11 Comments

Such a profound post, Guy, so intimate and vulnerable. That sadness of childhood is so present to me in this that I'm sure it's not only yours I'm touching. Your playlist is mine except that I wasn't hip enough to appreciate Queen. But Simon and King I played on my piano, picturing them walking past my little half-ghetto Appalachian street and thinking, "She's not very good but I can tell she truly understands what I meant with this song."

I'll come back to this later, with more time, and delve into your tracks, and I'm resisting saying 'the tracks of your tears' (that resisting thing has never been my forte ;-)

Expand full comment
author

Hola, Tereza. Thank you for sharing how this writing has touched something deep between us. This really is what I see writing as, when we do it well, a path that allows us to connect at the place from which words originate and which is beyond words. You described *that* beautifully in your comment!

🙏❤️🧘🏿‍♀️❤️🙏

And my expressed Jewishness may be an example of premature elation, or equivalent. I have some additional research to do to confirm some assumptions made by Rick and Camille based on my shaky knowledge of my family genealogy and total ignorance of Jewish 'rules'. For a future post.

(Thank you for recommending my substack. With your quality of discernment and writing, this is deeply appreciated! Namaste.)

Expand full comment

Guy, it's disconcerting to me that you don't have more readers and comments, with your exquisite capture of the metaphysical, emotional and everyday realities. I'm happy to do what I can to augment that.

And speaking of Happy, it's one of my favorite songs and one that has choreo in my dance class. In fact, my dance teacher has specified that she wants it played at her funeral ;-) Somewhere there's a 24-hr loop of everyday people dancing to it and it's adorable, it really does make me happy.

I also watched the Kerala video with that evocative pose, and it was very powerful. I need to watch more of them. Namaste!

Expand full comment
author

Hola, Tereza, your comment is so lovely it brought a smile to my face! Thank you.

Kerala Dust was a lovely synchronicity for me. A week or so before I led the silence retreat in May, Heidi H had shared Kerala Dust with me. During the silence, which I had planned to incorporate dance, at the end of the day the participant expressed, in silence, his desire to dance. Perfecto. I went to turn on the playlist, and Kerala Dust's song was the first in my list. It began to play, and then the internet cut out. (I'm remote, so not unusual, although not actually common.) My participant walked up with his phone, and that was the song on his playlist. And so we danced. (It wasn't the song in this post.)

That song was Maria, with some good/great(?) dancing.

https://youtu.be/IoN_ZaoFSW8

And Laura Mvula was on my playlist too:

https://youtu.be/hYjHixQ9Ns4

🙏❤️🧘🏿‍♀️❤️🙏

Expand full comment

Is Heidi H. Heidi Heil?

I thought I should come back over to your place, where this convo started. Staying on the African continent, but going to Senegal, Amadou & Miriam are favorites of mine. My youngest daughter's friend has a dad from Senegal, and she told me about them. This is Senegal Fast Food, which I've also choreo'd into my warmup mix: https://youtu.be/J43T8rEOg-I.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, to Heidi's identity.

I'll listen to these. I have some African favorites as well! When I'm not on my phone I'll track them for you.

Expand full comment

For a little while during the pandemic, I was queen of the microrave. The nurse (Maria) who is the true raver introduced me to a South African DJ called Black Coffee. So that became my go-to playlist for going to the gym, roller-skating around the kitchen, etc. I think I was in the 1% of Black Coffee listeners in terms of hours. So it geared much of my taste towards African.

Although my youngest is very knowledgable about K-Pop and when she lived here, it was a bonding thing for her to teach me the nuances of different bands. Different vibe, but they have something where particular singers do pieces of different songs with just them and a mic. It's called Killing Voice and my favorite voice is Taenyeon: https://youtu.be/5ch94AaPZRQ. For the contrast to the full pageantry here she is in INVU: https://youtu.be/AbZH7XWDW_k. K-Pop is an acquired taste, though, and it helps to have an expert in the house and a motivation to connect.

Expand full comment

Wow. Just wow on the Laura Mvula. You're such a font of great surprises, Guy!

Expand full comment
author

🙂

I am so glad!

I love to incorporate music into my writing. Music seems integral to my life. No one before you has commented on the music except Heidi and I've wondered if it has any value or was just a distraction. I'll continue to include it.

And mentioned in my other reply about Kerala Dust, who are playing in my ears as I write this, it is actually drawing out a very unpleasant and relatively persistent pain that has been sitting in my shoulders and arms. The sadness of this essay, mostly. The pain is so much less, now, that typing this is not actually uncomfortable.

And, of course, there is more. So, you may also like this one by unkown Canadian Zaki Ibrahim, which is oddly appropriate in this time of covid and with our group of 'anti-vax' dissenters:

Draw the Line: https://youtu.be/BfJRpcsuw7Q

And I really love her short concert, "The Secret Life Of Planets"

https://youtu.be/rQeeLwkafWc

And if there is any music you would like to share with me, please. As you can see even from this tiny selection, I have a broad taste. Something about the energy of the music creation, I think, is more important than the genre.

Expand full comment

How could anyone not dance to that song? It's hauntingly ethereal and passionate, with a house music rave vibe. And the dancing! So disturbing and yet so gorgeous. There's a violence to it that scares me, makes me a little sick, and sucks me in. I have to share this with my dancer friends. Five years out--what are the odds they haven't seen it? But again, what are the odds that I haven't?

I'll save the second and savor the dust a little longer.

Expand full comment
author

YES!

That was my experience with this too! On the silence retreat the two of us dancing to this music was magical.

So... here is another from KD that brings my hair up on end and the dancing is healing something in my body tonight. For some reason, on the 'surface' this is a kind of electro-beat dance music and somehow so much more. Not sure what.

Night Bell (Arizona) https://youtu.be/dJlot9z5ao4.

Expand full comment