Bok's Screenshots

kreutz trailers.mov

Archipelago of Kisses

The Archipelago of Kisses

We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't
grow on trees, like in the old days. So where
does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy,
like being unleashed with a credit card
in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss.
The sloppy kiss. The peck.
The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we
shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips
taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss.
The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss.
The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad
sometimes kiss. The I know
your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get
older, kisses become scarce. You'll be driving
home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road,
with its purple thumb out. If you
were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's
red door just to see how it fits. Oh where
does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile.
Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling.
Rub two warm feelings and presto-you have a kiss.
Now what? Don't invite the kiss over
and answer the door in your underwear. It'll get suspicious
and stare at your toes. Don't water the kiss with whisky. It'll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters,
but in the morning it'll be ashamed and sneak out of
your body without saying good-bye,
and you'll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left
on the inside of your mouth. You must
nurture the kiss. Turn out the lights. Notice how it
illuminates the room. Hold it to your chest
and wonder if the sand inside hourglasses comes from a
special beach. Place it on the tongue's pillow,
then look up the first recorded kiss in an encyclopedia: beneath
a Babylonian olive tree in 1200 B.C.
But one kiss levitates above all the others. The
intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss.
The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss.
Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.

Jeffrey McDaniel

thoughts on bamboo's rendition of a carole king classic

So far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know that you're just time away

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
How I wish I could, but you're so far away

One more song about movin' along the highway
Can't say much of anything that's new
If I could only work this life out my way
I'd rather spend it bein' close to you

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know you're so far away

Travelin' around sure gets me down and lonely
Nothin' else to do but close my mind
I sure hope the road don't come to own me
But there's so many dreams I've yet to find

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
And it doesn't help to know you're so far away

-->
"so far away...doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore..."

it must be echoing some deep-set sentiment, this song. bamboo's rendition gets to me when i listen to it. some old songs have that effect. you play them and they transport you back in time when that same song had some meaning to you. i'm not sure though what meaning it had for me for that hypothetical "then".

i grew up listening to "high school life" and "don't cry for me, argentina". i listened to these songs, brimming with emotions, profound feelings that surely a four or seven year old would not have understood. yet, i recall moments when i actually shed tears listening to Sharon Cuneta wax about high school when i haven't even reached grade one!

songs follow a logic of their own. so does the heart, as Pascal reminds us. it's quite a miracle when you have lyrics that perfectly match the melody. both these elements intertwine inextricably. you forcibly take one out and the song dies.

miracles also happen when you have songs that fill the gaps in your consciousness. these gaps are often the things you haven't really figured out that much. it cries out silently. it screams mutely. only the song soothes. only the melody assures.

and you just quietly sing along...