Bathroom singing

Do you sing in the shower?
I do. And I’m proud of that, although I’m not an opera singer (thank God… My mother would kill me…). I wonder, how many people actually sing in the shower? When I was on my way to London, the guide warned us that ‘singing under shower is not allowed in some host-families’. Everybody laughed, but how many people thought ‘aww, come on! Singin’ is cool!’? I thought so, and I really missed my off-key sounds while taking a shower. Last year in a camp in Pasym I sang, so did everyone in house I lived in. And no-one never said ‘SHUT UP!’.
Sometimes you can even get to know somebody by listening to their ‘playlist’ – Ula, a girl I met in Pasym, always sang ‘Ciagle pada’ by Czerwone Gitary – and later we ran together in rain laughing and singing the same song – rain somehow is like shower, isn’t it? But leaving Ula alone, you can tell which music people like, or even what movies they like – how many songs appear in movies only? Musicals are the best example – ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’, ‘Grease’ or Disney movies.
Besides, singing is good for your health. It’s just like a best friend forever to your respiratory system and helps with blood circulation. Moreover, when you sing, you burn calories! YES, really, no jokin’, dude! D’you know why Kate Moss is so slim? Not because she doesn’t eat, not because she exercises four hours a day – it is because she sings in the shower.
So – go, take a shower and sing in peace! (and if you have no idea what to sing, I would like to recommend ‘I feel pretty’ from West Side Story – a brilliant shower-song, my all-time favourite. Self-esteem rises higher than Apollo 13 did.)

Canterbury Tales 6

The little boy went first day to school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said… What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said… You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said… It’s for your own good.
And you won’t come out ‘til you get it right
And all responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said… and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said… Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said… and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

Hmmm, I definitely wouldn’t like to be like the first teacher.
These are the lyrics of a song by Harry Chapin “Flowers are red” inspired by Helen Buckley’s poem “The Little Boy”. You can listen to the song here.

Run dub

The glories of the morning in summer. All of them, one after another. First, the creeping, ever surprising upright glory that checks the senses. Next comes the left-foot glory, to face the day ahead. Then the glory of coffee at 6, bumping into things around the flat, lazying about, enjoying a slow-motion mode.
An hour later comes the joy of empty streets on the way to park.
The ground feels dump and clean after a night rain, the feet instantly adjust to its hard and springy surface, the step becomes confident and rhythmic, gets faster and lighter as the agile legs unmistakably carry the rest of the body down the path. Farther and farther into the woods; deeper into the magnetic green.
Thoughts randomly take into soft round shapes that grow, inflate, and shrink again. The eyes, though half-closed, freely pick colours from the landscape paintbox. Images start floating around the head, in and out, in and out … Time stretches and collapses like an elastic band, enters a warp. Music is being born. The feet provide a precise beat that triggers the bass, as low as it can go. Some strings of words appear, get distorted in the green echo chamber and ripple into an infinity. This is a run dub.

Great Stone mp3 2.9MB

18

I’m listening to my favourite music, thinking about adulthood. Perhaps it won’t be so hard. I want to try something new, to make my dreams real. So much traffic on the road. A beautiful evening and pleasant wind are marking the new stage in my life. The world is awaiting me, love is awaiting me, my future …

The shouts float in the air like butterflies …

The traffic lights are flashing in the thick fog. A young man is lying on the grass in an unnatural position, as if in deep sleep. Then people are gathering next to him, shouting muffled words at each other. Another car stops. An ambulance is coming. Some enormous trees emerge from the fog. Between them the black shape of a massive motorbike.

Intensive Care Unit, his new home.

I see him lying on the white bed. His hands like heavy, leafless tree branches. I saw my son’s curly blond hair in the pool of blood. Too young to die, on his eighteenth birthday. It can’t be true. God, make it only a bad dream … I can’t even hold his hand. Do I believe in miracles? I want to open his eyes, I yearn to tell him how important he is for me. He must stay alive, the world is awaiting him. Now a little boy is sitting next to me, laughing loudly, holding a big orange lollipop in his small hand.
Read more..

Canterbury Tales 5

“Once upon a time, two little children were walking in a forest. Suddenly, they came across a strange scary hut on a hen’s leg. They were very curious so they peeked inside. There was nobody there. While they were standing beside the leg, thinking what to do next, they saw Baba Yaga flying on her broom. The sight of her wicked face with a crooked nose made them run away. The evil witch started chasing them with a bloody axe in her long bony fingers. They were running like crazy around the hut for an hour or two until finally the children managed to drown her in the nearby stream.

And they lived happily ever after.” :)

That’s an unedited story inspired by Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” You could read about the work and listen to the Baba Yaga piano piece on the web. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the watercolour masterpieces the music inspired.

Authors of the story and 2 watercolours:
- Mar from Spain
- Anna from Poland
- Marloes from Holland (a guest)
- ME :)

20

What would you do, if you knew that you have only 20 days of life left?

Most of people would cry, I think. In my opinion, crying would only make you worse – you would think your life over, think about good and bad times, about your plans that most probably will never come true, friends and family you will live behind, maybe imagine your funeral and plan which song they will play? Or go even further – plan your own death ? Of course, death is always death, and there is nothing glorious about it, it is disgusting and it always will be, but you can plan the circumstances. You know the right time. It’s 20 days from now. You can die in gold sands of Portugal, you enjoyed them so much.

All right, so you know the end. You’re in the beginning. What will you do with the time in between? It’s 20 days. 480 hours, and you will spend 160 on sleeping. Isn’t that a waste of time? Come on, 8 hours a day out of 24? Make it 3. Make it 2. Make it 1. Don’t sleep at all. Your precious time is running out and every routine, eating, bathing, brushing your teeth takes your time away.

Would you hang out with friends, forget they have flaws, enjoy their silly jokes, observe how rays of sunshine reflect on their hair, remember sparks in their eyes and lie on the grass and watch stars twinkle? Or would you rather go to a place you always wanted to go, do things you were scared to do, meet people and meet their stories, help them as much as you can and entertain yourself by realizing teenage dreams, spend all your money, because you don’t need savings – you die in 14 days. No future where savings are needed.

Do you wonder how it feels to be dead? Will it hurt? Will you go to heaven or hell? Do they exist? If you pray now, will it make any difference? Will you meet your grandpa, your cat, Isaac Newton? Will you be aware you are dead? Will your soul take your mind with it, or mind belongs to the body? Well, you’ll see in 10 days.

Is anybody going to remember you? Were you relevant to the world? Will someone miss you? Will they visit your grave? Will they cry and say ‘that’s a pity he passed away’? Will you do something that will make them remember you in one week?

Should you be satisfied with your life? You’ll never know that. Last breath, full with ocean’s breeze. Your eyes catch the last rays of the sunset. The sunset of life.

Your life.

~

Canterbury Tales 4

Hello to everyone from Canterbury!

I’m finally here, and the first day of classes is nearly behind me. Today I’d like to share with you a few (out of many) maxims and sayings that hang around on the walls of my classroom here:

1. It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. /Albert Einstein/

2. Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand. /Native American saying/

and my personal favourite:
3. The mind can only absorb what the emotions will allow. /Dr Haim Ginott, a child psychologist/

Quite a few things to reflect on, aren’t they?

For Elise

Yesterday I suddenly felt like listening to ‘For Elise’ by Beethoven – I guess that everyone knows this feeling, when a song just can’t get out of your head. After a few clicks I found the perfect version on youtube, played by Ivo Pogorelich. It is marvellous – I bet that even Beethoven would envy him (if he could hear it, and if he was alive). While listening, I cought myself doing that thing again! AGAIN, I was wondering how it happened – why he titled it ‘For Elise’? Who was she? What was their relationship? And, most importantly, did she like the song?

With a little help of my best friends, google and wikipedia, I found out that ‘For Elise’ was originally titled ‘For Therese’ (Beethoven’s handwriting must have been worse than Shakespeare’s was – a person who was rewriting his works simply read ‘Elise’ instead of ‘Therese’) and Therese was Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza, a student of Ludwig and a daughter Viennese merchant. Beethoven fell in love with her and even proposed to Therese – but she said no and married some rich guy because her father wanted her to. And Wilhelm (the rich guy) and Therese lived happily ever after. The end.

‘How boring‘ I thought. However, this is only a theory, speculation, call it what you want, that is most probable. Because no-one knows anything about any Elise in Beethoven’s life. But does it mean that there weren’t any? He didn’t keep a diary, so we don’t have a pink heart with ‘LUDWIG + ELISE’ in it, but he left a letter. A letter which was discovered after he died, a letter adressed to his ‘Immortal Beloved’. It means it was adressed to …

… Therese! Their love was immortal! Therese was married, but she and Ludwig STILL loved each other secretly! Her father forced her to marriage with Wilhelm just because he had the money and was some very important figure! And Beethoven could only write letters to her beacuse he couldn’t hear therefore he could talk to her on the phone! OH MY GOD THAT IS SO ROMANTIC!!!!

No. And by no, I mean no. And they didn’t have a telephone that time.

It was Elise! If he had wanted to write to Therese, he would have writen ‘Therese’, don’t you think? Also, she dumped him! Even a happy dancing strawberry would hold a gruge! So, it must have been Elise. But then, who was she? Was she a woman he loved all his life? Was she an inspiration to write this lovely piece of music? Was she picking daises from some Austrian field and giving them to Ludwig, unconscious that he loved her? Did she die at young age and left Beethoven only with memories, daisies and a song he wrote for her?

That is romantic.

And I wonder, if Ludwig wrote lyrics for his music, what they would be like?

For Elise I’m the one who cares
The one who dares
Play on her nerves

For Elise I would even burn Rome
And I would roam
To bring her home

For her I’d live in misery
For century
Infinity

For her I’d even die and I would kill
Obeying
Her whim

For her I’d cross the deepest seas
For glory
Of my Elise

But after one stormy night
She needed soul
To go through rites

She put me down on my knees
And so I died
For my Elise

Simple story, no special effects

When after a long, exhausting school year holidays finally come, I sometimes don’t know what to do with myself. Feeling incredibly bored one rainy afternoon, I decided to watch a film It wasn’t a modern one, with highly-developed special effects, and irritating sound in the background. It was an old, black and white French film mysteriously titled Lift to the Scaffold. I found it by accident and wasn’t really sure I would watch it whole, but just when the action started, I got captivated and watched carefully till the end.
The owner of a big company is murdered in his own office by one of his workers, who happens to have an affair with his beautiful young, wife. Unfortunately, after the murder, he gets trapped in the office’s lift, while his lover is impatiently waiting outside, thinking that something must have gone wrong. When he finally manages to get out of the lift, he is accused of a double murder – a German couple found dead far away from the city. Nothing happening in the film is a puzzle to the viewer, who knows right from scene one who killed who. But watching the police investigate the case is equally interesting.

Canterbury Tales (3)

It was already dark when The King was coming back from his evening walk. He was thinking how it was difficult to be the king, how he got stuck with his role and his people, how difficult they were and how many problems they caused, and how all this was frustrating and hurting. As he was approaching his bedrooms he thought to himself: “Why on earth should I be mad or get angry at my people. I am their king and that means they have nobody but me. Their life is in my hands. If I don’t care about them – who will? If I don’t comfort them – who will? If I don’t have a belief in them – who will? A mother loves her baby, a king loves his people, God loves His children,” he thought and entered the warmth of his chambers. 

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