BLOG

04/08/2006 Music

Hurrah!

Victory for the Comic Muse album cover

There are few things that make me dance around the living room singing when I’m not already drunk, but I confess the arrival of a new Divine Comedy album is one of those things. I realise I’m a little behind, and that everyone back home is about three single releases ahead of me, but I’m surrounded by the uninitiated here in California. The album’s not even released in the USA, so last week I ordered it from a company based in Hong Kong.

So far it sounds like Neil Hannon’s most consistent piece since 1999’s Fin de Siècle but I’m only six songs in. It definitely starts strongly; I’m going to have to keep myself from singing "I don’t want to die a virgin!" in front of my staff at the cinema.

So far my favourite lyric is from Diva Lady

She’s got a famous boyfriend
They go out in style
She makes him look hetero
He helps her profile

02/08/2006 Culture

Time Trumpet

Mouse climbs out of Anna Ford's throat

The forthcoming Armando Iannucci series, Time Trumpet, looks like my kind of programme. It appears to be a nostalgia show set in 2031, in which celebrities reminisce about events like the shooting of Tony Blair, a beautiful fireworks display over Baghdad, the day Dale Winton exploded, and a home shopping channel that sells nothing but bacon.

A bit like the incontinent elephant on Blue Peter, but even more so. Golden memories!

31/07/2006 Miscellaneous

Book Challenge

From Dave’s blog (and all sorts of others before it):

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5.Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people.

I’m sitting in front of a bookcase, so about 250 are within arm’s reach. Reaching with my right arm, the closest to the tip of my middle finger is:

I enquire the way to the inn; but no one replied. I then moved forward and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me; when an ill-looking man approaching, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Come, Sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin’s, to give an account of yourself."
"Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is this not a free country?"

Frankentsein, Mary Shelley

If you don’t like that you can have:

One of the more memorable examples of such verbiage is Ansel Adams’s description of the camera as an "instrument of love and revelation" Adams also urges that we stop saying that we "take" a picture and always say we "make" one. Stieglitz’s name for the cloud studies he did in the late 1920s – "Equivalents," that is, statements of his inner feelings – is another, soberer instance of the persistent effort of photographers to feature the benevolent character of picture-taking and discount its predatory implications. What talented photographers do cannot of course be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent.

On Photography, Susan Sontag

I’m not going to tag anyone, but if this seems like a fun thing to do, please follow suit.

20/07/2006 Film

La Science des Rêves

Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane inspects his woollen horse in The Science of Sleep

It looks like we’re seriously pursuing The Science of Sleep to screen at the Varsity in late August. I love Michel Gondry’s work, so I’m really excited. Check out the trailer here.

It looks as if both a French and English-language version were shot, which is unusual, but not unprecedented. I seem to remember a lame Gerard Depardieu comedy Mon Père ce Héros / My Father the Hero being shot in two different languages. Or maybe it was dubbed and my memory is inventing things.

19/07/2006 Music

Inside

Once in a while I discover a song which sounds like the inside of my head. The latest of these discoveries is from the Talking Heads 1979 album Fear of Music. Mind sounds much like a superior version of one of the tunes that my head creates but never expresses.

01/07/2006 Footy

One petulant stamping in the sensitive bits…

…and it was all over.

There’s still something to smile about, though. I watched a couple of games last week with my German friend Daniel, who provided entertaining translations of German players’ surnames.

Mertesacker – Daniel thinks this chap is from Alsace-Lorraine, or thereabouts. In this case, the merte part of the name is from the French merde. The sacker part is essentially what it sounds like to an anglophone, that is sack or bag. Hence Shitbag, or Crapbag, whichever you prefer.

It gets better.

Schweinsteiger – Daniel thinks this is a quintessential Bavarian name. Schwein, as we all know, means pig. Steiger, as Daniel told me, means to mount. When I looked it up on Babelfish, it told me steiger=riser, but I prefer Daniel’s version. Pig mounter conjures up much more interesting images.

Well, it made me giggle.

18/06/2006 Footy

La Copa del Mundo!

The World Cup is available here, albeit early in the morning. I’ve eschewed ABC and ESPN’s coverage, though, because their commentators are both patronising and inaccurate. For example, yesterday they claimed that the USA was essentially playing the same formation as Italy, when in fact the USA were playing 4-5-1 and Italy 4-4-2.

Luckily another broadcaster is carrying the matches; the Spanish language Univision. Univision is great. I can’t understand most of what they’re saying, so even if it is as stupid as the US commentators (unlikely) I can’t tell, but best of all, when a goal is scored the commentator screams “Goooool!” for about thirty seconds. Sometimes he mixes it up and throws in a repetitive “Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!”. Most entertaining.

07/06/2006 Culture, Rights & Wrongs

Fuck me, America is weird

There has just been a tenfold increase in the fine federal government levies against broadcasters who violate “decency standards.” It used to be $32,500, now it’s $325,000, with a maximum of $3m for repeated violations.

Chris Langham as Hugh Abbot in The Thick of It

The rules do not apply to satellite TV or radio, or to cable TV (such as HBO, which makes the Sopranos). I don’t know why, but it does mean that my new favourite programme, The Thick of It, is being broadcast on BBC America (because the channel is available on digital cable and satellite only). For those who don’t know, it’s a political satire with a shitload of fucking good swearing in it. An example:

Hugh Abbot, minister of Social Affairs, has been savaged in the press by a reported call Simon Hewitt. He discusses the matter with his staff.

Hugh: So, how do we respond to this?
Terri: Right, we don’t exchange insults with bloody Simon arsepipes tittytwat.
Ollie: Is that honestly the best swearing you can come up with?
Terri: Or…
Glenn: This is a bucket of shit. If someone throws shit at us we throw shit back at them. We start a shit-fight. We throw so much shit at them that they can’t pick up shit they can’t throw shit, they can’t do shit.
Hugh: That’s top swearing, Glenn, well done.
Ollie: Watch and learn.

If only it were playing on conventional US TV, it would be the most expensive sitcom ever made.

18/05/2006 Music

John Barleycorn Must Die!

Cover art for John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic

Today I picked up the appropriate soundtrack for the fast-approaching long weekend of drinking in the Catskill mountains with Courtney’s family. John Barleycorn Must Die is an ancient song which has a number of well-established interpretations. Most obviously, though, it’s a song about barley and the drinks one can make from it – beer and whisky.

Traffic’s 1970 version is highly regarded. I think it was in an issue of Mojo that I read Steve Winwood was reincarnated was Paul Weller without actually dying. The comparison is particularly relevant when you compare John Barleycorn… to Weller’s Wildwood. There’s a similar pastoral tinge, and Weller’s instrumentation is almost a direct lift – with bluesy piano, gutsy hammond organ and fluttering flute augmenting guitar, bass and drums.

Lyrics for John Barleycorn Must Die are the other side of the link below.

Continue reading
17/05/2006 Books

First impressions of Black Swan Green

It’s very good for homesickness. I can see all the locations. I know Jason Taylor’s route to school. I remembered that he would have attended the Hill School (it’s called Upton upon Severn Comprehensive in the novel), and not Hanley Castle until he was older.

I’m amused at the way Mitchell has turned place names from the area into names of teachers: Mr Kempsey, Mrs Wyche, Mr Inkberrow. I wonder if I’ll start recognising some of the teachers? I’m also amused by the mention of “the pork scratchings factory in Upton on Severn.” I knew the manager’s son. The gossip was that he was illiterate, and his son certainly was.

I’ll post some notes on its literary qualities shortly, but right now I’m wallowing in the nostalgic smell of ashtrays in the school bus and the fear of being at the bottom of a pile-on on the playing fields.

Suddenly I’m reminded of how a friend of mine got barred from a Worcester music shop owned by one of our ex-teachers. My friend P walked in and was greeted by Mr. C with “Hello P, you’re looking fatter.” P wasn’t too impressed and responded with “Hello Mr. C, you’re looking balder.” And that was the end of that.

Back to the book…

15/05/2006 Davis, Music

Aaaah-tchooo!

There’s an awful lot of pollen in Davis. The air is disgustingly fecund right now, and my hayfever is the worst it’s ever been. Clarityn, my antihistamine of choice, is unable to stem the flow of phlegm. I can actually feel the sting of the pollen as it blows into my engorged eyeballs.

Now I have health insurance I can go to the doctor and get a prescription for something stronger then Clarityn, but it’s not at all obvious which doctors participate in my health insurance scheme. If I go to one that’s not on the list I have to pay in full for my consultation. Whatever its faults, I’ll take the NHS any day.

I’ve been spending quite a few hours lying in my darkened bedroom with wet paper towels over my eyes, which has one advantage. This enforced rest has given me time to listen to some new music.

Cover of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Remastered) by Brian Eno and David Byrne

First, there’s the fairly recent re-release of a record I first heard in Israel in 1999, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by David Byrne and Brian Eno. In the process of making the record they experimented with new ways to make music from tape loops, trying to “[find] music where music wasn’t supposed to have been,” they invented what later became known as sampling. They took snippets of from late night talk show conversations, radio evangelist sermons and arabic pop records. To create the backing for their samples they drew on an astonishing range of music including, of most interest to me right now, the work of Miles Davis and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The album they made sounded like nothing else in 1980, and it sounds unique even now. This re-release features excellent liner notes written by David Byrne that give a fascinating insight into the work without explaining it away.

The first time I heard the hysterical evangelist railing against MTV on Mylo’s Destroy Rock & Roll I thought of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Contemporary electronic musicians are still drawing from the well sunk by Eno and Byrne.

Cover art for Fab Four Suture by Stereolab

Second, I picked up Stereolab’s latest full-length CD, Fab Four Suture. It’s a collection of EPs released in the last year that you can find in the kind of bleeding edge ultra-cool record shops that don’t exist in Davis. Stylistically it’s trademark Stereolab, but I have a great appetite for complex arrangements of vintage synths, muted trumpets and jangly guitars and songs sung in French about the principles of Mutualism. There are some wonderful grooves on it, too. Particularly in the middle of Get a Shot of the Refrigerator.

I’m still getting round to devoting the right amount of time to the Cinematic Orchestra’s first album, Motion, which I downloaded from bleep.com and Belle and Sebastian’s latest, The Life Pursuit, on loan from Rev Rehash. There’s a song on it, Sukie in the Graveyard, that reminds me of Lloyd Cole & the Commotions. It’s in the vocal delivery, the hammond organ and the tone of the lyrics – so pretty much the whole song.

When I’m forced to rest my eyes I can still exercise my ears. Every cloud of powdery plant jizz has a silver lining.

27/04/2006 Davis, Film

The Varsity Story on DVD

I feel as if I was a little rushed trying to get this together two weeks after the grand opening, especially with all the hours I’ve been putting in at the coffee shop and the cinema, but on Saturday 22nd April DVDs of The Varsity Story went on sale. For $10 you get the DVD, complete with bonus materials in an attractive plastic case. That’s about five quid in real money.

In the process I’ve discovered that Apple’s iDVD program is a real pain in the arse to use if you want to do your own design rather than using the default templates. If in the future I want to produce my own DVDs, I will need serious pro-level DVD authoring software, which isn’t cheap. I also learnt that Kinko’s doesn’t configure its colour laser printers properly, and that if you want a good quality print it pays to hook your own laptop up to their printers rather than using the shoddy worn-out Dell computers they provide.

I’m fairly happy with the results. To my eye it’s not perfect, but as far as I’m concerned the project is finished.

Front cover of The Varsity Story

Back cover of The Varsity Story

It’s on sale in Davis, both at the Varsity and the Hattie Weber museum.

27/04/2006 Davis, Film

All Neon Like

Life has been hectic this past month, hence the lack of bloggage.

The neon lights of the Varsity Theatre, Davis, CA.

The big news is that the Varsity opened on Thursday 6th April to a capacity crowd, with all the usual paraphernalia. I didn’t have my camera with me, and to be honest I missed most of the fun stuff because I was busy changing into respectable clothes, but we had the Things We Like jazz trio on the roof of the box office playing to our guests as they walked up the red carpet and the Mad Cow String Band on stage.

Sinisa and Jon stood up, gave quick speeches and then called me on stage to introduce my documentary. I forced out a few words and then parted the curtains so my movie could run. It seems to have gone down very well. People laughed in all the right places, and even at bits that I didn’t expect to be so amusing. Afterwards I was nudged back on stage to take a bow. As I stood up I realised my buttocks had been clenched for the entire twenty minutes.

Continue reading
03/04/2006 Davis, Film

Home on the Dynamic Range

I’m coming closer to a final cut of The Varsity Story, the documentary I’m making for the opening of the Varsity Theatre (cinema, really) on 6th April. I’m happy with the content and how I’ve orgnised it. I’m pleased with the colour correction. The one big thing I have left to do is tidying up the sound editing. I’ve never done sound editing before, and for me it’s probably the dullest part of the editing process. Nearly the whole project was recorded too “hot,” so I need to add compression filters to everything in order to narrow the gap between the loudest and quietest parts of the movie. If I don’t fix this people will turn their TV’s up for the quiet bits and have their ears blown off when an interviewee coughs. Additionally, the Varsity has a brand new sound system which will expose my shoddy sound mix workmanship if I don’t do a good job.

Of course, the compression filter is just one of a number of sound treatments I need to apply. I’m very glad I don’t need to serve coffee tomorrow.

26/03/2006 Travel

10,000 Feet High and Skiing

Looking down on Lake Tahoe from the top of the Heavenly ski resort, Wed 22nd March 2006

This week I learnt that skiing on powder is far more fun than skiing on slush. I have also discovered that it is in my best interests to cover the whole of my face when skiing from 10,000 to 6,500ft because the wind and cold lend one’s face the frostbitten Antarctic explorer look.

We spent four of the last seven days skiing in the mountains to the south of Lake Tahoe, which straddles the California-Nevada border. Mid to late March is peak ski season thanks to alternating waves of snow and sunshine. Some days it would snow during the evening and the next morning would greet us with bright sunshine and six inches of clean fresh snow to ski. The views from the top of the mountain are awesome, but almost impossible to do justice to with a little digital snappycam.

We were accompanied on this trip by Duncan, my biological father, who displayed an uncanny knack for finding good places to dine. The best of the bunch was a restaurant called Mirabelle, run by a real live authentic French chef who cooks divine soufflés and then wanders out of the kitchen to make sure he has a room full of happy diners. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the best restaurant in Nevada. Merci Beaucoup, Papa!