Pedro Almadovar picks some great music to populate his movies, which I think are one large extended conversation about conversation in what is a dysotpian (i.e., nearly real) world. This being so, "Hable con Ella" (Talk To Her), in my opinion, is certainly his finest movie. And Alberto Iglesias, his composer of choice for his movies, certainly adds quite a bit to the mood of this movie that essentially is an interrogation of the nature of love. Here are some tracks from this movie:

A section of the title track Hable con Ella
Cucurrucucu Paloma
Por Toda A Minha Vida

....

I have previously written about Arvo Pärt, and my discovery of his powerful music. His music is intensely spiritual, with parallels drawn to J.S. Bach, and seems to lead the listener into a kind of silence that follows a late night rainstorm. You can listen to one of his signature albums Fratres over at Rhapsody. For a taste, these are some clips from his other important work, Tabula Rasa:

Tabula Rasa: I. Ludus - Con Moto Tabula Rasa: II. Silentium - Senza Moto

This seems to be an intro to an Arvo's concert.

There are few musicians who can't be approached, i.e., described, via words. Bob Dylan is one of them. And lord only knows how many pages have been devoted to the Man, and the music (or should we better call all of it prophesy?) he has unleashed upon the world. Besides Dylan himself has begun writing, in a superb idiosyncratic fashion, about his life in what is supposed to be many part autobiography titled "Chronicles". I have already raved about this first part of these "Chronicles", especially his love of trains.

However I was unware of Dylan's exsistance, much less his music, until I received a recieved a letter for my 22nd birthday from this girl I know (she made me turn to writing fiction, for the first tiime; this I tired by very thinly disgusing her - it turned out that her younger sister had precisely the same name as the disguise I chose for her!) with the lyrics of the following song written out. I was hunting for that letter this evening as I was feeling a bit down and out, and came up empty in the whirlwind of paper this room has become. Anyways, the more important thing is this song, and the neural operations it can perform on my soul; so here is "Forever Young":

Also this is an interesting article on photographing Dylan published in Granta.

In the last two days, I have been writing a few poems as a response to some evocative photos taken by my friend Joao on his ranch in the Brazilian country side - all of trees against the horizon as night falls.

And in this process the central question that I am grappling with is that even when paradise is so close at hand, why do the feelings of pain (both mental and physical), agnst, and loneliness persist in our lives? We possess/ or given few things (perhaps many things), and yet why are we are still unhappy?

Dante's "Inferno", in English translation, which I am reading to sleep, for the past few night, perhaps, will provide another direction to reframe such questions, as I descend with Virgil, Dante's guide, into the seven circles of Hell. But for now it is time to hit the road for the daily run - shedding salt in one fashion or the other is good, if not as tears as sweat.