Insomnia can be wonderful (almost) until it becomes useless. You can't sleep, but you can't think, either. You have two books on your nightstand you're dying to read, three more on your Kindle and you still haven't caught up with the Sunday papers...that quiet, free time beckons, but it's pointless, because you haven't slept well for nights and it feels like you have bananas for brains.

Even so, I picked up Kate O'Brien's As Music And Splendour at 4 this morning and found myself enraptured with Anne Enright's lovely introduction. Normally, I read forewords after I finish a novel because often plot points are revealed or reflections that make more sense in the story's aftermath.

Mostly, though, Ms. Enright writes of two of the novel's most critical elements: love and music.

 -that all love is impossible, that it fades as you try to grasp it. 

-And still, the music yearns and insists that love is possible so long as we are true.

Now, that I am into the book (first published in 1958) my only frustration is in finding the time to read it all in one sitting. Maybe it won't be so bad if my insomnia strikes again tonight.



 

There is nothing quite like listening to David Bowie's dreamy and beautiful "Heroes" in German. I love the song so much, no matter whether he performs it in English, German or French. This is the story behind it...

 

 (from Songfacts) :

 

This song tells the story of a German couple who are so determined to be together that they meet every day under a gun turret on The Berlin Wall. Bowie, who was living in Berlin at the time, was inspired by an affair between his producer Tony Visconti and backup singer Antonia Maass, who would kiss "by the wall" in front of Bowie as he looked out of the Hansa Studio window. Bowie didn't mention Visconti's role in inspiring this song until 2003, when he told Performing Songwriter magazine: "I'm allowed to talk about it now. I wasn't at the time. I always said it was a couple of lovers by the Berlin Wall that prompted the idea. Actually, it was Tony Visconti and his girlfriend. Tony was married at the time. And I could never say who it was (laughs). But I can now say that the lovers were Tony and a German girl that he'd met whilst we were in Berlin. I did ask his permission if I could say that. I think possibly the marriage was in the last few months, and it was very touching because I could see that Tony was very much in love with this girl, and it was that relationship which sort of motivated the song." (thanks, Michael Lloyd - London, England)

 

Some people dispute the fact that Bowie would have had this view of the Berlin Wall, but Hansa Studio moved its location sometime after "Heroes" was recorded.

 

 

more on "Heroes" here:

 

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1629

 

and here:

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/classictracks.htm

 

 

from designlov.com

"Heroes"

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be Heroes, just for one day

And you, you can be mean
And I, I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we're lovers, and that is that

Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time,
just for one day
We can be Heroes, for ever and ever
What d'you say?

I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing,
nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes,
just for one day

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be Heroes, just for one day
We can be us, just for one day

I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)
And the guns shot above our heads
(over our heads)
And we kissed,
as though nothing could fall
(nothing could fall)
And the shame was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be Heroes,
just for one day

We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be Heroes

We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying,
then you better not stay
But we could be safer,
just for one day

Oh-oh-oh-ohh, oh-oh-oh-ohh,
just for one day



 

This book is magic...

"Sometimes I thought if it wasn't for music, I wouldn't be able to cry or laugh or feel giddy or wild. Music was a valve."

This is the kind of book that is so good you're afraid to write a review for it in case you fail it miserably. Until I can get my thoughts together properly this is all I'll say: anyone who adores genuine, quirky and very likable characters, anyone who appreciates the beauty of vinyl and just how powerful music is...Girl Defective is for you.

Of the two covers, the bottom one most definitely captures the spirit and humor of the book. It's like the artist of the top cover didn't even read it! (Argh!)

....

So it's a day later and I still can't do Girl Defective justice...
Kirkus captures it pretty nicely :)

KIRKUS REVIEW

Skylark Martin lives above her family’s vintage vinyl shop that—like its merchandise—is an endangered species in their re-gentrified, forward-looking Melbourne suburb.

In the five years since Mum left to “follow her art” in Japan, Dad’s kept the shop going, drinking homebrew and mourning the past (musical and otherwise). Sky, 15, and Gully, 10, aka Agent Seagull Martin, who wears a pig-snout mask 24/7 and views the world as a crime scene waiting to be investigated, hold down the fort. Sky harbors no illusions about their dreary status quo—Dad’s drinking, Gully’s issues, her own social stasis—but she does have dreams, recently ignited by a new friend, the beautiful, wild and fearless Nancy.

Other agents of change include Eve, Dad’s old flame, and Luke, the shop’s attractive, moody new hire. Drawn, mothlike, to Nancy’s flame, Sky’s dreams are haunted by Luke’s sister, whose similarly wild lifestyle led to tragedy. The family business grounds Sky. Its used records and cassettes, like time capsules, store music that evokes the past’s rich emotional complexity for the Martins and their quirky customers, while the eternal present and frantic quest for the next big thing hold no appeal.

 Funny, observant, a relentless critic of the world’s (and her own) flaws, Sky is original, thoroughly authentic and great company, decorating her astute, irreverent commentary with vivid Aussie references; chasing these down should provide foreign readers with hours of online fun. (Fiction. 14 & up)

In all of the inner turmoil I've ever experienced with being gay it comes down (basically) to this: how much of myself do I have to scrape away before I'm "acceptable" to the people who most hate "what" or "who" am I?

To function in the work world and other places, I pretty much shut up about that part of me (which is not much of a hardship because that is just a small part) except for how I hate lying when I'm directly asked, which doesn't happen often.

I have had people found out about me, only to have them never look me in the eye directly after that or (in some cases) just stop talking to me altogether.

This happened again very recently and I am still hurting over it, especially since they brought up the conversation and I chose to be honest. Lying, apparently, for some people is much more acceptable than homosexuality.

Even though he's not writing about it here at all, I think of Shakespeare, though I have no clue whether he would support gay rights or not if he were around today. In the Merchant Of Venice there is this well-known passage:

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

People who are gay still do all the things straight people do. You know: buy groceries, shop for shoes and clothes, go to the dentist, take the car into the stop, care about their families and friends.

Most of us have a "lifestyle" that is no different than straight people's...but the word "lifestyle" (a popular word choice among rabidly anti-gay politicians so they can create fear and visions of things gone amuck) certainly has no bearing on gay people who remain celibate or remain committed to just one person their whole lives together.

I think of what I'm willing to do to please the people in my life who are so anti-gay they will only have me as part of their lives if I am who they want me to be. When these people are my parents, whom I love a lot, it's so unbearably difficult.

There are some things about me that I always thought I'd change in a second if I could...the physical things that keep me single, the emotional things (like shyness) that help me fade away when it comes to being datable and finding love. Now I wonder if maybe they are actually blessings, a weird kind of double protection, to go with the determination and old-fashioned beliefs I already have.

One of the few "ex-gay therapy" philosophies that comes as close to non-offensive as I've ever seen centers around this:

Singleness is not a sin.

The site (Christian Answers) goes a bit further and enters territory I don't like ("The opposite of homosexuality isn't heterosexuality, it's holiness."), but at least the man who espouses this belief gets that you can't "make" someone gay become straight.

I hope that I can promise not to write much more on this, at least not for a while. Really, I'm okay with being single, I'm okay with doing as much as I'm humanly capable of to make my family happy, but the one thing I can't do (something I don't think anyone can do) is make myself feel things I don't.

It's hard enough denying your own, very real emotions without trying to fabricate new ones that just won't come. I know it's not politically correct to say this, but I would gladly be straight if I could be.

What person would want to risk losing their family, their friends and others they respect? Love is wonderful, it really is, but whether it's one-sided or reciprocal, it's hard to be in love in a world that so clearly has its set rules on what it thinks it is and isn't.

More on this can be read at the link below. I don't agree with everything, but I do like that there is some understanding and compassion:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-cross/cross-gaychange.html

After reading an upbeat review for Celebrate: Greatest Hits in a an old-ish issue of Mojo I just had to check out the last Simple Minds release even though I haven't really thought about them in years. What a pleasant surprise this collection is!

There are the obvious 80s staples, of course, like "Alive and Kicking" and "Don't You (Forget About Me)" that still sound great decades later and there are the lesser known (at least to the casual fan) tracks that remain fantastic. "Love Song" almost sounds menacing with its relentless beat, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Let There Be Love" is mystical and mesmerizing, as pleasing as ever to the ear! Some songs, like "She's A River," don't hold up so well, but that's the rare exception.

Newly recorded highlights include "Stars Will Lead The Way" and "Broken Glass Park," both of which manage that rare feat of making a band you loved yesterday sound just as amazing today! You may not need to buy the whole album (diehard fans probably already have much of what's on here!) but if you're new to the band or haven't heard them in years, definitely give this a listen!