Over the past couple of days the temperature has been dropping; today it is actually cold – raining, gray. Not miserable though; there's a light behind the clouds, and it all just feels cool, refreshing; the mild autumn chill (yes, I know, in August? – well, this is northern Europe, near the North Sea) is a fine change.
And my emotional temperature has cooled – from yesterday's anger and panic at how I've been living my life, to actually getting some things organized. What a list of things to do in the next two months! – is it really possible to do all of that research, and with that the administration that people keep nagging me about? The only way is, I suppose, doing things. Things of any size – small things that need to be done, parts of larger projects, and of course the always salutary things that involve deciding something doesn't need handling or can get given to someone else. And one must do Things, frequently.
Especially tricky because of my tendency towards passive procrastination: not looking for other things to do, exactly, but merely thinking, well I don't need to do this right now – and no one's watching me to keep me working. An gradually worsening problem over the years of living around, from the mid-1990s; living with John in Australia helped for a bit, but just as I started to feel comfortable, the government kicked me out....
A music track that I downloaded three months ago, then bought the CD: the final track on Peter Gabriel's soundtrack for Rabbit-Proof Fence, called 'Cloudless'. I finally saw the film on television the other night – or parts of it at least (as should be no surprise, given my general tendency towards avoidance these days, the fact that it was a film of a tragedy enacted by the Oz government made it both interesting and far too intense for me to be happy watching it). It was good, though; a very focused, but very passionate fable, very linear, with few surprises but excellent and brave work, especially by the actors. Interesting to see the Wikipedia entry on the Stolen Generations – it talks about the conservative critique of the whole protest, and then gives enough facts to completely undermine that critique, making it sound like a sort of poor man's Holocaust denial.
The music to the film was good, and helped to interpret the action as a good film score should; but that final track didn't, apparently, make it into the film as such – a shame, because it is a glorious Gabrielesque synthesis of native Australian chanting, building and overlapping lines (always my favorite kind of music climax), and subtle, shimmering electronic support.
The sheer passion, and grief, of the piece – beautiful, naturally and strongly colored voices, falling lines – is perhaps why I have played it over and over, in the past few months. Such a powerful catalyst: almost inevitably brings tears to my eyes....
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