Here we are
Under the moon again
On the horizon, the light of dawn
Soon, only echoes of a love gone by
And pictures left to haunt
No happy ending that you always promised
No resolution as the credits roll
If I could have one last request
Let this dream never end
I would die in your embrace
I would pass from this lonely place
As you once did
From me
One of the most powerful moments of acting I’ve ever seen came in an episode of The Nevers. Specifically, Laura Donnelly as Amalia True, in the song translation scene (potential spoilers, but you’ve had plenty of time to watch it by now):
Context would probably help there, but I’ll instead encourage you to watch the show (the scene above appears in season one, episode four: ‘Undertaking’); it’s (so far) a lovely piece of fiction with a wonderful cast and crew. Out of context, though, watching the sadness build behind a steely stone gaze, only to break free – but even then only within the confines of True’s controlled exterior… I was watching live and it punched me in the gut, and I think I might have immediately texted a friend in Boston to tell her to watch the show based purely on this scene, and the way it affected me. And then, the next week, during the recap (‘Previously on…’), they showed the scene, completely free of context, and it still got me. Again.
(There’s a similar moment in, of all places, Mythic Quest — I guess it’s technically the first season, but it’s the pandemic episode “Quarantine”. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.)
Duran Duran’s Ordinary World, off the self-titled 1993 album (commonly known as ‘The Wedding Album’), is one of the most affecting songs I’ve ever heard. Simon Le Bon write the lyric as a message to his best friend, who had passed away some years before, and you can absolutely hear both the determination to accept the loss and move forward as well as the lingering grief that Le Bon carries (“Where is my friend when I need you most? (Gone away)”). The first time I heard it — and I was somehow a huge Duran Duran fan in the midst of listening primarily to guitar heroes and prog metal — it registered with me as a song that would resonate in my heart for a long time, and I was right.
I’ve been a George Lynch fan since the early ’80s — it’s less embarrassing than it probably should be that I was really into Dokken for a while — and got really excited when it was announced that he and Jeff Pilson (Dokken’s bassist and currently also playing with Foreigner) would be releasing an album of cover tunes that they both dug. The disc is a mixed bag for me — Tracy Chapman’s One of Us is a nice reinvention, while I could go the rest of my life without hearing Champagne Supernova quite happily — but it’s Ordinary World that stands out to me. There’s the obvious — one of my favorite songs combined with slick hair metal production (It’s BIG! It’s heavy! It’s cinematic!) — but it’s the solo that kills me. I mean — kills.
Look, what Lynch does to the main riff — the first guitar break, after the second chorus — I kinda hate. It’s a personal opinion (as all things music are, y’know), but the noisier take on one of the most identifiable ‘pop guitar riffs’ just hits wrong for me. I get that. But then, after the repeats of “Any world is my world,” when the lead guitar kicks in at 4:30… the first time I heard this, I was frozen, speechless, and probably got that weird creeping chill at the base of my skull that I get every now and then.
It’s that same feeling that I pull from The Nevers moment, when that mask you wear starts to crack, when your internalization and validation and rationalization of your sadness stops working so well — when the waters create too much pressure, and the control is no longer possible, suddenly, if only for a brief moment.
(BTW, There’s another surprisingly (if you’re me, or know my musical tastes) great cover of the tunes by The Pierces at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZACv6qObR0s)
(This was originally written in March of 2011, and I had a brief moment of panic when I couldn’t find it in any of my storage places for my writing. I’m not generally super happy with most of what I write, but this was an exception. Thanks to M for being able to find it a decade later, and passing it on to me.)
I think and talk a lot about the soundtrack to our lives. Some people live life in a silent film, to stretch this metaphor; they never listen to music, or they consider it a nuisance, or (worst) are apathetic about it. I’m on the other end of the spectrum – there’s something constantly being piped out of whatever speakers or headphones that are most convenient. If I had had a say in the matter, there would have been an entrance theme playing in the hospital delivery room back (sometimes I think Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, from Turandot; too many have suggested O Fortuna). If I have a say in the matter, I’ll get to pick my exit music, as well
I did not know you
Our lives never touched
‘Til the day they gathered
To bid you farewell
And they painted your picture
And as I looked around
I felt I saw you
In the words and the sound
They called her Nana. In fact, it wasn’t until about thirty minutes ago that I ever knew her actual given name; I had to text my girlfriend to find that out. But then, that’s what you do with grandmothers, right? The first-born grandchild mispronounces the word grandmother, and that nickname sticks forever. It did with me, though I’m still not certain how my lack of speech impediments managed to turn “grandma” into “Merv.”
I never met Nana, as a matter of miles. She was in Boston, after moving here in the middle of last century from Scotland. I did talk to her once, briefly, on the phone, and eavesdropped on a few phone conversations thanks to the iPhone’s speaker. My girlfriend would call her on holidays, and ask her to tell one of her many jokes; she would let me listen in, and her brogue always made me smile, no matter what the punchline was.
Your talent came flowing
Through the stories they tell
And through the the faces
Of those who loved you so well
Your life gave them a treasure
A piece of themselves
Something to carry
And still serves them well
There are a lot of songs about loss. As much as I don’t pay attention to lyrics, a lot of those songs are rubbish for me, because they’re too morose, or focus too much on the end of things. Not that that’s bad, or unnatural — I think our tendency as humans is to give in to grief. There’s a lot to be said for the comfort to be found in a blanket of sorrow.
But when it comes to people, to a human life and all that comes with it, I think it’s really important to push past that, as much as possible. Instead of dwelling on the loss, focus on the memories of the good, the things that impacted us as people, as friends and family and, sometimes, strangers.
I don’t know the full story behind Brian May’s Just One Life like I do with some other songs, but I kind of like it that way. To me, it’s the perfect song for today. It’s a poignantly sung lyric, a beautiful melody with a perfect arrangement, and if I tried for a million lifetimes, I couldn’t put the sentiment into words half as well as he did.
Perhaps inside you
You were messed up like me
But them you were whole and strong
And friend in their need
And what you left behind you
And what swept over me
Says that your life’s work
Rolls on and on
A piece of eternity
The exactness of this story is questionable, and the details aren’t important:
There’s a hospital room in Boston, and there are lots of relatives keeping watch over Nana as she sleeps peacefully. One of the relatives has brought in a portable CD player a few days earlier, and my girlfriend suggests in the early afternoon that they play some music (one of the hospice workers had suggested that even though she was sleeping, she might hear what was happening in the room around her). Her brother mentioned her favorite CD, and so they put the disc in and hit play, and as the first notes of her favorite music began to fill the room, she took her final breath, and moved on to whatever you want to believe happens next.
And through all the mixed feelings that flooded my head when I was being told this story, as the words rode the airwaves and bounced off of satellites and crossed the hundreds of miles between Birmingham and Boston, as memories of my own grandmothers bounced around like pinballs, one thought was constant: Nana was a lucky woman. With all the craziness in the world today, out of all the possibilities, she got to pass from this world sleeping peacefully, surrounded by people that loved her and listening to her favorite music. If I can save all my good karma and choose how to spend it, I think I’d like to cash it in on exactly that.
Rest peacefully, Nana. Your spirit carries on.
Just one life
Brian May, Just One Life
That is born, and is, and is gone
Just one life
And I’m so glad to know you
As I know you
These were the best of times
Dream Theater, The Best of Times
I’ll miss these days
Your spirit lit my life each day
My heart is bleeding bad
But I’ll be okay
Your spirit guides my life each day
For Susan McGregor (1922-2011)
Just One Life lyrics written by and ©1993 Brian May, from the album “Back To The Light”; The Best of Times written by and ©2009 Mike Portnoy, from the album “Black Clouds & Silver Linings
19 years ago next week, I started this idiocy. Today, I nearly completely lost all of it, because no matter how long I’ve been doing this web programming thing, I remain an absolute impatient idiot when I decide things need to change. To wit: I decided it was time to find a new hosting home for all web stuffs, and so I did. Dropped my cash for hosting services, began the process of transferring domains, and before I thought to copy the two sites that I was moving, changed the nameservers.
If you’re not a web person, this means probably not much. So allow me to translate: my sites (including the almost nineteen years of random scribbling here) were still somewhere out on the web, but completely inaccessible to me. Much like moving, only before you pack all your belongings (especially that last gift from your departed beloved grandmother and your cat), you erase the memory of your old address from nearly every source you can think of, including your brain.
Fortunately, I’m not super-attached to stuff in general, as the survival rate of anything on a long enough time scale approaches zero. That being so, I only mildly panicked.
Like all good developers, I rarely if ever back up any of my data.
My previous webhost has completely changed their server dashboard (that was the straw that broke my back and made me make the move), and it took me a good hour to find my files and databases, and then another two to make them all work properly on my new host (entirely my own fault — I had to reteach myself WordPress configuration and basic SQL).
So, in the spirit of hopefully remembering this in twenty or so years when I decide to do this stupid shit again, I’m putting this in writing. And as soon as I hit post, I will pretend it never happened, because I feel pretty fucking dumb right now.
Plausible deniability is my friend.
Clearly, I’m not terribly motivated to write these days.
I’ve found plenty else to do, mind you — work continues, just from my home office instead of thirty minutes away. Been getting caught up on TV/Netflix, some reading, and maybe most importantly, getting my iTunes library cleaned up (getting rid of albums that I don’t listen to any more — or in many instances never did).
Driving around is surreal — in spite of the beautiful weather, there’s little traffic, and not a whole lot of foot traffic. Maybe people are finally staying isolated? Ha.
Apparently, instead of the pandemic bringing everyone together, we’re politicizing it. In other news, water is stupid and people are wet.
The more I sit here and try to come up with something poetic and meaningful, the more depressing this is. So I’m going back to iTunes to continue the great musical cull of 2020.
The weirdest thing to me — that thing that you don’t notice how different it is, until something tips you off, and then you do, and then you can’t stop noticing it — is the sound. It’s not necessarily quieter, but it is — less traffic, more bird noises (granted, it’s the beginning of spring, but still)…
And then suddenly today, it hits me — there’s less air traffic. Duh. But you don’t realize how inured you’ve become to The Way Things Are until suddenly they aren’t.
I’m less concerned with the fears of what might happen than I am with not knowing. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Over the weekend, as Alabama went from zero cases to Hold My Beer, motherfuckers, i found myself getting hit with heavy doses of anxiety — not something I’m typically experienced with, on any noticeable level, at least. But as I processed worst case scenarios, and best case scenarios, and finally found myself settling back into the area of real-world probability — not that that’s something I’m super okay with, mind you — I found myself breathing just a little easier.
We’ve survived wars, terror attacks, pandemics that were far more deadly, and our own worst, and we’ll survive again and again. And eventually even the new normal becomes — well, if not pleasant and acceptable, then at least commonplace.
I miss the drive into work (not the drive home, yet), the lake behind the building, not second-guessing public exposure, and casually going to the grocery store to get whatever I’m craving in the moment. I’m enjoying the change in aural scenery, not having to deal with afternoon traffic, and Outlander.
– Murtagh Fitzgibbons
You’re a guest of the MacKenzie. We can insult ye. But god help any other man who does.
“I’ve generally avoided talking about this, because my brain is in a blender as it is. But now it feels like it might be worth doing at least some kind of partial personal log of these times. Someone said to me today, “I’m freaked out that you’re freaked out. You’re usually so unflappable.” And, I admit, it got to me yesterday, I put all the news feeds back on, watched borders close, started hearing about confirmed cases within two or three degrees from me.
“I mean, I’m Generation X. We all assumed this was coming, and we’ve all been ready for decades to cut you for clean water. And, since we were the generation left to roam the streets, let ourselves in and sit around alone for hours, we are entirely prepared for all this, because we learned the tools and emotions were dunned out of us early.
“It’s still a weird moment.”
https://warrenellis.ltd/jot/plague-notes/
Welcome to what Harper called in an email earlier “Coronapocalypse.” Day two of absolute isolation, pollen picked a fucking week to start coating everything, Cat hasn’t eaten me yet, and it turns out that Outlander is surprisingly good.
Do you imagine that trees and other plants feel? That they experience sensations, just in a way that we humans and our egocentric way of thinking are incapable of understanding? When the wind blows, or birds make their homes in the branches, or lightning strikes, do you think that maybe there’s some semblance of pleasure or pain?
Too, what do you imagine a tree feels if it is uprooted and transferred to another location? Excited for a new environment and surroundings, perhaps, or anxious about leaving the only home it has ever known?
At least it doesn’t have to worry about packing, moving all its stuff, changing its address with the USPS, transferring bank accounts, and all that mess.
It always starts with an image.
Maybe it hasn’t always been this way, but it always is now. An image so clear yet dreamlike and unsharable, at least by his hands – never good at drawing, painting, sculpting, or even capturing with cameras, but his brain overflows with visions astonishingly beautiful and horrific.
And so sometimes those images attach themselves to music, something random piping through his earbuds. Heavy, ethereal, cinematic in its own right, whatever. There’s no rhyme or reason to the process, that he can understand. It just happens — music sees imagined vision from across the crowded bar, and after a few shots of liquid courage, music hits on vision and they get married and live together happily ever after.
This, then, is the source. Like an album full of songs that are crafted solely to support a single riff or short chord progression, the stories and characters and dialogue flow entirely as an excuse to describe a lone image that he can not otherwise share with the world.
That’s the sad secret, one which he shares begrudgingly but also suspects is not his alone.
METAL NOIR: Noir, in the loosest (thematic) sense, set to prog metal. Assembly of past pieces. Connective tissue on an auto-biographical threadwork. Sleek, dreamlike, ethereal when it needs to be; fixed 30fps and real enough to feel the punch or smell the copper apropos.