Eeny, meeny, miny, moe —

I never really understood

why

we run in circles but

we wait in lines


We say 5 feet tall

when — we all know

you're many times short


And what I hate about people

— and things, and even sensations —

is when they are irrelevant.


Are we wondering

or wandering?

The gig animal identikit

I've been to quite a few gigs and concerts, and yes, whether it is good or bad, big or just in a small venue, one thing is certain: when you get there, your "one gig stand" neighbours will be easily recognisable at first sight, and that definitely helps you get rid of them.

The fangirl
This is the most popular category. Usually a teenager, the fangirl is in the first row, she's been standing there since noon, she's wearing the band's t-shirt, she knows all the songs and does not spare your poor ear a single line, alternated only by hormonal deliveries on how hard she would bang the whole band — including the female vocalist, yeah, maybe she is also a bit unsure about her sexuality.
The subcategories of the fangirl are the elderly fangirl, who is usually in her husband's company, recalling her failed career as a pop singer, and the slutty fangirl, who's only wearing a bra and pushing you because «my friends are over there».

The giant mosher
Usually a man, he's a sweaty, dirty, hairy monster who easily has fun, although people are scared of him. The giant mosher comes in two categories: the stalking mosher is the bad guy who's drunk and seems to chase you because he apparently wants you dead; the good-hearted mosher is usually a huge, cute redhead that sees you (i.e. me) and says something like «you're so small, you're gonna be hurt, so I'm gonna protect you!»; this is my favourite category, because he moshes and protects you at the same time, letting you easily get to the second row.

The chatty drunk
Teenaging guys who share one brain for the whole bunch of them, the people in this category are very common. Probably they don't really like the band, they're just there because only one of them does. Thus, the rest of them dedicate themselves to hard-drinking and hard-annoying. Always talking for the sake of it, usually incomprehensible and nonsensical, they are sometimes part of the picking up subcategory, which witnesses them showing their charm and loving abilities to any living being with boobs. After the concert, the chatty drunk is always happy and lets everyone on Facebook know about it.

The guy with another band's t-shirt
This small but ever-present group is there to show how alternative they are. Always carrying a DSLR camera, they're not there for the concert, they're just live-tweeting an improvised review, which will be posted on tumblr straight after the concert. Along with a couple of blurry, photoshopped pictures.

The smelly
Usually part of the mosher category, their fake cotton t-shirts are over-worn; the surrounding noses are not helped by their involvement with the song, which forces them to raise their hands, as if they weren't already visible - and not only - enough.

The mother
Especially popular in the UK, the mother hates being there but she's been forced by the fact that her daugher was been given a ticket as a present for her 16th birthday. Bored and pissed, the mother eventually decides to annoy people, claiming that her spot must be wider, and complaining that everybody's pushing her. After the second song, the mother withdraws to the back of the standing area, leaving her daughter bitching around, because she doesn't want to follow her. That, obviously, was the daughter's first though when she took the mother to the second row.

The couple
Very common and rather annoying, the couple is usually a double-sized mosher preventing everyone from moving; the couple - that we will here consider as a single element - is surrounded by disgusted people who went there to see another show. It is a sugary being that dances and kisses at the same pace all night long. For the couple, every song is a love song, although the male part is often the bored one, the one who would be a mosher, if only she weren't there...

England Your England

"When you come back to England from any foreign country you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! [...]
It is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you."
-- George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn

The (h)OST

Some songs have obsessed me in different periods of my life, some songs just can't get out of my head (la la la... no).
I usually stick to songs because I fall in love with the whole of it: it's not about the lyrics, the music or whatever. It's, instead, the irrational feeling you get when you're listening. Synesthesia.
Moreover, there happen to be two, three lines of the song in which the singer vomits spirit and interiors — and you can feel it, you almost do the same. Those are maybe the lines that catch you and embrace you, watching your brain from the outside for a few months.

Neutral Milk Hotel — Two-Headed Boy

And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine


I came across this song during a discovery tour on YouTube. It tore me apart. I remember moving in this flat, in Birmingham, and singing it out loud. And these lines give me goosebumps, it is sex.


Los Campesinos! — To Tundra

There was more life in the weeds than in the few hundred seats
and
Take a body to water, take a body to tundra
Just take me with you as well

It was hard to choose a couple of lines; I love the lyrics. The song is stunning and inspiring, it's homesickness and joy of departure.


The Horrors — Oceans Burning

 

Then the life sent itself into the air

Love at first sight with the song. Then I heard this line, and it reminded me of that one in Spoon River Anthology:
Kissing her with my soul upon my lips
It suddenly took flight.
It reminded me of the Italian translation, actually:
Mentre la baciavo con l'anima sulle labbra,
L'anima d'improvviso mi fuggì.


 Brand New — Degausser

 

I don't mind you under my skin
I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in

My freaky head is having its Seventeen-year-old-revival at the moment. But it's okay. This song is self-destruction. It's waving for a help we don't want. And it's not only about the irony I was caught in as the first line says "Goodbye to sleep"... Well, that's mmmh—*fuckmylife*

Amy Winehouse — You know that I'm no good

I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would

I was never a fan of her. I happened to listen to this song again because a friend posted it and wanted to draw everyone's attention to the instrumental part; I was writing on this blog and I found it very inspiring as a background and a soundtrack. I remember when she died and I was on holiday; I was busy travelling across Italy and she died the night I was moving from Salerno to Salento. I miss so many things and people.


Kasabian — Goodbye Kiss

The last stand
Let go of my hand

There's nothing particularly amazing in this song. It is just true and catchy. And I miss my friends, whe used to play it in my / their car all the time last Christmas. Like "driving in your car, I never never want to go home".


Antonio Vivaldi — Winter (1st movement)

This is just so powerful I could headbang to Vivaldi. Who says winter's not cool?


Ciao!

———

You keep living and things just happen and you're somewhere else, far away.
I feel numb because I can't do anything, life flows and we take it for granted, and it also makes me think about how many mistakes we make and how many regrets we have to carry with us... People don't just leave or pass away, they die and something within us dies with them. And something of them still lives.

This is something, this is everything

I don't really know why I'm so mean to myself, writing posts when I'm drunk/sleepy/hangover. I just really felt like writing now.
I'm always so curious about different experiences of reality and things such as mise en abyme. When a reality is into another reality, which one is true? You just lose the sense of being and you feel like you're touching the sky, the end of the sky as Truman does in that movie. But the point is that there is no such thing as a real sky, when you don't construct it.
I was watching Synecdoche, New York yesterday. I chose to translate it for my translation class; it's a hard work, but I think Charlie Kaufman is the best screenplay writer of all times. He's not only the genius who wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he's a clever thinker always playing with these figures of speech. Synecdoche is a part pro toto, it's when you use a part of something to describe the whole of it.
This movie is a play-within-a play, it's a whole life spent on a lifelong project which wants to depict life. The main feature in Kaufman's works is that they manage to actually enter your life: they're mind-openers, and you can never get rid of them. You feel like you're in Caden's play.
For example.
I had a dream yesterday. This is something really stupid but the idea is the point. I dreamt that I was supposed to spend my last three months of Erasmus in London. Which is like WTF. At the beginning I was like Yeah, London's cool, but can I just stay in this shitty place? I'm okay here. Really. And I was asking people around me, Can I stay? What do you think? Should I talk to someone?
Then, after a few people, I started to feel some scratches. Something's wrong in here, I said to myself. I was meant to stay here. Right? I was feeling like Caden, when he tears the map of the Synecdoche of Schenecdaty. I struggled with my own subconscious until I fought it, You bitch!
"I cheated myself, like I knew I would".
This is not a weird way of saying how strong I am. I'm just basically saying that everyone should watch Kaufman's films, they're such a trip and such a good entertainment at the same time. He's no Kubrick, no Herzog, no Bergman, but he's not even a Wenders, a Reitman or anyone else.
He doesn't talk about realities, he creates them. As he did with Synecdoche, his greatest and ultimate — in my opinion — piece of art.

— The sun is rising and I should really go to bed. I apologise for the grammar, but still I don't c————