(no subject)
The old school jazz at Starbucks greets the sound of overlapping conversations with a warm handshake and I am thinking back to that staggered path through Taegu ad howling along to Led Zeppelin classics in a colorful second story underground bar/café with my unrelated uncle drummer dreaming of jazz, notes accumulated under the glass panel of notes from moody moments tapping sugar into the coffee that dissolved the way the mint green highlighted face of a burlesque dancer subdued the tones around her in a Toulouse Lautrec painting…A funny route down an underground group where brilliantly talented kids who look like they just came home from school lounging leaning on walls painted with Iron Maiden cover art and brick wallpaper idly strumming intricate melodies merging songs from years ago, stretching my vocal chords beyond their limits to the group singing Red Hot Chili Peppers songs and in that moment we forgot the silliness and free spirited adventure gone to hibernation in the everyday grind, it was the first time shrimp chips and doritos didn't cause terrible allergies for me, and between chortling pole-vaulting notes spinning in my throat between fluting a beer bottle completely out of tune with the song, it’s the kind of feeling when you watch someone you could definitely get along with sitting next to you only to flip open their cell phone in either expectation or to look as if they are not alone and lonely, nope, I’m the lonely one because she’s unwrapping a cd gift. That, or to sit at a glass café window watching both people and their reflections walk by, some with a bewildered meandering look I’d like to reach out to but realizing there’s not much I can say, just as there is not much I can do myself about the burnt Namdaemun gate. If I go, all I can probably do there is just observe, walk around and poke around, ask people why it happened, look stupid and possibly annoy people who are just doing their work.
Thinking also of Korean traditional games translated to new forms of improvisational music. Ask me for details.
I have a very inhibited month to look forward to, as I've given up alcohol for Lent (those of you who know my drinking habits, it's an enormous sacrifice). I don't know if I'll be able to do it, especially when there's juicebox soju readily available. I think I'm already experiencing withdrawal symptoms and it's only been 2 days. I don't know why I'm observing Lent, it's not as if I'm religious. Anyone else observe Lent-deprivation? What did you choose to forego?