Slipping into the Night

Some people make it through, come out in one piece waiting for the sunrise. These are the people who are lucky enough to be able to sleep through the darkness and awake dreamless, but rested. Or just catatonic.

Then there are the others. The ones who picture hope as being chained to pillars that they tear down in a rage just when the party is at its height. Hope seen like an 'H'. Samson got it right -  being bound is a way to feel alive, to go through life breaking chains and jawbones, just cuz you can do it, never mind the casualties.

These are the night people, the restless people, the ones who walk with their shadows for protection and yet wonder why the shadows move differently from them. Their shadow runs all the way to the roof to jump and gets distracted by the skies, while they curl in a corner. The shadow watches their every move at every bar and follows them with whatever they take home. The shadow sees, the shadow knows; it remembers every meaningless conversation, every blackout; yet lets them slip through the night, to stumble through subways, parks and alleys... And over time, the shadow becomes substance.

Still, there is a code for these shadow walkers, you can't call them rules, it's something you make up as you go along. Or learn the hard way.

1. When in company, smile a lot, talk some. This helps in getting drinks on the house. When alone, wallow and drink some more.
2. Wear comfortable shoes. It's hard enough to stand, let alone walk when you're being more than one person at a time. Also, since you're following #1.
3. Keep track of the lies of the evening. Forget them once you're certain you'll never go back to the place where you've been before.
4. Deflect personal questions. Or remove yourself from the inquisitor.
5. Never allow someone else's shadow in. It could swallow your own, and you wouldn't be able to tell 'em apart after prolonged exposure.
6. Keep the radio on / always carry your iPod.
7. Never hold on to anything for dear life. Nothing holds you back. Not even the teddy bear.

When you slip into the night, try to slide. Climb back up and fall again. Don't bother to hide the wounds.

How the previous post looks like in my head

Who would've 

thought

it'd be

so difficult  to

traverse these

paths on your

fretted back with

just the right touch?

--------------------

There are more

ways than one
-------------------

  to   tease   you,

  p l e a s e  you,
-------------------

I  know that.  I

know. I  know

--------------------

But I'm   wooed

by the il-legit-im

-acy of darkened
---------------------

corners,    by an

elusive     sound

d r o w n i n g in

the rising smoke.

-----------------------

This is the time

To   keep   time

within  swaying

 doors,   but all I

 can  do is derive
-------------------------

 my    own mean

-ing     in    your 

sustained  glance

--------------------------

I imagine my flight

I   feel   your   fight  

to hear my c| a| g| e| d

silence within the slow

measures of your sigh.

-------------------------------

These pages have circles

and mirrors inside and out, an urgent

rising, an     infinite     reflection with no rest

till we find a          r   e   s   o   l   u   t   i   o   n.

But this is a key in love and death in lust and life

And changing where I place my scars

Just prolongs the agony in empty spaces
left behind.

I     can't

return anymore,

I    can't     return

to     the     first

m o v e m e n t, 

tothemoment

we set this unbearable pitch.
This time and place can not be transposed,
to less-bled pathways to an unshaking ground, and if we try we will only
slip, be trapped, get entangled in this  scale and  slide fevered
 into a whirlpool of shared dissonance till we arrive clutching,

gasping at the right clef, for air. Who  would've thought
you thought I was the violent one dragging you to hell,
when the sheet music the dark music the raging music
in  my  head was  a blind reading

of your hands on me?

Desire in the key of F#maj - a complex meter

Who would've thought it'd be so difficult 

to traverse these paths 

on your fretted back

with just the right touch?

There are more ways than one 

to tease you, please you,

I know that. I know. 

I know.

But I'm wooed by the illegitimacy

of darkened corners, 

by an elusive sound

drowning in the rising smoke.

This is the time

To keep time within swaying doors, 

but all I can do

is derive my own meaning 

in your sustained glance.

I imagine my flight

I feel your fight

To hear my caged silence

Within the slow measures

Of your sigh.

These pages have circles and mirrors

Inside and out, 

an urgent rising, an infinite reflection

with no rest till we find a resolution.

But this is a key 

in love and death

in lust and life

And changing where I place my scars

Just prolongs the agony
in empty spaces left behind.

I can't return anymore,I can't
return 

to the first movement, to the moment

we set this unbearable pitch. 

This time and place can not 

be transposed, to less-bled pathways

to an unshaking ground,
and if we try

we will only slip, be trapped, 

get entangled in this scale 
and slide fevered

into a whirlpool of shared dissonance
till we arrive clutching, gasping
at the right clef, for air.

Who would've thought you thought

I was the violent one dragging you to hell,

When the sheet music the dark music 

The raging music in my head 

was a blind reading of your hands on me?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.


~T.S. Eliot [Four Quartets, Little Gidding, Part V]

Before Dawn

It is the hour of purple before red.
I, awake, slide beside your warmth
for the first sleep.
You breathe a question about the light,
wondering if the shadows still lurk
in my darkness.
I listen. I watch.

It is the hour you know when tears dry.
I, falling, try not to speak my secrets
into your dreams.
Please keep breathing, sleeping,
It is the hour of enclosing arms
It is the hour when reds turn to purple streaks.
I curl. You kiss.

I heal.

Rain... it's that time

For those of you who still think a-ha  got it right... cheers

I'll never let you see
The way my broken heart is hurting me
I've got my pride and I know how to hide
All the sorrow and pain
I'll do my crying in the rain

If I wait for stormy skies
You won't know the rain from the tears in my eyes
You'll never know that I still love you so
Though the heartaches remain
I'll do my crying in the rain

Raindrops falling from heaven
Will never take away my misery
But since we're not together
I'll wait for stormy weather
To hide these tears I hope you'll never see

Someday when my crying's done
I'm gonna wear a smile and walk in the sun
I may be a fool
But till then, darling, you'll never see me complain
I'll do my crying in the rain
I'll do my crying in the rain 


Crying In The Rain - The Everly Brothers (1962), cover by a-ha (1990)

Love, Loss, Music, and Alternate Realities - Part 2

Making music and making love - it's a bit too easy an equation.


And so it seems in Vikram Seth's An Equal Music, another tale of love and loss entangled in a world of music. Sentimental and saccharine to a point of instilling diabetic coma in the reader, this book does have its moments. These are the sonic images of locations and the aural descriptions of making music that transport us into an another dimension. The story itself is ordinary - man in love with a ghost of his past, man finds ghost, rekindles old passions, gets burnt again. There are things that happen in between all that of course, but that is just the back beat. 


Seth does not provide run-of-the-mill descriptions for his characters - these are musicians in a quartet and a lot can be deduced from the instruments they play, their music and their individual reactions to a shared music.  As our Orpheus ponders: ..."ours is an odd quadripartite marriage with six relationships, any of which, at any given time, could be cordial or neutral or strained."


What the novel excels in is the meditation on the complexity of two profound loves: of music and of the beloved. Our narrator loses both at inopportune times - first his love through some unexplained form of behavior on his part, then his music at some concert. He is a calamity Jane of the high-strung type, but is somewhat redeemed because finally it is the music that counts. 


And it is this music that saves us all from the loss of love, to gather some semblance of living in our otherwise ruined worlds.

Love, Loss, Music, and Alternate Realities - Part 1

What is a world without myths? Just mundane reality with its drudgery. And so we turn to works of art. Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet is a paean to works of creation - to rock 'n' roll, to love and death; treading the line between reality and fiction, a riff rising through the rifts in our memories.


Death is more than love or is it. Art is more than love or is it. Love is more than death and art, or not. This is the subject. This is the subject. This is it. 


These thoughts and more trouble the narrator (Rai) in his telling of the doomed love story of rock 'n' roll stars, Ormus Cama and Vina Apsara. Rushdie's version of the Orpheus-Eurydice myth begins with an earthquake that takes the life of the music diva, leaving more than a couple of shattered souls. It prompts Rai - her friend / photographer / part-time lover - to meander through the fault lines of their shared pasts to wonder if it could've been any different. It causes the love of her life to lose his altered vision, the part that created scrambled versions of 'I Got You Babe' and 'Like a Rolling Stone' before they were released in the West. Rushdie's world is a collision of realities and crazed visions where the music is constant, and shifting all at once.


This is a violent story - of unstable love; love lost, sought, and found only to lose over and over again, marked with the irreversible stamp of death - of murders and suicides and slaughter. And death is not the only kind of loss. It is a loss of home, of never finding a place to call home, as Rai keeps repeating "disorientation is a loss of the East". It is a loss of the ground beneath a lover's feet, the ground we worship.

Beyond the parallels with the Orpheus story, is its inversion through the Indian myth of Kama and Rati. It is a Rati figure that gets Ormus back to life twice, but then in the end, Ormus fails to bring his Eurydice back from Hades. Is music or love not sufficient to get her back? Is music not enough to defeat death? Questions abound. And through it all, the music slips between realities and time, still singing its siren song to the grave.


Between the self and the other, between the visionary and the psychopath, between the lover and his love, between the overworld and the underworld, falls the shadow. 

Anyone listening?

There are songs and there are songs. What you shouldn't do is associate them with someone, some time, some place or something. Definitely don't play them on repeat when you're alone and sipping that drink. If you do, turn off the phone or leave it behind somewhere else. And try not to sleep sober because then the images will haunt you and you're awake anyway.

And don't write about it ever, never.
Don't write.

If you must, make copious notes on chord progressions and picking patterns instead. Don't try to think of a  happy song, b'cuz chances are after 15 minutes of hard thinking, you still won't be able to name one. Then you'd go back to that playlist with untoward outcomes.

Don't write. About the songs. Or the places, or the times and associations that come with their music. Don't write with Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough in the background. Or Queen, Floyd, McLachlan, U2, Evanescence.

The songs are not it. It's your ears messing with your head messing with your heart. Though Dido wonders if you're alive if your heart is a shield; just just don't let it down. Your heart.

Don't write about this heart when the music's in your head. Please. Don't.

The Angel's Game - not a review

A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.  
                                                                           The Angel's Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafon


So begins the burden of the story, though the protagonist, David Martin, has no trouble churning words by the minute, page after page, year after year. Faust this is not, though there is a Luciferesque character in the guise of a publisher waving a deal (read lots of dough and no fame) for a story. Tickles the imagination of many an aspiring writer on a moral high-horse. Wouldn't we like to think that we'd jump at a contract that says you've got to crank out 6.66 pages a day in exchange for our lives? With this blatant clue to the identity of the publisher supplied by the overactive imagination of our hero, it is no surprise his deadly illness vanishes once he agrees to write. Oh happy day.

In The Angel's Game, Zafon toys with the idea that the act of narrating a story could be diabolical. The devil-publisher Andreas Corelli enlists David to write a literary project, 'a narrative that awakens the soul',  'a fable that will make the unwary fall on their knees and persuade them that they have seen the light, that there is something to believe in, something to live and die for - even to kill for.'

Beyond this, there is much rambling and schoolboy detective work, omens, violent deaths. All this to create a religion through words. Similar to The Shadow of the Wind, for which this is a prequel; the characters share a pervasive sense of the gothic and the macabre. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere and Sons bookshop make an appearance here, as is the sinister city of Barcelona, a character fit to contain the dark elements spun by Zafon.

The spooky epilogue and narrative rhythm notwithstanding (and the superb translation by Lucia Graves), The Angel's Game is at best a guilty pleasure for a rainy afternoon. Apart from the hyperbolic first page and subsequent forays into the art of literary creation for the benefit of the voyeuristic among us, the story becomes a victim of its own making - a casualty in the impressive number of bodies that pile up in the second half of the book. Seems like something written for a movie, fast-paced, dark, and instant gratification for our illogical natures.

Sometimes pulp is best left in orange juice. Go watch  a movie.
(And yes, I bought the book after reading the first page. I always do. Read the first page that is.)

On Breathing...or the lack thereof

Musicians are strange. Not that the rest of the population is any less weird.  But singers / songwriters are strange when it comes to the choice of subject (song) matter. The case in point is their obsession with breathing - the process, the reason for, behind,... I could go on, but so have they.

#1. Breathe - Pink Floyd / Roger Waters
The dailiness and drudgery of it.

#2. Breathe in Breathe out - Matt Kearny
On the process... and as recommended by health practitioners for moving...moving on.

#3. Breathe - Taylor Swift
Oh the difficulty of it without someone... but you have to.

#4. Breathe No More - Evanescence
Someone about to stop..

#5. Keep Breathing - Ingrid Michaelson
Who cares what else is goin' on in the world as long as we keep breathing?

#6. Breathe - Melissa Etheridge
It only hurts when she's breathing apparently. Maybe Etheridge should consider treating her Ovation with a little love. (And I didn't quite get the connection between the song and music video, and I didn't care enough to check).

#7. Breathe (2 AM) - Anna Nalick
There's no rewind button, no taking back a breath that's already breathed. Just breathe.
(Also, why 2AM? The song mentions it just once apart from the title - it's the first word and that's it. Unlike the refrain 'just breeaaaathe'. Maybe another post about singers' obsession with 2 and 3 am in particular. Maybe not.)

And more... I've counted 34 songs about the intricacies of breathing so far. As Jimmy Page put it, the song remains the same.

Guess lung (dys)function fear is to singers as aphasia to writers. Guess I'm having trouble breathing...and writing.

The Faults of Friends

Last day to submit paper. 3 more hours. And instead of tying up loose ends and orphan paragraphs last night,  I spent 5 hours listening to a song on repeat. Result: Busted phalanges from trying to play chords that require man-sized fingers.

All this cuz a buddy sent me a song that I (obviously) fell in love with, resulting in the result stated above - and no paper.

Still obsessing about song. Can't get it out of my head. Must be a sign for things to come.


So I'm running away.
I'm leaving this place.
Yeah, I'm running away.
I'm running away. 
And faster than you can follow me from this lonely place.
And farther than you can find me, I'm leaving
Yeah I'm leaving today.
And I, I'll never let you find me.
I'm leaving you behind with the past
No, I won't look back.
And I don't want to hear your reasons.
Don't want to hear you tell me why I should stay. 
And try, and try to understand me
And try to understand what I say when I say I can't stay
I, I'm moving on from this place
I'm leaving and I won't quit running away.

I'm running away.
I'm leaving this place.
Yeah, I'm running away.
I'm running away

how life is now

Moving on slow...

15 pages. Trying to manage flow, content, goal in mind. Not necessarily in that order. Do all words ending with 'ly' just irk me or is it the context?

I don't have a goal.

Just this: Need advisor to sign paper which says 'Graduate'. or maybe just her name. Funny that the paper they sign to allow people like me to graduate happens to be pink. A sign?

Now the word 'From' looks different. It seems like a dress, a clothing material or something a girl would wear. All of which is not nice in my head. I can't start a paragraph with 'From', doesn't seem right. Where is Strunk and White when I need them? Online most probably. but it's not the same. I still prefer the 25 buck red hardbound book.

Is it the lateness of the hour, or that I've been writing since morning  (translated to 9 hours today with 1 hour breaks??). (And this break don't count btw).

Too many things in parantheses. Blog editor gives squiggly and I don't care enough to find out if my spellings are right.

Don't know why I wrote this, except that at this point of inebriation, the word 'from' doesn't seem like a good way to start a sentence.

Proceeding with the paper.

not writing at all

Instructional design is a painful subject. Instruction I hate. Design I can't. But having left a job, country, and spent a house and two years of breathing on getting an education in this field, you would think I had some love for it.

No love.

Over 200 instructional design models, 100 learning theories, another 100 principles on multimedia. Add these numbers to theories of practice. Now multiply all with the subjects you can teach. Or further - into specific skills from how to brush your teeth to tear your thesis when in need of toilet paper. Factorial analysis doesn't help here.

Instructional Design. I hate.

See what happens when you were supposed to finish a paper for graduation that will happen next week with or without you, and you've nothing to show for 2 years  - except 20 pounds of excess fat from sitting around listening to inane songs like sowing the seeds of love...

Aaaaargh.

All I need is 50 pages.

Only unfulfilled love is romantic...

... so says Penelope Cruz's character in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

As if I did not know that.

All I want...

With a great guitar comes great responsibility. Pause. Cogitate. That doesn't mean what you think it means you idiot.

If you had a child do you leave it standing in the corner? (Yes, for a while, and if you're like me, forever ... kids deserve it). Ok, if you have a dog of the NY variety (read disguised rat that yelps), you spend a fortune dressing it up in little sweaters and shoes for  winter, designer bags to carry it around on subways in all kinds of weather, etc., etc., etc. Shouldn't you spend as much, if not more, on something that gives you pure joy and no hassles with regard to poop-picking and the like? Also, your guitar is attached to you,  it doesn't run a mile ahead forcing you to jog or lags so far behind wondering at the intricacies of a bloody lamp-post.

I'm rambling.

The point is, all it takes to take care of your guitar is have these items with you wherever you go:

1. String cutters
2. Screwdriver (2 -in- 1: flat and Phillips)
3. 4 Allen wrenches
4. A string winder
5. Trem Poker (just in case you have a Strat or will in future, always always be futuristic)
6. Spare set of strings of course

All this and a flashlight comes in a cool kit like this:

(The strings are not included of course, the kit just has storage space for them and your picks). This costs about 40 bucks. In addition to these items, you might also want to carry these: 

7. Guitar polish and cloth ($13)

8. Capo ($10 - $15)

9. 0.73mm guitar picks ($3 - $7)

10. Strap ($3 - $15)

So, about a 100 bucks give or take a few. Why I have included the prices is just for your info... and may be you can get me these items. 

Cash donations are also accepted here.

Easter morning, April 4th 2010

I am celebrating resurrection. Or rather, am on my way to purchase paraphernalia to help bring me back to life. Desperate times call for extreme measures. Like taking the slowest local train in NYC to get me downtown on a Sunday morning.

So after some detours caused by distractions and my incapability of holding a thought for a prolonged period, I get to my destination. Four hours later,  here's what I have (in addition to an impoverished bank balance):

A Taylor dreadnought acoustic six-string solid top with a satin finish... a guitar by any other name. The deep sound kinda takes your breath away... when an expert plays it that is... I'm just tinkering. 

Oh I should write about the long process of buying a guitar... later... 

For now, these are a few of my favorite things la la la

What is life without writing, books and music, and books on music and writing?

Need to name my guitar. What?
It's a he btw.

At the Canyon

Come one over folks, let me push you into the canyon... 12 seconds to the bottom

Narrow gorges run deep

What I hoped to do...

The shadows look like people...

Ok, no camera can capture the beauty of a set of rocks... at least not phone cameras (or is that camera-phones?) So no more shots of the Canyon at sunrise, sunset, and all points of day though I have it. A Pink Floyd song captures the kind of feeling:

There's no sensation to compare with this,

Suspended animation, a state of bliss...

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies,

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I

Next stop: El Tovar, where I had an amazing breakfast of smoked trout, eggs and fruit, unlimited coffee after my 'long' walk on the Rim trail. (I walloped the food before the thought of commemorating the presentation for posterity crossed my head. Taste I can't yet record with mobile device. (Awesome... the food. $15 with tip, but who has smoked trout for breakfast everyday?)

Hopi House, across the El Tovar

Lookout Studio

About 400 pictures, but I will refrain. Just this little birdie (how I wished my phone transformed into a Nikon SLR or some such to capture the blue and the flight).

Ok, I couldn't resist... a parting shot

Should go back again. Next time, I will hire 'friends' to go hiking down the canyon and back to the top. And steal some camera worth its salt to capture the night sky constellation and all that. 

FYI, got a postcard of the Canyon and lost it. Promptly (aargh adverb). I figure the reason for the losing and not regretting was that the photographer was an Indian (non-American)  dude ...some Singh.

P.S. Of all the places in the world, I had to be stuck on a shuttle bus from Mather Point to Abyss with this family chattering real loud in Tamil, and their two crying babies (twins I assume). 

P.P.S. Come to think of it, I think there's some conspiracy afoot. Two days at the Canyon taking in the views, and my auditory nerves were assaulted with Telegu, Punjabi, Hindi and Tamil. The best of North and South I suppose.

P.P.P.S. The place is big, and traveling alone has the advantage that you can run or amble depending on your brain signals without it being interfered / compromised by another's.

Road to Grand Canyon

On the way... Lake Mead

To Hoover Dam

Pacific Time and Mountain Time

Joshua Tree, at Kingman

Grand Canyon Railway Museum, Williams

Steam engine, Williams

Ghost cowboy town on Route 66, Williams

Las Vegas

Where I stayed...Excalibur Casino

On my way to Mirage to catch the Beatles Love show... Paris and Ballys ahead

Yeah, I had to walk the BB in Vegas of all the places since I didn't here

Still walking in circles, Planet Hollywood on the right

The Forum Shops at Caesars

The Bellagio and it's dancin' fountains across the street

Can't remember what the pagoda was about, some Rockhouse it says

Flamingo, don't I love it when pics have the name

At the Mirage, playin the Wheel of Fortune (?) Lost 5 bucks

\

Aah, almost there in time for the show...

There. Amazing. No pics allowed. It is all in my head.

Made it back at around 1 am, thinkin' about the 6 am tour to the Grand Canyon.