I always have to start the same way. I sit. I stare. I make little compromises with the moments. When my heart is full I speak. When I'm with you I always forget that I am 20 feet tall and that my voice can be oppressive; but how do I explain that the mass of being housing those words is just a cluster navigating the pull of the thing inside me, something I've hidden away and whose gravity I stand to, a stable anchor and the loneliest prison by turns? It is so small, but dense beyond the weight of my own life to ever mitigate it completely; for better or worse it defines me. I told you that if I dared to touch it, my world would change forever. And of the many scenarios it is not obliteration, but desolation that I fear, that there will be nothing to reflect colours and that in a barren apathy I will preside over the graves of the tears and the laughter. But there are flowers in Hiroshima.
We walk and we talk. We walk away and are drawn back again, orbitting the space we share. We vibrate and we echo over the shapes we pass. We walk down the street together, spending words thriftlessly, but there is the comforting stillness of the earth itself rooted to us. We alight upon a hill and sit, steeping in silence, and my new senses open to track the rush of soft orange light as it floods the rooftops, slides liquid under the stars and returns to wash and enfold us. At night the universe is unbounded, undelineated, and infinite; by its graces I cloak myself with it and clumsily map other people's dreams. But with you I get my own, and even with the fiery brand of the sun inscribing and defining everything, I find solace in the beautiful shadows we have secreted away. But I owe you what's yours, and if that could mean standing aside, there will be flowers in Hiroshima.
The above is my long overdue response to one part of a friendly debate Justin and I had, the second part of which pertained to whether I am justified in giving a swift rust-can kick to R2D2's goldenboy status in favour of the literally golden, erudite, and misunderstood droid that is C3PO. I think that it is a much needed addition of whimsy and fun to the corpus of this blog, though Mark doesn't seem to think that it qualifies as "lighthearted," perhaps because his definition of the word doesn't include verbal vitriol pasted to the face of an evil child; to each their own haha.
First, a tedious reminiscence: I remember my last spring in Japan. My craving for an A&W Teen burger was starting to manifest as a real physical pain, and only Krystel was capable of offering a possible remedy for my home-sickness: Filipino food. After assaulting her with much begging (broken up by intermittent tirades about her visiting Shirakawa without allowing me the courtesy of bothering her), I was invited for a wonderful dinner at her apartment in Takayama. To make the evening an embarrassment of riches, Justin and Marina were coming with some Brazilian food too. After spoiling me with a long overdue breakfast of longanisa and pan de sal, Krystel set me to work wrapping lumpia and to pass the time, we watched youtube videos. Long story short, Michael Jackson's video for "Rock with You" entered the rotation. As often happens to me recently, something that was old and familiar was suddenly becoming something that I was really seeing for the first time. Even though the majority of my rhythmic faculties were held in check by cold meaty filling clinging to my fingers, I was starting to lose my rolling discipline: Krystel's lumpia were appetizingly clone-like (a yummy quality conducive to binge-eating because it discourages counting), while mine were quickly looking misshapen and random as funk-induced spasms rippled through my frame. Consequently that video soaked into my subconscious.
Now, before I go on, I went to such lengths talking about food (as I often do), that I feel it is correct for me to conclude the thread regarding that evening's dinner by commenting that a) enjoying Krystel's adobo made me appreciate white vinegar and Japan's lack of it, b) Marina is herself a competent chef whose creamy stroganoff-looking dish allowed me to effect the greatest gut-density I have ever experienced, and c) Justin is an charming dinner companion even though he thinks Olivia aka thatssoraven was cuter than Rudy Huxtable. Phew, are you still with me? We'll get to the video in a second.
Now flash-forward a year: I'm back in Canada entering my third season as a volunteer complacency-expert. I cannot recall the exact date of my epiphany (because the days have been bleeding together for a while now), but I can say with certainty that like most mornings I broke fast alone with leftovers and worked through a crossword puzzle with Ellen and the Sopranos playing in the background (ps. that's not the name of another amywinehouse-esque soul nostalgia band; I hate commercials so I flip between both shows even though I'm not really watching either). Then at some point while vacuuming in my sweats, Mayer Hawthorne's "Maybe So Maybe No" gave way to "Rock With You," and what happened next is between myself and the hallway mirror haha...
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I think the following picture will resonate with a lot of people:
You and your friends are out for So-and-so's birthday. So-and-so hedges their bets, chooses one of those lowest common denominator clubs with no sense of character or identity, trying to please everybody and succeeding with no one. The first thing everyone does is throw a shot of sourjacks or tequila down their throats so they can get through the night, then two more, then three. If your now rosily flushed collective manages to tiptoe down to the dance floor, it's only because the lazy DJ trusted you all to fistpump while insinscreaming "tonight's gonna be a good night" at each other, and he was right! Now you are all just riding that initial momentum, only slightly modifying your standing drunk-wobble into a feeble two-step, until finally dundundun you are all standing in a huge circle smirking pathetically at each other.
That was a little dramatic but you just felt a cold shiver didn't you? If you didn't and that's not a bad night for you, you are lucky so go on and enjoy yourself. But for those of you who feel shame or self-alienation whenever music demands its natural response, I'm here to tell you that in '79 Michael Jackson gave you a special gift.
We often remember him for the bombastic, spectacular aspects of his star persona; with respect to the music this boils down to crotch-grabs, moonwalks, and the most iconic dance choreography in pop music. The key-word there being choreography: during an entire career spanning the smooth Motown stepping of the Jackson 5 to the "Thriller" zombie-shuffles, only the Off the Wall videos show you Michael Jackson, the person, actually dancing. Now before I have everyone up in arms, let me qualify my definitions for that word: in my opinion there are two types of dancing. One is performative, in the sense that it demands a spectator. Whatever feats of rhythmic kineticism you get to witness, as a viewer your responses will more often than not polarize you from the performer. Take for example the crowd watching a breakdancing competition: arms are crossed and heads are bobbing only to mark the timing of the dancer. Whether they're giving props or boo-ing, this is a posture of judging. And for the dancers awaiting their turn to ignite the hardwood, one could argue that there is a competitive, if friendly, colouring to their perception of their peers. Or consider that same quality on a different scale: the audience of a ballet sits quietly in darkness viewing the spectacle on stage. Or even consider how it is that eyes work in the first place: the retina is just a mirror reflecting light, and as spectators we don't exist where the colour comes from, we are by necessity removed from it; we don't get to shine. In other words, while this type of dancing definitely constitutes an important aesthetic experience, it doesn't necessarily make you want to dance yourself. The other type of dancing does however.
Does anyone think that if they were so blessed to share the dance floor of a wedding reception with the real Michael that he would be "on" the entire time, spinning and kicking and smoothcriminal-ing for hours? I like to think that if Michael ever had the opportunity to share that moment of simple human joy with us, he would be just like how he is in "Rock With You". He would listen to the music, whatever it was, and let his body tell him what to do. Of course, when you watch the video he is obviously "performing" in the sense that he knows that there is a camera there, just like when you are busting it out on the floor you know that somebody's watching. But look at his face, does it look like he cares, or that any kind of scrutiny could deter him? And if the lyrics weren't clear enough, after seeing him (or anybody else for that matter) move so freely and intuitively, don't you want to move too?
To be fair, the video for "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" laid the groundwork for "Rock With You". It is similarly sparse in choreography, with Michael dancing and singing in front of vivid psychedelic backdrops. However ironic it may sound though, there is something mannered and restrained about MJ in the fly tux compared to the emotional honesty of MJ in a bedazzled sparkle suit. Consider the ethereal green glow, the laser halo, and the spotlight: that's how we should feel when we're locked into a groove so tight that we have to close our eyes and let the syncopation flow through us.
The best DJ's are the ones engaged in conversations with their audiences. Granted not everyone goes out to boogie (I love when Kweli says that "we used to use a club to hit and drag her by the hair / still use a club to get her a martini or a beer") and when a DJ plays the right set, he or she catalyzes an entire range of reactions from the people who are listening. But I can say with confidence that the most gratifying response for a DJ is dancing, when an entire room of people is united by nothing more than the overwhelming urge to react in their own way to the Pulse.
So don't just look at Michael; he's not going to wait for you. Move. And if you're going to do that, do it like it's just you and the Man in the Mirror.
We are always falling. Gravity is always pulling us down, the strength of its tug in proportion to our mass. This is a metaphysical truth too. We are born into the climax of our light and we learn to stumble often and well. As we age our light leaves us, and as we begin to ease into oblivion, the pull begins to ease as well. When we return to darkness, there is nothing left to pull.
Here I am on a mountain. I watch as we all climb to the top, brimming with potential and quavering with apprehension. Then we simply fall. Sometimes we proceed with finesse and play with the elements as they fall from us. Other times we forge ahead with vigour, our momentum meant as ambivalence to what surrounds us, the mountains and the trees. But we are always falling.
It used to be that the trees held us on our way down. For better or for worse, in help or in hindrance, our path necessitated their participation. But we have cleared them away, trusting in however our own mitigations may bring us to the end. Now they only watch, their solitary, un-moving mass contextualizing our reckless speed. I didn’t choose for them not to be there; now I just have to go down.
I stand at the top and I plunge forward artlessly, seeking the end and the receptacle of my memories. I grow anxious with forgetting and loosen my grip. Near the end the slope has lessened but I have lost everything. So I climb to the top again...
Near the beginning of Marie Chouinard’s “Orpheus and Eurydice,” a playful and slightly sinister nymph (?) swallows a golden bell; at the performance’s end the audience is delighted with a display of magical peristalsis that ends with her proudly producing another golden bell from her, well, you can guess. This is a rare ballet where rather than simply observing, the audience must reconcile themselves to the idea of dance itself. No doubt other works aspire to this, whether as an explicit aim or a peripheral goal, but I have never felt it so poignantly as in Chouinard’s production.
The ballet is constructed in every aspect to call the viewer to self-reflection, shocking them from passive observation to a visceral and yet riveting sense of participation. While watching I found myself being addressed; I felt that as a member of the audience I was validated as a necessary aspect of the performance. I was part of a circuit whereby information coded in sound and movement was passed through me and back to the dancers. Nowhere was this more powerful as when Eurydice herself climbed up into the audience in a vain attempt to escape hell. Or perhaps she was making her return? Such reflections are commonplace in a production that seeks to destroy the linear and keep us cognizant of being part of a dynamic cycle.
Take the sounds for example. Relentless and merciless are two words which come to mind, and they are not expressed in the negative sense. The score is a cacophony of horns and explosive percussions. Shrill notes are looped to build tension and when we are finally granted a moment’s calm we feel as if it is because we have reached our limit to withstand it, at which point the process is begun anew. And when there are quiet moments, the whisper of the music is like a cold bracing wind tracing our naked backs. I was reminded of the fury and majesty of the tide riding a cliff-face.
To this backing the dancers are constantly vocalizing in a manner that many critics have called “gibberish.” While it is true that there is no “grammar” that can be applied to it and nothing as trite as a “sentence” that can be gleaned from it, this “speaking” is not meaningless. In fact, it signifies nothing more and nothing less than “body music.” Or the sounds that flow from the dancers’ movements as they gyrate, pulse, spasm, leap, twist, mug, hump, and crawl from one moment to the next. One of the ballet’s central motifs has individuals gesture as if pulling words from their gaping mouths; first slowly and then building with a desperate rapidity, tones are produced that are at times like a single utterance deconstructed, and at others like the contents of an entire speech raging into one moment.
There are in fact words and sentences in the normal sense, including a bare exposition of the Orpheus myth and a statement of Chouinard’s guiding interpretation of it. The former seems obligatory because the latter, presented later and wilfully distorted by its vocalizer, is drowned out by the flurry of music and movement on stage, which ironically serve the same function. The only words to ring clear were “Don’t look back!” That this charge is significant is taken for granted given the subject matter, but it is how Chouinard reveals it to be significant that is the most interesting.
Orpheus is the tutor of the muses, and by extension, the father of all poetry in the Western Tradition. We are told that his inspired eloquence was sufficient for Hades to sanction Eurydice’s conditional salvation, and yet Orpheus is treated as merely a foil. The iconic scene of his escape happens at the early middle and is the only part of the ballet that has a deliberate sense of plot or even temporal progression. He makes his grave escape with elegant and deliberate strides, his arm offered back to Eurydice who follows in like-manner; they are both silent while all around them are figures enacting maelstroms of movement. Some prance across the stage with serpents undulating from their lips. Another references Sisyphus and his boulder by rolling a black ball to and fro. Still others have joined their bodies to form monsters of many limbs and heads. While we seek to apply these images to the traditional iconography of the myth, we are dissuaded from doing so by the lack of any overtures to capital T Tradition whatsoever, let alone linearity. While at other times we are treated with what seem like androgynous satyrs high-heel-hoofed and swinging prodigious phalli, or Dionysian orgies complete with gilded nipples, what overshadow these details is the spectacle of movement itself.
This is a world without Orpheus and his songs, a place of action without artifice or construction. The sounds here are not affected by symbolism or even the weight of thought; they are simply and profoundly the primal yawps of our bodies. Every muscular burst of vibration rushes forth like echolocation, colliding with the audience, returning to the dancer, and triggering more vibrations. The emotions of fear, lust, and exultation are presented to us raw, and they proceed from one another like atoms colliding.
Combining her sounds with the choreography of her dancers, Chouinard has created a palette of textures so forceful and engaging that we are forced to either resonate with them or reject them. Either way, we have to swallow and process every vibration thrown towards us and, having taken them in, we reciprocate by being riveted. We don’t have time for anything but feeling; thinking constitutes a halt in the process. So who can blame the audience when the beautiful Eurydice, savagely treading theatre seats in her ascent, climbs past us and we are told not to “look back”? We resist but ultimately we join Orpheus in his transgression, so undeniable are the vibrations and the sensations they elicit.
By the time that shiny bell is reproduced, we have undergone an odyssey of our own. Marie Chouinard has chosen to focus on the journey itself. In our travels hell is wherever we happen to be going; somewhere we walk towards and back away from again. Chouinard doesn’t give us any time to consider good or bad because we are meant to be moving. Nor do we have any time to consider our “liking” of the production until we have left the echoes and the flushed atmosphere of the theatre behind. Whatever reactions are produced by the re-assertion of our rationality, we are left thrilled and aching with every fibre of our bodies.
This song was waiting for me for a long time. If memory serves, the first time I had heard it was during my winter vacation back in Canada. As is typical of my lifestyle back home, it was 4 in the morning and I was crouched on a chair at my desk, possibly eating chocolate. I played the song, noted it, and then quickly forgot it. Then today, in a cafe nestled safely within my remote village, an ocean away from that life, I sat at a table surrounded by other staff of my school, absorbed by my own musings while staring at the mountains. Rediscovering the song two days before, I had played the song repeatedly, not really knowing or even thinking of why; just revelling in the aesthetic pleasures of it.
Then, sitting in that cafe, the ghost of a cheesecake haunting the plate in front of me, people talking in muted tones around me, myself tracing the bare pines of the distant range, bare trunks coiling to spring into verdant blush, an image of startling clarity and simplicity flashed in my mind to the sound of this music. A tree. I couldn't say what type; more than the data required to make that judgment, this tree was an idea. And when such a poignant idea manifests, it transforms everything around it. If this song that I was hearing was the air around the tree, it was not like the air that usually surrounds us, or the air that surrounded my physical self at that moment. In that particular time and space, the physical air was like a solvent into which myself and the people around me were dissolved. The same air surrounded us and permeated our tissues, and yet could not draw us into the same reality, our forms being delineated by a common void, joined only by what separated us. No, that music was the air summoned by the tree to be its voice. The music was the tree and vice versa. Seeing that tree, and breathing that music, I was no longer in Japan.
I wasn't in a cafe in Shirawaka Village, but I also wasn't bounding over Mt. Haku to the sea and back home. One isn't spoken to by a tree and possessed by an urge to fly. If you are called by a tree to listen and to see, and you allow yourself to do so, you bear witness to another type of movement altogether. Not a linear movement from A to B, but a movement in stillness; a movement betrayed only by breathes building into hours into years into ages. This is why looking at the rings of a severed tree trunk, I feel both a sense of exaltation and sadness. Wrapped inseparably tight within those rings are the traces of countless lives, animal, plant, and human. To be able to see a tree that way, and to see life that way for that matter, is to stand outside of it. "Step back and see the big picture," we say. But to do that we have to step out of line, out of our place, out of the process, perhaps out of life. To see that tree, I had to leave behind those kind teachers sitting with me in that cafe.
The best love songs, like this one, embody that same dilemma. What do we want to hear in a love song? Better yet, if we could all sing one of our own, what would we say? When a poem is written or a song is sung, the colors and tones of our love are revealed. But to do that we have to step away from it. True loving is like living is like breathing: it is happening right now and if you pause even just to contemplate it you'll have necessarily separated yourself from it. If you try to take a snapshot of your child running, you have to sacrifice the immediacy of your own sight for the filter of the camera's, only to produce a facsimile of that feeling of simple joy. I find that becoming conscious of my own blinking is a sure sign that I have stopped living, at least in that dynamic sense. So to sing a love song means to be watching love from afar. And to be moved by a love song means to be swallowed by its absence. The most poignant love songs, the ones that push the tears to just behind your eyes, are the ones intoning of love lost. In a song, love is inseparable from heartbreak. Of course not explicitly, but tacitly, in the sense that if we were really loving at that moment then we wouldn't have the presence of mind to reflect upon it. Reflection implies a subjective separation. If loving is living, then sometimes thinking is dying.
So when I saw that tree and heard that song, I felt years passing. Anthony Hamilton's "The Point Of It All," has a strange nostalgic quality. It's like the projection of an old film reel. You can see the fluttering shutter of the light picking up particles from the air. The figures projected are not quite fluid, you can see the small increments where the process has bled life from a particular moment in time to make this reproduction. When a record is sped up, the first feeling you are aware of is the chaos and the chatter of the tempo being torn from its original state; however, there is rare moment when, amidst the speeding, the base rhythms and melodies meld to make a new composition. This song sounds like the record of so many lifetimes, the course of so many passions, the shine of so many hopes, all paradoxically sped up to create a slow deliberate pulsing. The dusty sonorance of the song's organ, as well as the soft trailing of the percussion, seem to embody this quality. And blended into this harmony are Hamilton's rich vocals, soaked in your parents' wisdom, the vigor of youth, and the love of generations. This is the soundtrack for the lifespan of our deepest, most intimate, and most simple truths.
Hearing the song in this way, I began to imagine the tree growing. To the muted undulations of the music, I watched the spare and insistent sprouts of a sapling grow into a capacious canopy, each increment of growth like the single frame of an old film. I began to think of all the trees in my life; I realized that at home, in Canada, a good house always has a tree, like its soul. I thought of the great willow tree I could see out of my sister's window in Marlborough Park. I thought of the young tree my grandparents planted in the backyard of their old house. I thought of all the trees whose lives I could not share because my own was too short. I thought of how the march of time had pushed me past those trees, leaving them only in my memories. Then I thought of how I yearned for the home of my heart, for my source. Of how this feeling was the spirit permeating the tree and song of my vision. I thought of the symmetry of roots and foliage. I imagined myself a single fibre woven into a resilient yet pliable brown pillar. I thought of my cousin's child Kingston, just born and the first of my generation of my family. I thought of my Grandparents, upon whom I heap all of my praises, of my Mother, my Father, my Sister, my Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, my Friends. Speaking of this vision, I have only this to say: The point of it all is I Love You.
1. You’ve got a lot in the pot and you’re stirring it just right. I’m looking over your shoulder, the waft hits my face. No need for talking; I’m ready to eat. Pop the top button, shirt and pants. Lick my lips.
2. Huh. I wasn’t looking for you but there you are. Nice pants. Right shoes. Good gait… Ahem. Oh look a tree! The tree is green… Hey there you are again. I like the crook of your arm. You’re not holding anything but there it is, marking a shape. You’re so casual; I hope you’re not affecting it. Hey a penny… Oh there you are. Well, now you’re here and there. Does that lock bother you? Sure, tuck it behind your ear. A little tickle where the lapel brushes your neck? Hey my watch. It’s time to breathe…
3. Hey! Stop flashing those sparklers over here. I’m trying to read… Gimme a break, okay? I can’t get past this sentence. I’m all over the place… Wow. Okay, you’re serious. There’s a whole quadrant, a whole hemisphere I can’t look at now. Too bright. Colors bleeding. What do you want? You want me to 3, 2, 1?
I can't look at you right now. "Show me your eyes," she says. "Later," he says. "Now. Now." "No!" - Mos Def A Soldier's Dream
I was thinking about looking, looking at, looking for, looking in, looking out, overlooking, looking and not looking, looking while not looking, looking at everything while looking at nothing, looking at "you"and not at"you," wanting "you" and not wanting to want "you"... hey what happened to"looking"? I guess this means it's time to sleep. Eyes closed but no respite. Eyes wide... Damn it all Kubrick!
