Try Anjani Thomas’ “Blue Alert”, co-written and produced, biensûr, by Leonard Cohen. It’s very beautiful. It probably lacks a certain kind of gravity that only Cohen’s voice could bring, but it’s still something to keep in your stereo for days and weeks. The words are strong, the music is soft, that’s a good, interesting contradiction. Face the lyrics, they will dare you, then let the music flow, a waltz does no harm… When Cohen sings a song, it’s like he’d give himself (and you) an ultimatum. Who could ever negociate with the old, blue Leonard? His beloved Anjani is, in this regard, more tolerant. In a way, even more than you could hear on “Dear Heather” (by the way, there’s a version of “Nightingale” here too) her voice is permeable. It gave me the impression that it doesn’t stand. It lies down.As far as I know, the album is not yet available in Europe. It will only happen in September. One more reason to warmly thank Thomas N. for sending it to me…
I saw a movie last night. Things were happening more or less within Paris.I then remembered my own staying in Paris. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t good either. I felt I couldn’t approach Paris the right way unless I was 100% parisienne myself – a temporary staying, even if a long one, can’t solve such an intricate Ego-problem.
When shopping at the Galeries Lafayette, when walking through the white dust of Jardin du Luxembourg, when eating pancakes within le Quartier Latin and even when using the copying-machines in the labyrinthine Sorbonne’s libraries – your steps, your hands, your good French, your smile divulge a restrained extatic feeling that could only belong to outsiders.
You need to „involve” with Paris if you want to stop looking ridiculous on its boulevards; because Paris is very much like sex: you can only instill it when you stop caring about how you fit in it.
Now that’s what I used to call a challenge.
The stuck-up ones. How do they have sex? I’ll tell you a secret: they don’t.
PS: Just found out that Miles Davis worked with Scritti Politti. I am amazed. It was somewhere around 1988 I guess. Those years proved to be very happening, as a matter of fact. Musically.
