This pieces of art, helped me go through a difficult time and to come out the other side with a new piece of storytelling to call my own.
#3|Hedwig and the Angry Inch
A beautiful woman, man and everything in between. Hedwig was left with an Angry Inch, alone in America, was betrayed by her boytoy and still looked fabolous doing it. Also she sang this song above, a love song inspired by my favorite philosopher and homeboy, Aristophanes. John Cameron Mitchell created a rock opera inspired by his life, not that he was a german transvestite, but he was different in a place and a time where different wasn’t allowed. As she would sing “And this is the sad story how we became lonely two legged creatures. The story of the origin of love”.
#2|Passing Strange
Stew used art to rewrite his life. He got on Broadway. Spike Lee made a movie of it. He won dozens of awards and I hope he solved all his unsolved issues, cause he sure did help me solve some of mine.
#1|The Arrival
Shaun Tan created an illustrated masterpiece with this book. The Arrival is a silent tale of a man in a new land having to come to terms with all the novelty around him and the fact that his family is half the world away. The drawings are breathtaking, the story is breathtaking and by the end it’s all very heartwarming. Here’s one more sample of the fantastic art by Tan:
Today mark the first entry in this new weekly (I hope) series of posts titled “Things That Really…”. Here will be usually a list of things I think it’s important to share with you all. So let’s get things started shall we?
Classical Music that Rocks My World
This pieces of music and I are one. If I listen to them 27 times in a row, it’s still not enough.
#3|Dvorak - New World Symphony - 2nd Movement
This is epic! The whole New World Symphony is. Dvorak shows in a piece of music what must have been like discovering a complete new land! I’m madly in love with this!
#2|Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 - Prelude
Holy freaking higher deity! Can you listen to this and not tell me it’s awesome! Listen to those dynamics, to those melodies, to the sound of the cello! I float when I listen to this and go higher than a helium ballon!!
#1|Johann Pachelbel - Canon in D
This is popular western music at it’s best. Pachelbel is the original one hit wonder. He wrote a song almost four centuries ago and we are still playing it in our weddings. Even better, his chord progression is the base of modern pop music! Really! I kid you not!
I got into a conservatory only to learn how to play this on the violin (once I did, I quit the damn thing!), I met the love of my life listening to this in a bridge in Prague, she asked me to marry her listening to this in London, my favorite brazilian band Karnak, use it as a base of their biggest hit Juvenar… To summarize, this song is imprinted in me… and you and in all the western world…. Johann, you develish man!
