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Max Richter, "The Blue Notebooks"



* Max Richter depicts vividly the swirl of memory.

Memory delineates itself around the arch of a moribund tree.
The tree, like every other, blossoms punctually every spring before the beckonings from the balmy wind.
And now it stands bowing to its fate, the glaring manifestation of its frosted branches.
One tries hopelessly to resurrect its lushness, for even a sight of a bud can set the heart to tremor.
But only a barren trunk is before him, solely and merely.

Memory, instead, chooses to journey with the river.
It meanders diligently without having the knowledge of where it starts, or its destination.
Cobblestones are deliberately placed to staunch the flow.
The fail attempt only rashes the river,
and creates bushes of overwhelmingly beautiful ripples.

The river-water with memory a puckish boy pours into his shell-shaped box.
Wobbling the box before his ears a tedious symphony of love and tears is heard.
He brings himself and the box to the river again next day.
Sail, sail, let it sail. He leaves the box and the memory to the river,
back unturned.

I have a recorder with all the pieces and patches taped.
For years the same melody drums my ears.
I appreciate my prerogative of rewindings & forwardings.
Some wielding power I have yet tried,
and deem it proper and festive today,
is to erase.

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"It's not true that I've forgotten everything, the memories are still there, hidden in the grey tangle of the brain, in the damp bed of sand deposited on the bottom of the stream of thought: assuming it's true, that is, that every grain of this mental sand preserves a moment of our lives fixed in such a way that it can never be erased yet buried under billions and billions of other grains."- Italo Calvino, The Road to San Giovanni

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