I was recently diagnosed with Ap-pre-hen-sion: a fearful or uneasy anticipation of the future; dread. Overpowering and inescapable, this feeling took over and had to be squelched. A sympathetic friend, familiar with my bouts of hyperbolic hypochrondria, suggested a solution to or at least a diversion from my malady in the form of a music video.
With nothing to lose, I typed “Jane Zhang Dust My Shoulders Off” into the internet web browser, clicked on the YouTube video link and got lost in a quirky, breezy, visually stunning production of a new agey collaboration between the Chinese singer / songwriter Jane Zhang and American rapper and producer Timbaland.
The message of the song is simple and reassuring: Life goes on and on / I won’t cry for long / Cause I’ll still be winnin’ / When things are going wrong / I turn on my favorite song / And dust my shoulders off. What is really absorbing about this escape is the accompanying video conceived and directed by Taiwan’s Outerspace Leo. In a purely original pictorial delight, eleven famous paintings come to life, morphing from Hopper to Magritte as they meld with Escher, Seurat and Dali. In 3½ minutes, film, fine art and music converge in an uplifting dance, erasing however briefly my feelings of trepidation and anxiety.
I was then reminded of a quote from the movie “Hannah and Her Sisters” where Woody Allen says, “What if the worst is true? What if there’s no God, and you only go around once, and that’s it? Don’t you want to be a part of the experience?”
As long as singers sing and actors act and painters paint, one can find joy and goodness in a weary world. So, yeah, I do want to be a part of the experience and with a new philosophy maybe I will be okay after all.
