Month: July 2019

Coffee with Ralph: Mitski Miyawaki’s “Nobody”

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It is 9:15 PM, my room had already been submerged into darkness, and street light streamed through windows illuminating pieces of my room. Unbothered, I let the darkness take it’s placed, as my ears filled with the aromatic voice of a woman, who slowly regurgitates her solitude with satirical — perhaps even ridiculously insane — levity. As her melancholic melodies streamed through my earplugs, I felt my eyes already damp with tears. As I sat in a wooden armchair in darkness, I let my eyes soak. Somehow, her deep, husky voice turned a bitter solitude into a cup of well-aged whiskey on-a-rock.

Mitski Miyawaki throws a straight-ball at you with her courageously candid words in her song, “Nobody”, which released on June 26th, 2018. In her deep lubricious voice, she says what she means right off the bat: “My God, I’m so lonely (When you truly feel lonely, there is no beating about the bush or keeping polite etiquette) … And I don’t want your pity.”

But she also leaves room for many others to have their own interpretation. Particularly, when she sings “I’ve been big and small and big and small … and still nobody wants me,” I interpreted as how no one cares in spite of success and failure I have. In an interview with Genius on YouTube, Mitski actually explains that it is about how her body size has been changing from big to small to big and still no one wants her. She chose words that are simple but flexible to help the audience (like me) to make interpretations to incorporate her song with personal experiences.

If you read just the lyrics of “Nobody” by Mitski and imagine a rancorous 5th grader steaming about how no one would like to play with her, you can easily get a picture of someone that you would want to run away from as soon as possible. The key reason why “Nobody” is so alluring in spite of its raw message is that her voice, which is soothing, delicious, and unapologetic, compels your imaginations to take it to even a higher dimension of interpretation.

Listening to her voice, you can picture a woman (not a girl) who has matured through survivorship in life that we go through as an adult. Yet her grown voice now childishly seeks a genuine human touch — a touch that we all secretly crave, living a busy life. Listening to her sing “An I know no one will save me I just need someone to … give me one good honest kiss” — all invisible walls of secrecies and lies between strangers are gone. From a soul to soul, it’s howling for an honest human touch.

One of the reasons why “Nobody” is approachable in spite of handling a touchy subject as loneliness is because Mitski understands that the world we live in is not so kind one. Mitski explains in her interview with Genius that “pity” is an emotion you have for someone who’s lower than you. We live in a world where we look upon loneliness as a weakness. A psychological debility that needs to be fixed with therapy and whatnot. But Mitski also understands that the world does not tolerate someone who demands love too much. “Venus, the planet of love was destroyed by global warming. Did its people want too much too?” is a statement that nails in the head.

By repeating the word “nobody” over and over, she plays with her own despair of having become an unlikeable person. It feels as though you are watching a Muk-Bang, a video where you indirectly feel happy by watching someone eating a food deliciously; you feel liberated from the fear of loneliness by declaring that nobody will want you.

Mitski, with her alluring voice, simple and courageous lyrics, and gracefully crafted song that reveals her matured character invites her listeners for the journey with despair and desire for love. Her raw emotion and sophisticated exposition of meanings even help listeners relish their own loneliness with a style.

She is not a defeated — no, she is a fighter, grappling with her own desperation and loneliness with dignity and tenacity. Within gracious ups and turns of her voice, she weaves an articulate invitation to a dance party. To whom? To a society who is damn too quiet for our solitude.

 

…

Lastly, I’d like to end this commentary (haha ok) with a personal note. Listening to Mitski’s “Nobody” for the first time in that dark empty room, I realized I just met a woman who has the same soul like mine. I thanked her for her honesty, because oh, I would not have said it straight-faced to anyone. Her graciousness, her honesty, her sophistication, and her diligence in making this message pass through to the world made this song stand out among the others. I look forward to her next project and I hope to be a small droplet of rain that can flow with her own journey.

Hmm, for just those who are interested, more personal story is here. Just before I discovered (although she’s been famous since a long time ago already) Mitski’s “Nobody”, I’ve had an especially hard time at work, strained relationships with my friends and my family, and from women whom I’ve grown to like a lot. All of this happened in a single day. All meaning in life seemed to have dissipated away. Although I was still moving forward in my life, it was getting tiresome handling bitterness, loneliness, and meaninglessness.

But I was not honest with my own feelings until the night I listened to Mistki’s “Nobody”. Her song was like a lightening shock to my heart and brain, making me realize that I am actually pleading for love, attention, and acknowledgment. I am don’t know how to express this and I am not good at expressing it, and I am fearful of what others will think of me if I do so, that I just pretend that it does not matter to me at all.

The world demands me to be useful and in order to become powerful enough to stand up as a functional human being and socialize with others, I need to accomplish things. Her song was a place to acknowledge where my problems stem from and play with it. Now, I feel rather confident to face the world. I will be alive tomorrow even if the whole world does not like me. That gives me the freedom to be audacious to dream. Dream to meet someone whom I can connect with.

photo credit: YouTube via Google

Please feel free to leave a comment below for how I can improve my writing! I have just started writing blogs and I would appreciate any kind of feedback! Thank you! 🙂

Dead skins

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Having peaked the apex,
Momentum froze midair,
Not sure what to do

Meanwhile time has gone by,
Unfinished business layering up like mushrooms,
A phlegmatic gait afoul of past pristine valor

Quietly, scrub the rusts off your tool,
Fume wind into seeds of flame
Grip your hammer tighter in your palm.

It is a time for a change.
Time to evolve.

7.16.2019

City Bus

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There’s a blue sanitary glove laying on a seat inside out

All these people in this city but don’t seem to notice it

A hispanic mother checks her thick purple lipstick on her selfie as her daughter stares blankly into her doll.

A elderly white woman – a blue shirt inside and a checkered shirt on her out side – pulls out her iPhone 5 from her white polka dotted red handbag. On her left arm, she has an Apple Watch. Her right arm is ballooned like a hot dog. Perhaps it’s swellig because of blood clots in blood vessel. The thin wrinkled old lady’s body seemed to have taken a toll for all the hard work she has done to get that handbag, Apple Watch, and her iPhone.

Two black men with red caps on, one has a shirt aloha captain fin

Two college freshmen girls singing in the back seat think out loud how great they hard.

In the cacophony, we go from A to B. Er- perhaps we have not even met.

7.16.2018

Wings

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I drew a circle on the sand, over
and over again, but did not find
what I need.

One day, a thunder stroke the tree
whose shadow I cherished so much
to read my books and calm my mind.

Under the ashes of the tree, I
found an amber slowly glowing in
crimson red.

I stroke it with a hammer clenched
in my hand, flame ignited and
engulfed my whole body

Hammering it over and over again,
I made a pair of glass wings to
glide through the atmosphere.

7.14.2019

Coffee with Ralph #1: Internet

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What are we talking about today?

Walking down a beautiful road with clear blue sky overhead and summer breeze gently blowing on rich green trees, I found myself wondering in my head: is this even real?

What made you think that way?

As the internet becomes widely available in the world, more content is readily available to each person. Movies show us an alternate world that resembles so much to our physical world. Documentaries show us actual places that are somewhere on this earth. Video chatting allows us to stare at each other while talking in real-time. Sometimes even two people sitting right across from each other prefer to pay their attention to monitor screen instead of the person across from each other. With the internet, we no longer need the physical presence of other people in order to live in this world.

Why are we doing this?

The world is a lonely place (do we all agree?). Human beings are known to be socializing animals (this is scientifically proven, but I am too lazy to find an appropriate source. I apologize). We naturally feel a need to socialize with other people when we are alone. The Internet is now available to supply this need.

What is the result?

By substituting real human beings with virtual reality, we become more separated from real things.

Is this a good thing?

Perhaps, it is for some. Many people have different beliefs. Believing in what is real and what is not real has been a controversial topic, especially when it comes to religion. We read a fiction novel to imagine in our head what it is like to live in an alternative social scenario. Perhaps internet boosts empathy for some people who have difficulty seeing things from other people’s perspective.

Does it matter?

I don’t know. It will open a box to a whole lot of other questions. What is happiness? What is justice? What is real? These are subjective topics that are difficult to settle (I hope we agree on this).

What do I think about it?

I have been living in internet life for at least 10 years. My life has circulated around the function of my laptop. I lived in niches such as YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, and NPR. I think I know the stuff that I know (like Syrian crisis) because I believe what the internet content says as true. It has widened my perspective on world history, world news, and specific interest areas such as health economics.

What should we do about this?

I think it is better not to dwell so much in the fear of losing a sense of reality by the internet. It is a powerful tool that is really useful. Of course, along with many other things, over-dependency is not a good thing. However, ignoring the internet at all also will not work so well, because there are many shortcuts one can take from information available online.

 

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the comments section below! 🙂

Paper

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As if it was poked with a sharp metal stick,

My left thigh suddenly buzzed and squeezed its muscle downwards

‘Am I dreaming now?’ Is someone poking in my brain while I am asleep?

Then I began to suspect the clear blue sky, perfectly round soft-looking clouds, and pixels of green leaves flickering sunlight in a wave when the breeze passes by.

Am I awake? More grumbled I was, as I imagined all the goods that could have been deprived of me.

Then I continued reading about romans learning the new ways from the greek, and how one of the greek was so stubborn that they drove themselves to the death.

I wrote: I live, for there is a justice that I must defend. I live, for there is the ultimate truth somewhere in this world I am conscious. I live, for what I am certain I know of.

It’s another fight.

7.13.2019