Friday 28 December 2001

Pic of the day: From the inside of the CD cover of Infinity's new CD. Evidently they are becoming mythical characters, now.

Plastic love

I went to the record shop and bought the Backstreet Boys record with Drowning (in your love). Actually to me it sounds more like a religious song; certainly it is way over the top for human love. Human love, what I have seen of it, is usually sorely limited. You can't drown in those puddles of shallow need. But hey, if that is what they want, more power to them. It seems to serve its function.

Anyway, while searching for this record, I found the new CD by Infinity! Yes indeed. I used to be an eager fan. I am not so fanatical anymore. This CD is definitely a further slide down. But that is the way it usually goes, is it not? People use their best ideas first. Nothing wrong about that. Each host serves first the good wine; then when people are drunk, he serves the poorer wine. Similarly, once you have the fans in your clutches, you can churn out mediocre stuff.

Mediocre it may be, but it is still OK Scandinavian happy dance-trance music. It is less rough-edged than some of their earlier works. Birgitte dominates the vocals completely. Kjell is barely making guest appearances for most of the album. Actually I think the last few songs are among the best, and here we find the two vocalists in their familiar song dialog. Quite nice.

Oh, and the name of the album is Naked in the rain, after the first track. Given that these people do a lot of stage performance, I hope they don't take this too literally. And what's with song-girls lying naked on the floor? Another American trend that seems to have reached our gray shores. (Track 11: On my own.) I sure hope they have a good carpet at least. And I sure would not recommend it in this weather, at least unless they have electric heating in the floor like I have.

***

Recent events - which it behooves me not to speak of - have convinced me that either all or almost all humans are caught up in the attention energy dance, which James Redfield so fluently describes in his later books. Each wants the attention of the others, and preferably we want the others to see the world through our eyes rather than their own. And am I not like them, at least in writing this? Do I not do this so that you shall briefly see through my eyes? But unlike most, I derive no feedback from it, at least usually. I do not know who reads this, and only vaguely how many at any given week. Even so, it may be that it is the same stuff, only more distant, removed, indirect.

It saddens me and disturbs me that quarrel seems the normal human condition. I can see how there must be different opinions, for there is always different knowledge and different needs. But need we put others down to rise up ourselves? Do we need to blame others and lay guilt on them to remove our own? Why not just assume that others do what they think is best, even when it looks black as sin in my eyes? It may not objectively be the best thing to do; sometimes people harm themselves and others, and it would be good if that could stop. But it probably makes sense to them on some level while they do it, at least.

When people fall in love, as described in these love songs, are they just hunting for the other's energy? Certainly there must be times when new energy is poured into the system. And I fail to believe that only a few enlightened people do it all, though I am sure some are very helpful. But I believe that common people, from time to time, are able to give more than they get. That sometimes there is an interchange which ends up as more than the sum of its parts. That sometimes people can literally "make" more love than there was before.

How and why does it all change? What path does it take from the leaping, sizzling fountain of energy to the desperate fight over what crumbs are left? How did a life of sharing turn into a tennis match of guilt? I do not know; I have not been there. It is a closed book to me. Or more literally, a gap between the tracks on my CD.