Winter

Vorige week winterde het in onze tuin.

winter

Okkervil River, mijn redding tijdens de blok

Met ‘Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas’ is Okkervil River erin geslaagd om één van die zeldzame liedjes te maken die ik bij elke luisterbeurt beter ga vinden. Opbeurend kan ik het niet echt noemen, maar de tekst is zo treffend:

***

Home is where beds are made and butter is added to toast.
On a cold afternoon you can float room to room like a ghost.
Take the crèche out and argue about who gets to set up the kings.
And I know that it’s home because that’s where the stereo sings:
“I’ve got dreams, dreams, to remember.”
But not even home can be with you forever.

It’s Christmas-time and the plane flies me over white hills to a town in a dream,
where the sky is frozen and still,
and a room that’s not mine but it’s just like I left it before,
with the wax from the candles all dusty and locks on the door,
where I held you so tenderly,
and where in summer I opened your letter to me.

I’m standing where we knelt and a miracle mile now borders it,
but if I turn my face to the field I don’t even notice it for a second.

There’s a tangle of greenery where winter scenery ends.
And I hear that song sometimes and imagine us much more than friends,
like if we stayed in this town, bought the first house that went up on sale,
and how each Christmas-time would bring inlaws and snowdays and holiday mail.
Your dad says you’re living in Georgia since last September.

I’ve got dreams, dreams, to remember.

Oh Sara, come back to New Hampshire. We’ll stay there forever.

2008

Op persoonlijk vlak was 2008 voor mij niet veel soeps, daarom ga ik er ook niet verder over uitweiden. Op cultureel vlak daarentegen, was het een jaar om van te snoepen. Het belangrijkste is nog altijd mijn piano, de andere dingen heb ik in een lijstje gegoten:

- Ontdekkingen: Okkervil River, The National, The Divine Comedy

- Herontdekking: The Beatles

- Werchter: Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Editors, dEUS

- Concerten: Sigur Rós, Editors, Motek, Penguins Know Why

- Liedjes: Slow Show (The National), Lenders in the Temple (Conor Oberst), Pioneer to the Falls (Interpol), Our Mutual Friend (The Divine Comedy)

- Films: No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Into The Wild, Burn After Reading, Elegy, In Bruges

- Boeken: Everything is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer), Carnet de Voyage (Craig Thompson)