Just a great figure eight or a tiny infinity *

 "La reproduction interdite" 1937 via

At the risk of sounding cliche, there's nothing like a painting by René Magritte to remind me what life is all about.

I've had the most chaotic week and I want to share it with you all as soon as life settles down which realistically will not be until after June 12 (graduation day) but hopefully I'll have time to blog this Friday in San Francisco. I cannot believe the Voxtrot concert is this Saturday already. Okay, so I really only have to make it to Friday afternoon, then I only have one presentation, one 20-pager, and 4 finals before graduation. Anyway I was writing a couple essays for Arabic and was in the mood for some John Mayer. I found myself listening to "Edge of Desire" on repeat for about 3 hours and decided that the lyrics are worth a brief shallow post. Eh, it's John Mayer. He can be so obnoxious 90% of the time and there are a million more talented artists who don't get half as much credit, but the truth is that I love the dude. I don't know how to explain in what terms necessarily but I feel like the dude and I are one and the same. We have massive God-complexes but are still so ridiculously insecure. We care so much about being validated by others yet we try so hard to make it seem like the complete opposite is true. We hide behind our big words, concepts and abstractness so no one will pinpoint and deface us. That is not to say that we are "shallow", we are just so damn self-righteous and 'losing face' is our equivalent to hell so we create a situation where we're on the defense all the time; we beat before we are beaten. It's a bad habit that gets us in trouble and will be our ultimate downfall.

Oddly enough, most of Mayer's songs are about love (mostly tragic or reverie) which is my least favorite topic/theme in the world. Actually, no, that's not true. I appreciate a good love song or romantic movie-it's just the falsity it creates that bugs me, personally. Or rather, people's unrealistic expectations. Anyway, there's something about the combination of the music -those guitar riffs (he is so passionate in concert)- the lyrics, the voice, and -if only for 3 minutes- the vulnerability it conveys. There's nothing like throwing on Continuum or Battle Studies when you're in the mood. It's exquisite. 

Young and full of running,
tell me where is that taking me
just a great figure eight
or a tiny infinity.

Love is really nothing
but a dream that keeps waking me.
For all of my trying
we still end up dying,
how can it be?

Don't say a word, just come over and lie here with me
'Cause I'm just about to set fire to everything I see.
I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe.
There, I just said it, I'm scared you'll forget about me.

So young and full of running
all the way to the edge of desire.
Steady my breathing, silently screaming
I have to have you now.

Wired and I'm tired,
Think I'll sleep in my clothes on the floor.
Or maybe this mattress will spin on its axis
and find me on yours.

Don't say a word, just come over and lie here with me
'Cause I'm just about to set fire to everything I see.
I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe.
There, I just said it, I'm scared you'll forget about me.

 via

John Mayer "Edge of Desire"* and "Gravity"

-melidee

Toda época fue pieza de un rompecabeza *

  via

I've always thought that the list below is one of the coolest things ever and my anthropology of economics professor recently brought it up in lecture. We are discussing marriage and offspring as major fitness maximizing economic decisions and the way in which the prestige bias of the successful elite has led to the recent "maladaptive" culture where children are no longer trendy; it is maladaptive because it will eventually lead to the end to our humanity (please, if the number of high school classmates with children is any indication, we'll be fine). Realistically, however, this is a legitimate concern for most of Europe which, of course, leads to tons of economic and migrations issues within itself. Anyway, I love that Charles Darwin actually made a ' Marry/ Not Marry ' pros & cons list. It comes directly from his journal which is why I love it. I am really into intuitive, spontaneous, gut-feeling decisions but when it comes to marriage and children this is exactly the way I think. The only difference is that personally I find the reasons to not marry (or not have children for that matter. Yes, I am maladapative) way more compelling (he obviously did not since he married his cousin). Enjoy!

Marry

Children (if it Please God)

Constant companion (and friend in old age) who will feel interested in one

Object to be beloved and played with. Better than a dog anyhow

Home, & someone to take care of house

Charms of music and female chit-chat

These things good for one’s health—but terrible loss of time

My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, and nothing after all—No, no, won’t do

Imagine living all one’s day solitary in smoky dirty London House

Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire and books and music perhaps

Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Great Marlboro Street, London

Not Marry

Freedom to go where one liked

Choice of Society and little of it

Conversation of clever men at clubs

Not forced to visit relatives and bend in every trifle

Expense and anxiety of children

Perhaps quarrelling

Loss of Time

Cannot read in the evenings

Fatness and idleness

Anxiety and responsibility

Less money for books etc.

If many children forced to gain one’s bread (But then it is very bad for one’s health to work too much)

Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation into indolent, idle fool

PS one week until the Voxtrot show in SF. I'm taking my sister who, I'm pretty sure, has never listened to any of their songs so she'll help me keep my composure. Anyway, this review of the kickoff to the mini-farewell tour made me excited and a bit nervous. I hope the show is not a drag for them. 2 midterms, 1 twenty pager, and tons of Arabic HW stand between me and Voxtrot. Oh and it's my sister's birthday tomorrow. On my siblings birthdays I make a Kiva microloan in their honor. If you've never heard of it, check it out!

Silvio Rodriguez "El Mayor" *

-melidee

Pacha, or Spacetime.

 via

Even when it's being critiqued and corrected, it only makes "sense" (i.e we only get it) because of the constructed spatial legibility, right? Today was one of those  H. Lefebvre days where all I wanted to do was throw myself in the literature. This legibility shit drives me absolutely insane but I especially love the way in which it transcends between the different disciplines that have -of course- been constructed into their, respective, legible schools which only further proves the point (Thank you, M. McLuhan! I miss my communication courses). Anyway, the almost official social scientist and the budding future physicist inside me was all giddy with curiosity about the ways in which I could integrate it all together into a solitary universal body of knowledge that combines everyone's thoughts, theories and terms, you know, the way it should be. It's all so damn fascinating and while my mind was racing a mile-a-minute (probably because of that last latte) thinking about how everything I "know" is restrained by encompassed in that legible spatial dimension discourse, that poem "The Hippopotamus"  by T.S. Eliot came to mind and it seemed rather appropriate. None of it makes sense does it? Yeah, that's kind of the point.

And I tried to piece the puzzle of the universe,
split an eighth of shrooms just so I can see the universe

So it's moving right, I try to shed some light on the man,
not many people of this planet understand

I've got some issues that nobody can see
and all of these emotions are pourin' outta me
I bring them to the light for you
it's only right ♥

Kid Cudi "Soundtrack 2 My Life"

-melidee

You have no respect for cognitive reverie, you know that?*

One of my all time favorites via

La belleza dramática de Bolivia, la mujer que la continúa, las nueces, las uvas, el queso, la inteligencia de Borges, la inocencia de Teresa, la nieve en Suiza, el café en Buenos Aires, por supuesto. 

Eliot, Rilke, los antiguos chinos, Florencia, Atenas, Toledo, la leña ardiendo en el invierno europeo y la carta de mi querida sudamericana. 

Una nueva idea, una vieja amiga, la noruega donde descubro mi verdadera identidad, y el africano que me devuelve mi perdido y antiquísimo sonido, la mujer que ahora mismo descubro. 

Todas las hermosuras del amor, el fuego, el bendito fuego, el sagrado fuego, la paz—que tal vez sea fuego quieto—el pez de donde vengo, la estrella donde voy. 

Alguna copla en Granada, la primavera en París, una aventura en Sevilla, un gran amor en Madrid. Los beduinos y el misterio, Jerusalén y la luz, el desierto, los camellos y la nostalgia del sur, el sur, el sur.

Mi vida, mi vida, el mundo y el color. Mi vida, mi vida, silencio y canción.

Un poema cada día, mi Venecia cada vez, Nazaret y Galilea y las huellas de Moisés. En el Jordán beber vino, en el mar muerto flotar. En Londres abrir los ojos y en Holanda la verdad, y el sol, y el mar.

Mi vida, mi vida, el mundo y el color. Mi vida, mi vida, silencios y canción.

Las muchachas, las palomas, el caribe y el placer, las maravillas de Roma, la ternura de Belén. Teotihuacan, Macchu Picchu, Chagall, la leche y la miel. Los gitanos, la alegría, la libertad y la fe, la fe, la fe.

Mi vida, mi vida, el mundo y el color. Mi vida, mi vida, silencios y canción.

This was actually my lullaby as a baby. Absolute perfection.

F. Cabral "Mi Vida"

-melidee

Deja ya de tejer sueños en tu mente*

I've been engaging in an incredible amount of eye rolling lately. Life seems to lack the verisimilitudinous details that can really only be created by a piece of well written literature or lyrics, even. Of course, I suppose I could be a bit less passive about the entire situation. So what do I do? Oh, you know, take the afternoon off to reread some Kafka. God, could I be any more pretentious? Haha all I can think of is that scene from The Squid and the Whale: "Yeah. I mean, it's gross when he turns into the bug, but I love how matter of fact everything is." "Yeah, it's very Kafkaesque." "Cause it's written by Franz Kafka." "Right. I mean, clearly." I absolutely love that film, I think it perfectly captures the essence of the incredibly flawed human idiosyncrasy known as arrogance and portrays it as the childish behavior it is; I suffer from chronic arrogance, I'm trying to get better at it but people make it really difficult. Besides that, what else? Oh, I accidentally binge ate today then engaged in some damage control, typical bulimic stuff. Am I the only person who thinks artistic license is the absolute most incredible concept ever? It used to drive me nuts in high school, poetic license in particular, because I spent countless nights memorizing different metric, line and rhythmic patterns (I still have nightmares about iambic pentameter) then came along these license holders who screwed everything up.  I actually never recovered my love for poetry, I'd be fine if I never had to read another poem ever again. Well, maaaaaybe some Pablo Neruda in the original Spanish, but I digress. I love witty use of artistic license. Symmetry is beauty, they say. I'm not sure. Happy Monday!
 
"Penélope" Joan Manuel Serrat*

Photo via Fotografie de Moda

-melidee

"Bildungsroman"

Today is a "Berlin, Without Return" and "Steven" kind of day. I am extremely homesick, only I have no idea what "home" means. Although this blog is for me to express what I am feeling, I am not interested in sharing intimate details of my life. However, you must trust me when I say that I have no "home". And though I've never known this "home" concept that most people seem to have made for themselves, I've at least known that wherever my family-my mother, father, sister and brother-is, that is home. Lately, however, I've begun to question this interpretation--not because I have suddenly stopped holding my family in such high regards, quite the opposite actually, but because I do not want to make them suffer. I am an extremely miserable and awkward person. I hate having my family worry about me; this 'moving back home' post college thing feels like a recipe for disaster because my parents will be everyday witnesses to my misery. I fear pushing them away as a defense mechanism, which is the complete opposite of what I want. Some people say that what I'm actually doing is crying for help, but I sit and think, "help with what exactly?" I mean, really, every one of my heroes has gone, is going through or will go through exactly what I am going through. In Emersonian thought, I believe that this is the necessary misery as a precursor to the non-conformism I will struggle with my entire life. I just don't understand why no one else cares! Why do people only care for their own well being? I mean, I suppose that according to Adam Smith, this is exactly what we are supposed to do in order to have a maximized efficient society, however, all it seems to bring is a dystopian numbness that, either, everyone sees and chooses to ignore, or everyone really is that oblivious to. I feel really stupid so can some please explain to me why I should care for the following things (and teach me how to care for them while we're at it)? Vegas, clubbing, drinking (hammered and pretentious drinking, good old fashion I get), conspicuous consumption: cars, phones, cheap tacky clothes passed off as "fashion", Disneyland, office jobs/corporate world, stepping on others to get to the top, Lady Gaga, love proverbs, being 'cool', trying to prove to others that you don't care when all that effort really just shows how much you do (we ALL do), being not so originally "original", putting others down, telling other people's secrets, acting like a grown-up. Shit, I know I'm guilty of some of these things, namely trying to be "original" and gossiping and it makes me sick to my stomach because I am disgusted with myself. I just don't understand it and it kills me because after all this schooling, I hate when I don't understand stuff. As an almost official social scientist who has studying the intricacies of this unjust world for the past 4 years, I realized this weekend that what's missing in my life is a good dose of literature and philosophy. I was rereading Hesse's Peter Camenzind and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling this weekend and was filled with a type of nostalgia that can only be brought on by something you've never lived, only read about. Then as I was catching up on The Economist, I came across an article on a Picasso exhibit and the painting they used for the article was a portrait of Gertrude Stein so then I started thinking about Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway, and of course, Virginia Woolf. Of course, this is a minuscule listing of all the great masters and I began realizing how much wonderful literature and art there is out there waiting to be discovered. I used to read so much in high school, mostly due to the AP English courses I took, and, God, I loved all the meticulous works of art that drove me absolutely insane with ideas. I've decided that I must learn German well enough to read my favorite literature in original German texts. Maybe I'll have my roommate teach me, she speaks alemán.  Maybe I'll find a good school out in Berlin, or maybe I'll make my fantasy of a Prague Spring come true. One day it will happen, I know. First, I need to be somewhere in Latin America or the Middle East. I fear, though, that this is all talk. What if I end up living with my parents, working a financially comfortable and incredibly miserable office job? What if I end up pushing everyone out of my life? What if, for fear of this life, I end up settling for a family and a stable life? I fear I would end up dying extremely young. Do you ever feel that way? I hate it but I do, all too often. Anyway, the point of this sloppy rant is to say that all I can do at this point is to delve myself in bildungsroman (bildungsromen as plural? I kid!), art and music of the brilliant people I am so lucky to 'know'. I can only hope that their lifelong work contains the secrets to keep me going. Maybe they'll show me the path "home". Or maybe they'll let me know what I already know, that home is in me. Mind over matter. Maybe the piano lessons I'll be taking over the summer will offer me another form of relief & release (finally, it's been a childhood dream!). I feel, though, that my family will end up being the "icy heights that contain all reason". I'll soon realize this, however, I'm still in the medial chapters of this bildungsroman that is my life. Ramesh, I know the feeling conveyed in "Steven" all too well and although it seems that people end up settling back into the expected life, I have never been able to resettle. Coming back from Chile was extremely difficult; so was El Salvador. I've never fully been able to let go of that addicting romanticized fantasy of leaving this place for good. I think you haven't as well. At least, that's what I get from "Berlin, Without Return"; How do you deal with staying connected with your family? I fear cutting them off for the sake of my silly fantasy. Although, I guess in the age of Skype, it should be less of a problem. I don't know, it just feels odd. I don't want to miss Steven, I want to be with him. Tell me, is the beauty of it in actually having to leave him? Is the nostalgia the point of it all? Oh and "Warmest Part of the Winter" has been my ridiculously morbid comfort lately and, as ridiculously beautiful as the song is, I am scared. I should really just get through this last quarter of college, I am such an idiot sometimes.

All the stuff mentioned above.

-melidee

"I think I've been here before"

I know that I have been posting way too many Voxtrot related things lately but I suppose posting things that are of particular interest to me is what I'm supposed to do in my blog, so here it goes. As I was looking for the usual Voxtrot "Trouble" Youtube video I play at work (since Trouble is not on their Myspace or Facebook pages and since Pandora is random) I came across this video version I had never seen before. Simply put, I absolutely love it [I secretly watched it at work about three times before I felt guilty about not working, so continued to listen to it while doing general tasks around the office]. There is so much character to this video. I particularly like that it does not focus on Ramesh the entire time but rather on the environment. This is not to say that I believe this version is "better" than the original, it's just different. I know it's kind of unoriginal but "Trouble" has always been one of my favorite songs precisely because it has so much character, it's so vivid with imagery and wordplay, don't you think? It has this spunky, random, clever je ne sais quois spirit that always puts me in a good mood. 

So, I'd been having a relatively good couple of weeks, particularly regarding my senioritis, but yesterday I broke down. Of course, I decided to accompany my breakdown with Voxtrot as the soundtrack and, just like that, I had the most depressing night of the past two weeks. I ended up taking a night walk (It's finally Spring in Davis and absolutely beautiful) and through the purifying tears, I came to many realizations, including, how [lost and] lonely I am. The accompanying realization to this was that I am absolutely fine with it. I know, I know, everyone says this and as John Mayer says of his song "Perfectly Lonely", this is a feeling that lasts about as long as the song does, but, truly, I am. As Conor Oberst expresses in "Hit the Switch", this is how I feel 99% of the time: "I'm completely alone at a table of friends, I feel nothing for them-nothing, nothing!" I've never felt joy from being around people which is the primary reason I am so completely socially awkward, but I just cannot get myself to forge an appealing personality for the sake of friends. I just want to be a solitary soul, with Macbook and fingertips pen and paper in hand as the tools of a professional observer. Life is just too damn interesting, what else is there to do? Maybe one day, in a different context, I'll have a group of friends or something, but I just don't know. Anyway, lloré the entire walk home and felt absolutely cleansed-for the night at least. I truly believe that my life will always consist of this necessary depressing feeling, it's a sad life but it's the life I, foolishly, choose.

Today in Arabic class, I fell completely head-over-heels back in love with the language. I love analyzing and deconstructing the texts. If only I spoke it as well as I wrote it. It is written in the tea leaves & coffee grounds for me to relocate to a Middle Eastern country as soon as possible. Maybe life will seem a bit less senseless somewhere where the biggest cause of one's frustration is not something like terrible wireless signal (I'm so frustrated right now); maybe one day I'll be able to sentirme mas cerca a la especie humana, tan extraña para mi. Plus, life truly makes much more sense going from right to left, don't you agree? Enjoy!

see above

-melidee

Sad Portugal

Doing laundry makes me this feel this way. Pet peeve: finding an article of clothing you really needed washed, after you've loaded up the washer.

I have a ton of laundry, homework and cleaning up to do on this beautiful, lazy Sunday afternoon.
Tomorrow, I start the 6th week of my final quarter of college (6/10). It should be a good week. Besides wonderful school, I have tons of good stuff planned including checking out that new Tacos & Beer place in downtown with Karthika on Monday and attending  A Conversation with Tim Wise on Wednesday with my wonderful co-workers. The weather is beautiful so I also sense frequent visits in YoloBerry  in my immediate future.

Okay, I have Bikram in a couple of hours and still haven't had breakfast so must go. It's going to be a good Sunday, positivist affirmation, haha.

Regina Spektor "Sailor Song"

-melidee

Anfangen ist leicht, beharren eine Kunst.

Cheer me up, cheer me up, I'm a miserable fuck

Cheer me up, cheer me up, I'm a tireless bore

Cheer me up, cheer me up, I'm invisibly stuck

all in myself - yes - I'm a vanity whore.*

True Story.

 Voxtrot "Kid Gloves" * (yes, again)

-melidee