It made me laugh when she highly recommended being creative without having to worry about paying the bills. I wish. She moaned about not being able to afford to buy a place in London with a garden. Most people can’t even afford to live there period. But I tried to stay with her frame of reference and could see that coming from a huge Californian house would be a huge adjustment and I accepted her invite into her assimilation and transformation, warts and all.

I’ve loved Emma Forrest since her first novel, Namedropper. This is perhaps her strongest book. Her writing has deepened and certain lines grabbed my heart. Still, I didn’t give it 5 stars because the ending seemed rushed to be tidied with a nice bow. And her ex-husband was straight up abusive at points but those behaviors are sort of described as just personality quirks. I don’t know if that’s how it was edited or if Emma has blinders about that. Still, I really loved reading Emma’s honest, messy, beautiful thoughts on motherhood, aging, sex and more.

Crosby, Stills and Mitchell

Two years later, in this stunning performance on the BBC, there is no catch in her voice. But the melody is so melancholy. So what’s the point? My gut tells me that she’s undercutting the validity of the narrator’s point of view, that we aren’t meant to buy into it without reservation, that there’s an implicit self-criticism, the speaker towards her life, Joni toward her song, the listener towards the work of art. That she’s too busy being free. Joni’s a consummate enough artist to work on that level of complexity. But that’s certainly arguable here. Indeed, 54 years later, I continue to debate it with myself. And then that evocative line, ‘you know there may be more’. On the recorded version, there’s catch in her voice–second thoughts? Regrets? Confession? It’s certainly not ‘matter-of-factual’. She has doubts about her butterflyness? The vestiges of her mother’s moral system? Self-criticism that this is her limited and limiting modus operandi? We’re so enamored with multitasking that we think we’re getting more done, even though our brains aren’t physically capable of this,” Bradberry wrote. “Regardless of what we might think, we are most productive when we manage our schedules enough to ensure that we can focus effectively on the task at hand.”

However, Forrest’s misery about her “small top-floor flat” seems trivial when she flaunts the wealth she continues to enjoy, including a custom-made spiral staircase, with a cut-out design to “cast light around the small space”. She goes on to move into another property, renting out the first. References to Balenciaga shoes, Gucci scarves and the numerous celebrities with whom she has brushed shoulders abound – and are always pretentious. Lauded by everyone from Nigella Lawson to Lisa Taddeo, the title of Busy Being Free is taken from the song Cactus Tree by Joni Mitchell, in which Mitchell sings about an unnamed woman’s need for freedom and resistance to romantic commitment. In every case, the woman “thinks she loves them all” but ultimately is always “too busy being free.” – a notion which ties in beautifully with the melodies of Busy Being Free. In some studies, it was found that people use busyiness to “hide from… laziness and fear of failure”. “We burn valuable time doing things that aren’t necessary or important because this busyness makes us feel productive,” he wrote. “As it turns out, you really do have to slow down to do your best.” I took comfort in many of the things she revealed she processed post divorce and her exploration of shame and disappointment.Forrest is a spirited, energetic writer, and this book, made up of short, vignette-like chapters, flits rapidly between time frames and anecdotes. It’s lively text, but can feel frenzied. Her insistence on comparing details in her present life with musings on her previous sexual encounters often jars.

BUSY BEING FREE finds Barbara Fasano in peak form ... an assured singer with a warmly appealing sound who does full justice to the lyrics of the songs that she performs ... exhibits superb taste ... The band is all a singer could want, with each of the players making solid contributions to the whole ... a consistently engaging album by a terrific singer and the cats who surround her."~ Joe Lang, Jersey Jazz Magazine Personal productivity… is the most important one, as it centres around the time that I make to spend with my family, my friends and doing things that fulfil me as a living person,” he wrote. “I know it’s odd to look at the time you spend with your family as being productive... but by doing so, I’m mentally making it more important. I’m giving it the same weighted value that I put on being able to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. Personal productivity keeps me human and reminds me what really matters in this world." Karma from NyShe's singing about being free and the guys who want her to settle down with them. She thinks she might love them all but she doesn't want to settle down. She doesn't want to hurt them but hey, would you settle down if you looked like Joni, had her intelligence and talent and was just getting started? I know I wouldn't. But yeah, it must have hurt to have so many wanting a committment from her; kinda selfish on their part in my humble opinion. Nonetheless, I think it made her feel bad...guilty...that they were hurt. She still wanted to see them but she didn't want to see one of them only and be tied down. Good for her. I loved Emma’s feature on Vogue: Getting Divorced Made Me Reassess My Entire Wardrobe, and why not find out which eight books Emma Forrest would take with her to a desert island? Emma Forrest Author Bio Barbara Fasano is not just a singer, she is a persuasive storyteller. In her warm alto, supported by John di Martino's blissful arrangements and a swinging band, she is committed to telling these stories ... an exceptional ballad singer who can also swing. And sing she does. Borrowing from the tapestry of her life, she imbues truth in her delivery at every turn." ~ John Hoglund, Cabaret ScenesA few years later a female roommate of mine was appalled that I thought that. To her the woman was miserable and unhappy ... hollow. We argued about this more than once. A girlfriend, at about this same time saw it both ways, as I now do. Barbara’s many New York headline engagement include concert appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook at the Appel Room, Rose Hall, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, New York Festival of Song, Town Hall and New York’s 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists series. Starring engagements in cabaret and nightclubs include Birdland, Jazz at Kitano, The Algonquin, Feinstein’s, The Carlyle, Iridium, 54 Below, Café Sabarsky, the Palace in Stamford, CT, Night Town in Cleveland, Live at Zedel and Pizza Express Live in London, Monteverdi Tuscany in Italy, and the Royal Room at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach. Arts centers and music festivals across the country include Saratoga Jazz Festival, Music Mountain Festival's Twilight Jazz, Kravis Center, Caramoor, Arizona Jazz Festival, Jersey Jazz, Kanbar Center, Cooperstown Music Festival, Provincetown Cabaret Festival, Sheldon Concert Hall and Jazz at The Bistro in St. Louis, Night Town in Cleveland, Prince Music Theatre, and Kerrytown Concert House . From the author of Your Voice in My Head and Royals comes a beautiful, breath-taking, unputdownable memoir about love and heartbreak, sex and celibacy, growing up and starting again. In the words of revered jazz critic Ira Gitler, she “has it all, and then some … artistic, swinging, and superbly entertaining.”