Half-awake we are, in a fake empire: 7月 2007

星期五

Camera Obscura - Country Mile

來自2006年的蘇格蘭，Let's Get Out Of This Country 這張專輯的感想可以在我之前的文章找到。想起以前晚上一定要聽到這首歌的旋律才可以入睡的情形，比起現在的我反而被歌詞影響了情緒，低潮到不能夠自已。我覺得生命中總有幾個晚上是獨特的，一如往常，你交給電腦隨意挑選冰冷冷的硬碟裡面數萬首的mp3，總是會有那麼一首歌不經意地讓你聽到從耳機傳出來的特別旋律，加上幾句寫入內心深處的詞，於是你掉入情緒的無線迴圈裡面，情感放大再放大。

然後會相信這世界總是比你想像中來的巧妙。

Artist: Camera Obscura [myspace]
Title: Country Mile
Album: Let's Get Out Of This Country

Silver Birch against a Swedish sky
The singer in the band made me want to cry
We're all inside our own heads now
We are leaving new friends
leaving this town
I wish you could be here with me
I would show you off like a trophy
The road it winds, it twists, it turns, oh my stomach burns

Once again I'll be the foolish one
Thinking a blink of these lashes would make you come
Don't you worry, don't get in a state
I don't believe in true love anyway
Who's being pessimistic now
I could document this as our first, as our last row
The more you look forlorn, the more to you I warm.

I won't be seeing you for a long while
Oh I hope it's not as long as these country miles

I feel lost
I feel lost, I got lost...

P.S.希望你在美國可以過得很好，我真的很想念你...。

星期三

[+/-]

村上春樹談爵士樂以及他的小說創作

在網路上偶然看到許多人引用村上春樹在紐約時報書評版寫爵士樂對他的影響，我覺得很不賴，有段話寫的實為直入心坎裡面。如果你平時會花點時間寫上一兩篇文章、偶爾聽聽非主流音樂的人，那以下這段話你一定要看過一遍：

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more.

Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Finally comes what may be the most important thing: that high you experience upon completing a work — upon ending your “performance” and feeling you have succeeded in reaching a place that is new and meaningful.

And if all goes well, you get to share that sense of elevation with your readers (your audience). That is a marvelous culmination that can be achieved in no other way.

原文連結 (via nytimes.com)

另外他還提到他最愛的爵士鋼琴手 Thelonious Monk 所說的一段話：" It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean! " 村上春樹在寫文章時常想起這段話，並且他跟自己說：“It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” 我深表認同。