TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

These cells, technically speaking, are immortal. The woman from whose body they were once taken has been dead for thirty ears. ~The Emperor of Maladies

The section ends there. It is a tantalizing ending. The idea of cancer cells sitting a petri dish decades after their host has died, dividing endlessly and furiously is terrifying. The question is how? And why? We view cancer, and all disease, as a mechanism designed to harm and even kill. Why does it continue living and living when its purpose has long been carried out? We view cancer as a death sentence, but cancer cells themselves cling to life. They demand it, and they hold on to it, often more tightly than the humans they afflict.

HINGED SALOON DOOR

When the hinged saloon door of the room swung closed behind him, it was as if he had just emerged out of a nasty barroom brawl. ~The Emperor of Maladies

The debates over how to treat cancer were contentious, I am learning from reading ‘The Emperor of Maladies.’ The book is a history of cancer. Cancer is the most terrifying disease humans have faced thus far, because it has persisted. It has been with us, inside us, for a thousand years. It’s not an invader like the plague or a source  of shame like AIDS. We produce the disease, we foster it. It is our own bodies, gone wild, out for revenge. It is easy to personify because it comes from people. And we have no satisfying answers on how to defeat it.

SONGS I LOVE 4-13

Billie Holiday – ‘Autumn in New York’

I hate spring. Give me autumn in New York. I used to hate Billie Holiday’s voice. She’s not a ‘good’ singer. She tries to croon, but she warbles. But to hell with good voices. It’s limited, but Holiday’s voice among the most expressive instruments ever heard, and her take on this standard is the best there is.

MADELINE

Madeline bows and prays in the clearing the spirits of her long gone sisters kneeling beside her and even the ferns of the jungle bend toward her. The sun pours through the a channel bordered by trees illuminating the snaky vines and outlining their dark coils. Her journey takes her far and lasts months. One day she awakes on a barren hill covered in newspapers. She lifts a handful from the ground and fashions an outfit to replace her now-tattered clothes. She is far now from the jungle and she has far to go and she takes up a newspaper and rolls it up into a telescope and looks out at the grey desolate horizon. Papers litter the ground as far as she can see and as the sun rises behind her the light only reveals more and more. But despite the slippery footing of the paper she trudges on toward the end of the refuse wherever it lies however remote or impossible.

SONGS I DON’T KNOW 4-2

We Are Knights – ‘Tears’

0:21: So I don’t know anything at all about this group or song. This one starts out like it’s going to be very fuzzy indie rock, but it just switched into dance music.

0:44: I heard “blow away my heart” and then it was incomprehensible. So maybe it’s in English?

1:15: Hey, this is pretty gorgeous right now.

1:52: I’m a little disappointed that this song doesn’t have a more anthemic hook, which I think would make it a great song, but it’s OK without one.

2:11: A tiny, quiet guitar solo.

3:00: This is a tune that washes over you.

So, I was wrong. It’s not fuzzy indie rock, it’s fuzzy dance music, with the guitar and vocals all shrouded in noise. This song has a warm quality that I enjoy. This is seemingly the only tune the band has out. Do more!

SONGS I LOVE 3-30

Glen Hansard – ‘Say It to Me Now’

This is my favorite song from one of my favorite films, ‘Once.’ It’s a great opener to the movie: A man and a guitar shouting on an empty street. I read somewhere that a lot of people walked out of screenings because of Hansard’s vocals in this song. I guess they don’t like singers matching their delivery to the lyrical content? I don’t want to watch the movie with you anyway. Go away.

I’m seeing ‘Once’ on Broadway tomorrow. Exciting!

THE SPANISH WIND

Roxana hugged her knees and sat before the open window. The outside glowed with sunlight but the beams sped parallel past the opening in the wall leaving the empty house dark. The walls of the rooms in the Castile house sank far back out of sight without furniture or light. I had my socks off and she didn’t hear me as I stood in the doorway and gazed at her back. We met here in Spain and I took her to the top of a hill on the property of the house in which we would come to live and she turned away from me to look at the not-yet-sprouted trees in the Spanish spring the way she is turned away from me now in the Spanish fall. She turned back to me and said something but a gust drowned her out and swept her long brown hair across her face. I asked her to repeat herself and she said let’s live here forever.

SONGS I DON’T KNOW 3-12

Caligola – ‘Forgive Forget’

0:27: I like the lush orchestration of this opening.

0:42: Great hook. There’s just no time to say ‘forgive AND forget.’

1:06: The verse leaves me cold for some reason. It doesn’t quite live up to the dancy promise of the hook.

1:52: I also think the guy singing the hook is just better. Falsetto!

2:18: I can’t help but think the guitar solo would have been better as a horn solo. It’s not bad but…

This song started off great, but it settled into mediocrity. Come on music! Give me something!

SONGS I DON’T KNOW 3-5

David Lindgren – ‘Shout It Out’

0:00: Swedish pop, yeah?

0:22: Oh, this is going to be really corny, OK.

0:52: Oh, OK, so this is going to be the same as most American dance-pop music.

1:07: Didn’t Taio Cruz do this song already? ‘Dynamite’ is dumb as hell, but you shout it in the car anyway.

1:22: I like the tense loopy piano in the back. They sound like the dungeon music in an old video game.

1:51: What is that noise called? I guess it sounds like a dude sitting on a synthesizer but it’s in every dance song. Which is the problem.

2:08: Of course you just dropped the beat.

2:31: Guys, the beat is back, start dancing again. This is a standard dance song, get back in there!

2:59: Surprised there are no hand claps.

Yeah, this was a dude, especially when there is so much good dance music out there. Seriously, Taio Cruz did this song and it was way better.

(I’m listening to ‘Dynamite’ now and the verses are so so dumb but I THROW MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR SOMETIMES)

 

SONGS I LOVE 3-2

Glen Hansard – ‘Say It To Me Now’

Once is one of my favorite movies. I read that a lot of people walked out of the theater when they first heard this song in the theater because how rough Glen Hansard’s voice is, but I don’t know how they weren’t able to connect with the emotion in his delivery. It’s the reason this is my favorite song from the movie.