April 30^th, 2004

Song Playing: “Something”, The Beatles

I don’t want April to end. I saw the first Sunset of the month and now I just can’t let go. Two years ago The Poet and I had our first conversation. One year ago we quit pretending we were just friends J And two weeks ago we celebrated the anniversary of that legendary moment. It was such a beautiful day! He was so beautifully elegant on that white shirt that my nineteenth century fantasies multiplied and kept me walking on air for quite a while. After a delicious Italian dinner we had our traditional nighttime walks through the romantic city and started a competition to see who could find the highest number of spelling mistakes in posters and signs J I also convinced him to quit smoking!

Other events that drove me euphoric on April include seeing Babasónicos for the second time (we didn’t pay for this one hehe), and watching “Bowling for Columbine”. Michael Moore didn’t disappoint me one bit.

University and Music School are OK (and this is the part where I start getting nervous). Exams are approaching so I don’t really enjoy talking about this, but I’m doing well, specially at Harmony. I was competing with three other guys for the highest grade and last week they all dropped a couple of points, so I proved them women belong to a superior race J That’s how we manage to survive in an ocean of chords and major keys. But that’s just paradise compared to Socio-politics and Teaching Practice. Arghhh.

At University I’m enjoying Latin I and North-American Literature, especially the first. I thought I wouldn’t be able to digest the morphology of nouns, but here I am! Now that I passed the first obstacles, I love it. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of writing poetry in Latin. But up to now I can only compose simple sentences.

Musically, I’ve been listening to Janis Joplin a lot. And I’m still on a Babasónicos phase, of course. As for my band, enthusiasm is back for we found a drummer! It’s weird because I know the guy from Music School but we had never even talked. So it was my cousin who brought him. We are having a real good time, learning lots of new songs every week, and I think I’m starting to enjoy singing J

So that’s all I think. A wonderful month is now over.

Peace, Love & Roses,

 ~*Lucy Hari*~

March 29^th, 2004.

Song Playing: “Fan de Scorpions”, Babasónicos.

It’s almost four of an orange Autumn morning, so I don’t expect anything coherent to come out of this poor over-used brain of mine.

March has been, up to now, very intense, in a good way. It started off not too happily, as I was getting ready for my Literary Theory & Analysis final exam. But after weeks and weeks of reading hundreds of pages, I did the exam, and it went pretty well, considering I thought it was taking place on the next day! My University is one of the most prestigious institutions of Latin America, but its merit doesn’t come from its academic organization, I guess. So the hardest obstacle of my career was passed successfully, and right now I’m beginning my second year, studying North American Literature and Latin. I love both subjects and I can’t wait to read Allen Ginsberg and analyze the syntax of the ancient tongue! It could be sarcasm, but it’s not.

After doing the final exam, there was a big surprise awaiting for me: my Poet, who’s always there to support me when I’m going through a nervous breakdown, all radiant with his lovely childlike smile handed me an envelope, with two tickets to see Babasónicos in concert! By the beginning of the month I heard on the radio the advertising spot of the groovy open-air event and I was delighted with the thought of being there, to celebrate the last day of Summer with the man I love. This is the story of that day, as I told it to my friend Sheemy:

It was a wonderful day, with a limpid blue sky and the vibration of the end of the Summer in the air. Javier and I met in the beautiful city of Palermo in the first hours of the afternoon and walked to the historical scenery of my story "The Roses”. We had a picnic at the same spot we chose a year ago, a hidden little path in the middle of the elven-looking woods, but unfortunately our little feline friend, Madcap, didn't show up. After that we had to run because it was already a little too late! And what a groovy place it was! There were people sitting on the grass, under a gorgeous sunset, very 'Woodstockian', although the crowd wasn't really hippie-looking. We heard three awful electronic pop bands, and then (when we were all dying of impatience), they appeared!

Babasónicos did a tremendous performance that included most of their hit songs, and they proved that they are great live, musically, and charismatically. The singer (whom I already knew personally from a rock conference Javier and I went to last winter) was wonderful and 'energetic' lol. They did all the songs from their last album, "Infame"... except my favourite one!!! I've been obsessed with "Fan de Scorpions" for weeks and they didn't play it!! Actually the show ended up quite early, but it was really intense while it lasted. I will never forget the energy I felt floating in the air.

OK, I need to get some sleep, my eyes are flaming. Namárië!

Peace, Love & Risa,

 ~*Lucy Hari*~

February 29^th, 2004

Song Playing: “Into the West”, Annie Lennox

“The ships have come to carry you home…”. This song is just so sad. Makes me feel I’m strolling through the woods of Lothlórien. That was one of the best things of this month, reading “The Fellowship of the Ring” and being transported to the most beautiful lands imagination could ever conceive. That Tolkien really knew what I enjoy reading! J I feel his books are perfect for me –exactly the way I feel towards The Beatles, as well. So I lived February in a state of total fantasy, very connected to the trees. This also was a consequence of listening to the great Luis Alberto Spinetta and the wonderful Pescado Rabioso. I’m very interested in Surrealism, so this band was like finding gold. Sigh, Tolkien and Spinetta make the perfect combination in Summer. I always treasure lots of sweet summer memories, and this year was  delightful in that aspect. Take Saint Valentine’s Day. The Poet and I had a veggie (plums!) picnic next to a river and we had so much fun! We rolled on the grass and laughed like lunatics.

Unfortunately, a great part of the month wasn’t so dream-like, for I spent lots of hours studying for my upcoming Literary Theory & Analysis exam. I have a fifteen centimeters tall pile of texts, a novel, a short story and a bunch of poems to read and analyze, so free time has become a complete fantasy! Anyway, in ten days things will be tolkien-ish again… I hope.

When I’m done with the exam, there’s a chance that I’d be participating in the making of an album!!! A friend of my cousin Mariano’s is apparently starting this big recording project and he needs a female vocalists, so Mariano told him I’m a good mezzo soprano, and that was it! He asked me if I’m interested on joining them, and well, I might! But this is not for sure yet, so I’ll keep you informed.

Ok, there’s not much to be said now. Namárië!

Peace, Love & Ithildin,

~*Lucy Hari*~

January 26^th, 2004

Song Playing: “How to Fight Loneliness”, Wilco.

A New Year is here, and a new chapter of my exciting life has arrived! Sigh, I wished my vacations life wouldn’t slip away so quickly in such a gentle way. One day follows the other and I can’t help feeling I haven’t taken enough advantage of it. But…

I started the year in a very intense Lord of the Rings mood. Actually, the last day of 2003 I rented The Fellowship of the Ring so my Poet would see it, as he had refused to see the movies when they came out and captivated the masses. But I really wanted him to go the cinema with me, so he agreed he would see the first two. Fortunately, he liked what he saw (his favourite was the first one), and ten days later we were sitting on the finest sits of the cinema. That day was an unforgettable delightful experience, as the tension I had accumulated since I saw The Fellowship of the Ring reached climax in a fabulous way, for the movie was great! I think I must have cried during the whole last hour! When it ended I just couldn’t stop weeping like a baby. The idea that there wouldn’t be another movie next year was killing me! The whole cinema climate was very magical, with the beautiful “Into the West” playing on the background, and when The Poet and I started descending the stairs of the dark hall, the emotion took possession of us, and he held me and told me he means to marry me… Even when he had told me that many times, that was one of the most special moments of my whole life, and I felt the time stopped.

So January was quite ‘cinematographical’, as my father bought a DVD player, too. For weeks I was addicted to it and would stay up half a night watching movies like ‘Chicago’, ‘Girl, Interrupted’, ‘The Two Towers’ and ‘The Shining’. The audio quality is incredible, and I remember the first time I saw The Shining with the headphones on… I saw Jack Nicholson everywhere lol. I really needed a horror movie like that because lately I’ve been quite disappointed with this genre. I just don’t seem to get scared anymore lol.

But I don’t spend ALL of the day in front of a screen. I have tons of things to read –only yesterday I finished “De Sobremesa”, a novel by a Colombian author we studied at University, and now I’m reading Goethe’s “Faust”. When I’m done with it, I will probably start the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yay!

Up to now, my favourite musical discoveries of the year have been Robert Fripp (the soul of King Crimson) and Wilco. I’ve been a King Crimson fan since 2002, and to think that I actually liked the solo career of the guitarist was quite puzzling, after all the scary reviews on his music I had heard. But I loved it! And the other band surprised me through the “Girl, Interrupted” soundtrack. Very Grateful Dead-ish.

Alright, I suppose that’s enough! Shine on, people!

Peace, Love & Simbelmynës,

~*Lucy Hari*~