Jul. 15, 2017
I’m a big fan of books. The way they transport you away to other places and so on. As repositories of knowledge and adventure they can’t be beat. I can think of no better way out of an existential fix than reading. The trouble is I tend to hoard them. I’ve posted pictures of book stacks before (on more than one occasion). I could probably repeat that every month if I wanted to, perhaps even more often.
Jul. 1, 2017
I enjoyed Wonder Woman, which came as a surprise to me given my growing distaste for superhero movies. I can remember seeing the Superman reboot Man of Steel with its phallic rockets and its boring boring fight sequences. But almost everything about Wonder Woman exceeded my expectations. It’s a well-made superhero movie and better still, it gets to the heart of why these kinds of movies matter. Whereas Man of Steel ended up levelling cities and criminally underusing Amy Adams, all while giving us no stake on why Superman even matters as a man or a hero, Wonder Woman focusses tightly on its main character and explains what matters to her, and in turn the movie then explains why she should matter to us.
Tags: Films, Seventeen, Science Fiction
Jun. 16, 2017
It can be a struggle to keep writing. I’ve found this happened a lot since I moved the blog. First, there was the business of moving things over. That meant a lot of thought about old posts and which ones I should keep. A lot of the time I thought “how on earth did I have time to write this?!” Then there seemed to be a lot more barriers to writing than previously.
Apr. 11, 2017
Moving the blog to Jekyll (again, sort of) Et voila, my blog lives! In a new body (Jekyll) and at a new location. The Process I set up Jekyll on my MacBook Air after loads of initial problems with installing the theme and getting assorted Ruby gems installed and working. Stack Overflow is a friend for life now. By way of comparison, getting things up and running on my new Mac was simple.
Mar. 31, 2017
Blanck Mass World Eater This album is pretty extreme. It’s not for everyone and even for the people who can handle it, it’s not for all the time. This album is a soul crushing experience at points but there are also points of light. Perhaps this makes “World Eater” more reflective of life as a whole than any other of this month’s albums. On balance it’s probably less crushing than the last Blanck Mass album “Dumb Flesh”, which I reviewed back in June 2015.
Tags: Album Digest, March, Music, Blanck Mass, The Shins, Rolling Blackouts CF, JFDR, Seventeen
Feb. 28, 2017
Grails Chalice Hymnal Some albums are good because a band continues making the music that you love. Some albums are good because a band takes their ideas a step or two further than before. Chalice Hymnalis that rare album that does both of these things. The references to past albums include the track Deeper Politics and Deep Snow II, and, as per albums past, these tracks evolve slowly out of languid guitar hooks and smoky atmospherics.
Tags: Album Digest, February, Music, Grails, Elbow, Dreadzone, Seventeen
Jan. 31, 2017
Mike Oldfield Return to Ommadawn With Return to Ommadawn, Mike Oldfield revisits his third album Ommadawn. He has past form for this, having revisited his masterwork Tubular Bells twice (the third revisit and fourth instalment Tubular Bells 4 is due next year). I wrote about Tubular Bells II for my understated classics series. Of course Mike has in fact made many more than three Tubular Bells albums1, and this is not a first “return” to Ommadawn.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, January, Mike Oldfield, Bonobo, The Xx, Seventeen
Oct. 13, 2016
The next instalment in my understated classics series is "Stray" by Aztec Camera. Released in 1990, it features two hit singles and the cover is my favourite colour: green. My angle for writing about “Stray” was that it was an album that I "caught" from my parents. I soon realised that I wrote about some of those already, for example “The Circle and the Square" by Red Box. Besides, I’m not sure that my parents liked this album that much.
Tags: Understated Classics, Aztec Camera, Music, Sixteen, Pop, Rock
Oct. 10, 2016
Heavyweight is a podcast about “heavyweight” issues, in the sense of burdens on the soul, rather than the burning issues of the day. It’s presented by Jonathan Goldstein, who was the host of the WireTap podcast. Each week he helps someone resolve an issue from their past. These include resolving family feuds and understanding mid-life depression. I am a generalist who often takes a broader view of things. Heavyweight reminds me that the emotions of individuals are as important as the wider trends that affect groups.
Oct. 8, 2016
Mira Schendel was a Brazilian artist who was active throughout the middle to late twentieth century. She is considered to be one of South America’s best artists. Known mostly for her abstract paintings, she also experimented with sculptures and installations. Many of her works use text and semiotics to explore and define possible meanings for more abstract works. I saw this exhibition during its run in the Tate Modern in the Autumn of 2013.
Tags: Tate Modern, Art, Mira Schendel, Photos, Sixteen
Sep. 30, 2016
This month’s album digest features albums by Wilco, M.I.A., Local Natives, and a collaboration between Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani. Wilco Schmilco Schmilco is the tenth studio album by Wilco, which regular readers will know are one of my favourite bands. There’s no need to repeat that anecdote about why this blog has the name that it does. Meanwhile, this album follows on from last year’s Star Wars and is probably the third Wilco album to have a jokey meta- kind of title.
Tags: Album Digest, September, Music, Wilco, MIA, Local Natives, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Susan Ciani, Sixteen
Sep. 24, 2016
A few weeks ago, Ingrid and I went to see The Threepenny Opera at the National Theatre. The Threepenny Opera was written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, based on Elisabeth Hauptmann’s German translation of John Gay’s “A Beggar’s Opera”. It was first performed in Weimar Berlin in 1928 and has evolved over time through many adaptations, including several film and off-Broadway versions. It’s a work with very powerful musical overtones and, despite avowals otherwise throughout by the narrator, it has a powerful moral message.