I had to get used to relaxing. Only the final few days i took it easier. Thursday i spent at home watching a the Hills rerun on MTV. I loved it. Going to the garden as well and enjoyed spending time there.
I did get quite a few ideas for posts. Some for songs, some for cooking, some for video’s. I made drafts for them. Ready to fill up with content and make final. As i did with this post, with the photo’s i made during these past two weeks. Not too many though.
So yes, i do feel a lot more relaxed now. Also ready to work again.
Last week i got the idea of making a video of the Peace Garden. The garden i work at twice a week since this years April. I’ve made several posts about different aspects of this garden. The organic, permaculture aspect, the weeds, bad and good, the vegetables, the flowers. And the people of course. I had to get used to all the various people working at the garden.
So this is my last post for two weeks. I like it. Lots.
I love the music. Which i have known since it was released in 1981. Double 12″. Because that gave you more freedom in listening to the songs.
🙂
Anyways, i loved them. A couple of years later, when i think i went to my mum, i had bought the Face at the train station. In the train i read this article about a new artist and i sat up straight. Neneh Cherry. From Rip Rig & Panic. Yay! I did buy her album and the 12″ for Buffalo Stance. And her later albums. And she is only around two weeks younger than me.
Enjoy the video. Enjoy the summer! The hopefully warm weather! And if you live on the south side of the planet, enjoy the winter!
Today i thought of giving myself a vacation, a holiday. Two weeks of no work on this website. A time simply to enjoy the warm weather.
As it is the warmest day of the year right now, Wednesday, the day i’m writing this post, this feels very good. I’m not going anywhere, but still, some time off is a good thing. Time to let my blog go away for a bit, not need to think about what to post for a day.
My last post will be this Friday, the video i made for the Peace Garden. I need to work on it just a bit more. I like it! I hope others will do as well.
That is it for today. It is too warm to think of more things to write now!
The title of this song always confused me. I bought this album around 1976, 1977. Only a few years after it was released. It always ment to me “The song of Katy’. Lied in Dutch means song. I’m pretty sure i knew it wasn’t right, but yeah, it was stuck in my mind.
A very different meaning from what it says: Katy Lied. Which is taken from this song Doctor Wu. But doesn’t appear in it literally, Katy lies is the line in the song.
Doctor Wu is another confusing title. Around that time Doctor Who was on Dutch television. The series with Tom Baker in it. With that one episode which really scared me, in which all the plants were growing endlessly to kill all the other living creatures. Or something like that.
So in my mind i had an album called Katy’s Song with this song on it called Doctor Who.
Completely wrong!
[Official Biography] Donald Fagen: ” “Doctor Wu” is about a triangle, kind of a love-dope triangle. I think usually when we do write songs of a romantic nature, one or more of the participants in the alliance will come under the influence of someone else or some other way of life and that will usually end up in either some sort of compromise or a split. Okay, in this song a girl meets somebody who leads another kind of life and she’s attracted to it. Then she comes under the domination of someone else and that results in the ending of the relationship or some amending of the relationship. When we start writing songs like that, that’s the way it usually goes. In “Doctor Wu” the “someone else” is a dope habit personified as Doctor Wu. In “Haitian Divorce” it’s a hotel gigolo. The details of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Through With Buzz” are vaguer but the pattern is the same.”
I still like my version though 🙂
Steely Dan – Doctor Wu
Katy tried
I was halfway crucified
I was on the other side
Of no tomorrow
You walked in
And my life began again
Just when I’d spent the last piaster
I could borrow
All night long
We would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang
I knew was true
Are you with me Doctor Wu
Are you really just a shadow
Of the man that I once knew
Are you crazy are you high
Or just an ordinary guy
Have you done all you can do
Are you with me Doctor
Don’t seem right
I’ve been strung out here all night
I’ve been waiting for the taste
You said you’d bring to me
Biscayne Bay
Where the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day
I went searching for the song
You used to sing to me
Katy lies
You could see it in her eyes
But imagine my surprise
When I saw you
Are you with me Doctor Wu
Are you really just a shadow
Of the man that I once knew
She is lovely yes she’s sly
And you’re an ordinary guy
Has she finally got to you
Can you hear me Doctor
It is different now. Different from a few years back. I felt unhappy a few years back. But these days, this past year and a half, i felt happy. Truly happy.
But yes, i am still alone.
Lives of my old friends has moved on. They moved away. They got children. All very understandable.
Looking back at my old life, i see now i always felt a need to adjust myself. To change how i respond. There was always tension. There still is. I still feel it. It is very hard for me to relax and be myself, completely, with other people. To be honest, i will rather be by myself. It is easier for me.
Working in the garden has added some difficulty these past months. All different sorts of people, with whom it is hard to find the right note. Who say things i don’t understand. I need to deal with that, by myself.
They do not know me. I tell myself that that is fine with me. But some of the things they say are hurtful.
And, as it turns out, some of the things i say are hurtful too. I learned this this week. Strange.
Right now, i feel happiest when i’m alone watching at the world. Reading articles, thinking my thoughts all by myself. Trying to find a place from where i can speak, think.
It is still a bit muddled. A bit unclear.
I hope i am growing up steady.
It is hard for me to talk about with a clear mind.
I am trying.
So please, do what ever you want. You may read the articles i posted at the end of this one. Or not. You can read the quote. Or not. You can watch what Simon Vinkenoog is saying, in Dutch. Or not.
Whatever you want.
There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feelings — depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage — are simply a consequence of unsettled chemistry, a problem to be fixed, rather than a response to structural injustice or, on the other hand, to the native texture of embodiment, of doing time, as David Wojnarowicz memorably put it, in a rented body, with all the attendant grief and frustration that entails.
I don’t believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it’s about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted.
Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; it is a city. As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame, only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each another. We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell. What matters is kindness; what matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open, because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last. (Source: The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
Today, Wednesday, i got a new idea for a video. Strange it didn’t come up before. I will make a video in the garden. Already searching for the right music. Not sure how i will do it. People or no people? The garden from a distance, for an overview. The garden up close, the flowers, the insects, butterflies, worms. The plants, the fruits, the vegetables.
I will start this Friday. Looking forward to it.
As a reminder, a repeat of the video’s i made sofar.
Perfection is a state of completeness and flawlessness.
The oldest definition of “perfection”, fairly precise and distinguishing the shades of the concept, goes back to Aristotle. In Book Delta of the Metaphysics, he distinguishes three meanings of the term, or rather three shades of one meaning, but in any case three different concepts. That is perfect:
1. which is complete — which contains all the requisite parts;
2. which is so good that nothing of the kind could be better;
3. which has attained its purpose.
An interesting article to read, the Wikipedia page.
My own definition is this one: perfection is the ultimate best. Nothing can be better than perfection.
Can we, human beings, ever become perfect? Can we attain a state in which nothing can be improved, nothing can be made better. Can we attain this state of ultimate bliss? Nothing out there would make us feel any better. We will be complete. Without flaws. Perfect.
I’m not going to find an answer to this question in one evening.
But i did notice something these past days. I was thinking of myself as very happy, these last two years. As almost perfect, almost. I have achieved some things which i thought would be impossible. Like giving away my drawings. I have worked really hard. Found some new areas within myself. My singing. My video clips. Which i love.
But they are not perfect. Almost the opposite really. But i still love them.
Someone recently wrote to me that i had said some things which she didn’t like. First i didn’t accept that. I was doing so well. Even though my life is pretty much solitary, i felt wonderful. Happy. Joyous.
But over a day the thought crept into my mind that she might be right. I could explain it, tell her where the sayings came from. But in the end, she was right. Even though i felt a very strong feeling against what she had written me. A firm feeling of denial. “No, that is NOT true!” She was right.
I make mistakes. Errors. Sometimes my mind is so full of my own thoughts, someone else’s can not find any room to enter. I am not perfect. Not content. Not at peace with the world. Not at peace with all the people living on this planet.
It hurt me, what she wrote. Yesterday i almost felt normal walking the street. Ignoring the other people, simply finding my own pace and walking strait and ignoring everyone else.
Today was a bit better. A bit.
I know i am finally working on making things that interest me. I hope someday other people will be interested too. Soon. 🙂
That is enough for me. Perfection is not for me, not now.
