znaddanz

On Friday I went to a club in Soho called Guanabara for a friend’s birthday. Jane lost her job recently and was feeling so down about it that she wanted to flag her birthday entirely, but myself and others told her that now was precisely the time she needed to get out and have some fun. The venue itself was initially not to my liking- it had a fairly cool design (large circular dancefloor in the centre, with a long, raised bar-area running around the periphery), but the drinks were pricey and the crowd was of the overly dressed, overly snobbish sort that I don’t usually enjoy mixing with.

Jane’s friends all seemed very lovely, but they were all in their late thirties, and not one of them was unmarried or unbabied- to say I felt out of place would be something of an understatement- I felt more in tune with the bizarre Brazillian Cowboy-soap-opera playing on the widescreen (and that was messed up!) By around ten I was feeling fairly jaded and had already started texting some friends at the Spice to see if there was anything going on that I could slip quietly out to.

Then the band started.

They warmed the crowd up by having two dancers come out and do a ‘fight dance’- this is apparently a Brazilian thing, back in the day, the men in Brazil, before having a fight, would do a sort of ritual-dance to show their intentions. These guys just did the dance, not the fight, but it was pretty cool, and somewhat refreshingly strange to see in the middle of a London club. By the time they were done leaping through the air, I was more than a little tipsy and got dragged out on to the dancefloor by Jane and her friends. “Just until they play a bad song.” I thought. Then I danced for four solid hours. Without stopping. Once. They were that good. I danced like I’d never danced before, and that’s saying something for me. The crowd was thick with Brazilians, who know how to shake their thang, so you had to lift your game up just to even stay on the floor with them. I don’t have a lot of soul, but every drop of it I do have was drank, sweated out, then licked up again.

The band escalated ever more intense, and just when you thought they were about to peak, they kept on going harder. By the end of the night they’d all dropped their instruments and picked up every variety of drum you can imagine- eight guys, playing the most intense and sophisticated drum beat you’re ever likely to hear- live or otherwise. Hard house has nothing on this.

I finally packed it in around three, utterly exhausted. Everyone else went on to Fabric (I think they were on something?), I walked home along the Thames, feeling 100% alive for the first time in, well, in a long time.

Saturday I went and saw Mozart’s Requiem at a small (well, comparatively) church next to the Halls of Parliament. Shook hands with the Mayor (who seemed pleasant enough) at the reception. The first performance was Beethoven’s 9th, which to be honest I wasn’t too impressed by. I think it’s because I didn’t like the look of the lead violinist. He was really bad at standing in repose. You know when the lead violinist has got nothing to do, like, what does he do? This guy seemed to sneer. He didn’t seem as though he was appreciating the rest of the Orchestra, so I took a bit of a dislike to him. I know I shouldn’t personalize a performance based on the performer, but I can’t help it. I can’t watch Jack Nicholson movies for the same reason.

So I went into the second half on a bit of a downer, only for the Requiem to blow me away. Really, I was quite, quite moved. I got very emotional. I spaced out a bit. My poor brain, struggling to explain why I was being affected so by mere noise, grasped vainly at theories, coming up with any reason it could to get around this rather illogical reaction. Now, I don’t think this is the reason, I think I was just ‘moved’, but what my brain hit apon was this:

Symphonies are actually pretty unique, in that they are one of the most precise transfer mechanisms for one person’s will over large distances of time. By which I mean: Mozart wrote this symphony 200 years ago, and directed each and every instrument and singer to make an exact noise at an exact moment, to his specifications. Now, hundreds of years on, people struggle to replicate those directions as precisely as possible. You could certainly say that Jesus or the Caesars or Hitler had more influence over people, but it was, and is, a very vague influence. You could say Shakespeare controlled people’s movements in a similar fashion, but plays are constantly being re-interpreted, altered, hell- no two actors ever play the same roll identically. But symphonies are very precise control, over a large number of people. In my musical state of shock, I almost felt like I could feel Mozart of the past, stretching his hands into the future to control them. As he will do, for as long as there are people around to perform his work. Quite surreal, on reflection.

I dreamt I was staying with U2 in a cabin in the middle of a pine forest. We were, somewhat predictably (stupid imagination!) trying to dismantle an atomic bomb. Someone died during the process (we were trying to bury it, I think, and found a body?) so I started to run into the forest. I came across a sharp decline, almost a cliff, made of wet clay. The cliff descended about a hundred feet, to a beautifully clear lake, surrounded by (more traditional, rock-based) cliffs. There were people all the way down the bluff who had carved little ledges out of the clay and were sunning themselves on beach towels. I started to climb down the cliff, but the clay was slippery and came away under my feet, and I realized I could kind of ski down the clay, using my jandals (yeah, now I was wearing jandals) as sort of snow-blades. People seemed very impressed as I rocketed down the clay mountain. I intentionally headed toward the end of the cliff and sailed off into the air, falling for what seemed a very long time, into the pool of water below. The water was very cold but tasted incredible, the way only mountain spring-water can. I swam to one of the cliff-faces to climb out. The cliff now seemed to be made of an enormous bookcase, populated not only by books, but by weird artefacts, stationery, and pool cues. Some of the bathers were above the bookcase, watching to see how I would get out. I started to climb up the bookcase towards them, but my feet slipped on the contents of the case, sending books and pens and pool cues tumbling into the water- the higher I climbed, the more trash I sent tumbling down into the water. The people above started jeering at me for making such a mess, and I realized I’d have to go back into the water to try and find everything I’d lost. I think it was at this point that I came to the conclusion that I was in a dream.

Sunday was spent as Daniels spend all Sundays- consuming a tub of Hummus, a tub of olives & feta, a tub of cherry tomatoes, two litres of orange juice, three pita bread, four albums, the Sunday Times and the Observer from end-to-end. Then I went up to Golder’s Green to watch some videos with my friends. We watched Mean Girls, which was a deliciously mindless slice of nasty teen-movie fun, and, at the other end of the spectrum, we watched Capturing the Friedmans- a very well made, well balanced, and disturbing film- I had to leave the room at one point because it was upsetting me so much. That said, I give it a very high recommendation- it was an excellent demonstration of how evil truly exists, but that it is perpetrated by people who aren't always entirely evil, which actually makes it worse. It was also a showcase of how people will lie to themselves to create a reality they can function in. I encourage you to see it, but if you’re expecting the feelgood comedy of the year, you’re in for an extremely nasty shock.

Which is a good thing.

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