“We need to think of the playing and practicing as treasure, not work.” —Eben Pariser, Goodnight Moonshine
Preview: Episode 111
Musician Molly Venter was taking a hypnosis class, and as she began working more with the unconscious mind, she wondered what would happen if she blended music with trance states, inviting others to go there with her. She began using hypnotic inductions with her partner in life and music, Eben Pariser, and immediately they noticed the change in their performance. Now they play with how to bring the ancient technology of medicine music to the stage. We talk with them about what “the zone” is, how to find it, how to stay there, and how to have a sense of humor when you’re kicked out of it.
This is a special episode because Molly & Rosemerry “met” each other through collaboration—Molly made one of Rosemerry’s poems into music several years ago. And now they’re getting the chance to collaborate in person in Paonia, CO, in the Moonshine Family Traveling Medicine Show, also featuring Craig Childs (ep. 21), on May 18 at the Blue Sage Center for the Arts, exploring how to find joy, love, even bliss in difficult times.
Goodnight Moonshine is a guitar and vocal duet, and a musical marriage in all senses. The Duo combines the evocative voice and songwriting of Molly Venter, with Eben Pariser’s adventurous guitar playing. The result is folk music with a depth of improvisation and tonal subtlety usually reserved for jazz. Molly is well known for her sublime singing in the prominent female-vocal-group Red Molly, Her voice has been called “biker-chick smoky,” and with Goodnight Moonshine she is in full force as a songwriter with a trance-induced stream-of-consciousness writing style. Eben cut his teeth as a street performer in New York City, playing guttural music of New Orleans with his band Roosevelt Dime, but he was quickly captured by classic jazz, and his improvisational skills are a hallmark of Goodnight Moonshine’s sound.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
After listening to our last episode with biologist and writer Erin Zimmerman, we heard from our past guest (ep. 53, also a biologist and writer) Susan Tweit, who shared an essay from last week’s New York Times, also by a biologist (mycologist) and writer, Toby Kiers, about her journey in science and motherhood. Like Zimmerman, Kiers struggles with feeling as if she is forced to make a choice between being a scientist and being a mother … and she finds a way forward by challenging detachment.
I kinda love the premise of Central Avenue Then & Now. In this poetry anthology, editors Dale Harris and Merimée Moffitt include 75 poets who were published in Central Avenue Magazine. They choose one poem that was published from 1999-2007, and then invited each of the poets to submit work they are writing now. It’s a joy to see the difference in the voices as poets become even more themselves. And also fun to read this gathering of writers from the West, offering a really enjoyable spectrum of voices and portraits of what it is like to live in the southwest then and now.
Christie:
I love Eduardo Rey Brummel’s poem, “Notes to Self,” which I discovered when one of his friends posted it recently on social media. It’s beautiful and true and I just want you to stop what you’re doing and go read his beautiful gift to yourself. I met Eduardo through Rosemerry, and he is one of the kindest, gentlest people I’ve ever met.
I can’t remember who recommended The Husbands by Holly Gramazio to me, but it was an enjoyable, quick read. I almost abandoned it early on, as it felt a little too formulaic (and it is a bit formulaic) but it had enough interesting developments to keep me going. I liked the protagonist, a woman who one day discovers that her attic is producing husbands for her — a new one every time the previous one enters the space. It’s a book about how we decide what choices to make about our lives and how to find satisfaction in imperfect relationships. It’s a feel-good story, but fun.
The Broken Heart Goes Dancing
Give me a night made of strings,
a night that is plucked
and strummed and bowed and picked,
a night with a driving, ecstatic music
and nothing to do but be danced
by the night as if each string of dobro
and fiddle and bass is attached
to an arm, a foot, a hip,
to the curling edge of an upper lip—
and even the broken heart is tugged
from its chair by bronze-coated strings
until it’s an open and rhythmic thing
that beats for the bliss of it, beats
for the song of it, beats
for the joy-swaying head-shaking lift
of it, beats because that’s what a heart
is for, and for hours the night
pulls every string, and the heart
beats out more, please, more.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Starting this month, only our paid subscribers will receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support.
This week, we talk with Eben and Molly about how to let your creativity be informed by the environment you’re in, how to have perspective on your creative life, and the art of holding and exploring contrasting feelings. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
How do you get “in the zone?”
What surprises you about the art you’re making?
Thanks for reading Emerging Form! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.
Emerging Form is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.