Song of the soul

Songs can be such a powerful medium of influence. They can weave such emotions that you previously thought was unlikely. You might be depressed one moment and listen to a cheerful song and depression is a thing of the past. Or you might have had a early good start and then listen to a very emotional sad song and within seconds you gripped by a strong wave of sadness sweeping you. Or you might jump around happily listening to a romantic song coz your hormones have got all spiked up and you feel loved though there's no real reason for you to feel so.

 I have felt such strong feelings and so many times my moods are governed by the kind of song I'm listening or is it the other way around? Song and dance, since time immemorial have deeply ingrained in our culture. I see them as celebration of life. They constitute one of the few medium we are able to successfully establish our frame of mind and convey them to others.

 

Jiaur Rahman: "Tribal Dance"

So do our choice of music mirror our inner self?  The change from one form of music to another in time reflect the changes within yourself? I believe its possible. There are certain genres of music I never appreciated before. But its also true that your choice is deeply influenced by people around you. If someone close to you likes a particular song you tend to give it an ear and perhaps you be prejudiced and like it too, perhaps if you were to end up being apart you might end up hating that song too?

Nachshon’s Painting

We have moved from the simple songs hummed, to music by simple instruments, to more complex modern music and yet the essential quality of music has remained same. It continues to envelop our world, enthrall us, a deep set addiction to our souls, a drug we all inject into our blood stream to escape from our daily lives.
 

Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind

 
I religiously love this movie! No amount to breaking the movie scene by scene will do justice (I say ;)) So down here i'll simply put in some of my very favorite dialogues.. I so totally dig Clem!

CLEMENTINE
The song's 9th and Hennepin. I spent
most of the train ride trying to
remember.
"Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out
Over the side to anyone who'll listen."

CLEMENTINE
My goal, Joel, is to just let it flow
through me? Do you know what I mean?
It's like, there's all these emotions and
ideas and they come quick and they change
and they leave and they come back in a
different form and I think we're all
taught we should be consistent. Y'know?
You love someone -- that's it. Forever.
You choose to do something with your life
-- that's it, that's what you do. It's a
sign of maturity to stick with that and
see things through. And my feeling is
that's how you die, because you stop
listening to what is true, and what is
true is constantly changing. You know?

JOEL'S VOICE
How can I? How can I move on when I know
I'm the only one to carry this love we
had? How do I do that?

CLEMENTINE
Do you know The Velveteen Rabbit?
JOEL
No.
CLEMENTINE
It's my favorite book. Since I was a
kid. It's about these toys. There's
this part where the skin Horse tells the
rabbit what it means to be real.
(crying)
I can't believe I'm crying already. He
says, "It takes a long time. That's why
it doesn't often happen to people who
break easily or have sharp edges, or who
have to be carefully kept. Generally by
the time you are Real, most of your hair
has been loved off, and your eyes drop
out and you get loose in the joints and
very shabby. But these things don't
matter at all, because once you are Real
you can't be ugly, except to people who
don't understand."

CLEMENTINE
Joel, I'm not a concept. I want you to
just keep that in your head. Too many
guys think I'm a concept or I complete
them or I'm going to make them alive, but
I'm just a fucked-up girl who is looking
for my own peace of mind. Don't assign
me yours.

A generation high on dope

Lately, coincidentally all the books and movies  I have read and watched have dealt with the idea  of drugs.

And as I see it, the characters began with the  drug abuse for fun and slowly as they fall  victim to the addictive nature of the drug to  hide from the miseries of life.

A scene from 'Requiem for a dream'
Harry is sitting in the cab, he has just visited  his mother, who is on diet pills and he has  discovered to his horror that the pills are  in fact coke, he knows this after he observes her  teeth chattering on its own, a sure sign of coke  consumption, he being a junkie himself. He tries  to convince her to get off the drug but she  refuses in a tearful state, she is possessed by  an idea to lose weight and fit into her red  dress and appear in a television show. With all  that she suddenly feels a meaning to her life,  all the attention from her friends and the  desire to look good in her red dress. What is he  to do? force her to give it up? deny her  happiness even if she has found it through a  dark channel, something that he himself has got  caught deep into? He runs out and breaks down  crying at the helpless situation , click click -  injection- a few seconds later, he is calm as a  baby. Life is beautiful again.

A scene from 'A scanner darkly',
Bob Arctor fishes into his past-  A murky  remembrance of his wife and kids. He is standing  in the kitchen nursing his throbbing head that  he hurt on the sharp corner of the cup board's  door over looking his front  yard his wife and  his 2 daughters and a thought passes of  inadequacy of unrealistic constant life and he  writes into notepad "All the elements that made  up my life were right there. And nothing new  would ever happen. Like a little plastic boat  that would sail on forever, without incident,  until it finally sank, which would be a secret  relief to all." So he gives up this life and  plunges into his dark shady present addicted by  substance D.

Formerly i have written about 'Brave new World'  where Soma - A drug with no hangover gives the  sweet respite from the present.

I must say I am glad that unlike in US the  situation here has never been that worse, that  drugs and hallucinogens aren't so popular and  freely available, that our youth aren't so  hopelessly destroying their lives behind the  temporary reliefs. But I look back and I know  people who did drugs back in college days. So,  there is a market - a supply - a demand. But  what is different? Family? that India is a land  of family bondage, of traditional commitments,  people here are tightly bound? Perhaps. But the scene is likely to change too.. So it comes down  to a personal choice. Having fun is all right but one must know where to stop. The difference  between heaven and hell.. that thin line between choice and hopeless addiction..

We all have problems in one manner or other.  Drugs won't help you. You have to face the ugly  truth of life. There is a bravery in that.. a  glory of having stood your grounds and not  succumbed to temporary fixes.

Expressionism

" I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. "
                      - Vincent Van Gogh

Painting has been one of the ways I feel I am able to express myself completely. Even as a kid I disliked paintings with clean lines and dull colours, The exaggerated brilliant colours in even more exaggerated lines thrilled me to no end. I like to portray myself through my paintings. Lately my paintings tend to be focused either on nature or on rock stars!

the above two have been painted using the Nat Geo magazine pictures as references

  

Jim Morrison

 

Violent sea

 

Giraffes in African Savannah

Gazing at vincent Van Gogh's paintings I was lost in admiration on how beautifully the colours came out alive, expressed so much more than the actual scene could convey. It conveyed the emotions that swirled in him. And that, is what I think must a painting must achieve, be able to express a part of the idea that the painter is. I have nothiing against realistic paintings, but I am inlined more towards Expressionist art.

Starry night is one of my favourites, has always been like a heady drink, Just my picture of a glorious star-filled night from a hill-top. Somehow I am reminded of the particular part of Pinocchio story when the fox and the lame cat coaxes Pinocchio to part with his golden coins and plant them in the Field of Miracles, outside the city of Catchfools so that it will grow into a tree with a thousand gold coins!

Starry night - VVG

Below are a few of the choicest painting I have liked by various artists. the list is no where complete, it keeps getting bigger every passing day!

* Paris cafe by VVG

*A self potrait by Frida Kahlso

* Prisoners by VVG

* the last painting made by VVG before he committed suicide

* The scream and Madonna by Munch

The Truman Show

"We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We are tired  of pyrotechnics and special effects. While the world he inhabits is, in some  respects, counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts,  no cue cards. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life." - Cristof, creator of the Truman Show.

Even as the movie ended my mind was still hooked on to the starting scenes  where Truman standing in front of mirror is talking to an make-believe buddy,  that they must go on and if things go worse he should eat him for food and  the scene alternates between Christof and rest of the crew each one sharing  their experiences in the Truman show.

A brilliantly written story with an equally brilliant cast, this movie gives  us a chance to see Jim Carrey in a role far away from the usual slap-stick comedy and believe me, he has done justice to his role. In so many ways I am  reminded of the book 'Brave New World' by this movie. Truman is reared in a  make-believe world controlled by external factors like the alphas and other Greek lettered sections in the Ford era of the Brave new world.

I love the way the crew apart from Truman, try to put ADs in the "show" , a nice reminder to show how unrealistically the corporate tries to push their many useless products into our lives portraying them as dire necessities and how easily we still buy into it.

I wonder one thing though, If he, Truman had no Slyvia would he have still pushed himself to know the truth? Been that eager to find the exit? (The last question is intended for Truman's character)

Without the comfort of knowing that someone out there will be by your side would you blindly do that leap into the dark. Probably, yes. The lure of confronting the unknown has always lured men out of their safe haven far into the unmerciful seas.