Poetic Vision of the Week

Took the acid in the afternoon
Just to be part of the scenery with all the lonely
People there we are
Took a trip out to the galaxy
I'm not looking for salvation just a taste of liberation
I said my friends
Like to sit all day and watch the stars bend

I can see your white flag flying in the distance
I know that it's lonely there where you are...

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Several of my readers have requested that I vary the content of my blog so that it's not so overwhelmingly David Usher-centric. Frankly, I don't see the problem, but apparently some people feel that I am a trifle obsessed with the man. So, without further ado, we have some non-David content - 5 things you didn't know about me:

1. When I was ten, I appeared in The Nutcracker on stage at the King's theatre in Glasgow. As a singing snowflake.
2. My favourite Womble is Orinoco, described by Wikipedia as an "overweight shirker".
3. I once went white water river rafting. I screamed like a girl.
4. My least favourite ABBA song is "I Saw it in the Mirror". Sung by Bjorn.
5. I have nothing pierced or tattooed, but if I had a tattoo it would say "Moist". Oh wait, that's Usher-related content.
6. (To make up for 5.) My yearbook said I wanted to live in Europe, become a journalist, and meet Frida. Two out of three ain't bad. (And I'm still holding out hope for the third.)

So that's me. Tell me five things I don't know about you.

Subliminal Sanctuary

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain...

There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill...

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Super Boys in Chains!

The Supernatural dudes, Sam & Dean, are handcuffed and tossed in the slammer tonight in the new episode "Folsom Prison Blues." Don't miss seeing The Winchester Boys in chains!

Poetic Vision of the Week

I saw on your face such a curious grin
As I let go your hand
I was desperate to hold you again
But you're sinking so deep in the water
Outsmarted myself and so easily gave up what I wanted
Solid by morning
What I wanted
Winter by morning...

A Modern Fairy Tale: Part Eleven

In 2004, as if to say thank you to her public, the newly blonde Princess appeared on German television singing a poignant ballad written especially for her by Jon Lord, formerly of the rock group Deep Purple. The song was called "The Sun Will Shine Again," and although the Princess identified with the lyrics about finding one's way back to the light after terrible grief, she probably had no way of imagining the power this deeply personal song would have over her fans. It quickly became an anthem for many of her admirers, a song they too could apply to their own circumstances. "The Sun Will Shine Again" became her most biographical and moving recording ever...

Resolution and Independence

In honour of Wordsworth's anniversary (okay, so it's more than stretching the point of the poem, but you get the idea)...

But now his voice to me was like a stream scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
And the whole body of the Man did seem like one whom I had met with in a dream;
Or like a man from some far region sent...

Too Close To The Sun...

Some of you have asked for a review of the David Usher concerts this past weekend. Up until now, the words just wouldn't come. To say that this was the second most thrilling experience of my life is a very bold statement I know, and yet I still feel this way. I have listened to David's albums for five years now since seeing him on Much Music for the first time. I suppose it's subjective, but I can't take my eyes off him when he's on stage. He's exquisite in so many ways: his poetic vision radiates, his intensity pulls an audience under his spell, and his vocals are dynamite. To say nothing of his "feline grace" which drives the majority of the crowd into paroxysms of pleasure. The dazzling strobe-light dance alone is simply beyond description.

It may be strange for someone as old as me to be so mad about him, but he got me through the last year with his music and his presence, and I don't think I can praise him enough for that. I tried on Friday night, but all I could get out when I met him after the show was "David, your music alone got me through this past year, thank you so much." I was front and centre for the first night. My brother and friends were also completely immersed in David's aura. Every single person in that club wanted a piece of him, wanted to drown in his beauty. I've never witnessed anything like it, and I've seen a hell of a lot of concerts. The girl next to me got to dance with him, and I was jealous as all hell, but we've become friends anyway. And when he waded into the crowd to sing with us, it was like the second coming, his glistening face shining before us. He clutched hands everywhere, we screamed with girlish delirium, and the sheer joy on his face when the devoted throng sang along gleefully to "Alone in the Universe" is something I cannot replicate in words. It was one of the most transcendent moments of my life.

He knows how to work an audience, certainly, but there is nothing contrived about his performance. He moves like a panther, his slim, ageless body pulsating to the grunge beat of old Moist songs, his long, dark hair falling enticingly about his face. When he sat down to sing at the front of the mini-stage, he was literally 2 inches from me, his dark chocolate eyes penetrating us all, his smile lighting up our hearts, making every single person in that club feel as if they were the only ones alone in the Universe with him. He held onto my hand briefly during that song (okay, I clung to his), and when he looked at me and sang "wake up I can almost see the light," I thought I would just melt into nothingness. It was an exhilarating and sensual experience to see him live, but I was literally out-of-body the entire time. That has never happened at a concert before. I guess what I finally got to experience was the "David love" I've heard so much about from other fans. The crucial thing about his concerts is this: the spotlight may be on David, but he brings everybody into that spotlight, and makes you feel as beautiful and exceptional as he himself is.

I'm not ashamed to admit I had tears in my eyes during Saturday night's rendition of the achingly gorgeous "St. Lawrence River," but it was elation, not sadness. I was transported to another place, unaware of my surroundings, only knowing that this beautiful creature was singing so passionately right in front of me, singing lyrics which have touched me deeply, and that people around me really understood what I had felt for years. Why could he not just keep singing all night long? Why did it have to end? I was utterly enraptured, and literally "slipping through the endless stream of time." For an hour and a half on two consecutive nights in Vancouver, he made some of our dreams come true. David, we love you man. Come back soon.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive...

A hundred thousand daffodils enshroud me

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought...

William Wordsworth

In The House of Usher!

"Everything will be so different when I'm on the stage tonight..."

He Blinded Me With Science...

"I am the obsessional type, what type are you? If you are the butterfly type, you will never forgive my intensity."

--Elizabeth Smart

A Modern Fairy Tale: Part Ten

When she floated like an angel through the crowds of well-wishers clutching her and surrounding her with bouquets of roses, she realised something: the people provided her with something magical. She touched their faces in recognition of that. The people could not take away the sadness she would always feel for loved ones she would see no more, but the masses of adoring fans gave her something she would always treasure: the gift of unconditional love.

Definitive Moment in Film - Entry 4

Sometimes When I'm Dreaming

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Grattis på födelsedagen, Agnetha!

Happy 57th to the most talented lady ever born in Sweden.
(Image courtesy of www.raffem.com)

When two worlds collide...

Okay, this is way out, but here goes. He's come close before with his exceptionally groovy beats, pathos and joyous choruses, but ultrafab David Usher, believe it or not, has accomplished a miracle with the song "Science." I'll be clobbered by sad wankers the world over for saying this (not to mention being skinned alive by Moist moshers) but it has to be said..."Science" is ABBA. Now, before you all arrange for men in white coats to scoop me up, let me just say that I've not been this moved by a song in a long while. The intro "drags me under" its wave, and as the song progresses, a funky dance beat takes over, making me want to fly (as Bjork said about "Dancing Queen"). The unadulterated joy normally reserved for ABBA songs is alive and well on "Science." The listener is swept up in a sea of delirium which seems never ending. The lyrics, about how one's heart can be broken in two by the scientific actions of another, are also ABBAesque: the way David enunciates the last word in the line "and I know that we will soon be enemies" is classic Andersson/Ulvaeus, and, as with ABBA songs, melancholy lurks beneath elation. Don't believe me? Buy Strange Birds, play it loud and let the ecstasy begin...

A Modern Fairy Tale: Part Nine

Now, all this heartache might have caused the Princess to retreat into her fortress and never come out again, but it didn't. Perhaps by summoning courage from the memory of her grandmother, and asking the heavenly Father to bestow her with strength, the Princess found her way back into the light. She emerged from the horrible darkness with a new look to sing songs in romantic languages, attend royal engagements, and to meet some of the people who had missed her...

"There is so much beauty..."

Since of no creature living the last breath
Is twice required, or twice the ultimate pain,
Seeing how to quit your arms is very death,
'Tis likely that I shall not die again;
And likely 'tis that Time whose gross decree
Sends now the dawn to clamour at our door,
Thus having done his evil worst to me,
Will thrust me by, will harry me no more.
When you are corn and roses and at rest
I shall endure, a dense and sanguine ghost,
To haunt the scene where I was happiest,
To bend above the thing I loved the most;
And rise, and wring my hands, and steal away
As I do now, before the advancing day.
(Edna St. Vincent Millay)

A Modern Fairy Tale: Part Eight

In 1998, the Princess's only daughter died in tragic circumstances in the new land where she had been living with her husband and child. Upon hearing the news, the Princess, then living in a castle on the banks of Fribourg in Switzerland, sought solace in the arms of her beloved prince Ruzzo, and naturally reached out to her grieving grandchild far across the sea. But tragedy struck again: the dashing prince Ruzzo, though strong of heart, could not fight the ravaging disease he had, and in October 1999 the Princess was left alone in the emptiness of a dark forest...

"All things by a law divine..."

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread, --- behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it --- he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
(Percy Bysshe Shelley)