Cat Power
Moon Pix

THE REVIEW

It was a beautiful day. I woke up with the riff of "Hold On" in my head and in the kitchen awaited me four slices of toast with butter/cherry jam, an orange juice, and Eleonora.
She was in a good mood. She had done the shopping early in the morning and prepared breakfast for both of us. She was patiently waiting for me, observing the main political news of a regional newspaper.
I urinated for forty-five seconds and made my triumphant entrance into the kitchen. "Didn't they put the mattress on the bed frame?", she asked with a disarming smile, pointing to some lines that ran across my face from side to side. In silence, I responded to her smile and sat in front of her. I stared at her for a good minute until she noticed me again: "Well? Have you never seen a woman reading the newspaper?". I said no, gave yet another smile, and began to have breakfast. 

Last night we made love for at least two hours, but I had never seen her before that. And, to be honest, I had never even seen two hours of love.
I asked her what time she had to go to work and if she had any, then walked towards the shower. I left the house at ten-thirty to head to the station and wait for my sister Francesca returning from a weekend in Rome. While parking, I bumped into a car but didn't give it much importance. I changed spots and headed toward the tracks. I lit a cigarette and checked the time. In the bar behind me, "Venus in Furs" was playing, and incredulously, I thought: "Could it be that bastard is dead?". 

The train arrived. Francesca saw me first and started shouting to get my attention, lost among the people. I joined her. We greeted each other and then walked towards the car. She was telling me about her mini-vacation, but I heard nothing. I was thinking about Eleonora in her last night.
Arriving at the car, Francesca, proud of herself, exclaimed "I bought you a CD!" while pulling a gift package from her bag. "Oh, come on! The latest Cat Power, right?" - "Yes!" She knew I had been searching for it without success for ages. I didn't hesitate to unwrap it and insert it into the stereo of my 128.
It went down in one gulp, dethroning the riff of "Hold On" that had been blissfully obsessing my mind.

An album like that is definitely an experience. A series of poignant examinations and melancholic praises of the dark side. Decadent and sparse auto-psychoanalytic ballads of a German-like style chase each other, perhaps finding their ray of light in the monumental "Colors and the Kids", supported solely by the silent accompaniment of a sympathetic and perfectly in tune piano with our Chan Marshall, now small, curled up in a corner, and vulnerable.
Sure, her voice and her words were bitter and painful, but in that song, the possibility, the way out, manifested. A reassuring ray of light offering escape from a place I knew too well and, despite everything, had almost become fond of. It was at that moment that the rupture occurred and it was there that I deliberately let sleep overcome me.

Now, dreaming of a significant moment of the past day, adorning it excessively and beautifying it to the delight of one's desires, is a well-known and usual thing, but the truth is that morning I woke up early, accompanied a dear friend to work, and once home, prepared breakfast by myself, like every morning. But essentially, I missed Eleonora. And there was no Eleonora. So I played the record Francesca brought me from Scotland the day before.

And it is in those days that one fully savors the bitter beauty of "Moon Pix". When you still have to wait, and cradling in your own melancholy can only make you sink upwards, because you've already hit rock bottom.