my last post was april 2012. i went off music. and it was GOOD for me. SO good. SO VERY GOOD.
this past spring, i came back to it.
and well, there's no way to catch up on 83 months of music.
but here we are and here she is, a one-woman-wonder.
her vibe is infectious. so much soul. voice. and i love how she layers everything so slowly here.
a little skanky guitar.
a blues inspired bit.
a rockabilly bit.
then that gorgeous melody cascading down on it all.
some percussive bass giving it even more depth.
high hat.
who doesn't love hand-claps?
and then that voice.... i'm done.
she even adds some pure rock guitar in there, and does it all while pets and flat-mates make peek-a-boo appearances onto the set: her very normal, lived-in living room.
berber women in parts of africa are restricted from dancing, or must do so on their knees.
we may feel outrage at this, but how about resrictions we put on ourselves? i for one have spent so much of my life containing myself.
i've restricted words, movements, emotions, covered myself up, locked myself in... you name the cage, i've built and lived in it.
yet recently i've felt distrust melt into innocent friendliness. opinions loosen into open-mindedness. and stiffness flower into the most oddly refreshing movement... like learning to walk for the first time.
discussing this with one of my teachers, i mentioned the idea of swirling with the sufis. his response was that even this would limit; that i should instead find a forest and let the natural world move me.
and here deep in the forest what music would rattle through my head, pour out of my ears and echo through the trees? something berber, no doubt.
this one goes out to everyone occupying spaces and places and voicing their desire for a fair shot at life.
i had a dream about an exchange programme where little palestinian kiddos would go live with isreali families for the summer and israeli kiddos spent summer with palestinian families. within a few generations we'd start to see a peaceful shift between the two. idealistic utopian dream? perhaps.
what about the 1% and the 99% of the occupy movements? suit: take a single mother's spot for a couple of months... take on her jobs. take care of her kids, her sick mother and pay her bills. woman, put on a power tie, get used to that smartphone, and spend those big bucks responsibly. spend your evenings alone in an empty apartment or constantly entertaining clients and making sure your grass is as green as envy. let's see how you both feel in a month. i know, i know. far flung dream?
the reality is, to our fearful egos, poverty and joblessness are a hop and skip away from homelessness and homelessness is a stone's throw from death. there is no way we will give up what we got to see how other people feel. because we're afraid we'll die!
so what can we do? in any power struggle, you self-preserve when you stop feeding the machine. choose the mom and pop shops. stop buying oil one day each week. then two days, then three. how about giving up blackberries and iphones? home phones for a while? do we need so much electricity? and water? if the average african uses 10 litres of water a day, surely we north americans can do with less than 400. every day there are lineups at starbucks, at the apple store. shopping malls are full in the middle of the day. the supermarket even has self checkout. how about visiting a proper market vegetable stand? you know, the one with the owners working the cash?
sure we can cause an economic collapse. isn't that the goal?
it' about time, because this misery ain't new. right, marvin?
marvin gaye - inner city blues (makes me wanna holler):
maybe what we didn't do in the 70s was make our revolution a bit more fun. perhaps revolve with a little rump shake?
sly & robbie - inner city blues (makes me wanna holler):
it's thanksgiving again in canada and all weekend i've been counting my blessings:
- beach walking and forest hiking-time in indian summer heat.
- silliness and antics with my adorable baby niece.
- hanging with family and friends at indulgent (and yummy) international thanksgiving dinners...
but that doesn't mean that life is all sunshine and stuffing...
i just found out i have rotoscoliosis which despite my chiropractor's frown, i am determined to reverse, along with bunions, fallen arches, dislocated knee, loose kneecaps and inverted hips. i should also have massive headaches, but i haven't gotten around to them yet as i've been busy working my spine into a corkscrew.
and yet, i feel fine. i'm actually thankful. a friend got me into her gym (lemme tell you even trainers i've been with weren't successful at it). another fitness consultant friend recommended chiro before working out (who woulda thought?). i have an amazing chiropractor in the family. and... i've got gwenyth paltrow's personal trainer's supa dupa exercise video so i can have some ballet-style fun.
all this to say: true thankfulness means being thankful for everything. not just the good but also the bad and ugly. the foundation of thankfulness is acceptance. accept it all. be grateful for it, all of it steers you forward. even if on fallen arches.
so carrying on the tradition of sly on thanksgiving, tonight's musical thank you gets a little funky. this is going on my gym rotation.
sly & the family stone - thank you (fallettinme be mice elf agin):
where i live, kids are back in school. cottage season is ending. everyone is back from holidays.
and we're on schedules. we're busier. campaigns start. sales pick up. meetings get booked. end-of-year planning. next-year planning. prime-time tv season. sports season. gym memberships renew. we rush around. coffee on-the-go, lunch on-the-go. we don't have dinner together. we optimize and prioritize and try to be efficient and multi-task. traffic builds.
....but what would happen if we slowed down a little bit? what if we, for one day tried a little experiment?
yes, us. what if we - for one day - looked at ourselves and at one other as we really are? instead of as humans, with bodies and thoughts, opinions, motives and actions... what if we stripped it all away, stepped back and felt ourselves and each other as we really are?
as souls? ........what would happen?
the only thing we want as souls, is peace. so i challenge you, to a day of soulfulness. try it with family, with co-workers, with friends, with that lady at the corner store, with strangers on the train. interact soul to soul. see if it opens a doorway to peace. even in the busy times. even in september.
death has come up to look me in the eye. and leave me with questions.
i have often wondered what life is. i mean, what is it that animates us? what makes a human being, an animal, a plant, a single celled organism -- all essentially earth, fire, wind and water -- but what magical thing or energy makes our elements 'come alive'?
a close friend was remembering watching her father during his last days, telling me that he had everything taken away from him. he lost the use of his body, his ability to communicate, his mind. and then she said this:
"the only thing that remained was love. all he had left was his ability to give love and his ability to receive love...."
and so there's my answer.
so, this track is from emo dada, a danish producer and vocalist, snd is dedicated to you, my long lost friends, you know how you are.
emo dada - yes baby fly:
...and then a little something for me, to fill me up with the stuff that keeps me alive...
"...then a voice spoke in my head, and she said: dark is not the opposite of light, it's the absence of light...."
just coming off a 10 day silent mediation retreat and i feel a little changed, but surprisingly not much.
having a blog tributed to sound, it may seem a little odd to seek silence. but it feels like it was the most natural thing to do. in music each note makes one appreciate its complement. and each sound ultimately pays respect to its parent, the sound of silence.
what i've come to know is silence is the foundation of all sound. it's always there. even when we forget, it's there: patient, calm, waiting, full of grace. and when we recognize this, we recognize ourself as the silence. the highest resonance of all...
i remembered this track (yes those nutty buddhist beastie boys) while walking in the gardens on my retreat... watching the butterflies play in the shade of the tall trees all around, the countryside painted a lush green.
like colour on canvas all the mind's thought and feeling painted on our being.
harnessing the creative energy coursing through me - i'd like to interpret one of my favourite tracks from one of my favourite producers.... here's my loose lyrical adaptation of nitin sawhney's slow-moving boundary-crossing love letter, "moonrise", vocals courtesy of rai singer, cheb mami and brazilian vocalist, nina rocha miranda.
don't feel sadness when my light fades away you'll leave the dark life when you see the moon play taking its place you'll find waves of sadness for your grace
and so one day a story of peace after the storm washes the pain and a future that couldn't be calm after the rain with eyes that even in the dark, still see
and no, i don't speak brazilian portugese... if anyone can take on the arabic i'd be impressed...
when people ask me what makes me so happy i usually smile and say things like "sunshine" and "flowers"... but i think people ask because they think i'm a perpetually, boundlessly happy person.
let me dispel this myth and then share a little secret.
life is never easy. truthfully, it's tough to appreciate happiness without comparing it to its opposite, so i'm grateful even for sadness (there's a little hint in here by the way...).
now, onto the secret!
averaged out, i grew up in a happy home. and of all the reasons, i can point to one very musical one: every morning, without fail, my dad sang. you'd hear him in the kitchen making our lunch and just singing. like no one was listening.
(thankfully he has a great voice)
in fact, when we kids were little, he and my mom would pile us into the car like kittens at the crack of dawn and the requisite sing-along would promptly begin. unless my mom was driving, you'd never hear duran duran or tears for fears in our car, no. it was always the same: we'd clear the driveway and devotional songs from the mosque would fill the crisp morning air. wishing i was still in pyjamas, nodding off like a bobblehead toy stuck to the dashboard, with voice barely there, i'd have to sing. how annoying. how uncool.
truth is, i catch myself doing it now... on my own, in the shower, in the car driving to work, without prompting. and guess what? i believe it keeps me happy. so there's the secret: sing. pick something melodic, something sweet, lovely, uplifting. sing your heart out! do it first thing in the morning. wake up with music filling you up inside so much that you just gotta let it out.
so for you dad, i'm posting some indian soundtrack-ghazal music. the best. rahat fateh ali khan, nephew of ustad nusrat fateh ali khan, legendary qawwali singers. let it warm up, because i just know you will sing along and do your finger tapping thing at the wheel!
it's the holidays and i've decided to catch up on the quirky and arty and underrated films i haven't had a chance to watch yet....
one such film is "please give", the opening of which is a montage of several women's breasts - in all manner of shapes, sizes, colours, and volumes - all being plopped and squished down by a glass plate for mammograms. the funny thing is, the best part of the montage isn't the breasts. nope! not at all. it's the song they play over this mammary montage: a quirky tune called 'no shoes' by the roches.
the band is comprised of three sisters who started their musical journey by singing christmas carols in their new jersey neighbourhood while in high school back in the 1960s. 'no shoes' is taken from a recent release called "moonswept".
with about 15 records under their belt (more if you count them individually or in duos), along with their lovely harmonies, quirky lyrics, immense stage and recorded presence, the roches managed to somehow fly under my radar. until i watched 'please give' the other day. i literally had to pause the film and shazam the thing.
so here's my christmas carol to you this year! hope you like.
Posts
