3. Lean

“My criteria was to only write songs I couldn’t live without [...] It felt like a relief, like I could sleep for a whole day after I’d made a song.” 

-- Oh Land

I don't know if it counts as a trip, but Oh Land's music takes me outside myself. The transcendent  "Lean" features the Nightingale String Quartet, who provide rich and unusual diminished harmonies to Oh Land's ethereal voice. The cellist is incredible. I haven't heard that kind of control in years. Most songs I like tend to start quiet and then escalate. (The "start from nothing" melodies feel alchemical. And I need time to get used to a song.)

The swelling consists of a series of loud notes accompanied by insistent vibrato. The effect is electric. Just like Oland herself; she appears fragile but moves like current. 

The song begins with a series of resonant questions:

Did you really carry me when I was asleep
Did you try to defend me when I was weak
Did you pick me up that lonely night
when the lights died out
and it turned to the gray side 

Her uncertainty swells with the music. But these dark triads that resolve into tiny, major-key harmonic victories as she tells us to lean on her ("Now you're out on the bottomless sea/so it's time for you to lean on me") It's a moving plea -- statement -- command? given to a former protector.

Now that I'm out on the bottomless sea, whom can I lean on? Her music puts me out into the foam, but I'm okay as long as I can lean on the music.

But like her work, it's important to listen twice: once for the lyrics and the second for the weightless melody. For her, it's about the musicality; the words are just conduits for that effort.

 *

Jowigee1 via travelpod

I romanticize string quartets.

Last winter, my father and I snuck into a (free) performance by the Orion String Quartet at Mannes. We sat in the back, behind the bored women who liked to fidget with their bracelets and wrists. The sound of rocks and skin didn't stop throughout. It's odd how a performance can transform a stage, since I have performed on that same stage a dozen times as a child and as a teenager. Just being there frayed my nerves a little bit. My father put his foot down -- hard -- on mine, to stop the shaking.

He asked me what was wrong.

"I feel like I'll have to play," I said. My father rolled his eyes and told me that I was too old for others to force me to perform anything.

Oland is one of those rare artists who doesn't make me nervous. Her artistry is deceptively simple. I can ignore her effort because she doesn't display any. The Orion Quartet, too, had that quality. After the musicians ascended the stage, they tuned and contemplated the manic audience in silence.

I was only months away from my last disastrous performance on stage. Music hadn't been a soothing factor for me in a long while. My father hadn't realized this when he asked me to go with him. It was a casual invitation, but for me it was nervewracking. I only remember my hands, suspended in the air over a keyboard, blocked into an impossible Liszt finger-twister and unable to proceed.

"I don't get it," he said, finally, "I thought you liked concerts."

I decided to take notes. My notebook was there, anyway, denting my pelvis. My shaking hand grew confident the more I wrote. I can never throw myself fully into a performance. I am always distant, detached, intellectual. Always seeking meaning but never living it.

And this is what I wrote:

I don't need my program to tell me that the Orion String Quartet is "one of the most sought after ensembles in the United States". They're a bunch of investment bankers turned superheroes. The hero bursts from his suit the moment Orion takes out the Stradivariuses (:ii?) and what-have-yous.

For example: The violist's instrument is from 1560. 15-60. No, I can't believe it, either. Pieces like these belong in museums and not in the hands of mortals.

First, there's the Op 18 no 5 String Quartet by Beethoven. The third movement's an extended string of exquisiteness. Beethoven wrote fast sections and slow sections by turn, and though the movement is classified as Andante Cantibale it's rich and varied. The players themselves are outstanding. The whole quartet was a sheer pleasure both in terms of composition and performance. The Allegros, both beginning and end, bookend a neat sense of continuity.

I have to buy a recording of this and play the third movement at full volume, non-stop, until I sink into my figurative mattress of infinite softness and die a happy death.

Have you ever felt a sense of musical deja-vu? Of all composers I think I felt it just now, with Schoenberg. There is this violently atonal piece of his with piano/string quartet called 'the Kammersymphonie' . Its beginning is a jarring explosion of sound with a bizarre resolution to a sonorous major third. When that happened I knew I heard that very cloud of cacophony before. of course anything that came after it remains completely new to me. Schoenberg reminds me of my brother. The music has all the trappings of coherence; the music is emotional, with stirring legatos and an undeniable sense of virtuosic urgency. But the notes themselves! It's an exquisite madlib, a Eschereque descent into purgatory. Here the cello carries the melodic weight with the piano's capable pounding as accompaniment. The violins/viola serve to make the song sound one shallow step from the greatest freakshow ever. The 1st violin just had a sparring match with the piano. Now they're sailing a patchwork balloon into atonal heaven.

Even when the music was atonal, even abstract melodies and music that provides the illusion of harmony satisfy me. But it gets more difficult on a percussive instrument like the piano.

I put the notebook away and left feeling cleansed. I prefer to enjoy concerts rather than fearing performances.

*

Oh Land, short for Nanna Oland Fabricius, is a Danish singer/dancer and the daughter of an opera singer and an organist. Her performances are emotional, intense and almost as captivating to watch as they are to hear. Oh Land, her self-titled album, is her second studio release.

2. The Kingdom of Secaucus

flickr via badadam

On my way home from the city, I took the wrong train.

By accident, though I am the kind of person who would exchange the tree canopies and scraggy power-plant exhaust chimneys for the beach and acres of fresh wood, on purpose. After a transcendent evening with my good friend Chin, I left Wall Street at 9:10, and my subway ride just made the connecting 9:37 from Penn Station. Or so I thought.

When I raced to my track and bolted into the train, I felt triumph and a burning sensation that erupted in my throat. The pain was worth it until I realized my mistake. The helpful conductor recommended I leave at Secaucus to wait for the later train I hoped I didn't have to take.

*

The Secaucus train station is a series of four isolated platforms that rise above the Turnpike and the Meadowlands. From the Meadowlands-facing side, I can see the Empire State Building. That skyscraper is made visible by its fluorescent green crown, tall among the sea of lazy weeds. But the roar of the Turnpike below dominates the aural scene and the entire universe.

And that entire universe consists of just me and the friendly lampposts, kept yards apart. They just illuminate the emptiness. I am cold. So I take out my headphones and clamp them onto my ears. The opening sitar descent from Thunderball's Road to Benares tears through the velvety night.

*

I have an intense fear of heights. I can't stand near the edge of a balcony. When Beetle brought me to her breathtaking Herald Square terrace I fought to keep from either falling or choking on my own vomit. My fear of heights is less an objective concern than it is my self-awareness: given insufficient restraint, I would fling myself over high railings and throw my life away for the simple -- drastic -- fall.

When I was sixteen, I asked my not-as-yet boyfriend to take me to a high place. I visited his sprawling Hyderabadi house. We spoke together in an damp upstairs bedroom. He used the computer by the window while I leaned into the river of luxurious bedcovers.

And though I loved talking to him, I felt sick. When I went home I knew I'd have to face my grades. My grades weren't just bad. These were why-on-Earth-haven't-you-dropped-out-yet bad, so terrible my friends felt pity for me even when I lied about my grades to make them more palatable. I lived it, that weightlessness. I doubted myself until my mind bled. And I hated the fact that I never did homework no matter how much I tried or how diligently I reminded myself to do it.

I just wanted to step out from my conscious and live the deep beats and melodies that sang into the sky and Earth. I felt so distant from the bed, the room. Him. I wanted to reach out, mention the colossal weight on my ribs, and hope for some reassurance.

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them:

"Can we go somewhere?" I asked. "High? Far away from here?"

Before, we had been talking about the places and people in our lives. That was the worst. All I had done, had ever wanted, was to get away from most of them. My feet rested on the invisible ledge and the pristine world remained, tranquil and pleasant, waiting for me below.

He nodded, getting up from his chair. Together we went downstairs, grabbed the keys from his father. We went, along with his sister, to Birla Mandir.

Birla Mandir is a temple and one of Hyderabad's tallest structures. It took ten years to shape and carve it from powerful Rajasthani marble. Its views are stunning and offer a glimpse of both Hyderabad and Secunderabad, sprawling twin cities that squat about a gigantic manmade tank. Future Boyfriend pushed me by the small of the back up the wide stone steps while his sister lingered by the deities. She may have felt prayerful. I just yearned to savor those few seconds of charged fear and excitement between stability and the fall.

My legs hurt from the strain but I reached. I reached and saw the two cities spread below me, waiting for me to jump. I let my feet cross the impossible threshold for a second. Nothing held me back. No crushing gravitational pull. Both Future Boyfriend and his sister stood further away, watching a street procession while rapt with discussion. I could fall and they would never know.

I could be the last woman on Earth.
Its only hope.
Its only future.

A moment later, a familiar, debilitating panic clawed me away from the ledge. As I moved back I panted so hard my chest burst. I clutched myself, waiting for the others to finish watching and turn back.

Later my boyfriend told me he thought I was ill. I told him I thought I was dying.

Later he told me he understood my question. He loves high places and deceives himself less. His deepest fantasy involves being let out alone deep into the ocean, on a sailboat.

*

At Secaucus, I counduct a solo symphony. The weeds respond to every minute flick of my arms. The brash streetlights ruin every shot I try to take with my awful cellphone camera. And then I reach the end of the platform. My platform is a little longer than the other three.

Here, at the end, there remains nothing but the dark and gravel and the highway below. One misstep and I could careen onto the highway. I push my toes past the gate, as far as I dare to take them. The world is dark and quiet and I might fall.

But I don't.

The self-preserving monster pulls me back from the edge. The music stops and I remember myself. I turn off my iPod and stop the seduction. I watch the traffic beneath me in the silence while fighting the nausea. Five minutes later, the train whistle rips the fragile air.

As I get on the train, the Kingdom of Secaucus waits. We have a secret, it and I.

I close my eyes. When I open them again, I am far, far, away.

1. Ace Hotel

stephen alesch

Ace is a gift from my good friend Beetle. For a few months, she used to work for an unreal company in the city. She's made it her goal in life to find the sublime everywhere; while she was here, she dragged me along for the journey. So I offer a shining example of the sublime: a hotel lobby.

When Beetle moved from California, we decided to meet for macaroni and cheese.  This turned into a string of brilliant dates. While she lived in the city, I enjoyed a few refreshing weeks of non-loneliness. Together, we ate num pangs and investigated old Subway cars. I watched Beetle take arresting photographs of city models and fragile bridges at the Transit Museum. We poked the spines of ancient books at the Morgan Library, and allowed our hands to hover -- tentatively and nowhere near close enough to touch -- over a Degas ballerina.

Beetle's perfect. Being around her is the functional opposite of standing next to a smoker. Second-hand smoke inhalation can kill you. Beetle, on the other hand, will make you unstoppable.

She took me to Ace on our third or fourth date. Or was it our fifth? "It's this place I found? Or read something about?" Beetle thought hard, too, desperate to catch that wisp of memory.

The Ace Hotel is a stunning boutique hotel in Flatiron. I was apprehensive, but come on, it's Beetle. And maybe I forgot there's a rich, historical precedent when it comes to dicking around in hotel lobbies. I spent a lot of time in the CNN hotel lobby during my cousin's wedding, curled up with Manhattan Transfer by Dos Passos and covered in lime chiffon, trying to cool off after having marinated in the Atlanta heat. In Madras, my seven-year-old legs ran roughshod over the Park Sheraton's gilded lobby. I lost $15.60 while playing poker at the Taj Krishna in Hyderabad, and I watched a group of genteel Southern women exchange awed looks at each others' dripping diamonds in Philadelphia while I enjoyed a post-coital victory sprawl on a lobby sofa.

(The love motels don't count. Motels have roaches, ashy carpets and stiff bibles hidden in crumbling cabinetry, but no lobbies.)

The Ace is sexy. It's dark, crowded and noisy. Intimate and a little claustrophobic, like a deep kiss. It is a non-exclusive exclusive place for the young and rich, and the old and bored. My first thought was thank God places like this exist.

I fell in love with this fairytale combination of dungeon, treehouse and ship cabin. The lobby is high-ceilinged and flanked by thick columns. They've draped the American flag across the back wall. The entire space is filled with low couches with elegant, curved legs. And everything is covered in moody upholstery. The chandeliers, too, provide ambiance but fleeting light. To the left is the Breslin, the hotel restaurant.

The nice thing about Ace is that you can be a bum here and still feel sophisticated. Hanging out in this lobby is totally free. No cover charge.

When Beetle and I reached, the DJ had just begun spinning. I remember the refreshing, thumping beats that offered ambient depth but no real melody.

As we talked I sat close to Beetle so that I could hear her. Sometimes there was that awkward intersection of feet, but I liked that, being close to someone who doesn't mind if I occasionally touch them. I just liked having her around. All of this was about having a friend; someone as receptive to my secrets as I could be about hers.

Not just secrets about our lives or our boyfriends but about our sacred ideas and thoughts and dreams. About the way our souls work.

*

A few days after Beetle and I went, the New York Times covered the Ace in a full front-page splash on its Metro page. After that, I resolved not to go for a while. Too many hipsters read the Times. And visiting post-Beetle made me feel depressed.

I even resisted bringing my boyfriend. Ace is a den for the intrepid, and my boyfriend just isn't an adventurous man. Or he used to be, but he's mellowed. Maybe our previous adventuring had been a concession to my restlessness. So when I went, I went by myself.

But summer hit us with the subtlety of a gas tanker, and the world outside was luxurious. My boyfriend visited me in the city three weeks ago and it seemed right to kick back in the darkness on our last stolen day together before he had to leave the country. And again, though I love him, I realize there are some things that are pleasures sweeter in the company of friends.

After a little resistance I took him with me. He had a moment of discovery, I think.

"Didn't expect this," he said. I made him wait for twenty minutes while he settled down with his computer. I brought a hot chocolate and tart. At first we sat, stupid with the heat, and then a little horny, because we made out on the couches. We'd been relentlessly cockblocked because of visits from his family and threats from mine, so we starved for it. Nobody paid attention.

*

Now I'm alone here. I'm sitting near the door in a short, plump chair. I've tried the harder, high-backed chairs but they're not as comfortable. A dog and I have tranquil eye-conversation. (Ace is very dog-friendly).

Two smoking hot German ladies sit down in the chairs next to me. Their faces are delicate and long; one is wearing a dress made of angles and planes. Her chestnut hair is not thick but it is luscious and obeys a tuck behind the ear. She looks like Dominique Francon. And, though I have no love for Ayn Rand, I admire Dominique's physicality and brittle beauty; in my mind, I'm always trying to cast her. She smiles too much to be a Dominique, but I call her that anyway.

The other woman is a blonde. Less striking but more regular, more beach ready. Every movement and word is relaxed. Even her clothes breathe onto her skin.

I introduce myself.

Their English is a little halting, but they are competent. They ask me what I do for a living and I ask them. They are in Public Relations. They can't clarify beyond that -- they talk over one another, excited, about a man named Henry who did something in their glassy Gramercy office. I'm trying to follow the threads of their conversation, but soon they lapse into German. They're lost to me.

But before they go, Dominique Francon extends a hand for me to shake. I shake it, and she says, "We hope to see you soon".

Does it mean she'll come back to Ace? She and her fellow pair of impossible legs, laughing on the stiff-backed chairs, waiting for me?

(Sultry women waiting in a cool dungeon, sipping ice water and mochas in quick succession. I like that idea.)

edit: Beetle would say it this way: