Fade Into You

I find it very difficult to think of someone more attractive than Hope Sandoval in this Mazzy Star video. Her body, her hair, her looks - she just screams sixties sex appeal. There is a beautiful mystery about her and the way she sings. The song is her at her best too, slow and melodic with her voice sounding sweet and childlike.

When I first searched for this video on YouTube somebody had slapped an "Adult Content" warning on it. I can see why in a funny kinda way its like musical pornography the way she sings it is just... HOT!!!

Imagine

I was just searching on the Internet, the way you do, trying to think of something trivial to blog about when I came upon this picture. Apparently, it was taken on a Beach in Durban, South Africa in 1989 at the height of South Africa's expulsion from the rest of the world due to its separatist laws.

The picture made me smile, not because I condone racism, but because it is in the past and all those troubles are behind us... or so I thought. It turns out that the United Nations holds a World Conference against Racism in Durban every year and it usually deteriorates into an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-terrorism frenzy.

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

Sometimes, very occasionally, do you ever feel fucking ashamed to be a human being?

A Thousand Kisses Deep

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat
You would have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet
My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I'd know you in my sleep
And who but you would take me in a thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened like a Lilly to the heat
You see I'm just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love his secondhand physique
With all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat
To pose all hot and high behind the veils of pure deceit
Our perfect poor aristocrat so elegant and cheap
I'm old but I'm still into that a thousand kisses deep

I'm good at love, I'm good at hate it's in between I freeze
I've been working out but it's too late, it's been too late for years
But you look good, you really do, they love you on the street
If I could move I'd kneel for you a thousand kisses deep

The Autumn moved across your lips, I got something in my eye
A light that doesn't need to live and doesn't need to die
A riddle in the book of love obscure and obsolete
'til witnessed here in time and blood a thousand kisses deep

And I'm still working with the wine still dancing cheek to cheek
The band is playing Old Lang Syne but the heart will not retreat
I jammed with Dizz, I sang with Ray, I never had their sweep
But once or twice they let me play a thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened like a Lilly to the heat
You see I'm just another snowman, standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love his secondhand physique
With all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep

But you don't need to hear me now and every word I speak
Counts against me anyhow, a thousand kisses deep

Friendships

I have a few close friends. I put these friends first and they have my loyalty, honour and sacrifice. I drop things I am doing if they ever need help. I am not put out by their requests for help, in fact, it makes me happy that they turn to me for that help.

Personally, I am a pretty self-contained person. I usually keep problems to myself and try to solve them myself. However, I am pretty sure that my friends would do the same for me, as I would do for them. On the few occasions I have needed help, my friends have rallied round and proven their friendship. Once or twice some friends have surprised me with the lengths they would go to in the name of friendship.

In this day and age where murder and serious crime seem to be an every day occurrence, we tend to keep ourselves to ourselves. We very rarely trust "non-friends". Is this any surprise?

Lately, however, I find that I am asking myself what is true friendship? Will I only find it in the real world, or will I find it in places like Facebook, Myspace, Bebo?

I have many "online" friends and recently I have been surprised by the depth of the friendships developed there. This has crept up on me unawares too. I enjoy chatting with people in cyberspace and I will admit that I have wondered where people are if I do not chat with them for a while. I worry about them, I hope for them, I share dreams with them.

The cynic in me asks; are they really who they say they are? Do they really want to chat and socialise with me or is there simply nothing on the TV. Who really gives a fuck? Do any of us really know each other from a once a week chat in cyberspace?

I understand the human race to be a social, outgoing collection of people. Sadly, because of the fears of life in the modern world we have retreated into our own little worlds. We are scared of what can happen if we befriend the wrong people in this world. So we don't befriend easily any more, and when we do we keep at arms length.

What Cyberspace has given us back is a feeling of security. We are safe to make friends within the security or our homes using social networking. We can give people our IM/Chat/Email addresses and if they turn out to be bad people it is easy to block them. Remove them from our lives with one simple click of the mouse. Maybe, just maybe, we are starting to find it safe to make friends again through social networking.

Now isn't that a scary thought?

The Price Of Experience

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street?
No, it is bought with the price of all a man has,
His house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none can come to buy,
And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun
And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.
It is an easy thing to talk of prudence to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer,
To listen to the hungry raven's cry in the wintry season
When the red blood is filled with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door,
the ox in the slaughterhouse moan;
To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;
To hear sounds of love in the thunder-storm that destroys our enemy's house;
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field,
and the sickness that cuts off his children,
While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door,
and our children bring fruits and flowers.

Then the groan and the dolour are quite forgotten,
And the slave grinding at the mill,
And the captive in chains,
And the poor in the prison,
And the soldier in the field
When the shattered bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.