I did manage to read last night and not watch the Kate McGarrigle tribute. But today I popped in the DVD of IT MIGHT GET LOUD. I just made myself turn it off as I was watching it the second time through with production comments. I e-chatted with my 17-year old grand-niece, CF, who is a big music fan and loves the movie that I wanted to have it tattooed to myself. Be still my heart.
In the film, there's a scene with the Raconteurs onstage where you're bleeding during your solo on "Blue Veins."
Jack White: It just shows the idea about passion and pushing really hard and making things harder on yourself. You can stand still and play politely and still get paid at the end of the night. If you don't push yourself, you're not going anywhere.
I've mentioned this before. I'm not a musician. I can't read music nor play anything. I can't even sing anymore. But I am so fascinated and moved by music and musicians and the delicacies, intricacies, and nuances of music and the sonic narratives that are songs (or other pieces of music), I cannot get enough. There aren't very many people of my acquaintance (thankfully, there are some) who want to listen to Aretha sing "I Say a Little Prayer" and focus solely on her piano playing or her breathing for emphasis, etc. And then listen more to just enjoy that art.
So watching analysis, passion, and mastery, which this film is all about, is more than my cup of tea, it's di Fara's pizza or a meal at Lupa, only it lasts longer, is not expensive, and won't make me any fatter.
I need to get to Proust and then get to sleep. I had insomnia last night, got up and ate too many 'Nilla Wafers and then slept too late. M sent me an article about insomnia and depression from today's New York Times.
“It makes good common sense clinically,” she continued. “If you have a depression, you’re often awake all night, it’s extremely lonely, it’s dark, you’re aware every moment that the world around you is sleeping, every concern you have is magnified.”
Um … yeah. Sometimes I am not the best nighttime company. And, you know, I could have just taken a precautionary sleeping med. Well, be all those things as they may, I was able to get some productivity out of myself. Even took the subway to the Brooklyn Trader Joe's and did some walking.
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| The afternoon light on downtown Brooklyn. |
B2 has a cool book in the bathroom, A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings, translated and curated by Coleman Barks. I've always liked Rumi, although he seems too good to have been true. This particular poem was for April 15th but had been dog-eared.
Bewilderment
There are many guises for intelligence.
One part of you is gliding in a high wind stream,
while your more ordinary notions
take little steps and peck at the ground.
Conventional knowledge is death to our souls,
and it is not really ours. It is laid on.
Yet we keep saying we find "rest" in these "beliefs".
We must become ignorant of what we have been taught
and be instead bewildered.
Run from what is profitable and comfortable.
Distrust anyone who praises you.
Give your investment money, and the interest
on the capital, to those who are actually destitute.
Forget safety. Live where you hear to live.
Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
I have tried prudent planning long enough.
From now on, I'll be mad.
Yes, bewildered as well as bewitched and bothered, but not in any good way. I am not even espousing these words, I just found them interesting and I am, more than indeed, bewildered with little hope or expectation of things turning out okay.
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