So I've been getting the feeling lately that the academic rantings aren't going down so well, and thus, a break...
Aside from finishing that last paper, what have I been up to?
A smattering of offerings, by way of reply:
* I'm getting old. I use to bounce of walls and injure myself incessantly, and it never used to bother me. I'd be healed and up and at 'em as quick as you can say hoodjamaflip. But lately, I just don't appear to be getting on so well... Because of the four injuries sustained in the last year, I have been off all exercise besides cycling (a lifestyle necessity rather than a form of exercise, I'd argue), growing (comparatively) fat and sloth-like for the last three-and-a-half months... Now I hate a whinger as much as the next whinger, and so I'm returning to the roda da capoeira in the next two weeks... with a wrist support, an ankle support, and, yes, one for my knee. As my neighbour remarked: "You'll look like the bloody Michellin man!" Ta, lad.
* I started playing the drums when I was about twelve. I was shite at everything else, and none of it really appealed to me. So I played and began to love it: the intricacy and hypnotism of rhythms, the ambidexterity, the precision, the freedom, and in time, the emotion of off-rhythms, of 3/4s and 5/4s and those curious 7/8s, of signature changes and all sorts besides... But then I moved out of home when I went to uni, and a drumkit isn't exactly the easiest thing to move around with. So I took up hand-style drums: the djembe, the bongos, a little tabla, recently the atabaque and the stringed-percussion instrument, the berimbau... And I played with some friends in our first open-mic together... kind of accoustic/world depeche mode. Dig? Either way, fun!
* I sort of made a bit of a decision a while back that I was finally and fairly done with one-night-stands (I always think -lays is better than -stands ,though). In the interim, then, between romantic interests, my capoeira became my primary form of physical expression. When I was with my last lady, my game (capoeira is so wonderfully filled with euphemisms of playing and games) became somewhat gentler and more comfortable. And now, with neither sex, nor capoeira to vent, to express, I've been diving into cerebrality (sp?) with all my heart... But the little belly emerges and I miss the physicality. I miss the call of the berimbau, the singing, the chorus, the tales and lyrical word-play; I miss the expression of the musical battery, the bateria, the sways of the rhythms (capoeira will always contain that element of dance), the interactive intimacy of the game itself: the control, the cunning (mandinga), the inverted-honour, the trickery (malandragem) the physical performance... I miss the energy, the axe, the peculiar buzz that leaves such a high...
* And then there's mestre leopoldina. This guy is awesome. He's in his late 60s and he still plays capoeira. In his white three piece suit and hat...
... even when playing ... My new hero! One day, I shall play with him ...
INSPIRATION!
HEAR ME ROAR!!
Aside from finishing that last paper, what have I been up to?
A smattering of offerings, by way of reply:
* I'm getting old. I use to bounce of walls and injure myself incessantly, and it never used to bother me. I'd be healed and up and at 'em as quick as you can say hoodjamaflip. But lately, I just don't appear to be getting on so well... Because of the four injuries sustained in the last year, I have been off all exercise besides cycling (a lifestyle necessity rather than a form of exercise, I'd argue), growing (comparatively) fat and sloth-like for the last three-and-a-half months... Now I hate a whinger as much as the next whinger, and so I'm returning to the roda da capoeira in the next two weeks... with a wrist support, an ankle support, and, yes, one for my knee. As my neighbour remarked: "You'll look like the bloody Michellin man!" Ta, lad.
* I started playing the drums when I was about twelve. I was shite at everything else, and none of it really appealed to me. So I played and began to love it: the intricacy and hypnotism of rhythms, the ambidexterity, the precision, the freedom, and in time, the emotion of off-rhythms, of 3/4s and 5/4s and those curious 7/8s, of signature changes and all sorts besides... But then I moved out of home when I went to uni, and a drumkit isn't exactly the easiest thing to move around with. So I took up hand-style drums: the djembe, the bongos, a little tabla, recently the atabaque and the stringed-percussion instrument, the berimbau... And I played with some friends in our first open-mic together... kind of accoustic/world depeche mode. Dig? Either way, fun!
* I sort of made a bit of a decision a while back that I was finally and fairly done with one-night-stands (I always think -lays is better than -stands ,though). In the interim, then, between romantic interests, my capoeira became my primary form of physical expression. When I was with my last lady, my game (capoeira is so wonderfully filled with euphemisms of playing and games) became somewhat gentler and more comfortable. And now, with neither sex, nor capoeira to vent, to express, I've been diving into cerebrality (sp?) with all my heart... But the little belly emerges and I miss the physicality. I miss the call of the berimbau, the singing, the chorus, the tales and lyrical word-play; I miss the expression of the musical battery, the bateria, the sways of the rhythms (capoeira will always contain that element of dance), the interactive intimacy of the game itself: the control, the cunning (mandinga), the inverted-honour, the trickery (malandragem) the physical performance... I miss the energy, the axe, the peculiar buzz that leaves such a high...
* And then there's mestre leopoldina. This guy is awesome. He's in his late 60s and he still plays capoeira. In his white three piece suit and hat...
... even when playing ... My new hero! One day, I shall play with him ...
INSPIRATION!
HEAR ME ROAR!!
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
I'm afraid you'll find that my life is suddenly very dull. I'll update but I don't think it will be entertaining. Sorry.