On Death, Music and Motherhood: Björk & Ocean Vuong in Conversation
Metadata
Highlights
- And in one of the songs, you say, ‘I am her hope-keeper.’ It’s such an incredible line. It just sums up everything that I think, at my best, I hope to do with my own mother (View Highlight)
- Yes, the chiaroscuro between two people. What I love about that phrase ‘hope-keeper’ is the sense that you’re guarding the hope from the world, but also keeping it for when they want to use it, like, ‘I’m keeping this hope for you until you want to have it, and I’ll hold it for a while.’ You’re almost a guardian of hope (View Highlight)
- And I wonder about optimism and art-making – I think the innovation that powerful art demands is tied to optimism. The pessimist has no stake in innovation. I think on the one hand it’s very powerful and we can push the boundaries, and on the other hand we live in la-la land. And often my mother was the realist. I’m like a kite she had to wheel down. Do you think that being overly optimistic is tied to being an artist? (View Highlight)
- Because sometimes I lie at night in the dark and I can be so depressed. Everytime I release a book I get a mixture of strange relief and depression. I’m like, ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ And then there’s an emptiness and a sadness that comes in its wake. I could be lying in the dark at night, just staring at the ceiling, and then an idea would come to me. And I would jump out of bed, run to the desk, turn on the lamp, write it and say, ‘Oh my God, this is it. This will solve everything.’ And then tomorrow I look at it and it’s horrible. But that optimism gets you forward, and it’s always the dream – the vision is always ahead, like the dangling carrot (View Highlight)
- It is said that when cooking, musicians make great sauces – if you have guests over and you open the fridge and just cook whatever’s there, you can grab a musician, and they can usually make a sauce that will marry five very diverse ingredients and it makes sense. So I guess that is like the poet too – using poetic licence to bring a fluidity between two things, so that things are not stagnant, so they can rotate (View Highlight)
- You include not only the optimistic, hopeful things, but you include a lot of dark stuff. And by creating this current around all of it, so it’s inclusive of all the dark and the light, it’s so inviting to the reader because it’s truthful and sincere. I love that about your work. That’s why I’m a little shy of the word ‘optimist’, because yes, it gets you out of the stagnation – but my favourite artists are inclusive of both pessimism and optimism (View Highlight)
- I don’t feel courageous when I write, I feel that it’s more like a gravitational pull (View Highlight)
- love the phenomena of black holes in space because they just swallow the dark and the light indiscriminately. I know it’s a phenomena of destruction, it’s also a phenomena of time travel, but I love black holes because there’s a democratic absorption of the universe. And I think that some of my favourite artists are like black holes, they just take everything on without judgement. And what you’re talking about is this wonderful moment in creativity when strange and disparate ideas and objects coalesce via a vision. Strangeness collaborating in order to make sense and make meaning, that is absolutely idiosyncratic. (View Highlight)
- And I feel that I was trying to describe my album covers as sonic tarot cards. Tarot is something humankind has been using for thousands of years – symbols that everybody agrees on. Like, ‘Yes, I sometimes feel like I’m holding a cup, sometimes I feel like I’m holding an axe.’ (View Highlight)
- sonic symbolism. It is based on the idea that we go through changes roughly every three years, sometimes seven, where our colour palette changes and how we feel changes and our loved ones around us, their position changes, and the aroma or the textures or the lightness or darkness around us shifts. (View Highlight)
- It’s a homemade language, but it’s also just the accumulation of doing the same thing for 30 years. I am sure the same thing will happen to you, even though you are a brave editor of your work and are spartan in your output. Over the next 20 years you will still end up accumulating several suitcases of this kind of stuff. (View Highlight)
- And what I really love about your music is that one experiences it very much like weather – you go in and the weather comes on. And I think that’s what I feel like when I listen to a lot of music, but especially your music, because I don’t feel like I’m charged with having to pin down a meaning. I have a significant emotional response to it simply by being in it in the same way I’m inside a storm or a windstorm. (View Highlight)
- And I tell people who struggle with poetry that’s how you should experience poetry too, the way you experience weather. You shouldn’t go into it saying, ‘What is the code? What is the meaning? How do I solve this riddle?’ It’s not a riddle, it’s an atmosphere. And I think that the more I talk to you, the more I feel that you’re a weather-maker as well as a hope-keeper. I think that’s ultimately what we do – we create atmospheres people can embody. (View Highlight)
- So every three years, you have a different chapter – it’s not just one thing, it’s ten things (View Highlight)
- When I think of performance, I think of [the American philosopher] Judith Butler’s idea that all of us, our authentic selves, might not really exist in a singularity, but might exist in a sort of mosaic of performances that we are always performing. We have a version of ourselves we express to our family, our friends, our audience, our publisher, our parents, and then a version of ourselves that we perform when we’re alone (View Highlight)
- what stands out to me is the dignity that is consistent from start to finish. Regardless if she’s writing erotica, she’s talking about mental health or her own struggles, the daily life, there’s so much dignity in it. And I see that, in your work, as varied as it is, the most constant through line is a ferocious dignity, not only to the self but to the art and the vocation at hand. And I think that’s so inspiring (View Highlight)
- When warming up your voice, it’s almost like you’re building a cathedral inside your skull. And it’s a sensation, that the spiritual part of us becomes larger (View Highlight)
- The best work, I think, showcases all of life’s contradictions together, it’s all fluid (View Highlight)
On Death, Music and Motherhood: Björk & Ocean Vuong in Conversation
Metadata
Highlights
- And in one of the songs, you say, ‘I am her hope-keeper.’ It’s such an incredible line. It just sums up everything that I think, at my best, I hope to do with my own mother (View Highlight)
- Yes, the chiaroscuro between two people. What I love about that phrase ‘hope-keeper’ is the sense that you’re guarding the hope from the world, but also keeping it for when they want to use it, like, ‘I’m keeping this hope for you until you want to have it, and I’ll hold it for a while.’ You’re almost a guardian of hope (View Highlight)
- And I wonder about optimism and art-making – I think the innovation that powerful art demands is tied to optimism. The pessimist has no stake in innovation. I think on the one hand it’s very powerful and we can push the boundaries, and on the other hand we live in la-la land. And often my mother was the realist. I’m like a kite she had to wheel down. Do you think that being overly optimistic is tied to being an artist? (View Highlight)
- Because sometimes I lie at night in the dark and I can be so depressed. Everytime I release a book I get a mixture of strange relief and depression. I’m like, ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ And then there’s an emptiness and a sadness that comes in its wake. I could be lying in the dark at night, just staring at the ceiling, and then an idea would come to me. And I would jump out of bed, run to the desk, turn on the lamp, write it and say, ‘Oh my God, this is it. This will solve everything.’ And then tomorrow I look at it and it’s horrible. But that optimism gets you forward, and it’s always the dream – the vision is always ahead, like the dangling carrot (View Highlight)
- It is said that when cooking, musicians make great sauces – if you have guests over and you open the fridge and just cook whatever’s there, you can grab a musician, and they can usually make a sauce that will marry five very diverse ingredients and it makes sense. So I guess that is like the poet too – using poetic licence to bring a fluidity between two things, so that things are not stagnant, so they can rotate (View Highlight)
- You include not only the optimistic, hopeful things, but you include a lot of dark stuff. And by creating this current around all of it, so it’s inclusive of all the dark and the light, it’s so inviting to the reader because it’s truthful and sincere. I love that about your work. That’s why I’m a little shy of the word ‘optimist’, because yes, it gets you out of the stagnation – but my favourite artists are inclusive of both pessimism and optimism (View Highlight)
- I don’t feel courageous when I write, I feel that it’s more like a gravitational pull (View Highlight)
- love the phenomena of black holes in space because they just swallow the dark and the light indiscriminately. I know it’s a phenomena of destruction, it’s also a phenomena of time travel, but I love black holes because there’s a democratic absorption of the universe. And I think that some of my favourite artists are like black holes, they just take everything on without judgement. And what you’re talking about is this wonderful moment in creativity when strange and disparate ideas and objects coalesce via a vision. Strangeness collaborating in order to make sense and make meaning, that is absolutely idiosyncratic. (View Highlight)
- And I feel that I was trying to describe my album covers as sonic tarot cards. Tarot is something humankind has been using for thousands of years – symbols that everybody agrees on. Like, ‘Yes, I sometimes feel like I’m holding a cup, sometimes I feel like I’m holding an axe.’ (View Highlight)
- sonic symbolism. It is based on the idea that we go through changes roughly every three years, sometimes seven, where our colour palette changes and how we feel changes and our loved ones around us, their position changes, and the aroma or the textures or the lightness or darkness around us shifts. (View Highlight)
- It’s a homemade language, but it’s also just the accumulation of doing the same thing for 30 years. I am sure the same thing will happen to you, even though you are a brave editor of your work and are spartan in your output. Over the next 20 years you will still end up accumulating several suitcases of this kind of stuff. (View Highlight)
- And what I really love about your music is that one experiences it very much like weather – you go in and the weather comes on. And I think that’s what I feel like when I listen to a lot of music, but especially your music, because I don’t feel like I’m charged with having to pin down a meaning. I have a significant emotional response to it simply by being in it in the same way I’m inside a storm or a windstorm. (View Highlight)
- And I tell people who struggle with poetry that’s how you should experience poetry too, the way you experience weather. You shouldn’t go into it saying, ‘What is the code? What is the meaning? How do I solve this riddle?’ It’s not a riddle, it’s an atmosphere. And I think that the more I talk to you, the more I feel that you’re a weather-maker as well as a hope-keeper. I think that’s ultimately what we do – we create atmospheres people can embody. (View Highlight)
- So every three years, you have a different chapter – it’s not just one thing, it’s ten things (View Highlight)
- When I think of performance, I think of [the American philosopher] Judith Butler’s idea that all of us, our authentic selves, might not really exist in a singularity, but might exist in a sort of mosaic of performances that we are always performing. We have a version of ourselves we express to our family, our friends, our audience, our publisher, our parents, and then a version of ourselves that we perform when we’re alone (View Highlight)
- what stands out to me is the dignity that is consistent from start to finish. Regardless if she’s writing erotica, she’s talking about mental health or her own struggles, the daily life, there’s so much dignity in it. And I see that, in your work, as varied as it is, the most constant through line is a ferocious dignity, not only to the self but to the art and the vocation at hand. And I think that’s so inspiring (View Highlight)
- When warming up your voice, it’s almost like you’re building a cathedral inside your skull. And it’s a sensation, that the spiritual part of us becomes larger (View Highlight)
- The best work, I think, showcases all of life’s contradictions together, it’s all fluid (View Highlight)
On Death, Music and Motherhood: Björk & Ocean Vuong in Conversation
Metadata
Highlights
- And in one of the songs, you say, ‘I am her hope-keeper.’ It’s such an incredible line. It just sums up everything that I think, at my best, I hope to do with my own mother (View Highlight)
- Yes, the chiaroscuro between two people. What I love about that phrase ‘hope-keeper’ is the sense that you’re guarding the hope from the world, but also keeping it for when they want to use it, like, ‘I’m keeping this hope for you until you want to have it, and I’ll hold it for a while.’ You’re almost a guardian of hope (View Highlight)
- And I wonder about optimism and art-making – I think the innovation that powerful art demands is tied to optimism. The pessimist has no stake in innovation. I think on the one hand it’s very powerful and we can push the boundaries, and on the other hand we live in la-la land. And often my mother was the realist. I’m like a kite she had to wheel down. Do you think that being overly optimistic is tied to being an artist? (View Highlight)
- Because sometimes I lie at night in the dark and I can be so depressed. Everytime I release a book I get a mixture of strange relief and depression. I’m like, ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ And then there’s an emptiness and a sadness that comes in its wake. I could be lying in the dark at night, just staring at the ceiling, and then an idea would come to me. And I would jump out of bed, run to the desk, turn on the lamp, write it and say, ‘Oh my God, this is it. This will solve everything.’ And then tomorrow I look at it and it’s horrible. But that optimism gets you forward, and it’s always the dream – the vision is always ahead, like the dangling carrot (View Highlight)
- It is said that when cooking, musicians make great sauces – if you have guests over and you open the fridge and just cook whatever’s there, you can grab a musician, and they can usually make a sauce that will marry five very diverse ingredients and it makes sense. So I guess that is like the poet too – using poetic licence to bring a fluidity between two things, so that things are not stagnant, so they can rotate (View Highlight)
- You include not only the optimistic, hopeful things, but you include a lot of dark stuff. And by creating this current around all of it, so it’s inclusive of all the dark and the light, it’s so inviting to the reader because it’s truthful and sincere. I love that about your work. That’s why I’m a little shy of the word ‘optimist’, because yes, it gets you out of the stagnation – but my favourite artists are inclusive of both pessimism and optimism (View Highlight)
- I don’t feel courageous when I write, I feel that it’s more like a gravitational pull (View Highlight)
- love the phenomena of black holes in space because they just swallow the dark and the light indiscriminately. I know it’s a phenomena of destruction, it’s also a phenomena of time travel, but I love black holes because there’s a democratic absorption of the universe. And I think that some of my favourite artists are like black holes, they just take everything on without judgement. And what you’re talking about is this wonderful moment in creativity when strange and disparate ideas and objects coalesce via a vision. Strangeness collaborating in order to make sense and make meaning, that is absolutely idiosyncratic. (View Highlight)
- And I feel that I was trying to describe my album covers as sonic tarot cards. Tarot is something humankind has been using for thousands of years – symbols that everybody agrees on. Like, ‘Yes, I sometimes feel like I’m holding a cup, sometimes I feel like I’m holding an axe.’ (View Highlight)
- sonic symbolism. It is based on the idea that we go through changes roughly every three years, sometimes seven, where our colour palette changes and how we feel changes and our loved ones around us, their position changes, and the aroma or the textures or the lightness or darkness around us shifts. (View Highlight)
- It’s a homemade language, but it’s also just the accumulation of doing the same thing for 30 years. I am sure the same thing will happen to you, even though you are a brave editor of your work and are spartan in your output. Over the next 20 years you will still end up accumulating several suitcases of this kind of stuff. (View Highlight)
- And what I really love about your music is that one experiences it very much like weather – you go in and the weather comes on. And I think that’s what I feel like when I listen to a lot of music, but especially your music, because I don’t feel like I’m charged with having to pin down a meaning. I have a significant emotional response to it simply by being in it in the same way I’m inside a storm or a windstorm. (View Highlight)
- And I tell people who struggle with poetry that’s how you should experience poetry too, the way you experience weather. You shouldn’t go into it saying, ‘What is the code? What is the meaning? How do I solve this riddle?’ It’s not a riddle, it’s an atmosphere. And I think that the more I talk to you, the more I feel that you’re a weather-maker as well as a hope-keeper. I think that’s ultimately what we do – we create atmospheres people can embody. (View Highlight)
- So every three years, you have a different chapter – it’s not just one thing, it’s ten things (View Highlight)
- When I think of performance, I think of [the American philosopher] Judith Butler’s idea that all of us, our authentic selves, might not really exist in a singularity, but might exist in a sort of mosaic of performances that we are always performing. We have a version of ourselves we express to our family, our friends, our audience, our publisher, our parents, and then a version of ourselves that we perform when we’re alone (View Highlight)
- what stands out to me is the dignity that is consistent from start to finish. Regardless if she’s writing erotica, she’s talking about mental health or her own struggles, the daily life, there’s so much dignity in it. And I see that, in your work, as varied as it is, the most constant through line is a ferocious dignity, not only to the self but to the art and the vocation at hand. And I think that’s so inspiring (View Highlight)
- When warming up your voice, it’s almost like you’re building a cathedral inside your skull. And it’s a sensation, that the spiritual part of us becomes larger (View Highlight)
- The best work, I think, showcases all of life’s contradictions together, it’s all fluid (View Highlight)