The girl was never there, it’s always the same, I’m running towards nithing…
again and again and again….

Its been pretty long since i used this blog. Hmm I’m not sure how true this is, but Coorg being my birth place and me in spite of staying there till my 10th birthday I’d never heard anything about this, neither my parents. When I first told about this to my parents they were breathless after hearing this, and me stupefied seeing them astonished. I wondered how big secret this is and also wonder why.

After settling in Bangalore i gave a visit back to my birth town with my friends, some 5 years back. It was late in the noon by the time we reached Virajpet. A well known town in Coorg district, and my birth place. We hired a room and dumped our luggage and went off to the streets to have some coffee. After that we just set off to revisit my old house nearby. I was very nostalgic to see most of things unchanged. These were  an inexpungible and a very very emotional moments for me. I also met one my class mate, and again, was happy that she recognized me. It was going to be dark pretty soon, and so i told my friends that we should give a visit to some WILD spots around. I suggested them one such place I always used to go with my old friends, back when i was in Virajpet. This is called kottoli. All three of us were pretty excited and hired a rickshaw. It was such a perfect time we reached there. River flowing, surrounded by paddy fields, thick forest within vicinity and the orange sun. Wow!

We just relaxed for sometime, dipped our feet in the flowing water. We were unusually quite and flirting with silence. And busy admiring the nature. Coming to me, i was so taken back in time where I spent such wonderful moments here. Me and my old friends used to come walking all the way just for the same reason always,to play. We used to play in the tree, climb up to a swing like branch, take turns and just swing and swing and swing until dark. And that tree was still there, untouched! Yet so many things missing.

It was getting dark fast and so we just left and by now I’d told my friends that I used to come walking all the way till here. And so we tried to do the same and we didn’t go back in the same route we came from. Took the paddy fields and for the sake of adventure took a long route, I kept on telling my old stories and all the good times i spent here and as we walked, I smelled something fishy but i didn’t pay attention to what i was feeling as i was dominated by the excitement in telling them my old stories. And suddenly something caught my eye and i noticed that the paddy field was pretty far gone. We were approaching the nearby forest area. I was wondering how i could be wrong. Our footsteps started sounding crispier and i feared bad. I stopped talking for a while and I thought to myself, ” What if in a few moments we could only sense our footsteps and nothing else? “

I didn’t say anything to my friends, I didn’t want them to fear the worst as they were unfamiliar with the place, and finally i didn’t want to panic. So I cut down on myself being a chatter box and spent most of the time looking ahead and looking around but never looking down. By now it was well late in the evening. Say 6:40 pm just to give you a hint. And we were well inside the forest, my 2 friends didn’t question me anything. Perhaps they thought we were approaching the town where we hired the rickshaw earlier. But it was never gonna happen that way, I knew it and didn’t say anything about it at all. As we walked my friend yelled, “Hey there’s a narrow way here. Lets just check out what’s inside!” I didn’t wanna go there, it seemed like a temple or something. I feared the worst. It was cold, yet the sweat rolled down my nose. It was actually haunted and while I was a kid my dad,while he was helping me with my homework late at night rushed to his hospital, to perform an emergency post-mortem of a priest who was killed by a leopard. I feared the worst back near that temple. More over that I didn’t want my friends know anything about this so i kept quite like a dumb lady. I too walked into this unknown place shivering. And for the sake of my life i saw a small gate but the balcony inside was deserted. There were spider webs on the gate and I’d never seen such a haunted place in my life before. All my hope of safety was the gate itself, I thought leopards wouldn’t be coming in the vicinity of humans’ occupied area. We just went in and as i guessed it was a temple and by God’s grace we found a priest there. How relieved would i get?! My friend said, ” what a beautiful place!! So deserted and haunting!” I smiled unconvincingly. We took photographs from my friend’s analog camera. Most of the roll was used earlier. We spoke to the priest for a while and for a great surprise we got to know that he was the only one living there and he’d made it his home. He also said that very few people come to perform pooja on the day of the local’s festival once in a year,which is called as ‘huthri’ by the Coorgies. We spent some time talking to the priest and left the place in a jiffy.

I was still in a dilemma where our path was taking us to and I didn’t even ask the priest the correct way outta there. Don’t ask me why. I really feared some negative response from him. We climbed up a little way up the narrow path from the temple and joined the old ‘unknown’ path we were walking in. We walked fast for another half an hour and almost near our exhaustion we reached the town and this opening was “makoota road” which is way different from where we started off. I wasn’t happy, I was only breathing relief that we all were safely back to the town. My friends didn’t know what I was going through all the while neither the danger to their own selves. They still don’t know anything about this unless they read this post.

I remembered this small piece of newspaper article I’d read way long back and it flashed back in my dream last night. Ok there is a trivial news in the history of Coorg, said by some archeologists that Coorg has the most number of hidden temples in the whole world.  One of them might be the temple named “Shiver”

And the photographs we took in the “Shiver” temple was not able to be developed, for which i have no answer!!!

Former Harvest cover-artist, designer and illustrator Marc Martin, has created an entire book of his own. It is a picture storybook called, ‘A Forest’, which means that the first thing that must be asked of it is – did someone have to chop down a forest so that it could be made? Happily, the answer is no. Marc’s book is made from 100% recycled paper and printed using vegetable ink.

It is simple in format, and despite the absence of many things I like about books – end papers, title page, dedication, typographer’s note – I’ve enjoyed looking at ’A Forest’ a lot. The story is a small and quiet idea, with a rather wistful post-apocalyptic end; the writing aids the circularity of the narrative but is otherwise a basic vehicle for Marc’s wonderful illustrations. These vary in style from the naive to something a bit more careful and geometric, even decorative – to nice, fat watercolour blotches. Like all good picture books, the more you look at ‘A Forest’, the more you see…

… I had fun identifying an unusual variety of trees in Marc’s forest, including succulents and pines, fir trees, upside-down trees, octopus trees, fairy-bread trees, and tall women trees wearing broad-brimmed hats.

‘A Forest’ is available from:

Metropolis Books, Curtin House, City
Brunswick Bound bookstore, Sydney Rd, Brunswick
Monkhouse Design, Lygon St, East Brunswick
In the Woods, High St, Northcote
Greville St Books, Prahran
Artisan Bookstore, Gertrude St, Fitzroy
and Ariel Bookstore in Sydney

:: Lee ::

I have only just come across this video (admittedly not one of great quality) from 1981 of The Cure performing at The Werchter Festival, Belgium. The show was running late, and as a result time was taken from The Cures set in order to accommodate the headliners, Dire Straights and Robert Palmer.  After 12 songs, the band was warned if they did not stop playing soon, the roadies for Palmer would pull the plug altogether, so, as a compromise, they resolved to just play one more song.

That one song was ‘The Forest’ which they managed to draw out from its normal running time of just under 5 minutes, to almost 10, largely by improvisation. Notably Robert Smith repeats the lyric ‘Such a long end’ as the band string out the song. When the band finally finished, bass player Simon Gallup followed this up by yelling ”Fuck Robert Palmer, and fuck rock ‘n’ roll!”

This quickly became one of The Cures most notorious and famous televised performances, and also one of their most brilliant. Palmer’s roadies responded by throwing the Cure’s gear off the back of the stage.

I applaud such exploits in attempting to piss people off.

Io rilancio

I tried to go for a drive to somewhere pretty last weekend – it’s a thing, here in Ontariario, to try to get a good view of the changing leaves in around this time of year. M and I grabbed her mom and headed up to a little town we’d visited happily once before – an hour of concrete and tar along the way, but worth it: pretty, quiet, isolated, far from Urbanity. Nice walks, nice trees, tea shops.

And to cut to the chase, we arrived there to find an endless stream of other people with the same idea – miles and miles of cars winding through the entire town, full of people looking for a place to walk, ruining the atmosphere we were seeking and the fresh air we were breathing. The OPP-o were out sorting out jams and scowling, and I felt ashamed, wanted to apologize to the people who lived there.

We turned around and left, decided to find somewhere else to sit and eat our picnic. Consulting the map, we saw other provincial parks nearby, and drove towards them, and guess what? Lines and lines of cars. I fell into a deep misanthropic swoon, self-loathing included, but put a friendly face on and found a place to park: at least we’ll eat outside and then just head back. We got out on this country lane and found it nearly impossible to find a place to sit. We settled for less-than-idyllic, followed our meal by joining the line-up that constituted a “walk in the woods”, and then we drove home. It was a gross day, although we all avoided saying much about it.

Because what are you going to say? Nobody’s to blame except for all of us. Even the property we couldn’t sit on, the acres and acres of privately owned space that would, had it been available, have allowed us to spread out was privately owned because the owners wanted the same thing we wanted: out of the crowd.

This blog’s been a bit depressing lately, hasn’t it? Oddly, I am in a happy space, loving my job, loving the people around me, but a bit unable to stop seeing the forest along with the trees. Here’s a song.

02-the-cure-a-forest

Natasha (Bat For Lashes) Khan reworks The Cure’s finest moment.

A Forest

Back at home for a short while before heading off to the National Forest Folk Festival. Always happy to keep an open mind about music. The main challenge will be camping with a 10 month old!

Alex Smoke – Never Want To See You Again (Ada Remix)

This Smoke track for 2006 still gives me the tingles. It’s a builder and IMHO the best mix Ada has ever produced.

Gestern war ich mal wieder auf einem Konzert undzwar bei The Cure im Velodrom in Berlin. Wir kamen so gegen 20:00 an und waren 20:15 in der Halle, so dass wir von der Vorband nichts mitbekommen haben – es hat sich aber von der Garderobe aus ganz gut angehört.

Gegen 20:30 kamen dann nachdem eine Zeitlang Meeresrauschen und Delphingeräusche eingespielt wurden (was auch immer das sollte) The Cure auf die Bühne. Am Anfang spielten sie einige ihrer neueren Lieder (die ich leider nicht kannte). Stück für Stück war eine Steigerung zu spüren, so dass spätestens ab der Mitte keiner mehr ruhig stehen bleiben konnte (zumindest in der Halle – Es gab ja auch Sitzplätze) und die meisten richtig abgingen.

Das Konzert endete nach 3.5h mit der Zugabe von der Zugabe von der Zugabe (soll heißen sie haben 3 Zugaben gespielt) um circa 00:06. Ich persönlich war danach einfach nur fertig und habe mich gefragt wie die Band das geschafft hat so eine Leistung über dreieinhalb Stundne zu bringen.

Zusammenfassed kann ich sagen, dass ich echt begeistert war. Zumal ich vor wenigen Wochen auf dem Konzert der Babyshambles in der Columbiahalle war, wo es eng und stickig war und man sich nicht bewegen konnte. Das war hier vollkommen anders. In der Halle war vernünftig Platz und man hatte (wahrscheinlich dadurch dass das Publikum doch etwas älter ist ) auch nicht ständig einen Ellenbogen in der Rippe. Vielleicht zum Schluss noch eine kleine Auswahl der Songs, die sie gespielt haben (und die ich kannte)

• Boys don’t cry
• Why can’t I be You (da gings richtig ab)
  
• Pictures of You (auch als Livevideo direkt von Konzert)
• Lullaby
• Lovesong
• Close to me

So – mal als kleines Updates die Videos die es vom Konzert schon bei YouTube gibt:

• The Kiss
• Pictures of You
• Play for today
• Plainsong
• A forest
• Close to me
• Just like heaven

I remembered at school aged 10 the teacher wanted us to describe strange words through the power of art. My best mate Jim had ‘somnambulist’ and I had ‘grotesque’. After learning the about the definitions of the words the class set to work on their pieces. For some reason known only to myself, I decided to portray a fat middle-aged bald man in a dirty vest, sat on a toilet in a cubicle littered with syringes and old beer cans. Being rather deft with a brush the resulting piece was rather effective, I found out later (much later, about ten years ago) that my parents had been called into the school and interrogated about my frame of mind by a social worker. According to my mum one of the teachers was very upset about the piece concluding that the artist was ‘deeply disturbed’ which was utter twaddle, of course…

I was thinking about this last night in bed during another bout of self-imposed insomnia, ‘self imposed’ because I abstained last night. The word ‘somnambulist’, or rather the act of somnambulism is something that has always terrified the shit out of me. As a small child one of my key fears was to meet my parents whilst they were sleep walking, of course this phenomenon is the fundamental chill factor in zombie movies (in addition to being a key catalyst of surrealism –something familiar devoid of its expected characteristics) so as fears go, it’s far from unique, I’d even argue it’s innate in everyone.

So, I pondered this, I began thinking how I’d feel if I found Myfwt sleep walking, no, I most certainly wouldn’t like that… idiotically I found myself downloading my childhood fears into the present, with the barrier of booze removed my mind was able to cheerfully bat these ideas about while I quietly panicked in the dark. Myfwt slept like a top, I went to sleep at 3 after having gone to bed at 10.30 to watch (a not up to par) Curb Your Enthusiasm prior to turning off the light.

Waking up without a hangover is certainly preferable to waking up with one; it’s helping me to stick to my 2 days off a week and contributing to a bit of control when I’m having days on. I’m meeting Frank for a couple tonight but after that I may see if I can hold out until Friday… we’ll see.

Another key factor in all this is the whole food/wine thing. If I eat a roast or a pie or employ anything with a cheese and tomato sauce I find denying myself wine almost impossible. But stick to stir-fries with chilli, salmon, prawns etc., and you’ve a meal that doesn’t lend itself well to red wine (though very arguably with white and beer, both surmountable as I don’t crave them like I do the sweet, sweet red) either in eating or preparation.

That’s got to be a top tip right there, surely.

TITOLO: A forest
AUTORE: The cure
ALBUM: Seventeen seconds (1980)
ASCOLTALA!: http://www.musicwebtown.com/jacopax/162395

Pochi gruppi hanno marcato un genere così a fondo da diventarne una sorta di prototipo universalmente riconosciuto. Se si pensa al dark-punk, il nome dei Cure viene in mente istantaneamente: meritatamente o meno -non importa - il gruppo inglese ha costituito il punto di riferimento obbligato per chiunque si sia cimentato con quel genere. Di certo, al di là della qualità della proposta musicale, a tratti veramente eccellente ma nel complesso molto discontinua, i Cure devono la propria fama e la propria influenza alla carismatica leadership del frontman Robert Smith. Con il suo aspetto (le sue occhiaie, il viso pallido, i capelli perennemente sconvolti), con il suo abbigliamento, con il suo modo di stare in scena, Smith ha iscritto sul proprio corpo e consegnato all’eternità tutto ciò che ha significato, significa e significherà il movimento dark.

LINK: monografia su Ondarock, testo della canzone