A Tribute

A couple of days ago this item  has popped up on eBay.... If I had, well, some 100K$, I would definitely buy it right now. Maybe I could offer my price, but it will surely be insufficient to satisfy the seller. Ah, come what may - since my collection is built upon different principle I should not care much about this case. I will write a Tribute page instead.

Probably, this is the one and only album that connects me to the 60-s, the blessed years of the Flower Children. Only through the music on this record I can somehow feel the essence of that unique experience of the human being's existence on this planet. All other stuff does not catch me to that extent when I could miss those years and feel myself happy at the same time. I cannot think out any other example to serve for me.

Yes, it was then, some 45 years ago, when the times were changing, and the new music created in consequences of events, reflecting all that went before and projecting the future path. A true Here-and-Now music, which turned out to be timeless and unplaced.

Oh, sorry, you might have already asked "WTF??!! Why the price for that piece of plastic and cardboard is that high?!" Well, this copy is unique not only for the VdGG, but for all kind of vinyl/music/rarity collectors: this is the UK (!!!) test pressing of the first ever record made by Van der Graaf Generator. Actually the album was then released only in the USA (this has another interesting story with curious facts involved), so only a few copies of this specific record were pressed, and few copies of this sleeve too. The artworks for the official US-release was absolutely different, with different sleeve notes, and less attractive (in my humble modern opinion). Today almost anybody has a chance to own this piece of my world. One will take it soon.... I always thought I would never see this record on public sale in my life, so to say....

It seems to me that the Flower Children used all the possibilities the Life granted them with. What has left there for us, the modern people? I would say, the union of the Music, Love, and the Spirit. So, again we have everything to start creating what will be Ours. А new era is about to start. What shall come into this Life with this era? How should we be involved into it? How should we present it through our works? All depends on us, so let's do it now!

Today I am more than happy to realize, that the very first notes of the very first track of this very first album of Van der Graaf Generator - the No.1 music for me! - were the sounds created to tie me forever with this Music, to made me feel the Spirit, and still warming that Love inside me. So I shall be keeping this Spirit up and go forward with it!


Thanks go to the friends of mine Tigran Papyan (who brought all of that stuff to our attention and still spreads the word around), Araik Adamyan (R.I.P. - for sharing his tapes with the whole community of ours), Jeff (who shared his taped copy of the Aerosol with me) and, most of them all, to my brother George, who actually brought that tape home and pressed PLAY button. He would do that sooner or later anyway....

To live in spite of.....

Darkness fetters us around. We are surrounded. What should have happened has happened. The near end does not amaze us at all. The days of Mother-Earth are numbered. Her noble Warriors fall either together or divided, and though she knows what should happen and how, when and where, she cannot share that knowledge with us. Thus, being in ignorance, we are moving towards Fatum, blindly. That is all, one might think....

But having all this in the background, each of us still has the right to have the last wish. What will it be like? Do we know what we want and what we need?

"No."

Do we feel what wee need?

"Yes." (however we mostly do not trust in that feeling).

What to do?

One option is: to stretch in bed after a restless sleep, to come to work, to stir the system up to hell, to arrange individual parts in the system, to be in two calls simultaneously, to enjoy a cup of coffee, to state authoritatively your understanding of the Future (let the people amuse), to eat, to intercommunicate through music, to make music through beer, to make a discovery, to decide for frenzy, to have more beer, to enjoy the future, to catch the stranger's look, to look at somebody with a stranger look, to sing an unfamiliar song and dance to a familiar one, to tell a story, to come down with money completely, to give yourself to Earth, to subdue the anger, to bow to the beloved one, to put yourself at the mercy of Eternity and to hope for a new day.

Mind out! one whole day postponement....

Life Milestones

Are there any absolute, common for all age milestones on our life timeline? I think many people reflect in that direction. I fell there is something of that kind, and that I have passed two of those milestones.

The First Milestone.... Although probably our first milestone was someplace there, at a very young age, but we do not realise that consciously, and infants do not need that vanity at all. OK, my first milestone is 21. When I turned 21 I felt some incredible lift-up. I thought I could do everything I would want, any kind of undertaking. I found my future wife in that age and introduced my girlfriend to my family (believe me, all of those who knew me by that time were in shock). Over the years, growing older and meeting failures I started thinking that one can achieved nothing in his life at all, if started later than when he is 21.

The Second Milestone - 40. It has been more that 6 months since I celebrated my 40th birthday, so here is what I happened to collect of what I feel.
- desire to live in an absolutely white (walls) room, with minimum of items around (a computer table with a wheeled armchair, a TV set, audio/video players, obligatory shelves for my discs), no curtains, no pictures, no chandeliers....
- my teeth somehow began causing me troubles
- I want to get rid of useless items, and have sold several discs and "The Beatles - Anthology" book already
- I get so tired quite soon
- either the lack of practice (I don't remember already when it was that I went out of our home in the evening) or anything different, but I experience problems while singing (I start feeling discomfort in my nasopharynx)
- after I come home from walking anywhere other than "to work and back" I feel very tired
- when I am sleepy (both at home and at work) I put everything aside and sleep
- my old fears became my advisers
- many of what I accepted earlier is being criticized now
- the feeling of lifelongness of punishment for my life failures much amplified, it now does not imply any hope to get some feeling of forgiveness in this life, and after - it does not troubles me somehow (there should be something that I already lost due to my failures)
- if nothing has been created by me over a day, I can feel it dying in my hands
- I decided to start blogging

There should be something more, but I do not remember now. I do not force anything to stay in my head if I do not need that.

What next?

P.S. Here is another interest: could it be that when we were infants we were shown some key images from our future, remembered them at subconscious level, and now, when we follow our life paths and check with those milestones by means of deja-vu phenomenon, we wonder "this already happened in the past!"?

Added on April 28, 2012.

Meanwhile, I keep on remembering some details.
- my already-not-such-high speed of playing strategic games became even worse
- I no longer love bright sunlight and hot days
- success and achievements in different areas do not bring me joy, but fade when Sun goes down

Full circle is about to close, and it becomes so hard living endearment-less....