“Light and dark, noise and calm, beauty, decay, pain and hope - These are the shattering contrasts that propel our lives ahead in the boundless, throbbing river of existence. None of us knows what the next moment will bring, the raptures and terrifying discoveries born with every choice. And yet, in the alternation of day and night, in the ebb and tide of the oceans, in the constant expansion and quiet contraction of our lungs in and out with each breath - We know our journey is not random chaos but a journey where every shouting supernova, every trembling cell, returns to the one perfect mystery from which we all come and go.Instead, in the rotation of the stars, planets, seasons, increase, loss, sadness, joy, struggle, surrender - There is a cosmic beauty, a unity and purpose.”
Glacies have melted to the sea (Things have gotten closer to the sun)
I wish the tide would take me over (And I’ve done things in small doses)
I’ve been down onto my knees (So don’t think that I’m pushing you away)
And you just keep on getting closer (When you’re the one that I’ve kept closest)
The streets in Barcelona are packed with people all night. Narrow back alleys in Barri Gòtic used to be streets of carpenters, pottery makers or butchers. Now it’s a mix of hip cocktail bars, the usual tourist junk shops, restaurants, cafés and clubs. The lifestyle is “staying out”, very mellow and sociable. The deeper into the back alleys you get, the longer it is between street lights. Fleeting movements in the darkness, appealing somatic looks behind pillars, in doorways, figures that disappears and becomes one with the darkness. Everything is for sale for needles in the skin and dead eyes. Many curled up with plastic bags and blankets. The body keeps warm, but the soul of the eye is frozen. The darkness lets go and the alley relinquishes onto a lit up plaza with a big fountain in the middle, restaurants and cafés around the facades. Acrobatic street performers rotates and kicks in the air at every angel. Gypsies with roses. Cleavages, high heels, hair, legs moves across the plaza. It awakens my sleepy longing for rhythm, flesh and warm throbbing blood. We make a pit stop at an absinthe bar. Ready and open for the night. We reach the club and dance and sweat with hundreds of others, floating away and are gradually released from our bodies and become one particle, one wave, one corpus and reappear behind the game, dance, disguise, mask and return with the insight of multiple faces…becomes everybody, nobody and discovers forgotten islands of thoughts where everything is returned a thousand fold in the clearest light. Rhythm, bodies, eyes.
..one of the neighbors on my floor just committed suicide. I knew he had problems, but sometimes it’s just really hard to know whether to leave the person alone or to reach out. I chose to stay out of his way. Now I feel really shit about it.
I think that the best stuff I experienced at Kulturnatten (Culture Night) 2009 in Copenhagen were the things that I accidentally stumbled upon. Like this concert on a street corner by the band La Belle Indifference, who seriously know how to throw a party with their 4bit gameboy elektro music. Kulturnatten is the only night in the year where the usually empty and dead inner city streets of Copenhagen come alive, because ordinary people come out of their apartments to experience the city in a new way. I wish there were more happenings like this in the city. The popularity of this night shows that people would like to access what the city has to offer if only it was more open. I feel that Copenhagen is in many ways a closed city. The city should offer more than clubs and restaurants at night.
