A group of artistic types – Amanda Palmer, her husband, Neil Gaiman, Ben Fold, and OK Go’s Damian Kulash got together at the end of April to write eight songs in eight hours – just to see if they could. (You can listen to the whole record streaming on Amanda’s webpage.) As often happens with random Creative Commons released projects, other artists have put their own creative spin on 8in8, as it’s called. From Neil’s quirky Englishness shining through in The Trouble With Saints to the horribly funny and heartbreaking Because the Origami, this project has just blown me away. This pictorial rendering of 8in8’s song, I’ll Be My Mirror is my favorite by far — it’s a brief musical poem, but the words are too, too true.
“…there’s a fraction of a brain cell that makes us what we are
one false move, you’re in the mirror,
someone’s laughing
from the car.
Mom used to say this little phrase, “There, but for the grace of God go I.” It’s true, isn’t it? For all of us who fear shouting in mirrors, to all of us, afraid in the car, we are all people, and all fearful. That is what we hold in common. That is what I will remember, when next I see a random, wandering homeless person, talking to themselves: there but for the grace of God…
I can totally relate to her screaming in the mirror. Maybe it feels kind of good, the way smiling at yourself does? When I read the first sentence of your post I thought you were saying YOU got together with Neil and his wife Amanda, and I was all “man that tanita has great folks to hang out with!” 😆
Hah – I doubt I’d be able to speak if I were in the same room with Amanda Palmer OR her husband…
My Mama says that a lot too!