8:40 pm
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"And kill the lights cause they're blinding me, I've been watching all the stars go by..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXlRyWYYswQ (live)
I feel queasy today. I did when I woke up and still do. I went to my grandparents for dinner yesterday but I do not think it was something I ate there. I am sure it is one of the bugs going around. I have not been sick but I have not ate enough to make it happen. I still went out today to do some reading, barely touching the piece of banana loaf I bought and the tea did nothing to alleviate my symptoms. Supper has consisted of a few strands of yellow beans, the crust of a breaded ham and cheese thing, and a few bites of a Mars bar washed down with some orange juice. I am not good at being sick, I assume I can do everything the same as before. Boy is this a mistake, though I was able to help a young woman setup her laptop today. My pounding head somehow found patience in her questions.
I have not listened to much by David Usher lately but the song above, Kill the Lights has been in my head today. Along with Human by The Killers below.
"Are we humans or are we dancers?........."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOLJy5HoFDQ
This afternoon I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I think I liked it better than The Kite Runner, though both are good stories. I also they are important reads to help understand Afghanistan, especially here in Canada where more and more of our soldiers are coming home dead from there. Whether we know or do not know what our soldiers are fighting for, the people of Afghanistan have been fighting for their lives for too many years. The following passage is from the book.
"Seasons had come and gone; presidents in Kabul had been inaugurated and murdered; an empire had been defeated; old wars had ended and new ones had broken out. But Mariam had hardly noticed, hardly cared. She had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold."
The following part of a poem written by Saib-e-Tabrizi in the 17th century was used in the book, the poem tries to capture Kabul's beauty.
"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."
"Wish I was back on the Bayou, rollin' with some Cajun Queen. Wishin' I where a fast freight train, just a chooglin' on down to New Orleans."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVhKjsImeI
Born on the Bayou by Creedance Clearwater Revival (Live 1970 Royal Albert Hall)
The song above was used in the movie, Stop-Loss, which I watched Saturday night. It was an alright movie, raising the usual questions about the war in Iraq and who is supposed to fight it, if the soldiers have already done their job once. I wonder if the process of stop-loss has continued at the same rate or waned since the movie finished. Ryan Phillippe actually did a good job in the movie, I thought anyway. Information about the movie is below.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489281/
"The Bible's blind. The Torah's deaf. The Qu'ran is mute. If you burned them all together you’d get close to the truth, still they’re pouring over sand script under Ivy League moons, while shadows lengthen the sun....."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaV-nGQ5yqw
Above is a very mature and good song written by Conor Oberst called Four Winds and recorded by his band Bright Eyes.
I was able to do some writing this afternoon, a little piece about the smallness of life. The title can easily deceive you into thinking it is something nice, it really is not.
A Strand of Hair on a White Sheet
Strong winter winds approach
New Year’s Day draws nearer
Ray asks “why’d you go away”
Resolutions are quietly made
Their hope vanishing silently
Each day is a wish granted
By some unknown custodian
The sweeper of every memory
Dutifully removing our history
Whether requested or required
Time like memory is only dust
Separating them cannot happen
Our future is children soldiers
Their little hands waving guns
Where milk bottles should be
Dirt and blood on their bodies
Where warm clothes should be
Their youth is sorrow absorbed
Colourful kites do not fly there
Rockets whistle like dog callers
Calm before chaos as always
Life after death for those lucky
Luck is a vaguely applied term
Breathe once and you are gone
What remains does not matter
A generation is a second passing
History’s own genocide killings
If there was a crowded afterlife
We would find a way to wreck it
Our hands are trained for greed
The first motion is to reach out
Not for love but material goods
An item we have been denied
Growing in size as we get older
Only learning the truth too late
Small things are what we desire
A strand of hair on a white sheet
The reminder someone else slept
Where we can longer fall asleep
Without being attacked by regret
A stream of light lacking clarity
Nothing to see but anything lost.
12/30/08
The Ray in the poem is LaMontagne and the song is A Falling Through, which is below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2T-CUPWsXg
Well it has been a long December, naturally, with or without the song. This will be my last blog entry of the year and I hope next year brings me more internal peace. I am not one to make resolutions and this will not change this year. Things come and things go, people come and people go. There is nothing poignant in that observation of mine, perhaps, there will be more poignancy next year. At the very least, there will be more music and more honest words torn out of my soul.
Best of luck.
john.
"All at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl.."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_kyd7NfTo
A Long December by Counting Crows (live 2008)
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