Sometimes the best pieces of art are the ones that seem unfinished.
This is the way I feel about this piece of music by Michael Nyman.
I wouldn't recommend watching the video, though, it's truly horrid. Just listen to the music.
When you listen to this, it's like there is this lack of completeness. You can hear the missing parts, the parts that aren't there. And you long for them to be fulfilled. The missing parts live only inside your own mind and the fact that you know that, is what makes it so beautiful. You can see perfection through the cracks.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
.357 stringband
I saw this band last weekend and it was so good! If ever they're playing nearby you should go and watch. The musicians are excellent, but the best thing is that their performance and music create a sort of vacuum. You'll find yourself in a totally different time and space. Somewhere in a deserted corner in the south of America, in a dark smokey bar with lots of testosteron, beer and women in corsages and wide skirts. If you're able to stand still and not dance around the room like a crazy person, I would be very impressed ('cause that was all I could do, my body is helpless against this kind of music).
Have fun!
http://www.myspace.com/357stringband
Have fun!
http://www.myspace.com/357stringband
The old lady
The old lady is sitting next to me at a dinner table. I've been watching her silently while she eats. There is a greediness in her manner. Her little hands grab for the platters around her, holding the delicious foods that everyone prepared. She shoves them onto her plate and chews loudly. Whenever I pass on a dish or offer her something to drink, she always says yes thankfully. But she never offers me anything in return. I wonder how a small old lady could have such an appetite. She eats as though she was starving. Was she maybe? And then she starts to talk to me.
She tells me about all the old people imprisoned in their houses, everyone they love dying around them one by one. She tells me how she's trying to resist becoming one of them by still going out often, trying new things. I'm trying very hard to evoke my compassion for her. But when she speaks I can see the food that she put so hastily in her mouth floating around on her tongue. She spits out big chunks of beige coloured, half processed toast with marmalade while talking and I'm scared that one of those chunks will end up on my face.
Then her story gets better. She tells me how she worked in the family business when she was young. It was a company selling the most beautiful expensive cars. People from all over the world would come to buy cars from her father. There were drivers in suits with white gloves and women wearing fur and jewels accompanying their husbands. I don't really believe her. She reminds me of my own grandmother in the way she tries to make a good impression by proving that she hangs out with the elite. It's a typical thing people do when they've had to work their way up all of their lives never ever feeling good enough. But I appreciate the effort and I can see her in my mind, young and beautiful walking between those cars being overwhelmed by the richness of the clients and it takes my mind off of her eating manners for a moment.
But when I ask her wether she had an education the conversation takes a bad turn. She didn't. And she thinks some people getting an education these days are being pampered. They don't know how to work anymore. Old people are wasting away in their houses and nobody does a thing about it. And those foreigners coming to our country get everything they ever wanted. They're being taken care of as if they were on a holiday. In the little park in front of her house people let their dogs shit without cleaning up afterwards so all the flies come and fly around her windowframes and shit on them so the windowframes get black spots and nobody does a thing about it while the foreigners get lemonade and cookies on their arrival. Big glazy beige chunks fly around angrily all over the place.
I don't want to just sit there and nod, so I try to give her a different perspective on the matter, explaining that foreigners aren't fleeing their countries for no reason. But it's of no use. She sneers that she was in the war also, and that she deserves the same treatment. As I think of another thing to say to calm her down without telling her I agree my eye wanders to the piece of tablecloth between our plates and I see the chunks from her filthy mouth piled up and I almost start to vomit. So I just get up and leave while she hisses after me that she knows, because she's seen it with her own eyes and I don't know because I'm young and ignorant.
I tremble as I put the dishes in the dish machine, smiling to the other people who are helping out in the kitchen as though nothing's wrong. But the happy cloud is gone. It seems as though all the joyful feelings I ever had were only confined to my own little safe world. The space I created for myself, the things I wished to see while leaving the bad stuff out. She's right, I have been ignorant thinking that all was fine. The world does not consist solely of people I care about, kind and good-mannered and openminded. There are also these people that you wish you could change their minds or feel sorry for or help out, but all you are left doing is just feeling helplessly revulsed.
She tells me about all the old people imprisoned in their houses, everyone they love dying around them one by one. She tells me how she's trying to resist becoming one of them by still going out often, trying new things. I'm trying very hard to evoke my compassion for her. But when she speaks I can see the food that she put so hastily in her mouth floating around on her tongue. She spits out big chunks of beige coloured, half processed toast with marmalade while talking and I'm scared that one of those chunks will end up on my face.
Then her story gets better. She tells me how she worked in the family business when she was young. It was a company selling the most beautiful expensive cars. People from all over the world would come to buy cars from her father. There were drivers in suits with white gloves and women wearing fur and jewels accompanying their husbands. I don't really believe her. She reminds me of my own grandmother in the way she tries to make a good impression by proving that she hangs out with the elite. It's a typical thing people do when they've had to work their way up all of their lives never ever feeling good enough. But I appreciate the effort and I can see her in my mind, young and beautiful walking between those cars being overwhelmed by the richness of the clients and it takes my mind off of her eating manners for a moment.
But when I ask her wether she had an education the conversation takes a bad turn. She didn't. And she thinks some people getting an education these days are being pampered. They don't know how to work anymore. Old people are wasting away in their houses and nobody does a thing about it. And those foreigners coming to our country get everything they ever wanted. They're being taken care of as if they were on a holiday. In the little park in front of her house people let their dogs shit without cleaning up afterwards so all the flies come and fly around her windowframes and shit on them so the windowframes get black spots and nobody does a thing about it while the foreigners get lemonade and cookies on their arrival. Big glazy beige chunks fly around angrily all over the place.
I don't want to just sit there and nod, so I try to give her a different perspective on the matter, explaining that foreigners aren't fleeing their countries for no reason. But it's of no use. She sneers that she was in the war also, and that she deserves the same treatment. As I think of another thing to say to calm her down without telling her I agree my eye wanders to the piece of tablecloth between our plates and I see the chunks from her filthy mouth piled up and I almost start to vomit. So I just get up and leave while she hisses after me that she knows, because she's seen it with her own eyes and I don't know because I'm young and ignorant.
I tremble as I put the dishes in the dish machine, smiling to the other people who are helping out in the kitchen as though nothing's wrong. But the happy cloud is gone. It seems as though all the joyful feelings I ever had were only confined to my own little safe world. The space I created for myself, the things I wished to see while leaving the bad stuff out. She's right, I have been ignorant thinking that all was fine. The world does not consist solely of people I care about, kind and good-mannered and openminded. There are also these people that you wish you could change their minds or feel sorry for or help out, but all you are left doing is just feeling helplessly revulsed.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The final dance
Sometimes, when I ponder about what happens after we die, I try to imagine that the afterlife could be whatever we want it to be. Wouldn't that be excellent? Anything, everything we could ever imagine happens there, our deepest wishes become tangible. And not the kind of superficial wishes, but the things you've longed for all your life, sometimes even without knowing.
I am dead. I am standing in a dark room with a dark floor in the middle of a dim spotlight. There are chairs around me with red velvet cuchions, but they're empty. And there's a big black piano with no one behind it. I'm wearing a ballroom dress. My hear is tied into a red flower and I'm wearing jewels. From the darkness into the spotlight steps a man. I know the man. I loved him once. The memories start to spill. I remember where I first saw him, how he laughed at me, how it made me feel. I feel so happy to see him again. I smile. He wears a tuxedo and white gloves and he smiles also. We get into position. The music starts. We dance. We twirl around the room, round and round. And whenever I look away and look back at the man, there's a different man. All the men I ever loved in my life are there. This is my final dance. It stretches out eternally over time. Twirling and dancing, our bodies know the exact movements to the music. We don't speak, we just dance. Every man brings out his own memories. Some of them I didn't even remember, but they are here now. And some I never even said a word to in my life, but I felt for them anyway (yes, the unattainable famous men are there also :) see earlier post) I am overwhelmed with gratefulness and joy to see them all again and to have this final dance with them. To look them in the eyes and to remember how much I loved them during my life. This is pure hapiness. This is what happens in my afterlife.
So please, come and join me. Play Jamie Cullum's "Please don't stop the music", which is perfect for this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq6Bq2TVyVs
and dance...dance with all the men or women you ever loved in your life.
I am dead. I am standing in a dark room with a dark floor in the middle of a dim spotlight. There are chairs around me with red velvet cuchions, but they're empty. And there's a big black piano with no one behind it. I'm wearing a ballroom dress. My hear is tied into a red flower and I'm wearing jewels. From the darkness into the spotlight steps a man. I know the man. I loved him once. The memories start to spill. I remember where I first saw him, how he laughed at me, how it made me feel. I feel so happy to see him again. I smile. He wears a tuxedo and white gloves and he smiles also. We get into position. The music starts. We dance. We twirl around the room, round and round. And whenever I look away and look back at the man, there's a different man. All the men I ever loved in my life are there. This is my final dance. It stretches out eternally over time. Twirling and dancing, our bodies know the exact movements to the music. We don't speak, we just dance. Every man brings out his own memories. Some of them I didn't even remember, but they are here now. And some I never even said a word to in my life, but I felt for them anyway (yes, the unattainable famous men are there also :) see earlier post) I am overwhelmed with gratefulness and joy to see them all again and to have this final dance with them. To look them in the eyes and to remember how much I loved them during my life. This is pure hapiness. This is what happens in my afterlife.
So please, come and join me. Play Jamie Cullum's "Please don't stop the music", which is perfect for this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq6Bq2TVyVs
and dance...dance with all the men or women you ever loved in your life.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
This one's for James McAvoy
I wrote this yesterday in my paper journal, because I thought it was too embarrassing to post on a blog for people to read. But then I remembered the vow from my first post: to be brutally, fiercefully, vulnerably and nakedly honest. I guess that leaves me no choice then...
There is something really disturbing in the way I tend to fall in love with actors. It is genuinly embarrassing and you should know I am truly ashamed of myself. I know the world of logical reasoning human beings doesn't like me to proclaim my love for an actor, or to write about my crush. It is known to be foolish, childish, irrational and...boring actually also. Boring? Yes, boring. Especially since I'm supposed to have outgrown puberty.
But...just...how....aargh! How am I supposed to deal with this situation then? The situation being: I just watched The Last King of Scotland and I am left having all these heavy feelings towards James McAvoy. Am I supposed to ignore or deny it? And to ignore and deny the desire to write about it, to pin down the feelings word by word on this piece of paper? Please, please let me have this moment. Please be embarrassed with me, or for me, I don't care. Let's have it.
In this film he is just so...real. So real that it feels as though I could just reach out to the screen and touch him. It makes me want to laugh when he's laughing, cry when he's crying, be in pain when he's in pain. There's just such passion in his acting. When you deliver an effort like this, (and really, for the record, I know Forest Whitaker does the same, but it's a matter of attraction) you could just simply just die and not feel a spark of regret. It is worth your life. It is all you have to live for, to be able to do something with such passion, even if it is just one little thing, it will be worth it. Every tiny move he makes, when he raises his eyebrows, when he twitches his lip, when he gazes into the horizon, I am with him, right there. And the fact that he is so present, that he throws all of himself into his act, is what makes him so beautiful. Sometimes I tend to believe that people in the North-Western part of the world have no feeling for passion. But you just have to take one look at this Scot to know that you're wrong. You get to see it all. You get to see him at his most vulnerable, when he's scared, when he's horny, when he feels like all the world is open to him, when he's naive. That's probably why you fall in love so fast and so hard. Because in our normal lives we spend a lot of effort hiding these things from each other. The ugliness, the weirdness, the laziness, the nonchalant, the naive. When you do get a glimpse, it means you've come very close.
Closeness. To be able to feel close.
Isn't it sad that this closeness is fake? The closer you feel, the better the acting, the less real it is.
But I do.
just.
keep.
on.
having my childish dreams of actually ever coming close to...mr. James McAvoy.
There is something really disturbing in the way I tend to fall in love with actors. It is genuinly embarrassing and you should know I am truly ashamed of myself. I know the world of logical reasoning human beings doesn't like me to proclaim my love for an actor, or to write about my crush. It is known to be foolish, childish, irrational and...boring actually also. Boring? Yes, boring. Especially since I'm supposed to have outgrown puberty.
But...just...how....aargh! How am I supposed to deal with this situation then? The situation being: I just watched The Last King of Scotland and I am left having all these heavy feelings towards James McAvoy. Am I supposed to ignore or deny it? And to ignore and deny the desire to write about it, to pin down the feelings word by word on this piece of paper? Please, please let me have this moment. Please be embarrassed with me, or for me, I don't care. Let's have it.
In this film he is just so...real. So real that it feels as though I could just reach out to the screen and touch him. It makes me want to laugh when he's laughing, cry when he's crying, be in pain when he's in pain. There's just such passion in his acting. When you deliver an effort like this, (and really, for the record, I know Forest Whitaker does the same, but it's a matter of attraction) you could just simply just die and not feel a spark of regret. It is worth your life. It is all you have to live for, to be able to do something with such passion, even if it is just one little thing, it will be worth it. Every tiny move he makes, when he raises his eyebrows, when he twitches his lip, when he gazes into the horizon, I am with him, right there. And the fact that he is so present, that he throws all of himself into his act, is what makes him so beautiful. Sometimes I tend to believe that people in the North-Western part of the world have no feeling for passion. But you just have to take one look at this Scot to know that you're wrong. You get to see it all. You get to see him at his most vulnerable, when he's scared, when he's horny, when he feels like all the world is open to him, when he's naive. That's probably why you fall in love so fast and so hard. Because in our normal lives we spend a lot of effort hiding these things from each other. The ugliness, the weirdness, the laziness, the nonchalant, the naive. When you do get a glimpse, it means you've come very close.
Closeness. To be able to feel close.
Isn't it sad that this closeness is fake? The closer you feel, the better the acting, the less real it is.
But I do.
just.
keep.
on.
having my childish dreams of actually ever coming close to...mr. James McAvoy.
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