“Style is originality; fashion is fascism. The two are eternally and unalterably opposed”.
While we wouldn’t put the writings of a Rock n Roll critic too much into literary context but the quote by Lester Bangs does capture, in his rock n roll perspicacity, how the profundity of style lies more in the needful expressions of personal and internalized experience, than in the mere adoption of banal trends of fashion. Not to mention, it also seems to be insightful into why he offended as many rockstars as he did!
Dervla Murphy, in 1963, packed a pistol with some equipment, got on her bicycle named ‘Roz’ (‘Rozinante’ after Don Quixote’s horse) and rode it all the way from Ireland to India. Writing about the incidences where the pistol came in handy and other accidents, like when she fractured ribs or was chased by wolves in the wilderness, in her book ‘Full Tilt’ she asserts “….However, my worst incident was tripping over cats at home and shattering my left arm”.
Robyn Davidson crossed 2700 kms of Australian deserts with four camels and a dog named ‘Diggity’, sometime in the 70’s. They made her journey into a movie sometime in the 2000s to which she said “They made that darling actress, too troubled and grumpy. There’s not enough jokes in the film. Not enough pleasure, I suppose. The film focuses on the pain – exhaustion to the point of insanity, half dead from dehydration; yes, all that happened but that journey was truly joyous”.
Merry Clayton was woken up in the middle of the night, rushed to a recording studio for ‘some people called Rolling stones’ in 1969. Merry, still in her pajamas and curlers and pregnant at the time, belted out the ferocious chorus to Gimme Shelter, made the song known by its chorus, went straight back to bed, fulfilled – ‘rest as they say is history’, is a phrase that comes up short. In 2014, Merry, in response to doctors informing her of amputation of both her legs because of an accident, started singing to reassure herself that her voice was fine. Once she did, her sister said to the crying family “Let’s get out of here. If she’s singing, she’s fine.”
In 1975, Bob Dylan bumped into a violin carrying Scarlet Rivera and invited her on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Scarlet, nicknamed Queen of Swords, painted the Excalibur and a butterfly on her face, put the Grateful Dead ‘Blues for Allah’ sticker on her violin and played over and above Dylan’s harmonica and Mick Ronson’s guitar. After the tour, she had no idea she’d be replacing Eric Clapton when she recorded Desire with Dylan.
“Hallelujah, Lester Bangs!! Rest in relative peace in Rock n Roll heaven – these Quaintrelles lived your quote in passionate style, long before you delivered!!” Only in the human willingness to accommodate, can the nonchalance of life meet its match! There’s a line in Sanskrit, about the form of Shakti, if translated without stretching the context and with bearable crudity, says, “There are no giant women; it’s only a side they sometimes choose to show”. It really makes you see the futility to use ‘ordinary’ and ‘woman’ in a sentence or otherwise.
Far from the imagery conjured up by its dictionary meaning, of its accoutrements of leisurely lifestyle and charm, lie the true verbs that describe the feminine heart of Quaintrelle. Verbs that describe a journey, not in miles and years but in accumulated inches towards understanding the needs of one’s own self. Moreover, it is easy to mistake these examples as a chosen few, with a rare trait for boldness or a lifestyle that is unconsciously but inherently expressionistic but make no mistake about it, these are just moments captured coincidently that have garnered significance in retrospect, in a lifetime of obscurity but full of equally significant and rewarding but undocumented moments. Moments that document the essence of our personalities reflecting our style, that could never be distilled into fashion; never be documented but still unthreatened by obscurity; moments of the same everyday effort, honesty and love that performed equally well in the deserts, recording studios, fan-filled auditoriums and desolate landscapes. Fulfilment finds its own personal landscape to journey and when it ‘arrives’, it comes bearing ‘style’ both inside and out of picket fences.
Fulfilment comes in many flavors but when it comes bearing relief and satisfaction, it feels more like a kindness than a reward. A more ‘everyday’ kind of kindness; not the least bit unexpected but a rarity in flavor nevertheless, because every day only alludes to its flavors. Such a fulfilment would be this Quaintrelle. Hinting, alluding at nothing; Only proclaiming, its nonchalance to roasting, the effortful delivery of chocolate, the warm fulfilling nutty aroma and the solace of its own woodiness. “Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons”, wrote Gretel Ehrlich – ‘Summered’ would indeed describe our fulfillment, (if using a noun as a conjugated verb seems forgivable) more than the brew of these Summer-China leaves. Even if tea and grammar wasn’t on her mind, experiencing the leaves like verbs changing forms, has little homes in both our cups and hearts – the smooth, easy and lingering aftertaste, that seems to have little use for grammar, confirms.
“Everybody has two lives and the second one begins when you realize, there’s just one” – we think a style is born that way.
Brewing Instructions: 3Gms for 4 mins in 180 ml at 90 Degrees Celsius.
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