Cheers Darlin'

Last Saturday, my aunt Kat and I ventured to Washington for a concert. It was incredible. We got there early, spent the day in the city, saw the White House and the National Christmas tree, watched people on an ice skating rink (in hopes of seeing them fall), conquered the metro system, made two trips to Starbucks, and had the most genuine and deeply honest conversations I've had in a long time.

The concert was Damien Rice, and if you haven't heard him, maybe you should. The Swell Season opened for him, whose female vocalist is from the one and only Czech Republic. Sweet. When it was over, Kat and I actually didnt speak because we couldn't describe how [insert adjective here: amazing/phenomonal/breathtaking/spectacular/etc] the show was. I still get chills when I think about it. So here's my shameless endorsement for all things Damien. Just listen, and if you ever can, see him.


>the swell season



>damien

I know I've written alot on the nature of music in the past on these posts(here and here), but I cannot contain it. Theres something contagious about music that demands to be shared. There is this incomprehensible representation of emotion and life and beauty in music, a representation of something words and writing cannot give but a shadow of a glimpse of. Words, no matter how loaded or powerful or thought-provoking they are, in and of themselves, lack a certain human quality, a rhythmic art, an almost transcendental experience. No matter how much I rewrite my sentences and choose the finest words, I know they can never achieve this. They will inevitably stay on the page, maybe thrust someone into thinking a bit more about something, but they will always remain flat. Music doesn't. However, this quality lends it to be something that cannot be described or contained or bound down into these lovely little sentences with their correct grammar usage and proper choice of vocabulary. It's like when God says "My ways are so much higher than your ways," because I know true art, true beauty, comes straight from the heart of God and that we cannot even begin to fathom that. I cannot fully understand it, because its tangibility is just out of grasp. Thats the way its supposed to be. I'm done trying to explain it, because it is just becoming such a vicious circle that always ends in the fact that music skips the head, and bridges straight to the heart.

So music keeps playing and playing and moving us, raising us up in its storm. All the while, it is leaving us in awe of such a wonder, and, at least for me, in awe of a God who had the mind and heart to create such indescribable art, such beautiful beautiful rhythms.