daemoniumexmachina (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
daemoniumexmachina) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-03-24 05:28 pm
daemoniumexmachina) wrote in ph_logs2024-03-24 05:28 pm
March Sadness
Who: Efrain, the Prince of Sorrow's Song, and you!
What: Sadboy open mic night
When: March 24th
Where: Empty Pockets
Warning(s): I'm not sure how to describe it other than it's a huge bummer.
-Lover, come to the kitchen floor; the tiles are cold and so am I-
In late March, posters begin cropping up around town and on the bulletin board. They are beautifully made, on gray paper with swooping white letters, advertising a "Sing Your Heart Out" event at the Empty Pockets Performance Bar.
The bar in question, seated in a cozy location in Downtown Hollow, is well known for hosting musical, theatrical, and poetic talent of all sorts on its stage. Many of them are planned, but "open stage nights" are fairly common as well. So when the posters begin appearing, advertising an opportunity for residents to come and showcase or simply enjoy emotionally vulnerable music and poetry as a community bonding exercise, it comes as no particular surprise. The staff aren't sure who planned it, nor were they informed it would be occurring, but hey. It's an opportunity for them to sell more drinks. They don't intend to look a gift horse in the mouth.
And so it is that on the evening of March 24th, performing arts lovers of Pumpkin Hollow come to Empty Pockets to move or be moved by songs and sonnets that tug upon the heartstrings. It's a quirky event, and strange that it'd be so popular. Were this many people looking for an emotional outlet by happenstance? Or did those with sorrow in their hearts feel called by some unheard song?
Empty Pockets is a dimly lit space, intimate and close. A carved wooden bar, polished with care, features a winding piece of wall art, little marble tiles in black and white, cut to look like piano keys, sprawling in a flowing trail along the well-stocked backbar. Cormac Bowen, of Cormac and the Banshees, can be seen chatting excitedly before his act, banjo strapped to his back as he downs a pint and jokes with anyone he talks to. Before too long, he and the aforementioned "banshees" ascend the stage, happy to be the opening act as they play some of their more emotionally stirring pieces.
Get comfortable. Grab a drink. Enjoy the scene. It won't be peaceful for long.
-I can feel your sorrow pouring out of your skin; and I don't want to be alone-
Not long after Cormac and the Banshees excuse themselves from the stage, the bar becomes... strangely quieter. As if a shroud of grey has fallen over the crowd, hushing it by just a few decibels.
A band of strange people file onto the stage, hardly noticed by the crowd despite their unusual appearances. A starkly pale woman wearing a blindfold, dressed all in lace and gossamer finery and wearing a halo-like crown over her veil. A grey-skinned man whose mouth and chest are fitted with shiny brass piping, which looks terribly painful. And lastly, a shrouded figure with four arms, carrying a massive stringed instrument decorated with skulls. The group does not introduce themselves, or even announce the start of their act, they simply begin to play.
First, the man with the heart of brass begins to sing a low note, which presses air through all the pipes to sound like a harmonization between a hurdy gurdy, an organ, and a tuba. The shrouded figure takes a bow to his strange instrument, which creates a unique and eerie sound that blends the deep, rich tones of a bass with the sliding, mysterious notes of a dilruba or sitar. And at last, the woman begins to sing, her haunting voice climbing and descending through numerous octaves with unrivalled skill, her Latin lyrics telling a tale that cannot be understood, but felt.
It is the most beautiful music you have ever heard. You are immediately filled with the urge to weep, your heart breaking for a memory you can't quite reach, a life you never lived, a moment you forgot, a loved one whose face you can no longer picture. The pain overwhelms you. The desire to wrench your heart from your chest simply to get it to stop aching, because the pain of its severance would be tame compared to the emotional torment you suffer, becomes very real in your mind. And then the song ends, and more painful than the sound of the song is its loss.
You must find a way to release it.
-So take from me, what you want, what you need-
Efrain and his band vacate the stage, leaving it opened. It calls to you, even if it hadn't before, though you very well may have come here with a song in mind. However, now releasing your pain into the room feels imperative, like there's something rotting you from the inside if you don't. Or you can simply opt to turn to the person next to you and spill your pain to the nearest person. The idea of leaving simply... doesn't occur to you. As if this is all that matters.
Efrain himself sits in the corner. He reaches out a hand to you. "You poor, miserable soul," he croons, his voice soft and breathy but somehow still crisp and clear. He beckons you near. "Come to me. Sing your song of pain. And I will give you what you need."
What: Sadboy open mic night
When: March 24th
Where: Empty Pockets
Warning(s): I'm not sure how to describe it other than it's a huge bummer.
-Lover, come to the kitchen floor; the tiles are cold and so am I-
In late March, posters begin cropping up around town and on the bulletin board. They are beautifully made, on gray paper with swooping white letters, advertising a "Sing Your Heart Out" event at the Empty Pockets Performance Bar.
The bar in question, seated in a cozy location in Downtown Hollow, is well known for hosting musical, theatrical, and poetic talent of all sorts on its stage. Many of them are planned, but "open stage nights" are fairly common as well. So when the posters begin appearing, advertising an opportunity for residents to come and showcase or simply enjoy emotionally vulnerable music and poetry as a community bonding exercise, it comes as no particular surprise. The staff aren't sure who planned it, nor were they informed it would be occurring, but hey. It's an opportunity for them to sell more drinks. They don't intend to look a gift horse in the mouth.
And so it is that on the evening of March 24th, performing arts lovers of Pumpkin Hollow come to Empty Pockets to move or be moved by songs and sonnets that tug upon the heartstrings. It's a quirky event, and strange that it'd be so popular. Were this many people looking for an emotional outlet by happenstance? Or did those with sorrow in their hearts feel called by some unheard song?
Empty Pockets is a dimly lit space, intimate and close. A carved wooden bar, polished with care, features a winding piece of wall art, little marble tiles in black and white, cut to look like piano keys, sprawling in a flowing trail along the well-stocked backbar. Cormac Bowen, of Cormac and the Banshees, can be seen chatting excitedly before his act, banjo strapped to his back as he downs a pint and jokes with anyone he talks to. Before too long, he and the aforementioned "banshees" ascend the stage, happy to be the opening act as they play some of their more emotionally stirring pieces.
Get comfortable. Grab a drink. Enjoy the scene. It won't be peaceful for long.
-I can feel your sorrow pouring out of your skin; and I don't want to be alone-
Not long after Cormac and the Banshees excuse themselves from the stage, the bar becomes... strangely quieter. As if a shroud of grey has fallen over the crowd, hushing it by just a few decibels.
A band of strange people file onto the stage, hardly noticed by the crowd despite their unusual appearances. A starkly pale woman wearing a blindfold, dressed all in lace and gossamer finery and wearing a halo-like crown over her veil. A grey-skinned man whose mouth and chest are fitted with shiny brass piping, which looks terribly painful. And lastly, a shrouded figure with four arms, carrying a massive stringed instrument decorated with skulls. The group does not introduce themselves, or even announce the start of their act, they simply begin to play.
First, the man with the heart of brass begins to sing a low note, which presses air through all the pipes to sound like a harmonization between a hurdy gurdy, an organ, and a tuba. The shrouded figure takes a bow to his strange instrument, which creates a unique and eerie sound that blends the deep, rich tones of a bass with the sliding, mysterious notes of a dilruba or sitar. And at last, the woman begins to sing, her haunting voice climbing and descending through numerous octaves with unrivalled skill, her Latin lyrics telling a tale that cannot be understood, but felt.
It is the most beautiful music you have ever heard. You are immediately filled with the urge to weep, your heart breaking for a memory you can't quite reach, a life you never lived, a moment you forgot, a loved one whose face you can no longer picture. The pain overwhelms you. The desire to wrench your heart from your chest simply to get it to stop aching, because the pain of its severance would be tame compared to the emotional torment you suffer, becomes very real in your mind. And then the song ends, and more painful than the sound of the song is its loss.
You must find a way to release it.
-So take from me, what you want, what you need-
Efrain and his band vacate the stage, leaving it opened. It calls to you, even if it hadn't before, though you very well may have come here with a song in mind. However, now releasing your pain into the room feels imperative, like there's something rotting you from the inside if you don't. Or you can simply opt to turn to the person next to you and spill your pain to the nearest person. The idea of leaving simply... doesn't occur to you. As if this is all that matters.
Efrain himself sits in the corner. He reaches out a hand to you. "You poor, miserable soul," he croons, his voice soft and breathy but somehow still crisp and clear. He beckons you near. "Come to me. Sing your song of pain. And I will give you what you need."
no subject
"D'you want to tell me about it?"
no subject
"I suppose, yes," Anzu says. He sighs deeply, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "But I think we ought to sit down, nu? It'll take a while. Or at least, ah. It'll take long enough for me to wish we were sitting down."
He nods towards the nearest seating; as the two of them make their way over, he continues, "I suppose thou heard'st of the Pale of Settlement? Thou must have, if thou know'st Vilna."
He raises both eyebrows at Zivia. He's expecting she knows well what he's talking about.
no subject
cw: 19th century antisemitism & related flavours
Anzu sighs, and hides his face in his hands.
“When I was apprenticed to a doctor, when, ah. When my sister and I were apprenticed, medical necromancy was one of the few professions still open. But soon after our mentors deemed us ready to assist them as colleagues and not as students … nu, well. The Tzar passed an edict. Another bloody quota, now extending to civil servants and skilled trades, and ah … doctors in the bargain, too.”
His voice shakes, just a little, but he presses on, “we had skirted by on merely neglecting to specify, see’st thou? And we stayed by Svet-Dmitrin then, where we worked for one of the boyar houses. Bastards paid well enough that we could afford to treat the poor for free. My sister and I, half the week we spent in the Talons Ghetto. And then—”
He takes his hands away from his face and looks past Zivia, his face stony. “It was a matter of keeping our licenses, of livelihood and the lives of our patients … we did what many have done, and acted as if we’d turned away. Not a year later came the Court appointment, for our mentors and for us.”
He sighs, deeply.
“We had fooled nobody,” he says, his voice a colourless monotone. “They all knew our conversions were a legal fiction. I had not dared to keep our traditions even in secret, except …” he bites his lip. “It’s such a small thing, nu? But all those years at court, I recited the Shma from memory, dawn and nightfall. Some days, all I had time for was the first two lines. But, nu—“
He cuts off, and looks into the distance again, unable to bring himself to say anything more.
no subject
Nothing about his story (well, nothing except the necromancy part) is entirely new to her; a matter of history, as she said. But it may be the first time she's met someone who went through it himself, someone for whom the choice wasn't hypothetical.
"Such a small thing," she murmurs. "Such a heavy thing, to carry alone."
he means Rebbe Nakhman of Breslov, btw
Anzu looks up at her, his eyes shining with tears.
"I was lucky enough to be able to leave," he says, hoarsely. "Eventually, by the grace of HaShem. But such things ... they do cling. They haunt the halls of my memory still, as mine husband might put it."
He looks down again, clenches his hands. Tries to compose himself.
"As mine husband's Rebbe of blessed memory observed, the Exodus occurs in every one, in every generation. But ah. It follows that so does exile. Sometimes ... sometimes, in dreams, I walk the corridors of the Winter Palace. And I hear the Tzar Aleksey II talking to his councillors, and I know that I am already fifty-five, and that no Redeemer is coming to Tzion, and no one shall return out of Bovel."
He sighs, deeply.
"I mind not the waking up, nu? But I wish I were not still afraid that inner emigration shall take me again."
no subject
His sigh pushes a similarly deep breath out of her, a falling note.
"I don't know how to comfort you," she says, very quietly. "I'm sorry. But you're not alone here."
If it were a woman she was speaking to, she could offer to take her hand. As things stand, all she can offer him is her presence.
no subject
Anzu shakes his head, and wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing his eyeliner. But when he looks Zivia squarely in the eye (a rare occurrence for him), his gaze is steady, if still morose.
"I beg thy pardon, darling," he says. "I know not what comes over me, when I recall these things. But, ah. Thou'rt right. Thou art here, and so's mine Ari'el. I have been in worse places, among much worse people. This, too, is a season that shall turn, and pass on."