blue grey

Ah, thank you, how nice to meet you here. Isn't the internet amazing. Like a tea party and reference library, where you can smoke and eat and drink if you like, with friends dozing off in corners. The meaning and influence of the words interest me very much within the context of the Relax/Any Other World entity, which I see as a perfect and complete whole, deeply appropriate to our times.

Welcome, how interesting that you should ask that. This is for me the most potent portion of the album. Relax and Any Other World. Raffa Kobeisi. I understand that she is an old family friend who visits them often. This is how it sounds to me: Same day I went to dress for wedding, same day, where I went married, what happened - he's gone married another girl. When he's married another girl I am very, very sad, I can't walk, like cutted my legs. How he's married different lady, I no believe. After one month, I am sent up in balcony some bomb come for my eyes. My eyes gone. My eyes gone in bomb, now I have only one eyes. I am sad until now. I no married any man after. I never ever I forget my story. My face is no sad, but inside I am sad.

The viewpoint is incredibly fluid. We change from the one at the end of the line sorry, a fox upset my dog, got her shouting to being the comforter of the afflicted. Forgive me, I am very slow, myriad thoughts crowd the brain in an explosion of expanding horizons, and I am reminded of trees. I am always reminded of trees. Trees remind me of trees, like you, you remind me of you, whenever I see them, delighting my eyes with the journey of their explorations, their slow dances of being in the space where they live their sacred lives being slaughtered to plant biofuels. Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in because it's all in the hands of the cold-hearted bastards with their hands in every till, dragging the breath from the lungs of the world with their greed with their greed with their greed. And there I am, talking to myself again. Sorry. But it's so amiss, silence is no longer an option.

Absolutely. It's a fascinating song, multi-stranded. Wrote about it a few weeks ago on a different thread I seem to remember. Won't look, don't want to recapitulate. Always launch into the wide blue yonder afresh not knowing anything, not knowing anything at all. Interested that no-one has yet mentioned the story told by the family friend, evidently hugely important, had massive effect on me last year, helped me to begin to express political self. So much to say, but writing here is just as difficult as writing anywhere, with so fair a chance that every word will fall down the abyss. All the same, will listen to that remarkable pair of songs again.. since you brought up the subject. It's so cold tonight.

My favourite version has gone from youtube. Ah well. So I listened to another favourite, this saddest song in a voice so rich, so full.. turn up the sound http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8ByoUc3vWm8

Those were the first words of his that I noticed, feels like I'm falling losing my day... Cold, dry.. feels like I'm falling far out of sight. just how I was feeling, falling off the edge, over and over, day after day; someone else knew what it felt like and was singing about it, how pleasing, company...

That made me laugh. Inspiration is an odd thing that cannot bear refusal. Like water, it will always find a way. A really good piece of work will be full of layers, however simple. The layers deliver themselves, and are often invisible. You might only notice one if your mood changed, or the light, or years might have passed. It takes time for things to percolate to the surface, releasing their potency. Sometimes the layers are in the observer. And there are layers of many kinds everywhere all the time. Like dust. In any other world you could tell the difference Layers of truths, layers of experience and doubt; inner conflict a draught that keeps the fire burning. I so hope that there are more songs of the calibre of Any Other World, and rather think there will be. We're in for some serious paradigm shifting in these times, and do need songs to keep us company amid tempests and shifting sands. Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in... http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161299088

Could end up grisly and unpalatable. By the time I'd finished what I said I would do the other night (writing something about Relax/Any Other World) it was very late, and I was talking to myself again, so I slunk off, without posting this: This moment is all we may have in the accelerating expansion of this explosion in time called now. Sunday night, past midnight, all asleep around, lights out, stars glimmer between clouds. Far away a dog barks... a dog howls... I've eaten all the licorice... Relax... out on the edge, hurtling into the dark... so mannered, brisk, and this is what happens in the real world when your heart is broken and you stand on the balcony, rejected... Another blow falls, and on some the blows are terribly severe. At length we shall all break in the breeze and be blown away. This weaving of stories, the inner story of our own unconscious ramblings in high anxiety, the meaning of our lives and times so very challenging among the accumulations of loss, rocketing toward oblivion somehow the experience of surrender can be refreshing, the horrified recognition of total alteration of life, of being, in every way. Gentle anthem for paradigm shift, solace for the grief-stricken, the body of the soul fractured and torn. speak for yourself, speak for each other, the key is telling the truth let yourself let go, the kindest words I'd heard in a while, holding it all together in the dark, no sign whatever of a future, couldn't see a thing out there. Men chasing each other with guns everybody's loss except for the dealers in death, speculators and profiteers who are growing poisonous mushrooms in the dank dark pit of their souls. Because when you see how things really are you find yourself alone, no-one will listen, no-one wants to know about the bony hand knocking on the door. Published on 27 Feb 2008 by Speaking Truth to Power. Archived on 27 Feb 2008. Review of Dmitry Orlov's Re-inventing Collapse The old normal is that life will go on just like before. The new normal is that nothing will ever be the same. Rather than attempting to undertake the Herculean task of mitigating the unmitigatable-attempting to stop the world and point it in a different direction-it seems far better to turn inward and work to transform yourself into someone who might stand a chance, given the world's assumed trajectory. Much of this transformation is psychological and involves letting go of many notions that we have been conditioned to accept unquestioningly. Some if it involves acquiring new skills and a different set of habits. Some of it is even physiological, changing one's body to prepare it for a life that has far fewer creature comforts and conveniences, while requiring far more physical labor. http://www.energybulletin.net/40989.html Read that writing on the wall, we too will pass. Will it be as ciphers, lost in the sand, or a faint memory of self respect in the bones of our descendents? Perhaps we lit the way into a chastened future. http://www.permaculture.org.uk/mm.asp?mmfile=whatispermaculture "Maximum contemplation; minimum action." Time to think. Enough is enough.

It took that long to get the nerve to listen to it again. Had a really bad Christmas, didn't want to go back there again. It was alright, just skirted the edge of the first song, I forget what it's called, Grace Kelly (and who's going to write an article about that and Psychosynthesis and subpersonalities, hey? That would be very enjoyable for someone.) The joys of a multi-dimensional personality. http://two.not2.org/psychosynthesis/ Yes, and nipped straight in to those two songs which make so outstanding a whole: Relax/Any Other World, rushing to turn off before the next which is so distracting in the noisy manner of it that it knocks the whole incredible thing off the page. I suppose that's deliberate. What is done here is so excellent and good. These two songs and an exhibition of Jeffrey Camp's paintings in London last spring, had a significant influence on my work since then. Whispering through it the insistence the mysterious message gets through, just open to the marks that come bursting out of the brushes like fireworks. How come? Where do these songs take you, or me, or who or we, or where, or am? I'm not sure that I should say. It all begins to horribly, so true, some of us recognise that place I have to press my back against the hot radiator to stop myself shaking sometimes, when I remember, it isn't so good to talk about as you might think. Has to be done from time to time, as the perspectives shift, as new lessons infiltrate, bypassing the safety valve on my mind. A cup of tea.. listen again.

It should have been Valse Triste, by Sibelius. With a v, not a w. Sorry. Just looked in to see if there's anything about the young fellow taking his time over new album. Very pleased to have heard that. No sense in rushing things. Good work takes time. Like knitting a parachute with cobwebs. Shall I say more about Relax/Any Other World? That would mean listening to them again. Haven't done that for a few weeks, trying to build renew interior edifice that can support continuing attempts to understand the nature of our world and its systems. Finding song by John Gorka "Outside" particularly helpful during last few months, from his album 'Old Futures Gone'. I was one of those due to attend Mika's cancelled concert in December, few days before worst birthday ever, or perhaps third worst. Heart trouble. Went to other concert in February, security took this Granny's thermos flask off her at the door, in case I threw it at the stage. For goodness sake, I'm not 4. Live like a hermit, poke my little head out the shell and the world's radically changed again. Then I buy a bottle of water and the silly man won't give me back the top (in case I throw that one too) so I have to concentrate on not spilling this bottle of water all the way through the concert, and that is a foolish distraction until I get my thermos flask back on the way out. Oh authoritarians, hard to find a place clear of them sometimes. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ I can't help noticing that people seem to be expecting a level of unnecessary violence of me that I am simply not prepared to give. Ok, I'll listen to them again now. I just hope I don't knock the scab off this awful mess in my memory.

Do you think they'll let me in if I'm late?

Stephen King wrote a book about his writing, and explained how he uses his own fear, of which he has a plentiful supply, as fuel and inspiration. Now that is what I value most in Mika's songs, the distillation of unbearable emotion. That is why those two incredible pairs of songs: Relax/Any Other World and Happy Ending/Over My Shoulder are so powerful and reliable as emotional supports or means of catharsis. They are honest and genuine, the musical brilliance is fueled by total human engagement, the whole self. I cannot tell you how much I have cried working to Happy Ending, remembering the deaths of my brother and my impossible, beautiful ex-husband. Both horrible deaths, both messed and marred further by bureaucratic nastiness, deceit and arrogance. Such experiences make it much harder to ignore the real horror into which we are all plunged: "it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man." I cannot usually bear to listen to pop music and my musical experience is not extensive, but it is vital to my working life, hate to paint without it. I can therefore clearly state that I have found Happy Ending/Over My Shoulder to be as cathartic as Sibelius's Waltz Triste. Sorry if that sounds pompous, but buggerillo, there's not much music you can trust when your heart is all over the carpet. I do wonder how people manage who have the cd that ends with that beautiful sad song. Luckily mine has Ring Ring on the end, which helps me to dry my tears, put the kettle on, and determine not to telephone anyone about any of this! I would like to say lots more about that other marvelous pairing, but I am not sure that I should.

Just found this in the post. We're writing to inform you that MIKA at Carling Academy Brixton on 26/02/2008 has been postponed. Once the new date is confirmed you will be informed. February is usually the coldest month. So now there's a surprise to look forward to.. Well, that's a load off my mind, I couldn't decide what to wear tomorrow, nothing with enough pockets.. for sandwiches, smokes, notes... worried about catching the last train home.. now I can stay in with my dog, how nice. Pacing. Pacing.