There’s something about Billie Holiday that I can’t quite wrap my words around. A kind of…magnetism that’s hard to describe. The bright, sunshiny name incongruous with the dark and desolate way she lived, and died. It’s one thing to watch someone fall apart. They give you a TV show and call you a ‘star’ for it these days. But to hear it, like you do in BH’s shattered voice when she sings, is that much more emotive.

I love this picture. It makes me feel introspective, and a little sad. I always wanted a huge poster of this photograph for my bedroom wall. But my lifestyle is too transient for anything as enduring as a framed print. And my Landlord wouldn’t let me put it up anyway.

But look at her. Lost. Absorbed. Anguished. No one sings about life that way anymore – like they’ve been bruised and battered by it. Like they aren’t sure it’s worth fighting back anymore. I like my musicians bloodied and a little bit broken. Can’t relate to the shiny happy ones.

A Billie Holiday quote:

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

The Human Stain, the 2003 film I can only reference because of my ridiculous oestrogen-frenzy of a crush on Wentworth Miller in the same year, featured a line spoken by Anna Deavere Smith to her conflicted ‘son’:

“Coleman, you think like a prisoner. You’re white as snow. And you think like a slave”.

See, Billie, it’s in your head sometimes. First it drains you, then it fills you. Fills you to bursting so you have to wonder: If it lives inside me, how will I ever get away? We all know what that’s like.

Thank you for “Lady Sings the Blues”. I love that song. It’s perfect to cry along to on a Friday night. With a glass of wine in one hand and fistful of Kleenex in the other.

I like my jazz…jazzy. Three years in Shanghai and I haven’t been able to find a place that serves it like that. I’ve found belligerent jazz, pretentious jazz, uptight jazz, overcooked jazz and jazz by numbers. Last night at Brown Sugar was more of the same. Big notes punctuated with flamboyant percussion – and a complete lack of soul. Sing it like you’ve lived it, dammit.

A couple of months ago, I was writing music reviews for That’s Shanghai. I was reviewing Mariah Carey’s new album: E=MC2. Before writing mine, I read a few other reviews of the album. In one, there was a comparison between Carey’s harpy-esque screeching and Lizz Wright’s smoky contralto.

I’d never heard of Lizz Wright, up until then, so off to YouTube I went. This was the very first video I watched.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so mesmerized, soothed and seduced by a single performance. Ever. Lizz Wright, I heart you.

I have canoe-like feet. If you’ve ever tried to salsa dance with me, you know what I’m talking about. Sorry about that. This means that the closest I ever get to the near-orgasmic deliciousness of a pretty shoe is in pictures. Or on the feet of spitefully young and skinny clubbers on rainy nights out. Long story short, I don’t remember where I got this image from. If it’s yours, don’t sue. Firstly because financially, it really won’t be worth your while and secondly, because if you ask me to, I’ll take it down. *Kiss Sound*

And now onto something completely unrelated. I often think about boundaries. I am very inhibited. I’m a rules person. Boundaries are me. I am boundaries. So I often wonder about the person I would be if I completely let go of everything I had been taught about how to behave. About what is enough and what is too much. What’d happen if I just surrendered to my first impulses? Or to my strongest urges, whatever they were. Who would I be? A murderer? A nymphomaniac? A rabid gourmand? Or would I be one of these people. Disconnected, numb and insulated from humanity. Finding succor and strength in numbers.

Oh man. Those people…

Shiny new shoes, cheesecake, smoldering Irishmen.
Shiny new shoes, cheesecake, smoldering Irishmen.
Shiny new shoes ,cheesecake, smoldering Irishmen.

Don’t say I didn’t put it out there, Universe.