Black

Shadows we cast on the ground

Never abandons us like the sun

Sometimes darkness makes us see

The deeper things that can't be shown

Light can bend and can deceive

Love is to trust when you do not know

If love is everything, let me just mix it all in

Black is the color of our love



Partial lyrics from The Key of E by R.A.L., performed live with NSBY Warehouse at M.A.S. near Amsterdam, September 13, 2008.


For the gentleman who loves me in midnight blue. I've always loved seeing you in black.

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Muy cerca...

At first I did it out of defiance, but as the evening wore on, I danced for the joy of it.

The music ended abruptly. After a long moment his hold loosened. He drew back slowly, cheek resting against my own.

“Thank you,” he said.

I couldn't stop smiling. An odd exuberance of something beautiful and newly-found had overtaken any form of speech.

"Rachel," he urged quietly."Let's go. Your flight to Paris leaves in two hours."

Sigh. Hot damn. Recalling that evening just reduced me to into a hormonal mess. I don't get many chances to be sentimental in a hard-nosed and itinerant business, so tonight I've decided to kick things up a notch and watch "Enchanted"(!) So break out the popcorn and call me Emo :)

Sigh. They may share the same build and (gasp!) hairstyle, but other than that, McDreamy's got nothing on him :P


You’re in my arms / And all the world is calm /The music playing on for only two / So close together / And when I’m with you /So close to feeling alive / A life goes by / Romantic dreams will stop /So I bid mine goodbye and never knew /So close was waiting, waiting here with you /And now forever I know / All that I wanted to hold you / So close / So close to reaching that famous happy end / Almost believing this was not pretend / And now you’re beside me and look how far we’ve come / So far we are so close / How could I face the faceless days / If I should lose you now? / We’re so close / To reaching that famous happy end / And almost believing this was not pretend / Let’s go on dreaming for we know we are / So close /So close /And still so far...



...y a la vez muy lejos
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Pale moon night at the Alpha

"I met you all the way out here," I said, grinning. "What more do you want from me?"

I will be the answer
At the end of the line

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "A dance."

While you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty

"I'm sorry? You want to dance with me here, with all these people --"

His eyes darkened. "A dance, that's all. I've always loved dancing with you."

I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance
If you can't look down

"That's sweet, but I don't think I will." I gave him an awkward smile. "But don't think I'll forget your invitation."

"I'm afraid I must insist," he said, his gaze never leaving mine. "Who knows when I'd see you again?"

If it takes my whole life
I won't break, I won't bend

I was faintly aware of the music and my growing sense of embarrassment. "Another time."

Cast me gently
Into morning
For the night has been unkind

"Rachel." He took my hand, turned it over, and started tracing the veins along my wrist. "One dance."

Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life

I licked suddenly dry lips. "Okay," I replied quietly. "One dance."

When the stars have all gone out
You'll still be burning so bright

He laughed low in his throat. "That's my girl."

It will all be worth it
Worth it in the end




Answer by Sarah McLachlan

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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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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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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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Enchantment passing through

Every story, tale or memoir - all are tales of human failing

There'll be no ties of time and space to bind us

And no horizon we shall not pursue
The moments when we smile and those in between

A journey we can only dream of...

( And how is it I say these things so easily to you? )

Is that all that we are good for

Just a stretch of mortal time?

( But why did I tell him this? )

For some god's experiment in which we have no say

( All I've done is tell him things he already knew )

Never wonder what I'll feel as living shuffles by

( He knew... )

A lifetime of not knowing where or how or why or when

( He knew... )

You are all I'll ever want...

from Aida

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Between Being and Becoming...

Just One Sign is Everything

Chaya hai khumar tera
Dil mein sama ja
Beqaso ki taqdeer, tune hai sawari... *

This song is on constant repeat on my pod. It's a ghazal dedicated to the Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti. I may only know a smattering of it, but the Urdu language is so hypnotically poetic and unabashedly spiritual. I'm so captivated by this piece, I've begun doing dervish whirls on my weekend jaunts to the Tuileries ( yeah, I'm "spontaneous" like that, but the locals don't seem to mind! A nice gentleman even told me that I reminded him of a Fellini heroine heheh.)

A.R. Rehman is a genius.

Here's a vid of the song from a movie. It's sung after the firewalk /nikah of Emperor Jalaluddin Akbar to Princess Mariam-uz-Zamani / Jodha of Amer.

This instrumental version sounds divine as well:

*
Your trance is all over me
Reside in my heart
The destiny of the ones in despair, you have changed for the better


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Feels damn great to be driving again...

Random thoughts in my head blowing past guardrails at a speed over 200 mph / 322 kmh in a colleague's Carrera GT on A-- of the Autobahn.

Strangely, cops, pull over, crash, big rigs wasn't among 'em.

tag cloud credit: Wordle.net

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Tairi Awaz

Night was howling the air was heavy
A grief with no name clouded my soul
My heart insisted you come and comfort it
And I was trying—damn it!—to get it to sleep

For hours the shining stars pricked my eyes
For hours my mind burned with loneliness
You didn’t come to see your forgotten friend
You didn’t come to me in that lonely night

But then your voice suddenly swept in
As if a waterfall burst through the heart of a mountain
Or as if a bold and naughty star in love with the earth
Suddenly dove from the sky

Honey was stirred into my sour loneliness
Colors fanned out in the dark chambers of my heart
For a long time your trancing voice echoed in me
Like flowers popping open in the wild

You were far away in a glittering gathering
But I felt as if you’d come to me
Secreting my lost dreams in your songs
Smoothing my rumpled sleep

The features of your face dawned
On the night’s horizon
Same silent eyes same humble glance
Same scarf just off your shoulder same shiver in the walk

You weren’t with me but till morning
Every breath of yours lightly grazed my body
The sight of you fell drop by drop like dew
Moment after moment was filled with your fragrance

If that’s how you want it my darling my calm
Then I won’t wait for you on dark nights
But my longing eyes will find you
In a rainstorm of songs and poetry

When your love haunts me
Your trancing voice will mold my life
And this soul so restless for you
Will insist on its songs

Your songs with the coolness of your beauty
Will pour into my burning world
For a few moments or forever
And sway my restless night to sleep


Sahir Ludhyanvi
Translated from Urdu by Hamida Banu Chopra and Zack Rogow

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