Everyone is a moon

“All the others arts are lonely. We paint alone, my picture, my interpretation of the sky. My poem, my novel. But in music, ensemble music, not soloism, we share. No altruism this, for we receive tenfold what we give.
Catherine Drinker Bowen

 

Before Christmas, I took L, (the little brother I volunteer to take out on weekends), to see the new James Bond movie. The opening credits had a Bond theme sung by Chris Cornell. Again, I felt déjà vu.

 

It took me back to 1993, listening to “Temple of the Dog” and “Soundgarden” just after my brother died. In that moment I relived our last few times spent together, him playing the guitar and us hanging on every lyric, every intonation, every instrument, and every note. We both loved Chris Cornell’s voice.

 

"You don’t believe my words now, but you’ll come to it yourself. Suffering is a great thing."

 Fyodor M.  Dostoevsky

 

Soon after my brother died, my house was robbed and almost my entire music collection was stolen. This included my extensive collection of LPs, EPs, and the first 100 CDs I had bought. Of course, the old cassettes were left behind. They contained my brother’s music collection, which included “The Smiths”, “The Cure”, “Pearl Jam” recordings of him and my friend Ben, talking to one another when they were tripping together. I haven’t been able to listen to early Cure since that time; it definitely would stir up some buried sadness.

 

"The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn."

David Russell

 

During my dark times with T, I would jump in my car and drive the 800kms to Melbourne to drink coffee and then head home to Sydney by the longest possible route. I would pick random country towns to stop in purely to revel in my anonymity. When you are travelling, you can be whoever you want to be. It was me, the road and finding solace in the soundtracks I had created on my mix tapes. I would pull out those cassettes for the old bomb I used to drive at the time and listen to “Tool”, “Brad”, “Blur” or the “Fight Club” soundtrack.

 

Jump back to now.

 

“Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behaviour.”
Boethius

 

I was at a Fish records store on the weekend and toyed with buying a replacement copy of the Superunknown. It had been the CD most frequently on rotation during bonking sessions with my then partner T. I hadn’t really listened to the album since then, I was worried that it would stir up Pandora’s Box.

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I also remembered that the song “I’m a creep” had just been released, just before he died. Although I liked the song, I never really related that song to the Radiohead albums that I had on rotation on my portable CD player during my travels around the world. By pure synchronicity, I saw Thom Yorke’s CD on the shelf of the record store and bought it out of curiosity. I am listening to it on my laptop at the moment, so that I can transfer it to my i-pod and listen to it on my way to work.

 

I find it uncanny that you can hear a song and remember exactly what year it was released, what you were doing in your life at that time, where you were living, who you were seeing, what you wore, what you were thinking. Does anyone else experience that?

 

“Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.”

Walter Benjamin

 

Finally, I am back to climbing the walls, I am starting to think either I have metamorphosised into a man, or that someone has secretly been drugging me with Viagra. I seem to be obsessing about sex at the moment.

"It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he may sense the new plans and aims revealed to him by reason, he continues to plod along in old paths until his life becomes frustrating and unbearable-he finally makes the change only when his usual life can no longer be tolerated."
Leo Tolstoy

 

Then, tonight, driving my way home from the Belvoir Street theatre, I saw a huge full moon in the black sky. The missing puzzle piece had been found. I don’t know if any of my female faves experience this but I definitely think lunar activity sends my libido into overdrive.

 

"Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows anybody."

Mark Twain