♪♫ ♪ ♪♫

Optimist
Zoë Keating
Into the Trees
2010

♥: I am tentatively returning to myself.

The past couple weeks, something shifted in my personal core. I can't quite articulate it; all I know is that when I feel something, I don't feel like I'm paying lip service to the feeling anymore. It's real, it comes from inside me, it explodes. 2011 hasn't been easy, ideologically speaking, and I still don't really know what's going on -- but right now, I feel closer to myself than I have in a long time.

Last night, V and I went to see Zoë Keating. This woman is, above and beyond, a musical genius. Period. There's no other word for her. Let's stress that this is V's discovery: she discovered Rasputina, and Zoë Keating was the second cellist during the Frustration Plantation period. I snagged Zoë's first solo album for V when it came out without really knowing what it was, and didn't listen to it until last year -- and holy fuck. She's taken solo cello and turned it into something heartstoppingly and experimentally beautiful. 16 layers of looped cello -- the feeling of being in an orchestra when you're only one person. Created solidarity. Incredible philosophically, and musically? Holy fuck.


Watching her perform last night was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had. I've never listened to a cello on its own before (like completely on its own, for longer than a solo in a classical piece or a Rasputina song), and it was strange. Maybe it's because the cello is supposed to be the instrument closest to the human voice, and that just makes it inherently weird -- but for the first few songs, it felt like my insides were opening up inside of me...not physically, but emotionally. If that makes sense. But physically: I wanted to cry and vomit at the same time. I had to clench my stomach muscles to make it stop (and I only wanted it to stop because I physically could not function).

Emotionally: I can't even begin. Just looking at this woman, alone onstage but for her cello and soft, sweet stage presence ---- that's enough to swell your heartstrings. Combine it with the music, this song specifically ---------
I can't.
I was thinking about all the marking I have to get done and papers and to what extent my social life defines my individual life and whether I'm an adult and then she played this song and none of it mattered. I was myself, essentially, and quite suddenly: an optimist.
(And I love how this song finishes, almost on an upward stress ----- there's still so much more to live. Nothing is set, the choices are all open, the song doesn't quite end.)



November is a powerful month; things shift.

I think this song might be magic.