monoceros blogs...definitely a thrill that Dario Marianelli received the Oscar for Best Score. His work in "Atonement" is marvelous; the pairing of the staccato of typewriter keys and a lush score is novel but it works very well for the film.
I first heard Marianelli's work in "I Capture the Castle," which stars Romola Garai (also seen in "Atonement"). And of course, he wrote the dreamy, romantic score for "Pride and Prejudice."
Here is a sample from the rare score of "I Capture the Castle."
Of all the winners at this year's Oscars, these three made me happy they won:
Marion Cotillard for her role as Edith Piaf in "La Môme" and
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová for their song "Falling slowly" from "Once."
Glen got to make an effusive thank-you speech but when it came to Markéta, the orchestra drowned her out before she could get a word in. Jon Stewart has always been a great guy in my books, but his position shot farther up when he retrieved Markéta from backstage so that she could have her moment at the Academy Awards. And her words are worth more than plenty of other mundane thank-you speeches. She touches on the struggle of independent musicians and the need for hope to keep them going and bind everyone together. It could've rung false if spoken by most people, but coming from Markéta Irglová, who is one of the most sincere and sweetest persons to ever walk a stage in Hollywood, her speech deserved all the applause and cheers it received.
While they sure cleaned up good (Glen's clean-shaven and Markéta dons a gown) for a performance at the Oscars, I still like the film's version of the duet better - sans orchestra, just a piano, a guitar, and two voices in a quiet but beautiful harmony.
"Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
It was a good six days.
The day we hit the coast, by Emm Gryner
Though this land is not my own
I will never forget it,
or the waters of its oceans,
fresh and delicately icy.
Sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk,
and the air drunk, like wine.
Late sun lays bare
the rosy limbs of the pine trees.
And the sun goes down in waves of ether
in such a way that I can't tell
if the day is ending, or the world,
or if the secret of secrets is within me again.
~ Anna Akhmatova
"The Mermaid"
All day he had felt her stirring
under the boat, and several times
when the net had tightened, frog-nervous,
he had bungled the pulling-in,
half-glad of the stupid, open mouths
he could throw back.
At sundown
the shifting and holding of time and air
had brought her to the still surface,
to sun herself in the last, slow light
where lilies and leeches tangled and rocked.
He could have taken her then, aimed his net
as dragonfly hunters do when the glassy gliding
of rainbows goes to their heads,
could have carried her home on tiptoe
and lifted her lightly, ever so lightly,
over his sill.
And hopeless, knew
that to have her alive was only this:
the sounding, casting, waiting, seeing,
and willing the light not to move,
not yet to round the bay of her shoulder
and, passing, release her
to the darkness he would not enter.
~ Lisel Mueller
While some creatures never leave the ocean floor, some move vertically through the depths, adjusting to the changes in pressure, light, and temperature, finally exploring the places where air and water meet: just beneath the waves, beside a boat, upon a rock.
What do mermaids want? They are the stuff of dreams, but what do they dream of? A day in the sun, chasing sea eels, singing the latest oceanic ballad, selecting sea shells for home decor, mesmerizing sailors?
If I were a mermaid, I wouldn't be the kind that combs her hair and lies in wait for smitten sailors and fishermen, ultimately becoming a prize, existing for their amusement or affection. I'd seek out the giant squid and see for myself if its eye is really the size of a dinner plate. I'd follow the creature and see if it's a drifter or an aggressive hunter. Is it mere prey for the sperm whale or does it fight to the death, making the whale work for its meal? If I were a mermaid, I would look for Atlantis; I would spend years listening to the earth's crust shifting and creating in its own rhythm new landscapes and islands; I would trace the strange mewing sounds in the darkness, the sudden shrieks and phantom moans; I would linger on a rock through the night and watch for distant, passing ships, wondering about their destinations. Just as I am human now, wondering about sea creatures and the unknown places they go, or hide.
Under the waves, by Pete Droge
Why am I having an extended fascination about the bottom of the ocean? I need a distraction, perhaps, and why not something outrageous and unknown? It's very much in the vein of what I used to conjure up during my childhood. Growing up, in my dreams, I was a relentless adventurer, skilled at tracking and gathering and defending, brave and sensible, dependent on no one, reliant on little but light and air, food and water; I was curious, eager, always wondering about and wandering through unknown lands, always looking for the farthest point on the horizon; I pitied those who were indifferent and had chosen to stop marveling at the world; I could be proud and distant, but not, I hoped, unkind; I was young and dreamy, but not a damsel or a mermaid, not one to be rescued or captured or killed.
Unfortunately, today, in real life, I'm a bit - no, a lot - more like the blind and tentative creatures who reside in the darkness of the ocean, sending out feelers and touching the space around them with slender fins, trying to picture a destination, locate food, avoid danger, discern friend from foe. Everything about their existence could be fragile, uncertain, but the thing is, they're there, they still are and will be even if their world is all darkness, marked by a glacial coldness and constant, intense pressure, and where anything close by could be a harbinger of change, or death. They survive, even if they're only drifting, and I suppose I can take comfort in that.
No mermaid, by Shaye
Drift on, by Butterfly Boucher
Other things I'd like to encounter on this journey: the rise and fall of mountains under the ocean, sunken ships, golden lights in a yawning abyss, sea plants that seem to be dancing in a current, the echo of a whale, deep silence, a face in the sand.
Of course, it's unlikely that a person would see very much that far down in the ocean. The bottom of the ocean's most defining feature is the absolute blackness, broken only by the occasional luminous torches of fish who turn them on when they need to hunt their prey or by the spurt of fluid ejected by deep-sea squids that become a cloud of light, the opposite of the inky cloud created by shallow-water squids. Light vanishes swiftly as you descend deeper into the ocean. According to Rachel Carson in her book, The sea around us, "the red rays are gone at the end of the first 200 or 300 feet, and with them all the orange and yellow warmth of the sun. Then the greens fade out, and at 1000 feet only a deep, dark, brilliant blue is left. In very clear waters the violet rays of the spectrum may penetrate another thousand feet. Beyond this is only the blackness of the deep sea."
Creatures of the deep may have become blind, but the loss of sight is compensated with sensitive feelers and long fins to feel their way around, groping for texture, shape, movement, changes in temperature. If a human were able to reach the bottom of the ocean alive, he wouldn't be able to touch or sense very much with his body, which would probably be encased in some thick and complicated machine or suit to protect him from the immense pressure at such depths. Perhaps he would barely be able to move.
Because so little is known about the lightless depths of the sea, few people believed that living creatures could survive or even exist there. In the early twentieth century, research ships used echo sounding instruments to send sound waves downward from the ship. These were reflected back from any object they encountered. Answering echoes were returned from the intermediate depths, as expected; and then a second echo was received from the bottom.
What the scientists discovered was a living cloud of some unknown creatures spread over much of the ocean at a depth of several hundred fathoms below the surface. There are three theories about that cloud: these living creatures are either shrimps, fishes, or squids. I like the squid theory best. Squids seem more magical, otherworldly, like alien beings. A Norwegian, Johan Hjort once wrote: "In October 1902 we were one night steaming outside the slopes of the coast banks of Norway, and for many miles we could see the squids moving in the surface waters like luminous bubbles, resembling large milky white electric lamps being constantly lit and extinguished."
What would the creatures down below think of me, I wonder. If I let them twine their feelers around my torso, arms, and legs, what would they imagine? A bony being without fins or tail? Prey or predator? Would they remain curious or retreat from me eventually, deeming me harmless and inconsequential? The only certain thing is that, for a while, I would be as strange to them as they would be to me. And it's just occurred to me that this happens on dry land too.
In the deep, by Bird York
As if the Sea should part
And show a further Sea -
And that - a further - and the Three
But a presumption be -
Of Periods of Seas -
Unvisited of Shores -
Themselves the Verge of Seas to be -
Eternity - is Those -
~ Emily Dickinson
Explosions in the Sky is an indie band - instrumental, post rock - from Austin, Texas, and it has a marvelous talent for titling music. These are titles that give rise to stories, ideas, dreams - First breath after coma; The only moment we were alone; Where do you go home to?; The birth and death of the day; Welcome, ghosts; A poor man's memory; With tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept; Snow And lights; Glittering blackness; Time stops; Remember me as a time of day. The band's own name - Explosions in the Sky - makes you wonder. Do you picture bombs and black spiraling smoke? Fireworks? A celestial event?
For the past month, I've been listening to a piece of music from their album, "The earth is not a cold dead place." It's called "Six days at the bottom of the ocean" and it got me imagining the things I would see, or hope to see, if I could spend six days at the bottom of the ocean.
Sea creatures would be high on the list. There'd be the usual suspects - narwhales, giant squids, sea horses. And then the more mythical ones - Scylla, mermaids, leviathans of all kinds.
Or perhaps, a Portuguese Man O' War.
This is a song I found by chance, whose source I forgot quickly enough, but not its melancholic meandering metaphors. Is it a song about the scars of battles in Spain or about loneliness and displacement? Either way, I haven't seen song-writing of this caliber in a while. It's a sprawling, nearly epic song, but isn't outfitted to appear so. There's only a guitar, Bachmann's calm, assured vocals, and a woman singing in the background. Pared-down instruments, but what a journey they send you on.
"Man O' War" by Eric Bachmann
Floating in the cold water the ghosts of sorrow haunt the deep
Reaching down to drag the ruins and roam the lone deserted streets
Of an old abandoned temple buried in the narrow strait
Off the coast of Tarifa, Spain
Gypsies scatter through the desert across the Atlas Mountain Range
Hoarding remnants from the devil from the empire's iron reign
While cluttered down the mouths of rivers, widowed lovers bathe and clean
Silken scarves embroidered for their brand new Queen
And every time she rises up the ocean sinks
Her memory drags a drape of a thousand angry stings
And like the moon doesn't mind if the sun doesn't shine
The sea doesn't care if you're lonesome tonight
Like the love that she gives condescendingly tries
In its way to comfort you
Set adrift into her swarm-man o war
Caught up in her dangling sting-off the shore
Of a foreign brown sand beach as blue as bottles cover you
Many messengers and rebels have come and gone without a trace
And many more will come tomorrow and many more will be erased
Cause out beyond the docks of Rota upon the bottom of the sea
Along the miles of copper cable from the Gulf of Cadiz
They tap the lines to hear the sounds that start the songs the rebels sing
And drag a net to seine the bottom for the purse the bastards bring
And like a lion don't mind if a lamb takes her time
A beast doesn't care if you surrender tonight
Cause a beast knows she'll get what she wants in good time
What she wants all in good time
Set adrift into her swarm-man o war
Caught up in her dangling sting-off the shore
Of a foreign brown sand beach as blue bottles cover you
DSD and I spent Valentine's evening together. It happened by chance. On Sunday, after our late lunch, I suggested meeting again this week; my Thursday evening was open, and hers was too. And then it occurred to us that it would be Valentine's Day. Did we want to brave the streets where flowers and bears and balloon hearts would almost certainly decorate the arms of young girls? Sure.
We had Korean food at Far East Plaza, tried to find clothes that weren't shapeless sacks of cloth, failed at that, looked at shoes, and talked plenty. We talked about our match-making success (the couple are newly engaged), how we had yet to figure out our lives; we discussed careers, job interviews, places we wanted to see, places on Monocle's list of most livable cities - Munich, Copenhagen, Zurich, Tokyo, Vienna, Helsinki, Sydney, Stockholm, Honolulu, Madrid, Melbourne, Montreal, Barcelona, Kyoto, Vancouver, Auckland, Singapore(!), Hamburg, Paris, Geneva; she shared her stories about working on farms, I dreamed about working on farms; we wondered about our friends, admitted to knowing how lucky we are to have our passions - paddling for her, tango for me - through which we escape the world. She loves being out in the sea and I love that I can be away from everything. I read somewhere that "tango begins when you decide to live in another country in another time in your mind, while continuing to function in the life you are living," and that's almost how I see it.
Earlier, on Sunday, we also talked about the films "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset," which I like to think "speak" to each other, in pretty much the same way the two sensitive protagonists enjoy a long, passionate conversation in each film. DSD prefers "Before Sunset," which seems more realistic, because life isn't pretty for either of them. I like both equally, because I can still remember what it's like when the world seems incredibly open and full of possibility, when you're young like Celine and Jesse in "Before Sunrise." The films work because of their honesty and real-world magic, the kind that happens between two people who find a rare connection. Perhaps this is the 90s version of "Once." "Before Sunset," set nine years later, builds on the things that made the first film work, and makes them better. When Celine and Jesse reveal to each other how miserable they are, laying bare their secrets, they're in their most convincing scene. DSD and I are nearly 30, not very old, but old enough to understand what they're feeling. What makes a film, book, or poem reach out and grab a person is that startling moment of recognition. You see it, and it's saying, "I see you."
Here are highlights from both films, and songs to go along with them.
The person who put this video on Youtube calls it the best scene in the first film: the awkward silence; the stolen glances - unseen by them - that tell the audience everything.
Come Here - Kath Bloom
My favorite - the wacky make-believe phone-call scene in a Viennese cafe. They get to tell each other what they think and feel, without the pressure of telling each other "directly."
Falling In Love In A Coffee Shop - Landon Pigg
Not really a scene from "Before Sunset," but the trailer itself.
You won't see this in the trailer, but I have to say how I like that the first film ends quietly but powerfully - images of all the places where Jesse and Celine sat and talked the night away; now they're lit with the morning sun. Scenes in the morning are usually hopeful, suggesting newness and possibility, but we've seen these places in another time, another light; now they're empty, and haunted by the memory of Celine's and Jesse's presence and words. The sequel opens similarly, with a series of places in Paris. As the film progresses, these places are filled in with the strolling figures of Jesse and Celine. They're in a narrow walkway, heading to a cafe, entering a garden path. It's also the second film speaking to the first one, saying that it remembers, and, let's begin again.
Edge of the Ocean - Ivy
This is what they've really been thinking and feeling for the nine years they didn't spend with each other.
Roger Ebert's reviews say it best - "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset."
A break with (or "from"?) tradition: here are a couple of upbeat songs. And they're about grammar.
Oxford Comma - by Vampire Weekend. Neil Gaiman put this up on his blog. A cool pick.
My Egpytian Grammar - by The Fiery Furnaces. I can't remember where I got this.
Obedience by Wil Lavender. If my undergraduate course on Logic had been a little like this, I wouldn't have minded the early 8:30 classes so much.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Winner of the 2008 Caldecott Medal, this has been receiving plenty of hype in the US and on the net. Here's a nice feature on the author.
A deleted illustration from The Invention of Hugo Cabret
On Saturday, a dead bird lay somewhere between the front door and the coral tree in my garden. It wasn't a muscular crow or a small black mynah, nor was it an arrestingly beautiful sort of bird. It was unusual though; I'd seen tiny yellow birds darting about the neighborhood before, but never a green one before. My bird - in less than a minute, I'd already grown a sense of responsibility towards it - had dark green and gray feathers, though the ones on its head were snow-white. I'd like to think that when it was alive, its feathers were shiny and glinting in the sun. Like a fallen gladiator, now it was a still, dark shape among the bright red petals of the coral flowers on the ground.
Despite it being one of the least pleasant tasks I could ever wish for on a Saturday morning, I had to remove it before any stray cat came by to stake its claim. As it was, a trail of industrious ants were already on the scene. Who knows what they'd already taken. The eyes, maybe. I shuddered at the thought of picking up a dead body, even if it wasn't large or heavy. Even if it was just a bird that I'd never seen before till that morning.
I couldn't decide which made me more uneasy - the physical presence of this dead weight or the awful thought that the life had gone from a creature that had always made me think of joy and journeys and freedom. It was just a bird, someone might say, but it had once breathed and eaten and drank of this world, and though I had seen an unusual number of deaths in my youth, mortality and death and all the permanence linked to it have yet to become any easier to accept.
I was thirteen when I first touched a dead body. My aunt was 18 when she died of an aneurysm. I was at the hospital the morning they took her off the life support machine, and though I knew her body was still warm after she was declared dead, I was afraid to touch her. Because I'd grown up with her, seen her laugh, heard her sing, let her tickle me till I teared, and I couldn't quite believe that her vibrant spirit was gone from her, and her body, so warm and familiar beside mine when I was a child, would soon grow cold and then be taken away from us forever. I lay only a finger on her forearm for a second, and then I walked away from her, ashamed and certain that I never wanted to touch a dead body of someone I loved if I could help it. I didn't want to remember that instant of knowledge, the tangible proof that the life had gone from her, sensed through mere layers of skin, mine and hers.
But I still remember it, and I did again when I felt the weight of the bird as I attempted to push it into a bag. I was using a rolled-up newspaper, which proved too large and clumsy, so I used a slipper, and even then, despite the lack of contact, I could feel the bird's sinking deadness through the tips of my fingers, and I had to walk away several times, leaving the body half in and half out of the bag, and feathers falling away from the bird's wings in all directions. Finally, I returned, inhaled deeply, heaved it into the bag as far as I could, and pulled the bag up so the body would fall to the bottom.
As I tied the bag, I wondered if the bird was on its way home to a nest somewhere in the neighborhood, or if it was on its way out to look for breakfast, or maybe it was leaving its nest in search of a better one someplace else. I'd like to think it was out on a new journey, but that it wasn't meant to be, and that if there were a heaven for animals, then it was in a far better place now, where the skies are endless, worms are plentiful, and trees are tall and lush and perfect for building nests.
Back in my study, I pulled out three songs that use birds as metaphors, very good metaphors. I listened to them and thought of real birds - black birds, blue birds, and a green bird - and also of the people who yearn to be like them, to go off on long journeys, to leave a place forever, who fail to do so but still dream that they can.
Black Winged Bird - by Nina Persson
Homebird - by Brian Kennedy
Bye Bye Blackbird - by The History Boys; they sing it for a beloved but often misunderstood teacher who finally left on a journey of his own.