Blogging and some reflecting.

So I do a lot of blog surfing and I mean a lot. Some blogs are just crappy and (heh) I get some twisted pleasure in dismissing them. Some are just oh my god so good, that everything I write here seems trite and forced. So I figure it's a good trade. Okay but to elaborate.. I find that a lot of people expose themselves on their blog and I used to find it so weird. I recently came across an old classmate's blog and I was shocked to learn how depressed she was. She had always seemed annoyingly chirpy and just full of zest. She was always bouncing down the hallway with her ponytail bobbing behind her. I remember getting seriously annoyed with all the happiness. I guess something seemed so wrong about it even then. But on her blog she sounds incredibly lonely and sad. It's not so shocking that people hide who they are or how they feel but what's shocking to me is that her blog is right up there on her Facebook profile. It's for everybody to see. I wonder why people do that-hide in one circumstance and yell for attention in another. It seems so pathetic.

Now me, I feel like I've always been consistently dark and depressed. I keep thinking how it's pretty obvious who I am. I am not going to make the effort to get to know you if I don't want to. It's pretty simple. I'll just make sure I'm weird enough so you wouldn't be shocked if you spoke to me. Okay I don't look weird but I wasn't ever friendly or overly talkative, guffawing at what everybody said. I would practically run out of the department. I mean I made it pretty clear that I didn't mind not fitting in. I don't think anybody would be surprised if they knew how dark I was. I remember this annoying girl(god I sound terrible!) grabbed my Dali notebook in which I was happily sketching one day and started reading as if it was her god given right to. And I had some pretty heavy stuff in there. I got so angry. I just couldn't be polite about that intrusion and I made it pretty obvious. I just find it really funny that I choose to expose myself over here.

I wonder about the kind of people who read my blog and what message I must be sending out to them. I've been closely analysing my posts( wow I need a life!) and I realised I shy away from exposing myself directly. It's in the I-think-I''m so-witty-comments and the self deprecating humour that I'm most naked. And I wonder if people look any closer? Or do they chuckle or *sigh* at the tired humour and then move on? (See? Did it again. *Sigh* It's like a disease) But anyway, I figured I should allow myself a little more license, be a little naive and yes allow myself to be excited/depressed about life and just spread myself all over this blog for the amusement and disdain of the readers. I mean, I wonder who I'm fooling with all this unnecessary humour anyway? So I decided I'm going to do a lot more "personal posts". Anybody else's amusement or disdain is their business-it's their property, I can't do much to prevent it.

The Shins

THE PAST AND PENDING
As someone sets light to the first fire of autumn
We settle down to cut ourselves apart.
Cough and twitch from the news on your face
And some foreign candle burning in your eyes

Held to the past too aware of the pending
Chill as the dawn breaks and finds us up for sale.
Enter the fog another low road descending
Away from the cold lust, you house and summertime.

Blind to the last cursed affair pistols and countless eyes
A trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running
Feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch
Loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love.

Your name on my cast and my notes on your stay
Offer me little but doting on a crime.
We've turned every stone and for all our inventions
In matters of love loss, we've no recourse at all.

Blind to the last cursed affair pistols and countless eyes
A trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running
Feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch
Loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love.

********************************

I couldn't resist.

Play list II

* This is in no order.
** Please read the post below if you don't want to be confused.
** *I tend to write way too much.
****Also overuse disclaimers. Okay done.

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths
My obsession with The Smiths begins and ends with this song. As far as love songs go it doesn’t get any better than this one. It is a dark, moody song that grabs you the first time you listen to it. I am not sure whether it is to everybody’s tastes though; lyrics like “To die by your side is a heavenly way to die” may not make most of us sigh with heartfelt delight. But it has to be these lyrics set against the almost pop-ish music that makes me like it so much. There is a desperation, a pathetic plea in this song that most of us may not want to admit feeling. Listen to this song for Morrissey’s uncompromising lyrics, his melancholic voice filled with conviction and for the memory it evokes in you: when you were in love, foolishly enough to go off driving with that person by your side.

Song For You by Alexi Murdoch
Alexi Murdoch is one of those artists who's very non invasive. He is not one of the most compelling artists. Very understated, he takes you not by surprise, but there is quiet wonder as you realise you love his calm unhurried avowal of love and pain. Song for You is one of those songs dedicated to all kinds of relationships, as well as the struggle it is to remain in one. But it is the calm after the storm( to spout a cliche), that point when you realise that all the things that make up the conflict and struggle in a relationship can be worthwhile when suffered together. But even this is too intense an explanation for a song and an artist who seems to take nothing too seriously. There is no desperation here, only lovely intention.

"So I'm trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I dont know even where to start

Maybe thats a start"

At My Most Beautiful by R.E.M.
Gosh I wish I could talk about why I love this song so much but I can't. But I'll say this: any song that makes stalking sound beautiful and desirable will always be high up on my list. This song always finds a way to make me smile. And it mentions eyelashes-a really underrated body part (I feel) when it comes to professsing love.

Jealous Guy by John Lennon
Actually, something about this song always makes me a little uncomfortable. I have never been able to figure out why. I love how the simple piano and Lennon's slightly nasal voice meld together. And the lyrics: how much more straightforward and simple can they get? "I was feeling insecure, you might not love me anymore". I love how apologetic he is for hurting her (no prizes for guessing who!*sigh*) "I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry that I made you cry... I'm just a jealous guy" but at the same time how he doesn't apologise for who he is. He is after all just a jealous guy. A simple song that excuses possessiveness-quite perfect for most of us!

Same Stars by Sawgrass (now James Moore Harris)
So I got this song from S a couple of days ago and it's all I can listen to. Please keep a lookout for this guy-James Harris Moore He is amazing and I am a little in love with him- as anyone would be after listening to his songs. This one in particular, is really sweet and just won't let go of your brain.

Something by The Beatles
Okay having this song on my list can be a cliché but to tell you the truth I haven’t always loved it. It has made its mark only recently. My favourite fact about this song, George Harrison wrote it. I think that makes me like it even more. Harrison’s always been tragically underrated. But that has also been his selling point. Widely known as the underrated and under estimated Beatle he has gathered fans for this reason as much as for his song writing capabilities. A well known joke about this song is that Frank Sinatra called it the best Lennon/Mcartney composition written. Coming to why this song is on my list, again I will refer to the Harrison-esque quality of all his songs. He lends a mystical character to whatever he writes. Okay maybe that is too obvious but you always feel the presence of something greater when you listen to his songs. As if he is a channel for some greater message. In "Something" he tackles that unknown quality in a person that makes us fall in love. So go his lyrics "Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover, Something in the way she woos me" It is that indefinable all important something. He takes it to a level that connects us to the Universe and to all other beings who know this "something".

Dearest by Buddy Holly
Oh gosh how sweet and lovely this song is. It is a letter, a poem, a note stuck in your bag to put a smile on your face. From the first time I heard him sing "Dearest" in that reedy quavery voice I have loved Buddy Holly and will continue to do so.

Wonderwall by Ryan Adams
Okay I know this song is originally by Oasis but come on! I don't think anyone who has heard this version will remember who Oasis is. Adams invests emotion into this song and takes it to a place that is darker. I've always felt like the original sounded a little whinny and frankly a little bored with itself. Not this one.

The Past and Pending by The Shins
This is my favourite song of The Shins. I know most people are crazy about New Slang or Caring is Creepy but this song always reminds me of so many idle evenings, many of which I spent on my terrace watching the sky. It is a love song and it's not. It's about so much more. It is looking at some big picture that we often fail to see. I remember being on that terrace and often getting a flash, some insight into everything and then losing it tragically, a second later. I court that feeling more than anything else, more than love even and that's why I love this song.

Okay so that's it. Special mention for "The One I love" and "Casimir Pulaski Day " by Sufjan Stevens; Pink Bullets by The Shins; Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel; "Girl" by The Beatles, Too many by The Beatles Okay maybe I should do a part 2.

J.V. Cunningham

TO MY WIFE

And does the heart grow old? You know
In the indiscriminate green
Of summer or in earliest snow
A landscape is another scene,


Inchoate and anonymous,
And every rock and bush and drift
As our affections alter us
Will alter with the season’s shift.


So love by love we come at last,
As through the exclusions of a rhyme,
Or the exactions of a past,
To the simplicity of time,


The antiquity of grace, where yet
We live in terror and delight
With love as quiet as regret
And love like anger in the night

******
Poems like this make me believe that something of love can be captured.

New year?

The new year always brings with it the question- well what's new? Truth is-nothing is. I was sick this new year like the year before last and the year before that (someone is clealry trying to tell me something, I'm just not sure what that is) I had initially decided I would start the new year blog post with resolutions and good intentions and all kinds of crap we say and do to make ourselves feel better about what is actually a depressing milestone, but I think after years of trying (ok not so much) I have come to the slightly delayed conclusion that all these parties and celebrations have begun to pale. I watched the news segment-lights exploding everywhere as people screamed the countdown and I just felt a little amused. They'll do it the next year and the year after that and the year after that.. and so on. I felt wonderfully cynical in my old DU sweatshirt about being a little miss know it all. But the truth is, life is depressing and there is no fun in knowing anything at all.

The greatest tragedy has to be, feeling like a fraud because others fail to recognise you.

Poetry IV

I recently attended a TFA run poetry and short fiction reading. Annie Zaidi and Saudha Kasim were the readers. I had read some of Annie Zaidi's poems when I found out about Poetry for Prakriti which is being held in Madras and you should check it out if you’re in the city. Poets being featured include: Aditi Machado (who I am a huge fan of), my new favourite- the ethereal Annie Zaidi, Deepika Arivind-whom I find very interesting and many others I wish I could read and will proceed to do so when I have the time. Previous years' readers include Sharanya Manivannan whose poetry can be pretty gut wrenching and raw. I of course, had to in a gut wrenching(not so much) and embarrassing (very much) display of honesty had to tell her so; Meena Kandasamy and Siddharatha Menon-the only male voice whose name stays with me for reasons I think A will appreciate.

I should mention that I am spending much of my time reading these young female, Indian writers more than anyone else. I’m not sure why it’s happening this way but I seem to have developed an ear and eye for female, young and strictly Indian voices. I’m not sure if this is delayed patriotism or just the shared cultural context that makes it easy to relate to, but I find myself being increasingly inspired by them in comparison to other writers I come across in all my blog surfing. But even this explanation is far too simplistic. After all India is a freaking battlefield of cultures-just the last name of a poet has implications on how you read his or her poetry. And though this does not say much about that person’s context as much as it says about your understanding of that context, I find I am being influenced more by the poetry of these writers than anybody else’s. Take PFFA for instance, it is a world of poetry and by world I literally mean world-poets from all over write here and though I get my daily dose of poetry from them I find that a lot of the work posted here doesn’t stay with me.

So my point is: bells just ring in my head when I hear female, young, Indian poet. I guess it could also be because that is the identity I want to eventually cultivate, though I wasn’t aware of it until I wrote this sentence. Talk about your stream of consciousness!

Anyway getting to the reading, I had found Annie’s poems to be very interesting, different in their style and tone when I first read them. There is an underlying tone of humour in her poems- whether she talks about love or pain, the city or the trials of rustic(her words not mine) lovers’ lives. But all this becomes more effective you hear her read them out loud.

I realised what a difference the reading of a poem does to the piece. It links the poet inextricably to her poem. It becomes difficult to separate one's reaction to the poem and the poet. When one reads a poem (like on paper) though much of one's reaction does spill over to the poet it is solely directed at the poem-as a separate entity. Because it stands by itself- tiny inky black figures dreadfully stark against the white blank background with nothing to support them. The mark of a good poem is of course, that it doesn't need you to jump in and explain why.

I always tend to use the mother-child analogy when I think of poets and their poems. Our reading of a poem definitely mirrors how one might feel about a child and though this has implications on how one feels about his/her mother-it’s never the same reaction. (How many times have we willed a bawling child to shut up and gazed with pity at the struggling mother?) Poets and their poems do not get the same reaction. Unless, of course they are terrible! In which case I will judge you by your poem. I judge me by my poems too so I can be forgiven (I hope!).

But anyway, on paper, after a point it ceases to matter whether the poet was a terrible human being or done terrible things. Especially when it’s a great piece of art. Art gets a little divorced from the person. It stands on its own-if good. Now this of course I can see when it’s on paper, or as I have been witnessing it-on the Internet. But my struggle, okay not struggle but that separatedness (I can make up words okay?) seems less possible when the poet/writer reads out her/his own work. Annie’s reading of her own poetry made a difference. I now know these are her poems and though it does not completely stop me from placing myself in them there is a reserve. As she read them, she had her own inflections, lilts added here and there and a sort of musical quality that would be foolish to attempt to get rid off now. But I wonder if this is something that one can move past.

One audience member after congratulating her, promptly asked her why there was a tone of sarcasm in her poems. I was surprised when I heard this. I haven’t read the poems Annie read that day but I wasn’t aware of any sarcasm in her poetry. A great deal of humour displaying a fondness for what she was talking about-that was what came through. Now the reason why I bring this up is because I wonder how much of my seeing fondness and affection had to do with the manner in which she read the poems. Was it the poem or her? If I were to read these poems by myself would they read differently? Will I find that I like them less? I doubt it. Well okay, I hope not. But all this does bring me back to my rather involved point-does the reading of a poem change the way we understand a poem? And how? If for instance say the lady in the audience, had she read the poem would we see a sarcastic, aloof take on love? If so, then how independent are our poems from us? And- do we even want them to be?

I'm pretty sure I had a point here but I seem to have lost it. It seems rather obvious doesn't it?

***
Why did I think I had a point?