Soundtrack du jour – a blast from the past – The Dø, “Stay (Just a Little Bit More)”. Years ago in the throes of several most ill-advised entanglements I came across this song, and it seemed so perfect. I ran across it again while looking at old journal entries on the mostly defunct LiveJournal platform. It’s still just as perfect as it was back in 2010.
“He was a bore, a true chore and I still wonder why I ever
Wanted to see him more
I know it’s useless to complain all these years after, well
Thanks for asking now I’m fine
I should have muffled my obsession but I was all too pure
And so blindly sure
That he’d always have the satisfying hug I needed
Stay just a little bit more
Don’t let my heart turn sore
Stay just a little bit more
Don’t let my heart turn sore
He was kind, polite and divine in public
Tender as a sleepy child
But when we got slightly more intimate
It wasn’t that bright
Yes he was kind, polite, sound and sublime
In theory
But in practice believe me
There was a nasty fire burning
Stay just a little bit more
Don’t let my heart turn sore
Stay just a little bit more
Don’t let my heart turn sore
‘And when my curves came into play
Oh what a hopeless tumbling down when
His desire was stuck in plaster
I was young but I believed in no tales’
So in the desert of the bed I looked hard for an oasis
But all I could find was a dead camel in pieces
And I got so scared I tried to lure him back to bed
And I whispered stay just a little more
But now I’m grateful to the camel
Cos all the lazy boy could do was run
Then I knew for sure
That he would never be the satisfying shag I needed”
Now I have been invited to see Lloyd Cole in Stockholm, and that makes me laugh far harder and longer than it should. I won’t be going for it, but it’s awfully funny for a few reasons.
I’ve seen The Salesman; I recommend it. But then I feel that way about most of the Iranian films I see. Someone once accused me of ‘trying to look cool’ by citing Iranian films among my favorites. As if that would impress anyone?
I never intended for this springtime playlist to grow to such massive proportions. It’s just that I was exposed to so much music – so much sound – so much joy – so much pain in the last few months, and this is the result. My experience and memory filtered into an auditory blueprint. Effortlessly. It’s long – so long – but I did not feel like censoring or making choices because I do that all the rest of the time in my life. You don’t have to listen or like this compilation of 110 bloody songs (although on the burned discs I’ve mailed by post, it looks like maybe only 109 of them actually worked – sorry)… but I am sharing all of it anyway because it’s just what I do.
I never imagine that very much happens or changes in my life, but then when I have an opportunity to reflect, I realize that major things have happened almost weekly over the course of the last six months…. I won’t go into the minutiae of that. I will only say that, as ever, nothing is settled. I am spending a lot of time thinking, reading and writing… and it’s all I feel like doing. It makes for a bit of an insular life that yields very little to tell/share (other than ‘insights’ or takeaways from the things I read and listen to…).
The postal versions (to those for whom I have postal addresses) are going out in the mail this week.
To move on you must move through… Love to all of you.
Random Gum: Moving on Again – How to live with a phantom: Spring into action 2017
(Almost) complete playlist on Spotify.
01. Ed Harcourt – Born in the 70s
Thanks to MP & chats on generational issues. “But can you count on me?/I might let you down/In a world that is so sensational/No you can count on me/I’m living for the now/Up against the older generation’s wall”
02. The Shacks – This Strange Effect…and I like the way you kiss me, don’t know if I should/but this feeling is love and I know that’s why I feel good…
03. The Associates – Love Hangover…I don’t need no cure…
Thanks to William
04. Psychic Twin – Hopeless…And I remain hopelessly alone in the heart/Like I’ve always been from the start…
05. Bubblegum Lemonade – As Dead as Disco…I’m San Francisco; you are New York…
Thanks to some random Glaswegian Twitter guy
06. Girl Ray – Trouble…I don’t want to win anymore, Cause honey, winning it just make me feel sore…
Trouble always finds me. Slight 70s sound; good lead-in tone and theme wise to “The Lonely Man”
07. The Incredible Hulk TV theme song – The Lonely Man
For SD
08. Howard Jones – Things Can Only Get Better
Planned to include this (thinking 2017 could only be better after 2016 – wrong so far!) and then realized dear Bethany also put it on a recent mix she sent – and even gave the mix this title.
09. Bill Ryder-Jones – You Can’t Hide a Light with the Dark…The way you fall apart/I still adore it…
“The light’s on in your backroom/Are you with him/Are you with him/The lights off and it’s darkness/You’re so heartless”
10. Maud Lübeck – Mon amourenboîte
Thanks to Laurent
11. Palehound – Cinnamon…Mellow, cringing ugly fellows/Mixing water into gin/And chasing it with cinnamon…
12. Minor Victories – Breaking My Light…Will these shadows lift/They’ve been breaking my light…
Thanks and love to MP, who once or twice helped lift some shadows
13. Rabbit is Rich – Kick Your Ass
More thanks to the incomparable William, king of Christmas cards and cool music mixes
14. Andrew Bird – Tin Foil…What is moving will be still/What has gathered will disperse…
“Evil Knievel shot up from dead grass/And I loved him better each time that he crashed”
15. Maria Andersson – The Girl Who Loved Islands
Probably just because I am nothing if not an island girl at heart
16. Bill Pritchard – Mother Tongue…They lived in separate countries, as we watched their future unfurl…
“What’s that you mean?/I don’t think I caught your tone/Say that again in your mother tongue”
17. Max Shrager – Thoughts of You…to hold onto my thoughts of you…
18. The War on Drugs – Red Eyes
Always a driving song… don’t drive as much as I used to but still need songs for the road
19. Boy & Bear – Southern Sun…You see I’m not gonna wait till the end of me/’Cause I got the burning fire in bed of my soul…
20. Crystal Stilts – The Dazzled…It can’t be saved. It’s already lost, it thrives on my resistance/We are bound and marching to an ever static distance…
21. Vetiver – Can’t You Tell…Look ahead where our future hides/But the world waits wide-eyed…
22. Trailer Trash Tracys – You Wish You Were Red…Oh my darling, you’re a dying red star…
23. Steve Mason – The Letter…could it be that you don’t know me any more?…
Was supposed to see this dude twice within a week (Gothenburg and Oslo). Canceled. It was not how I had imagined anyway, so just as well that none of it happened.
24. Cass McCombs – There Can Be Only One
“Like a master’s baptism of fire/I know you have your ways/And two masters at once, no man can acquire/You set my heart ablaze”
25. Japanese Breakfast – The Woman that Loves You…You should try to do as little harm as you can to the woman that loves you…
26. Neko Case, kd lang, Laura Veirs – Down I-5…Driving down I-5/I don’t ever want to die/Cause I’d no more get to see/All this beauty passing by me…
How many fruitless trips down I-5 have I taken? “You know you’re living if you’ve sinned”
27. Thelma – If You Let It…lines are crossed of will and fear/it is ringing loud and clear…
“Feel the limits you put/on yourself and those around you/you deserve more, you deserve more”. Here’s to seizing more.
28. Chelsea Wolfe – Appalachia…like black diamonds, ash and light/like the mines and anthracite…
29. Timber Timbre – Velvet Gloves & Spit
30. Totally Mild – Christa…It doesn’t matter what you do/It only matters who you do it with…
31. Childish Gambino – Me and Your Mama
For Naomi, who did not realize Donald Glover was Childish Gambino.
32. Houndstooth – Canary Island…it’s never been quite right/always taking things to dark inside/a restless mind is hard please/most of the time…
“Oh to be the dust that covers/everything”
33. Hefner – Half a Life…Life without my sweetheart is only half a life…
34. Stereolab – Ping Pong
Socialism in song… hitting the musical ball back and forth with MP
35. Beachbuggy – Japanese Radio Ad
More Japanese noise and more love to MP 36. AdriAnne Lenker – Jonathan…listen up, I’m a wreck I’m a mess, this is not the effect/Of a loss or a vex, this is you…
“Let me be the honest home where you can rest/Your tired mind”
37. Tinariwen – Cler Achel
A very Al Jazeera documentary-loving, Henry-Rollins-style travels kind of music
38. Chelsea Wolfe – Flatlands…I want flatlands/will you go there with me…
“When it’s said in the dark and you know it’s always there/when it’s dead in our heart but your mind is unafraid/when it’s said in the dark and you know it’s never coming back/when it’s there in your heart in your mind you set it free”
39. Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker – I Never Learned French
Where have all my French connections gone? 40. Cats on Fire – It’s Clear Your Former Lover
Funnish Finns. “Now, it’s possible he may have been the one who loved you the most/I don’t want to compete and I don’t like the smell of his ghost”
41. The Horrors – Still Life (Connan Mockasin remix)…Slow down/give it time…
Preferred this remix to the original; sitting in a shopping mall parking lot waiting for a friend, listening and absorbing the message: “Don’t hurry, give it time. Things are the way they have to be.”
42. Baxter Dury – Other Men’s Girls
43.Morgan Delt – Some Sunsick Day…After the blast levels our town/We can relax and watch it come down…
“After we start over again/We’ll start to feel safe in our skin/Maybe we’ll be wrinkled and grey/Or maybe we’ll get new plastic faces/We’ll finally find what we need”
44. Vashti Bunyan – Love Song
Thanks to, love for MP
45. Space Needle – Before I Lose My Style…I tried to be it all/when I left you behind…
46. Galaxie 500 – Snowstorm
Thoughts of MP and an almost-snowless winter
47. Itasca – No Consequence
With love for Annette – plenty of consequences.
48. The Limiñanas – Down Underground
49. Jenny Hval – Conceptual Romance…I want to give up but I can tell/My heartbreak is too sentimental for you…
This song is everything. ”A sexual holding pattern/Stuck in erotic self-oscillation/This landmine of a heart/The only one I’ve ever had/I’ve ever had”; “So I lose my gaze to keep you/Creating a curve for the eyes/A rejected body/And losing it is constant, but such a lonely place/What can I say?/I don’t know who I am, but/I’m working on it…”
50. Psychic Ills – Mind Daze…I’m doing fine/when I’m out of my mind…
51. Suuns – 2020
52. Minor Victories – Give Up the Ghost…When you act like I’m nothing to you/Make me feel like I’ve been replaced/I could tear you apart/Leave a brand-new scar… 53. Amber Arcades – Constant’s Dream …It’s not different we’re just getting used to it/But we’ve always known what to expect…
“Our bodies are full and nobody is trying/It’s not like we don’t want to, we’re just not desiring”
54. Still Parade – Walk in the Park
Poetry, Wanstead Park and Denise Levertov’s ark-of-the-ache-of-it connection: “Wanstead drew me over and over into its basic poetry”. For MP
55. Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker – Something Familiar
56. Twin Limb – Don’t Even Think
57. Nice as Fuck – Door…All the shit that we talk is a smokescreen/It’s a waste of your time/A waste of my being…
58. Family Friends – Look the Other Way…I think there’s some things you forgot from when we used to talk a lot…
59. Chastity Belt – Seattle Party…Your life is so raw/You’ve been through so much…
60. Pixie Geldof – Wild Things Grow
Not anything I ever anticipated including despite lifelong weird obsession with Bob Geldof; thanks to Travis, this finds its way here 61. Lee Hazlewood – Hey Cowboy
Love to Naomi
62. Matt Duncan – 1000 Boys…This record’s skipping on a sigh… (but not an Eliot sigh…)
“That I’m smitten with my worries and my doubts/No lovelorn prince would ever dare to sing about” 63. Shintaro Sakamoto – In a Phantom Mood
Japan time!
64. Allo Darlin’ – Kiss Your Lips…Then I kissed your lips and for a moment it was heavenly/Because you found me, baby/Baby I found you…
65. Weyes Blood – Seven Words…I want you mostly in the morning/when my soul is weak from dreaming…
66. Julia Jacklin – Pool Party…Said you’re sorry you were drinking through the day then/Only stopped to let your lungs take the hit/Said I won’t blame you now but you lost my love somehow/Then you jumped right in…
I sort of misjudged this song when I first heard it – kinda fitting when I really listened
67. The Innocence Mission – Bright as Yellow…And I do not want to be a rose/I do not wish to be pale pink/But flower scarlet, flower gold/And have no thorns to distance me…
68. I Break Horses – Winter Beats…When your heart in winter beats/Don’t let that cold blood freeze/Cause frozen love will bleed…
Represent the home team (Sweden!) and other people’s Spotify playlists
69. Kim Jung Mi – Haenim
I read about “Korean folk” music, which is like 60s folk rock and nothing to do with traditional Korean music. And you can hear that when you listen to this interesting, if odd, song.
70. Vivian Girls – Where Do You Run To…It’s alright just leave the light on, I will never ask you why/Once you’ve gone remains the question baby/Where do you go? Where do you go? Why do you leave me all alone?…
71. Sam Patch – St. Sebastian
Another one of those whose sound I like…
72. Amber Arcades – Right Now…But we could go right now/We could have another life…
“I made my mind up long ago/The road is long and slow/So many things to leave behind/But everyone can live their lie/I’m not even sure that I don’t like mine”
73. “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” – from Orphee et Eurydice, Gluck, Donald Runnicles & Orchestra of San Francisco; Dawn Upshaw, Alison Hagley, Jennifer Larmore
74. Wasuremono – Cuddling
As the dear Scots say, to mean ‘cuddling’, “coorie in” 75. Spain – Nobody Has to Know…Girl we’ve fallen so in love/It was just a year ago/And you’ve kept it to yourself…
76. Blake Mills – Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me…I was wrong to turn honesty against you/And sure, some of them could use a good talk…
Seems like a timely kind of song, with thoughts of trying to keep secrets about people “fucking up”
77. King Creosote – And the Racket They Made…And your words chased round and round in my head/Last night…
To the peaceful days that started the year and the endless discography of King Creosote, which droned on all morning and throughout our entire absence when wandering through the cold countryside. “And the tide shrinks back into its womb/And I hope the empty shells and bones of your stories/Will litter and clutter the shores/And I hope that when I find them/I’ll remember how they danced/And the racket they made/When they were alive”
78. William Onyeabor – Ride on Baby…You don’t know why you love me so much, baby…
RIP William, king of Nigerian funk… reminds me of a weird time in my professional career working with insufferable hipsters who spent much of their lives in downward facing dog pose (since they had to be posing somehow…)
79. Glen Campbell – Guess I’m Dumb…The way I act don’t seem like me/I’m not on top like I used to be…
Acknowledging when you’re not on your A-game…
80. Nick Garrie – Can I Stay With You
Calm in the eye of the storm; love for MP
81. Cigarettes After Sex – K.…I remember when I first noticed that you liked me back/We were sitting down in a restaurant waiting for the check/We had made love earlier that day with no strings attached/But I could tell that something had changed how you looked at me then…
What a beautiful song… its combination of beauty and hope kinda makes me feel melancholy.
82. Bubblegum Lemonade – This is the New Normal
Hoping that the world we live in right now is not the new normal…
83. Tenniscoats – Hikoki
Thinking of back when my mom expanded her vocabulary to include the Japanese neko and hikooki
84. Spinning Coin – Albany…When the weather comes/It comes in measures/When the pain comes/Instead of pleasure…
“I don’t know I thought I knew you but I was wrong/I was impressed by your love for complexity”
85. Wolf Alice – Bros…Are you wild like me/Raised by wolves and other beasts…
86. The Duke Spirit – Serenade…slow you remind me/how to be silent/and your story leaves me wanting/and the way I feel is changing…
87. Desperate Journalist – Distance…oh your heart/a hurricane…
How much I want to create distance. “I’ve lost you” – yes, you have. 88. Surface to Air Missive – Time Being…I don’t know where you are now/but it’s someone else for all I know…
The guilt of unanswered/unreciprocated missives. Bigger than surface
89. Billy Bragg – Upfield
“I’ve got a socialism of the heart.” Nothing describes me better at this stage in life
90. Los Campesinos! – You! Me! Dancing!
Thanks to MP and his mad, made-up music ‘game’/DJing a Friday night from afar, as ever
91. Slowdive – Star Roving
To made-up middle-of-night games pitting songs against each other and admissions of never cottoning to Slowdive back in the old days
92. Minor Victories – Scattered Ashes (Song for Richard)
93. Cat’s Eyes – Drag…Oh you’ve been dragging me down…
94. Grouper – Headache…why does love keep letting me down?…
95. Antonio Carlos & Jocafi – Você Abusou
Something from the Cerys on 6 BBC Sunday radio, listened at someone’s suggestion
96. Dirty Projectors – Up in Hudson
Love and thanks to Andreas. The sound here is not mine, but the lyrics… dear, dear heavens
97. Tasseomancy – Dead Can Dance & Neil Young…fade into folk song…
Enjoyed getting lost in the sound…
98. Valerie June – Astral Plane
Thanks to Travis
99. Princess Chelsea – The Cigarette Duet
Thanks to dear Gabe and of course love for New Zealand
100. Super Furry Animals – Hermann Loves Pauline
Gute Nacht, mein Liebling, Roscoe
101. The Proper Ornaments – Memories…memories will go/slowly float away/but I can see your face/from here…
102. The Saxophones – New Tradition
“But I haven’t shown you my best part; it’s too hard, and I’m quick to judge”
103. Sibelius – In the Stream of Life (Rautavaara) 104. Robyn Hitchcock – Goodnight Oslo
105. Spell – Stone is Very Very Cold…my hand may tremble now and then/but my heart can never break again…
106. Julie Byrne – Follow My Voice…To me, this city’s hell/But I know you call it home/I was made for the green/Made to be alone…
“I’ve been called heartbreaker/For doing justice to my own/I, too, been a fault-finder/But that life is broke/How I love you/You’re the one my heart chose/And so I will be here”
107. Ultra Vivid Scene with Kim Deal – Special One
Watching the video on a hotel room bed in Oslo, nearing the end of the five-day bubble, memories of high school for me, an intro to something new for him
108. Sheryl Crow – The Book…I didn’t know by giving my hand/that I would be written down, sliced around, passed down, among strangers’ hands…
A mainstream thing you won’t know, a lot like Friends, but still has its place in pop culture. And this song has always struck me – writers as “voyeur, the worst kind of thief” of such personal details; always be on the defensive. “I read your book/and I find it strange/that I know that girl, I know her world/a little too well”
109. Steve Mason – Hardly Go Through…I’ve never cried over someone I hardly know/But I can feel it/Can you feel it?…
“In my head I hear a voice, they say/You made the wrong choice/And you don’t need me, you’ll never need me”
110. Blondie – Fade Away and Radiate…Electric faces seem to merge/Hidden voices mock your words…
The musical definition of my earliest childhood, still resonating as I burnish in middle age. Isn’t that what memory, intellect, age and living do? Haha. One can hope. “Ooh baby I hear you spend night time/Wrapped like candy in a blue, blue neon glow”
I have one more hour in which I am allowed to mope.
Therefore, I give you … Sam Phillips’s “I Can’t Stop Crying”. All at once a jagged, near-power-pop painful reminder of spring/summer 1989, a reminder of the wandering-through-Reykjavik spring of 2008 (my final months in Iceland) and a trigger for the current waves of disturbance in otherwise calm waters.
“I saw black and you saw red
Crawled to separate corners
the line went dead I closed my heart up tore your love
for me to shreds
Tangled wires, love can’t breathe
pulling tighter to my ruthless need
Don’t look down I want you unconsolably
I can’t stop crying Stubborn distance closes in with your assistance bitterly begin To build a wall of silence cutting soul in two Cloudy water in my eyes I’m ashamed of words with secret knives In dream I scream but you can’t Hear me calling you
I know that this heartache is
A speck in the sky of love
But it’s all I feel around me”
This popped up in a couple of Neil Finn feeds online today, and I realized I had not listened to him, Crowded House or Split Enz in a long time. This song…
“I don’t want to say “I love you”
That would give away too much.
It’s hip to be detached and precious,
The only thing you feel is vicious.
I don’t want to say “I want you”
Even though I want you so much.
It’s wrapped up in conversation,
It’s whispered in a hush.
Though I’m frightened by the word,
Think it’s time I made it heard.
No more empty self-possession,
Visions swept under the mat.
It’s no New Year’s resolution,
It’s more than that.
Now I wake up happy
Warm in lover’s embrace.
No one else can touch us
While we’re in this place.
So I’ll sing it to the world
This simple message to my girl.
No more empty self possession,
Visions swept under the mat.
It’s no New Year’s resolution,
It’s more than that.
Though I’m frightened by the word,
Think it’s time I made it heard.
So I’ll sing it to the world
This simple message to my girl.
No more empty self possession,
Visions swept under the mat.
It’s no New Year’s resolution,
It’s more than that.
Oh there’s nothing quite as real
As the touch of your sweet hands.
I can’t spend the rest of my life
Buried in the sand”
-“Message to my Girl” – Split Enz (1984, as if you couldn’t hear that already…)
If I had known my mother was right about the transitory, fickle nature of adolescent friendship, I might not have invested so much. In fact, this truth still applies. It’s this slow-motion dissolution of a connection between two people, at different moments striving, trying desperately to remain relevant to one another. Romance/love is exactly the same, where at different times one partner is more in love with the other. And what remains is one of the few conduits to a close but different interpretation of a shared past that comes back – almost taunting, if not haunting – the lost friendship or love, the missed opportunities, forgotten depths and secrets. Where does all that initial – and sometimes even sustained, if temporary – awe go? How does it get buried underneath layers of time, superficial concern and change?
Writing this I feel very much as though I have already written something like this many times. Perhaps because these same feelings and questions churn mercilessly through the brain – and even the heart – too frequently.
I feel the chill of it – the words, actions and interactions feel like the movement of a speedboat, racing effortlessly over just the glistening surface of the water. I am watching from the firm ground of the shore – he waves as he becomes a remote speck. The interaction is one-sided and fragmented, much like the speedboat’s glide, interrupted by occasional bumps, as it flies across the water.
What feels like a purposeful distance is created, preserved and extended, the boat traveling further out of reach by the second. What is it that makes this so? The not knowing where to take a deeper discussion? Avoiding having an unpleasant conversation? An inability to know where to plunge your anchor? Too many things going on at once? From the edge of the water, I can only wave back meekly, knowing I won’t actually be seen, and anything I could say or ask cannot be heard. And for some time, seemingly forever, standing stock still in the bitterly cold wind, which isn’t much time at all really, I wait and wonder.
Pierced by this whole experience, shockingly brief as it is – I am changed and restored to a better version of my truest self, but this imparts no magical wizardry – I am unable to make anyone else feel the same way as I do or to feel anything at all, really. And am likewise unable to know exactly what it is that another feels because I doubt he even knows with any clarity, or if he does, he’s sailed so far away that he can’t convey it to me. Which is part of why he is out on the lake skimming lightly across the water, possibly going so far out that there’s fishing to be done and lures to cast.
It’s strange how the more, and more deeply, you feel you love someone (and consequently want to be with them), the harder it is to tell them that – or tell them directly exactly what you feel – or talk about it in any way. Especially when you feel certain you bear your feelings alone – there is nothing mutual or shared about it.
In response, I embody a second, separately functioning person from myself, involuntarily splitting into two parts – the one I allow to feel, be open, be vulnerable and to question, and then the one I preserve for logic and analysis. Maybe this is an astrological trait (dual roles), maybe this is, as the New Age book I read cautioned, the “Loyal Soldier” who went to war for me in immature ways to foster self-preservation as a child (and whose tactics continue to drive emotional life in an immature way now that the “war is over”, as the book put it*).
Either way, both identities are paralyzed and don’t say one direct word about real feelings because revealing comes with not only the possibility of being destroyed but also feels like an imposition. Saying things aloud makes them not only real (and unerasable) but starts to force an agenda on the other person, influences them unduly, may pressure or oblige them to take on something they don’t want, are not ready for or even inveigle them into a conversation they don’t want to have. I have no desire to set a trap or inadvertently create an environment in which it’s possible to feel trapped.Thus the whole matter becomes a blizzard in the brain and heart, obscuring the words and actions that should be realized, or becomes something that is haphazardly regurgitated in circuitous, erratic, piecemeal blog posts here or there.
…And yet after some time feeling as though a part of a curious speedboat détente, he, rapidly speeding away from me and disappearing into the horizon, and my daily life returning to normal, one of the parts of the split identity, the non-feeling split, begins to dominate. It becomes a lot like the time I advised a dear Australian friend that if she wanted her American boyfriend to show more interest, she had to pretend she wasn’t interested. To which she replied, “But by acting less interested, won’t I just actuallylose interest?” To which I enthusiastically exclaimed, “Well, yes! That’s the beauty and the whole point of it!“At least for the emotionally stunted! You do it initially, ostensibly, on the surface, hoping to be seen, acknowledged and missed (knowing this will not be the yield), but the real underlying and long-term aim is to lose interest yourself so that any outcome is a manageable outcome. Or it will be an outcome that does not hurt, at least not the part of the personality that pursued this savage, self-sacrificing strategy.
The analytical part that remembers and looks at all the words that have been said, all the clues and hints dropped (even if there weren’t really clues or hints – all words once spoken are now being processed and interpreted that way in this part of the brain) ascribes a unilateral verdict to the situation and moves on accordingly. Move on. It feels logical, familiar and comfortable because it pre-empts most possible pain. Move on. It soothes the mind with the casual way it gives birth to an indifference that grows day by day, so that I no longer even look to the water to see the speedboat buzzing, making its rounds, or perhaps no longer even walk to the shore at all. Move on.
Eventually feigning disinterest leads to the promised land of real disinterest and – bonus points – boredom. Moved on. At least the logical half of the self can buy into that, offering itself sterile congratulations for not getting its hands dirty while nevertheless doing the dirty work of crushing the feelings of the other half. It does not matter that it was early days; it does not matter that I knew what I was getting into and that this was always where it could lead or end.
The heart – the crushed part – has no response to this logic. It does not even speak this language, but the heart is not driving, so it has no say.
Ella Mi Fu Rapita! (She abandoned me) – Gavin Ewart “Die Liebe dauert oder dauert nicht.” –Brecht
Her boredom took her away. So simple.
She just became bored with me. No other rival
experienced the entrancing smile with the dimple
or put down his drink in joy at her arrival
or loved her in taxis that stream like ants
through London, fingers under her pants
caressing her holy of holies. Oh, no,
it wasn’t someone younger, bigger or better.
She went because she had the urge to go,
Without a phone call, telegram or letter.
From our last meeting she just walked out –
a few pretexts perhaps. What were they about?
Nothing too serious. A red bow in her hair,
as she lay naked on the bed, knees-raising,
stays in my mind. I know I had my share.
Love is all programmed, it’s all phasing,
There’s a beginning, a middle and an end.
A lover’s life is not that of a friend,
who by and large is able to take it or leave it.
For love there’s a critical path – it goes on.
It can’t go backwards or sideways, believe it,
That’s all; a dream, a tremendous con,
And when it’s over, you’re out on your own.
Most life, they say, has to be lived alone.
And what can the lover do, when the time’s come,
when THE END goes up on the screen? Yelling,
rush into the street, lamenting her lovely bum?
Get friendly with men in bars, telling
how sweet she was, praising her statistics,
or admiring his own sexual ballistics?
No, that’s no good. Love lasts – or doesn’t last.
And all the pink intimacies and warm kisses
go into Proust’s remembrance of time past.
Lovers must never crumple up like cissies
Or break down and cry about their wrongs
If girls are sugar, God holds the sugar tongs.
It may even feel somewhat comforting to let go of the idea of being in love (“it’s so hard to love when love was your great disappointment“) because I think we all know that when you are in love, no one wants to hear about it. They want your misery. Misery loves company.
Photo (c) Paul Costanich – not quite a speedboat, but it will suffice. (It’s a “ski jet” according to S. Haha)
“Each of us has a Loyal Soldier sub-personality, a courageous, creative and stubborn entity formed when we needed somewhat drastic measures to survive the realities (sometimes dysfunctional) of childhood. This sub-personality’s primary task was to minimize the occurrence of further injury, whether emotional or physical. The Loyal Soldier’s approach to this task was – and continues to be – to make us small or invisible, to suppress much of our natural exuberance, emotions, desires and wildness so we might be sufficiently acceptable to our parents (and/or other guardians, siblings, teachers and authority figures). The Loyal Soldier learns to restrain another sub-personality we might call the Wild Child, our original, sensual, magical, untamed self that has an essential relationship to the soul and is not interested in limiting itself in any way.
Common Loyal Soldier survival strategies include harsh self-criticism (to make us – the ego – feel unworthy and thus ineligible for Wild Child actions that might bring further punishment, abandonment, or criticism); placing our personal agenda last (so as to not displease or arouse anger or envy); other codependent behaviors (e.g. caretaking, rescuing, enabling) to stave off abandonment; pleasing but immature and inauthentic personas; partial or complete social withdrawal (to minimize hurtful contacts); adopting an unpleasant or downtrodden appearance (to protect us from criticism); restricting our range of feeling by encouraging us to always be in charge, busy, angry, ruthless, withdrawn, and/or numb; and suppressing our intelligence, talent, enthusiasm, sensuality, and wildness by locking up these qualities in an inaccessible corner of our psyches. … The Loyal Soldier’s adamant and accurate understanding is this: it is better to be suppressed or inauthentic or small than socially isolated or emotionally crushed – or dead.”
“The Loyal Soldier did, in fact, keep us safe (enough) in childhood. The problem is that the Loyal Soldier’s strategies become bedrock to our survival and are defended to the death – even after the war is over.”
Is there anything more dismal than frequent emails from frequent flyer clubs where you will never have any kind of status?
Probably.
Hardened
…Like letting memory wander aimlessly back to revive details such as the wiry, coarse, invisible hair that thickly covered K’s sinewy, hard arms, attached to an explosive, compact, bony, muscular body. Somehow this improbable package provided unfathomable pleasure when hidden away in a dark room somewhere, even if K’s hip bones protruded to penetrate almost painfully deep into the soft flesh of the thick, pillow-like thighs of the other, which made her resolve never to become hard like this herself.
Retail therapy
…Like reflecting on the fact that the most successful department store, at least in the Seattle area, has boomed using boozed-up retail – killing it by bolstering your consumer confidence with some bubbly while brainwashing you to buy more Burberry. (Apparently there is a bar in the Burberry section.)
Reading aloud
…Like spending untold hours reading books I’d never read myself but following through because I promised I would, even if the promise is almost a decade old.
It’s been one of the things I sometimes do – reading books aloud and recording them (these days making MP3 files) – for a big part of my life. Either for my grandmother, who lost her sight late in life and therefore also lost her life’s greatest passion, reading, or for dyslexic friends, who could understand their reading better by hearing it. It’s time consuming, sure, a labor of great love actually, but also a labor of learning for me.
Today I told someone I was reading what amounts to an (amateur!) audiobook, and he exclaimed, “It’s a job! Like a real job. But one that Jeremy Irons does!”
Thinking of waiting in the car for Lóa, getting lost in the sound of this on a cold, Swedish evening just before Christmas, but now finding the lyrics more striking. Take a breath. Don’t hurry. It’s rocky, unpredictable terrain but doesn’t mean you turn around and go home.
Getting late & losing track of time – December 2016/early 2017
For no real reason except that I’ve been abnormally into music for a few months (yes, I always am, but even more than usual these days), I have already collected a new mix that makes up the soundtrack of my life for the last three months or so (since my last mix went out). The songs are all listed below; almost the entire playlist (minus the songs not available at all on Spotify, such as track 01, from Vorderhaus) can be found among my Spotify playlists. Those people whose addresses I have can trust that a physical copy is on its way to you as I write.
01. Vorderhaus – “Faintly”…future’s looming in the afterglow… 02. Big Search – “Love in Return”…river, the warmth has gone/the trail’s not been cold for long… 03. The Passions – “I’m in Love with a German Film Star”…playing the part of a real troublemaker/but I didn’t care – it really moved me…
When you fall out of love with the dream
04. Steve Mason – “Planet Sizes”…the universe makes me cry…
It could have been a ‘date’ in Oslo… or not. The fates only know
05. Wand – “Fire on the Mountain (I-II-III)”
06. The Fat Tulips – “Where’s Clare Grogan Now?”
Courtesy of lovely William; reminders/mentions of Enumclaw & Scotland all in one
07. The Fall – “Lost in Music”
For Naomi, for S. Put the original on a recent Halloween mix after hearing it on the dreadful show Looking. Made fun of it (i.e. “Get a job, dancing, music-obsessed losers”). What can take it all up a notch? A version from The Fall, of course!
08. Alvvays – “Archie, Marry Me”…You’ve expressed explicitly your contempt for matrimony…
What started as a casual recommendation led eventually to a little heartbreak every time this song came on: “We spend our days locked in a room content inside a bubble And in the night time we go out and scour the streets for trouble”
09. British India – “I Thought We Knew Each Other”
“Fifteen years of fighting in the dark/Empty hands the only thing I’ve got/All the times I’ve tried to walk away” – it’s the words, not the generic sound
10. Cats on Fire – “Poor Students Dream of Marx”…Hated London nightlife, so I’ve heard…
“Go on, get out/I am sharing your doubts”; “last words are for fools who haven’t said enough” (Oh, and it may interest some to know, like Naomi, that these dudes are FUNNISH)
11. The Crayon Fields – “Mirror Ball”…You are still my-y mirror ball/I look at you/and suddenly I’m a virgin/In a dance hall…
“Would it flatter you to know/That mostly it’s you/That makes me so slow”
12. Courtney Marie Andrews – “How Quickly Your Heart Mends”
“The jukebox is playing a sad country song,/For all the ugly Americans,/Now I feel like one of them,/Dancing alone and broken by the freedom”
13. Maud Lübeck – “J’oublie”
With thanks to Laurent S. When music is a conduit to escape dark times
14. Childish Gambino – “Redbone”
Had been meaning to listen but didn’t until it got the “Travis seal of approval”. Love to Billy & Travis xox. And my god, is there anywhere that Donald Glover isn’t right now?
15. Junip – “Line of Fire”…No one else around you/No one to understand you/No one to hear your calls/Look through all your dark corners…
Gothenburg
16. The Church – “Under the Milky Way”…I think about the loveless fascination/ Under the Milky Way tonight…
I often forget how much I love the sound of The Church
17. Roosevelt – “Montreal”
Skåne del Sol adventures (no beheadings) w/ Kyle & musical influence of Mr Bridge
18. Dead or Alive – “You Spin Me Round”…I’ve got to have my way now, baby…
RIP Pete. If the losses of 2016 haven’t spun us all around, I don’t know what will
19. Margaret Glaspy – “You and I”…I think you might be harboring a heartache/I think you might be crying when I’m gone/You and I have been a mistake/I let it linger too long…
Endings that drag on; “I don’t want to see you cry/But it feels like a matter of time”
20. Foxygen – “Follow the Leader”…I know sometimes everyone wants to be someone else…
21. John Lennon – “Watching the Wheels”…when I say that I’m okay/well, they look at me kinda strange/surely you’re not happy now, you no longer play the game…
22. Lianne La Havas – “What You Don’t Do”
Thanks to Esteban and Ana
23. Kula Shaker – “Persephone”
Naming conventions, unconventions & the depth & meaning of a name. Not a Kula Shaker fan
24. Lia Ices – “After is Always Before”…I don’t know after and before’s almost gone…
Missing Jane
25. Grandaddy – “Clear Your History”
26. TV21 – “All Join Hands”…I feel so used or was I just your servant?…
Many thanks to William; thoughts racing while racing through Oslo outskirts
27. Leonard Cohen – “So Long, Marianne”
RIP Leonard Cohen. Generic Cohen to choose but has its reasons. Staple soundtrack of the Indian (why?!) place by my old office in Iceland where I spent so many lunches with old friends. And of course, the Norwegian namesake, Marianne, who preceded Cohen in death by only a few months
28. Diego Garcia – “You Were Never There”…Girl you never cared/You were never there…
“You hide yourself/behind a wall/and it shows”. Such truth
29. Cate le Bon – “Love is Not Love”…And the bars go/And it keeps me high/But I don’t know how to love you…
“I won’t let you, I won’t let you, sing my name again, love…”
30. Laura Marling – “Hope in the Air”
With manifold thanks to MP
31. Tomten – “Nothin’ Like Bein’ No One”
Love for the little-known Seattle band. I will include them whenever I can 32. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – “When the Other Foot Drops, Uncle”…you better pack up & run…
RIP Sharon. “Every dog has his day, uncle, and it just can’t go on this way…” 33. The Boo Radleys – “Wish I Was Skinny”
Love to Naomi – only Boo Radleys fan I know/can think of!
34. Mitski – “Your Best American Girl”
“If I could, I’d be your little spoon/And kiss your fingers forevermore/But, big spoon, you have so much to do/And I have nothing ahead of me”
35. U.S. Girls – “Island Song”
36. George Michael – “Freedom! ’90”
Holy shit – could 2016 be more brutal? RIP George. I was not a huge fan but what a piece of the 80s landscape and the collective memory of my generation
37. Os Mutantes – “Baby”
For R, always the wrong things to say at wrong times; on occasion knows the right things to do
38. Shonen Knife – “Elephant Pao Pao” とても悪いこと
Totemo warui koto/Japanese-language camp and those old days and ways
39. Low – “Just Like Christmas”…by the time we got to Oslo, the snow was gone/and we got lost, the beds were small, but we felt so young…
Conjuring an unfathomably lovely future or a cocoon-like bubble? (Nevertheless, can’t go to Oslo without getting lost and finding an endless array of hi-fi stores)
40. The Verve – “History”
Poetry and history, with gratitude on many fronts to M
41. Nirvana – “Pennyroyal Tea”…Give me Leonard Cohen afterworld…
RIP Leonard Cohen – again
42. Martha Wainwright – “Take the Reins”…if you take the reins, I will never look back… 43. Cowboy Junkies – “To Lay Me Down”…To lie with you/Once more to lie with you/With our dreams close together/To wake beside you…
Revival from illness in the cocoon of an illusory under-the-covers world “with our bodies entwined together”
44. Bess Atwell – “Cobbled Streets”…Should it be this hard?/Should it feel like disconnecting?…
“Well I’m afraid I’ve led you to believe I’m not what I am”
45. Steve Mason – “Run Away”…I know you’ll run away/But when I find this I don’t mind anyway…
“Will the love I think, I think I felt/Run away in a day or two?” O, to be pierced through the heart
46. Tori Amos – “Toast”…With a toast he’s telling me it’s time/To let you go…
Losing a brother, stories of toast. For Mom, RIP Paul, ML toastmonster and MP
The end of 2016 particularly was fraught with pain and fear. I can only do what I can: continue on my own path, offer sanctuary to those who have reasons to be fearful of what their current country may become, offer love and sympathy to my remaining family members (whose numbers are dwindling) and love unconditionally. The end also offered a glimpse of light and understanding, which remains unclear. The pain, uncertainty and momentum of all of it inexplicably motivates me as we stumble into 2017.
Photo by the incomparable late, great Paul Costanich.
