Erik Satie’s Gnossienne: №1
a short piece on divine music
Do yourself a favor and listen to Satie. He will transport you. When I put him on, I cannot focus on anything else, he overwhelms me and takes me to a different era, to a life I have never known.
It’s like Paris, but I can’t be sure. I wear a hat, and brownish clothes so maybe post-WW2 era…around 1945? The streets are wet from the rain that has just stopped but it’s not cold. Maybe it’s April or October…
I walk fast but I’m calm. I can feel my vigorous walk not because of urgency but out of a physical strength that matches the era. Fewer hangovers, no screentime, better food, better air. The times before the end of time. Where am I going? I can’t see past my heels on the pavement and my nude stockings.
Satie died in 1925. He was a heavy drinker and eventually got liver cirrhosis at the age of 59. He partied to death. Of course, back then parties in Paris were part of the world heritage-only they didn't know it. When Satie wrote a ballet piece, Picasso did the costumes, and Massine choreographed…almost a show-off line-up but back then it was just a local composer who didn’t think too much of himself with a bunch of ex-pats he knew from the bar…
Here I am again, walking down Les Halles in my slender 1940s body. I think I might sit at a café, have a pastis, and smoke a few Gauloises Blondes while watching the wet streets of a time I will never know, yet know all too well.
Je suis heureuse ici et je souhaite y rester…dans mes rêves
