28 Nov 2013

A frustrated melancholy floating on the wind



“The air blows soft as the swirl of a painter’s brush outside and the dry leaves sink in a slow nocturne. There is a frustrated melancholy floating on the wind in stagnant spirals and it feels like the nights in This Side of Paradise. Effulgent voluptuous rain smothers the tree tops and the darkness shoves along the street in scandalized puffs.” 

— Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald, on a November day from 1931. 


I can feel the frustrated melancholy that Zelda Fitzgerald talked about during this time of the year. We’ve left the sunny mellow afternoons behind and we're having plenty of gray rainy days. The air blows with an aching sadness at dawn. It feels like winter is already here. You can feel the cold on your bones. During days like these I just feel like sitting in the bathtub — as Sylvia Plath said: "There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure." —, or in front of the window looking at the sunset like Charlotte did on Lost In Translation.  Also, when it comes to my professional future I start to feel like the Scarlett Johansson's character. I think this is not the first time I talk you about how much I love that film, basically 'cause I felt totally represented on Charlotte. Her personal situation reminds me of some things I went through. The same happens with the 5th season of Mad Men. I've been watching it lately and there is a darkness on the tempestuous relationship of the main characters that I also have felt on the past. Something that Terrence Malick's To the wonder shows too, that's why I have included some pics from it on this post.

 And of course, there are some photographs from Paris in here too 'cause rainy days remind me of Paris. I daydream about having a walk through the Quartier Latin and Saint-Germain-des-Près. Plus November is the anniversary of Albert Camus' birth and I’ve been reading his essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, which I’ve always had wanted to read but never had find the right time to do it before. 

Hope your Autumn is going well! 



Ph.: Nicholas McLean, rebeccaplotnicktwobirdsonabranch, Marine Vacthpossumsednolo, The Dreamers (2003), cuerposiameses, David Lynch by Alasdair McLellantheotherway, Luiza Potienssoftskinfanzine, To the Wonder (2012), Ana Krašanothereternalsummer, Mad MenLéa Seydouxavec-des-sentiments, Lost in Translation (2003), styleallureattitude

6 Nov 2013

When two halves collide

Artwork by 4l0d142

'When two halves collide' (2013) - Creamy Creature



'When two halves collide' es el nuevo álbum de Creamy Creature. ¿Qué es Creamy Creature? El proyecto musical de Xavier Friedrich, quien lo describe así: “I make music from anything playable, giving more importance to what I want to express than to how it might sound, it's lenght or even if it's listenable. Enjoy.” Como toda su excelente música, este sexto álbum está plagado de una belleza melancólica e hiriente, una colección de canciones que os recomiendo que escuchéis. No puedo deciros más que lo que he escrito mientras lo escuchaba y que podéis leer a continuación. Todas esas sensaciones, recuerdos, y emociones son los que uno puede sentir al escucharlo:  

// 'When two halves collide' is Creamy Creature’s new album. What is Creamy Creature? Xavier Friedrich’s music project, who describes it with these words: “I make music from anything playable, giving more importance to what I want to express than to how it might sound, it's lenght or even if it's listenable. Enjoy.” Like all his superb music, this sixth album is a beautiful and nostalgic collection of songs that I recommend you to listen to. I can’t tell you more about this than what I have written while listening to it and that you can read below. All these sensations, memories and emotions is what you can feel listening to it: 

'When two halves collide'.


"El hastío de la existencia entre los cuatro tabiques que encierran mis recuerdos, fotografías que me miran desde las paredes. Labios que me hablan, ojos que me devuelven las memorias de días pasados. Como el cuadro que pintaste y colgaste sobre nuestra cama. Cuando el aire cambió, las hojas naranja comenzaron a llegar hasta nuestro balcón. Les feuilles mortes. Tú lo pronunciabas como Gainsbourg, con la gracia de tu lengua materna. Jo t’escoltava en silenci. El frío nos unió en las noches interminables, junto a la hoguera de pedazos de aquella aria que nunca terminé de componer. 789 días soporté el peso de tu cuerpo sobre el mío. Dejamos que el amor nos hiciese a principios de otoño. Junto a la ventana abierta sentía la lenta bruma de la lluvia cuando te vi moverte en medio de la oscuridad. Tu cabello y yo, únicos testigos de tu desnudez. Como si estuviésemos haciendo algo prohibido, tus mejillas robaron el color de la camisa roja que yacía a tus pies. Fue noviembre todo el año.  

// The weariness of existence among the bricks that enclose my memories, photographs that look at me from the wall. Lips that speak to me, eyes that bring back to me the recollections of days gone by. As the picture you painted and hung above our bed. When the air changed, orange leaves began to arrive to our balcony. Les feuilles mortes. You pronounced it like Gainsbourg, with the grace of your native language. Jo t’escoltava en silenci. The cold united us in the endless nights, next to the bonfire of pieces of that aria I never finish composing. 789 days I bore the weight of your body on mine. We let love made us at the beginning of Autumn. Next to the open window I felt the slow mist of the rain when I saw you moving in the middle of darkness. Your hair and I, the only witnesses of your nudity. As if we were doing something forbidden, your cheeks stole the color from the red shirt lying at your feet. It was November throughout the year.



Nos fumábamos la desesperación en opio, esperando exhalar junto al humo los demonios que yacen en mi interior. Como si el fuego abséntico que recorría mi garganta pudiese extinguirlos. Una temporada en el infierno avec Rimbaud. Bajo la luz menguante de la luna de otoño y el destello ámbar de las farolas, éramos muchas personas. Tú eras Lilith, Eva, Marianne, en tu camino hacia la libertad. Desde el Pont Neuf mirabas al agua con tus ojos verdes, como el Sena resplandeciente junto al que te vi por primera vez. Tu reflejo segmentado en tres: ello, yo, y el cisne blanco convertido en negro. Tu voz resonó en medio del silencio: “¿Qué es el amor?” preguntaba Karina, y respondía con las palabras de Paul Éluard: “Tu voz, tus ojos, tus manos, tus labios. Nuestros silencios, nuestras palabras, la luz que se va, la luz que vuelve, una única sonrisa entre nosotros. En busca del conocimiento vi a la noche crear el día, mientras nosotros parecíamos inmutables.”
 

// We smoked in opium our despair, waiting to exhale the demons that lie within me next to the smoke. As if the absinthic fire that went through my throat might extinguish them. A season in hell avec Rimbaud. Under the waning light of the Moon of Autumn and the amber sparkle of the lamposts, we were many people. You were Lilith, Eve, Marianne, on your way to freedom. From the Pont Neuf you looked at the water with your green eyes, as green as the dazzling Seine where I saw you for the first time. Your reflection segmented into three: ID, ego, and the white swan became black. Your voice echoed in the silence: What is love?" asked Karina, and she answered with the words of Paul Éluard: “Your voice, your eyes, your hands, your lips. Our silences, our words. Light that goes, light that returns. A single smile between us both. In quest of knowledge I watched night create day while we seemed unchanged.”


Caminamos de la mano para reunirnos con nuestros ídolos caídos. A la entrada del Père-Lachaise hay gentes que deambulan devorando pétalos de rosas. Tú besas la tumba del ruiseñor irlandés, cuyas alas cortaron en Reading. Oh, Wilde, escucha nuestras súplicas. Cuántos labios antes habrán besado tu sepultura, cuando tú sólo deseabas unos, los que te aprisionaron. La niebla nos envuelve y nos fundimos en el beso anónimo de Los Amantes de Magritte. A la figura errante que se esconde detrás de los árboles y sigue nuestros pasos le pido que me de unos días más. Mata al hombre, pero no al artista. Apiádate de mí y déjame componer mi adiós, como al joven Mozart, y que en el epílogo de ésta mi última obra, y epitafio mío, se lea: “Esta sinfonía es para los que, desde las vísceras de la tierra, donde laten los corazones bajo el asfalto, en lo más profundo de esta sucia ciudad, levantan la vista y el corazón hacia las estrellas. Ésas que brillan con fuerza y hacen parecer a la Torre Eiffel un insignificante lunar en el mapa de tu piel.”  

// We walked hand in hand to meet with our fallen idols. At the entrance of Père-Lachaise there are people wandering devouring rose petals. You kiss the grave of the Irish nightingale, whose wings were cut in Reading. Oh, Wilde, hear our prayers. How many lips before have kissed your grave, when you only wanted the ones that imprisoned you. The mist surrounds us and we merge into the anonymous kiss of Magritte’s Lovers. To the wandering figure who hides behind trees and follow our steps I ask a few days more. Kill the man, but not the artist. Take pity on me and let me compose my farewell, as the young Mozart, and in the epilogue of this my last work, and my Epitaph, it will be read: This Symphony is for those who, from the entrails of the Earth, where hearts beat under the pavement, in the depths of this dirty city, raise the sight and the heart to the stars. Those that shine and make the Eiffel Tower seem an insignificant mole on the map of your skin."


Text by me.  

All photos by Silvia Conde