Beautifully Dissonant

later this day i wondered what is actually beautiful
hm, i'm not the first person to guess what it is
but

the key is dissonance

the small breaks in the surface letting the brooding stream of beauty emanate. the too stern looks, the too lightswallowing blackness of hair, the crashing disturbance in a piece of music.


Once i had to play one fugue by Shostakovich

it was carefully avoiding any dissonant (non-third/forth/fifth, octave) sound
it was so consonant it becomes scary after a minute
you wait for the dissonances to tickle your nerves
but nothing ever happens
it's like
a person smiling at you
for more than three minutes
i think this was in eraserhead
this was a wonderous eraserheaded piece of scary scary harmony
you know all is wrong, but it's kept as a secret from you

careful -
everything might become a fad
fad is bad!
fad is the shallow!
fad is the idiots posing as something you might like
by repeating/echolaliating something you really love

you'll understand it if you'll stumble across
the bitterness in the serene
the icy wind in the idyllic
the throatclearing in silence
the flaw that contrasts with inherent beauty
the flaw that is not a flaw but the soul

and then it has to go away!

for instance, i captured two brazilian artists on that camera

elis regina & antonio carlos jobim
they have a major flaw, ok
they're both dead
and jobim wears an abysmally ugly sweater
and regina spoils her breath with a ciggy
now for the reward - can those people transfer into the most beautiful persons on earth..
oh yes, they can
the two most beautiful moments in their little song are

1) when they start laughing (and dont want to)
2) when they're whistling a solo, totally out of tune with the piano

see..look down!

anyway - my daughter is likely to become a cyclist. or a kickboxer. she could kick me before she knew my name...

Grant McLennan

Crying for the first time in my life because some pop star died.
Grant, thank you so very very much.

Elis & Tom made my day again...

The Dynamitron Tandem Laboratorium

this entry is especially for those
who nudgenudged me
to enter something
even if there are matches between the old eyelids to keep them open
and the music playing is really disliked now..

well this was another vikend in boxum,
a really really nice ugly town at the border of
...you can see the dutch mountains
and really friendly people.

but the best thing is...
you dont have to see friendly people and mountains,
because you can walk for hours and hours and hours
without meeting someone....
walking without noticing where you actually are
it's perfection!
come to Bochum!
City of God!!

or...


no! don't come here!!
shhhht!
or..

come here, you chosen few, but dont tell anybody!
let's keep our litte secret
in those secret little boxes
and enjoy the forests and rivers and lakes and ponds
and the pond life, and the furnaces and bassins.
and of course
the Dynamitron Tandem Laboratorium

really -there is this sign, saying
"this way to the Dynamitron Tandem Laboratorium"
this utterly fascinated me as a child.

until this day, i havent found out what it actually is
i could do a noodle search, and find out.
but i won't.
and if someone would tell me, he won't live very long after
he won't live to tell the tale how another childhood mystery kicks the bucket

So the Fandorin enjoyed his little trip to Bochum
and for his arrival, the local soccer team destroyed some other team on Bochum lawn
and the sun was shining
and spring said hello
and it was warm, and the birches were scenting
and i suspected...
...it was all arranged especially for me..
and i felt a bit like Kim Jong Il, the ugly Northern Korean weirdo today.

everything in its place
just one piece missing in that improbably happy-day puzzle.

this is our contest -

if you can guess what was missing, you'll make a fortune
or not.

and i will go shleep, for i dont have much time!

technology fighting relevance

The Banquet Tears

Dug out Roger Shattuck's "Banquet Years", a terribly smart examination of that certain period we remember as the "Belle Epoque". Excess, ciggies, beautiful music, bearded men in striped swimsuits. Big moustaches. Weird inventions. Creepy bicycles. Wealthy sewing machine makers ordering harpsichord concertos for private puppet stages. As the 20th century grew colder, the moustaches, bikes, Hulots, hopelessly beautiful music went away, indignant, ironically, with a few raised eyebrows. We can find traces of these times on old records.

And just today I rediscovered some ancient songs by Edith Piaf

No, i won't mention "Je ne regrette rien" and other Big Pop Hits by this distinctive french singer (i honestly cannot stand them). Right now, I'm sitting in the semi-dark, it's one of these days when I'm terribly sad and I don't know why. I'm resisting to drown in a bottle of red wine. I'm just sitting, staring into the nothingness, while listening to early recordings of Edith Piaf.

It's jazz, very very blue jazz, combined with a hint of Belle Epoque funfair music. What is the opposite of funfair? sadfair? This music was recorded when Ravel was still alive, when WWII hadnt been unleashed.... and there is this song, "Mon Légionnaire", which happens to be the SADDEST song ever written, dramatic minor key, always tipping over to the major realm, thus tearing apart the soul of that lady.

she is singing about a one night stand with a soldier who "was small, beautiful and smelled wonderfully like the warm sand" ("sentait bon le sable chaud"), and she met him only once; in the second verse she is singing about the same soldier, who was "small beautiful, and they sent him under the warm sand" ("...mettait sous le sable chaud").

the first verse is a woman deeply in love, the second verse reflects relentless weeping, with resignation and dignity. and altogether, this is genius, and really moves me.

This is the one song that always makes me cry when I don't fight it. Tonight, I won't.

The Soft Ballistics

the entrance wounds of waking up early right under my eyes
and i ask myself
who is in charge here
who lets me do this
who allows me to look at that pile of metal garbage
and who lets the river flow through another town
where am i?
they built a monument
of someone, because
monuments have to be built
so someone can see someone
to think
just something