Erase/Rewind

No Time To Stop, by pinkparis1233

I see songs in colour and line. This might sound strange but that is one of the many ways I experience music: I visualize it involuntarily. As soon as it fills my ears, it fills my head with tinted pulses and waves and I revel in the sensory experience no matter where I am – whether on a train, walking on the street or at my desk at work pretending to be very busy and important. Sometimes, when a song is just that good, I have to stop what I’m doing altogether – distracted beyond all pretense – and just sit there with a glazed look in my eyes, simply appreciating.

This song, by the Cardigans, is all dark blues fading into black, like a night sky. It is definitely a night song – I can’t listen to it during the day, it wouldn’t feel right. It’s coy, but bold, but also understated. I love the well-placed echoes; the pureness of the vocals against the slightly grungy music. Here’s my take on it.

She Is Fire: Poetry and Candy Royalle

Photo by Nicola Bailey Photography. www.nicolabailey.com

When she spoke, her words seemed to be coming from another time and place, as if she was shouting to be heard from a distant room, and we strained our ears, desperate to catch every syllable. She spoke of the sea and in my eyes she swam with the colours of the sunset and her voice rippled across the room, splashing intimately against our ears. I sat enraptured in the semi-darkness…

-       Written on the train, Sat 21 May, 2011

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I’ve spent months trying to put Candy Royalle on a page and I have to admit – it has been harder than I thought. This strikes me as odd, because I don’t usually write like this. When I’m inspired, the writing usually comes in torrents and my fingers own the keyboard, almost as if they know what to say before my brain registers the thought.

And I have written about her – reams, actually. Disjointed paragraphs in that book and the other, even on my phone – all over the place really. Tackling a hundred different ideas and sensations that never really came together into one cohesive thought process. So here’s take number umpteen.

*

“I will her to want it all”, Candy admits from the stage, half singing, half speaking, staring directly into the collective gaze of her audience.

I drink in the tone of her voice, the sensuousness of her language and try to close my mouth, aware of the cameras deftly roving the crowd at intervals. I don’t want to be caught on screen with my jaw unhinged, but quite truthfully, that is how I feel on this late week night, sitting in this cosy pub enclosure together with a handful of people, watching this otherworldly poetess speak about love, sex, anger and politics.

This is the second time I’m seeing Candy Royalle on the stage.

The first was at a more public gathering, at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. I had seen her speak that same morning with a group of other poets, writers and artists who were using their work to inspire positive social change – a talk I enjoyed enough to want to know more about each of the speakers. So when I saw that most of them were performing that evening at a session of performance poetry, I thought ‘why not’. I had never seen performance poetry before and while I had a sneaking suspicion that I would find it pretentious or silly or downright depressing or all of the above, nevertheless, I figured there should be a first time for everything and decided to go along.

I’m not sure what gave me that first negative impression of performance poetry. I am a lover of language and I enjoy poetry even though it’s not usually part of my typical reading list. For whatever reason though, I had this picture in my head of self-proclaimed ‘poets’ standing on a dim stage with bits of paper in their hands, monologuing at length about their tortured feelings and depressing experiences, beating at their breasts while we sat in the audience trying to stifle our yawns.

So yes. The first time I saw Candy Royalle on the stage, I went with the eyes, ears and mind of a skeptic.

The poets who performed before her pleasantly surprised me – I marveled at their clever witticisms and wordplay and laughed at their impressions. I was enjoying myself. Candy was one of the last to perform. She had already intrigued me that morning – from her appearance, to her direct introduction of herself as a queer Arab woman, to the gentle huskiness of her voice, to her opinions on revolution and social change, to an excerpt of one of her poems that she had briefly performed.

Crash Into Me

http://weheartit.com/entry/13078125

Whenever I hear this song I think of the sea. I’m not sure why, but there’s a sea-like quality in the songs and lyrics; the way he talks about lust and love and dreaming. Perhaps it’s simply the word ‘crash’. I don’t know. Either way, I love it, and thought I’d give it a shot. Dave Matthews, thanks for the music.

Secret

from http://butterflycry-.tumblr.com/

There’s just something about Maroon 5 – I’ve always loved their sound and admire how they manage to be one of the few ‘pop’ bands out there with real soul. Their melodies and lyrics are usually extremely vivid: when I listen to their songs I always see something in my mind – certain situations or moments that the lyrics coax into my mind, no matter how occupied I am. It’s almost as if I am watching a music video that was never made.

Cool these engines, calm these jets, I ask you how hot can it get,
And as you wipe of beads of sweat slowly you say, “I’m not there yet”. 

This song in particular has always held a fascination for me. That lazy guitar at the start instantly makes me think of sunset on a hot, sultry, summer day. I tried to echo that same lazy sultriness in the main melody of the song as well as in the backing vocals, which were probably my favourite part of the song to sing.

Enjoy!

Music and Me

Everyone who knows me knows I love music and singing. I grew up watching Michael Jackson concerts with starry-eyes, believing till an embarrassingly old age that all you needed was passion and talent in order to make it big in showbiz. While other kids were talking about becoming doctors, I had my sights set on a Grammy. I was so convinced that this was what I was born to do that my parents often had to take me aside after a particularly lazy report card and tell me to get real and apply myself to what was in front of me so that on the off chance that I didn’t get famous, I’d have an education to fall back on.

With all the stubbornness of a typical adolescent, I would pep-talk myself into not believing them and turn up the music louder as I sang into the night each night. This has been my usual practice from before I can remember. I sing all the time — in the car, in the shower, in my room each night — anywhere I feel comfortable and at ease. Most of the time, it’s an unconscious compulsion – I barely notice that I do it. In public, I usually have to rein it in, keeping it to a barely audible hum that only my ears can pick up.

Not so in my room. When I’m alone I’m in my element – I don’t have to worry about being shy so I belt out my favourite songs with gusto. I love songs that push and stress my voice and really give my vocal chords a stretch. I’m not afraid to take chances when it’s just me in my room and usually that confidence translates into the fact that I can sing most anything without having to worry about whether I can or not. When I’m performing though, it’s a whole other story. I have major stage fright. This wasn’t always the case – when I was little, my sisters and I would jump at the chance to perform for relatives or anyone who’d listen to us. As we grew older though, performing became embarrassing and we’d grumble stormily whenever our parents would ask us to sing for them or whoever was in present company. I’ve done a spot of performing here and there but am always plagued by these annoying nerves: I shake like a leaf and my voice shakes unattractively along with me and I just want it all to be over so I can run into the seclusion of my room and convince myself that I really can sing after all.

This is why everyone who knows me knows me I love singing – but very few have actually heard me sing to the best of my ability. So when I discovered Garageband on my Mac, it was a massive thrill to be able to actually get my voice out there. My voice with all the confidence of being alone in my room behind it, but using a medium to get the sound out into the void. Honestly, I do it mostly for me. There’s nothing I love more than a good song and this is a means for me to create and get to know my voice even better. The process usually takes a whole evening but the hours fly by and before I know it I’ve spent four hours in front of my computer and forgotten to eat my dinner. Can’t think of a better way to spend my time these days really :)

Over the next few days I’ll be posting a bunch of tracks I’ve recorded thus far. Just for the heck of it :)

Day Dreamer

from http://marshmallowsgonewild.blogspot.com/

This is probably my favourite Adele song although it’s easily one of her lesser known tracks. Different lines remind me of different people close to me, so it always makes me smile. I like how simple it is, but also how sweet.

May 28, 2011

14,000 things to be happy about

Settling down here hasn’t been easy – and that comes from someone who wasn’t expecting a fairytale to begin with. Still, I have to say I wasn’t prepared for how difficult it would be. A lot of the time it was like I was watching myself from a distance, with a growing sense of alarm as I floundered about in this new life, but unable to do anything to help myself out.

The first month was great: after months and months of waiting, I was finally here in Sydney. As with all new chapters, I felt awash with inspiration and hope, reveling in a fresh sense of freedom without all its worrying limitations. My parents were taking care of me until I got back on my feet, I had a great new apartment and after three long years, I was finally spending more time with my sisters. Summer was giving the weather its best shot before its imminent departure, so I spent many a morning rambling around either my neighbourhood or my sister’s in shorts and a tank top to stave off the heat (which actually reminded me a lot of home save for the lack of feeling like I’d be run out of town for wearing shorts anywhere other than the confines of my house or some remote beach). Life was good.

But soon, Summer waned, taking with it the warm security of the phrase “…but I just got here”. There was nothing for it but to start looking for work. And anyone who has been in my position (and by this I mean looking for that first job out of Sri Lanka) will sympathize because it is the single most demoralizing experience – ever. It is abominably cruel that we are meant to remain sprightly and brimming with self-esteem and worth when we’re met with rejection at every corner. So – being hideous at selling myself at the best of times – I had a truly ghastly time of it. I went from being headhunted in Sri Lanka to being at the bottom of the food-chain in Big Bad Corporate Sydney. Suddenly I felt like my experience amounted to nothing, that I was horribly unqualified and generally rubbish at everything. Applications got harder and harder to write, I started sending my CV out to places I wouldn’t have dreamed of applying to a month ago, and all the while alarm bells were going off in my head, accompanied by a voice that was telling me with brutal conviction that I was never going to find a job and would have to return to Sri Lanka with my tail between my legs come a month or two.

Lift-off; touch-down.

Airplane_by_MiekoMiley

The plane purred into the humid early morning air, as if it was rousing itself in preparation for the journey ahead. Strapped not-so-comfortably into my seat, I was doing exactly the opposite. Literally minutes away from lift-off, I was plagued by a sudden and unfamiliar urge to run back the way I came.

I plugged in my iPod, leant back in my seat and closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, we were taking off. Glancing out of the window, my throat constricted as I watched the ground rush away from me. I hadn’t expected to miss home barely before I’d left it. I blinked hurriedly but a couple of embarrassing tears slipped out before I could stop them. If I hadn’t been feeling so sad, I could laughed at the irony. I am the ultimate escapist – always wanting to run away, always dreaming about new beginnings. But there I was, at the brink of changing the direction of my life – literally – and all I could think about was what I was leaving behind.

The journey passed in a haze of literal and metaphorical cold feet. I don’t remember much of it now, save for a brief chat with the passenger sitting next to me; an elderly Australian man who allowed me to indulge myself by telling him all about what was now essentially my old home, old job and old life. In turn, he told me about his and we swapped snippets of each other’s lives in between the odd movie, or whenever we paused our separate viewings to eat a meal.

All I really remember, though, is being consumed by thoughts of home. My parents, my friends, my job. The small, sometimes chaotic, but still precious little world I had built for myself in the three years I had lived there as an adult.

The announcement of our descent towards the Sydney airport roused me from sleep. Half submerged under my blanket, I attempted to drag my thoughts to the present as the plane turned its nose to land. My stomach lurched, half from the elevator-like sensation of our descent; half from something else altogether. I got my belongings together, clutching my bag to me protectively, feeling suddenly rather small and alone. The plane landed, shuddering on the runway, gaining a rush of speed before it slowed down to a mellow amble. As its slow motion faded into stillness, I held my breath and glanced up. The yellow light of the seatbelt sign blinked off.

I had arrived.

Rebirth

Originally published on Groundviews.

Floods in Batticaloa (http://airforce.lk)

I haven’t been reading the news much lately. I heard about the floods in the East and North Central Province and thought abstractly to myself, ‘how awful’. I watched the downpour in Colombo itself and complained about the shivering cold of that one day during which temperatures fell to 18 degrees – the lowest in over 60 years.

I never really fathomed the extent of the destruction until I happened across a 3-line post on a blog, linking to some footage by the airforce of the flooding in Batticaloa. I didn’t pay much attention to the article on the airforce site, but those pictures stunned me. Water up to treetops. Acre upon acre of paddy land totally destroyed. All I could think was, ‘haven’t they been through enough?’

War. Tsunami. Floods. Would it ever stop? Would they ever have the luxury of having normal lives again? Would there ever come a time when they would stop having to start over? I felt an immense tiredness for them as well as an odd admiration for their unending resilience and ability to survive disaster upon disaster. This post was a result of those feelings – a grossly inadequate but well-meant tribute to their struggle.

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When the skies rumbled, angry and blistered with grey clouds, we were happy. Rain has mostly been our friend – a welcome drink for thirsty fields; a muddy playground for restless babies.

I myself have always loved the rain. As a child I would run out whenever my mother’s back was turned and spin like a runaway firework in the moving, liquid soil. Brown would squelch up between my toes and ooze onto my feet and the cooling sensation would make me swoon. My country is often hot and in those days, rain meant relief.  I would open my mouth to it, my mother’s distant scoldings unheeded, and drink with an eagerness than frightened me. As if I was trying to drink in the secrets of all of nature. And the water would not only quench my thirst; it somehow made me stronger. My feet always stomped harder after that first drink; mud would explode outwards, all around me, and I would feel invincible.

Even as I grew up and learned that explosions were not always joyous, I never stopped loving that rain. In the most bitter times, it would still taste sweet, and remind me of younger, happier days, when nothing ugly seemed to exist. When my world was solely and selfishly my own. I had no real worries then. If I cried I would be fed; if I couldn’t sleep my mother would stroke my back until the feel of her fingertips on my skin numbed me into unconsciousness. And if I was thirsty, I always had the rain.

My father was a farmer and so we lived by the rain. When it didn’t come, we, along with our crops, were devastated. Money was short, food scarce, tempers dark with hunger. Rain for us meant green, growth, abundance, food in our stomachs. As I grew older, when I ran out into the rain, it was to give thanks.

“You love the rain more than me” my lover accused once when my eyes were drawn one too many times to the streaming water outside and away from his dry, smooth skin. “No” I had replied, forcing my gaze away; but I was lying.

The stars have it… or do they?

Marry Me Young, by PlayPretend

There’s just something about storybook fortune-tellers, isn’t there? Whether they are men or women, young or old; whether they read stars, tarot cards, palms or crystal balls, they all seem ageless somehow; and beautiful, and wise.

The idea of being able to read signs off of people and nature and somehow tap into the grand design has an irresistible pull for me. One can’t help but think that these people must have something within them that is somehow more intuitive and more powerful, even, than the rest of us. They are privy to a kind of knowledge that seems to us impossible to fathom, let alone to attain.

They – these mystical gypsies, fortune-tellers, astrologers and shamans – hear tunes we are deaf to, understand languages we cannot read and feel rhythms to which we are numb. It is as if we go through our lives with blocked ears, rhinoceros skin and a limited understanding of pretty much everything, while they are somehow born with the gift of being completely open to what the universe has to tell them. Are they magic? Are they the warlocks and witches of our time?

These individuals and their x-ray vision into our pasts and futures have always intrigued me. In fiction, they are the characters that attract me the most, even though they may not be the heroes or heroines of the stories I read. It is for this reason that this blog is modeled on the spirit of the Gypsy – carefree and unafraid, mystical and wise, dancing to a tune that only she can hear and enjoy.

Astrology is not exactly fortune telling I know, and many even consider it to be a science of sorts - but I feel that the two are somewhat related. And as with fortune telling, the ‘concept’ of astrology is a strongly attractive one. The idea that the sky and the stars can whisper the secrets of Earth and its people to a chosen few is breathtaking, to say the least.

That being said, my encounter with an astrologer here in Colombo was far less romantic. He looked to be about a thousand years old, more stoned than wise and he talked so much, mystery never even had a chance.

ICE

(Written a while ago but probably just as – if not more – relevant today…)

Ice Heart, by Happy Tea

The block of ice was determined.

It could survive – even in this heat. If it just gathered its resolve and stayed frigid, things would be alright. The sun would be a forgotten enemy, and maybe they could one day even be friends, laughing at silly conflicts frozen in the past.

The block of ice was determined. …But it really was a hot day.

The sun smiled and the ice block started to perspire. There was no need to smile back. Frigid it would stay. …But what a gorgeous smile. So full of warmth and light and happiness.

The ice block was fighting now, feeling itself start to drip shamefully. This was no good.

And the sun continued to smile that heated, loving smile. Please stay, it seemed to say.

But the ice block got the goodbye it wanted. The sun was fading from view; they would soon be parted forever.

But the sun had its victory too. Because as it winked out of sight, all that it left behind was a slight chill and puddle of forgiving water.