All at sea

Tonight I'm "all at sea / where no-one can bother me" - sipping in the breeze as the silence of a kiss. Drinking on the beach, watching the sunset and the sunrise, singing songs of make-believe... and dreaming dreaming dreaming away :-) see you there - or see you when I return.

So fly away Peter and fly away Paul - from the finger-tip ledge of contentment.
The long restless rustle of high heel boots calls.
And I'm probably bound to deceive you after all.
Something must be wrong with me and my brain - if I'm so patently unrewarding.
But my dreams are for dreaming and best left that way - and my zero to your power of ten equals nothing at all.
(Jethro Tull, One White Duck)

We never change, do we

Disclaimer: this post may sound ultra-rationalistic and somewhat derived from Ayn Rand’s objectivism. Well it is not. Read closer.

Following the short Easter holidays, my topic for the day is departure. Leaving may sound like an escape from one state to another for most of us, but it comprises more than just a movement between two points, A and B. When leaving, one usually does it with a purpose and with the (sometimes shared) illusion of return to the point of origin of movement. While this may physically be correct, in spirit you never return the same. Leaving means journey, and each journey we undertake changes us, perhaps unknowingly, in most cases irreversibly.

Leaving means taking a direction and is thus an act of decision as well as an act of self-expression. When leaving a place, a job, a relationship, a life, one exits a system only to enter another system, breaks free from a set of dependencies only to accept another set of dependencies, so you might understand leaving more than just a signal of termination - it signifies commencement. It is the articulation of desire, of feeling harboured deep within us and is not meant to harm or to produce grief in what is left behind, but to fulfill one’s potential to the highest achievable level, by exploring potentialities.

Thus, I would not consider departure as an equivalent of breaking free as it is often understood, but as a state of continued dependence, which is probably more acceptable than the previous state. It is but feeling that causes us to change.

If you don’t need it every day
But sometimes don’t you just crave
To disappear within your mind
You never know what you might find
So come and spend some time with me
And we will spend it all at sea
(Jamie Cullum, All At Sea)

Dragonfly

This day is one of preparation for feast, for the ones who fasted. I found myself thinking this morning - what does fasting really mean? Is it really about denying yourself those cookies, about being what you are not in order to train the will and feel at peace with respecting cannons (and in some cases brag about it)? Or is fasting something that we do every day, with every word we speak, every desire we feel and every look we have at things that do not belong to us although we might have wished it? Thinking about it, it ocurred to me that fasting is actually one's own indulgence towards him/herself. We should love when the time comes, taste the wine when it fills the glass in front of us and laugh when there is something to laugh about. Fasting means being moderate in our everyday life and doing things when they are due, and living at peace with oneself - and the others. It is something perpetual, and not a twelve-weeks-a-year-must-do.

May Easter bring light!... and may it be the beginning of a wonderful fasting/feasting time.

I have this theory, that if we told we’re bad
Then that’s the only idea we’ll ever have
But maybe if we are surrounded in beauty
Someday we will become what we see’cause
anyone can start a conflict
It’s harder yet to disregard it
I’d rather see the world from another angle
We are everyday angels
Be careful with me ’cause I’d like to stay that way
(I'm sensitive, Jewel)

Listen to the girl...

It should be funny to be somewhere up on the puffy clouds and look down on what is happening in the city. Some of the people down there may not be able to sleep, others have a lot to think about... In my experience, the night can be a good adviser if it is used for the purposes the season entices... Rest, at this time of the year.
Reminds me of one of my favourite movies :)

Sam: Boss, ain't you going to bed?
Rick: Not right now.
Sam: Ain't you planning on going to bed in the near future?
Rick: No.
Sam: You ever going to bed?
Rick: No!
Sam: Well, I ain't sleepy either.
(Casablanca, 1942)

The trick is to keep breathing

Joy is not a constant condition. Most people manage a
settled cheerfulness, but this – no matter how admirable – has nothing to do
with joy… which flashes suddenly on our darkness. Like the light in an El Greco
painting, joy does not merely illuminate the landscape… it transforms it.

(Sir Wendy Beckett)

Sometimes I feel like looking deep into the night, taking in a breath of fresh air and exhalating all my being into the unknown. It is in nights like this one, on the edge between spring and summer, when warmth is not yet complete and cold need not touch you if you don’t stay out for too long. And if you listen hard enough, you can hear the sound of the city snoring, whispering, barking, breathing, living…

Good night everybody, wherever you are :)

Some call it faith, some call it love.
Some call it guidance from above.
You are the reason we found ours,
So thank you stars
(Katie Melua, Thank You Stars)

Hour for Magic

Last night I wrote a post about a story I’d read once and that impressed me. Seemingly, Blogger wanted to warn me about my long texts and didn’t save my draft upon previewing. Perhaps it is better this way, the story was a bit long and it would have given way to various Christian, management and existential interpretations on life and what lies beyond it. The idea behind the entry is still nagging at me: the magic in creation is the one spark in our everyday existence that can transform it into bliss. The episode I quoted to illustrate this was a young man pulling out his heart from the chest, a heart so filled with passion and love that it shone like a guiding light for others, illuminating darkness and providing warmth. The same heart was full of bloodand misery when its owner died near to it, in the grass, after fulfilling his mission. Overlooking the setting and the background of the story (close in essence to Plato’s Cave, but defying it by a sort of a happy-end), the plastic image behind this becomes visible: pouring wonder into one’s being – even for the one moment of illumination that will stay with us until the end of time – is the most we ever get from life.

We do not live for moments, though. We are born into processes most of us sustain without taking a step outside the movie and asking who we are, where we are heading and why on earth we want to get there. Our relations are thus loveless, our business lives become pointless, the politics we do are meaningless and our reasoning thoughtless. Reminded of the American Prayer. Jim Morrisson. Break on through the other side (if it'd bring something, I would :) )

Do you know how pale & wanton thrillful
Comes death on strange hour
Unannounced, unplanned for like a scaring over-friendly guest you've brought to bed
Death makes angels of us all & gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws
No more money, no more fancy dress
This other Kingdom seems by far the best until its other jaw reveals incest & loose obedience to a vegetable law
I will not go
Prefer a Feast of Friends
To the Giant family

Luck Be a Lady

Paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher's "Being a leader is like being a lady. If you have to tell others you are one, you probably are not" - having an identity is the same. If you need to re-state it and theoretise it all over again, it probably does not exist.

The Doo Bop Song

“Finding Forrester” is basically a movie about the friendship between an older, white writer (played by my favourite, Sean Connery) and a black student he takes on as an apprentice to enhance his superlative writing skills. The story, as told by Gus Van Sant (who also did Good Will Hunting, another story of a high-potential kid from the wrong social setting – turned into brilliant mathematician), walks the line between being just another anti-racism manifesto and falling into the juicy American dream story. Although Robert Brown as Jamal Wallace doesn’t really convince me as the Bronx teen who suppresses his natural gift just to gain his social acceptance from the basketball he is playing with friends, the story gains its realistic twist from the “shkottish” way Connery is supporting his part. We must take further steps in understanding why he is hiding from both himself and his past. Author of a highly successful and meaningful book, the senior writer retreats into his Bronx apartment and denies the world any further contact. The pain that follows creation is greater and more lingering with him, the prolonged feeling nothing else that great could be produced again determines a self-imposed isolation in which the only signs of life are the basketball games of the Bronx teens and filming birds. That life can be hurting and that sensibility can be killed in contact with other minds, rough enough as not to care about the colours and sounds that exist beyond their dull everyday existence is something every sensitive person needs to cope with. Still, buds of green (such as mentoring a young man into the adulthood of his writing and of his life) can let that inner feeling of greatness spring again, can help one find the path back to himself.
This is how creation begins – from contact with people and from the uniqueness of moments we care/dare to take a closer look at.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.
(Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World, from the FF OST)

Where are you taking me?

Meeting new people is not my piece of cake. I am tired of the stretch-out-the-hand routine, smile-when-say-name function and say-something-smart-while-smile procedure (such as either "SO nice meeting you" or any phrase to position yourself towards the new acquaintance / like "You know, I'm the one who drove you crazy with those emails back then" / or whatever)(as if I cared).

Still, there are people I like to see. I'd like to meet them for the first time over and over again. People who still believe they can change the world, who are able to wake up (like that green Canadian frog that can withstand being frozen and afterwards come back to life) from every hit life blesses them with and still hold on to their madness - to their dreams. Every time I see them or talk to them I see joy of life and that spark I am sure will ultimately change the world. Not through a sudden revolution to overthrow the status quo :) but through constant and consistent actions to follow their goals.

Tonight I saw "Finding Forrester". The movie got me thinking and I hope to write more about it tomorrow. At closing time, I am listening to Ofra Haza, the Yemenite traditional breakthrough of the 80s and 90s. Show Me.

Show me, show me the light
Open the door
Tell me, tell me I'm right
Show me some more

What the hell are you thinking?

Human relationships need to be human in essence and they need the warmth and the time to nurture on and to develop. They need no prioritisation and no emergency setting: they are always important and always immediate to deal with. Love, family, friends: once you balance their importance under the one of work means taking a step on a path that can lead to much grief.

I used to believe in the dignity of the individual, in his/her capacity to live life as seen fit. My belief has stayed the same, with one addition: I live my life fit to hurting nobody else but myself.

Latest news and my melody for the night: Apocalyptica is having a concert in Bucharest on the 31st of May and I'm going. You can find tickets here. Now I'm switching back to one of their most well-known songs: Path II, sung together with Sandra Nasic of the Guano Apes (widely acclaimed for their Open Your Mind; I'll have another post cover for that one).

So boundless I feel and boundless all my fears
Stop running back to old times
Stop running back to old times
You lose your routine... cause I found my path

A Little Overscheduled

You're not in serious trouble, but you could be doing better.

This is the result of a quiz I've taken earlier today... Maybe every one of us could be doing better if it wasn't for those little things that *need* to be done, like the telephones, chats with the colleagues, reviews, endless meetings aso.

Heading for the Latino class. Hopefully the results of my merengue practice this week will pay off :-).

My tip for the day: The Contours - Do You Love Me. Gets you in the dancing mood!

Do you love me? (I can really move)
Do you love me? (I'm in the groove)
Ah,Do you love me? (Do you love me?)
Now that I can dance,(Dance).
I can mash-potato,(I can mash-potato)
And I can do the twist,(I can do the twist)
Now tell me baby,(Tell me baby)
Do you like it like this?(Do you like it like this?)

It's not you, it's me

Tonight's post is more about a mood given by a band and not a particular melody. If you haven't listened to Cinerama until now, perhaps you should start. It's not "just another" pop band that tries to say smart things in complicated lyrics. They sing about romance, relationships, breakups, making love in uncommon places, communication in a couple and do it in a heartfelt and straightforward manner. At some point or the other I found myself in most of the songs they are singing, and listening to them made things easier in some ways. Bits of Let’s Pretend (It might sound a little lame / But we had something so good that I don't want to remember any more / Because whatever it became / It started out as something that I've never quite experienced before / Can we pretend we never met? / Pretend there's nothing to forget / Can we pretend we weren't in love? / Let's pretend we've no-body to be reminded of…) remind me of feelings I have been trying to put aside and Because I’m Beautiful has become an anthem for crazy nights (That's exactly why I love you / Why I can't enough of you / You're unconventional / It's not intentional / And that's the greatest thing about you). Then there are the treason songs, like Get Smart (I heard exactly what you said, but I know he slept in our bed) or Hate (I hate your lies and the guys you call friends / In fact everything is telling me this is where this love affair ends) or the ones where he finds he cannot stop thinking about her, even if he’s with another, like Hard Fast and Beautiful (And deep in the night / I lie awake and think about you / Of course it's not right / But what can I do? / I can't sleep in this bed without you / If you only knew) or Careless (So please don’t ignore me / That would be / Really the end / I’ve just lost a lover / I don’t want to lose a friend / That would be careless / No I’m not still in love with you…).
I love the nostalgic cynicism behind songs like Health and Efficiency (We tried to make love by this lake / I remember you began to shake) or Heels (I don’t really care / That you’ve found another lover / ‘Cause I know he’ll be gone / The moment you get bored / I know I shouldn’t stare / When you kiss him like you kiss the others / It’s just another one / Who thinks you should be adored). It’s all too… real.

Insomnia

The age we live in is one of extreme speed, of constant change, one in which the pictures of our surroundings rush past us at the velocity of the vehicle that carries us. It just might be that we are missing some magic upon doing so. We rush to work, run for busses, nervously push carts through immense halls called hypermarkets to oversatisfy our shopping appetite, we expect our diets to show results urgently, all that is not fast and not on time is not good. We need to study French in two weeks and then get a lifetime certification that we are “connoisseurs”. Our food needs to be ready in a handtwist and we use microwaves, kitchen robots and the like only to shorten our minutes in the kitchen and run towards the next event, which in turn ends more quickly than we’d expected. We don’t even get to know people well because we move on before getting the chance of seeing past their faces. All we get of this world is bits and pieces out of which we form our own little islands of understanding which rarely interact, more often collide and almost always look down on one another full of the despise and containment only low souls can have.

We get up early in the morning and we run towards meetings in which we spend endless hours trying to harmonise our seemingly different views and argue even more when we realise how similar they really are. We get bored of every task faster than it would take to really understand it, start another and another and another until we forget where we left off and get tangled in a web of things we needn’t really do. But still we do them to prevent that inner gap from screaming aloud.

This life that we see rushing past us… as we long for even more and cut down endlessly on what seems unimportant … is the only one we have (at least until further notice). I just wish I felt more often how alive I am.

My mood melody for the night: Motorcycle Emptiness, by the Manic Street Preachers.

Life lies a slow suicide
Orthodox dreams and symbolic myths
From feudal serf to spender
This wonderful world of purchase power
Just like lungs sucking on air
Survivals natural as sorrow, sorrow, sorrow
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness everlasting loneliness

Je suis une urbanne / I am urban

This post needs to be in Romanian, so I send all apologies to my readers who can't deal with the language (if any). I'll provide an extra translation on request (please don't :) ).

Sunt o urbana. Traiesc intr-un oras mare, cu multe masini si suficienta poluare cat sa nu ma tem ca o sa mor din cauza potentialei caramizi care imi va cadea in cap, ci din cauza masinilor si a fumului de tigara inhalat la mana a doua. Ma trezesc dimineata dupa ce suna trei alarme de la trei telefoane si tot nu sunt in stare sa gasesc usa baii. Ma spal pe fata cu fel de fel de substante care cica ar trebui sa ma faca sa arat "pretty"si mananc un iaurt care sa imi ajute digestia (si asa data peste cap). Ma deplasez cu taximetrul si ma intretin cu taximetristii despre ultimele barfe din "Libertatea", despre cum ar trebui tratati politicienii ("mitraliati pe stadioane, domne!"), despre cum e sa fii tanar ("dvs aveti toate usile deschise, domnisoara... da pe mine cine ma mai ia?") si despre vremea de afara ("I watch the weather channel", pentru cei care au vazut Laws of Attraction).

Ziua mi-o petrec la birou. De plictiseala, imi fotografiez uneori colegii cand avem sedinte. Pun pasiune in ceea ce fac si uneori mi-o iau ideile inaintea vorbelor, se produce cate un blocaj in sistem si nu mai sunt in stare sa spun nimic. La pranz mananc in cate un restaurant cu nume obscur, de cartier. Mananc supa de obicei, pe asta nu am cum sa o aduc de acasa la pachet, si oricum e mai distractiv sa mai ai o sedinta de proiect in timp ce te chinui sa invarti spaghetele pe furculita si te intrebi la ce o fi buna lingura. Alteori mananc trei banane si un pachet de biscuiti dulci. Nu ma intreb dupa aceea de ce ma doare stomacul. Cand imi gasesc cate un moment liber, citesc alte bloguri sau citesc stirile zilei de pe 9AM (in special rubrica mondena, ca sa am ce povesti cu taximetristii). Cand am rabdare, citesc articole din industrie si le recomand prietenilor (care probabil nici nu le citesc si bombane "iar nu are ce face").

Seara ajung acasa si imi revad mailurile de pe serverele "neoficiale". Raspund la ce nu ma enerveaza, mananc ceva nesanatos, vad o avanpremiera pe laptop si adorm cu gandul la vacanta din Spania care nu mai vine.

Sau poate viata mea e in alta parte si nu are nici o legatura cu faptul ca am ales sa fiu o urbana?

Interesting to listen to is Mylene Farmer's Pas de temps de vivre. Makes you wonder...

Je n'ai pas le temps de vivre
Quand s'enfuit mon équilibre
Je n'ai pas le temps de vivre
Aime-moi, entre en moi
Dis-moi les mots qui rendent ivres
Dis-moi que la nuit se déguise
Tu vois, je suis
Comme la mer qui se retire, de
N'avoir pas su trouver tes pas...

Piece by Piece

There are two kinds of people in this world, the latter of which are quite a few: the ones who are changed by the systems they enter (read: adaptation), and the ones who change the systems (read: influence the change). Not at once, not through a sudden revolution to overthrow the world, but step by step. They bring their uniqueness in the systems they need to function in and help others to discover their own uniqueness, as well. Although they also need to adapt and grow with the system, they manage to change the settled cheerfulness of the ones around them into joy of life and willingness to breathe more than just the dull grey of every day.

Ideally, there should be something more for each of us than just work. You can, of course, indulge in work and play hide and seek with the other parts of your life, but this is usually a short term solution that takes more than it gives. Lately, an article about a super-performing workaholic lawyer who killed herself in spite of a great career (and a missing life) spammed the inboxes of most yuppies - and not without a reason. There still are people who think that a 300 hours-a-month career, three SUVs in the garrage and two kids alienated by seeing their parents every other week means finding their life's calling. I was quite stunned yesterday at an abroad studying friend's remark that he would sacrifice everything for a career, and keep love and feelings in a background. "Basically how to make money on the stock exchange" is what he values most, in the spirit of a - in my opinion overrated but hey, everyone is free to form their own opinion - new-found Western capitalist life philosophy.

I'm going to practice some more merengue tonight :) and watch Dirty Dancing for the 10th time, not before recommending you the mood melody of the day: Piece by Piece, Katie Melua:

Piece by piece
Is how I'll let go of you
Kiss by kiss
Will leave my mind one at a time
One at a time

Dejalo si quieres continuar (hermano)

Tonight I took my first latino dancing lesson. Moving to the music felt great, although we were only drilled to do the basic steps for salsa and merengue. At some point our teacher had us move our hips in a peculiar way (left to right and right to left, slight ditch on the leg of the moving direction). We were supposed to only move the legs, swing the hips back and forth and keep the shoulders aligned. I had difficulties with finding my hips :) and an inner voice told me it’s because of the biscuits my friend the shopkeeper is joyfully selling to me. Perhaps I should follow the advice of a friend and harmonise my body and soul... (eat more fruit and vegetables, plainly put).

One of the melodies we danced to was Ibrahim Ferrer’s Putumayo (not sure about the title, the one which starts "un compositor / que s'equivoco"). It led me to such a good mood that the moves came naturally. Thus tonight I am listening to some Caribbean music (especially Buena Vista Social Club and some Brasilian Putumayo Lounge extracts). If you have some latino music recommendations, I'd be glad to listen to them.

Just before declaring the melody of the day, I stumbled across the Gorrilaz' Latin Simone, which has some really motivating lyrics (btw, the Spanish version, recorded 2000, featured Ibrahim Ferrer as the leading vocal):

Get up
If you wanna survive
Get oh so alive
In your life
Everything falling out the sky
On top of you
Now what you do
Fill yourself up now
It's the love of your life

Sundancing

For the past few weeks I have been listening a lot to Kent, a Swedish band that sounds like a combination of Coldplay and Radiohead in a slightly different language, seasoned with Scandinavic nostalgy. The melody that inspired me the most (besides "Mannen i den vita hatten", of course, a song about being afraid of death, extremely well orchestrated and even able to claim originality - if only one were not reminded of "Clocks" or "Daylight") was "Sundance Kid". The name probably comes from the eponymous 1969 western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" starring Robert Redford, basicly the story of the friendship of two outlaws who eventually die together. The song is sung about a lost friend, a complaint about the pain of the loss and the hope that the friendship can somehow be re-created in music. The last line of the lyrics in Sundance Kid reads All we did, all we felt became a song for you.

The essence of sundancing should thus be the one moment of the day when you let go of what has been, a moment when you resume your path after breathing in the magic of a few words or people. The one moment when you suspend your working condition to reconnect to being human.

I'm only putting up the choir of Sundance Kid, by Kent. The rest is in Swedish, so you probably won't understand it anyway :)

Hör du mig?
Hör du mig?
Kan du höra mig?
Allt vi sagt, allt vi gjort blev en sång för dig.

The beauty in the London Skies

I've made friends with my neighbourhood kiosk shopkeeper. We greet one another every morning when I go to work and sometimes see each other at noons when I need some cookies and two bananas. Then we talk for a few minutes, know if the other is ok and then carry on with the daily routine.

She has a small, ugly dog I've even come to like, after I learned that his name is Rex and that she got him the third day after he was born. We felt alike after my confession that I had a dog too, at some point in the past. Mine was nice, of course :)

She was the last person in Bucharest I saw when leaving on Friday and the first one I showed pictures from my little mountain adventure when I returned. Not that she would know me or even care, but she had told me we would have rain showers and that I should dress warmly, which I luckily did.

When I get my biscuits from her, she never tells me that I eat rubbish and that I will probably get an ulcer someday, though her look clearly shows these are her thoughts.

I don't even know her name, and I am sure it is better this way. Two anonymous strangers sharing their own bit of intimacy from time to time.

Oh, yes, the melody for today: Jamie Cullum - London Skies

Will you let me romanticize,
The beauty in our London Skies,
You know the sunlight always shines,
Behind the clouds of London Skies.

I don't want to fall in love (She Wants Revenge)

Yes I am back. No, all is not ok yet but hell, I got some energy to last through this week.

This is a post I'd been meaning to write for quite some time. It has ocurred to me that my generation has a big problem with love. More precisely, it is either afraid of it or completely ignores it when it happens. The daily work and the associated imagined pleasures (like going out with friends, hitting a club to "pick up a chick" or simply hang in front of the computer with CS screens rolling on the eyeballs) take priority before doing something really nice for ourselves, our families or our beloved ones. We are stuck in a maze of not being able to express our emotions without rationalizing about them or without surrounding them with that aura of triviality that makes every feeling dull and gray. We don't recognize the signs of love when they appear, much less listen to the invisible songs our heart can still sing. We talk endlessly about love and never give ourselves way to feel it without being so scared that we'd rather hide behind our glasses and our three mobile phones (have you noticed how many waiting people simply pull out a mobile phone and either play, make a call or stare at it?). We are a generation that is mad about being in control, and admitting real feelings is a pain for many of us. This needs to change.
I promise to get back to the topic at a more decent hour :). Meanwhile, I'd like to hear your opinion on this.

Melody of the day: I don't want to fall in love - She Wants Revenge (album reviewed by Tina on the Musicblog)

Right face wrong time, she's sweet
(But I don't wanna fall in love)
Too late, so deep, better run cause
(I don't wanna fall in love)
Right face wrong time, she's sweet
(But I don't wanna fall in love)
Can't sleep, can't eat, can't think straight
(I don't wanna fall in love)

You get the point.