thirty-seven.

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

Air on the G String
Artist: Johann Sebastian Bach
Album: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major
Year: ~1723
♥: I am dissociated.
I feel detached from everything, music included -- this October is not as kinetic as I'd hoped it would be. I feel lost, emotionless, completely out of sorts, like I'm floating through reality without actually touching it, feeling it.

I've felt this before. This is the low point.


To get out of this state, I've been voraciously consuming various types of media. I spent today marking (..amateur media counts too, hah); I read a book in less than 24 hours; I've been unzipping albums like candy; still -- nothing's really getting me. Even if a song hits hard on the first listen, when I return to it, it's already lost its power. Songs from Falls past that should make me explode are just another melody. I remember how I should be feeling, but I'm not actually feeling it.

And then there's Fringe.
I've said before that TV is a huge influence in my life, but sometimes I have to be reminded. TV is beyond comfort food -- it sets me apart, shifts me out of whatever bullshit I feel (or, as per these days, don't feel) in reality, and gives me something to hold onto. So I've been watching Fringe because it's brilliant, because the characters are fabulous, because scifi feels like home, but mostly because I cry my eyes out at every episode and feeling raw is better than feeling nothing.

Of course, because it's me and I'm a little nuts, I don't cry typically.
So when one of the characters started playing this particular Bach piece because "music with harmony [i.e. classical] allows you to think clearly, whereas dissonant music [i.e. rock] prevents that clarity of thought" ---- I started crying.


I love classical music. So, so much. It gets brushed aside because I also love lyrics and synths, but I will as happily attend the symphony as Osheaga -- thing is, it really does encourage that clarity of thought in a way that 'dissonant' music just doesn't. It harks back to pieces of neglected history, makes me feel fabulously antiquated, but cannot/does not distract (not that all 'dissonant' music distracts, quite the contrary -- just that with classical music, I tend to have to face the..music, so to speak).

The times I have felt strongest when listening to classical music include:
- writing in my mother's basement as a teenager
- waltzing in my bedroom to Shostakovich in cegep
- watching The Nutcracker in university
- driving with 99.5, alone at night
- and sitting in a church in Prague, by myself really for the first time, as tenuously connected to my emotions as I am tonight. I got through that; I'll get through this.



This particular piece comes up in popular culture again and again, because it strikes something deep and unignorable. And: when I am so lost in my own life that the music I love can't be my map -----
thank god those classical harmonies are safely under my skin.

thirty-seven

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Happiness v Sadness
Robots in Disguise
Happiness v Sadness
2011

I'm not really familiar with the work of Robots in Disguise, but I've kind of been into this album lately.  Apparently it is their fourth (where have I been?).  They kind of remind me of Nina Persson + Le Tigre + Freezepop + The Raincoats; and even if their sound isn't wholly original, I dig it, man.

I listened to music a lot over the weekend, but when it came to picking a song for today, I was kind of lost.  The Tuesday Panics set in and I decided to do some FOCUSED listening on my walks to/from Hampstead.  As I walked down Hampton, this song came on.  I had just finished spending an hour talking about how I had had such a great weekend and how my mood is so stable BUT, still, the worry.  The little bit of nervousness that is kind of at the periphery of things--that I will get REALLY sad again, and this time will just be totally sucked in by it.  Gilda said that I will (obviously) experience sadness, but I wanted to differentiate between BIG sad and small sad.  Anyway, she basically said that constantly worrying that a small sad is going to become a BIG sad could make it so.  That if I get sad I should just be sad and not fret and agonize and be angry or scared about the way I am feeling. 

Back to the walk home: the manic, bouncy beat of this song poured into my ears and I tilted my head to the side to listen.  I love the chorus ("Happiness v. sadness/I'm like a yo-yo on a string string string [...] High high, low low/Happiness v. sadness OH") and the verse about the doctor ("Can this 7 pounds and 20 p. really beat my moods?").  I like that this song makes the flip flop between happiness and sadness not only light, but normal. 

When I came home from work today I was tired, and discouraged, and annoyed and kind of put off by the personality traits of certain people.  My head hurt.  And my stomach hurt, but I was hungry at the same time.  I had a peanut butter sandwich and some yogurt and then what was left of this pasta dish (that I had also had for lunch).  That would have been enough to kick off a downward spiral.  I could feel myself zoning out and kind of detaching.  My mind was going in a dozen directions at once.  I tried to read.  Put on Beverly Hills, 90210 and, by the second episode, I fell asleep.  I woke up and it was dark.  OH GREAT, I thought.  Another wasted night.  I checked the time, 6:45 p.m.  I wasn't completely wiped.  I didn't want to stay curled on the couch for the rest of the night, the rest of the week.  I thought, I totally can write my post.  I probably can finish my book.  When I got home, I walked into the kitchen and thought I would probably only get to the dishes Friday.  After the nap, I spent twenty minutes doing dishes and neatening up the kitchen and my room.  I didn't have that heavy feeling, the kind of dread and despair and disappointment.

And I put on this song.  It makes me smile without having to think about it.  It makes me feel buoyant.  But, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, it sort of makes me ugly-dance--with punching fists and flailing arms, erratic kicks, thrashing head and a constant, springy jump.

post thirty-eight theme

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

1. I have no clue as to how I am going to interpret this theme.
2.This is the image that used to be on the little paper bags my mom and I used to prepare for trick-or-treaters when I was little.  It makes me all nostalgic-like.