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.