Some days are impossible to summarize as they tend to exist more as an extended feeling rather then as a discrete series of events. Like those movies that have so much going on in them, but if you tried to tell the plot to your friend it sounds like a hopelessly garbed mess. Its due to the nuances you see in your own mirage of the day; the clipped sentences of those passing by on the street, the character around someones eyes, the delicateness in the way someone puts on their shoes.
So the facts of today are meaningless, a series of appointments that you read over someones shoulder in their daybook, but Ill make a try to share a bit of the tone.
Oddly enough it was Sunday and the best part of the day was going to Church.
You have good reason to be taken aback, as Im a decadent and far from religious man in terms of Catholicism, but nonetheless in the early evening I found myself at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Old Montreal.
This building is a marvel, I first saw photos of it in an art history class on Christian architecture, the professor was a young Communist and accomplished slam poet who was originally from Montreal, and it was one of his favorite places in the city.
The reason I was there was a complimentary concert on the pipe organ, featuring classical compositions by the like of Bach and Messaien.
When you enter the building youre immediately struck by the dcor in a purely materialistic sense everything is stylized, busy, like a giant architectural messy room, messy, but ordered. At first I was noticing features the clerestory, the beautiful barrel vaulted ceiling, the lavish carved spiral staircases, the candles, the gold stars and fleur-de-lis painted gold on a deep blue background on the ceiling reminded me of the colors of the Blue Koran. But there was so much going on the immediacy of the building was as an object, like a vast implicate order.
I settled in, unlike most religious spaces the pews were remarkably comfortable.
This terrific sound was coming from this massive unseen pipe organ, the air was in a tremor and the sense of acoustic resonance throughout the space and my body was palpable. I began to entrain with the music and the space, slow time down to move along with the centuries, breathe at the speed that trees grow. I could see each note rise and fall, could feel the soundwaves around me, and it was like watching a waterfall, I began to slip into a state of synthenesia and different inputs were swirling around into different forms.
I was quite calm, incredibly relaxed, but in no way tired, I was quite aware and my ability to concentrate was intense much like a lucid dream one might have, and all my senses were coming together like the head on a pin.
Then something truly remarkable happened.
All of these inputs the notes from the pipe organ, the soft wood of the pew, the splendid dcor of the cathedral, this peaceful sense of calmness and timeless, the immense totality of sensation all did a big crunch, except instead of a point infinitely small and infinitely dense they coalesced into a womans face.
In my minds eye my palm was on the womans face, but it was like looking at a picture, instead of being there in person. I could see her eyes gleaming like wine-soaked jewels, and her skin was smooth and fine as Chinese porcelin. We kissed.
The thought then came to me that we can experience anything in the world this way, with a kind of all-encompassing chasmic (sp.) and thunderous depth, but that most importantly its what we should see when we turn over in bed and see our lovers face all the world the basilica, the wood, the rich colours, the music, all this you should be able to see in their face. And if youre not seeing that youre just watching a 3D movie without the proper green and red glasses and your life is passing you by like the blur through a train window.
Later on I had amazing handmade ice cream in Carre St. Louis, double scoop of chocolate in a sugar cone and then went to see Me, You, and Everyone We Know. An excellent film and one that just seemed the perfect confirmation & denouement to the rest of my day.
So the facts of today are meaningless, a series of appointments that you read over someones shoulder in their daybook, but Ill make a try to share a bit of the tone.
Oddly enough it was Sunday and the best part of the day was going to Church.
You have good reason to be taken aback, as Im a decadent and far from religious man in terms of Catholicism, but nonetheless in the early evening I found myself at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Old Montreal.
This building is a marvel, I first saw photos of it in an art history class on Christian architecture, the professor was a young Communist and accomplished slam poet who was originally from Montreal, and it was one of his favorite places in the city.
The reason I was there was a complimentary concert on the pipe organ, featuring classical compositions by the like of Bach and Messaien.
When you enter the building youre immediately struck by the dcor in a purely materialistic sense everything is stylized, busy, like a giant architectural messy room, messy, but ordered. At first I was noticing features the clerestory, the beautiful barrel vaulted ceiling, the lavish carved spiral staircases, the candles, the gold stars and fleur-de-lis painted gold on a deep blue background on the ceiling reminded me of the colors of the Blue Koran. But there was so much going on the immediacy of the building was as an object, like a vast implicate order.
I settled in, unlike most religious spaces the pews were remarkably comfortable.
This terrific sound was coming from this massive unseen pipe organ, the air was in a tremor and the sense of acoustic resonance throughout the space and my body was palpable. I began to entrain with the music and the space, slow time down to move along with the centuries, breathe at the speed that trees grow. I could see each note rise and fall, could feel the soundwaves around me, and it was like watching a waterfall, I began to slip into a state of synthenesia and different inputs were swirling around into different forms.
I was quite calm, incredibly relaxed, but in no way tired, I was quite aware and my ability to concentrate was intense much like a lucid dream one might have, and all my senses were coming together like the head on a pin.
Then something truly remarkable happened.
All of these inputs the notes from the pipe organ, the soft wood of the pew, the splendid dcor of the cathedral, this peaceful sense of calmness and timeless, the immense totality of sensation all did a big crunch, except instead of a point infinitely small and infinitely dense they coalesced into a womans face.
In my minds eye my palm was on the womans face, but it was like looking at a picture, instead of being there in person. I could see her eyes gleaming like wine-soaked jewels, and her skin was smooth and fine as Chinese porcelin. We kissed.
The thought then came to me that we can experience anything in the world this way, with a kind of all-encompassing chasmic (sp.) and thunderous depth, but that most importantly its what we should see when we turn over in bed and see our lovers face all the world the basilica, the wood, the rich colours, the music, all this you should be able to see in their face. And if youre not seeing that youre just watching a 3D movie without the proper green and red glasses and your life is passing you by like the blur through a train window.
Later on I had amazing handmade ice cream in Carre St. Louis, double scoop of chocolate in a sugar cone and then went to see Me, You, and Everyone We Know. An excellent film and one that just seemed the perfect confirmation & denouement to the rest of my day.
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you think we should make it an open invitation to montreal group?