Le chat enorme

The apocalypse might begin in alleyways lit by orange gaslights. It might begin in jazz pubs. How about jazz pubs in Prague? I wonder if they have any. Gaslights and jazz bars...yes..that's what I'd look for in Prague. I danced once, at a jazz club last year. The light was dim, the stage smelt stale, and there was no light in the washroom. It was warm though, and the winter evening outside chilled me to the bone. Jazz grey.

S(c)aturation

Human saturation. Personality saturation. Gestural saturation. Overripe watermelons in the heat. Rinds of consumed melons lying by the edge of the road, licked by mongrels. Their skins matted, caked with mud, dust, blood. Mongrels in streetfights.
The dirt in your toes when you wear an open toed sandal. The dust in your mouth. Grains of dust between your teeth. The dust between your sole and the sandal. The dust between your sole and your soul.
Devout noisy flies. Devout, chaste, holy flies. Sacred flies. On rotting melons.

Yury Olesha's wonderful tale

Today I read a wonderful story. It is "Three Fat Men" by the Russian author Yury Olesha. I revisited it today actually...I had read the book as a child in Delhi..my mother had brought it home from the library of the medical institute where she worked...it was the most unlikely book to be found in a medical library...an old tattered copy, beautifully bound, with large, colorful pictures, almost done in the style of Chinese paintings.
As a ten year old, I was fascinated by the book, and deeply moved and touched by it..there was something in the book that had spoken to me, and quite literally stirred me...those who will read the book will know what I'm talking about. There's something magical and yet heart-rending about the stories, the little interweaved stories that weave together to create this almost carnivalesque scene evoking the February Revolution in Russia in 1917. Upon revisiting it as an adult (albeit in an alienated way, through an e-text, almost a summarized one, without the lovely pictures beside the pages), I find that the story still speaks to me, and the characters and their stories still speak to me, and I feel genuine pangs for some of the characters. I highly recommend the book to anyone who cares to read it...or atleast to visit the electronic summary version:

http://www.sovlit.com/fatmen.html

A study

It was one of those nights with friends...friends that one can be one's decadent self in front of...we danced the roads, we peered down at the city lights from the massive 20th floor glass walls...the city was ours...and perhaps almost caught a glimpse of the ballet girls dancing in their studio...we might have..we spent hours in the jacuzzi, letting our skins and souls soak the warmth of the water...and then squeezing the warmth out in the sauna..and then we spent half the night watching Fiddler on the Roof, sitting next to the great window, in the company of the city lights, with our tastes tickled by icecream. And then I studied alone, sitting next to the city, in the company of a lone hanging lamp, at the dead of night, while they slept..

I showcased a new choreography today..it is still in its most infantile stages yet..the showcase was a showing of work-in-progress. it was inspired by an idea i've had in my head for almost a year and a half now....actually, a collage of three distinct ideas..one inspired by a photograph and a short story titled "Flowers" from Maxim Gorky's "Tales of Italy". I liked presenting it in its embryonic stage...twas fun!

Random thought during a late-night study session

Discourses of the body make a fascinating study.... of ancient blood rituals, dismemberment, disemboweling....their public displays in art (and only in art)..

Untitled--October 1, 2008

Another night up, but in satisfyingly Dionysian pursuit of the muse...an academic Dionysian this time...Dionysus in his study....another cup of herbal tea...watching the red of the teabag bleed into the water...beautiful...like watching blood in water...or perhaps a red dye....maybe dye is prettier than blood.