Dear Mickie,
Last night I went to see my friend Joseph Leon play a gig, in this pretty cool and strange room, in the back of a café you’d never suspect could host such a room. Delphine joined me, as did a couple of other girlfriends, and I was thinking to myself how glad I was to be going out for drinks with the girls and to hear/see some music.
Joseph was good, the man has an amazing voice and really classy lyrics, though he can’t let go of himself and I wish he’d become as convinced of his own songs as he is of his covers. Once that happens the man will be genius. He already is terribly talented, and has proven lately to be extremely funny when he relaxes a bit. He’s only started playing live, so I expect mind-blowing evolutions soon.
And then I witnessed something really wild. A stunning, the charming-anyone’s-pants-off charming kind, female singer songwriter beatbox loop inducing wildness of a performer walked up to the stage and started causing raucous mayhem. I was enthralled. Her chaos was proportionate to her talent. And thee was so much disarming love in her fuck ups, and a sadness mixed with fierce joy and massive anger. As chaos increased progressively, the audience was playfully hesitant (would she simply purely screw up her performance? Would she end in a finale filled with stupendous grace?)… I personally had decided, from the moment she walked on stage, that even though my tastes strongly define me as a very straight heterosexual, the moment had come to have a woman’s babies, straightness being totally overrated and so very 1996 and Ludo having left me for Angelina Jolie, but Brad is not my type anyway.
The best was yet to come. As this gorgeousness of a vocal wonder sank deeper and deeper into a poetic mess, her friends came to her rescue, jumped on stage, with humor, and started singing, setting up loops and beats and guitar lines and there was so much love given, to her, to themselves, that I cried. In a good way, I think. But I also think that during that whole mess and thrill, I was remembering the feeling, in waves, of what our Cosmic Joke Collective evenings used to be, of our dinners and drinks at Fez for Spottiswoode shows, of how wonderful a time we had, how insane and free-spirited I felt. I feel like your Masquerade Ball, tonight, will offer you and your guests grandiose moments of the same kind.
Anyway, long story not short, I had a unforgettable evening, had some silly man remind me how stupid people are, laughed and cried and felt inspired. The thing I can’t get over is how, in the end, someone so obviously (we’re talking right there in your freaking face obviously) talented was so incapable, all things considered, to embrace the moment, and perform. But then again, all truth be told, I thought her chaos and non-show was one of the greatest things I’d ever witnessed. Her name is Laura Lippie, I can’t figure her out, but I’ll make sure to go see her next time she plays, see if she’s still lost inside, or flaring out.
I wish you a sublime birthday, you know I’ll be thinking about you all all day, and teleporting tonight, as I fall asleep in my Paris bed wearing a pink glitter mask, and then off I’ll go, all the way to NY, to request humbly a mad boogie with you, Mickie!!!!
Love love Mad Love,
MN
Check out http://profile.myspace.com/josephleon