Baby you’ve got a hold on me

My Crazy Valentine,

You may not been privy to what I have been going through these days. I hope you remember Carrie Bradshaw, in Sex and the City, mentioning about the phase of Zsa Zsa Zsu – yes butterflies everywhere 😀 One open letter to you may not capture, in coherence, all that I want to tell you right here, right now; not to forget the parsimony of bullet points or the drab of paragraphs.

Hence, I chose music as a medium to express my take on love – it’s refreshing, allows context change and obviates banality of text. The music I chose encompasses genres or any boundaries – and don’t you worry – not all of them are love songs 🙂

#14 Screaming out your name – Set Fire to the Rain (Adel)

“But I set fire to the rain
Watched it pour as I touched your face
Let it burn while I cry
‘Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name”

Adele always pushes me to go into this warm cozy place where I can do anything around with my heart – teasing them to turn sad and then uplifting them with liberating thoughts and then sink them into pure unrequited love – some pleasure which can’t be defined.

#13 Concept of a sanctuary – You and I (Lady Gaga)

“Something Something about this place
Something about lonely night and lipstick on your face
Something, something about my cool Nebraska guy
Something about may be You and I”

I love this song for the fact that she surrenders herself completely to him and believes in being together for eternity. Even a few torture wouldn’t balk her step 🙂

#12 Lonely souls don’t spark at the same time – Leave Me Alone (Extreme)

“Don’t feel sorry
It’s not your concern
Only the lonely
Are the ones who get burned”

This song speaks for all the lonely souls out here in this universe. Our hearts sparks and yearns to create a spectacle each time. Is there anyone to see that?

#11 When we are happy we make tonnes of promises – Happy Together (Turtles)

“I can’t see me loving nobody but you
For all my life,
When you’re with me, baby, the skies will be blue,
For all my life”

Promises gets wasted on people – by sheer fate or by your own design. If you really feel it this way about someone, it shows in your actions – it will find it’s way. I would plod along 🙂

#10 Sound of seduction – In the Waiting Line (Zero 7)

“Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe in
What you see”

The song is featured in the movie Garden State – a bunch of kids on psychotropic drugs seizing the day. Listen to me – this is my seduction song. Dreamy Pop has always been my favorite seduction genre. Here’s the party scene –

#9  You can never say what love brings in – Is That All There Is? (Peggy Lee)

“Then I fell in love, with the most wonderful boy in the world.
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other’s eyes.
We were so very much in love.
Then one day, he went away. And I thought I’d die — but I didn’t.
And when I didn’t I said to myself, “Is that all there is to love?”

Is that all there is to love? I don’t think so – if it just takes breaking out the booze and having a ball to make me happy why not? We grow stronger every time. And I also believe that it comes back in other forms – in colors or in disguise.

#8 Give in to the sweet sensation – Blind Faith (Chase & Status)

I am the man with the heavy heart,
and I dare not turn the pages.
Riding with automatic self destruction.
Is a blind faith, a cruel waste, one bitter taste.
So I know I need this sweet sensation.

Have you ever considered the term blind faith with a positive connotation? This song starts quite late

#7 What can a strong attraction do – Hypnotist (Flaming Lips)

“I had forgiven you for tricking me again
But I have been tricked again –
Into forgiving you –
What is this?? Are you some kind of hypnotist??
Waving your powers around – the sun eclipse behind the cloud…”

Call me a fool or just hypnotized 🙂

#6 The oh! so dependence on each other 🙂 – You’re All I Need To Get By (Aretha Franklin)

“Like sweet morning dew I took one look at you
And it was plain to see, you where my destiny
With my arms open wide, I threw away my pride
I sacrificed for you, dedicated my life to you
Like I would go where you lead
I’ll be right there in time of need
And when I lose my will you’ll be there to push me up that hill”

One of the most romantic songs I have ever heard. There are times when we look out for each other – some call it dependence, some call it love, some call it intimacy and let me not list all down. ‘You’re all I need to get by’ is my comfort feeling and by the way cheesecake is my comfort food 🙂

#5 We lie under different stars – Different Stars (Tresspassers William)

“So I will hum alone, too far from you
All that i say now is nothing to you
We will lie under different stars
I am where i am and you’re where you are, you’re where you are.”

This is one song that makes me cry – not because it is a song about separation but just because of the poet’s thoughts about romanticizing separation. Beautiful song.

#4 Good good lovin’ – Turn Your Lights Down Low (Bob Marley)

“Turn your lights down low
And pull your window curtains;
Oh, let Jah moon come shining in –
Into our life again”

This is one is purely dedicated to you because reggae lightens me up and what better a love song can be if it is not reggae 🙂

#3 Something so strong to wound a spirit – Cucurucu Paloma (Cateno Veloso)

They say that at nights
all he could do was cry all the time
they say he won´t eat
all he could do was drink at all times
they swear that heaven itself
would tremble hearing his crying
He suffered so much for her
that even on his death he was calling her

he cried
he sobbed
he sang
from a deadly passion, he died

That a sad sparrow
early in the morning goes to sing
at the lonely little house
with it´s liitle doors wide open
They swear that that sparrow
is nothing else than his soul
still waiting for her return

Cucucrrucucu, sparrow
cucucrrucucu, don´t cry
stones will never, sparrow
know anything about love

cucurrucucu, cucurrucucu
cucurrucucu, sparrow don´t cry

The melody is as melancholic as the singer who sang those beautiful and poignant words – Cateno Valeso in Cucurucu Paloma struck me bad when it lingered hauntingly through the movie “Happy Together” (above: video from the movie)by Wong Kar Wai. You should watch this movie someday to gauge what I feel.

#2 Coming home to you – Coming Home (Skylar Grey)

“I am coming home
I am coming home
Tell the world I’m coming home
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes” 

Here home is so not literal. I want to feel at home with you and would try and make it  for you as well.

#1 Music and Love – Music of the Night (Phantom of Opera)

“Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender
Turn your face away from the garish light of day
Turn your thoughts away from cold unfeeling light
And listen to the music of the night”

The song is from Phantom of Opera. A very ugly beast of a man falls in love with the leading lady of the opera. He lives under the stage and comes out only at night. He is musically gifted and has the most soulful voice. That was what he offered – music.

Last one for the day –

Smelled like sex but looked like blood …

Part of discovering something new always confounds one’s mind – as to whether one should form any opinion exactly at that moment or wait for the experience to settle down while reeling under it at the same time. That’s what I felt when I came out from the McKittrick Hotel at 530 W, 27th Street, NYC. But then

What’s done cannot be undone

An old dilapidated office building abandoned for ruins was converted into an immersive installation and performance by the group Punchdrunk directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle. Loosely based on the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, SleepNoMore is a tribute to the speakeasy generation with a touch of evil inspired by Shakespearean story telling and characters; each swaying and moving to a surreal David-Lynch-meets-Electronic music foisting the audience into a sexual frenzy.

SleepNoMore allows audience to be anonymous and faceless (literally!) – wearing masks and moving in complete silence; the audience runs, walks leisurely or  follows actors through a maze of more than 100 rooms – each one specially designed to add to the supernatural theme of the whole performance.

Though one can see direct references to Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, King Duncan, Banquo, Malcom, Macduff and Lady Mcduff yet there were other characters and their own stories more refined and developed – each had an arch. Malcom never had too much of limelight in Shakespeare’s play however in SleepNoMore he sings a jazz number about his life – tears trickling down his face with an impish smile, looking at the audience breaking the 4th wall.

There were instances when the characters started touching the audience and made gestures of making love. A few audience members were given letters to deliver and a few were kissed and touched sexually. Well there was a scene where Macbeth falls down as I was following him and he looks at my eyes for a good 10 secs. I should have picked him up – I didn’t! Though I did mess around in other ways. I wrote down a letter to no one which might be lying there for someone’s amusement I guess –

Why do I always end up in situations like this when I am so ALONE

If anyone from the production discovers this – please give me a shout out! I can tell you the background of my story and why I wrote that 🙂

By pricking on my thumbs .. something wicked this way comes

I forgot myself when I followed the naked Macbeth to a room where thye showed the witch invoking apparitions showing Macbeth’s future just before he kills Banquo. The whole room was filled with odors of spice, wine and a confusing but sharp stench – very sexual and mysterious. When a couple of us followed Macbeth into the room, we were ushered to a corner and then the strobe lights started flickering along with the music of Ed Rush – “Reece” – heavy electronic music paced along with fractured visions of Macbeth dancing around with the witches and a naked man with a Goat head, blood on his stomach which Macbeth drinks with frenzy. One ghost carried a bloodied and just-born baby and another one carried a small tree depicting the walled garden.

I can never forget such a combination – strobe light, blood, sex, surreal imagery and sensual stench. I played around with my hand under the strobe light and felt the immediate need to install some in my own house. Everyday will be a surreal experience – replace the Electronic music with Jazz on one day, heavy metal on another or drum & bass on any given Sunday.

Courtesy: New York Times

Actor Nicholas Bruder who played Macbeth moved me in the last scene – for a man who thought he was invincible, for a man who could do whatever he wanted, for a man vain and proud – he showed resignation – resignation to fate and this whole world that came crumbling down – depicted by a confused and insidious smile followed by fear.

There were things that could have been better. Members of the audience could have been less confused and more decisive as to what they wanted to do. Because of their sluggishness I couldn’t run and catch up with Macbeth for a few scenes (as you might have correctly guessed, I followed Macbeth in this visit).

The set design by Felix, Livi Vaughan & Beatrice Minns was mind bending – specially the children room with headless babies, the apothecary room, the rest rooms, the parlour … something suffocating yet thrilling.

Courtesy: Go.com

Dance performances were mostly ballet and jazz. However, there were signs of other modern dance forms which I was not aware of.

Being in a place which resembled Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (yes.. a lot of people will tell you when you get in – but honestly it’s only for those masks and nothing else is remotely close to an orgy), getting blood sprays (paint) on my shirt, locking eyes with actors and following them, seeing actors unfazed by audience staring at their naked bodies, witnessing violent scenes like murder and the one where Macbeth kills the pregnant Lady Macduff and a surreal strobe-light dance to heavy electronic music which was so anachronistically placed in a speak easy set up – it will be insane of me to say I liked it … but yes I loved it …

it smelled like sex but looked like blood and tasted like sweat … that was Sleep No More for me … what will it be for you?