“Simplicity in conduct, in beliefs, and in environment brings an individual very close to the truth of reality. Individuals who practice simplicity cannot be used because they already have everything they need; they cannot be lied to because a lie merely reveals to them another aspect of reality. An attraction to simplicity is essentially an attraction to freedom - the highest expression of personal power. We are taught to think of freedom as something one has, but it is really the absence of things that brings freedom to the individual and meaning into life. To let go of things - unnecessary desires, superfluous possessions - is to have them. Lao Tzu believed that an individual life contains the whole universe, but when individuals develop fixations about certain parts of life they become narrow and shallow and uncentered. Fixations and desires create a crisis within the mind. As individuals let go of desires, feelings of freedom, security, independence, and power increase accordingly.”
- R.L. Wing

via whiskey river.

Until then…

I went to see Wall*E last week, which I thought was excellent and magical…not to mention a bit of a tear jerker. I fell a little more in love with the movie when they played Louis Armstrong’s version of La Vie En Rose. A perfect incarnation of one of my favorite standards.

Download audio file (rose.mp3)

***update: the audio player is fixed***

“At day’s end, what honest effort do you look back upon?
Did you express one thought that was not in defense?
Did you look at your self from another person’s perspective?
Did you understand the why behind another person’s actions?
Did you laugh at your self?
Did you remember you will die?
How long till you experience one night utterly alone, where silence absorbs every hope, and boils you down to zero?
How long till you remember these questions every day, then end them?”
- Shawn Nevins

via Whiskey River

The movie and the book are both amazing. Its one of the few instances I’d recommend both in whatever order. While the movie embellishes the stories told in his book, adding and subtracting characters for whatever reason and deals much more in the hopeless portion of his struggle than the book for cinematic purposes, it makes up for it by being visually stunning. Everything was enriched by the so-beautiful-it-breaks-your-heart cinematography, the perfect handling of the flash backs, the way the movie seemed to be paced perfectly ebbing and flowing like the ocean.

The book on the other hand is just simply amazing. Bauby uses his words to inspire hope, despair, the power of imagination. So much so that twenty pages in I was blinking back tears. You can see the lavish meals and the wonderful trips. You dream each dream and live each memory with him. You can feel the pain at not being able to ruffle his son’s hair. All of this told with wit, humor and aplomb. All never ceasing to be amazing, not simply because of the means with which the story was told but because of it’s sheer power and magnitude. I didn’t want to stop reading it and once I finished I wanted to pick it up and read it again and again. I found myself pouring over passages lest I missed the subtle meaning of each line.

I receive remarkable letters. They are opened for me, unfolded, and spread out before my eyes in a daily ritual that gives the arrival of mail the character of a hushed and holy ceremony. I carefully read each letter myself. Some of them are serious in tone, discussing the meaning of life invoking the supremacy of the soul, the mystery of every existence. And by curious reversal, the people who focus most closely on these fundamental questions tend to be people I had known only superficially. Their small talk had masked hidden depths. Had I been blind and deaf, or does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true nature?

Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passages of time: rose picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark…I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship.

It will keep the vultures at bay.

*     *     *

From the Chapter: Twenty to One

(my favorite passage I chose because in the movie the imagery of the iceberg breaking away with the narration behind brought tears to my eyes)

The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mirthra-Grandchamp is the women were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but fail to bet on the winner.

**heading to the at&t store in the morning to replace what I believe is simply a defective sim card.

“The thing that blinds us and deafens us is the ceaselessly moving mind, the preoccupation we have with our thoughts. It is the incessant internal dialogue that shuts out everything else. That is the problem with trying to take a preconceived photograph. Before you even walk out of the building, you blind yourself. All day long we talk to ourselves. We preoccupy ourselves with the past, or we preoccupy ourselves with the future, and while we preoccupy ourselves, we miss the moment and miss our lives. Looking, we do not see. It is as if we were blind. Listening, we do not hear. It is as if we were deaf. Loving, we do not feel. It is as if we were dead. Preoccupied, we do not notice the reality around us. How can we be present? How can we taste and touch our lives?

The answer to these questions is not outside yourself. To see this truth requires the backward step, going very deep into yourself to find the foundation of reality and of your life. To see it is not the same as understanding it or believing it. To see it means to realize it with the whole body and mind. To realize it transforms one’s life, one’s way of perceiving the universe and the self, and of expressing what has been realized.

- John Daido Loori

-Toni Morrison

(picked up by my good friend nic)

But Via Tania aka Tania Bowers has been in my cd player since 2003 when turntable lab (you’re gonna wanna check them out) featured a few of her songs from Under a Different Sky. There was just something about the fragile quality of her voice, like a whisper through your head phones that was just different enough and powerful enough to capture me at the time. She released her new album Moon Sweet Moon and I was all on board. When I found out she was performing in the big apple I knew if I didn’t attend the show it would be one of those moments I regretted (see sufjan stevens…sigh). The night was perfect, even after arriving late, even after walking through the rain and being soaked through to my socks.

If you’ve got the time. If you’ve got the energy please dig”

Audio of the last song she performed and one of my personal faves:
Download audio file (true.mp3)

And howcome:

Via Tania: Howcome from shoottheplayer on Vimeo.

Summertime was the perfect theme because that’s what happened to all of us: we got caught up in a little too much summer fun and dropped the ball (Liz tried to no avail reigning it back in.)

But…as I say better late than never. Round 4 of the exchange. Well worth the wait.

George | Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince

Ouxu | What They Do - The Roots

OJ | Steady Mobbin’ - Ice Cube

Eyejammy | Walking Into Sunshine - Central Line

BK | Move Ya Body - Mad Skillz

Kate | Summersend - Misha

Cye | Everyone Falls in Love Sometimes - Tanto Metro & Devonte

Marcia | Summer Wind - Madeleine Peyroux

Liz | Motown Philly - Boyz II Men

Jen | Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

Sam | ATLiens - Outkast

I have to give props to Ms. Mari because my song (and the subsequent album download) was inspired by last years summer time vid. Listening to it all the fun of last summer comes right back to me in a flash (which is fitting since I’m headed over there for a little post work relaxing right now). Thanks mars!