We have summits and congresses, gangs and get-togethers, we have appointments and intercourses, but we seldom have MEETINGS. Moreover, we developed a meeting-phobia. A meeting requires no precise rules, too much social imagination, too much human commitment, a wastage of trust, openness and courage. Next, please.

The absurd panic of not doing enough; or good enough; or soon enough. I was told it would drag me down someday. “Not enough” will then turn into a horrific, monstrous “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!”. And I shell believe it.

Someone just yawned, someone else just frowned “Excuse me??”, someone just took off her shoes, someone else just let her hair down, someone just woke up and already started making awful mistakes, someone else is always awake and never made a single awful mistake, someone fumbles with a handkerchief, someone else’s hands are shaky and sweaty, someone loves his girl early in the morning, someone else answers hesitantly to the name of dad, someone says “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, someone else will never manage to see anything at all, someone has just put on his sandals and started walking, someone else will never catch up, but look, someone just yawned again. Life’s so tender ‘cos is mortal.

PS: I first heard Regina Spektor in a music store in Stockholm. But who’d buy new stuff at NK’s top floor shop really? So I’ve waited a little; I never rush into approaching new music. I am reluctant. I always wait for the new voice or new tune to come back to me for no apparent reason, asking for more room in my head. So, yes, I just sat and waited to be haunted. And the haunting has begun yesterday afternoon. I turned to the iTunes store. I’ve realized within minutes that Regina’s Begin to Hope (2006) is truly a must. I’ve read in NME that she sounds as if Joni Mitchell meets Björk. But I’d say she sounds as if Tori Amos meets Laleh. There is something extremely original and extremely unoriginal in her way of singing and composing. She practices a studied hybridization of styles that sometimes leads you very far from what you might have known; it leads you, yes, to some beautiful and never-conquered-before island of very organic sounds; but other times, it leads nowhere at all, it just turns out to be a rather dry kind of originality. The lyrics go the same way: eclectic, syncretic, heavy with references, cynical, sensual, New York-ish, tiring. I sit here listening, wondering whether this music gets too much of everything or not enough…
My favourites: “Après moi”, “Hotel Song”, “Lady”, “Summer in the City”. And “Fidelity” is a ver y nice hit after all.

There is a little attorney in each of us. And a little doctor too. And a fireman. And a broker. They are all grinding their teeth. They’re breathing hard. They’re swallowing their viscous acidic saliva. Once. Twice. Too often. All the time. Strained muscles. A professional smile disguising a terrifying grimace. Never sleeping, never dreaming. Flashes of un-dreamt dreams running through their minds’ eyes right before the big action; like the imaginary film of our lives right before our death; like the imaginary film of an out-of-reach body right before our orgasm.
Ready-set-go. Oh. The case is lost. Again. They reached too high. Was it a real case or a dream after all? It must have been a dream. Otherwise we would have won it. We’ll be coming back tomorrow. And this time NO fuss, fellows. I’ve been told you’ve been sleeping late and dreaming heavily. I’ve been told you’ve been giggling in front of the jury, eating candies in the operation room, wearing earphones under your crash helmets and spilled coffee on the morning financial newspapers. Now that’s not the way to go, gentlemen. More discipline, less daydreaming. One more pathetically lost case and you’ll be all fired. Back to your offices. No coffee-break today.

PS: the song of the day is Prince’s “Cinnamon Girl”. This Prince. Always restless, always professional and beyond, always frivolous, always thoughtful, always aphrodisiac. Infatuated faultless music.

Stockholm. An unisex annoying fascinating frivolous enjoyable stiff unfocused cocky sparkling grinning overdone watery ambrosial city. Yeah, we’re gonna have a real good time together (recorded 30/9/69, re-recorded for Lou’s album Street Hassle later on in 1977).