected by it first, and the person you send it to will be affected by it second, but who will be next? That person’s spouse? Their child? What will that effect be? Is it worth it? If we all thought a little more about the third person, we would likely be more careful with how we treat each other.
This thought on what it means to be a person in the world:
We are living through a time when all the stories the larger culture tells us about ourselves are being rewritten: the story of what the United States is; what it means to be a man or a woman; what it means to be a child; what it means to love oneself or other people. We are imagining all of this again so that these stories can guide and comfort us rather than control us.
Hi. This is the end of season 1. Please take a moment to pause and flip your tape over to season 2. (Just kidding.) But, hey, maybe in the future we’ll do a special mix tape season based on a show of hands.
But also, please do stay tuned for season 2.
Also, also: if any part of this show is resonating with you, please consider supporting, at any level. Your support, your attention, your care, your feedback, in any fashion, is so appreciated. Thank you for listening.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
The soil’s rich
As black and dank as it gets in these parts
It’s the digging that’s getting me
down
It’s that feeling, you know
When your arms ache
And you’re wiping your forehead
So thick the dripping sweat
It’s blinding me, you think
It’s blinding me and so even if I find the thing
I won’t see it I won’t recognize it
Because the two are different you know
It’s why the ants don’t scatter at the sight of us
We’re too big
We’re right there in front of them
But that’s not always enough
Well it’s like that, I’m telling you
I’ve been here
All day
For months
Years now
My whole damn life
And I’m telling you
There’s no bottom to this thing
It’s a mistake
Thinking you’re emptying out to an end
Look around
Look around
If death was the answer
We’d have stopped looking a long time ago
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Featuring Robyn Riley + Chloe Riley. Music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
Your letters / other ways of interacting which look like this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
Things found on the internet
This section from this profile of writer Lois Lowry. (She’s talking about the death of her son, how it stays with her still):
When he died, a friend of mine who was a Shakespearean actor sent me a quotation from “Macbeth.” In the play, Macduff gets the news that his wife and children have been killed, and he becomes inconsolable and incoherent. Another character says to him, “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” And I think that’s true. I think it’s something that literature does, that writing does, that speaking about things does. It keeps our hearts from breaking.
This thought on letter-writing from writer Jami Attenberg:
Sadly, e-mail has triggered the decline of the handwritten note; I have seen its near-disappearance in my lifetime. I do not mourn the death of the printed letter in a snobby, East Coast, patrician way—“Where have our manners gone?”—but because I love objects, I love paper, and I love something that I can hold to my chest for a moment.
This quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who passed away Dec. 26 at the age of 90:
All I long for is a society that would be compassionate. A society that would be sharing. A society that would be caring. Now you can say to me, and I will admit it, that we have not seen an incarnation of that kind of society, the kind that you talk about. But we are ministers, we leave it to others to try to put flesh onto the dreams that we try to dream . . .
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
They say all these things about winter.
That it’s about
Stillness.
Cold.
The moment before.
Before everything changes, finally
Blossoms
But why do I keep feeling like
There’s something else buried beneath all the wet
Something older
Not just seasonal
But beyond time
That if I can just manage to see past
All the dazzling white
I’ll find something precious
Something long misplaced
But maybe
That’s just my human desire to dig
A dog lost on an old scent
Hungry for the bone
My animal brain whimpering in so many words:
More.
Surely there must be more.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Story: Steve Nelson. Music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
You, sending me mail back. A more beautiful wreath there ne’er was:
These Christmas postcards, written at the turn of the 20th century, to August Claussen and his family:
Dear Sister + Brother! —
Wishing you a Merry Xmas + A Happy New Year. Did not keep my promise about writing & have the La Grippe and have been home ever since Friday morn and do not feel much better now. Good-Bye
Amanda
A happy Xmas greeting to all
Dear Gus.
You missed it Sun. I was out hunting and got 7 rabbits in 2 hours with 9 shells how’s that for high. Come whenever you can and give Lizzie and Arthur Best Love from me.
Grover
Things found on the internet
This post (also from Steve Nelson) on facing the darkness:
My fear was mostly, if not entirely, in my own mind, of my own creation. The woods, night or day, if paid the proper respect, was benign. And come evening, particularly, when the shadows closed and the world shrank, it was actually comforting, intimate. I became at home in the dark.
These snippets of text from here, here, and here:
And it was these—the transitions, the secret places between the steps—that seemed to give the dancing its meaning.
There’s a widespread need to reconnect to all the things that make life worth living, and what better moment than now? What better way than with a feast?
Yet the song ends not with the word “forever” but with a repetition of the word “Sunday.” By this point in the show, the audience understands that an ordinary Sunday can become a forever, through inspiration, other people, and work.
Mary Oliver’s “The Rabbit,” posted by my friend Katie:
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Driving
Drunk on sameness
Among the rough ragged lines of winter
Among the flattened harvest
Among the grey gone world
When, looking up — Geese. Hundreds. Towing each other, being towed
And I didn’t pull the car over but something pulled me over
We were both moving, both travelers
But my progress spins so slowly
And the shape they flock in seems so sure
It isn’t safe
I keep reminding myself
To look up like that
To take your eye off the road
So my gaze goes back
But even without looking, I feel them still
Their hearts all collectively thrumming
To the beat of a place they're not yet sure exists
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio + music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
This spinach “tree”
These handmade Christmas cookie boxes, tied up with care
Things found on the internet
This obituary of a gray wolf, looking for love in California:
OR-93, a member of Oregon’s White River pack, was born in April, 2019, near Mt. Hood, about an hour-and-a-half drive southeast of Portland. Wolves can be coarsely built, big-boned and thick-necked, but OR-93 was lean and lithe. He had the long legs of a dancer, a large black nose, and a resting smiley face.
This tribute to the late feminist, writer, and practicing Buddhist bell hooks:
…hooks’s twenty-first-century writings about love as “an action, a participatory emotion,” and companionship were prophetic, a return to the basis for all that is meaningful. The social and political systems around us are designed to obstruct our sense of esteem and make us feel small. Yet revolution starts within each of us—in the demands we take up against the world, in the daily fight against nihilism.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
And is it called infinity
The stuff that makes up you and me
Indefinite we roll along
and merrily
And do we seeing, ever really see
Objects: birds, a heart, a tree
Where roost they, what branch
Easier to fly away, to flee
Suppose I give you a copy, a key
And with it words of longing, a plea
To fit, to turn, to creak
Having the open door doesn’t make you free
Being or is it not to be
The door’s not so clamped shut upon infinity
It’s right there, reach out your hand
Stand with me and push into eternity
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio: Chloe Riley. Music: carefulGIANTS + Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
This lone “can” mitten waving hello
More of your letters.
(Haven’t received yours yet? Don’t you worry: it’s coming.)
Things found on the internet
This piece on music and what it means to listen after living through (and continuing to live through) a pandemic:
“…perhaps it was a delayed reaction to the psychic tumult of 2020 — my wounded spirit forcing me to account more quietly for what we’d collectively endured (and are still enduring).”
This tribute to Stephen Sondheim — composer, writer, seer of human beings who passed away on November 26 at the age of 91:
“Uncertainty, self-delusion, disillusionment: Sondheim knew that they could be as deeply felt as the primary-color emotions. His characters sang to think and to feel at the same time.”
Take a few minutes and listen to “Being Alive” with the volume up. It’s a really nice start to the day.
And thank you for listening. Thank you for being present with me. Have a great weekend.
Chloe
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Hi.
Today’s audio episode is above.
Next:
We are going to try a thing.
The following week’s “episode” is going to be me sending you (all 54 of you) a handwritten note.
Your part in this is to receive the note. To receive.
Your optional part in this is to receive the note and:
Do something with it that feels meaningful
Put it somewhere + take a picture
Burn it
Cut it up + make it into something else
Write back
Allow it to touch you
Those parts are optional. Like I said, the only role you’re required to play is to receive. If you think I may not have your address, you can go ahead and add it here.
I am doing this because
I want us both to think about this.
What do you want?
Do you want to know me?
Do you want me to know you?
Ask yourself.
Then tell me.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio: Chloe Riley, story / vocals. carefulGIANTS, music.
Things found in real life
This message / drawing I made when I was five
This sunrise coming into the bedroom
Things found on the internet
This article on talking to kids about how to grieve:
As Anastasia Higginbotham suggests in her wonderful picture book “Death Is Stupid,” another approach is to connect to the granular details of loved ones’ lives: “Wear what they wore. Play what they played. Read what they read. Make what they made.” It is excellent advice, but all the same, it will never be enough.
The song “We Become Birds” from the late Chicago musician Michael Peter Smith, featuring Anne Hills.
The whole day goes by. Birds and more birds. We become birds when we die. We fly away. But we come back. We become birds when we die.
I’m so happy. I’ve been given this time here. Don’t want to waste my time on this earth.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
When I look at this I see
The ocean obviously because
There’s the ocean there
White capped and violent
Salty
Blue
Ruminating on itself
But I also see other pictures in my head
A seagull stealing the last bite right out of my hand
The way sand can cover you
Almost to the point of going under
All the times I was ever away
Warm
Free
And simultaneously worried about going back
And the wave I think
I think it draws you in, doesn’t it
Or does it repel you
Push you away
You feel it too right
How attracted you can be
To power
To things bigger than yourself
To answers that engulf you and take away the chance of
Drowning in them
Almost like you can hear it
You hear it right
Come on in the water’s fine
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio, music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life:
My friend Libby and I enjoying a meal in the world together:
This cute little cup that also joined us for lunch:
Things found on the internet:
This part of this Mary Oliver poem “August” posted by my friend Katie:
This quote from an interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda with regard to his feature film directional debut of “Tick, Tick…Boom!” (an adaptation of the semi-autographical musical from Jonathan Larson of “Rent” fame):
“That last song is all questions, but the real question is: Fear or love? If you get yourself into a place of fear, of “What are people going to say about what I write?,” you’re fucked. It’s over. And that’s a place I have to really push past now in a different way.”
This comic about a charming French murderer from the extremely talented Sulagna Misra (see full comic here):
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for telling me how you feel.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for being in my life in this way.
Thank you.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
It’s hard to put a bandaid
on yourself
You know what I mean
It’s hard to be the aid
To hold the bandage and have the wound
Of course it’s not impossible
People do it all the time
But still
Just because people do it all the time
Doesn’t make it the best way
The loving way
It’s just a way
I miss my mom wrapping up my fingers for me
There I said it
I miss her and I wish I didn’t have so many
painful places to begin with
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio: Chloe Riley, Nathan Karagianis. carefulGIANTS, music.
Things found in real life:
This vow from “The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt” by John Bellairs
This decomposing punkin head
This ginkgo tree, completely green and shedding its leaves
Things found on the internet:
This quote from that master of horror Stephen King, talking about the real-life horror he endured when he was almost killed after being hit by a car:
“For me, there have been times when the act of writing has been an act of faith, a spit in the eye of despair. Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”
This poem from this story of doctor and terminal patient sharing a love of words:
Time is promise,
But uninvited circumstance
And wounded souls
Eventually barter it away.
The owner of my borrowed time
Will arrive at random to insist
All what remains of me vanish . . . .
A shadow of a shadow
Passing into mist.
So, I and my last day
Will take a journey together
When we both are spent,
That leaves the familiar
Once infused in all the days,
To stand at the edge of night,
And wonder in the dying light
Exactly where we went.
This reminiscence about painter Helen Frankenthaler, via her stepdaughter Lise Motherwell:
“…Helen could paint anywhere. She could paint near the water, in the woods, in a hotel room, in a closet. That really speaks to something she said about her painting ‘Mountains and Sea’ — that she held a place in her arms as a memory, as something she felt, more than something she saw. She held the emotional memory of it.”
The ALIVE hour can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
How do you talk about one death in a year of death.
How do you talk about one life in a year of life.
I want to talk about death like I know.
I don’t know.
So maybe, I want to talk about death like I don’t know.
The thing about death is it makes me angry
The thing about death is you’re supposed to get over the anger at some point
The thing about death is things are constantly dying
The thing about life is things are constantly being born
The thing about trying to make it all better is shut up
The thing about pain is it’s your own and no one can take it from you
The thing about pain is if you hang onto it too long you drown
The thing about death is it’s really good at the drowning kind of pain
The thing about death is black
The thing about death is funeral wreath
The thing about death is the song “on eagle’s wings”
The thing about death is fighting it so hard even though you know it’s pointless
The thing about not fighting is it’s considered weak even if we say it’s not
The thing about death is contradiction
The thing about life is contradiction
The thing about life is one big drawn out sigh
The thing about death is you let go of the inhale and don’t look back.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio: Chloe Riley, story. carefulGIANTS, music.
Things found in real life:
My face reflected in the helmet my cousin bought to protect himself so he could hug people while going through chemo during covid
This poem “Downhearted” from Ada Limón
This Chicago coffee shop missive:
“Life is always life and will always be Life.”
Things found on the internet:
This New Yorker essay in which the author reminisces about one of the last significant times she spent with her dad — aboard a gay cruise ship, before he died of AIDS
“That night, we moved together. We felt and sang and danced together—the rhythm binding us, the crowd embracing us, the present moment the only truth there was.”
This quote from author Hilary Mantel:
“For a long time I felt as if someone else were writing my life. I seemed able to create or interpret characters in fiction, but not able to create or interpret myself. About the time I reached midlife, I began to understand why this was. The book of me was indeed being written by other people: by my parents, by the child I once was, and by my own unborn children, stretching out their ghost fingers to grab the pen. I began this writing in an attempt to seize the copyright in myself.”
My cousin, before he died, interviewing his daughter about what her experience was like the day both she and he found out he had terminal cancer
The ALIVE hour can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe
Hi. You found us. Or we found you. We found each other.
This is an audio journey.
This is an attempt to connect more meaningfully.
This is an attempt to connect.
To listen,
As well as to speak words into the world without fear.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio: Don White, story. carefulGIANTS, music.
Things found in real life:
My hand overlaid on top of the handprint of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth
A rainbow on my wrist made by a parting gift from my cousin, who died of pancreatic cancer in June
Things found on the internet:
This New York Times article about a doctor who regrets her “truth” spoken to a dying patient.
“But when I think about that night, I know that I added to my patient’s pain in the last hours of his life. I wish that I had done it differently. I could have paused and told him that yes, he was going to go home. I could have simply been there with him and said nothing at all. That small kindness might have done more for him than the truth.”
This Mary Oliver poem, “At the River Clarion”
“If God exists he isn’t just butter and good luck.
He’s also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.”
“...If God exists he isn’t just churches and mathematics.
He’s the forest, He’s the desert.
He’s the ice caps, that are dying.
He’s the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.
He’s van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert Motherwell.
He’s the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing their weapons.
He’s every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politician, the poet.
And if this is true, isn’t it something very important?”
This photo and quote from this portrait of Laurie Anderson
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com/subscribe