Brothers

June 27^th is the deadline for my visa in Taiwan. But…. I have applied for a one year visa permit and have got!!! I’m now more official on the Taiwanese territory. That means a lot to me, the first I’m ever asking for a working permit in any country.

The weather is extremely hot and humid. A typhoon was supposed to hit Taiwan this week but diverted to Hong-Kong. It hope it has not caused too much damage. It’s fortunate that I spend the day in the music cave, ie. the recording studio, so I don’t have to bear this heat. In spite of my roots, I find icy cold weather easier to bear. I like to claim myself to be Scandinavian… although this extended time underground makes me look more like a zombie than a human being now. I guess my main activity when I come back to France will be to sleep and do nothing.

I have received an e-reminder from my sister-in-law-to-be for the first leg of their marriage summer tour, the civil ceremony at the city hall, that is. I will not be able to attend that nor will I be there for the bachelor party my brother’s long time friends are plotting for him. I may sound like an anti-social hermit when I confess absolutely no regret to included out of these pre-wedding games. My brother's friends have a more intimate history with my brother than I do anyway. I had a dream with my brother though. I was visiting him in his flat before he’d move out. We didn’t say much, except occasional jokes about foolish things. We were just happy to be together. I suddenly remembered the time when we were children and playing together. Those were our most precious times. Outside of school, away from the parents incessantly arguing about the war in Vietnam or the family back there. We had our own world and our games were our refuge. As we grew up, our paths separated. He had other friends and other games, I was spending more and more time in my own world. And maybe I refused the changes that brought my brother away. For now my games were solitary ones. Reading, music, dreaming, writing… I was felt guilty to betray the child I could no longer remain, in my eyes, in my parents’ eyes. I no longer knew how to be a brother. I was busy surviving. Even after years and decades, I still sense this tie  between us. It’s maybe less palpable and less immediate, but it has reappeared more strongly in the recent years, I guess, when I started to come out of my shell, and be who I am. Is he who he is? I will not try to analyse that. But I know that it will  be my best way to be a brother to him. To be me, whatever I am, and shine a little light he can see wherever we are, however distant from each other. As I would rest his head on my lap when his was sleeping in the car on our long ride home, when our parents were having the same violent and incomprehensible arguments about the war and politics; that was my little boy way to give him shelter. He was three, I was five. Did I hear his call in this dream last night? There was no one else but us. In the end, I had to leave, and the hallway to the door kindly extended itself so I could spend a little more time with him.

In this work frenzy, I have managed to compose the other movement of the wedding mass that I have named Missa Matriminoca.
I still struggle to find the right text, but I’ll send the score to Isabelle, Julia, Ulysses, Jan and Christophe. I hope three weeks is not too short for them to learn the music.

[…]

Two more weeks and I start to see people again. Lian-Yen has introduce me to Tree, a journalist friend of his who currently lives in Beijing. He’s just released a book about music, that reads like his personal interpretation of pop music genealogy. One week in Taiwan to promote it and he was flying back. We had been chatting on msn, but time passed by before I realised it. So when Lian-Yen said he would see him for a late night meal, I immediately joined in. Tree is of this rare breed of persons who are truly passionate about music without verging on the psycho-maniac, obsessive side. What a shame I cannot read a single word, but I enjoy the book all the same.
It reminds me of Studio Voice a very good Japanese magazine that is fashioned in the same way. It’s a pity he’s living so far away.