The painting that I had started in this post last month was finished quite a few weeks ago, but I kept forgetting to post the final product, until a friend reminded me about it just before. I couldn’t figure out the best quick and easy way to photograph the painting, because of the gold paint that I had used – it looks different depending on which angle and lighting you see it at. I didn’t think much about what I was doing when I was slopping layers after layers of paint onto canvas, but in hindsight there is so much about it that I could analyse about myself. This fact scares me a little. I hadn’t painted in yeeears, and I rather miss it; although back in the day I used to do more realistic, rather than abstract and erratic stuff.
I compiled the following playlist with a lot of emotion, and very lack of thought. I say lack of thought because at first glance it will seem completely uncohesive and probably make little sense to you, but I hope that the tracks get listened to. I literally didn’t “think” about what songs I wanted on this playlist, I just chose song after song, and dug up links for them. But once again, in hindsight, there is so much that one could read into my song choices. They all have relevant themes, lyrics and feel. For example, I just noticed that there are several songs on here that are quite long – there are 5 songs that are longer than 6 minutes, the longest being over 8 minutes. The songs are all either very old or very new loves of mine, and each song just feels… relevant. I wish I had a better word to describe this playlist, but maybe the best I can say is that it is very “right now, this moment, this evening” for me.
Click on the bold titles for youtube links of the tracks:
1. In Particular – Blonde Redhead
After a night’s marathon of listening to them, I’ve finally fallen in love. “Such a good band to escape into.”
2. Howlin’ For You – The Black Keys
Looking forward to seeing these guys in 5 days’ time! Their set should be super tight.
3. Hero – Regina Spektor
Hearing this song reenacts the scene from 500 Days of Summer in my head… of heartbreak.
4. Alabaster – Foals
Song from an amazing album, where everything just builds and builds so nicely. Layers. I love layers, and by that I mean I love layers in everything – music, paint, writing plots and subplots, the undertows of character, clothing… I could go on forever.
5. My Same – Adele
Oh, how this feels! I love the crispy accompaniment in this song as well… the tone of that guitar and subtle but precise, driving bass.
6. Tourist – Athlete
This song reminds me of my friend Sinead – she was the one who got me into this band, and this song in particular. Listened to it today, and just… its relevance is killing me.
7. Bees – Warpaint
One of my most listened-to tracks since Boxing Day. I could loop this and its precursor (Undertow) on their album over and over and over and over.
8. Only In Dreams – Weezer
I’ve finally stopped repeating this song obsessively, but last month I gave it a good enough run for a lifetime. I’m not a Weezer fanatic, but this is one song I love. I half wrote a song based on a tangent of this idea…
9. Belief – John Mayer
Something about this guitar line, so simple, but I really like it…
10. But Not For Me – Chet Baker
Unfortunately, this isn’t the same version as the one that I’ve got, which has a very speedy bass solo on it, woah.
11. Sister – Sufjan Stevens
Need to buy our tickets, but I am seeing this man perform next month in Wellington. The lyrical guitar just gets me, every time. From my favourite album of his, Seven Swans.
12. Here In My Room – Incubus
Everything about this song is beautiful – I’m a huge fan of Brandon Boyd’s lyrics.
13. The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret – Queens of the Stone Age
I need to fish together roughly $85 to see these guys next month, ahhh! Not used to paying for gigs again.
14. I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab For Cutie
The long build up makes it worth it. In my opinion it reflects precisely what the song is on about.
15. Your Ex-Lover Is Dead – Stars
For F.M.D., because we both know what it feels like.
16. When You Sleep – My Bloody Valentine
I will never forget the day I was introduced to this band and Loveless. So fucking ironic. LOVELESS.
17. Killing in the Name – Rage Against the Machine
Can’t believe they played this at a club last night. Danced/moshed/headbanged to this like the 15 year old I once was, except this time I was wearing rather high heels. This song was far more amazing when I saw it live though, of course – as opposed to in some basement club where sweat is dripping off the ceiling and we have to fend boys off with a stick.
I wish I could stop using this word in this post already, but even the post title is spot-on relevant. A lot of friends of mine don’t understand why I blog, and et cetera sort of questions surrounding the practice of blogging. Ironically, this blog documents my life better than my notebooks, in which I do scribble about “major events” and the odd mundane, daily happenings – but mostly I only ever craft in ink things that are nonsensical, lyrical, extremely painful, descriptive, or all of the above. And that’s why I’m saying this here, rather in some “diary” of sorts, which I don’t actually keep, because – this is it.
A couple of nights ago I had a huge emotional epiphany. It’s far too long of a story to even begin to explain, but I feel fucking great for finally having years and years’ worth of mostly self-inflicted emotional burden and pain lifted off me. Surely I’m not the only person in the world to have been so in love with an idea that you toy with it, torture yourself with it, lay it to rest and then wake it back up, repeatedly, until you can’t tell fact from fiction? And some days, you get a glimpse of the reality that you can see in the mirror, minus all the imaginary artifacts you’ve built around you… but you simply deny such insight as merely doubt. Why is it that we never want to see what we’re blindly in love with, for what it truly is? Something intangible that you concoct excuses for in your head. Largely a figment of your imagination that is based on only a mere strand of truth and reality.
So, reality, here I am. At last. I’ve unloaded a pile of the past, and now I have to deal with the present. I’m not sure I like how this feels right now, because everything I deal with is suddenly so much more tangible than everything else I’ve been living in my head. But it’s for this precise reason that I need to have moved on – the present affects the future, and this is the one aspect of my life that has had the most dire outlook. I can’t remain the madwoman that I’ve been for years, because “to repeat the same action over and over and expect different results is the very definition of madness”, and it’s a rather stupid and self-deprecating process to keep repeating, to be honest.
The problem is, all of the above sounds like a really fine and dandy conclusion to have drawn, to date – but now I don’t know what choices I want to make from this point forth. I am forever a slave to indecisiveness, and wanting to have the best of both worlds. The ironic thing is, one could say “both these worlds you’re choosing between are highly flawed, you deserve better, keep waiting for a new option” – but that’s not really living in the right now, in the today… and we all know that living in the moment is something I’m notorious for. Even when I was overshadowed by the past, and the idea of the resurrection of the past, I still lived too much in the moment, without thought.
What to do?! There isn’t really a right or wrong. Ultimately, I just feel like I’m being too selfish right now.