Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Tonight… There Will Be No Light


Christmas Eve in Tokyo
Is just like Valentine’s Day
Couples gather at restaurants
Overflowing with romantic ambiance
For dinner is the hallmark
Most couples, while together,
Heed their culture and discipline
And thus they keep their distance
While a metre of wooden table separates them
They behave as if thousands of kilometres apart
Except… sometimes…
A mischievous look
A playful smile
Sneaks upon their faces
So subtly
So briefly
A fleeting, naughty suggestion that later
In private
The couples will become closer
Much closer
Closer than the man draws his scarf
Around his neck as he makes his way home
(Which is not his home)
For dinner
Alone
While his love
His life
Is waiting at his real home
Thousands of kilometres away

Friday, December 6, 2013

Fades of Grey


I was listening to Haim’s “Days are Gone” and Samantha Fox’s self-titled album on the same “car trip” (i.e., “traffic jam”) the other day when a realization struck me: when did songs stop using the slow fade-out to cue the listener that they are about to end? That technique seemed to be fairly commonplace in the 1980s (with some exceptions, which are always there to test the “rule”), but not so much (if at all) today.

I’m not sure which I prefer, the slow fade or the abrupt end… whether in songs or life in general. I had personally experienced the abrupt one, and am now painfully witnessing a loved one going through a slow fade. In both cases, the ending isn’t so obvious.