Archive for January 16th, 2007

16
Jan

Remember November

By love-ridden 4 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

25227030062076m

My dog November died today. Neither lost nor left but died. And he is never coming back. They say I shouldn’t worry, they say I shouldn’t grieve at all. To despair is to cry over what was already lost. That I shouldn’t wish him back. That I should not prolong the pain. That I should stop. That I should . . .  That I should. . . .  That, they tell me. Words, all words that never seemed comforting. If words could dispel sadness as easily as one could utter or write them, that I would be healed this instant. If words could make me forget, then I shouldn’t stop writing. But the words came out fast, one after the other and so did the tears and the tears blot the pages. Now the pages bore the memory of a loss. Oh, if it’s that easy then pour in all misery, that it may extinguish what cruel hands have written.

I should never forget him crouched on the piano like a penitent beast, playing Chopin or that time when we played Cesar Franck Sonata. To love in a distance, to have without holding. Now I am reminded of a corpse whom I sung a Puccini aria with. That I should be strengthened the next time I hum it. Nessun Dorma. Aye, no one sleeps. Now that he does not live, I shall stay awake in blind hope, to stare at death in the eye. 

But I thought I heard him walk towards the front door the other night and smelt the redolence of his breath through it. His sigh and putrid smell lingered and moved me to an inconsolable longing. I thought I heard him knock on my door, singing his melancholy or swaying to the groove of his blindly fuelled rage. Hurriedly, I unlatched the door only to find a pack of smoke welling out from the coldness of the night. He wasn’t there. He was never there like I imagined him, waiting, yearning that he might need me. I closed the door, more grieved, the way I would for several times but left the window open if he is too shamed to come in by the door. If love never found its way to my door at least it’ll find me, solitary, by the window writing this melancholy.

I was his other, his other self. I was the other half of him that he couldn’t afford to be.

I was the madness that drove him insane, the love that dare not speak its name. November; my soul, my life, my lust, my sin is dead and I never got to win his affection. Nothing more did I ever get from him, spare the mark of his teeth out of the rejection. He bit me, more than once. He fed on me and tore my skin with his bare teeth. Now, a faint blemish bore the memory of a mean bite. It left a stitch that marred. Anger like pride makes one blind if not deaf to agony. But I cared for him just the same, as one would, blind with love, to the likes of him.

So this is about November. My dog November who died today. The last time I saw him wag his tail, he was on the piano, playing Chopin. Now he lay beneath it in rigor mortis, arms jerked up, tongue out, eyes staring out into space. Neither lost nor left but died. Imagining empty days without him is like life without love. All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday. Outside the night grows a shade darker. The sun will rise tomorrow as today, but this time without November.

Oh, if he only knew of love.

“Only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?” 

–W. Faulkner, The Sound and The Fury

December 28, 2:30 a.m.

16
Jan

By love-ridden 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized

Bach2Rock

In this age of technological advancement and diversity, the mundane is always bombarded with the constant demand for novelty. The rise of various art forms paved way for new and diverse process in presenting art. But no matter how distinct a Boticelli masterpiece is from a Rembrandt or a Dali from a Pollock, there exists a sentiment true to every artist and to every awestruck admirer.

This demand for novelty shares the same effect in music. How is Bach, Mozart and Beethoven’s music relevant to the music of Louie Armstrong, Bob Marley, Freddie Mercury or just about any pop-rock artist?

Before the hoo-ha fame of pop-rock sensation (depends on what era you’re in: either you’re a disco fiend in the 70’s or you’re head banging and mush-pitting in the early 90’s) there’s Bach, Mozart and Beethoven that kick-started the development of music. Of course there were no Steve Tyler or Sting during the time when men wore frocks and tights or when carriages were at fashion but they were definitely commendable for their genius, evident on their works that exudes through time and change.

One can sit still and revel on the music of Bach on some idle Tuesday and venture into an experience, not into the Baroque era, but into a whole new dimension, into the world of sound: a musical drive, at work. At the same time one can embark on such experience by simply listening to Nina Simone, Miles Davies, Louie Armstrong and other jazz legends and reconcile to the fact that Jazz is the modern Bach. Bach’s music is a potent influence to jazz musicians as it purports to unravel the unlimited possibilities of music, jumping onto to every unpredictable phrase and style, in a way of improvisation (the heart of jazz). You have to experience it to believe me. Put on Nina Simone and be drifted into one of her songs “Say love me, leave me let me be lonely, you won’t believe me but I love you only, I’d rather be lonely that happy with somebody else. .” then she breaks into a fiery piano solo, running her fingers up and down into handful of notes with the rhythmic swing of jazz, really, you can say it’s eclectic, yes and that’s Bach!

We’re all familiar with Mozart’s music. We hear it on T.V and radio ads and even on certain kiddie rides on malls. His symphony No. 40 probably rings a bell to anyone or what’s more, it rings from your mobile phone! The ubiquity of a classical motif is evident up to now. Mozart has probably made the most of these and remains the most adopted phrases on most modern music. Listening to his symphony (No. 40), you’ll hear a familiar passage, the one you’d probably have in one of your wind-up toys when you were young or heard in one of those movies you watched, but later as it approaches its development section, you’d hear an even more interesting passage. As the violins run into a riotous melodic phrase you’d hear the instruments in the lower register break into a jumpy, somewhat, reggae-like riff, the kind you hear in one of Bob Marley’s songs, Stir it Up. Surprised? Ditto.

I always have this peculiarity of resorting to music whenever I’m in a pensive mood or in a funk, in need of an emotional healing. Well of course there’s T.V or any domestic device to tinker with, but I’ve always felt a tacit comfort when I listen to one of Beethoven’s Symphonies or a piano sonata perhaps (romancing my woes with Moonlight Sonata or Pathetique), in the same way as I would with the music of Freddie Mercury, Nirvana, R.E.M. Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, Silverchair, Pinkfloyd and slowly I’d slink farther from the of slum of despond, comfortably numb. Just like that.