sixteen.

eckhart tolle. a name that i did not know a year ago, but that has definitely changed my life.

this weekend has been mighty stressful, and before i hit play on the video below i was tied up in all kinds of knots. and now? i feel like i'm sleeping with my eyes open. my body began to take deep breaths again. i'm tired and i want to sleep. no resistance.

being in the now is a feat that most of us don't manage consistently, and only a few of us achieve sporadically. i have this fantasy that once i'm living in the now everything will be great, no problems. this might be true. but as i'm only achieving this sporadically, it makes sense that there is some dust in my now that i have to sweep up before i can relax there.

wanting to be in the now can lead you to be in denial. it can do this because we often try to get to the now in the same vehicle that we use to avoid the now and drive to the future in. tolle calls this the ego. it's the part that makes living in the now seem like an achievement. something you can pat yourself on the back for. but if you're really in the now, you don't ignore things that bring up resistance, you don't ignore problems you may have. you don't run around them to get to the now. you deal with them in peace because you understand that the moments when you're untying these knots are just as precious as the ones where there are no knots. they are just as precious because you are there. here. in the now.

this probably makes no sense to the outside reader. let's just say that today my blessing is accepting that everything isn't always ok. and this means that i can change that, mostly through more acceptance, but never through denial.

breathe easy.

fifteen.

ray lamontagne

i bought tickets to see ray back in october and after four months i was there, in a room with the man that owns my favourite voice in the world.

otis redding is hands down the best singer my ears have ever had the pleasure of hearing, but ray...ray is second. i'll never get the chance to hear otis redding live, so it was such an honour to witness ray's brilliance in person.

it might sound corny, but there were moments when hearing his voice i just knew that everything was right in my life. times when i had to hold back tears because his voice just cut me open. the depth in his tone is incredible. it's almost like you can lay inside the notes and sleep until your heart is replenished.

while he was singing let it be me i had this thought: "what would i have done if ray didn't decide to share his voice with the world?" it hit me that it is so important for us to follow our dreams, for us to do the thing that we were really put here for. we don't just have to do this for us, but because there might be someone out there in the world that needs that song, movement, poem or painting from us. that our gift might be exactly the same shape as the piece missing from the puzzle of another. and that we might change them and heal them without our knowledge, but all the blessings would still be ours.

so if my favourite artist that i do not know is out there, i ask you to make yourself known.

you might be just what i need.

ray lamontagne - shelter

fourteen.

it started with a gchat convo...
____

me: do you not have plans for valentines?
friend: no, i don't. do you?
me: no. but that's to be expected. i thought you'd be busy though.
friend: nah...i can't remember the last time i have done something on vday....
me: well i'm free. we can hang out on saturday and be each other's valentine.

friend: that sounds like a good idea.
____

and so it began.

being single, i didn't expect to have a wonderful valentines day. i wouldn't have expected a great valentines day if i was still in a relationship actually. well, that's only half true. it probably would have been an amazing day, not because it was valentines, but because that's just how it used to go.

anyway, when i suggested going on a friend-date with him i couldn't have foreseen just how much it would end up affecting me as a person, and our friendship. we've known each other for years, but we agreed that there's always been an invisible wall between us. i've always had a soft spot for him, one of those soft spots that you can't explain. one of those 'i adore him, but i can't tell you exactly why' type deals. of course, me being me, i'd always thought that the wall was built by him. but that's the thing with walls: no matter what shape or height they are, they always have two sides.

so in the spirit of eros i endeavoured to use my date in the traditional way; to get to know him better, to get closer. as we sat eating cake and three flavours of ice cream between us it became apparent that, even with this wall, we're closer than we thought. that we know each other really well. maybe not in the 'what's your favourite colour?' sense; but in the 'what are your fears?' sense. wow. and the biggest surprise was that we're very alike. that the things we see so clearly in each other are things that we don't always see in ourselves. we took turns being each other's eyes that night, being honest and kind with each other. we smiled a lot, laughed a lot, and spoke to each other through knowing looks a lot. it felt...good.

on saturday night, that wall we built together began to come down. it's a little warmer between us now, and this will only improve.

so valentines day is for lovers, all kinds of lovers. that old cupid strikes again.

thirteen.

ivana müller - while we were holding it together

"Ivana Müller's award-winning While We Were Holding It Together is a tribute to the power of the imagination. Philosophical, poetic and genuinely funny, the work has developed a cult audience throughout the world and is seen here in London for the first time.Out of pitch darkness five frozen silhouettes emerge. Who are they? What are they doing there? One by one, the actors share their thoughts on the situation to the audience. Through these reflections, the group transforms into a family having a picnic in the forest, through to inhabitants of the Alps, a revolutionary cell and a hotel room in Bangkok.As the text continually sheds a different light on the image, the audience is encouraged to keep embracing a different interpretation of the scene in front of them. The result is a fantastical philosophical trip, where dizzying ideas pass through emotional poignancy, with unforgettable results."
- from the sadlers wells website

this was...cute. it was different to what i thought it was going to be. the synopsis seemed to suggest that stories would be woven around each character in turn, and that these stories would shed new light on the other forms on stage.

it turned out that there was no real narrative, instead the actors took it in turn to recite one liners that began with the words "i imagine...". there were times when this really worked, and that was when the positions they were holding tied in with what they said. so when the man in the green shirt said that he imagined he was standing on the number 38 bus and the woman lying down said she imagined she'd been run over by the number 38 bus, it got a chuckle out of me. it's a shame this didn't happen more often.

at one point the lights in the room went out, but the dialogue continued. it was during this period that my favourite line of the play was spoken:

"i imagine that the longer you are in the darkness, the more you are able to see."

how true.

...but only if you keep your eyes open.

twelve.

youtube has become so soulless these past couple years. ever since corporate america got on board it has increasingly become less and less relevant. the amount of videos with embedding disabled drives me nuts, sometimes i can't watch videos because i'm in the wrong region, and that new search results page is abysmal.

but then something came along to restore my faith in the site. something came along and put the you back in youtube. this video is a year old, and with a million hits it's obviously well known, but this really did make me wail. her name is t-baby...

dead @2:20 when she loses the timing.

my favourite comment on the video? "she look like don cheadle in a wig" she really does!

and it ain't over...

one of the newer youtube features that can uncover some gems is the video response. lol @ this dude:

oh i can't breeeeeeeeeeve! i love his face at the end too.

thank you youtube.

eleven.

les ballets c de la b — alain platel's pitié!

Alain Platel, founder of Les Ballets C. de la B., is renowned for creating challenging, provocative works – from the emotionally charged vsprs in 2006, to Wolf in 2004 (which included 14 dogs on stage). This latest production, pitié!, reunites Platel with vsprs composer Fabrizio Cassol to create an intense study of Bach’s extraordinary composition Matthew Passion.

Platel’s daring reinvention of Bach’s ‘untouchable’ masterpiece explores our ability to sympathise by approaching the central story of the crucifixion from the perspective of the mother. By working extensively with a cast of ten dancers over a period of months, Platel questions the limits of the individual’s ultimate sacrifice: himself.

The extremes of emotion are amplified by Cassol’s ambitious score, which draws on the essence of Bach’s music, and is performed live on stage by eight musicians including regular C. de la B. collaborators Aka Moon, plus three singers.

- from the sadlers wells website


oh. my. god.

this is the WORST thing that i have EVER seen.

first of all, i got there late. i'm late for a lot of things, but i am never late for the theatre. the tickets said that latecomers would not be admitted, and true to their word they banished me and the other bad kids upstairs to watch the performance on a tv. after 30 minutes they kindly let us in to the show and we watched from the 2nd circle (nosebleed section).

when i first got to the venue all huffy and puffy i was like "damn! i've missed 10 minutes.", but as i sat there knowing that it was a 115 minute show with no interval i thought "damn. i only missed 10 minutes."

the musicians were great, the singers were great, but the choreography? oh it was bad. the dancers were not performing ballet, they looked like they were having seizures. a multitude of people flinging their arms gracelessly, rolling around on the ground and screaming for no reason is not my kind of art. don't get me wrong, i like my art to the left, but this shit was too left. it was the kind of left that only an insecure art critic would claim to love simply because they couldn't understand it. "oh this makes no sense at all....it must be reeeeeeally deep."

other quirky elements of the show included:

1. there were microphones built in to the stage that were used sporadically by the dancers who wailed, screamed and shouted into them. one of them also said "i would like to thank my family for loving me. the rest of the world can kiss my ass." um....ok.

2. the dancers kept removing their clothes (and then putting them back on). what this had to do with anything i'm not sure. and the simulated sex...why? i don't need to see a man grab another man's nipple for no apparent reason.

3. the dancers insisted on randomly screaming seemingly irrelevant things. my favourite such moment was during a simulated orgy on a table when a woman shouted out: "I. AM. HUNGRYYYY!". in my head i screamed back: "WELL. EAT. BITCHHHHH!"

and the highlight [please note the sincere sarcasm] of the show was when all the dancers gave their backs to the stage, pulled down their pants and squatted for 5 mins, buttocks splayed. i was not expecting to receive the gift of anus that night, and i really could have done without it. THANK GOD i was in the nosebleed section, i can only imagine what the view was like in the stalls. the black dude, stage left, who got up from the squat position far too ungracefully would have been an endoscopist's dream.

in the end i just sat there laughing, not out loud, but i couldn't stop. as i wiped the tears away i smiled at how crazy the universe is. there i was fighting to be on time, when the universe was trying to save me from this wretch of a performance. if i was gonna be late to any show, this was the one to be late to.

pitié? they should pronounce it "pity".

ten.

coldplay - the scientist

i heard a rumour that he had to learn the song backwards to do this vid. not sure how true it is, but either way it's a beautiful piece.

i'm a scientist, don't you know.

when you think about it, all lovers/artists are alchemists.

constantly trying to blend visual, aural, oral and physical frequencies.

transformation.

transmutation.

creation, baby.

this is for the lover in you.

nine.

"what a day! what a happy day!"
-eddie murphy [trading places]

so much good shit happened today.

everything fell right into place.

rah!

eight.

cutest little creature everrrrrrr.

seven.

the view from my bedroom window this morning.



the boss texted me and said i could work from home.