mental techniques and metal

From time to time, since many years ago, I have periods I feel like listening more to metal than to other styles...but I either listen to classical heavy metal (like AC/DC, motörhead, Turbo, from Poland...), power metal (gamma ray, mainly, some ballad by Iced Earth, Pantera), hair/glam metal (such as Kiss...but here I would include the Japanese band X-Japan) and Gothic Metal (Tristania, Lacrimosa, Theatre of Tragedy). Rarely I would listen to the newest subgeneres (like nu metal) nor the darker genre, that is, scary black metal (however I’ve listened to some songs by some black metal band)...too dark..uff...

I did some experiment listening to some online-radio playing only black metal, to see the psychological effect or its effect on one’s mood and fight it if it was negative...even without paying attention to the lyrics (fortunately it’s almost impossible to understand the lyrics due to the way of singing). Better death metal (Death, Vader, Quo Vadis, the polish ones, not the Canadian homonymous band, God Dethroned...), dark, but not that much (but dark anyway)...and since it’s not as dark, I even find the kind of guttural singing interesting and somehow funny (black metal is too wrapped with something too obscure)...the fact is that i don't take it seriously. But again it’s also better, for me, not to think too much about the lyrics, rather than of the combination of guttural voices and the melody (great guitars!). Then I came across Viking metal (sounds funny to me...thinking of "Wickie, the viking" cartoons)...different topics (rather epic, related, logically, to viking world) but the same kind of music and voices, being it a subgenre within death metal for some people. Amon Amarth is the band I first found and listened to...good music (well, i've just listened to their "death in fire" and " the pursuit of vikings"). Again, i'm not talking at all about the lyrics.

Why stepping off a path leaving behind softer/lighter bands within metal i usually listen to? First I remembered 2 songs of extreme metal genres I used to have (“spiritual healing” by Death and another one of who knows with a strange title...Dr. Karl! No m’enrecordoooo!! Potser era d'alguns individus que fan black metal la que m’enviares fa temps...)...and I remembered metal concerts several years ago in my city...open air free concerts, being some of them of death metal. Secondly I wanted to test the changes in my mood listening to such music for some time and see better the difference between different genres. Of course normally it has some effect on me (besides the headache derived from being at my pc, since my CD player doesn’t work), but I wanted to avoid it and turn it positive. Turn darkness into light...with the help of alternating other kinds of music I also like, from relaxation music, to electronic, including, ballads, jazz, traditional music from Asia, alternative rock, power pop, new wave, and so on. and the mind and some control of the mood did the rest.

Test your mind and mood!strengthen your mind. It’s somehow like trying to read or study on the train (what a comparison) while there’s a lot of people talking at the same time, the music is on...and sometimes somebody is talking about something interesting tempting you to pay attention....In both cases (music and train concentration) the key is to find the way to keep one’s mind focused on something else than on the background or something coming directly to our senses in the case of black and death metal, avoiding the darkness of the lyrics(but I repeat that I like death metal..and most people i know that listen to such gernes are pretty normal people in appearence and don't have obscure souls or minds)...well, not much darker than the reality of nowadays world. These tactic/technique/experiment could be somehow compared to tantric techniques, if i'm allowed to do so. avoiding certain reactions and feelings, keepin one mind and soul clean and following another path. And metaphorically it was a bit like watching the news (the Bad News always on tv...) trying not to get hurt and keeping a positive attitude towards everything...walking away from impulses, wishes, suffering...Walking away. And now Quo Vadis play a cover version of a love song by Maanam (polish too, from the 80es...kinda pop/rock/eighties sound) with guttural voices and so on. Superb version. Why aren't there death metal bands or some other subgenre within death metal singing to more positive things. making songs like the cover version i just mentioned?..or even why isn't there a bit of humour?

list of bands sorted by heavy metal subgenres: http://www.metal-archives.com/browseG.php?g=heavy

Tibetans on my street

Tibetans in a town/city like Granollers? Yes! Strange but possible. I fist spotted them last X-mas in a square next to one of our 2 local libraries, selling Tibetan things in a stand, besides the stand of an Argentinean man selling mini-books (there was also some stand of Brazilian people selling jewellery). I had some short talk with these tibetans in Granollers (a young woman and 2 men), and they confirmed that it was their first X-mas selling stuff in Granollers. They talked to me about the high prices of everything in Barcelona and how expensive it was to have a shop there in the big city. Then X-mas craziness of buying-buying-buying faded away in early January (it’s Spain and people have to buy presents till 6th January) and so did these 3 tibetans, until one day, having a walk with a friend (Sandriiiii!!!), we saw them entering some stuff into some building. Oh! Tibetan people living in Granollers (I think there were already a couple of them living in this town, according to some report on local TV). Some other day I came across one of the Tibetan men while walking around the town/city centre (I said nothing, thinking he and the other Tibetans might not remember me and in fact, I had just had a short conversation with them). The day I had to take the exam on introduction to Tibet and Mongolia, again, I came across these tibetans, but there was a new one, a baby with them! Then, every 2 Fridays, these Granollers-tibetans have a stand placed on the main square, in front of the Town Hall, beneath the Porxada and sell a few Tibetan things, fewer than in X-Mas time...and stay there morning and afternoon together with Argentinian, African, Brazilian, Spanish and Catalan stands selling many kinds of things. And the last episode took place today, about an hour ago. I had lunch with a friend (Dr. Karl!) at a Tibetan restaurant in Barcelona and we spent most of the afternoon having a look at some shops and visiting Casa Asia....on the train back home I met another friend (who I hadn’t seen for aaages). And some meters before reaching home, I saw 2 of the Granollers-tibetans....in front of DIA autoservei i descompte!!! Tibetans buy at DIA supermarkets!. But why the one in my street? Here come my hypotheses concerning their residence. Do they live in that building Sandri and I saw them entering some stuff??? If so, why coming to a supermarket here, when they have a Caprabo supermarket close to that place...and I think also a mercadona (is it there where you can find that brand named Hacendado, which I find really funny...but I do respect it, since Sandri praised the quality of some hacendado products). Maybe it’s useful to be able to speak some Tibetan and to be studying it...

wiiiiild horses

Sometimes I wonder whether people appearing in pictures in textbooks do exist or not. That happens to me especially when names are given. I think I can say that those people are real. Some courses of German ago, the word Pferdepfleger appeared and it would never (not yet) leave my mind. And there was a picture of a man taking care of horses, whose name I have neither forgotten: Hans Draga. Hans Draga, der Pferdepfleger!! I like this word indeed and the man (there was a picture in the textbook and in the workbook!!) seemed to be a nice person.

On Sunday the Pferdepfleger word and Hans Draga came to my mind again because a friend of mine (Masa) told me about some dream he had years ago about some Mongolian horse. Masa and I happened to be thinking at the same time about Mongolia...he had been reading those tales trying to find something about his dream ...I’ve not read Mongolian tales but I’ve been reading about other issues related to Mongolia (ah! i must say that none of us knew that the other one, thousands of kilometres away was thinking about something related to Mongolia) ...and besides I, logically, associate horses with Mongolia and Mongolia with horses, even though I’m not affected by any kind of horse-virusSuddenly I felt like looking for info on the net about the existence of that Hans Draga. It’s not a common name, I’d say and it’s not likely that if there are many Hans Draga, they have something to do with horses. And I found out that Hans Draga existed!!! Yes!!! But no new pics of that man...but the discovery of horse lovers and something oddly named “Pferdevirus”...which sounds basically negative.

Well, something else. “Wild horses” is one of my favourite songs by Mazzy Star.

yuyu en el bazar oriente!

Ah!!! los mejores museos de lo kitsch, venerados irremediablemente por todo tipo de criaturas humanas o semihumanas, como los gatos, que me atrevería a afirmar que alguna devoción por los bazares oriente deben tener, porque no se conoce gato no curioso...y no hay escasez de cosas con qué curiosear en esos museos.

Mis incursiones en bazares oriente siempre se han fundamentado en la búsqueda de fundas de plástico para documentos, así, con una parte blanca taladrada (es que los que venden en los bazares oriente son diferentes del resto...el plástico es más fino y tiene una textura más extraña). Otras incursiones en tales lugares han sido también motivadas por otras cosas de la sección papelería, como la búsqueda de sobres de colores (ah!! pero que nadie vaya a esos lugares a comprar sobres acolchados, que salen mucho más caros). Y que decir de una diadema a 0.75€, negra-no hortera ni para niños...habiendo visto diademas (ya ves, un trozo de plástico de nada) por precios relativamente indignantes.

A parte de todo lo kitsch contenido en los bazares oriente, también hay mucha cosa que produce yuyu. A mi personalmente casi me quita el sueño el escaparate del bazar oriente de mi calle....es lo que tiene pasar por delante a horas poco comunes de la noche y también la elección de los dueños (gente muy maja, por cierto), de dejar luces y cosas indescriptibles encendidas, en plan navideño. Esta semana me fijé más de la cuenta y vi la aterrorizante imagen de la antorcha falsa encendida iluminando una figura de un loro gigante, amarillo de cerámica o plástico (o mejor no saberlo). Efecto película de terror versión kitsch. No tiene desperdicio el escaparate...bien figuras de loros, como cuadros con imágenes en movimiento (o el mítico cuadro con una estampa de Jesucristo con un círculo de luces alrededor y otras luces dispuestas a modo de rayos....que claro, por qué lo iban a dejar apagado por la noche!! Oh! La luz de Jesús en un escaparate de un bazar oriente!!!)...Y claro, en mi persona se produce un efecto extraño y me entra la risa por la calle. Yuyu+risa, que sí se pueden sumar. Las peras y las manzanas siempre se dijo que no se podían sumar, pero el yuyu y la risa, pues sí. Que vamos, que me cruzo con alguien y con mi cara de quiero-reír-pero-casi-porque-mejor-que-no....miradas de resignación de la gente pensando ¡cuánta gente rara suelta por la noche!

OstMusik

Das Thema!! Endlich... (Ich wollte seit langem zum Thema Ostmusik schreiben) und darüber wird es besser auf Deutsch als auf Englisch geschrieben. Obwohl die, die Deutsch nicht können, es nicht verstehen werden, entschuldige ich mich.

Na gut...ich gehe zum Thema. Seit Monaten, vielleich seit etwa ein Jahr ist meine Interesse an Ost-Sachen, bzw. Autos und Musik, vergrößert worden. Ich habe in anderen Posts über OstAutos geschrieben, deswegen schreibe ich nicht mehr darüber heute.

Aus der damaligen DDR...erst Karat, danach Magdeburg, IC Falkenberg, die Puhdys, Perl, Keimzeit, City, Lift...auch zahle ich Sonja Schmidt und ihre „Ein Himmelblauer Trabant“ und die lustige-naive Lieder von Frank Schöbel und Chris Doerk. Dieser Mann hat den Titel „Mädchen du bist schön“ einem seines CDs gegeben....kein Kommentar passt dazu...Meine letzte Entdeckung waren die Lieder von IC Falkenberg...die finde ich aber gut...beide Melodien und Texte. Sie haben eighties-artiges Musik..viel anders als die andere deutsche Gruppen, die ich genannt habe. Karat, Magdeburg, die Puhdys, Perl, City, Keimzeit haben alle Rock gemacht. Ich empfehle euch ein paar Lieder: „Harte Tage“ von Magdeburg, „Jede Stunde“ von Karat, „über sieben Brücke“ von Karat, „am Fenster“ von City, „Zeit die nie vergeht“ von Perl, „alt wie ein Baum“ von den Puhdys, „Mann im Mond“ von IC Falkenberg...

Aus Polen...dort gab es den ersten Czesław Niemen mit seiner 60es-artigen Musik, ein bisschen zwischen Folk und Etwas mehr psychodelisches, und Czerwone Gitary (die Rote Gitarren).... Meine Lieblingsmusiker aus Polen, gehören zu der 80e Jahren: Kombi, Maanam (interessante Melodien), Ireneusz Dudek (und alle seine Bands...glänzend!), Lady Pank, Budka Suflera, Bajm, usw.

Leider kann ich gar nicht von was Gruppen aus anderen damaligen Ostländern gesungen haben (auf Polnisch kann ich manche Sachen verstehen....mit meinem Wörterbuch, na klar)...Es gab doch gute Gruppen in Ländern wie die Tschechoslowakei und Ungarn. Ich kenne aber nur Plastic People of the Univers, aus dem ersten Land und Bergendy aus Ungarn. Schade ihre Lieder nicht zu verstehen zu können....

Und...Hier habt euch ein paar Empfehlungen..falls ihr habt die Chance Ostmusik zu hören!

Für mehre Info:

http://www.ostmusik.de/

Trabaru and momos

Finally yesterday took place the dinner (dinnersession v.0.1 beta, since one person was missing due to some illness) we had been trying to arrange for some time. And this time, escaping from the lunch menu at the tibetan restaurant we went to, we could find a wide range of dishes willing to be tasted...including momos, which i hadn't tasted yet (momos weren't in the lunch menu the other times i went to that restaurant). Ah...the world of momos...momos, gyoza, pierogi (polish), ravioli, and the less unknown variants. There are always variants ready to appear at the less expected moment, just like another polish version of something...well, not exactly a version but an hybrid, the trabaru. Basic Mathematics: Trabant+ Subaru Impreza= Trabaru (impreza). Quite obvious, but it didn't come to the mind of Germans (East Germans in this case), who gave birth to Trabant in Zwickau. I can affirm so on the basis of the results for trabaru in Google (uuuh...so scientific!), which on the whole (well, almost) show links to pages in Polish...Sites of, by or for trabaru or any kind of customised trabant lovers...The possibilities of a Trabi are almost as many as those of momopierogigyozaetc. A Trabi can be used as a car, obviously, but also, as a sculpture/decorative structure for your house (i've heard of one case of somebody having a trabi inside a room, lucky one), as a charriot, as something for unknown purposes, like an image of a trabi, in oblivion, somewhere in Mongolia, next to some ger..how did a trabi reach Mongoliaaaa??????!!! i'll place the link here when i find it), as a place for some lost stork to build its nest, as work of art, as nomad garden, or static garden, as a tool to give all sorts of messages..a trabi can be media...infinite possibilities. After the fall of the iron curtain, the possibilities of a trabant in society and in art multiplied themselves, i'd say, from what those pictures showing forgotten trabis tell.
And the trabi in the image above shows some communion between trabi and momos. A cardboard trabi (badly painted, by the way), moving across some printed e-book talking about Nomads in Tibet. And momos come from Tibet. And trabis from Zwickau...and, as ideas they both are, they spread their possibilities, their different possible faces across the world. momos and trabis, or pierogi and polski fiat 126 (customised or not), ravioli and fiat 500...and so on.

Citroën DS, marry me!!!!

I might write love songs for a car...and rather marry a car, a Citroën DS:A car or a man? what a question!...i'd say that a car is better concerning love songs and marriage and i'm in fact talking about a car (it's not a metaphor). Citroën DS...marry me, you're the car of my life! And it/he feels moved by my words and takes me far away to another out-of-nowhere. And maybe, by declaring one's love to a car, it acquires the ability to fly or it/he might become more human than many so-called humans. A car won't let you down but when it/he is sick or dies. A car won't even dare to image to treat you like an object nor lie, nor do any other negative actions...but cars have soul, pure souls. I believe so, and they can accept love with no conditions and will be always thankful if they're properly treated.

Yes...and i could become Y. DS, Mrs DS. And inside him/it, my beloved-car-of-my-life, no worry, no pain...only boosted energy and a handful of dreams to go somewhere else, together. Inside him/it, it's possible to weave dreams, out of clouds seen outside, out of the movement seen through the windows, out of beautiful silhouettes hidden in impossible landscapes.

keep you shiny

keep your engine beating healthily

never let you down,

die together when there are no more roads to go along.

like old-fashioned japanese lovers.

AU SZA LA LA LA!

Here come Shakin' Dudi (Polish band, from the 80es..but still alive!, in which Ireneusz, or Irek, Dudek played)...and their "au sza la la la" (1985)!! and it becomes like some kind of hymn...it feels like becoming a happy Lego figure. Yes! i want to become a customised Lego figure with a happy expression on my face...a happy Lego figure that acquires a soul and wanders across Mongolia...and lies down from time to time to observe the movements of the clouds in a clean sky and think of Polynesian navigators and their stick and shell charts. But it's impossible, and i can just get the spirit of a happy Lego figure listening to Shakin' Dudi. Not bad at all...the roads to reach legohood are many and very different. Regaining a good mood, and enjoying days is a matter of building, like Lego's existence aim. We get the parts, the pieces, the colours... the methods and we have to build something positive by ourselves. Then we reach legohood wellbeing.

siempre suaves!!!

Hoy, de nuevo, uno de esos días en que la necesidad de tener una sobredosis de música de los Suaves no se puede evitar (otras veces ha sido de Gammaray, Marea, Kiss o AC/DC..o incluso melodías darkwave de BlutEngel). También la necesidad de recordar aquallos conciertos de rock, en especial, claro está, el momento apoteósico en que los Suaves (Yosi con la melena cana y la guitarra), en un concierto en Badalona...junio de 2004 (con Rubén y compañía, con la gran ausencia de Verónica), cantaron hacia el final "Dolores se llamaba Lola" (para entonces estábamos ya sólo Rubén, su amigo heviata auténtico, el otro amigo con la camiseta de Iron Maiden...y el chico extraño salido de la nada). Grandes canciones, incluyendo la manera cruda y realista de ver las cosas. "Maldita sea mi suerte", "hotel", "ese día piensa en mí", "dulce castigo", "si pudiera"...

Y hoy es además de muchas cosas, el cumpleaños de mi amigo Juanma (eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!! boas! txipirón gran reserva del 81!)..así q le dedico "si pudiera", una de las canciones más positivas de los Suaves, con sabor a himno. Dedicartela me alegra el día...y también saber que tendrás una celebración tras el trabajo (si es que no te transtorna eso del genba con los chicos del bronx..suena a peli del gran Jackie Chan)!!!!

uselessness

write-write-write-type-type-type. Here i am again "pretend you are happy when you are blue" as i read in a book by Murakami Haruki (i don't like his books, though..sorry Murakami-sama), referring to some song. Me...thinking of old stuff, listening to old songs (now,i'm in the 80es in Belgium....TELEX!!!), walking along my personal path to escape from something, many things, things running right after me, following me. Somehow today i met ghosts from the past, such as my dearest feeling of uselessness (waiting for today, huh? after a not-so-good exam?). I fell onto the earth to get lost without a place, without any possibility to reach any aim or dream. Nobody around right now...but there are always pens or keyboards willing to be grabbed/touched gently...press press....a million of combinations of keys waiting for me to be pressed. Useless combinations, useless messages. But i know that suddenly i'll think less about uselessness, when other things pop up violently in my mind. Then comes laughter and silly ideas, and an image of the 6th Dalai Lama, long-haired, dressed in silk (colourful and shiny, i guess) clothes...dancing like Locomia guys, with a huge fan (Think of the typical 80es-look and feel better). Other thoughts: Canon Palmtronic 8M calculator, with happy green numbers...and my loved Smith-Corona electra 120 typewriter (see picture...2nd hand, from the 60es but bought in the 70es), the citroën DS spotted in Firenze with Takehiro (car-spotting-photographing in Italy almost 1 year ago), soft pillows demanding hugs, the memory of a handful of strange dreams, tears mixed up with cotton fabric texture and silent, the beautiful-inside-outside man. And little by litte everything fades away and i get back to some state with is said to be normal. Forget uselessness through useless-ideas-things. Noisy Smith-Corona electra 120 forgotten inside its case inside some cupboard. And then comes some strange and unexpected dream, like usually. Last night i dreamt of me buying pencils. 7B or 8B? harder or softer lead? Too many birds spreading their wings within my head with nowhere to go.