3977 : Question of amusement

Quora remains my single source of everyday mirth and amusement. Like Nero, who played the fiddle, in a similar way, I chose to amuse myself, as the world around me turns cinder.

One day, I hope to not have to visit Quora. That is my Sunrise.

3976 : The contradiction in your voice

There is immense silence around me. Weeks pass without me talking to anyone. And then sometimes you talk, and I know, this is not you. Not yet.

The real you is not here. The real conversations are gone.

The world is plunging into dark silence. One day Hans Zimmer will arise out of these depths.

3975 : Shirley Wheeler

Heroes they often come in strange shapes and strange places. Have been reading about Shirley Wheeler and I am so inspired. This is what stuff of everyday is made of.

Hope. Grit and just plain simple...Fight.

Read here https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/04/archives/shes-fighting-conviction-for-aborting-her-child.html 

In the Context of Roe v Wade, Shirley becomes so important.

In the context of just respecting our fellow human beings as humans, she becomes so important.

I sometimes truly lament the world we have built for our fellow humans. This world will slide into hate, before it emerges back. That journey (hate) today feels like a black hole.

3974 : Ginger

On a flight, next to two women doctors. I figured this through the 2 hr flight. They are talking about hospital politics, patient idiocy and so on....

Till at one point, one lady is telling the other, that Ginger (too much of it) will increase the heat in her "lower" body.

And the other doctor says "sach mein?"

And the first doctor proceeds to educate and pontificate. She also liberally quotes a popular guru who loves the Ducati.

Like me, if you sometime think we are doomed....I invite you to amuse yourself. Amusement may be the only way out of this debacle.

3973 : Why do we fail? By Hans Zimmer

I have two Marshall Woburns paired up. Which means I can knock down the structure if I wanted to.

Whatever you have.....launch the system. Turn it up full steam. Only Max will do.

Then play this. Watch goose bumps rise up.

Always.

Hans Zimmer is such an under-rated genius.

3972 : Memory or Ghost

There is memory. There is you. 

There is no method to ascertain that both will match up to truth. I mean neither. 

I often wonder, is there a "you" without memory? Is there a memory, where I can contain all of you? I truly think about this as a whirl a glass of whiskey. Are you the real one? Or is your memory the real version (OG as the IG generation would say)?

I have real deep conversations with the memory of you. The whiskey whirls and the songs swirl.

3971 : Turtle

I often slide away from my life and withdraw into a corner. A corner where I dont want to talk, I dont want to check email, or WA or sort out operational shit.

I want books, I want music and some deep philosophical conversations. About art, about poetry, about cinema, about this universe.....the real conversations that matter. Possibly whiskey induced (Talisker - Amen!!)

I am in that state for some days now. Come over, lets dance like we never have done before. Talisker is on me :-). I will add smokes if it helps.

I am Turtle. Shell-locked.

3970 : Coincidences

I was reading a fascinating piece by Murakami (Haruki) on coincides. Unsure if that was fiction or non-fiction. Either way, it moved me very deeply.

Call it the Baader Meinhof, if you may.....but here goes.

So, I am alone three days ago. Working and deeply engrossed. When I am alone, I sometimes sing (loud and croon). So I am singing the first song that comes to my mind. Its an obscure, but lovely song called - "Outside" by George Michael.

Its a risque song, and I love it. I know most of the lyrics.

Let's go outside (let's go outside)

In the sunshine

I know you want to, but you can't say yes

Let's go outside (let's go outside)

In the meantime

Take me to the places that I love best

And as I finish my croon I realise, that the room is silent. The music had been shut off some hours ago (due to my previous zoom call).

I go to my shuffle list on spotify. Launch the list. This list has this song, along with 1167 others.

And I click on shuffle, and guess what. The song that plays is "Outside".

What are the odds? Murakami, you just freaked me out.

3969 : Sparrow

The sparrow was there, on the edge of the ledge. Still for most parts with sudden movements. 

I kept looking at her for over half a minute. She was probably oblivious to me. At some point, her neck turned. Her eyes darted into me.

"Come fly away with me", she said.

3968 : Alanis Morissette singing Ironic (Live and Unplugged)

How do you take an iconic song (named Ironic) and make it legendary? 

By being Alanis and singing it unplugged. Totally in love with her voice, always was.

Her sailing over and under notes......what art and what beauty.

3967 : Tori Amos sings Nirvana

Listen to Tori Amos singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and melt away.

"Here we are, entertain us"......

3966 : King of Pain

 I love the song and the lyrics of King of Pain by Sting/Police.

And then today, Spotify told me that there is a Alanis Morrisette version.....and its sheer goose bumps.

The lyrics and her voice. Of course - it can never be Sting, but she doing "hey hey hey" and her layered note transition....is worth a million bucks.

Go listen.

3965 : Darkness

The lights are out. There is black around me. It seems normal and yet spaced out.

I remember the time you said, I dont allow you to talk. Today dear, put the spring back in your feet. Sing like a hummingbird. 

There is a story I remember reading when I was younger. A man in solitary confinement sings to himself every night. To both remain sane, as well as to retain the songs in his memory. As the arrow of time flows, the walls of the prison are seeped more and more in the notes. They have absorbed the range of two octaves and some rare notes from the third.

One day, in his 11th year of being alone, he feels the onset of a deep pain in his chest. The metallic taste in his mouth, tells him, that its possible a massive cardiac arrest. He remains still - exactly how a Buddhist monk would confront death. He tries to sing, but no sound emerges. He moves his lips just as he would if he were singing the chosen song. 

At sometime the walls around begin to move, and then blur. He sees the trapped notes emerging from the walls. A slow release from this prison of oneself. Rattle and hum.

While I was reading this story, I visualised the notes literally escaping. Today, I invite you to free the trapped bird within you. As Bukowski would say, "There is a bluebird in my heart...."

3964 : The dirge

I was recently told that I am very Zen.

And hell, of course, I am not.

I lament, not being able to smoke when I want to.

I lament, the slow steady passing away of mom.

I lament, the slow steady fading of love.

I lament, the hours that I did not spend in silence.

I lament, the nights that I did not spend writing.

I lament, the lack of a decent conversation in months.

I lament, not being able to sing.

I lament, that long before the world ends, I will be gone.

I lament, that I only lament but do nothing else.

I lament, that there is memory, but there is no you.

Today, even hell is freezing over. 

3963 : The difficulty of focussing

I am intensely private and immersive person, and yet when the immediate world around me burns, even I find it intensely hard to even clock a few decent hours of work. The mind just struggles, almost dealing with fatigue.

What is fatigue in an urban privileged world? Its the point at which you realise the futility of our dreams. We are never going to be who we possibly want to be. And we are never going to be in a world we want to be. 

3962 : Snap and burn

Something in me snaps. Its hard to see her close to dying. Will she die? Never know. Will she live? Never know. Who knows what the night holds for each of us? Will we ever know?

The dirge I carry is not in her (upcoming) passing away, but rather the infinite lapse of what could have been. 

To me life has always been a set of possibilities. In that sense, I am a deep optimist, who will continue to see the possible upside in circumstances that are held in a sieve (yes, even in those hopeless games).

 By the same coin, I sometimes see nothing but the long end of the tunnel. Of what was lost. What is being lost.

The realization that we never wrote the story that we could have written.

3961 : Memory of no memory

I remember walking with you the other evening. In the middle of a no man's zone. You looked radiant and happy. (Not necessarily beautiful...."beauty" I think is an over-rated subjective nonsense).

I did want to click a photo of us. To capture this day for posterity. Something in me held back. Instead I soaked the day and the moment in.

I contain you and that day in me. The photo has not been captured. Neither has your radiance.

The story is not a stilllife. What did we miss?

3960 : Silence and a drink

There are many times on many nights, all I crave for is total silence (music is fine....especially if it is of my choice) and a nice stiff drink. (a peated whiskey or a cutty sark would be perfect).

And then I look at the world around me, and know that's going to be so hard. Almost impossible. Never.

I want to write, I want to dwell and I want to hum. In my silence.

3959 : Murakami

I find Murakami strangely soothing. The bizarreness of his stories, the total relatability of characters, who we know might not be real.

I must admit, I find the characters real. Every single time I am burdened by life, I veer towards Murakami.

As I have grown older, if there is someone I aspire to be, or write like - it has to be Murakami.