#do i ship ray and walt now? is this a thing? oh god do i?
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if you don't mind much, what was every thought that crossed your mind during ray persons scenes in gen kill?
every single thought? anon, don't tempt me
that being said, i shall give the people what they want! so ray is the kind of annoying that i live and breathe for. the kind of annoying that makes me wanna open up his brain and dive inside. just pure unadulterated unhinged energy! zero shame or dignity present in that one. none whatsoever. but it's endearing y'know? i wanna tell him to shut the fuck up but i also want him to live in my pocket and give me a running commentary on my life?
i didn't wanna love him at first. it's gonna sound weird but it felt too predictable for me to go for yet another smartass idiot who can't for the life of him know when to shut the fuck up. so i kind of rebelled against myself and held out for a while. eventually though, he did wear me down and i did find myself shaking my head disapprovingly but smiling fondly alongside brad. i think though it was the deeper aspects of his character that finally drew me in, the ones that you have to look deeper into, in the shorter scenes that maybe don't seem that important but have subtler little details.
and if we do wanna get deep about it then i always enjoy a character who clings desperately onto humour and sheer absurdity as a coping mechanism. it's pretty clear that ray falls within that category and i did enjoy getting to see a little bit of how he reacts when he can't reach for that coping mechanism as easily, when he's too exhausted and fed up to pull the mask on.
another thing i noticed that made me appreciate him from just a really small action is in the episode where everyone is trying to cheer walt up. ray uses his method of being a comedic annoyance to give walt some kind of normalcy that he probably isn't getting from the others, who are trying to reassure him and look after him in a more direct and 'impactful' way. but ray decides to go and basically dry hump his head and say stupid shit and yeah, walt is a bit irritated bc of everything he's dealing with, but as a viewer, we get to see ray actively using the way the other marines see him to try and give walt a sense of "nothing is going to change, you're still you and i'm still me". whilst brad, nate and espera are there basically outwardly telling him not to worry (and walt needed that too, i love my dads <3), ray takes a much subtler approach in supporting him. which when you think about it, really is the opposite to how we talk about ray usually. he's anything but subtle generally, so i think this little bit of information and look into his character, and intentions, was something that just really stood out to me bc he chose that approach for walt, imo at least. i know it's a tiny tiny scene but it just helped confirm a lot of my thoughts about how ray approaches things and how, sure, he is naturally unhinged and doesn't think before he speaks a lot, but sometimes, you can actively see him using that humour and those jokes and all his ridiculous antics to pull his friends out of whatever dark crevice their mind has fallen into. he does it with brad as well. i feel like his actor portrayed those purposeful moments really well also, because for me, i could tell when he was just being ridiculous and himself and talking shit, and when he was playing it up to keep others focused on him and not the other shit going on around them. anyway. this is one of the reasons i love his character and his portrayal a lot. it's not lost on me that it actually is a back-and-forth with ray that eventually pulls walt out of his downward spiral either, at least surface-level. it was a team effort, but ray continuing to prode him eventually got him to 'snap out of it' and feel like he was being treated normally.
and as much as i loved his comedic scenes throughout the series, and all his songs and ways of keeping everyone entertained, i really enjoyed his portrayal and depiction in the last two or so episodes, where you start to notice the mask slipping. it's thrown back on pretty quickly, but i appreciated that we got that small insight into how everything has actually affected him and it actually felt different afterward. he goes back to being a smartass and being the annoying friend who never shuts up, but you can see he's changed somewhere deep down underneath as well.
and the fact that it's his final look toward trombley that kind of sums up the conclusion of the show and the true realisation about what they did there. i don't know if i can explain it coherently yet, i guess i'm still processing what i'm trying to say about that final scene. i'm sure it's been said a thousand times by someone, a lot more eloquently that i ever could, but his final look really spoke volumes to me. his reaction to trombley and the video and then finally walking away felt like a confirmation of the message that the show presents to us throughout the whole series, but which they let us pick up and spin around for a few episodes to fully absorb, before letting ray finish it up with a single look. idk, maybe i'm just rambling.
maybe this is completely different from what you were asking for anon, so i'm really sorry if it disappoints you, or you were just looking for silly commentary on all the unhinged shit that comes out of his mouth lmao but yeah. i am a little bit obsessed with ray person. i truly would like to examine his brain up close.
all that raging internalised homophobia as well, huh?
anyone wanna unpack that with me?
it'll be fun, i promise
#me when i started replying to this ask: i'm just gonna keep it brief bc it's midnight and i'm already kinda sleep deprived#i'm so sorry it ended up being this long#it might not make sense bc i only got like 30 minutes sleep last night and i had to wake up at 5am#but i do in fact have several thoughts about ray avril person#do i ship ray and walt now? is this a thing? oh god do i?#i don't know????#i probably don't? right?#generation kill#julian's inbox
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task 04; journey of the featherless
❝ He wasn’t like Wally. He wasn’t this ray of sunshine that turned assholes like Jafar into decent people❞
Describe your character; How do you see your character in your own eyes and not based off the bio. How have you developed this character into your own?
SO A LOT HAS CHANGED SINCE THE LAST TIME I WROTE THIS LMFAO. How do I even describe Wally??? He honestly means so damn much to me for many reasons mostly because he’s the character i‘ve had the longest. I’ve had him for maybe 8 years??? and he’s truly come leaps and bounds from where he once was. Wally is the actual human form of sunshine. He just emits light and love wherever he goes. He has one of the biggest hearts around and sometimes that gets him in trouble. He sees the good in everyone (except maybe auto but you know auto’s a d i c k). Wally has really come into his own these past few years. He’s learned to love himself, like, genuinely love himself. That has always been wally’s biggest struggle. All his life he was told he was nothing and treated like absolute trash by the BNL gang and the axioms. when he first came to walt he was this stuttering insecure mess, basically austin. He was scared of his own shadow and afraid to be loved, even touched. Now that’s not the case at all. He’s genuinely happy. he’s very confident with himself. Now that i’ve played wally long enough i’ve gotten to explore more bits and pieces of him and he’s quite feminine and he’s not ashamed of it he embraces it. He doesn’t feel like he has to hide who he is anymore because he’s married to one of the most understanding, supportive and loving men ever. Wally is a fighter. He’s come so damn far and I am proud of my little bean.
What’s your favorite thing about your character? what’s your least favorite?
There’s so many things about wally that I love, I love how carefree and spirited he is. I really love how fucking sassy he is. like my boy has SASS. But really my favorite thing about Wally is his ability to love just about anything and anyone. Which is one of his down falls as well, because he just sees the good even in the worst of people and Wally just wants to fix the broken. I would say that i don’t like how he still has a lack of faith in himself. He doesn’t hate himself as much as he used to but he doesn’t believe in his capabilities. also he’s a fucking tease like rip oliver spade.
What are some of your favorite relationships your character has formed? (Friendships, relationships, yada ya)
omgomg I love wally and silvermist. she’s the little sister he’s always wanted (before he knew marjoire existed rip me!!) and they’re just so pure and cute. I also love his relationship with Aurora. They’re both hopeless romantics and becca i’m so sorry i’m trash with replying but like their friendship has to flourish even more because they’re very a like and wally adored her. his relationship with donicia is so sweet too like omg they rot my teeth.
i’ll throw in next gen too because do i REALLY want to make more posts than I need to??? the answer is no.
HELLO I LOVE SAD BREAKFAST CLUB THEY ARE MY LIFE. THEIR DIIFERENT PERSONALITIES AND DYNAMICS MAKE MY HEART SO HAPPY LIKE IVE ALWAYS WANTED A SQUAD AND NOW I GOT ONE AND EVERYONE IS JUST SO PERFECT AND WODNERFUL AND FUCK WIL I EVER GET MY OWN SAD BREAKFAST CLUB IRL??
cyrus and austin??? binch I love them
fucking daisy and austin are the cutest, purest ship i’ve had and god i love them so fucking much like when 2gen rolls around i’m always so pumped to have them like I love them that much i miss them when we’re not in next gen world i just love them so fucking much it’s fine i’m fine ya’ll wanna see pics of their kids in the future?? they CUTE
allison and remus oh my gOD they hurt me but i’m so excited to see where they go like allison totally likes this boy and remus, god bless his soul, deserves so fucking good already in his life. they’re gonna hurt me i know this they’re going to kick me in my feels but I am ready for the pain ahead
bee, you already know i’m pumped for nina and nikki. my lil gay heart is thriving. can their ship name be spaqueen??? lmfao. listen it’s hard to come up with a ship name for them lET ME LIVE.
dj and kennedy are silvally 2.0 and i cry about it on the daily.
Do i really need to get into walliver tho? Like we ALL know they’re story. They’re soulmates. I love them. they’re my longest ship. they my first married ship w/ kids. They make me believe in love and i’m pissedt and that I haven’t found my oliver yet. universe wyd !!!
Has your character changed you in any way? Or do you yourself in yourself in your character?
Wally’s changed me a lot. If anything. I’ve played many characters, and my biggest problem rping is that I can never connection with a character. I don’t see a story. There’s only one other character i’ve connected with the way I have with wally, but in all honesty Wally is the character I hold closet to my heart. Because I think there’s a bit of wally in all of us. We want to be loved and give love. We want to have hope in something that’s bigger than ourselves. That there’s this light at the end of the tunnel in whatever we’re searching for. We’re all just dreamers and I guess that’s the best way to sum up wally. He’s a dreamer and a believer. I give Wally a lot of praise, but it’s because he’s the thing i’m most proud of. He’s apart of me, and he’s as weird as it sounds, he’s help me grow as a person. Sometimes I wish I was more like Wally. I wish I could be happy about life and enjoy the little things and just love everything and everyone as much as he does. I’ve been told i’m sunshine before so I guess wally and I are a lot a like. So wally’s a big part of me and always has been. Like I said, wally’s just a good person. He’s the good in me I wish I had more of to be honest. or at least showed more of.
Do you think your character has had a big impact on Walt? Is it a good impact or bad?
I think Wally’s had a good impact. In all honestly, I didn’t think people were going like wally, or like, not really pay attention him. Yet this fucker’s impacted a good chunk of people. I just, sometimes I cry about it that so many people like him and that he does effect so many characters. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside that I finally did something right with a character and it only took years of roleplaying. aye.
Favorite thing your character has done and worst
FALLING IN LOVE WITH OLIVER MY GOD THAT’S THE BEST THING HES DONE. listen to me when I say wally STRUGGLED for years to come to terms with his sexuality. and when he finally fell in love with Oliver oh my god it was the most freeing experience ever for him and he found his best friend and soulmate. The worst thing he’s done?? lmfao the fucking coma. That story arch haunts me to this day.
What is some progress you hope to have with your character in the future?
I want him to finally give acting a chance
What is one thing you would tell your character?
Honestly, i would tell him i’m proud of him and how far he’s come.
What has been YOUR favorite thing about walt?
My favorite thing about Walt is just how much it’s grown. When we started this roleplay, I was so afraid it was going to flop and people would be like 'oh it’s just another Disney school rp big woop’ but I was proven wrong because over the past views year. sure we’ve had or ups and downs. we’ve had drama that we DON’T speak of or speak of whomst but walt’s grown into something that I never imagined it could be. we’ve all became a huge family and that’s just…it’s my favorite knowing that. So thank you guys. Walt wouldn’t be what it is without you.
Has your experience been a positive one? (BE HONEST YO.)
I’ll be real sometimes I get stressed out about everything. I’m always doing a million things at once rp and in real life. but i do love this place and all of you and i want to give you all the best roleplay you could ever be a part of. i’m not a perfect admin or rper for that matter but i’m trying.
Got a favorite memory? Share it!
walliver’s wedding or when they got engaged. I waited fucking YEARS for them to finally be married and now that they are has me shook on the daily. kaitlyn truly left me in the dark and knocked me tf out with their engagement. Like I remember that day so vividly. I was actually crying and screaming because it finally happened. Then I had to wait a damn YEAR for them to get married. a y e a r.
What are you looking forward too in the future?
More bios, more members, more ships, more everything because I love you all.
Have you had a favorite event? Favorite plot? Share it right here
fucking next gen is my jam ya’ll already KNOW. I also really loved the superhero and 50′s event and i’d love to bring them back one day. also 3gen??? i want that. maybe it’ll be a thing but it’s my jam too.
Favorite character that’s not your own and why
i have a lot of characters to praise people on so please don’t freak if you’re not on here bc i’m gonna be biased as fuck as always (since it’s wally and he’s my fave bc again biased) and say Oliver. Ya’ll know how much I love oliver spade. I’ve been kaitlyn’s best friend and ship partner for years so i’ve grown an immense love for Oliver. There’s so many layers to him like I always say. He’s a shit head but he’s such a good person. he cares so much about his family and only wants the best for them. he puts others before himself and often forgets to do something for ollie for once. he’s such a hard worker and uhm ya’ll wally’s mans is hot as fuck. have you seen him lately??? like damn. I just love oliver spade with all my heart. Like i can’t even put into words how much i love him because i’ve said it so many times. Oliver has a special place in my heart.
Ideas, shoutouts, request, dedications, questions? Put ‘em here!
why the fuck am that binch. someone explain.
#watask#did i copy and paste most of my anwsers#maybe you don't know#anyways#also bee I used sulley's quote bc i miss sulley and wally :~((( not to be fake deep but uh
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okay doing the cradle of civilization all in this post so i don’t spam y’all again
“fuck, man, eagles fly in canada too!” ray is oddly wise sometimes, this rant about slogany catchphrasey anthemy nationalism is on point
colbert. seriously. he’s mysterious.
i have to say again how bloody much i prefer title cards to opening credits
WHAT IS SHOUTING GUY’S ACCENT, DOES IT REALLY EXIST? MISTACHES? AMURIKEE?
oh my gosh i just figured out who q-tip is, no wonder people have been yelling about him so much lately, he’s a DARLING
whyyyyyyyyy does ray like avril lavigne so much?
no, is that the doc giving everyone shit literally all the time???? medics are ALWAYS SALTY, i love them all forever
jesus christ that army truck...
every time brad and nate talk business together i smile through the whole scene. i think this is a ship forming...
“hey buddy” I LOVE MEDICS, CLUTCHES CHEST
this combat is fucking terrifying, things just explode right off the landscape out of nowhere
did they just - get clearance - to kill literally anyone?
ohhhhh god this guy is gone, he’s just not even present anymore. this is always so damn sad to watch.
that little scene just made me choke up. brad’s face went through so many emotions watching him wander around with no idea what was going on.
“destroy” is an interesting euphemism for “kill��
i love this guy, who is he, i keep missing his name. the one who makes all the sociological/anthropological speeches and pees for hours at a time. he’s so great.
nooooooo does this mean less gabe? don’t do this to me :’‘‘(
why is it always the poor bastards with just enough authority and rank to be blamed but not enough to correct shitty orders that are the best people, tacticians, and soldiers?
does nate always say “i am assured of this” twice because... idek, is that sardonic because it never happens? trying to reassure them? trying to reassure himself? it’s adorable, in any case.
brad calmly telling ray to shut up every time he takes too much ripped fuel, reblog if you agree
and ray is always so delighted when brad insults him
who else is three times as tense watching urban warfare scenes as opposed to trench warfare? show of hands
what the hell, they need to get this guy off the comms, you want to talk about bad for morale. they’ll all be spiralling into panic attacks if he doesn’t shut up.
someone stop his man and his very, very small face!!!!!!
“the land between the euphrates and the tigris, the cradle of civilization.” nate, you sexy smart bastard.
brad’s going to kill ray by the end of the show isn’t he
UGH NATE IS SO GOOD I CAN’T HANDLE THIS
holy crap doc bryan is the hero of this show tho, he is the saltiest of the salty
oh my god ray is not looking good, will someone please make him sleep, that is scary
this is so tense. i can’t believe i’m hoping for some good fighting but something needs to break the tension. everywhere they go is quiet-too-quiet and full of corpses
wow. that is - some aim
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WILL SOMEONE JUST TAKE OUT THE COMMANDER EVERY HBO WAR SERIES HAS PEOPLE PLOTTING TO FRIENDLY FIRE A SHITTY OFFICER JUST DO IT THIS TIME GET IT DONE
Dear Trombley You Need To Stop You Are Not Just A Jerk You Are Scary No Love From Maddie
ray: (puts on sunglasses) BRAD! THERE ARE HOTTIES!
DON’T YOU FUCKING THROW BRAD’S TEAM UNDER THE BUS YOU GOTDAMN SON OF A BITCH I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL END YOU DO NOT THINK I WON’T END YOU
i just shouted COME ON NATE at the screen until he walked away i know he can’t do anything but man i wanted him to do something
i could kiss doc bryan every single time he speaks
i haven’t known how to feel about godfather so far but i’m starting to sour on him. he’s making tactical decisions because he’s cranky about things not going his way. and everyone smiles like that was some rousing speech FUCK EVERYONE IN CHARGE
did nate just grab brad’s shoulder and say “i’m glad you’re my team leader” because they’re about to roll into a death trap, i’m not okay
just have to mention here that i could drown in ray person’s eyes
IF THIS IS A CREEPY GHOST TOWN TOO I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I CANNOT TAKE THE ANTICIPATION I AM LOSING IT
i just screamed when they finally started firing, literally screamed. don’t make me this tense
did i say i wanted combat. i lied. stop this.
trombley looked like he saw god when he shot that guy, is he okay
jesus walt almost got decapitated by a power line
alert the press SHOUTING GUY IS NOT SHOUTING i repeat SHOUTING GUY IS NOT SHOUTING but he is still talking about grooming so take half a sip if you’ve made this a drinking game
now godfather is a warrior poet give me a break
ray has a tiny tiny lisp and it is so endearing
THAT WAS SUCH A GOOD ENDING I LOVE THIS SHOW HOLY SHIT
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LIONEL & STÉPHANE BELMONDO –YUSEF LATEEF – INFLUENCE - 2005
This double album is probably essential for the career of Lionel Belmondo, performing here with his brother Stéphane and an ad hoc group of musicians that associates the regular musicians Lionel Belmondo uses, plus his brother and some coming along with and for Yusef Lateef, a jazzman from the USA recently deceased, whose life and career span from Tennessee where he was born to Massachusetts where he died. He represents a jazz of his own that has impacted Lionel Belmondo’s work tremendously, and yet. . .
As soon as the first notes of this recording we have a tone we had not found yet in Belmondo’s music so far in our discovery. A light, florid, rich, deep, joyous and even blissfully ecstatic music that sweats and radiates some happiness, joy and not the morbid mortiferous contemplation we found so often in Lionel Belmondo’s music. But due to the dates, is this mortiferous and morbid style a later style, a style due to something Lionel Belmondo has lost? For sure this here recording is full of light and sunny rays of pleasure.
Without entering all the tracks one after the other, I would prefer giving you some impressions rather than a scholastic manual. The presentation booklet that comes along with the CDs is good enough for that and signed by Vincent Bessières who is a journalist at Jazzman, a French magazine on the subject of jazz and jazz performance. Founded in October 1992, it was merged with Jazz Magazine in September 2009 in response to the worldwide economic downturn and the general loss of revenue among music magazines. It was advertised as "the magazine for all jazz." Jazzman began as a free supplement in Le monde de la musique. It published its first independent number in March 1995. It is not clear whether the separation was a divorce or a way to expand the jazz publication by making it autonomous. The booklet is in both French and English. I have chosen to favor English.
Bessières says somewhere the musicians have chosen the blues as their style. I am not sure because for me the blues requires a voice, a singer, words to express the blues itself and the music is generally not jazzy and it is certainly most of the time particularly sad, suffering, crying and weeping, howling at times with despair. Here the music is at most hesitating between having a continuous melodic line or just impressionistic touches like in the second track: “Si tout ceci n’est qu’un pauvre rêve�� (If all this is nothing but a pitiful dream). The title by Lili Boulanger originally here arranged by Lionel Belmondo has been made luminous in its hesitation, the search of some elevation but no doubt ever, it will come from contemplating the inside dimension of this music that is never erratic but only curiously stumbling and touching around to look for a door, an uplifting golden path in the forest of some urban maddening crowd that does not madden you at all.
This recording owes a lot to Christophe Dal Sasso who gave two tracks on the first CD. He could be qualified as sad but it does not succeed and I will then consider that his half smile of half happiness is in fact the detachment of a contemplative man in front of this world. What could make his music sad makes it in fact restful and peaceful. We just let ourselves slip slowly into this music and we enjoy the rest we find there, the abandon and nonchalance that are seeping from the notes and the instruments. Are we lying on a deckchair or chaise lounge on some beach or gently rolling ship on an oily sea without any wind, apart from a light breeze that cannot even fill our sails? Just let’s look at the gulls, at the sun, at the dust dancing in the sunlight, let’s draw the curtains of our mental bedroom and let us recline in the velvety featherbed. Is there any regret at times not to be part of the game, part of that outside world of pure excellence and enjoyment without any exhilaration?
There might be a desire behind this music by Christophe Dal Sasso and his use of percussions to make rolling balls dance from right to left and then open some window to some plaintive but aerial and sky like azure flute that could be some Indian musician in the morning challenging the percussions, the drums, the whole of nature and summoning the deepest and most secret animal spirits of our world, those we never listen to and we always want to meet but without the courage to say, OK yes, let the wolves come dancing with me, let the frogs croak with me, let some other deer or bears come celebrate life with me. That’s when a more metallic sound and a humming voice appear, if it is a voice, and deeper, more somber sounds come up, rise, swell in the sky on a canapé of metal percussion, cymbals and their metallic sweeping, bells, we are confronted to the birth a world, of a mythology, of a future because any birth means a future that will drop on the side what is not important for that future like the shouts and yells of crowds. The piano brings in the responsibility of life and government. And a saxophone or clarinet or whatever brass instrument comes and amplifies that social forest of responsible enjoyment of what is to come and we call for. The bass can then temporize with that future. And something lurks out of the wings and inflates itself into some existence You are, new-born god, the master of this world and we are your servants, your believers, your powerful intercessors to life and we become the echo of your peace of divine mind and that makes us divine too. Oh! Friend of mine that moved away, that is trekking along some new territory, your voice is still reverberating in my mind and that voice is like a divine message telling me what to think. It is the few isolated notes of a bird’s call and song. And then it can become the recollection of the pleasure of loving you and the pleasure of still loving you though you are blazing some trails in some new forest and a trumpet tells me you are strong, manly, powerful and sure of yourself like some calamus growing in Walt Whitman’s pond in his contemplation of the masculine heart of the conquerors of wild territories. That music is an ode to joy and bliss and orgasmic climax, all contemplative in the mind of the beholder. To contemplate is to have. Just enjoy that contemplation that is your possession, that rich possession that makes you another person and yet the same. That’s how a friend and his love can transform your mind even in his absence because he is always there in your brain. Can’t you feel him squirming when you speak of him?
If you find Christophe Dal Sasso slightly liquorish and satiating, maybe too much, too hypnotic, just take a rest with Lionel Belmondo and his saxophone. No problem; you can go drunk on that heady music that titillates in you the dark humors that have to come out to become sunny and happy. He is the pleasure bringer, the hawker in the street that tries to hawkishly sell you the shiny trinkets you do not need and yet that will be so useful for you to dance all night as if you were happily in some luxurious and lustful reception in some palace imagined by Lestat de Lioncourt somewhere in Auvergne. Don’t let your fingers be taken up by these strings. Resist the envy and the desire to be nice with the hawker who is a predator like his name says and he will draw all he can out of you to let you go on your wooly legs totally empty of all your blood. You will sit on a public bench and you will admire your new acquisition of empty air.
And that’s when across the street on the second CD Yusef Lateef comes and transform our urban stroll into a rainforest chase for unknown species. Chattanooga, Tennessee, is the destination. Is it Chattanooga today or the Chattanooga of the times of slavery? Is it the past or the future? To ask the question is sure to never get an answer. Just enjoy the trip.
I guess Southern Comfort is next on that road to the south but definitely with an urban background from the north.
But it is a day to wake some vast ideal from morning to dusk. Iqbal dominates the whole suite and it brings together so many things, in 2005 and even more today. The great and mythic by now Sir Muhammad Iqbal, widely known as Allama Iqbal, was a poet, philosopher, and politician, as well as an academic, barrister and scholar in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. Born: November 9, 1877, Sialkot, Pakistan. Died: April 21, 1938, Lahore, Pakistan. There is in this music something that goes beyond the slowness and nonchalance of the south. There is something that enters the Muslim mind of Yusef Lateef, a Muslim mind that comes from his reference to Pakistan, an aspiration to develop, an aspiration to thrive but also a tremendous fear that behind the green canopy of the trees there may be a very aggressive and violent sky and yet let the canopy of leaves and birds in their nest lock itself up onto the shady happiness of here inside this temple and let our words open our hearts to the divine beyond this closed up cell of nature. That divine grandeur is not outside this cell; it is not outside our own minds. It is inside our minds and we have to cultivate that call, that language, our prayers, our demands, our request from God who does not have any obligation and would even consider this request as some kind of undue begging. Do we have the right to beg from God for small little advantages and presents;
We should be the ones offering and not the ones being granted any offering. And by the ones offering I feel in that music how we are supposed to let ourselves be taken and we are becoming the offering itself this music makes to the giant monsters of life. We are the offering on the altar, on the pyre assembled for the sacrifice, we are the ones open, entirely open and receptive to the blade of the knife that makes us the redeeming sacrifice music brings up to the world to salvage this humanity. This jazz is an expiating sacrifice to save the world from its evilness, its monstrosity, its hawkish carrion eating raptors that are soaring and circling high in the sky over us, their preys. But strangely enough Yusef Lateef tries to convince us there is nothing to be afraid of and we can just sit back and lie low and enjoy the orgasmic communion with nature and with the duration of things and the cosmos, of the whole universe. That music is so pacifying, so smoothly caressing that we may forget the world outside is not that nice after all. And Allama Iqbal becomes an Iqbal sports champion, or an Iqmal child overworked and exploited by some wild capitalism in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan. There are so many Iqbal in this world.
But if we come down from this vision we come to some may fest on the village green, with pipes and some dancing elves. The world is so beautiful when we look at it with the eyes of someone who has satisfied his divine duties and has thus rebuilt his ability to just take the world the way it comes and enjoy it in pleasure and bliss along the dancing crowds. Don’t wonder who this Brother John is. He certainly is not Saint John and his Apocalypse; there is nothing apocalyptic in this music, nothing menacing, just multifarious and multi-voice hymns and canticles dedicated to the peace of mind you reach when you concentrate your mind on the divine. This music is so Muslim in all possible ways. There is no contradiction that is not reduced like a broken bone that heals all by itself with the bandage of belief, faith and submission to the truth of on-high, of beyond all the dangers that are not of life but of some other world that has to be forgotten and nullified.
There is nothing bluesy in this music, nothing sad, mortiferous and morbid. Why on earth has Lionel Belmondo later on developed his morbid and death-loving style? There probably is no answer to that question. But his productions of 2011 and 2012 are in complete contradiction with this radiating bright luminous maybe slightly unempathetic style. Happiness is at the bottom of the flowery meadow like in The Sound of Music. It is well known, provided the world is the microcosm of Switzerland untouched and unconcerned by the violence outside its borders. I must say I miss the drama and the tragedy of so much jazz that pushes its roots and branches into the compost of centuries of inhumane and barbaric history of slavery and exploitation. That’s maybe this contemplation of monstrosities from under the crystal dome of protected relaxation that is so common in Bordeaux and its region, in the Landes forest and on the lakes there that explains the coming together of two jazzmen who are so different.
The world is beautiful and life is marvelous. Let’s enjoy them both till we are drunk with an overdose of sugar and alcohol.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
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