If we could only fly

Ayer vi el documental sobre Blaze Foley (el "ángel borracho" de Lucinda). Llevo un ratito tratando de escribir algo al respecto, pero solo me sale decir que me gustó mucho, tanto formalmente (cómo jugaba con los textos de las canciones, cómo recreaba con animaciones algunos de los episodios que recordaban los que lo conocieron) como por su contenido.

Me vino a la kabeza el texto de Joan Didion que colgué el otro día: Blaze Foley, que murió muy joven y de una forma absurda (defendiendo a un amigo de su hijo drogadicto, que quería robarle el dinero de su pensión), vivió plenamente (quizá excesivamente) en el mundo. Y dejó huella de su paso en el cariño que por él muestran quienes aparecen en el vídeo y en el puñado de canciones que ahora mismo escucho mientras escribo.



If I Could Only Fly

I almost felt you touching me just now
I wish I knew which way to turn and go
I feel so good, and then then I feel so bad
I wonder what I ought to do

If I could only fly, if I could only fly
I'd bid this place goodbye, to come and be with you
But I can hardly stand, got nowhere to run
Another sinking sun, one more lonely night

The wind keeps blowing somewhere everyday
Tell me things get better somewhere up the way
Just dismal thiking on a dismal day
Sad songs for us to bare

If I could only fly
If we could only fly
If we could only fly
There'd be no more lonely nights

You know sometimes I write happy songs
But then sometimes little thing goes wrong
I wish they all could make you smile
Tomorrow maybe we could get away
Coming home soon and I wanna stay
I wish you could come with me when I go again

If I could only fly, if I could only fly
I'd bid this place goodbye, to come and be with you
But I can hardly stand, and I got no where to run
Another sinking sun, and one more lonely night

If I could only fly
If we could only fly
If we could only fly
There'd be no more lonely nights

Blaze Foley

Mis podcasts

No son todos, pero sí los más importantes: los que más me gustan, los que me parecen más interesantes o los que más escucho (bueno, faltan los de los programas nocturnos de deportes, ideales para mis frecuentes ratos de insomnio...). Muchos de ellos ya los he ido mencionando aquí.

Entrevistas:
Fresh Air con Terry Gross (NPR)
Radio Open Source con Christopher Lydon

Economía:
Planet Money (NPR)
EconTalk

Medios, internet, tecnología:
On The Media (WNYC)
Spark Plus (CBC Radio)
Rebooting The News (Dave Winer y Jay Rosen dejaron de reunirse para grabarlo antes del verano y parece que no tienen planes de seguir con él. Una pena.)
Tech Weekly (The Guardian)
IT Conversations
MediaBerkman (Berkman Center for Internet and Society)
Surprisingly Free

Edición:
O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference y Tools of Change for Publishing Podcast
Beyond the Book
BookNet Canada
Digital Book World

Música:
El Hexágono (Radio 3)
Ruta 61 (Radio 3)
The Miller Tells Her Tale

Cultura en general:
Fundación Juan March
The 7th Avenue Project

No se trata de dosificarse, de darse poco a poco para mantener la curiosidad y el interés del otro (nada más tonto que querer resultar "misterioso"), se trata de que el otro (la otra, hablemos bien) nos obligue a darlo todo, incluso lo que ni siquiera sabíamos que teníamos dentro.

I've never felt apart from the woman

[A partir del minuto 9:53.]

Pregunta: What do you think you say to women —it might be an unfair question— in your lyrics?

Leonard: I think I've been saying the same thing from the very beginning. We're all in the same boat, we've entered into this quarrel, into this cage, union, and extremely ambiguous circumstance together and we're going to sort it out together. That is why I never thought of myself as a romantic poet because I always was very clear from the beginning that this confrontation involves some serious risks to the versions of oneself.

Pregunta: You mean the confrontation between men and women?

Leonard: Yeah. And it's always been confrontational. Not in an aggressive sense but in an acknowledging sense that there are some profound differences and it involves serious risks and that these risks are really best acknowledged. And I think that's the tone of most of the stuff and if the love and passion can transgress that mutual acknowledgement then you do have something that takes off, either it's a song or a poem or the moment. But without that, you've got the moon-in-June school of writing--though my stuff gets close to the moon-in-June school of writing, but I think it's that acknowledgement of the risk that rescues it every time.

Pregunta: There's a song called "Light As The Breeze" in which the woman gives the man in the song a warning where she says, "Drink deeply, pilgrim"...

Leonard: "but don't forget there's still a woman beneath this resplendent chemise."

Pregunta: It seems to me that in your earlier lyrics and poems, the women often were too saintly or they were angels of mercy or compassion. To come right out with that kind of almost feminist warning. It seemed like a new voice.

Leonard: [Contemplating and then beginning slowly] Perhaps I'm suffering from convenient amnesia as to lines from previous songs... I know that in this one I say, "You can drink it or you can nurse it, it doesn't matter how you worship, as long as you're down on your knees." I think that's been my position more or less over the years, and creakily standing up and regretting it and getting down again.

Pregunta: Is it the man who should be down on his knees?

Leonard: Maybe this is some kind of alibi I'm about to spin, but I've never felt that distant from the woman's position. I think if you've experienced yourself as neither man nor woman —I think that anyone who sings about these matters has to have that experience and I think everyone has had the experience... in an embrace you're neither man nor woman, you forget who you are. Once you have experienced yourself as neither man nor woman, when you are reborn again into the predetermined form which you inhabit, you come back with the residue of experience or the residue of wisdom which enables you to recognize in the other extremely familiar traits. And I'm not trying to establish an alibi or present this argument in the face of the feminist position, but I've never felt apart from the woman. I've never felt anything strange or unfamiliar in the woman's position.

(El vídeo lo descubrí gracias a Open Culture; la transcripción la encontré aquí.)


Previously, on Desvaríos varios:

There is a war between the man and the woman (3 de julio de 2009)

There is a war between Cohen and Sabina (26 de julio de 2009)

“La belleza es la expresión de una cierta manera de buscar la felicidad”

Stendhal (gracias a Muñoz Molina)