Response to 'I want the real thing'

I finally ventured myself to the Richimix Jawdance spoken words night last week, and felt inspired to write this as a reponse to a piece called 'I want the real thing', performed by a very shy guy with trembling hands -his voice wasn't, though.

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Response to ‘i want the real thing’

You say you want something real
so real you could fall asleep next to;
I ask: ‘aren’t your own ghosts good company enough?’
she will smile and bear your insecurities, you say
like broken twigs collected for a birdnest,
she will mend your crooked teeth and your
crooked heart but, what is really crooked is
your chin
and please, please, let me tell you that you needn’t be afraid
of a crooked chin, it might break down but it will not
spill glass over wretched nights.
She will dip your sorrows into a white pillow, you say
I ask: ‘aren’t your own hands big enough for you?’
you want to play an orchestra of four hands
but the piano bears two without harm
you put her voice in a microscope
but up close human vocals are as ugly as spilled coffee
next to a drunkard on the 243 nightbus.
The girls in pantyhose wait
it’s the same as before, it’s the same as the other time
your sighs are as heavy and distant as the moon
she will reflect them in tune, you say
I ask: ‘don’t you tune your guitar by yourself?’
you say you want the real deal, the wars, the pain,
the parents, the house and the champagne,
I ask: ‘is it still real if 
the drugs are wearing out 
and your hands stop shaking
and your eyes are closing and
is it still real if time has eaten you?'
I fall asleep on a white pillow and rejoice, but I guess
not everyone finds pleasure in little things such as
a lone head on a big pillow

Fiction: A story in 150 words

© Suzanne Zhang

Hunting ghosts

Your eyes are shut. You came prepared, but not for this. She warned you that it would be difficult. You're brave. This time you will succeed. If not, you have eternity to succeed. People often believe it is a tragedy to have forever, but you know finite things are worse. They have no hope to cling on and end up fading away...

Your eyes are shut. And slowly, like watercolours dissolve into water, it happens. You’re neither here nor there, neither standing nor floating, neither aware nor unaware… You dream of a colour you didn’t know existed, its warmth wraps around you like light –or is it darkness? You don’t know, you’ve never seen this color before. Your cheeks are burning; they’re frozen. They irradiate splendour. It is sweet and good. You finally succeeded. You can finally let go. It’s okay, your eyes are shut.

On L.Pierre's 'The Island Come True'

The well known Arab Strap’s mouthpiece Aidan Moffat offers us a fourth release under the name L.Pierre, The Island Come True. After waiting six years since his last album Dip in 2007, Moffat’s sound evolved. It grew bigger, darker and, at some points, lighter. The album borrows its name from a chapter in  “Peter Pan” by J.M. Barrie, and just like Wendy, Moffat’s sensibility is growing.  Pianofortes and children’s lullabies walk hand in hand (Dumbum) while tumbling drums (Drums) rejoice at the sound of seagulls (Kab 1340). The rhytm is throbbing and at the sound of Moffat’s keynotes forests, wild bushes, secret mountains and rivers awake to accompany him in his tracks. The tone is fantastic, avengeful, fearless and sporadically strange. Coupled with the creaking sounds, L.Pierre’s album The Island Come True is definitely a voyage back to Wonderland, but this time with an armed heart.

You can listen to Harmonic Avenger (personal fave) here, and buy the album here.

Collective dynamics of small world networks theory

On bumping into undesirable people in London, on a fine Sunday morning

Being on a holiday away from London and thus having an infinite amount of free time on my hands, I decided to revisit a classic, one of my favorite film : 2 Days in Paris, by Julie Delpy. The film, if you haven't seen it, is as funny as it gets -although more enjoyable if you are fluent in both English and French. It it set in Paris, and follows couple Marion and Jack (franco-american couple) for two days.

One thing that caught my attention in the film was Marion's monologue on the 'Collective dynamics of small world networks theory' (cf video above). Although she doesn't believe in it, and although I was dubious at first, I have to admit that times have proven me wrong. It is incredible that in a city as big and diverse as London, you always end up bumping into people you know. Granted, everyone in their twenties hang out in the same spots and your chances of running into your neighbours on a holiday trip increase if you stand under the Big Ben, but why is it that we always have to see those people? 

Bumping into people you love is one thing. Bumping into old hook-ups who never answered your call and people who have wronged you (Or, the opposite, *gasp*!) while you are taking a casual stroll on a lazy Sunday is a terrible offense that should be punishable by law. This may not occur to you very often, but it does to me. I have bumped into people who were in London for only one day, parents of high school friends, teachers, old hook-ups (the number of these appearances are extremely high and I suspect a serious case of stalking), ex-friends, and even animals (There is a black dog that I always bump into around Shoreditch). 

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What I am trying to say, though, is that if you pay enough attention, you start noticing that your mind is subconsciously looking for the familiar. You don't accidentally bump into that old lover of yours at the food market. In a crowd that big, some energy pushes you to the familiar. In a room full of strangers, it will make you hear the voice of the one person you know in a louder volume. It will make your eyes search for people you know, acknowledge their locations and your feet will subconsciously take you to them. If you pay enough attention, you notice that encounters are coincidental -but you noticing it comes under your brain's frenetic and unconscious search for the familiar. 

So, next time you are out and about, try and and focus -see how easily your brain tricks you into going back to the familiar. 

Fiction: A story in 150 words

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I used to think that I was a person whose mind and body were interconnected as a whole, and I used to believe that this defined me as a human being. My mind possessed thoughts, ideas and feelings, whereas pain, exhaustion, physical reality and survival instincts were my body’s realm. When someone would ask me who I was, I would calmly reply, “ I am one”. But this was before.

One day, the body that I thought I had control over ceased to share my thoughts. Worse, it betrayed me. I remember my cold body lying on the bed, in the surgery room, naked, scared, ashamed and trembling. My mind wasn’t scared, but my body was. It felt things that I did not feel, and as a result, I did not recognize the feeling and was simply left aghast, not knowing what to do. It felt and did something my mind didn’t order. For the first time, it had thoughts of its own, feelings of its own.

Now, when people ask me about myself, I reply, “ I am a mind and a body, and I cheat everyday to make them one”.

Help: I go to an Art College!

Art College 2.0: How to cope with being an art student

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Think graffitis on washroom walls. Think electric blue beanies and oversized velvet cardigans paired with washed out dungarees. Think late night coffees (and perhaps drugs), and acrylic paint or tobacco and empty canvases. Oh, and think creepers as well. Think overdraft, recession, Dalston & Peckham's hip kids instagramming their unmade beds, and some nonsense facebook status à la Damien Hirst's dead shark. Also, think 9000£. An art degree has never seemed less appealing these days, especially when the fees tripled last year. Who would want to go to an Art college anyway? Who would want to go to university to study film instead of getting a real degree? A lot of people, actually, including me. This year's Ucas figures show some signs of recovery from last year's 15% drop in creative design and art courses applications. The number of students hoping to apply for art and design next year is up by 2.4%, and I happily applaud this figure.

Could this small rise in art-related applications signify that the arts are not as dead as we want them to be? Could it mean that people are finally taking us seriously? Perhaps. I come from a background where going to an art college is usually frowned upon. An art degree is not a serious degree, not a real one. Science and business are. You can imagine my surprise when I came to London and discovered that the creative industry was so vibrant and omnipresent in our lives. With multiple art colleges spread across London, art students are everywhere. You can usually spot them at a small and independent cinema because Tarantino is just so much better on a small screen (right?), or strolling around markets on a lazy afternoon because markets are so alternative and underground. Am I right? I am not trying to say that art students are pretentious, rather that there are certain stereotypes that they (and I) love to live up to. Just try us. Bring us to the cinema and you can be certain that your movie will be ruined by 'The color gradient in this scene is shit' and 'This is fucking bullshit because... but from a visual point of view it makes sense because...'. Not to say that non-art students cannot be critical when it comes to films, but they simply wait until the end to discuss it; whereas we get thrown out of cinemas and bars because we've been debating the futility of an english pie with a very angry boy for too long (true story). Or bring us anywhere else and you'll find yourself plotting ways to (artistically, of course) end our lives. Don't worry, we get threats everyday, especially when we hang around museums and warehouses for too long.

©Sean Martindale

All sarcasm put aside, my main problem with art degrees is the connotation and stereotypes that surround it. Why is there such a pejorative connotation attached to the word 'art college'? Why does it always have to be contrasted with science and say, mathematics? Why all this nonsense about creative vs. logic, right hemisphere vs. left hemisphere? The answer is that there is a gap in education that no one is willing to fill. We are taught, from an early age, that you either go into art and humanities or you go into science and business. That your brain is either wired that way, or the other. This is particularly present amongst countries such as Switzerland or France. If you are not good at maths but can draw a hand with six fingers (=creative genius), it must mean that your brain is wired in a creative way, it functions in a more artistic way as opposed to a logical one. What you have, then, is a conflict between nurture and nature. Are you not creative enough because you are a doctor at core or because no one has ever taught you to use your imagination? Are you bad at maths because you are, at the very core, an artist; or are you bad at maths simply because no one pushed you to work harder? Granted, we do not all have the same learning capacities. Some learn faster, some are slow, and some are less logical than others. This does not mean, however, that once a preference is shown to either the arts or the sciences, we should push someone in that direction. Intelligence is fluid, and reveals itself in different ways. And one thing that does stimulate intelligence is learning skills in a wide range of topics, from the arts to the sciences.

"Took 5 tabs of acid (first time doing it ever) and my friend gave me a bunch of acrylic paint. Painted it with my fingers tripping out of my mind. Also I’m colorblind, and don’t work with abstract work at all (I only have ever done drawing)" ©cucumbercola.tumblr.com

If you are familiar with the swiss or the french educational system, you will know that after a certain number of years in the curriculum, you are forced to choose between a Bac L (diploma that focuses on literature and humanities), Bac S (diploma that focuses on science) or Bac ES (diploma that focuses on economic sciences & humanities). The positive aspect of these different diplomas is that it helps the student focus on what he likes and is good at. The negative aspect is that it reduces his ability to succeed. The dichotomy between science and art is such that it is now seen as 'nerdy' to study science while it is considered 'pretentious & lazy' to study art. Can't we ever have people who are creative geniuses yet still capable of logical thought processes? These two aspects of the same coin are always dissociated, when instead they simply imply an intelligent person who is able to see past this division in the education world. By constantly polarizing the arts and the science, the education system is not only strengthening the stereotypes we have around these two fields, but also discouraging people from doing one or the other. People should be able to reach their potential. As someone who failed all her math exams throughout high school, I am convinced that I could have passed all of them had I not been fed this idea that 'it's just not the way my brain works. I'm more creative. I am doomed anyways, no need to study for that exam'. Looking back, there is a lot more that I could have achieved, and it is a shame that the education system nowadays is still perpetuating the arts/science dichotomy. I mean, it's not that hard to be good at both, is it?

A ticket to nowhere: Airports & Home

On airports, and feeling at home 25 000ft up in the air.

© Suzanne Zhang

As human beings, we are programmed to find a nest and call it home. At first we are born into a house that we learn to call home, but just like birds who have to leave the nest, we are forced to leave it too. What follows then is a quest to find our own home. Some people find a home in a city, an apartment, a café, or a group of friends. Others are left to wander because nothing feels like 'it' yet. High standards or doomed wanderers?

I often feel like I belong to a group of nomads, changing homes every now and then, building new houses for the heart and then leaving it for others to find it. But I don't want to. As a person who was constantly rejected by all the places I have wanted to call home, I want to find roots. Create my own roots, actually. I find beauty in calling a person home, but I have learnt recently that you should never make homes out of human beings. Home is the one place where you know it's just 'it'. Is it so awful to want to belong to a place?

I was born Chinese in Switzerland, and my whole identity is built on this dichotomy. Not asian, not swiss. I can never fully belong to either of these two, no matter how hard I try. A heart in exile, a person on the verge of belonging someplace. And so over the years I have learnt to call places home, but none of them warm my heart as much as airports. I have a fascination for airports, it is the only place where I feel it is acceptable to feel what I feel. Airports are sacred places. Liminal places like airports are places that are nowhere in particular, and yet everywhere. No one belongs there, everyone is a stranger in exile, everyone far away from home -and yet, so close.

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No one belongs anywhere in airports. People come and go. Everyone in an airport is either about to embark on an adventure, or have come back with a bag that still smells of exotic flowers and home. You don't carry your past in a luggage, you carry white shirts and linen skirts. You don't carry your troubles and your past homes in your luggage, you carry excitement and a sense of belonging. Airports are places that move, no one stays there permanently, everyone goes somewhere. They are home to no one, except the nomads. Airports have no rules, no traditions. They smell of nothing and resemble nothing. Just large white corridors with large white areas of seating space. 

Embarking on the plane is the best part. You are finally free, free from geographical space, from the limits that your 'home' impose on you, free from yourself. Up in the air, it's simply you and the peach-colored sky, you and your books under the anesthetized light, you and your apple juice that tastes like clouds and freedom. No one is there to remind you that you haven't found home yet, no one is there to remind you that you are a nomad. It is simply you and the silence of the sky. 25 000ft up, you feel like you belong somewhere, finally.



Watch this: A very good short film called "Where's home? A film about third culture kid identity" for more on airports and finding home.