Tag: music

Not worthwhile

I can whistle almost the whole of the Fifth Symphony, all four movements, and with it I have solaced many a whining hour to sleep. It answers all my questions, the noble, mighty thing, it is “green pastures and still waters” to my soul. Indeed, without music I should wish to die. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay letter to Allan Ross MacDougall

To imagine existence without music might be biologically possible but it would be emotionally smaller. Music operates on a frequency that bypasses the intellect and speaks directly to something primal within us. Unlike spoken language, which divides us into linguistic communities, music creates a universal grammar of emotion. A minor key can evoke melancholy in a child who has never learned the word “sadness.” A triumphant major chord can lift spirits across cultures, generations, and personal circumstances. This universality suggests that music doesn’t merely accompany human experience—it is woven into the fabric of consciousness itself.

Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation. One does not have to know anything about Dido and Aeneas to be moved by her lament for him; anyone who has ever lost someone knows what Dido is expressing. And there is, finally, a deep and mysterious paradox here, for while such music makes one experience pain and grief more intensely, it brings solace and consolation at the same time. (Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain )

When we consider a world stripped of this universal language, we imagine not just silence, but a profound disconnection from our own emotional landscape.

First dances, lullabies, funeral hymns, graduation marches—these melodies become the soundtrack to our most significant moments. They don’t merely accompany these experiences; they preserve them in a form more vivid than photographs, more immediate than written words. A few notes can transport us instantly across decades, reconstructing not just the memory but the emotion of a moment with startling clarity.

Without music, our memories would lose this dimensional quality, the emotional peaks and valleys of our lives would lack their soundtrack, making the landscape of personal history less navigable, less meaningful.

Even beyond its role in significant moments, music provides the rhythm that makes daily existence bearable, even beautiful. Work songs have existed in every culture because they transform labor from mere drudgery into something approaching art. The person who whistles Beethoven during difficult hours understands that music doesn’t change circumstances—it changes our relationship to circumstances. It provides the cadence that makes the unbearable bearable, the monotonous meaningful.

Consider the silence that would replace this constant, subtle soundtrack.

That life without music would not be worth living might initially seem hyperbolic. However, it points to a deeper truth about being human, we don’t merely survive on bread alone—we require beauty, meaning, connection, and transcendence. Music provides all of these simultaneously. It is the art form that most directly addresses our need for both individual expression and communal belonging, for both intellectual stimulation and emotional release.

Life may be technically possible without music, but it would be missing a profound transformation: the ability to turn time into beauty. Music does not change the fact that hours pass, that we suffer, or that we long for what is lost. But it alters how we inhabit those hours, how we carry that suffering, and how we hold on to memory. In this way, music does not merely decorate time — it redeems it. And in that redemption lies its deepest necessity.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

P.S. I read this today:

As a graduate student, I cared for my grandmother, who was a big fan of Ozzy’s band Black Sabbath herself. Any time we went anywhere, we put on our playlist and sang along. When, during the Covid-19 pandemic, I cut off part of my fingertip and lost access to my campus library, I had Ozzy in my ear for much-needed heavy metal pep talks as I took my PhD qualifying exams.

And when I lost both my grandmother and my California home the following year, I still had Ozzy. His music was the score as I finished my dissertation from my parents’ basement and landed my dream job at Iowa Wesleyan University. Through the submission of my dissertation and driving nearly 1,200 miles across the country to start my new job, I listened to the Blizzard of Ozz album. 

Brittany Anne Carlson

List #1

Summer, cicadas, palm trees, the Mediterranean, sunshine and sunsets, music, my dogs, surprises, chance encounters, dance classes, piles of books to read, gardening, the way when, sometimes, you’re able to connect to someone else, the happiness of strangers, New Orleans, the South of France, London, Africa, handwriting, birthdays, kindness, harbors, ice cream, feeling carefree, falling in love, notebooks, pens and pencils. I don’t think I’ve made it to 30 and because the “My favorite things” from the Sound of Music is still echoing in my mind, I asked aimusicgen to make me a song.

[Verse 1]
Summer hums with cicadas’ song,
Palm trees sway where hearts belong,
Mediterranean skies stretch wide,
Golden sunsets, waves collide.

[Chorus]
Feel the rhythm in the breeze,
Dancing close beneath the trees,
Laughter echoing through warm air,
Every glance, a secret shared.

[Verse 2]
Dogs run wild in sandy bays,
Books in piles, long lazy days,
Gardens bloom in gentle light,
Strangers smile, the world feels right.

[Pre-Chorus]
A spark in a look, in a word,
Unwritten poems silently heard,
Kindness passed from soul to soul,
Harbours whisper, we feel whole.

[Chorus]
Feel the rhythm in the breeze,
Dancing close beneath the trees,
Laughter echoing through warm air,
Every glance, a secret shared.

[Bridge]
From New Orleans to southern France,
London streets to an African dance,
In handwritten lines and birthday cheer,
The world unfolds when love is near.

[Chorus]
Feel the rhythm in the breeze,
Dancing close beneath the trees,
Laughter echoing through warm air,
Every glance, a secret shared.

[Outro]
Carefree hearts and melting creams,
Falling in love like summer dreams,
With notebooks open, we begin,
To write the song we’re living in.

Listening

’T is you that are the music, not your song.
  The song is but a door which, opening wide,
  Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
  Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
  This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
  The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
  Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
  Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
  One music with a thousand cadences. 

Amy Lowell

I can’t find a definitive answer. There are some genres—just a few—that don’t speak to me, but almost all music transforms the often banal rhythms of everyday life into something cinematic and wonderful.

I like to think that I’ve got this incredible range that spans from the raw power of punk to the grandiose drama of opera, the passionate intensity of flamenco to the groove mastery of Prince’s funk.

I am drawn to music that has intensity and emotional authenticity. This could be delivered through a screaming guitar, a soaring aria, or Prince’s unmistakable groove. I suppose these seemingly different genres all share that transformative cinematic quality. Each one paints everyday life with bold, dramatic strokes – just in very different colors.

Inner Soundtracks

Despite all critical advice, I have finally decided to watch Joker: Folie à Deux and actually liked it.

“Joker: Folie à Deux” succeeds brilliantly, in my opinion, in presenting music not as traditional Broadway spectacle, but as something far more intimate and psychologically honest—the way a real person might slip into musical response when processing their world. The film uses its musical sequences to show how characters experiencing mental illness might perceive reality, with songs emerging organically from their psychological states rather than as theatrical showstoppers.

This approach places the film in fascinating company with movies like “All That Jazz” and “Dancer in the Dark,” where musical elements emerge from psychological necessity rather than theatrical convention.

Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000) is a heart-wrenching musical drama that uses music as a form of escapism for its protagonist, Selma (Björk), a factory worker who is slowly losing her sight. Selma’s internal soundtrack is a series of elaborate musical numbers that she imagines to escape the harsh realities of her life.

The film’s musical sequences are starkly different from its grim, handheld-camera visuals. When Selma sings, the world around her transforms into a vibrant, dreamlike stage, filled with synchronized dancers and sweeping orchestration. These moments are not just fantasies; they are Selma’s way of coping with her struggles and finding beauty in an otherwise bleak existence.

What makes Dancer in the Dark so powerful is the contrast between Selma’s internal soundtrack and the external world. The music is a refuge, a place where she can momentarily forget her pain. However, as the film progresses, the line between her fantasies and reality begins to blur, leading to a devastating climax.

In All That Jazz, music isn’t just a backdrop—it’s the heartbeat of Joe Gideon’s world. The film uses musical numbers as a way to externalize Joe’s thoughts, fears, and desires. These sequences are often surreal, blending fantasy and reality in a way that mirrors Joe’s fragmented state of mind.

One of the most striking aspects of the film is how it uses music to explore Joe’s inner conflicts. For example, the recurring song “Take Off With Us” from the fictional musical Joe is directing becomes a metaphor for his own life—glamorous on the surface but deeply chaotic underneath. The musical numbers are often grandiose and theatrical, reflecting Joe’s larger-than-life personality and his tendency to escape into his art rather than confront his personal demons.

The film’s climax, set to the song “Bye Bye Life,” is a masterful use of music as an internal soundtrack. As Joe lies on his deathbed, he imagines a final, elaborate performance where he bids farewell to his loved ones and his own life. This sequence is both heartbreaking and exhilarating, as it captures Joe’s acceptance of his mortality while celebrating his passion for performance. The music here isn’t just a narrative device; it’s a window into Joe’s soul, revealing his regrets, his pride, and his ultimate surrender.

Like Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical exploration of a mind fracturing into musical fragments, “Joker” uses music both as a representation of psychological breaking and as an attempt to make sense of a fractured self.

What makes “Joker: Folie à Deux” particularly compelling is its critical examination of how audiences consume and destroy the very authenticity they claim to seek. Arthur’s relationship with his audience is fundamentally parasitic—they don’t see him as a person, but as a performance, a symbol, or a projection of their own desires. Even his most intimate musical moments become public spectacle, transforming personal expression into consumable entertainment.

This stands in stark contrast to David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” where Sailor’s Elvis channeling serves a completely different function. When Nicolas Cage’s Sailor breaks into Elvis, he’s not seeking validation—he’s expressing something essential about himself that can’t be contained in normal conversation. His musical moments are defiantly authentic, performed for himself and Lula while remaining beautifully unconcerned with audience approval.

The difference is crucial: Sailor tries to explain who he is but ultimately doesn’t need the audience’s approval, while Arthur is trapped in the tragic paradox of only being allowed to exist as what people think he is. In “Wild at Heart,” performance becomes liberation; in “Joker,” it becomes another form of confinement.

Both films explore the concept of shared reality, but they reach opposite conclusions about its power. Sailor and Lula’s relationship in “Wild at Heart” can be understood as a kind of folie à deux—a shared delusion—but it’s ultimately the fairy tale reinterpretation that wins out. Their shared fantasy world isn’t madness; it’s a shield against the real madness surrounding them. Their love story becomes a survival mechanism, with their heightened, stylized worldview protecting them from genuine grotesquerie.

“Joker: Folie à Deux,” however, suggests that shared musical reality is ultimately illusory. By the end, there’s the devastating recognition that nothing was truly shared—just parallel solitudes briefly overlapping before dissolving into the resigned acceptance of “That’s Life.”

Most of us also turn to internal soundtracks to help us process emotions, express what we can’t verbalize, and transform mundane moments into something more meaningful. Whether consciously or not, we live with our own ongoing musical theater—often of questionable taste—that helps us make sense of our daily experiences.

The key difference between healthy and destructive musical thinking lies in agency and authenticity. When our internal soundtracks serve genuine self-understanding rather than performance for others’ consumption, they become tools for emotional navigation rather than traps of external expectation.

David Lynch’s work consistently championed individual authenticity against societal norms, seeing personal expression as a sacred, almost magical force capable of transforming reality through sheer commitment to one’s authentic self.

This offers a hopeful counterpoint to “Joker’s” more pessimistic view of how individual authenticity can be crushed under the weight of public perception and media consumption. Where Lynch sees individual expression as liberating, “Joker” presents it as tragically vulnerable to commodification and distortion.

Perhaps the most honest approach to our internal musical theater is to embrace it with both commitment and humor—acknowledging its questionable taste while recognizing its genuine power to help us navigate life’s complexities. We can choose to be more like Sailor, using our personal soundtracks as tools for authentic self-expression, or risk becoming like Arthur, trapped by others’ expectations of our performance.

Music isn’t just entertainment—it’s a fundamental way humans process reality, express emotion, and connect with both ourselves and others. Whether it becomes a source of liberation or confinement depends on whether we’re performing for ourselves or for an audience that may never truly see us.

In the end, we’re all living with our own internal musical theater. The question isn’t whether this is normal or healthy—it’s whether we can maintain agency over our own soundtrack while staying true to the complex, sometimes ridiculous, often beautiful music of being human.

A Personal Note: The Power of the Snakeskin Jacket

After watching “Wild at Heart,” (for the first time) I was so moved by Sailor’s unapologetic authenticity—his commitment to being exactly who he was, snakeskin jacket and all—that I convinced my mother to buy me my own snakeskin jacket. It wasn’t about cosplay or imitation; it was about understanding that sometimes we need external symbols of our internal commitment to authenticity.

Like Sailor’s jacket, which he describes as “a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom,” my jacket became a reminder that it’s possible to navigate the world on your own terms, with your own soundtrack, regardless of what others might think. Sometimes the most profound cinematic experiences aren’t just about understanding characters—they’re about finding the courage to become more authentically ourselves.

That jacket still hangs in my closet, a tangible reminder that the best films don’t just entertain us—they give us permission to live more boldly, more musically, and more true to our own questionable-taste internal theater.

Whatever it might be

I will, most probably, not face it alone

Skunk Anansie, Porto, 02.08.2025

for Mordechai Vanunu

not to be complicit
not to accept everyone else is silent it must be alright

not to keep one’s mouth shut to hold onto one’s job
not to accept public language as cover and decoy

not to put friends and family before the rest of the world
not to say I am wrong when you know the government is wrong

not to be just a bought behaviour pattern
to accept the moment and fact of choice

I am a human being
and I exist

a human being
and a citizen of the world

responsible to that world
—and responsible for that world

Being a Human Being by Tom Leonard
Navigating Today’s Chaos with Skin’s Fearlessness

In the late 90s, when Skunk Anansie emerged with their fierce blend of alternative rock and political awareness, frontwoman Skin confronted society’s hypocrisy with unflinching honesty. Their music, to which I confess, I wasn’t paying much attention at the time, but can hear it loud and clear from the first time I saw them live, offered profound commentary on disillusionment, authenticity, and betrayal that remains startlingly relevant today.

In today’s social media landscape, we curate selective versions of ourselves, seeking validation in an ecosystem that promises universal acceptance while quietly enforcing rigid conformity. The anger in Skin’s voice when challenging religious and social hypocrisy reminds us that genuine acceptance remains conditional—algorithms, trends, and social capital determining who is seen and who remains invisible.

The message behind “God Loves Only You” resonates powerfully in an era where people preach inclusivity while practicing exclusion. We’ve traded explicit prejudice for implicit bias, creating environments where belonging still comes with unspoken qualifications. How many of us perform the correct political positions online while failing to embody those principles in our daily lives?

Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025

“It Takes Blood & Guts To Be This Cool But I’m Still Just A Cliché” highlights our contemporary paradox. We demand authenticity yet punish genuine vulnerability. Today’s world expects us to be fearlessly original yet utterly digestible, to stand out while fitting in. The song’s provocative title captures this contradiction perfectly.

Those who dare to exist outside accepted parameters face consequences ranging from algorithmic invisibility to outright harassment. Meanwhile, true boldness gets commodified, packaged, and resold as aesthetic without substance. We’ve developed sophisticated language for social justice while failing to achieve its fundamental aims—much like the performative rebellions Skin critiqued decades ago.

Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025

“Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)” offers another layer to our modern dilemma. In an era of instant gratification and endless distraction, the song’s exploration of pleasure without purpose speaks directly to our attention economy. Social media platforms are designed like casinos—engineered to maximize engagement through dopamine hits while creating little lasting satisfaction.

The chorus question, “Just because you feel good, does it mean that you’re right?” perfectly encapsulates our collective susceptibility to emotional reasoning. From consumer choices to political positions, we increasingly mistake feeling good for being right, comfort for truth. The hollow promise of digital hedonism—endless scrolling, outrage cycles, validation seeking—leaves us, as Skin powerfully articulates, “Empty like the hole you left behind.”

Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025

Skunk Anansie’s “Yes, It’s Fucking Political” delivers a raw, uncompromising message that challenges our ability to remain neutral in times of conflict. In today’s world, wars rage on physical battlefields and across digital information spaces. The song’s central assertion—that everything is political—cuts through comfortable illusions of neutrality.

As Skin defiantly proclaims in the song, political realities can’t be escaped or ignored; they shape our lives whether we acknowledge them or not. This truth resonates powerfully in our current moment, where algorithms curate our worldviews while creating the illusion of objective reality. The conflicts we witness—from armed struggles to culture wars—aren’t distant abstractions but forces that directly impact human lives.

The song’s visceral intensity highlights the frustration of those whose suffering is reduced to debate topics. Their existence is framed as “political.” Meanwhile, others enjoy the privilege of claiming neutrality. At a time when we can customize our information environments to screen out uncomfortable realities, Skunk Anansie’s confrontational approach reminds us that turning away from conflict doesn’t make it disappear—it merely privileges those who benefit from the status quo.

Skunk Anansie, Porto 03.18.2022

“This Means War” offers a perfect companion to these political themes by bringing conflict to the personal level. The song’s explosive energy captures the moment when diplomacy ends and confrontation becomes necessary—not just in global politics but in our individual lives and relationships.

In today’s world, we’re encouraged to compromise, to seek middle ground, to maintain peace at all costs—even when fundamental values and boundaries are at stake. “This Means War” reminds us that sometimes, drawing a line is not just appropriate but necessary. The song’s defiant stance resonates with anyone who has reached their breaking point after repeated betrayals or violations.

The lyrics speak to personal liberation through confrontation. This theme is particularly relevant today. We increasingly recognize how power imbalances shape even our most intimate relationships. When Skin sings about declaring war, she’s articulating the moment of reclaiming power after prolonged subjugation, of refusing further compromise after continual exploitation.

From setting boundaries with manipulative institutions to refusing engagement with bad-faith arguments, from breaking cycles of abuse to confronting systemic injustice. The song’s message isn’t about glorifying conflict but recognizing its necessity in certain contexts—a message that cuts against our culture’s emphasis on toxic positivity and endless accommodation.

Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025

I believed in you, well, I was wrong. How many institutions have failed us? How many movements have been corrupted from within? How many public figures have revealed themselves to be contrary to their cultivated image? We’re continually investing faith in platforms, personalities, and communities that promise connection but deliver surveillance, promise empowerment but deliver exploitation. We believed in the democratizing power of technology only to watch it amplify inequality. We believed in the possibility of genuine community only to experience unprecedented isolation.

Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025

Like the powerful vocals and words that define Skunk Anansie’s sound, perhaps mine (our ) response to today’s challenges should be neither whispered conformity nor performative outrage, but something more raw, more honest, and ultimately more revolutionary—the sound of our authentic voices, raised together. Hope, at this time, might be just naive optimism against all evidence but, it might as well be a deliberate choice made with full awareness of reality’s harshness.

In a world where climate anxiety, political polarization, economic uncertainty, and technological disruption create a perfect storm of existential dread, envisioning alternative futures becomes crucial. It is both a psychological necessity and a political act. My biggest challenge, I don’t think it’s particular to me, is how to simultaneously process difficult truths while maintaining the creative capacity to imagine beyond them.

It does take music to survive. Music like Skunk Anansie’s doesn’t just entertain—it validates our experiences, expresses our frustrations, and offers both catharsis and connection. In a world that can feel increasingly alienating and chaotic, that musical connection is essential. It becomes not just enjoyable but necessary for emotional survival.

Live performances add another dimension entirely. There’s something about being physically present in a space with other fans who understand the importance of these songs that creates a genuine community, even if just for a few hours. It’s a reminder that we’re not alone in our experiences or our reactions to the world.

Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025

Forever alive, forever forward

In a collection that’s grown to nearly 200 pairs (I couldn’t write on budgeting even if I was paid to do it), choosing a favorite seems almost unfair although not difficult.

When I look across what I wished was a carefully curated kingdom of footwear but it’s probably just a sign of some kind of derangement , my eyes always land on the same pair: my custom Converse All Stars emblazoned with Walt Whitman’s timeless words, “resist much, obey little.”

The customization process was simple enough—Converse’s website, a font choice, a color scheme that wouldn’t overshadow the message. But the impact was anything but simple. 

Whitman’s phrase—tucked into his poem “Caution”—spoke to something essential in me. A reminder that blind conformity is the enemy of growth. That questioning authority isn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake, but a necessary component of being and feeling alive.

“Resist much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.”

I received them in April 2024. In May I took them to New Orleans—my soul city. There’s something poetic about first breaking in shoes dedicated to resistance in a place that has itself resisted time, tragedy, and homogenization. Walking as if dancing, feeling the rhythm of this marvellous city, breathing music from morning to night, watching the white canvas collect the character of a city that refuses to surrender its identity—it felt like a perfect baptism for both the shoes and for me. I always feel more alive in New Orleans. I always feel I get to be myself anew.

They carried me through heartbreak in Greece, they were with me in Wembley to celebrate life with a friend that took me to see Bruce Springsteen and 60 thousand people whit hungry hearts, they got to see Ian Astbury who no longer is my teenage crush but can still stir something when singing about paradises in shattered dreams. They take me to work when I’m feeling disappointed and a bit defiant.

They remind me that authentic self-expression isn’t always comfortable, but it’s always worthwhile. That small acts of personal courage accumulate into a life of integrity. That sometimes the loudest statements are made in the quietest ways. That  resistance sometimes it’s as simple as a daily choice to live by your own compass.

References

Song of the Open Road

Walt Whitman’s Caution

Out of step

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
 
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
 
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1874)
Photo taken at Black Mamba – Burgers & Records, a very cool vegan burger place in Porto

When Soft Voices Die

Music, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap’d for the belovèd’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Trying to remember Ithaka

M. bought this dress Monday morning (my time zone) and the rest of my day was spent trying to remember what seemed to have been long forgotten.

I can’t remember the last time I wore this dress, but I am sure I wore it during a chilly evening in the summer of 1997 at a concert in Montemor‘s castle. I remember who was with me and the theory that “villages with medieval castles are always cold” but I could not remember who was playing.

Trying to dig up something that you have forgotten to remember from the pre-internet era is not always easy. I tried to google what I did remember. The same artist was also a photographer who, probably in the same year, had an installation called “I could write a book” at Galeria Zé dos Bois in Lisbon.  Inspired by the famous jazz standard, specifically by Dinah Washington’s rendition of it (1955), the installation featured an unmade bed, photos and diary entries and little notes from the time the author lived, in love, in Tokyo because if someone had asked him, he could have written a book.

If they asked me, I could write a book
About the way you walk, and whisper, and look
I could write a preface
On how we met
So the world would never forget

But I did forget and, as the day progressed I felt more and more irritated at not being able to recall the name. Probably C. went with me to Lisbon so I decided to send an email explaining my quasi existential doubt of the day. He thought it was absurd and called me. He had no recollection whatsoever of such installation he most probably did go but couldn’t remember. We also saw this same guy at Labirintho, I said. Remember that? We went with another friend who got drunk and almost in trouble. Remember that? I even remember where we had parked the car and that we drove away and Cake’s Fashion Nugget was playing. He could not remember anything at all. It seems like we have done really interesting stuff together in the 90s, though.

By 8 pm I could recall some Greek connection and my Google search was “Californian musician, Greek ancestry, living in Lisbon in the 90s”. There it was an article about “the greatest Portuguese talents of the 90s”, about the great “unknown”, groundbreaking talent of Portuguese Pop/Rock and the growing popularity of Dance and Hip-Hop scenes. Finally Darin Pappas, aka Ithaka Darin Pappas aka Korvowrong and the album “Stellafly”, the most powerful and consistent national registry edited in 1997. That might help explain why I seemed to have travelled across the country to hear him even if now it doesn’t really make much sense.

But then again, C.P. Cavafy’s IthaKa is the conclusion that it’s never about getting there but always about the search, as long as you understand what the Ithakas mean.

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
 
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
 
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
 
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

 

I texted the name and sent it to C. “wtf, who remembers that” was the answer. Right.

Now, the material trigger for all this is on its way to another hemisphere and I hope it will continue to inspire random thoughts, impromptu travels, silly theories and becomes someone else’s story.

Tropicália

I’m standing at the entrance of the  room checking Caetano Veloso get on stage for the technical rehearsal of this evening’s show. And this is actually happening. Tropicália, one of the founding songs of the movement, echoes in the empty room and Caetano’s voice seems to hold me in a hug.

I grew up listening to Brazilian music, not specifically to Caetano whose music I only discovered in my 20s,  but to the amazing voices of Elis Regina, to the powerful words of Chico Buarque and the outrageous performances of Ney Matogrosso. That music, those words,  have functioned as my citizenship, like a deeper connection to a language that even though it’s my native language, I have never managed to master in an elegant way but could, none the less, substitute my passport.

I was not born in 1967, my generation didn’t actually have to create a revolution, we were born in the aftermath of insurrection and before red carnations took to the streets.

Brazil, a country I traveled to for the first time when I was 9, meant as a cliché, samba, beach and a carefree existence. Caetano’s songs showed me something else. A country that can hold the entire world in both its glory and its misery. I started paying attention to the music that makes you want to get up and celebrate life through dancing and to the words that make you stand still and think. Last time I was in Brazil was in 2000 while the celebrations for its 500 years of postcolonial history were underway. Walking through the streets of Salvador all the way up to a candomblé house made me feel thankful for paying attention. That’s where the music materialized itself, in the Roma Negra.

From Porto Seguro and Salvador, the journey ended in Rio de Janeiro and I could still hear the words, who hasn’t felt the swing of Henri Salvador. We were staying in Copacabana and took the bus to the Flamengo neighborhood to see the Carmen Miranda Museum on an amazing journey through scandalous platform shoes and outrageous costumes and jewelry. A dream closet. In all her esthetic exaggeration, the adopted icon of tropicalism was a true precursor, taking it all in, who she was, who others thought she was, Europe, America and the tropics in one flamboyant persona.

Oswald’s anthropophagy, the solution to the problem of identity, the antidote to having your mind chained to labels and to grim  values of behavior and morality. Thoroughly thought anarchy and cultural eclecticism, helas, flamboyance as a beautiful form of resistance.

Movements become dated and even our music heroes get old but this evening, the Coliseu sang Tieta to the ones that still shine brighter than a million suns and Gilberto Gil, all dressed in white, danced. And I have no films, photos or recordings and yet it will be registered forever.

References

Photo cover to Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis by Mário de Andrade

Reconvexo

Luz de Tieta