The Notwist @ Mocvara 11Apr2014

During one recent argument with my daughter I noticed one very curious thing.

We were enjoying a day of hiking and socializing with some dear friends and while we were walking downhill to our car, conversing and laughing, she asked if we are going to go with friends to their home and stay there for a few hours more. As we have already spent whole day together, climbed a mountain, ate lunch and descended and were pretty tired I said "No, we’re all going to go home and rest a bit and savor that lovely day." to what she got angry and frustrated and started to cry. Faced with that reaction I said that it makes no sense to growl and cry when she now has whole day of wonderful experiences to enjoy and remember (hiking and lunch with friends) as opposed to crying over something that will never even happen (going to friends’ place).

She is, of course, only learning her limits and the art of “knowing when to stop”, but… it seems that I am too.

I have this… hurt… that I’m nursing in my inside, never allowing it to heal.

There was this The Notwist concert at Mocvara two weeks ago (on 11Apr2014). I bought the ticket as soon as they were released and I was waiting eagerly for this concert because I really love their music. Also, I was really terrified. So terrified, in fact, that I have in the morning of the concert tweeted:

It says:"I'm listening to Notwist in preparation for tonight's gig and I can see that this will be one of those days when I get so fucked up I need a fortnight for comeback." 

I went to The Notwist gig at Teatar&TD 26Apr2008. It was one of the first gigs I went to after I decided to really stand behind my love of music and the wish to make music more than just background noise of life. It is the first gig that I “attended” at Last.fm network which will subsequently become the flywheel of my life. It was also the first gig I went to with my then boyfriend, when love was budding fresh and shiveringly passionate.

I still remember very vividly how was it to stand there, in that jam-packed hall, and French kiss while Consequence was ringing through the air, owning it.

Never
Leave me paralyzed, love
Leave me hypnotized, love

And now, I was supposed to go and listen to Notwist while that guy would not stand next to me but also somewhere in the audience in that hall. And for the rest of my life, somewhere in the audience in this world.

It sucks to be acutely aware of the meaning of never.

It also sucks knowing that “never” may not actually mean never and that this is only important for just as long as I actually care.

Caring sucks but sucks waaaaay less than that person I become when I stop caring.

The hurt inside that I spoke of in the beginning of this part is a hurt of my fear of becoming the person that does not care, again, and staying that person, indefinitely.

So I got my shit together and I went to see The Notwist, even through hurt and fear.

I met a friend for drinks before and she did not ask me anything and I did not tell her anything and she kept me company and lulled me to safety with talk of everyday things and business of music. We walked together toward Mocvara part of the way and we hugged when we parted. Few moments later I was in Mocvara and Jel was just getting ready to go on stage.

That was one funny act.

Jel played ok songs, not really my cup of rapping tea, but his comments in between songs were what I will remember him by. When another friend came by, a little later, I remember saying: “It is ok, until he speaks” through laughter when she gave me the inquiring look.

He spoke of Crank soundtrack, of Jason Statham, of being watched from above, of consumerism, of being among Germans for too long and that their “Romantisch” meaning “quick fuck” is so far far away from romantic he is used to as an American. Funniest part was him pointing out that “…knives are dangerous. Well, guns too, but knives are really dangerous. You can cut yourself with one.”

After a short pause and some mingling The Notwist stepped on stage.

What I love most in their live acts is that none of their songs sound like they sound on the albums. They add, they subtract, they play within playing. They piss on field dependence. They make fun of the pedestal we put them on. They fcukin’ enjoy playing.

I love that.

I love that.

All iconic songs that get singalong treatments from mindless, emotion-engulfed crowds, were broken. At one time or another they would add some radical change, new sound, critical difference that did not allow for the live act to become boring reproduction of material that was once recorded. It was all new, fresh, untarnished with time and repetition.

They were in good spirits from the beginning. I stood in the third row, stage in full view, at arm’s reach. Stage was simple but bulging with equipment. There was also a million lights.

Sound was excellent.

Močvara was full, but not uncomfortably hot or packed. Strangers around me were keeping their distance and were pleasantly involved with their own enjoyment.

I danced and I danced and I mouthed some lyrics soundlessly and my overcharged body was vibrating with emotional charge.

Thinking about the gig, imagining how it would be I was afraid of one song or the other but when we came to One With The Freaks I was already in tears

Have you ever?
Have you ever been all messed up?
Have You ever?

… and things suddenly fell into perspective.

It makes no sense to growl and cry when I have all this wonderful experiences to enjoy and remember (spending time with a person that I thought the love of my life at that time) as opposed to crying over something that will never even happen (family).

To begin enjoying all the wonderful experiences I just have to

LET GO.

They played Pilot, Gloomy planets, Pick up the phone, they played new songs of which I still don’t know song names by heart, they played everything and anything and we danced and we, all of us, the band and the audience, enjoyed visibly.

They finished and we called them back and they played some more.

I love how pleased musicians bow. Endeared and accomplished and thankful all in one. Like a person that has just fallen in love with someone.

And then they came out for second encore and they played Consequence. I was crying so hard I felt my lungs gasp for air and my nose was wet, sniffling. Consequence was like a foil sword (floret) that stabs precisely, without cutting. High functionality, no energy wasting.

The Notwist bowed again, their happiness palpable and real.

Mine too.

Bohren & der Club of Gore @ Jedinstvo 28Mar2014

As time goes by I become increasingly aware of my passions...

And also my limitations.

When I heard a song by Bohren & der Club of Gore somewhere in early January I was so smitten by its beauty I immediately made plans to go and see them play live...

And I was also wary of this experience.

You see, I listen to a lot of jazz, instrumental and crossover music at home and I enjoy deeply in multitude of its qualities, from pensive introspection to dancy soundtracks to accompany cooking (Kurt Vonnegut’s letter on his daily routine to his wife comes to mind), and yet, I am also profoundly aware that this is a passion I thoroughly prefer enjoying exclusively in my own company. Going to see Bohren play in a sold out space with 4 hundred other people could have proved an experience I did not really want to... hmm... endure. But, I got the ticket (as a birthday present, no less!) and I planned to use it.

So March 28^th came, bringing the gift of good weather and evening free to enjoy some good music.

I came early (as it was said that ticket numbers up to 200 should come at 8 and I had 113) and met a friend so we stood there, wrapped in small talk and waiting. Some time after 8 we got in.

The stage was set in the middle right of the Jedinstvo hall, surrounded by chairs from three sides. We agreed on where to sit and we got a drink and sat. The space was filled with fog and instrument places on stage were marked with small overhead colored lamps. Waiting for the concert to start we were treated to some Žedno Uho festival headliners music. If I didn’t already buy the ticket for the festival I surely would have to after this experience.

Suddenly, the hall went dark and Bohrens stepped on stage. Music commenced.

I love that feeling of being alone in a place filled with people and this is exactly how it was. There was darkness and silence from the audience interrupted only with intermittent clanking of bottles. Band played. Overhead lamps repeated endlessly their colored mantra: yellow-orange-red-purple-blue-green and yellow again. Songs flowed, one after the other, like a mountain spring, bringing warm along with freezing cold, love with despair, kink with the stink. I thought of Lt.cmdr. Riker and his trombone, of smoking cigars and playing poker, of James Ballard fucking Helen Remington, of Komm züruck zu mir and Minuet, the fantasy that forever blocks the way for reality.

It was a beautiful feeling, fulfilling and deeply satisfying, to be there and to only feel the music.

Everything else was eaten away by darkness.

BSOD

In the morning, when I drive to work I notice that there are new leaves on the trees. Yesterday there were none and now they are here, buds turning to leaves. I smile and I greet them.

Talking to a friend I notice his choice of words has changed when speaking about a person he is in a relationship with. He speaks in short sentences, accentuating his role in daily happenings, leaving out the details that are not exclusively his doing or interest. I do not meddle but make a mental note of it to get back to if needed in the future.

Our actions mark the passage of time, not our thoughts.

Like drops in a stream thoughts flow by, emerging and diving under, unhindered by daily happenings and are lost if there is no decision to make them permanent; to weigh, to assign value, to label as truth.

Not all thoughts labeled truth are in accordance with objective state of affairs nor is the context we measure them against irrelevant, but also, down below, what we humans actually are is creatures of habit.

What we perceive as truth and how we weigh it becomes the thing that defines us and determines actions that mark the passage of time.

I make a point of noticing and if I could be blind for changes my life would be different.

But I make a point of noticing so it always comes bitter with the sweet. That is as good a taste as any, it’s only the preference that makes us sad.

Chair Socks - Basic Pattern

When I just moved in 2012. I wrote how crafting is home and I've shown that I'm knitting my lovely beechwood chair some socks. These are some good socks and they have surely worked hard for almost two years protecting my floors from scratching and my ears from noise and now came a time for them to be replaced.

So I have knit a new set of socks:

This is for size referece when not streched on a chair leg. Plus it looks so weird, like backward designed glove :D

As many people still arrive to this blog following a search for "chair socks" I decided to put my simple pattern here.

CHAIR SOCKS
(or should I say "furniture socks" as you can put this on tables, cupboards and couches with legs)

Needles: 4 steel DPNs size 2 mm
Yarn: leftovers from old knitted vest, frogged recently for recycling
Size: it depends on your gauge and choice of warn/needles (these fit snugly on legs with 5 cm diameter)
Type: simple, bottom-up

Cast on 9 following disappearing loop method (It would be 8 for pattern but since disappearing loop calls for odd number it is one more, hence 9, tug gently on the tail end to check if everything works and divide stitches onto 3 dpns, I prefer 2+2+4 (here 2+2+5 because of 9th stitch). Work in rounds.
1st row: knit
2nd row: kbf stitches 1-7, knit stitch 8 and 9 - this should give you 4+4+8 stitches total
3rd row: knit
4th row: knit
5th row: *kfb 1, k1* repeat to end of row - this should give you 6+6+12 stitches total
6th row: knit
rows 7-37: 1x1 rib (*k1, p1* all around)
Bind off loosely, but not  too lose so the sock will "hug" the leg nicely. I prefer to bind of simply, with purl stitches (just like following this tutorial, only purl-wise) because I like how purl bumps look as border.

Finish by weaving in firmly and invisibly all ends on the wrong side and give your chairs a makeover.

Obviously, you need to make as many socks as your chair/couch/table has legs (so it will not wobble) but when you finish up the first one try it on to make sure it fits. If it is too big try making one with less stitches (just remember there has to be even number to stay in pattern 1x1 rib) or adding up more stitches in 5th row (so all adding up will be done on the bottom, before sock needs to circle the circumference of the leg.

If you like, you can add some color by making it stripey, but if you decide on some small-scale fair isle take care to make it stretchy enough to fit the leg.

Enjoy!

Portman - The Man Who Carries a Light

While we are on a subject of enjoying one’s moment I thought to tell you a thing or two about one of my favorite albums of 2013.

Taken at album promotion gig at KSET 03Oct2013

Portman - The Man Who Carries a Light

I wrote about Portman before; when they supported Maybeshewill in Attack in 2012 and about album promotion in October 2013. and if you checked that out you it may seem to you that I like them very much - but, I would like to elaborate that.

From their promotional material one can learn that:

"Portman is instrumental trio from Našice. They work as a band from 2004. and they have released two albums in this period: Pereskesije (2009., Lady Records) and The Man Who Carries A Light (October 2013., Klub dostava zvuka and Lady Records). The Man Who Carries A Light was recorded at House of Pablo in Zagreb and it was recorded and produced by" no other than Leo Klaić, the man who has surely became my absolutely favorite Croatian music scene name (She loves Pablo, Elephant Stalker, Killed a Fox)." This album consists of 8 instrumental pieces in which, except basic post-rock sound, many other musical influences interlace - from stoner riffs to psychedelics and heavy metal vibes. Portman members also play in other bands like Hesperian Death Horse, Uthovar, Oprosti."

Also in their promotional materials one can read that: 

“The Man Who Carries A Light is an allegory of a man who is able to influence his environment and change the world to make it better. It is a man who did not lose hope, who kept his unyielding spirit, who did not give up on himself or on others. Song titles stem from the man himself, his environment and the difficult position in this bleak world in which materialism coerces him to abandon his values in the course of fighting for survival. Album is inspired by  man’s animal need for exclusively personal survival, with situation and unpromising position of individual in a world we live in. Song listing consists of two subgroups; first 4 songs (Put, Ris, Roj, Trn i.e. Road, Lynx, Swarm, Thorn respectively) are connected with man’s environment and nature, while second 4 (Sit, Srp, Krv, Rob i.e. Satiated, Sickle, Blood, Slave respectively) relate to the man himself and his struggle with existence and preoccupation with survival and power.”

I do not really see all that: the trouble, the survival, the loss of values - and if I weren’t told this story I doubt I would hear this in the music.

But I LOOOVE this album.

Absolutely love it.

I listen to it almost every day from when it was released and I love its metallic undertones under its post-rockish façade.

I love how it starts and how I can hear it in my lungs even when I only listen to it through the headphones. I love how the songs organically flow one into the other and I love how they are all so good I change which I like best at least three times a week. I love how they feel so unyielding and unapologetic and I love how I see the frontman’s face in my mind’s eye like an exquisite jewel of introversion - not really singling him out as a person but as a symbol of everything my inner introvert finds worthy of undivided awe.

I love how this is an immediate pick-me-up whenever I feel under the weather and demoralized.

I love how I can put it on and immediately forget that I work with people and all the disgust that goes with that.

And most of all I love how this is THE go-to album of a person raised on heavy metal who at some time gave up on finicky nature of lyrics and sailed into post rock voicelessness as onto an ocean of sincerity. 

Wait, what am I saying?! 

It seems that I actually DO see all that - the trouble, the survival, the loss of values - and that one CAN hear this in the music too.

Check it out. Enjoy.

" Every moment you spend wishing you were someplace else is a moment you can't get back."

… and that point is comfortably situated within short review (just opinion, really) of a movie so if you do not appreciate spoilers do return AFTER you have watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

This is original movie poster

“Stop Dreaming. Start Living” says the advertisement billboard.

I like Ben Stiller. I find him small-framed but exquisitely beautiful and well-proportioned and I can imagine his good looks being a disadvantage in life. I like the impeccable timing of his jokes and his trademark “sarcastic deadpan disposition” displayed in many of his roles. In a way, this movie, one that both features him as a lead and as a director stands in this place of the time continuum as a lovely milepost in a crossroads of reality and fiction.

And  standing for fiction here is Walter Mitty, but there is not much fictional in Walter Mitty when regarded from this place in sociocultural milieu of western civilization. In fact, there are so many Mitties around us today he is so average he’s boring. Middle-aged, unattached, run-off-the-mill, conformist, anonymous male, still connected only to the nuclear family of his origination. This has become so common it is unsavory. In contrast with Walter Mitty of Thurber’s original short story, one that invents his secret life to escape the routine of married middle-age life of accomplished citizen Walter Mitties of today create secret lives to escape insipidness of their lives of un-accomplishment. As Killing Time, fellow blogger I follow and enjoy reading has recently summarized:

"I think I'm growing old.

I admit - this sounded quite silly, of course I'm growing old. We all are. What I wanted to say is that I think I'm old already. I do not feel old, but there are indicators I cannot ignore. One of them is that I'm less wise than few years ago. This is the sign of my generation aging. We do not have time to wait fortieth birthday to enter midlife crisis, we want to act like idiots now! And that is not because we feel we haven't experienced enough, just the opposite: we behaved like idiots our whole lives and suddenly we arrived at an age when we should stop. Our version of existential crisis manifests in a decision to continue behaving like idiots. That is also the reason why we cannot afford Maybach or jet-propelled motorbike so we could have bare minimum of style in our living through this premature crisis."

So we watch our Walter going on and on with his existence. Going to work, paying bills, taking care of things, having relationships, connecting with people, being a good person, being a good boss, being a poster employee, accomplishing things... and yet - daydreaming of a different life, of noteworthy life, life of meaning and substance and passion.

Waiting for things to happen not realizing that things are happening already and have been happening all along.

We hear Walter insisting, more than once, that he hasn't really done anything or that he hasn't really been anywhere but just mere minutes later he is describing his life and magnifficent things he accomplished him not even realizing their value. Forever waiting that his life actions are ascribed value from the outside. For world to weigh his endeavors and convince him that he's worthy, but not accepting this judgement if it really happens.

This is the real predicament and disease of Today. In a world where you can easily share your accomplishments with 6 billion people with an action as simple as tweet, reality of the fact:"You are unique, just like everyone else." can easily devalue anything one accomplishes instead of being social adhesive and adding to one's self-worth. So we go through life feeling inadequate and mend the holes in our souls with stupid escapism. Earth continues to revolve and we continue to breathe, to breed, to put one foot in front of the other never seeing the quintessence.

The quintessence.

There is a scene in The Secret Life of Walther Mitty in which he manages to attain unattainable all the while not giving himself credit for what he accomplishes and at the very same time he witnessess somebody else having a moment of simmilar success - but that success being somebody else's accoplishment makes that he easily recognizes it as special and treats it as such. Walter, against all odds, finds his photographer in the Himalayas and the photographer manages to get the long sought snow leopard into the focus of his camera. There is a small exchange of words:

Walter Mitty: When are you going to take it?

Sean O'Connell: Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.

Walter Mitty: Stay in it?

Sean O'Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.

And THIS is my point connecting this review with my prevoius post, my nook in which I currently reside enjoying a moment in my life.

Movie continues a bit, shortly after that revealing the quintessence...

... which happens to be a keyhole view into Walter's life, noteworthy life, life of meaning and substance and passion, just what that life always has been.

Beauty of that moment of Walter's life finally being a flow-through space, and not an inflamed apendix that ultimately dissolves him is a beauty of a fulfilled life; not only priceless but beyond cost.

Basic Unit of Matter

I was not blogging for some time as one most curious thing happened.

It all felt just right. 

The kid, the job, the relationships, the crafts - just right. I just did not have anything to complain about and it felt too weird to say: "You know, my life is in a such a nice homeostatic state I feel embaraced to point it out."

But it seems that this state is still ongoing and now it seems silly not to say anything.

Because, it isn't as if everything was well. Like, in the workplace I still daily get two meltdowns before lunch and go around groaning:" OH my fcukin God, it must take these people all their mental capacity just to get dressed in the morning and not wear their pants on their head!" And relationships are similarly messed up but it felt so appropriate I just did not fret. There was some frogging and some wips that turned into other wips before becoming FOs and I felt somehow pleasantly grown-up. I did some running (my cooper is still 1.9!) and some days I just went to bed right after work, not doing the dishes and not feeling lazy to leave them there.

Awkwardly beautiful and unexplicably present.


What brings me to another point...