8.26.2003
remember
please remember
the wispy spirited joy
timeless and untainted
hope is often offensive
and fated
for whats to come
when can i see me again
against the palette of vibrancy
past the obstinant clouds
i have to lose
no more huddling and puddling
time is so impatient
unfortunate
where do we fly
i want to so badly
make sense
be lovely
for a day
for a change
come run with me he said
but i'm so bad at running
what could he say
so he didn't
she was hoping he'd walk with her
and let her stroll
at least for awhile
but what could he do
so he didn't
remember
she thought
its still a lovely day
and there will be
an even lovelier one
soon
just remember
8.25.2003 "The songs started coming not long after I miscarried. The strange thing is, the love doesn't go away for this being that you've carried. You can't go back to being the person you were before you carried life. And yet you're not a mother, either, and you still are connected to a force, a being. And I was trying to find ways to keep that communication going. Along the way on the search, sort of walking with the undead, I would run into these songs. The one thing they kept saying to me was I had to find a deep woman's rhythm. You begin to create where you can. If you can't create physical life, you find a life force. If that's in music, that's in music. I started to find this deep, primitive rhythm, and I started to move to it. And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit. And this record really became about being alive enough to feel things, no matter what that is," says Tori. (off of absolutedivas.com)
my muse: tori amos
saturday, august 23, 2003, jones beach theatre. it was the perfect night for the most amazing concert i have ever been to. just mesmerizing. she commanded the audience purely from the moment she walked on the stage. it was really quite an intense concert...2 hours of straight tori. no break longer than half a minute or so. its all of her ...her voice, her musicality, her timing, her intensity, her vibrancy, her warmth, her spirit, her anger, her joy, her wit, her vitality, her red red hair, her rawness, her relentlessness...all of it.
i'm trying to write about it...but its just not coming out right. but i guess thats the beauty of it all...you just have to listen to her and if you connect, you completely connect. verbal explanations do no justice to the power and emotionality felt.
but really ...what a magical, surreal experience.
And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit...
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on a side note...her bday is 8.22. unbelievable i tell ya. the number 22...clyde the glide 6.22, les the bes(t) (ha!) 7.22, and now my tori 8.22. really just uncanny...of course i'm reading into it a bit much...but come on, how would i not?? its fate!
8.19.2003
i'm on a vacation...i think some sort of conference actually...with carmen electra. and her baby. but she's always off fooling around with her flavor of the month, so i end up taking care of her precious little baby boy. and i'm really beginning to love him...
yes that was the last dream i remember - i think i dreamt that last week sometime. too bad i don't remember more of it - but that is the basic storyline.
dreams....are so telling, huh? and strange. i should blog about past dreams and future dreams...actually ideally, i should log it right after i wake up. because you know me...i tend to forget. you can imagine, i related quite well to Dorie in finding nemo. hah.
i can usually remember my dreams if i wake up naturally. but if its an alarm or some noise that wakes me up, forget it - the dream is lost forever. they really are so interesting though - the absurdity and absolute bizarre-ness of them. for example...are alot of people and places not actually the correct image of them in your dream (say place or a person)? that happens to me all the time. "my house" will nothing like my house in my dream, but i just know that it is. oh - and see "carmen electra" didn't really look like carmen electra in my dream, but i just knew it was. weird. werd. word.
usually for me, they really speak about a fear or a desire of mine. sometimes even both. well, it keeps me optimistic that even while i can dreadfully bore myself, we are all creatures of imagination.
8.18.2003
...i think i will forever be an idealist...most certainly in the name of love. a romantic at heart for the most part...except the cheesy runs thru the field to fall into the arms of man i love. i was watching moulin rouge for the first time last night. and although i thought the movie was kind of a little over the top cheesy and not terribly original, i was thinking about the love between satine and the writer. someone mentioned something about the intensity and magnitude of their love for one another and how that just doesn't ever happen. while i do agree that that is very rare...i think i still want, perhaps even expect, something similar to happen to me. i dunno...maybe i've seen one too many movie romances. then again, i feel like i have seen that happen to a few of my friends. and i have to wonder...will that happen to everyone? no...it definitely doesn't. that's the sad reality. and makes me wonder if i need to re-adjust my "standards"...i think actually that will inevitably happen. but do i make a conscious decision to make that change? easier said than done, thats for sure.
...also thinking about something jon wrote awhile back...about instantly connecting with someone who has very similar music tastes. so true...an automatic, unspoken understanding of the other person, and even their emotionality. an appreciation of the same darkness or sweetness or angst or elegance or wit or just general vibe.
...would like to start reading more philosophy...maybe more of kierkegaard, nietzsche, and kafka...any suggestions?
8.13.2003 I ask you only to accept (as I have accepted) that I shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust. This is why I have resolved to confide in paper, before I forget. (We are a nation of forgetters.)
--Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie--
I am a forgetter. I really have a bad, bad memory. Short-term is ok. But long-term, forget about it. Yet I really like history...but it really frustrates me...reading a great book or history, and forgetting it all just a month later. I think history is so incredibly important to understand, respect, and learn from. History gives me so much more perspective. Perspective is so limited in present-time--I can't take a few steps back and look at the world, the situation objectively. But history is just that...a (hopefully) comprehensive timeline and critique of what has happened.
So, I vow to write more...blog it, scribe it, say it. I often see myself having the same issues, and its just ridiculous sometimes. Because sometimes I actually forget how I handled it back then. Papertrail papertrail...
8.11.2003
flaky people, flakiness...in general...it just sucks. ironically, i'm debating whether or not to consciously become more flaky. cuz honestly it seems like flaky people just don't get hurt. how can you...when you're always "running" rite?
but really...how am i gonna go and do that which i disrespect.
split ends
when someone crosses their legs and bobs the crossed leg up and down
people who get annoyed in "unplanned" social situations, but don't try being proactive about it
unquestioned self-righteousness
hearing j. lo's voice
running out of time
consistent flakiness
insecurities
finding fresh prince reruns replaced by everybody loves raymond reruns
when i get judgmental
its amazing how easily i forget how blessed i am. i think many asian americans with a similar background forget. its the stories you hear about your dad walking barefoot for 2 miles to grade school every day set against the backdrop of such a rich, joyous, opportunity-filled life that put things into focus just a little better. a life that started the day i was conceived, rather than the day he set foot in America.
...confidence with humility...is really such an attractive quality. its a graciousness and deeply explored understanding of who you are and how blessed you are. a consideration of others that extends way beyond etiquette and social regard. there must be a word for this trait....
8.04.2003 Hipster - One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck.") The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat.
"Les, you're a music snob." yea, my roommate is right, its kinda true. and the older i get, the pickier about music i become. being part of the "mainstream" does in a way turn me off now. but i've become weary about shunning things just because they are a part of mainstream. i think i've become picky because there's a very distinct dichotomy in mainstream music today - there is music and then there is "music."
music is creativity at its best. it has to be personal and honest. a reflection of the artist's intuition and emotionality. a piece of an incredibly progressive journey of the artist(s) spawned from untainted zeal and passion. and an earnest desire to share that talent or progression or emotion or idea with others. and please, whatever genre it falls into - it's gotta be original.
these days, however, i find it really disturbing to hear so much "music" on the radio, on mtv, wherever. the "music" i hear reflects an industry that has gone sour with the demands of mass consumerism. a product of label moguls trying to define what music is and should be through the study of the trends of the charts. as well as "artists" wanting to be in the limelight and walk the red carpet of fame (or shame).
of course the music industry cannot be so clearly defined...it is a huge spectrum with many axis. and goes beyond the "mainstream" and "underground." and really...who am i to judge what is "art" and what's not rite?
(but really...there are just such few artists these days. that just don't really strike me as loving their music. oh lets just look at J. Lo ...she's such an easy target. she's the quintessential example of the untalented, mainstream artist. she's not a singer, actress (ok she was good in Selena though), or artist. girl can dance - i'll give her that. but don't you always find yourself wishing that she could just hit that note, oh and that note too, every note really...when listening to her songs? well, i guess she's got other aSSets to make up for being flat....hah.)
...i think i'm moving to brooklyn in november. i'm simultaneously excited and bummed. excited to start saving money and start learning about the various vibrant communities in Brooklyn. i've loved living in the city - but one of the drawbacks about living within such a metropolis is the lack of community. but just like manhattan, there are so many different types of neighborhoods in Brooklyn. i've been asking various friends and co-workers about their respective neighborhoods...
Williamsburg is supposedly the newer, hipster neighborhood of Brooklyn. alot of surviving artist types. and i'm wondering if i could see myself there. i only got a 43% on the hipster quiz. so maybe not. haha. but i see myself going towards that direction...but i'm a lil weary of getting too self-righteous. being "too cool" is really not an attractive thing. yup. but really, there's something very inviting about saving some kale, while perhaps having more opportunities to bust a moby, and meet some deck juicers.
8.01.2003
ok...how come i thought portishead was some heavy metal/alternative group? (not there's anything wrong with heavy metal/alternative type groups :) hehe.)
but really. have you ever just felt so connected to an artist the moment you hear them. well, portishead is one of them. the only other artists i could say i felt that from that first listen is...tori amos, india arie, and possibly maxwell. and i think that is because they capture some type of emotionality so naturally and so soundly for me.
portishead's music is dark, fluid, melancholy, warm, consistent, chill, sexy, and intense. all at the same time.
a friend brought up the point that it all the songs sound the same. and yes i kind of agree. but i think that's how they are able to completely master their style. its as if they live and breathe it...really making it an ideal icon of trip-hop. but all definitions aside...they really just get to me.
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