Dusk at Shoreline Park

There's something that's ephemeral and yet so very constant about the park in the evening. As I step into the park, I feel the air on my face - a bit heavy, weighed down by the day's doings and the bird cries. There are still a few families out, playing catch with the kids, I see that by the cars in the lot, but its hard to hear them through the birds. A few intrepid cyclists are still out, whirring and clicking their way through the thickening shadows, threading nimbly between the last-chance joggers of the day.

I can see that most of the birds are heading to roost, and there's a dark patch on the water, it's the ducks huddled together - keeping each other company through the night, I guess. A girl's voice calling out a boy's name, probably his sister, reminding him its time to go home. A bicycle left on its side, the front wheel clicking slowly. As I walk over a small hill, and round the corner to the edge of the lake I see a bunch of kids, talking in quiet voices. The sounds fade away as I step through a clump of trees, and past some bushes. There's sudden movement, a hare breaks out and runs for it. In the failing light, I can still see upright brown ears with black tips bobbing into the distance. I pause, watching it go - so purposeful, so driven by animal instinct.

There is a certain rightness about all this, it seems like the essence of life itself, simplified, purified and concentrated - it seems to me that as long as there is this park and the birds, the ducks, the hare and the kids, it's all going to be all right.

On War

Every now and then, on NPR I tune in and the announcer says that they are going to remember the war dead (in the ongoing conflict at Iraq). There is a remembrance in silence for two minutes, with some gentle music playing in the background. I am struck by the essential similarity across rituals honoring the war dead across the world, and the commonality of the underlying emotions. It doesn't seem matter what one's ideological position is, the repeated loss of life on both sides in this and other conflicts around the world (Darfur, for instance) are the saddest happenings in these early years of the 21st century, sadder still because despite all the progress and advancement around us, war continues.

War has been with us in so many forms, over so many years, and has been written about by many. For me, one of the simplest, purest expressions of the pain and loss associated with war has been a poem by A E Housman, that was written following the Great War, i.e. the First World War. I ran into it by chance, in an anthology published in 1964. The book was being sold secondhand, at a roadside bookstall, for Rs.40 or less than one dollar.

Perhaps it would be good if every states-person, every politician, every person with influence over decisions of the state, and every citizen of every country memorizes and reflects on these words as much as we all memorize national anthems, songs and pledges of all sorts.

Here it is then, once again:

Here Dead We Lie (A E Housman)

Here dead we lie because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.

---
From Up The Line To Death: The War Poets 1914-1918

Gomez rocks!

Cool sound! What more can I say? Recently discovered, and found their music to be interestingly textured, capable of standing up to more than two listenings, good on for the iPod and better on a real hi-fi system.

Besides, here's a bit of trivia - the band played their first gig together in late 1996 in Leeds without a formal name. The band left a sign out for a friend of theirs whose surname was Gomez to indicate that it was the site of their first gig. People saw the sign and assumed that the band's name was Gomez - the name stuck.

How can one not like that, eclectic-sounding music and that low-key approach...please go listen to Gomez if you haven't already. It'll make you smile, without drugs - I promise!

http://www.gomeztheband.com/