#16 My Brightest Diamond

It was all there: a red dress, a suitcase full of instruments, a beautiful park, a lake, a little Edith Piaf, and a bunch of laughs. Quite a wonderful morning in the midst of Brooklyn’s July heat.

I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was a Friday morning nearing the end of July. Shara and I had decided to meet at 10 am by the southwest entrance of Prospect Park. Fortunately, I was staying right next to the park, and Shara also lived just a hop and a skip away. We didn’t know each other at all but nevertheless I told her to come alone. I was going to talk to her about an “intimate encounter”, a kind of suspended moment that would renew the way we create, and other similar silly things for assurance. However she had such a soft voice over the phone that I decided not to alarm her with my crazy ideas. Fortunately, I had got her contact info through a pretty reliable and reputable bunch: Padma Newsome (who was actually Shara’s teacher for a brief time), and The Clogs, who is also the sixth member of The National. So it seamed like I had done my work in order to get in touch with her.

My Brightest Diamond is Shara Worden, a delightful woman that wears ravishing red dresses that suit her well. She has just started to be widely recognized, especially having been a staple member of Sufjan Steven’s band, as well as his opening act for some time. She just released her first album, but there’s more to Shara than just a piece of plastic that I pass on to friends or hear on my computer, becoming a part of my infinite collection that makes me forget who it is that’s actually playing. There is, for example, her striking red dress that we could stare at in awe for an eternity. It’s funny, because I was talking to Padma a couple days later and he remarked: “and you know what’s the saddest thing? She’s already married...” Oh, poor Padma, poor us!

About a half an hour after we met, we were already situated in the wonderful forests of the park, wandering about, talking, and just getting to know each other. I could have continued on like that for hours, but it came time to film these videos, which seemed like an inconvenient holdup to our promenade in the forest. What did you think? Obviously these videos are just a pretext. Yeah, what if the Takeaway Shows just became an excuse to meet our favorite artists?

Anyway, so here you have it...She was carrying a pretty large suitcase from which she pulled out an amazing xylophone and assembled it right in the middle of the woods. I thought it was pretty dazzling considering that she became this little red dollop punctuating the giant forested landscape. She played a piece from her album entitled “Disappear,” which was good, especially considering her beautiful voice and particular kind of fervor. The piece however, was missing something, which I suppose I’ll leave you to see for yourself. In any case, I got to spend a wonderful morning with Shara Worden.

Afterwards we walked towards one of the many lakes in the park and settled down by the shoreline, at which point she pulled out a whole other assortment of tiny instruments, including a bunch of wind up toys and music boxes, along with several classics. In the end though, it was me who tainted the wonderful rendition of Piaf’s “l’Hymne à l’Amour.” I always love to hear Edith Piaf and like an idiot I even started thinking about Jeff Buckley, and as Shara started to sing I was put into a childlike trance. I started to tremble behind my thingamajig of a camera, and I even had the urge to flee to end of the earth. So I started running backwards and eventually smacked my head against the xylophone just behind me, at which point she started to burst out laughing, which resonates near the end of the video (hear it?), saying “That must be a take!”

Upon finishing up and leaving the park, I asked Shara: “and Sufjan, do you think he’ll be ok? She replied back: “Sufjan, euh, no.” Whatever, no worries. Besides, he should learn how to sport a red dress as well as you do, Shara.