Connecting flights

I did it. I wrote and recorded a song. I feel like some sort of fever's broken.

"You have professional singing experience, yes?"

"No."

Throat clearing.

"You want to be famous, yes?"

"With an insane amount of luck,maybe. No, I actually just want to sing this stuff I wrote. You listen and see if I'm good enough for you. Otherwise thank you and I'll be on my way."

"What is your song about?"

"Airplanes."

"Airplanes."

"And airports and skylines and postcards."

More throat clearing.

Then it happened. "OK."

So that's how I got my start.

It was an awesome experience. I'm always gonna love Amsterdam for giving me a chance. Goed bezig mannen!
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Abyss

Look into it too closely and it looks back at you

"If you jump, it's gonna be sometime before you hit bottom."

"That a fact?"

I shrugged. "More or less."

She stole a glance at me. I fought to keep my gaze steady and stern. She wavered, put a foot down. "This is so fucked up. I'm supposed to be on vacation."

"I'm supposed to be someplace too." Easy now.

She nervously chewed her lip. "You don't sound French. I mean, the way you talk --"

"Moved here from California a while back." I extended my hand. "Los Angeles here."

She put another foot down. She didn't take my hand. "Orange county."

One hand remained on the railing. "Tell me,"she sniffed,"did L.A. fuck you up so much that you had to move away?"

I felt a slow smile spread across my face. If she's sarcastic, she must be recovering. "How about we take a walk? I'll get you back where you need to be."

"You sure? My...my mom's waiting for me at the hotel."

"No problem. I got time."

She stepped off the bridge entirely. She drew closer, and I noticed her face was bloodless, and her lips had turned blue. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she lamented. "It was a stupid thing to do."

"I'm just glad you didn't jump because I would've gone in after you."

She kept her head down, and I couldn't see her eyes. "You'd do that, huh," she murmured."A complete stranger like me -- you'd give a damn?"

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat to keep them from trembling. "Well, as I said, it's a long way down."

************

Today I saw her on television, promoting a movie. She had on a bright dress, and her lips were no longer blue.

She said something, and the camera panned closer until her face filled the screen. I found myself turning away. I had seen her eyes.



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Just another friday

Les Irises Mauves by Claude Monet

Over a hasty breakfast today I saw my irises bloom. All those rosy-lavender buds broke open in the hazy autumn morning. Not quite Monet's Giverny, but the florist told me their riotous beauty will persist until the first frost. I'm glad of that because...well, just because.

I wanted to stay longer, but the bustle below my window reminded me of the time.

***************

"How's it working out, living here?"

It wasn't the first time I was asked this. Lila was as curious as the rest of them, but the nonchalance with which she made the inquiry made it somewhat compelling. We met at the courtyard below my apartment. She was on her way out just as I was prying open my rusty mailbox with a kitchen knife. The damn thing held my mail hostage for three days.

Lila's routine on weekdays was nondescript. Her day job required her to wear a uniform of impeccably austere black, always complemented by a crocodile leather briefcase. On the weekends she was different, exchanging her straitlaced Yohjis for flowy printed skirts and poet-style blouses, and she would head out to town with a battered guitar case. She would take the train to Orleans, where she would stand on a street corner and sing. Sometime the next evening, she'd be back at her apartment across the hall from mine, still singing.

I can't help feeling my neighbors know more about having fun than I do.

***************

Cucumber gratin. I nearly ordered that after 15 minutes of scowling at the menu. Cheese, cheese and more cheese. Oh great, another omelette. My server pushed me to try the suckling pig confit, so it's a good start.

Goose grease never tasted so good.

Okay, any start is a good start in my book. I've been stuck in a morass of gastronomic non-adventure over the past few months. I mean, when you start spiking every third meal with parsley you know you're in trouble.

****************

"Mon Dieu, Rachel, stop doing that!"

"Stop doing what?"

"Stop picking at your life like it's some damn scab! It's...self-mutilation!"

"My dear dear Yanic, don't you know that I have an unhealthy obsession of overanalyzing my life and overanalyzing the time I spend overanalyzing my life? I'm really that much fun."

"Mmff." Yanic can be so charming when he purses his lips like that. It's a French thing, I guess.

***************

9:00 PM CEST. I get a text.

"Hey kitten. Stop hanging out with that crazy old timer Yanic. Love your neuroses, love you madly, CJ."

Meow.
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Look, a new day...

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

Like my fathers come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends

Ring out the bells again
Like we did when spring began
Wake me up when September ends

...has begun.


Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day
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Collide and Collapse

Just how many Higgs Bosons can dance on the head of a pin?

Everyone's buzzing over the LHC, CERN, Higgs Boson, Supersymmetry, Dark Energy, Black Holes etc. Well, let's see. Best and worst thing that could happen is... nothing happens. It's back to square one for those who think they know their forces and particles. Or it could be a case of I-didn't-see-it-cuz-I-ain't-lookin'-for-it. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

**********

And to that nice gentleman who got a little enthusiastic about Lynds' cyclical time theory of the universe during my lunch hour, yes sir I gotcha. I couldn't talk much around the shrubs in my mouth, so I just wrote down what's nagging me about that theory: Lynds says that the finite universe follows infinite cycles. The problem with that is for a cycle to occur there has to be a pivot point -something that stops and something that starts (whatever it is, matter, energy, the works). Since the cycles continue on for infinity the pivot point must be infinite; the pivot point decides when the cycle ends and begins. It has to be something or someone that says "ok stop, now start again." Do matter and energy have some kind of consciousness to decide when to start the cycle? Or stop it? Who or what decides? What is the pivot point?

I recall reading somewhere that the universe is so peculiarly fine-tuned, that the most infinitesimal change in force strengths will destroy it. And this model has to deal with a finite universe (since there is no cycle in a infinite universe). And if it is indeed an finite universe, where do the ends lie? What mechanism makes sure all energy and matter are conserved -because if they're not, they would have been all used up an eternity ago?

I'm gonna get a little metaphysical here: if the cyclic universe has been happening an infinite number of times, that means it has been happening for eternity past. You cannot traverse the infinite, therefore if we had an eternity past, today and tomorrow will never happen, because eternal time will keep on stretching the other way into the past. Time will never move forward because it will never escape an eternal past.

Sooo...if today happened, it's because time is moving forward from a beginning. If the beginning point was eternal, the progression of time has to be infinitely fast to escape an eternal past.

(Dontcha notice that some theoretical physicists are sounding more and more like philosophers? That the concept of infinity has become a sort of crutch when we can barely understand it?)

I'm not any sort of scientist, mind you, just a mere dilettante. It just might show in my rant. You're welcome to call me on it when I see you at lunch tomorrow :)

****************

Meanwhile, I'm cooling my heels to this funny rap vid:

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Bruges in the Fall

"...but he was gone when autumn came..."*

I will remember your eyes the most. The way they're sad and gentle and inquisitive. The way they crinkled at the corners when you laughed. I watched the stars unravel in them. All this I will commit to memory and wear out in my mind's eye in the lonely road ahead.

What atrocities one might commit, when faced with such eyes...

*******

"I don't know what to think. It's not fair. You just can't take someone's heart and set its beat, then give it back the moment you found the right rhythm."

I reached up and kissed you. Your lips were soft and cool and sweet. It was a short, faint kiss. I wouldn't find the strength to part ways if it held any more passion.

And what about me? I'll go away knowing that my heart is no longer my own.

"I will kiss you again," I promised. "In this life or another."

"It's a deal, ninja-girl."

*******

"Let me carry that for you."

"No, it's fine, I got it. Really." I hated the plea in my voice.

You touched my forehead. "You're still so sick."

I shook my head, trying to smile. "It's just pollen season."

Send me from you now and I will find you. Please let go, my darling.

You watched me a moment, then bit your lip and nodded. "OK."

The suitcase felt so heavy.

******

Just look back. Just look back. If you just looked back, I'd change my mind. If you just looked back, I'd forget everything I thought I believed in. Just look at me again and I will follow you. If you just looked back. If you just looked back...

But I had shut my eyes.



* I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables

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The movies on my mind...

I Girasoli ( The Sunflower ) (1970)

Filmmaker Vittorio di Sica conceived this movie as a dramatic vehicle to further his anti-war stance. Antonio and Giovanna are an Italian couple whose newlywed life is cut short when Antonio is sent to the Russian front in the waning days of WW2. A short time later Antonio is declared missing in action. Unwilling to accept that her husband is dead, Giovanna embarks on a mission to find him.The trail leads her to a small town in Russia, where she finds him in a state of tidy domesticity with a peasant girl whom he married out of gratitude for saving him from near-death in the bitter cold of the steppes. Devastated, Giovanna returns to Italy.

Realizing he is still in love with his first wife, Antonio follows her back to attempt a reconciliation. The film's poignant denouement, shot at a train station, will remain one of the most moving scenes in cinematic history. The complicated layers of love, loss and loyalty are beautifully essayed by the legendary tandem of Loren and Mastroianni and underscored by the lush arrangement of composer Henry Mancini (Pink Panther theme, Moon River).

Black (2005)

A bristling hulk of human frailty is asked to tutor a blind deaf-mute. She's headstrong and violent in her frustrated attempts to understand the world beyond her lost senses. He's in turns drunk and rude, pushing and bullying her to break through the constraints of her handicap. Over the course of the movie what started out as an uneasy truce blossoms into a fond camaraderie.

Rani Mukherjee's Michelle McNally's jerky histrionics and almost-willful enthusiasm in the face of her disability is the perfect counterpoint to Amitabh Bachchan's Debraj Sahai, the world-weary teacher who slowly deals with losing his memories to Alzheimer's with all the curmudgeonly hauteur of a King Lear. Named one of the 10 best films of 2005 by Time Magazine, this gem of a film firmly secured Bollywood's place in world cinema.

Zatoichi Chikemuri Kaido (literally "Zatoichi's Spurting Blood Road") / Zatoichi Challenged (1967)

My dad's always been a fan of Shintaro Katsu. He recently sent me a cache of movies on his favorite blind blademaster, along with a note: "A cane sword, straw sandals and a passion for dice - that's what a real superhero is all about." After watching a handful of movies in the series, what it's pretty much all about to me is a gleeful slicing and dicing through a gaggle of 'hoods who look like a bunch of bored customers in a post office, all in the name of truth, justice, and the pre-Meiji way. It's violent, moody, campy and ridiculous like Katsu's trademark "duck song"...

And I bloody like it :)

In this 17th installment of the series, Zatoichi squires an artistically-talented young boy to a far-off village to search for his father after the boy's mother dies. Along the way they meet a Kabuki acting troupe, a mysterious samurai, and a crime syndicate. The plot is unique in the canon in that the normally gruff hero is portrayed clucking over his impish charge like a bemused mother hen. His reluctant ministrations don't go unrewarded however: in a heartwarming scene, when the boy is prompted to produce an image of his mother, he sketches a caricature of Zatoichi.

Oh, and interesting tidbit - George Lucas modeled the lightsaber on Zatoichi's lightning draw. No doubt he was also inspired by the prevailing theme of the series: the superman-in-everyman.

Les Destinees Sentimentales (2000)

I saw this movie while vacationing with Leese in Monte Carlo. Betcha didn't think I'd sit around watching three hours of muted romanticism for the better part of the evening rather than take another shot at the craps table.

I've been a fan of director Olivier Assayas after his breathtaking film adaptation of the satirical play Irma Vep. Granted, Les Destinees' length is a bit hard on the ass but it has its moments. Featuring great shots of the picturesque French countryside, it follows the exploits of local aristocratic scion Jean Barnery. The sedate Pauline, the niece of the region's brandy baron and newly arrived from a tour of the continent, falls in love slowly with Jean through their idyllic rendezvous under the flowering fruit trees in a spring orchard. One world war, an economic depression and 30 years later into their marriage she catches him tossing their old love letters into a blazing grate. Sensing her silent inquiry, he quirks a patrician eyebrow."Do you mind?" Pauline, her face carefully neutral, shrugs and replies,"No. We're not the same people anymore." This state of exhausted affection persists until a warehouse accident aggravates a war injury; the bed-ridden Jean, his facade crumbling all around him, gets caught up in an unguarded few seconds of emotion as he laments, "Poor old Pommerel, if only he knew - he who was always half ruined. All the same, in life there are some pleasant things. It takes patience to see them. You have to look for them. What today's world is losing..is love. There's nothing else in life. But once you're sure, your voice is almost gone." My translation is a bit rough, but in its essence, that line broke my heart.


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