Some days are just worse than all others. Heavy. Unbearable. Stretched to infinity. When all you want to do is shut yourself off from the world, crawl under the blankets and disappear.
What do you do?
Wait
Run
Walk for hours, until your feet starts aching
Talk about it
Be silent about it
Let yourself be sad
Cry
Pull yourself together
Listen to something soothing, that would help to take your thoughts away.
Like something heavy.
or Mozart
or Vintage Trouble.
Just drift in the music, until it's all over.
I have noticed that people have different attitudes on chewing gum - when is it polite/nice/appropriate to have something in your mouth in public? Well, it depends. But there is an absolute no to it - when you are on the stage. I was thinking of it during Dato Evgenidze's concert, where one young boy was blowing (a trumpet? cannot remember for sure....) and chewing gum at the same time. He was good. But so out of the context with those jaws moving. At those moments he was not sincere, was not all in the music - some part of him was distracted from it.
...what are you hiding from?...
People like making barriers. Having a safe space between themselves and others. It is pretty frightful to endorse the world and be to the fullest - but if you try once to see others as simply human beings, who maybe came to listen to your music; or to hear what you have to say; or just happened to be around, you can make some big discoveries. The biggest one - that everything is much more simple than it looks...
Pic borrowed, from http://www.simonedecker.com/WorksChewinginVenice10.html
There are such musicians who are clearly in their shoes. They enjoy what they are doing - and let you enjoy it too. A little while ago I attended a real party on the stage - Dato Evgenidze's anniversary of 45 years on the stage. It seemed he knows that it's his evening, and he was taking it all - the fun, the attention, the sound, and the joy of improvisation. And for the listeners it was over one hour of most sincere musical performance: how often can you see a piano player who uses it all - the keys, the strings, the inside, the outside....? I left wanting more, and thinking that music can be everything and come from everywhere - if you only thirst for it.
Sometimes it happens that I cannot fall asleep. It's been two weeks now - no matter how I try, my eyes are not closing until 3am. It's a strange feeling - being alone in the middle of the night, no sound, no movement, only thoughts. They start from one, which sticks in the mind and screams "please develop me into an endless thread of other thoughts, please please - are you sleeping yet? and now? and now? cmooooon". Wish I had a switch-off for thinking.
But then I always remember one book, read long time ago, which explains the meaning of insomnia. "Schlafes Bruder" (by Robert Schneider, would be in German. It tells the story about a boy who helplessly fell in love and decided not to sleep - because he who sleeps does not love. And then, not willing to loose those precious moments, he decides not to sleep - even though it means eventual death. The story is so tragic, and yet has something magical in it... and so musical too.
From a movie "Schlafes Bruder", according to the book
This weekend was just great! Not only because of sun and warmth; and not only because it was weekend; and not only because we went to a concert. Ken Hensley, the founder of legendary Uriah Heep was in Tbilisi for an acoustic concert, and he made it all real special (Uriah Heep is this really famous rock band from the 70s, of which I found out only last year, even though some songs had been surely familiar. So I guess I can't be very snobbish and up-nosed about it now, can I...?).
The concert was simple, in a cozy semi-renovated hall, for less than 500 people, just Ken Hensley and his guitar/piano; later a local band joined (how cool is that, to play with such a celebrity? One of the pluses of Georgia - it's a small country, and community of any alternative trends is even smaller = you can be really special easier:). People could ask questions, and they did - from the most banal ("how do you like our country") to quite interesting ones; from short and concrete to remembrance stories ("do you remember how you were playing "July Morning" in Tokio and drinking water simultaneously?" He did! And he repeated it!). And in this small hall he gave all himself to people who came to listen; and you could really feel that it's a real music, something of a value, something not to be missed.
My favorite track (okok, the only on e I knew before the concert...:)) but still great, rait? :)
Just couldn't stop comparing it to the concert of Bob Dylan in Vilnius, a couple of years ago. The Great Musician was sitting almost his back to people; everyone was asked to remain seated, not to stand or dance or move in any way. The whole evening reminded a public movie screening - he was equally remote, just like all his band. Why did they even come there, no idea. Thanks to Ken Hensley though, for bringing back my faith in great musicians and their music.
Recently I have watched a movie with Nicolas Caige, and I think he is the strongest man on this planet. Why? cause....he managed to corner the Devil himself, with the bear hands holding him to the wall (wow!). Now, it is both sadly heroic - as in a way it symbolizes the eternal human's wish to fight the evil. And yet it is mostly sad and disappointing. Since when Devil has been so underestimated? Did the moviemakers do their homework to get deeper in this subject, or did they purposely place the Devil next to "all other bad guys", making him just another terminator, terrorist, some wicked madman, whom a human could match and actually beat? (and beat - with a sword, as if it was of flesh).
The trailers and a scene where the good guys are fighting with the evil spirits, I suppose, show enough.
Enjoy the trailers and save your time. The movie's not so much worth it :)
"And then the toasts began, as they had for centuries. The largest man, rotund with a beaming red face and a mayoral disposition, rose with his glass in his hand, and began to speak.
Otari the tamada began an elegy to women, benediction, dedication, acknowledgment. After women, Otari elaborated his toasts into a series of the family, on children, on wives (everyone laughed - wives were, after all, a necessary evil), grandparents (one of his daughters had recently given birth to a boy), to sons (to grow up strong and take your place in the future), to love, to happiness (which does not depend on money but only on the things that had been previously drunk to).
I was happy; charmed, drunk and beguiled like thousands of guests and invaders before me, in the land of hospitality."
