Peh-peh-peh… a patina trumpeter plays for you. [Source – Pixabay]
Our shadowy past lives, though hidden in the fog, it lives, and we live off it.
Ancient cities now archaeological sites, history books, paintings, literature, music and ideas remind us of the assured presence of antiquity, our link with what was the truth back then.
Like the tail of a shooting star, our past/ the antiquity makes an equally good show in the darkness, at times even a grand show.
Like a terrific shaman, the past predicts when approached with a true question and predicts without any regret.
Come, let us see, what it predicted when Regina Spektor approached it with some melodious queries.
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Listen to “All The Rowboats” before reading further –
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…First there’s lights out, then there’s lock-up Masterpieces serving maximum sentences It’s their own fault for being timeless There’s a price to pay and a consequence All the galleries, the museums Here’s your ticket, welcome to the tombs They’re just public mausoleums The living dead fill every room
But the most special are the most lonely God, I pity the violins In glass coffins they keep coughing They’ve forgotten, forgotten how to sing…
Regina Spektor
It seems the antiquity, through this song, shared a message for all those who are listening, which is that the past is not static, so no point in decorating and forgetting it; no point in generalising it and awarding it with a damp stamp.
Feel free to interpret it; relive the change.
Listen to “Samson” –
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Samson went back to bed Not much hair left on his head He ate a slice of Wonder Bread And went right back to bed And the history books forgot about us And the Bible didn’t mention us And the Bible didn’t mention us, not even once
You are my sweetest downfall…
Regina Spektor
Delilah, Samson’s lover, actually a spy, had his long hair cut one night, making him powerless; the Philistines captured Samson and tortured him brutally. Samson, blind and weak, still destroyed his enemies by magically regaining his strength. He died along with his enemies after he collapsed the temple of Dagon.
This biblical account doesn’t mention the infinite voices that made Samson, Samson and Delilah, Delilah. Culturally nourished biases have always restricted so many voices and the history books have often conveniently ignored it… until someone dares and explores and talks about the sweetest downfall.
Listen to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” –
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…I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping While my guitar gently weeps I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping Still my guitar gently weeps
I don’t know why nobody told you How to unfold your love I don’t know how someone controlled you They bought and sold you
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning While my guitar gently weeps With every mistake we must surely be learning Still my guitar gently weeps…
George Harrison
Regina Spektor covered this “Beatles” song for the film Kubo and the Two Strings (a must watch), magnifying the song’s impact so wonderfully. The antiquity becomes fully alive here; it reassures and promises the unfolding of another epic. It is pure magic!
Return in some time dear readers, and continue the tour of Regina Spektor’s musical world here at Chiming Stories.
Clouds in the evening sky/
Tell the old mountains a secret 'secret'/
Lights on, we turn deaf.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Arthdal Chronicles is a South Korean fantasy drama TV series that takes us back to the Bronze Age in a mythical land named Arth, where different human species and tribes struggle to be on the top of the power pyramid.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Universe’s a Disciplined Place
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
