sunday was a cinema marathon at CHAPTER. first up i was ushering the "listening event" JEFF WAYNE'S WAR OF THE WORLDS. this is an experiment for us, we had the enhanced cd playing on 5 channels so it was surround sound in the gorgeous cinema 2 with all the lights out apart from the starry night house pinprick lights. i introduced it and we sat in the twilight listening to the dramatic score. i'd forgotten how much i enjoyed it. rob the projectionist who i was working with is an old punk and thinks its a load of codswallop but he was great and really helpful as always and answered any techie questions people had. the audience seemed to love it and a lot of them filled out feedback forms with ideas they had for albums or audiobooks if we were to do it again. i really hope so because it had a really enthusiastic and positive response. the lovely spencer and kirsten were there, grinning away, a couple of fathers and sons (doing a rights-of-passage thing) and i had a good chat with noel afterwards who echoed what a few people of said about how it put them back to feeling like teenagers again. in these modern times of downloading a track from itunes and listening to bits and bobs few people seemed to sit there and listen to a record. noel said it was like making a date with yourself to sit there and concentrate on the music and really enjoy it and that it had been a valuable experience.
after that i had a short break and then in for the surreal RUMBA. this film was more like a silent comedy, a jacques tati film than a romantic comedy. a gangly, odd looking couple spend their very happy lives teaching english and p.e. respectively, in a school in france whilst attending latin dance competitions. on the way back from a win at one of these they have a car crash and it sends them into a spiral of losing things: legs, memories, jobs and eventually each other before a new life is found. this is all played marvellously for slapstick laughs by fiona gordon and dominique abel. it was a strange little film that i think wrongfooted a few people who had come wanting to see a more traditional romantic comedy but i really enjoyed it, i thought it was joyous with its riotious primary colours. everyone in the film seemed to be having a wonderful time.
next up was SIN NOMBRE. a few of the cinema department have been wearing the brilliant t-shirts around for a few months with the big gothic gangster tattoo lettering and i was intriuged about what the movie would actually be like, whether it was all gangster hype and violence. i was pleased to discover that it was a lot more meaningful and thought provoking than that. the fuller story that involves people from south america travelling up the continent to try and make it to the US. its part tragic love story, part road movie (with beautiful and terrifying scenes atop a freight train travelling up from honduras to texas) and part gangster thriller. the two main leads were both fleeing from their home towns for different reasons but you felt that wherever they went it was not going to escape where they had come from. sayra looked out at honduras and her uncle told her how there was "nothing for you here" but what better life would there be in new jersey? casper fled his barrio but was told that the gang he had rebelled against had chapters in the US so it was likely he would never get out. the poverty trap, indeed: it felt that there was no real escape for the poor of the world and especially with the current financial climate it made you feel like there was nothing worth escaping to.
the rest of the week has been relatively quiet, no gigs to go to and i'd seen most of the films in that one day i'd wanted to see! it was quite lucky for i am very broke till payday next week so taking temptation away is always good. monday we had our veg box from the lovely tom frost at BLAENCAMEL FARM so it gave us the chance to do some good meals. the best of these was the stir fry i did with kale, spinach, shredded carrot, soya, pumpkin seeds and pine nuts, one of CHRIS FOWLER's chillis and peppers and some lovely noodles from HUNGRY PLANET. tasty!
i took tuesday off work because will had an extra day and i wanted to spend some time with him. we went to ST FAGANS to see the POP PETH exhibition. it was a lovely day for st fagans, actually quite sunny and warm and not too many children running around. after being lazy in the morning we didn't leave till quite late but i assumed will had been a million times like me, unfortunately he hadn't been for years so we didn't have time to go around everything like we should've done really. i showed him my favourite house (with the bed in the cupboard) and we bought some old fashioned sweets from the sweetie shop and got around just about everywhere apart from the future house because it was closed for an education day (is it still called the future house? its been open for years now). most importantly we had a good old root around the pop peth exhibition. we watched a video interview with the lovely nick and ashli todd from spillers talking about what the shop means to them and afterwards there was some videos of welsh bands from the 80s and 90s. the exhibition was great, there was a section where some fanzine writers had recreated their university bedroom complete with posters and flyers and a big SPILLERS section with badges and photos of the gang. it was great!
it was a week for watching movies on the sofa wrapped in a duvet. we watched THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY on tuesday night. i'd seen it in the cinema and hated it (having been a big fan of the tv series when i was a kid) but seeing sam rockwell in MOON and zooey deschanel in various romantic comedies recently made me want to re-watch it. it wasn't as bad as i'd remembered but then again a little confusing and disappointing. i'd read the book and seen the tv series and listened to the original radio version when it was re-broadcast on radio 4 a couple of years ago you could say i was well versed in what it was all about and had expectations of what the characters should look like, what scenes should be included. i was bound to be disappointed so tried to just enjoy it. it was lovely to look at but i found it a little confusing. some of the performances were great, i especially enjoyed mos def as ford prefect and bill nighy as slartibartfast. the effects were great in that home made, organic way (brilliant jim henson and that ace scene where the improbability drive turns them into knitting) but it just didn't hang together well enough for me. we watched the "making of" afterwards and i think i enjoyed that more. i felt guilty because everyone involved was so passionate and happy making it but for me it just didn't work and i found the hollywood romanticising of it with the love story almost offensive. it made me wish that they'd just had the guts to do a big new tv version where they could play around a little more leisurely and still have tonnes of fun.
on wednesday we were meant to be going to my friend rosie's birthday do but i started to feel really ill. to perk me up we made cupcakes watched the mike leigh film NAKED. when i was a teenager this was one of my favourite films but i haven't been able to bring myself to see it for years. its been one of those films that i pick up the video for, remember that its hard going and put it down again for something else. steen really wanted to see it though and rented it from the library so after ignoring it for a week i agreed. it was as difficult and depressing as i remembered, it felt like i'd been pummelled with a rock afterwards but it is a fascinating study of class in post-thatcher britain. johnny, a highly intelligent but troubled young man flees manchester in the first scene after having raped a girl in the street, he heads for london to hook up with an ex girlfriend and gets involved in her life and wonders around trying to find meaning in the streets of london talking to people who no-one else would think of talking to. by the end of the movie we feel slightly more sympathetically for johnny, knowing that he is capable of so much but spends his life bitterly contemplating humanity and waiting for the end of the world. he seems to find and spread misery wherever he goes and leigh paints a very bleak picture of life in the early 90s. i found out a few years ago that apparently this was his first film after splitting up with his wife alison steadman and he was very depressed at the time of making it. i think it is fitting that i enjoyed it as an angry teen.
thursday night was POP QUIZ time! it came around very quickly and i must admit that i was not really in the mood to go. after spending most of the week confined to the house with autumn chills forcing me into my big jumpers i was feeling very cosy. steen convinced us to go though and we were hoping the patti ladies would accompany us as team members. in the end anwen went on noel's team (he had asked last month, fair enough) and the patti ladies couldn't make it so we ended up on a team on our own. it was actually amazing fun. we got a bit drunk and tottered on our bar stools and did impressions of tina turner to each other. we didn't hope to come anywhere near the top like we did last month but we surprised ourselves by coming 3rd! it wasn't bad going seeing as we beat most people in teams of 5 or 6 so it was as good as winning for us. we had a lovely time talking to leah, iain, rylett and grace then went to dempseys for afters with noel, ed and anwen. what a great night!
friday i booked the night off work so we could go to see MARGARET ATWOOD do a reading at llandaff cathedral. we found out about it through the hay festival web post and were intrigued not only as she was coming to cardiff but that they said it was due to have choristers. wow, how odd! this week we heard her being interviewed by mark lawson on the radio 4 review show and it all became clear. her new novel THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD is set in a world already sketched out in the apocalyptic ORYX AND CRAKE, where alternative characters in the years preceding this have devised a religion, "god's gardeners" are vegetarian and hope to cultivate the land to get it back to eden. in the novel are some of the hymns she has devised for her fake religion. i've heard atwood speak before and her voice dripped with its usual sarcasm as she talked about what she thought about these characters and their religion. i was excited to see what all this would add up to when we went to llandaff cathedral. we had a really nice walk up through llandaff fields and it was pretty full by the time we got there. it was a very strange experience, being in llandaff cathedral. i felt like i had this in-built reverence that i think was there in part due to the overwhelming middle class middle aged audience. i don't know why i felt so censored, i've been to hay lots of times and nowt posher than hay festival but here in a church i felt stifled and immature. a tongue in cheek sensibility was brought back to proceedings by margaret atwood and her performers (including the amazing actress diana quick) as they walked single file up the aisle carrying hippie-looking placards with pictures of bees and flowers. she gave a quick explanation that her book tour was unusual due to her trying to keep the carbon footprint down and all proceeds were going to local charities (in this case the RSPB). despite the seemingly mocking attitude to religion you could tell that atwood had respect for the situation we were finding ourselves in with the destruction of the planet and her understanding for the hope that religion, any religion brings. the readings themselves, some performed or rather introduced by atwood were moving and punctuated by hymns that had been arranged by a musician friend of hers. we took out the pamphlet given to us on arrival and it felt like a sunday service. the woman next to me even sang along with gusto along to the reprise at the end. the excerpts felt like the novel was a mix of both oryx and crake with the character toby looking out of the bubble she has protected herself within and occasionally THE HANDMAIDS TALE where the character wren described the life inside the sex workers' section of the city. it was intriuging and certainly made me want to rush out and buy the novel. unfortunately, funds being what they are i couldn't afford it. it would have been nice to have a copy signed by margaret atwood but it is not hugely important to me. instead we made a donation to the charity and got a canvas bag, i was excited enough about the bag but will certainly buy it in future, as i have all her other novels. leaving llandaff cathedral i felt very privaleged that i had managed to attend the event, one that will stay with me for years to come. margaret atwood is my favourite living author, every time i read a new book by her its like having a luxurious hearty meal and its wonderful that i have had two chances to see her speak now, i feel very lucky indeed.
31 Aug 2009
26 Aug 2009
people power
to start the week after green man proper we thought we'd celebrate with a documentary made up entirely of footage from another festival! SOUL POWER is the story of the concert in zaire in 1974 to bring together the biggest names in african and african-american music to celebrate the rumble in the jungle fight between george foreman (he of the grill) and muhammed ali (he of the massively inflated ego an exaggerated pronouncements of his greatness). james brown, bill withers, the detroit spinners, sister sledge and celia cruz were amongst the american names and the movie started off with a little context of the promoters trying to get in the money then all these people gathered on the plane, treating it like a drug fuelled tourbus, singing and dancing and elated with the occasion. the biggest thing to come out of this section of the movie was the social conscience that the performers had. with james brown declaring "i'm black and i'm proud" they all talked about going "home" to africa and although when they got there and finding people living in poverty once they met the african performers found they had more in common than first seemed. it was quite quaint seeing people so excited and naive about a country like africa, so unaware of the politics as they are now. but it was also quite sad, knowing that many performers today such as akon who displays such ignorant insensitivity to diamond mines and the rap world's misogyny. anyway, aside from politics the film showcased some marvellous performances. bill withers, ever my favourite and oft neglected performer, made me cry. he performed "hope she'll be happier" which is about a man's ex moving on and how sad it makes him feel. very prescient when i found out who was in the audience. we had a drink with pedro afterwards and it was nice to see him but the song had lingered in my head all night and i was sad he was sat behind me and i hoped it had not made him upset.
wednesday i had the feliecitous opportunity to go usher for ADAM, a romantic comedy about a woman meeting a man with aspergers syndrome. when i had a quick look in the programme at this my heart sunk. a) a romantic comedy b) an actor "doing" autism. i shuddered at memories of FORREST GUMP and RAIN MAN (and smirked at seeing the posters of neil morrissey playing the dustin hoffman character in a theatre in cardiff coming soon). but thankfully all my fears were unfounded. this was a sweet, but not saccharine story that treated the character of adam with dignity but didn't make him overly serious and certainly didn't do scenes showing his freaky abilities. he seemed like just an ordinary man with social problems. the film left me feeling warm and satisfied afterwards, like i'd got to know someone better. the film also linked in marvellously with what i did on thursday. i was ushering for ADVOCACY MATTERS, which is a group of people who have various types of learning disabilities and offers them advocates, a sort of friend finder to help them get on in the world. they had made a dvd themselves (martin proudly told me how he'd held the boom, sandra did the interviews etc) and they were premiering it in CHAPTER. it told the story of how you get to become an advocate and what they are like as people, how they want to be treated as individuals not just put in a ghetto and forgotten about. afterwards i stayed in the room as they needed extra space for the people with aspergers. one of the signs of the condition is feeling a little claustrophobic and need space and less people around them. i sat talking with the group for about an hour and we talked about ADAM, some of them had seen it and were impressed with how it didn't patronise them. after watching the advocacy video and seeing adam it made me want to make everyone see them, to make them more human and less like some stereotype. it meant the week was a real education for me.
any spare time i had on wednesday i spent most of day sorting out the end of a project i'd been doing for steen: making a covers cd. he'd not asked me to do it but i'd had the idea after thinking of a great cover i'd heard and then getting some ideas from friends and seeing some stuff on the internet. i found some great things: tiny tim doing both the sonny and cher parts on "i've got you babe"; peter sellars doing the beatles' "she loves you" in a dr. strangelove accent; the residents doing "its a mans world" as well as the more sublime dreamy covers that he's probably heard but i didn't care, like joan jett doing "crimson and clover" and this mortal coil's version of "song to the siren". lush. he's listening to it right now so i'll find out what he thinks of it when i get back.
wednesday night the swooning started. thanks to the valiant efforts of the amazing charlotte braddick we cardiffians (yes, most of us) went to the lovely THEKLA in brizzle to see the dreamy BILL CALLAHAN. someone there talked about it being the gig of the year and it definitely is right up there as one of the most intimately beautiful gigs i've seen for a long time. we dashed in and caught almost all the support, SOPHIA KNAPP. she was a massive disappointment. we've been to so many gigs in the thekla with amazing support acts that i think we have been spoilt. she was brought over by bill himself but she was woefully dull. terrible lyrics (hold my hand, understand...) and and uninteresting voice its the first time i've been bored enough to want to walk away and have a chat upstairs. of course, i would never do that with bill callahan. oh, that man. after me, steen and leah and snaked our way to the front and descended into a swoon as soon as he came on. the experience of watching bill callahan reminds me of a teacher i had at university. he was very dignified and quietly spoken and he once swore to make a point and it made me blush. bill callahan makes me blush, he makes me feel his songs so intently i blush and i cry, its like entering another world. afterwards we hugged each other, hugged ashli more (she was shaking) and then went outside and caught up with his band, one of whom did a gig for noel and adam's lesson #1 a couple of years ago. good times. an intense evening broken up with laughter like whistling in the dark.
i was working on thursday so instead of going out for holly's leaving do we just watched a dvd will had gotten from the library RED ROAD. i remember this coming out and missing it in chapter and heard such good things about it i was kicking myself. it was certainly one of the most tense movies i've seen. jackie, who works in a cctv police servicewatches the screens voyeristically, catching people in acts of violence, lust and love. small moments of the lives of the citizens of glasgow are on view for her. you feel there is something a little sinister about this but not that she is a creepy person, just a little sad and lonely. one day she catches sight of someone who was important to her on the screen and this starts a dangerous path towards finding out more about him and his life. the film is acutely focussed on the characters and the actors make these people very real, properly rounded. it was also about a place, the red road estate and what places like that mean to us. the cctv views everything with an objective unfeeling eye, reducing human beings to pixellated dots and that is what we do to people in society. the red road flats are a monolith of "bad, scary, dangerous" but there are individuals living inside each with complicated problems. compared to everything else i did this week this meant made me consider the way we lump people into easily dealt with lumps rather than looking at each person's needs. that great line from HAROLD AND MAUDE where they are in a field of daisies and she tells harold that each daisy is different but people so frequently think that they are all the same.
what an interesting week! well, tonight we are cooking food for smallsteen to celebrate his birthday and have made cakes and as yet have no plans. tomorrow i am doing a marathon shift in the cinema before going to gwdihw for another all dayer (well it'll be a single band by the time i get there) so loads to look forward to!
wednesday i had the feliecitous opportunity to go usher for ADAM, a romantic comedy about a woman meeting a man with aspergers syndrome. when i had a quick look in the programme at this my heart sunk. a) a romantic comedy b) an actor "doing" autism. i shuddered at memories of FORREST GUMP and RAIN MAN (and smirked at seeing the posters of neil morrissey playing the dustin hoffman character in a theatre in cardiff coming soon). but thankfully all my fears were unfounded. this was a sweet, but not saccharine story that treated the character of adam with dignity but didn't make him overly serious and certainly didn't do scenes showing his freaky abilities. he seemed like just an ordinary man with social problems. the film left me feeling warm and satisfied afterwards, like i'd got to know someone better. the film also linked in marvellously with what i did on thursday. i was ushering for ADVOCACY MATTERS, which is a group of people who have various types of learning disabilities and offers them advocates, a sort of friend finder to help them get on in the world. they had made a dvd themselves (martin proudly told me how he'd held the boom, sandra did the interviews etc) and they were premiering it in CHAPTER. it told the story of how you get to become an advocate and what they are like as people, how they want to be treated as individuals not just put in a ghetto and forgotten about. afterwards i stayed in the room as they needed extra space for the people with aspergers. one of the signs of the condition is feeling a little claustrophobic and need space and less people around them. i sat talking with the group for about an hour and we talked about ADAM, some of them had seen it and were impressed with how it didn't patronise them. after watching the advocacy video and seeing adam it made me want to make everyone see them, to make them more human and less like some stereotype. it meant the week was a real education for me.
any spare time i had on wednesday i spent most of day sorting out the end of a project i'd been doing for steen: making a covers cd. he'd not asked me to do it but i'd had the idea after thinking of a great cover i'd heard and then getting some ideas from friends and seeing some stuff on the internet. i found some great things: tiny tim doing both the sonny and cher parts on "i've got you babe"; peter sellars doing the beatles' "she loves you" in a dr. strangelove accent; the residents doing "its a mans world" as well as the more sublime dreamy covers that he's probably heard but i didn't care, like joan jett doing "crimson and clover" and this mortal coil's version of "song to the siren". lush. he's listening to it right now so i'll find out what he thinks of it when i get back.
wednesday night the swooning started. thanks to the valiant efforts of the amazing charlotte braddick we cardiffians (yes, most of us) went to the lovely THEKLA in brizzle to see the dreamy BILL CALLAHAN. someone there talked about it being the gig of the year and it definitely is right up there as one of the most intimately beautiful gigs i've seen for a long time. we dashed in and caught almost all the support, SOPHIA KNAPP. she was a massive disappointment. we've been to so many gigs in the thekla with amazing support acts that i think we have been spoilt. she was brought over by bill himself but she was woefully dull. terrible lyrics (hold my hand, understand...) and and uninteresting voice its the first time i've been bored enough to want to walk away and have a chat upstairs. of course, i would never do that with bill callahan. oh, that man. after me, steen and leah and snaked our way to the front and descended into a swoon as soon as he came on. the experience of watching bill callahan reminds me of a teacher i had at university. he was very dignified and quietly spoken and he once swore to make a point and it made me blush. bill callahan makes me blush, he makes me feel his songs so intently i blush and i cry, its like entering another world. afterwards we hugged each other, hugged ashli more (she was shaking) and then went outside and caught up with his band, one of whom did a gig for noel and adam's lesson #1 a couple of years ago. good times. an intense evening broken up with laughter like whistling in the dark.
i was working on thursday so instead of going out for holly's leaving do we just watched a dvd will had gotten from the library RED ROAD. i remember this coming out and missing it in chapter and heard such good things about it i was kicking myself. it was certainly one of the most tense movies i've seen. jackie, who works in a cctv police servicewatches the screens voyeristically, catching people in acts of violence, lust and love. small moments of the lives of the citizens of glasgow are on view for her. you feel there is something a little sinister about this but not that she is a creepy person, just a little sad and lonely. one day she catches sight of someone who was important to her on the screen and this starts a dangerous path towards finding out more about him and his life. the film is acutely focussed on the characters and the actors make these people very real, properly rounded. it was also about a place, the red road estate and what places like that mean to us. the cctv views everything with an objective unfeeling eye, reducing human beings to pixellated dots and that is what we do to people in society. the red road flats are a monolith of "bad, scary, dangerous" but there are individuals living inside each with complicated problems. compared to everything else i did this week this meant made me consider the way we lump people into easily dealt with lumps rather than looking at each person's needs. that great line from HAROLD AND MAUDE where they are in a field of daisies and she tells harold that each daisy is different but people so frequently think that they are all the same.
what an interesting week! well, tonight we are cooking food for smallsteen to celebrate his birthday and have made cakes and as yet have no plans. tomorrow i am doing a marathon shift in the cinema before going to gwdihw for another all dayer (well it'll be a single band by the time i get there) so loads to look forward to!
pagan gods be praised! a dry green man!
its funny what a difference a nice bit of weather can make. after last years' quagmire everyone i knew was anxious about this years' GREEN MAN festival. i spent a good week searching the internet and going into millets and outdoors pursuits shops getting advice on what best to do. last year was fun but exhausting and we all went to this year with a sort of militaristic zeal, going to battle with nature. the morning of the festival i joyously went to get our twin sleeping bags (they zip together to form a double sleeping bag for cwtching comfort) from the attic will only ot be stopped in my tracks by the realisation that the CATS IN PARIS had taken one of them by mistake (no hard evidence but i remember commenting that we had the same sleeping bags when they came to stay in may...) so after a little diversion to blacks to replace the left hand bag we were on our way. we were going with the lovely jon ruddick and nic finch, hereby to be known as the ruddy finch and the rain lashed it down. the four of us looked at the sky with trepidation and put on some tunes. hearing the ruddy finches doing voices and singing along to the tape player put us in a better mood and from the back of the van we could see blue poking in between the clouds. we got there and it was suspiciously not raining and not even muddy. we immediately put on our wellies and headed down to the camp site, nabbing what i think was the best spot we've ever had. we were near the toilets (but not too near) close to a tree (landmarks) and only 5 minutes away from the entrance. score! it was dry enough at this point for me to discard my wellies (which had been rubbing my ankle on the way in) and i am happy to report i did not need them for the whole festival. joy! first stop, the green man shop to pay a ridiculous £5 for the programme, which we shared between the four of us. i love green man and think they do an amazing job but there was no way you could get the times for anything (neither internet nor t'otherwise) unless you bought a programme which felt like a bit of a rip off. steen kept his rather dangerously in his back pocket and it only fell out once. we acclimatised ourselves, finding out where the folky dolky tent had gone (replaced by the far out stage which is where the cinema tent used to be) and where the green man cafe was (now the green man pub, now in the walled garden). i liked the new layout very much, it is still the loveliest setting and it made more sense to swap things around a bit.
after a our wonder, which took in some of THE GENTLE GOOD and some of cate le bon doing songs for will hodgkinson's tour of britain, quite a lot of cider and most of cardiff we settled to watch PIVOT. they looked like sons of the THOMPSON TWINS and their music got us dancing to some 80s electronic. at one point i remember thinking that if it didn't have the thumping beats behind it there was no way to distinguish it from an authentic song of the time. the haircuts were to be a bit of a theme, it seems all the youngsters now want to look like the thompson twins, well good luck to them. i wanted to look like them in the 80s too but my mum wouldn't let me get my hair cut. by the time she did she told the hairdresser to make me look like demi moore not the "short back and sides" dykey look i was going for. i was only 10 though. more wondering took us to see GANG GANG DANCE on the main stage. they were amazing, just the sort of multi-instrumental mishmash of tribal beats, electronicy synths and bluesy singing. it was unlike anything else there that weekend, properly joyous. we were dancing on top of the hill and just grinning.
we headed over to see WOODEN SHJIPS but i was a bit underwhelmed. maybe it was due to the sunny weather and the comparison to gang gang dance but they just seemed a bit beardy and proggy (which is odd cos i usually like that sort of thing). it was most people's highlight but it left me feeling bored. the next thing that i didn't want to miss was ROKY ERICKSON. i became a fan when i went to see a film where 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS was on the soundtrack back when i was in wazzu. we'd been to see the film at a test screening at the cinema on campus and the promoters were giving out free soundtracks and t-shirts. i tried to find anything else by them ever since and years later it is still a bit of a problem as roky went a bit mad and became a beardy recluse. the 80s rock stuff wasn't brilliant but still had that amazing intensity. he did "you're gonna miss me" as an encore and i was a pogoing fiend. steen photographed me still grinning insanely afterwards. we saw a bit of ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, who were good but unmemorable and then headed over to the cinema tent to queue for THE MAN OF ARAN, an old silent film documentary with a new score by BRITISH SEA POWER. it was a beautiful film that made you feel a part of the community, struggling on the isle against the elements to eke out a life. the score was moving and powerful and one of my highlights of the whole festival, sitting in a tent that put me in away from the brecon beacons and out on the cliffs of west scotland.
the next day we went for breakfast in the quite wonderful TEA AND TOAST caravan near our tent which served the bargainous 2 slices of delicious marmite on toast (cut into triangles) for £1.50 and then wandered up to see the lovely laura bryon do a set of her LE B songs. by this time the idea had set in that it was going to continue NOT to rain and a bunch of us sat on the grass slowly getting drunk and happily watched a little tot dancing at the front like laura was playing just for her. it pretty much summed up the loveliness of the festival. saturday was characterised with a lot of wandering around, drinking and sunning. we passed by lots of things that day, MISSISSIPPI WITCH, THE PHANTOM BAND before sitting near the far out tent to listen to a brilliant set by RICH JAMES. we had food from the ever tasty paella stall and went to the literature tent to hear readings from joe boyd's book accompanied by robyn hitchcock illustrating it with songs of the time. a highlight of the afternoon was the norman blake - euros childs duo JONNY, doing a some gorgeous songs and being amusing and lovely. i was excited to see THE ALIENS but i was a bit disappointed, they seemed in contrast to a lot of other things at the festival, almost britpop blokey and took in a few other things, including a much needed stop for some of PEACEFUL PROGRESS chai tea and a chat with my friend catrin and her gorgeous little 'uns, before seeing an ok-but unmemorable set from GRIZZLY BEAR and then made a bee-line for JARVIS COCKER. he was a good showman but the songs were not PULP songs and a little too melodramatic and not quite sleazy enough for my liking, but it was great to see him on stage.
sunday we said goodbye to the ruddy finch, for they needed to be back in cardiff by 4pm. we hurtled up to the cinema tent to catch some silent comedy films with a live piano score. we caught a LAUREL AND HARDY and BUSTER KEATON films. it was so nice sitting there hearing all the kids laughing, it makes such a difference to watch them with an audience. we then did the green man POP QUIZ in the literature tent with iain and leah, anna and john. despite the combination of the two top teams in cardiff we did pretty badly but it was a lot of fun, i do like a good quiz. after that we headed over to get some SCRABBLE SUNDAY action. the weather turned weird with black skies and hard hot sun and we got a bit lazy and relaxed listening to 9 BACH and ROZI PLAIN but we still managed to get some great words in (trounced was my favourite) before will and i parted ways (partly because i was going to pee myself trying to get him to finish his go) so i could go and dance like a loon to the brilliant RIGHT HAND LEFT HAND.
we met up again to see DAVE THOMAS do some ramshakle drunken poetry in the literature tent and watch a bit of the truly terrible BAD FILM CLUB'S SNOWBEAST before going to watch THE PICTISH TRAIL who were great and who gave a shout out to JOSIE LONG, who ended up being the giggling girl behind us. speculation whether they snogged later ensued whilst we got some food waiting for the brilliant CRANIUM PIE who made us wig out some. we saved the psyche for later and headed down to the main stage to lay on the grass and fall asleep to CAMERA OBSCURA (or at least i did) and saw a little bit of RODRIGUEZ before running up to catch more wigging out from AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS. they seemed to have everyone and the kitchen sink on stage with them, a wailing alisha sufit, a sitar player. in many ways they were a cliche psyche band but so much fun and lots of dancing was done. we ran over back to the main stage to catch what turned out to be our highlight of the weekend, the immensely beautiful DIRTY THREE. they completely transported you to somewhere else; their dark, poetic, solemn shanties that came close to making me cry was belied by their entertaining stage banter. a wonderful set. WILCO were ok, a bit dull but still lovely and thus ended our musical weekend.
we travelled back with the lovely charlie bull, rob sell, larego, oli, steph and friends in a fab vehicle called serge vansborough and had a nice hot bath and a plate of chips when we got back. even the vom in the sink from chris' alternative party weekend couldn't spoil our mood. green man is brilliant!
after a our wonder, which took in some of THE GENTLE GOOD and some of cate le bon doing songs for will hodgkinson's tour of britain, quite a lot of cider and most of cardiff we settled to watch PIVOT. they looked like sons of the THOMPSON TWINS and their music got us dancing to some 80s electronic. at one point i remember thinking that if it didn't have the thumping beats behind it there was no way to distinguish it from an authentic song of the time. the haircuts were to be a bit of a theme, it seems all the youngsters now want to look like the thompson twins, well good luck to them. i wanted to look like them in the 80s too but my mum wouldn't let me get my hair cut. by the time she did she told the hairdresser to make me look like demi moore not the "short back and sides" dykey look i was going for. i was only 10 though. more wondering took us to see GANG GANG DANCE on the main stage. they were amazing, just the sort of multi-instrumental mishmash of tribal beats, electronicy synths and bluesy singing. it was unlike anything else there that weekend, properly joyous. we were dancing on top of the hill and just grinning.
we headed over to see WOODEN SHJIPS but i was a bit underwhelmed. maybe it was due to the sunny weather and the comparison to gang gang dance but they just seemed a bit beardy and proggy (which is odd cos i usually like that sort of thing). it was most people's highlight but it left me feeling bored. the next thing that i didn't want to miss was ROKY ERICKSON. i became a fan when i went to see a film where 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS was on the soundtrack back when i was in wazzu. we'd been to see the film at a test screening at the cinema on campus and the promoters were giving out free soundtracks and t-shirts. i tried to find anything else by them ever since and years later it is still a bit of a problem as roky went a bit mad and became a beardy recluse. the 80s rock stuff wasn't brilliant but still had that amazing intensity. he did "you're gonna miss me" as an encore and i was a pogoing fiend. steen photographed me still grinning insanely afterwards. we saw a bit of ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, who were good but unmemorable and then headed over to the cinema tent to queue for THE MAN OF ARAN, an old silent film documentary with a new score by BRITISH SEA POWER. it was a beautiful film that made you feel a part of the community, struggling on the isle against the elements to eke out a life. the score was moving and powerful and one of my highlights of the whole festival, sitting in a tent that put me in away from the brecon beacons and out on the cliffs of west scotland.
the next day we went for breakfast in the quite wonderful TEA AND TOAST caravan near our tent which served the bargainous 2 slices of delicious marmite on toast (cut into triangles) for £1.50 and then wandered up to see the lovely laura bryon do a set of her LE B songs. by this time the idea had set in that it was going to continue NOT to rain and a bunch of us sat on the grass slowly getting drunk and happily watched a little tot dancing at the front like laura was playing just for her. it pretty much summed up the loveliness of the festival. saturday was characterised with a lot of wandering around, drinking and sunning. we passed by lots of things that day, MISSISSIPPI WITCH, THE PHANTOM BAND before sitting near the far out tent to listen to a brilliant set by RICH JAMES. we had food from the ever tasty paella stall and went to the literature tent to hear readings from joe boyd's book accompanied by robyn hitchcock illustrating it with songs of the time. a highlight of the afternoon was the norman blake - euros childs duo JONNY, doing a some gorgeous songs and being amusing and lovely. i was excited to see THE ALIENS but i was a bit disappointed, they seemed in contrast to a lot of other things at the festival, almost britpop blokey and took in a few other things, including a much needed stop for some of PEACEFUL PROGRESS chai tea and a chat with my friend catrin and her gorgeous little 'uns, before seeing an ok-but unmemorable set from GRIZZLY BEAR and then made a bee-line for JARVIS COCKER. he was a good showman but the songs were not PULP songs and a little too melodramatic and not quite sleazy enough for my liking, but it was great to see him on stage.
sunday we said goodbye to the ruddy finch, for they needed to be back in cardiff by 4pm. we hurtled up to the cinema tent to catch some silent comedy films with a live piano score. we caught a LAUREL AND HARDY and BUSTER KEATON films. it was so nice sitting there hearing all the kids laughing, it makes such a difference to watch them with an audience. we then did the green man POP QUIZ in the literature tent with iain and leah, anna and john. despite the combination of the two top teams in cardiff we did pretty badly but it was a lot of fun, i do like a good quiz. after that we headed over to get some SCRABBLE SUNDAY action. the weather turned weird with black skies and hard hot sun and we got a bit lazy and relaxed listening to 9 BACH and ROZI PLAIN but we still managed to get some great words in (trounced was my favourite) before will and i parted ways (partly because i was going to pee myself trying to get him to finish his go) so i could go and dance like a loon to the brilliant RIGHT HAND LEFT HAND.
we met up again to see DAVE THOMAS do some ramshakle drunken poetry in the literature tent and watch a bit of the truly terrible BAD FILM CLUB'S SNOWBEAST before going to watch THE PICTISH TRAIL who were great and who gave a shout out to JOSIE LONG, who ended up being the giggling girl behind us. speculation whether they snogged later ensued whilst we got some food waiting for the brilliant CRANIUM PIE who made us wig out some. we saved the psyche for later and headed down to the main stage to lay on the grass and fall asleep to CAMERA OBSCURA (or at least i did) and saw a little bit of RODRIGUEZ before running up to catch more wigging out from AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS. they seemed to have everyone and the kitchen sink on stage with them, a wailing alisha sufit, a sitar player. in many ways they were a cliche psyche band but so much fun and lots of dancing was done. we ran over back to the main stage to catch what turned out to be our highlight of the weekend, the immensely beautiful DIRTY THREE. they completely transported you to somewhere else; their dark, poetic, solemn shanties that came close to making me cry was belied by their entertaining stage banter. a wonderful set. WILCO were ok, a bit dull but still lovely and thus ended our musical weekend.
we travelled back with the lovely charlie bull, rob sell, larego, oli, steph and friends in a fab vehicle called serge vansborough and had a nice hot bath and a plate of chips when we got back. even the vom in the sink from chris' alternative party weekend couldn't spoil our mood. green man is brilliant!
19 Aug 2009
everyone's old, even the 9 year olds...
this week has been mainly been spent getting excited for green man this weekend but we have managed to get out of the house a little bit. saturday i went back 'ome for a family party with my friend louise who is going travelling after wanting to and talking about it for the last 15 years or so. she is doing a big trip with her boyfriend alan to india and thailand and has been saving for over a year and getting things in order, finding a home for her beloved cat and all that gubbins. i had a great time travelling but i know that once you get the itch it is hard to stop scratching, i've spent my post-travelling life trying to find ways to get out and about again. i think lou is doing things the right way, she already has her career set up and she will easily get back into it and she has enough savings to really go off and enjoy herself. i'm sure she will have a great time! it was lovely seeing louise's family again and my old mucker boo who was also at the party. good cakes too!
on the sunday i was ushering for ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS. i haven't seen any previous ice age film before and quite enjoyed it. as it was a kids film it wasn't hard to follow and the characters seemed well established. i cringed with embarrassment when realising that when the kids in the library originally wanted us to name our cat diego it was due to one of the characters (a sabre toothed tiger)! there i was thinking they were being really cosmopolitan and that they knew names of people from all over the world... we named him frankie of course and i don't even care that frankie vaughan is apparently rhyming slang for porn, its better than taking his name from another character. anyway, the film was warm and quite funny and the kids seemed to love it. i liked the fact that it has no bearing on reality whatsoever (the dinosaurs are found in a protected rainforrest under the ice... hmmm) but it was fun, a sort of kiddies take on the land of the lost. there was a weird weasel / rat thing apparently voiced by simon pegg but he had such an appalling mockney accent i wasn't sure if it was dick van dyke. maybe i'll appreciate these films more when i'm a drooling mother with a drooling baby.
sunday night we stayed in and watched W, oliver stone's take on the bush junior presidency. i'd seen it before but steen missed it and it was interesting watching it again. the first time i was bitterly disappointed, i'd written essays on what a meaty film NIXON was so found W very slight and weak. however, this time i understood the comedy of it a little more, having someone watching it with me and laughing. the incidental music is quite a delight in its comic timing.
monday i finished work, played with the cat and headed into town to see ORPHAN. it took me a while to get there, since the bloody st davids 2 project closes off different pedestrian paths each week. but by the time i found the way to the cinema i dived it just as the film started. we were at a catholic orphanage and the dad (the amazing peter sarsgaard) was peeking into a room where a little girl was doing extraordinary paintings. they got chatting and picked her. but they were wrong! it was a great little film with some great red herrings and a cunning little twist at the end.
in the evening i met will in town and we bought a little picnic and a bottle of wine and got merry outside the museum. the sun was shining and the world was a warm glowing sphere for straight after we'd downed the wine we went to see MUM in the reardon lecture theatre. we were last there to see a bit of euros childs and the entire beautiful set from young marble giants at swn and it kept that same lovely atmosphere. everyone was excited and on their best behaviour in such a special venue. we became very confused at first. where to sit? we're unused to sit down gigs and it felt a bit odd being in the front row for this. since the lovely annas ellis and macca and the lovely iain and leah were at the back we decided to go and sit with them and have a natter pre-gig. first on was GRAVENHURST doing a looping guitar set then along came mum. they were less electronic-y than i thought they would be, they reminded me more of arcade fire than the post rock noodlings i'd expected. we had a great time. it really felt like summer and a lot of our friends were there. good times.
tuesday we went to see the german film CLOUD 9. we'd started showing the trailer a while ago in chapter and i was really looking forward to it. the trailer advertised the fact that it was about old people falling in love and definitely having sex but having fun and not caring what the world thought, the trailer shows an old man telling his lover a joke in bed. we were a little bit misled. the film turned out to be a partially improvised naturalistic drama about a woman in her 60s who, indeed does find love with a man a little older than her and they do have bloody great sex but it turns out that she is married and the film was less about enjoying life in your later years and more about the pain that occurs when one partner cheats on the other, no matter what age you are. it was joyous to see older people portrayed realistically having sex and not just playing the grandma role, but having a fuller life. i always get frustrated when fiction portrays the story of life as having a best before date, that once you have kids or get past 30 society expects you to settle down and become invisible, that certainly is not my experience. but this film was a little depressing and melodramatic and just made me sad. not a bad film but not what i was expecting.
wednesday i was ushering for an indian western THE LAST THAKUR. i have never been a big fan of the western genre. when i was doing american studies we had to watch so many, it being deemed the only true new genre in fiction, but it bores me. it always seems so full of machismo and repressed barbaric souls. this was no exception. set in an indian village along a river the thakur (a blast from the colonial past, the rich landowner) stumbled along half mad helped by his only friend, a blind beggar. everyone hates him because he has taken their land to build a shrine to a woman he loved that he is forcing them to construct. a stranger with a gun walks into town looking for information about his mother and meets the chairman, who our unreliable narrator tells us is a wonderful man but the images of him bullying his son tell us otherwise. it fits all the cliches of a western and was mostly successful in its attempts to transfer the genre to india and felt timeless and yet... it was lacking some punch for me, the pace was a bit slow and the characters a bit too one dimensional. reimagined westerns can be powerful (australian film the proposition or the ballad of little jo for instance) but this felt a bit limp. the audience hated it, one old couple amusingly kept falling asleep in turn and she told me it was the worst film she'd seen! it wasn't the worst film ever but it was a bit boring.
luckily, wednesday night was not boring. taking a car trip with the lovely adam and ben we went off to see ONEIDA in the croft in bristol. first on was TEETH OF THE SEA a funny looking bunch with one particular annoying guitarist who seemed to think he needed to make up for something lacking by jumping around like a mental with a comedy punk gurn on his face. it wasn't needed. they did great fuzzy anthems and the set seemed to be curtailed a little for my liking. less gurning next time and more songs, please. oneida were predictably brilliant. long organ jams and an extraordinary bit of fast drumming make claire a happy lady added to that the brilliant wig out projection behind them it made me grin like a loon. to compound the joy at the end of the night i go up to one of them and ask if anyone knows my friend dave oprava. i pass on the apology message, dave was meant to be here tonight but family committments blah blah blah meant he couldn't make it. he says the name doesn't ring a bell but then i see him talking to oneida founder bobby. his eyes light up and he rushes over all sweaty and asks how i know dave. he tells me how much he loves him, tells me how they went to school together and he misses him etc etc. it was wonderful, i felt like cilla on surprise surprise. he brought over other long time band members and frantically looked for a cd present and a pen and scrawled an essay sized message for dave on the packaging and gave me a sweaty hug for dave. love love love. what lovely people and what a great evening.
before packing for green man, thursday i was locked in a room all afternoon interviewing some amazing artists who had applied for the CHAPTER LIGHTBOX commission and discussing it afterwards. as it has not been announced i'd be an idiot to talk about who was chosen here but all of them were so interesting and it was facsinating getting an insight into how the artists work and what they thought they could do with the space. everyone short listed impressed me immensely and we had a very tough time deciding what to go with. often it was like discussing what was best: apples, bananas or oranges. i kept making a case for one then making a case for another and finding myself loving each of them for different reasons. i am very glad i did not have to make the decision on my own. the lightbox is a fantastic opportunity and i think it will become such an amazing centrepiece for chapter. i really enjoyed the process and am getting increasingly excited about the reopening.
on the sunday i was ushering for ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS. i haven't seen any previous ice age film before and quite enjoyed it. as it was a kids film it wasn't hard to follow and the characters seemed well established. i cringed with embarrassment when realising that when the kids in the library originally wanted us to name our cat diego it was due to one of the characters (a sabre toothed tiger)! there i was thinking they were being really cosmopolitan and that they knew names of people from all over the world... we named him frankie of course and i don't even care that frankie vaughan is apparently rhyming slang for porn, its better than taking his name from another character. anyway, the film was warm and quite funny and the kids seemed to love it. i liked the fact that it has no bearing on reality whatsoever (the dinosaurs are found in a protected rainforrest under the ice... hmmm) but it was fun, a sort of kiddies take on the land of the lost. there was a weird weasel / rat thing apparently voiced by simon pegg but he had such an appalling mockney accent i wasn't sure if it was dick van dyke. maybe i'll appreciate these films more when i'm a drooling mother with a drooling baby.
sunday night we stayed in and watched W, oliver stone's take on the bush junior presidency. i'd seen it before but steen missed it and it was interesting watching it again. the first time i was bitterly disappointed, i'd written essays on what a meaty film NIXON was so found W very slight and weak. however, this time i understood the comedy of it a little more, having someone watching it with me and laughing. the incidental music is quite a delight in its comic timing.
monday i finished work, played with the cat and headed into town to see ORPHAN. it took me a while to get there, since the bloody st davids 2 project closes off different pedestrian paths each week. but by the time i found the way to the cinema i dived it just as the film started. we were at a catholic orphanage and the dad (the amazing peter sarsgaard) was peeking into a room where a little girl was doing extraordinary paintings. they got chatting and picked her. but they were wrong! it was a great little film with some great red herrings and a cunning little twist at the end.
in the evening i met will in town and we bought a little picnic and a bottle of wine and got merry outside the museum. the sun was shining and the world was a warm glowing sphere for straight after we'd downed the wine we went to see MUM in the reardon lecture theatre. we were last there to see a bit of euros childs and the entire beautiful set from young marble giants at swn and it kept that same lovely atmosphere. everyone was excited and on their best behaviour in such a special venue. we became very confused at first. where to sit? we're unused to sit down gigs and it felt a bit odd being in the front row for this. since the lovely annas ellis and macca and the lovely iain and leah were at the back we decided to go and sit with them and have a natter pre-gig. first on was GRAVENHURST doing a looping guitar set then along came mum. they were less electronic-y than i thought they would be, they reminded me more of arcade fire than the post rock noodlings i'd expected. we had a great time. it really felt like summer and a lot of our friends were there. good times.
tuesday we went to see the german film CLOUD 9. we'd started showing the trailer a while ago in chapter and i was really looking forward to it. the trailer advertised the fact that it was about old people falling in love and definitely having sex but having fun and not caring what the world thought, the trailer shows an old man telling his lover a joke in bed. we were a little bit misled. the film turned out to be a partially improvised naturalistic drama about a woman in her 60s who, indeed does find love with a man a little older than her and they do have bloody great sex but it turns out that she is married and the film was less about enjoying life in your later years and more about the pain that occurs when one partner cheats on the other, no matter what age you are. it was joyous to see older people portrayed realistically having sex and not just playing the grandma role, but having a fuller life. i always get frustrated when fiction portrays the story of life as having a best before date, that once you have kids or get past 30 society expects you to settle down and become invisible, that certainly is not my experience. but this film was a little depressing and melodramatic and just made me sad. not a bad film but not what i was expecting.
wednesday i was ushering for an indian western THE LAST THAKUR. i have never been a big fan of the western genre. when i was doing american studies we had to watch so many, it being deemed the only true new genre in fiction, but it bores me. it always seems so full of machismo and repressed barbaric souls. this was no exception. set in an indian village along a river the thakur (a blast from the colonial past, the rich landowner) stumbled along half mad helped by his only friend, a blind beggar. everyone hates him because he has taken their land to build a shrine to a woman he loved that he is forcing them to construct. a stranger with a gun walks into town looking for information about his mother and meets the chairman, who our unreliable narrator tells us is a wonderful man but the images of him bullying his son tell us otherwise. it fits all the cliches of a western and was mostly successful in its attempts to transfer the genre to india and felt timeless and yet... it was lacking some punch for me, the pace was a bit slow and the characters a bit too one dimensional. reimagined westerns can be powerful (australian film the proposition or the ballad of little jo for instance) but this felt a bit limp. the audience hated it, one old couple amusingly kept falling asleep in turn and she told me it was the worst film she'd seen! it wasn't the worst film ever but it was a bit boring.
luckily, wednesday night was not boring. taking a car trip with the lovely adam and ben we went off to see ONEIDA in the croft in bristol. first on was TEETH OF THE SEA a funny looking bunch with one particular annoying guitarist who seemed to think he needed to make up for something lacking by jumping around like a mental with a comedy punk gurn on his face. it wasn't needed. they did great fuzzy anthems and the set seemed to be curtailed a little for my liking. less gurning next time and more songs, please. oneida were predictably brilliant. long organ jams and an extraordinary bit of fast drumming make claire a happy lady added to that the brilliant wig out projection behind them it made me grin like a loon. to compound the joy at the end of the night i go up to one of them and ask if anyone knows my friend dave oprava. i pass on the apology message, dave was meant to be here tonight but family committments blah blah blah meant he couldn't make it. he says the name doesn't ring a bell but then i see him talking to oneida founder bobby. his eyes light up and he rushes over all sweaty and asks how i know dave. he tells me how much he loves him, tells me how they went to school together and he misses him etc etc. it was wonderful, i felt like cilla on surprise surprise. he brought over other long time band members and frantically looked for a cd present and a pen and scrawled an essay sized message for dave on the packaging and gave me a sweaty hug for dave. love love love. what lovely people and what a great evening.
before packing for green man, thursday i was locked in a room all afternoon interviewing some amazing artists who had applied for the CHAPTER LIGHTBOX commission and discussing it afterwards. as it has not been announced i'd be an idiot to talk about who was chosen here but all of them were so interesting and it was facsinating getting an insight into how the artists work and what they thought they could do with the space. everyone short listed impressed me immensely and we had a very tough time deciding what to go with. often it was like discussing what was best: apples, bananas or oranges. i kept making a case for one then making a case for another and finding myself loving each of them for different reasons. i am very glad i did not have to make the decision on my own. the lightbox is a fantastic opportunity and i think it will become such an amazing centrepiece for chapter. i really enjoyed the process and am getting increasingly excited about the reopening.
14 Aug 2009
all quiet on the west cardiff front
this week we haven't really done much, not many gigs on (and found out too late for the ones there were) so spent a lot of time cwtching on the sofa watching movies. sunday we switched on THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW for allegedly 5 minutes cos i wanted to see the appalling "toast to man united" scene and ended up watching almost the whole bloody film. silly but fun. monday we went to the duchess (duke of clarence), a pub only 4 doors away from our house that i used to practically live in a few years ago, to have a drink with the patti ladies. we nattered and had a proper catch up and discussed green man, atp, canal breaks and other possible holidays together. they are such wonderful and lovely people, very glad they are our friends.
tuesday i finally got steen to watch THE LAST UNICORN. i was very excited, steen less so. this is one of my favourite films from when i was a kid and then when i discovered the amazing alison black liked it when we were at university we would make everyone watch it weekly after going out (often this coupled with FIRE WALK WITH ME was the ultimate in endurance tests for newcomers to the house like prospective friends and boyfriends). it has the wonderful voices of jeff bridges, alan arkin, tammy grimes and mia farrow; the music of soft rock psych band america; and gorgeous japanese animation. happily, steen did like it and even ignored the fact that i got tearful / excited / scared / did unicorn impressions even though i've seen it a million and one times.
wednesday whilst steen fiddled with some computer software and had to listen to INME for buzz magazine (i refused to be in the same room after having to endure something similarly horrible last month) i watched THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. god bless film4. i wouldn't normally sit down to watch this but since reading THE WATCHMEN have a bit of a low level alan carr obsession and wanted to know how true it was to his ideas. it was ok, lively enough, not nearly as good as the book as you would expect but some nice fun entertainment and sean connery was still quite sexy and believable.
thursday night we went with the patti ladies and it seems most of chapter (including raybould, jon, benny, anne and the gang) to see MOON. this was so powerful it gave me funny dreams last night. it starts with a pr film for lunar industries who have solved the world's power problems by harvesting energy on the moon. this brought up all sorts of sci fi references (TOTAL RECALL for example) and is actually wholly believable as i read an article ages ago in the NEW SCIENTIST talking about this very same potential idea. when we start a very beardy sam rockwell is talking to robot gerty about how he only has 2 weeks left before going home, ending his 3 year contract as the sole engineer on the moon harvesting energy for the earth, again leading to references of creepy tension in space, to 2001 and SILENT RUNNING. but when sam starts seeing things in the corner of his eye, like little blips in a computer program, the tension mounts and starts leading you towards EVENT HORIZON and SOLARIS. but it takes a different turn, it quickly stops from being a cliche. it has wonderful solid, old fashioned effects, a good script and a great performance (or should that be performances) from sam rockwell. he is the only person we actually see on screen who isn't a fuzzy mirage or video but he is never unwatchable, you never get bored of wondering how he is, wondering what he is going to do. the film is actually all about loneliness and sacrifice and the human spirit rather than how many things we can blow up in space, a refreshing change.
tuesday i finally got steen to watch THE LAST UNICORN. i was very excited, steen less so. this is one of my favourite films from when i was a kid and then when i discovered the amazing alison black liked it when we were at university we would make everyone watch it weekly after going out (often this coupled with FIRE WALK WITH ME was the ultimate in endurance tests for newcomers to the house like prospective friends and boyfriends). it has the wonderful voices of jeff bridges, alan arkin, tammy grimes and mia farrow; the music of soft rock psych band america; and gorgeous japanese animation. happily, steen did like it and even ignored the fact that i got tearful / excited / scared / did unicorn impressions even though i've seen it a million and one times.
wednesday whilst steen fiddled with some computer software and had to listen to INME for buzz magazine (i refused to be in the same room after having to endure something similarly horrible last month) i watched THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. god bless film4. i wouldn't normally sit down to watch this but since reading THE WATCHMEN have a bit of a low level alan carr obsession and wanted to know how true it was to his ideas. it was ok, lively enough, not nearly as good as the book as you would expect but some nice fun entertainment and sean connery was still quite sexy and believable.
thursday night we went with the patti ladies and it seems most of chapter (including raybould, jon, benny, anne and the gang) to see MOON. this was so powerful it gave me funny dreams last night. it starts with a pr film for lunar industries who have solved the world's power problems by harvesting energy on the moon. this brought up all sorts of sci fi references (TOTAL RECALL for example) and is actually wholly believable as i read an article ages ago in the NEW SCIENTIST talking about this very same potential idea. when we start a very beardy sam rockwell is talking to robot gerty about how he only has 2 weeks left before going home, ending his 3 year contract as the sole engineer on the moon harvesting energy for the earth, again leading to references of creepy tension in space, to 2001 and SILENT RUNNING. but when sam starts seeing things in the corner of his eye, like little blips in a computer program, the tension mounts and starts leading you towards EVENT HORIZON and SOLARIS. but it takes a different turn, it quickly stops from being a cliche. it has wonderful solid, old fashioned effects, a good script and a great performance (or should that be performances) from sam rockwell. he is the only person we actually see on screen who isn't a fuzzy mirage or video but he is never unwatchable, you never get bored of wondering how he is, wondering what he is going to do. the film is actually all about loneliness and sacrifice and the human spirit rather than how many things we can blow up in space, a refreshing change.
6 Aug 2009
everything else
after ANTICHRIST i spent the whole day thinking about it and wrote a blog dedicated to that powerful, beautiful film. however, immediately after antichrist i was plunged into an entirely different kind of reality. i was in mexico for a silly football comedy called RUDO Y CURSI. it was another group project from director carlos cuaron reuniting him with diego luna and gael garcia banal. it was wonderful fun. they effortlessly played two poor brothers who fought but loved each other (like better looking gallaghers) and got a chance to get out of the slums by playing football and once there were given their nicknames rudo and cursi (meaning soft, sentimental). it was all about chasing dreams that will never come to fruition, rudo (diego luna) is a compulsive gambler and whenever he has anything for 5 minutes has pawned it or lost it in gambling debts; cursi (gael garcia banal) plays the accordian and wants to be a big singing star, but has no talent to back it up. one of the funniest moments comes when cursi pays for a music video, a spanish cover of cheap trick's "i want you to want me" complete with silly dancing, outrageously camp cowboy outfit and his trusty accordian. very engaging and watchable, i'd recommend it to everyone.
wednesday i was ushering for BURMA VJ, a documentary about the video journalists who risk their lives every day to bring pictures from the closed society in burma. it was narrated by one who had to escape to thailand and centred on the protests led by monks last year. it was very interesting and seeing the lengths these people were going to be free made me just go into sobs. it was inspiring and heartbreaking, with the foreknowledge that aung san suu kyi is on trial again at the moment.
in the evening we had a bloody lovely catch up with the canton youth (rich and rhian). shamefully we hadn't been around to their new house after countless invites so we went over there with a bottle of wine (which the four of us finished pretty sharpish) and saw their bloody gorgeous and amazing new house in the heart of leafy upper canton. i highly doubt steen or i will ever have enough money in our pockets to buy a house like this so its nice that the nosworthys have already allocated a spare room for me (with a secret room attached!) in the attic that includes a life sized luke skywalker. ace!
thursday was the day of triumph. having come third in FWCH GOCH POP QUIZ two months in a row we were determined to maybe come third again or maybe lower. as far as i was concerned we were lucky to come third twice. but in fact we won. came first. beat the whole of cardiff at pop! this was not an easy victory. we (me, steen, deans, anwen and anwen's lovely friend jenny) were tied in first place with a dream team (rylett, nay, grace, leo, iain and leah) and had to shout out the tie breaker: the year ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars album came out. we all screamed "73!" at once so mr dc gates instead asked us to write down the answer to the highest chart position instead and hand it in. the tension built, steen was biting his nails more than usual. we won! woop! very very excited and a little drunk we got a round of drinks (making us more drunk and missing mel's birthday party in gwdihw) and a whole bag of gifts. out of these i got a spillers mug and some pens (score! my biro had run out that morning) and steen got some cds. since we'd already purchased mum tickets, anwen and deans had this and jenny had the remainder of the cds. we all went home elated.
the next day i was excited and a little nervous: the steens were visiting, all of them. excited as i hadn't yet met the littlest steen, ciaran and nervous cos i hadn't seen them for ages and had the usual "what if they hate me" nerves. i'm sure they don't and as much as i was trying to reassure myself that i was being very silly i still tidied up the house like a whirlwind so they didn't make will move out of the pigsty he'd ended up in. it was a lovely visit. we went for an ice cream in the park and i played with little un (don't babies have serious faces? my friend's little boy sonny is the same, the boys especially look like little old men!) and gave laura her birthday gifts and went up to rob's house (that weirdly enough after knowing him about 2 years had not been to). it was great. they didn't come to the house but i felt better for my tidying. all good.
saturday i finished at 5.30pm so i could go to timmy and macca's french themed leaving party. i iced cakes with french themes and steen cooked a lovely tea in preparation for a night's drinking. and we fell asleep. dead away. we missed the party and now, almost a week later i still have 12 (well, not 12, i've snacked on a couple, i think more like 8 now) iced buns that were meant to be eaten by my friends. oops!
wednesday i was ushering for BURMA VJ, a documentary about the video journalists who risk their lives every day to bring pictures from the closed society in burma. it was narrated by one who had to escape to thailand and centred on the protests led by monks last year. it was very interesting and seeing the lengths these people were going to be free made me just go into sobs. it was inspiring and heartbreaking, with the foreknowledge that aung san suu kyi is on trial again at the moment.
in the evening we had a bloody lovely catch up with the canton youth (rich and rhian). shamefully we hadn't been around to their new house after countless invites so we went over there with a bottle of wine (which the four of us finished pretty sharpish) and saw their bloody gorgeous and amazing new house in the heart of leafy upper canton. i highly doubt steen or i will ever have enough money in our pockets to buy a house like this so its nice that the nosworthys have already allocated a spare room for me (with a secret room attached!) in the attic that includes a life sized luke skywalker. ace!
thursday was the day of triumph. having come third in FWCH GOCH POP QUIZ two months in a row we were determined to maybe come third again or maybe lower. as far as i was concerned we were lucky to come third twice. but in fact we won. came first. beat the whole of cardiff at pop! this was not an easy victory. we (me, steen, deans, anwen and anwen's lovely friend jenny) were tied in first place with a dream team (rylett, nay, grace, leo, iain and leah) and had to shout out the tie breaker: the year ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars album came out. we all screamed "73!" at once so mr dc gates instead asked us to write down the answer to the highest chart position instead and hand it in. the tension built, steen was biting his nails more than usual. we won! woop! very very excited and a little drunk we got a round of drinks (making us more drunk and missing mel's birthday party in gwdihw) and a whole bag of gifts. out of these i got a spillers mug and some pens (score! my biro had run out that morning) and steen got some cds. since we'd already purchased mum tickets, anwen and deans had this and jenny had the remainder of the cds. we all went home elated.
the next day i was excited and a little nervous: the steens were visiting, all of them. excited as i hadn't yet met the littlest steen, ciaran and nervous cos i hadn't seen them for ages and had the usual "what if they hate me" nerves. i'm sure they don't and as much as i was trying to reassure myself that i was being very silly i still tidied up the house like a whirlwind so they didn't make will move out of the pigsty he'd ended up in. it was a lovely visit. we went for an ice cream in the park and i played with little un (don't babies have serious faces? my friend's little boy sonny is the same, the boys especially look like little old men!) and gave laura her birthday gifts and went up to rob's house (that weirdly enough after knowing him about 2 years had not been to). it was great. they didn't come to the house but i felt better for my tidying. all good.
saturday i finished at 5.30pm so i could go to timmy and macca's french themed leaving party. i iced cakes with french themes and steen cooked a lovely tea in preparation for a night's drinking. and we fell asleep. dead away. we missed the party and now, almost a week later i still have 12 (well, not 12, i've snacked on a couple, i think more like 8 now) iced buns that were meant to be eaten by my friends. oops!
4 Aug 2009
immediate thoughts on antichrist *SPOILERS*
this is my experience on monday night watching ANTICHRIST. it was extraordinary and nothing like the hyped up gore fest i had heard about. it was the story told in chapters with a prologue and epilogue about a couple dealing with the death of their young son and the cruelty and indifference of nature. i purposefully did not want to know too much about it before going in but cannot avoid speaking about it fully here so if you haven't seen it look away now but take my word for it, its worth going to see what your reaction is.
it begins in beautiful slow black and white. a toddler gets out of the safe confines of his cot and manages to open the stair gate then seeing the snow is fascinated and plummets to his death. interspersed with this is the sight of his parents, only referred to as he and she, fucking. the harshness of the word must be used for the sight of it is graphic and carnal. it is not pornographic but it is natural and if it was not so beautiful it would be almost clinical. it is clear that the couple were having a shower, wanted each other and started doing it all over the house, ending up in bed.
the next chapter deals with the initial grief. the woman has been sedated since her grief and guilt is so profound and he (now identified as a therapist) tells her she doesn't need the drugs and he can help her through this. he wants to protect her and guide her through her grief. he probes and prods at her feelings, trying to control the situation and her. she has anxiety attacks and can hardly breath, he identifies that she has a fear and he wants her to examine her fear so takes her to the countryside, a log cabin they have in the forrest called eden. he will not comfort her with sex, will not let her escape and soothe her grief but only talk her out of it.
once in eden the surroundings seem to suck them in, at times the lush greenery seems distorted, like its twig claws are pulling them into its darkness. she complains that the ground is burning her, he identifies a freudian cure and draws a pyramid to help explain, identify exactly what the problem is. he sees eden, this place, nature as top of the pyramid of fear. she seems to see this as intrusive but he will not stop. he seems to start to become suspicious of nature, not understanding things about it the way she does. the acorns dropping on the roof (completely natural) seem to be like bombs. he starts seeing animals in the forrest that seem to be warning signals - a doe with a stillborn baby still hanging from its womb, a bloody fox and a screaming crow. she tells him that she was researching her book gynicide (a study of medieval witch hunts and a discussion of the innate evil of women and original sin) last summer when she heard a scream, thought it was the baby but realised it was the scream of all things that will die. the acorns falling on the roof are all essentially sperm that will not fertilize the earth and she says she can hear them crying. she also states that nature is satan's church. she demands sex and they make love in a tree root surrounded by human bodies.
the next chapter is when she turns on him. she can't find him when she wakes and certain he has left her she knocks him out, rams a log into his crotch to emasculate him and whilst passed out masturbates him (he climax spurts blood and semen) then screws a heavy stone to his leg and retreats to the forrest. when he wakes he crawls out and finds shelter in the tree root where a crow gives him away. she finds him and buries him alive. later she seems to come back to rationality and digs him up, drags him back and holds him. she then masturbates and has a memory of seeing her son plummet as she orgasms and finding the guilt at her enjoyment of sex unbearable, takes a pair of scissors and cuts into her clitoris. he awakes and sees the deer, fox and crow surround her, takes off the grindstone and strangles her. he then burns her body on a pyre and escapes on some crutches.
again in black and white we see him leaving eden but then hundreds of faceless people, clothed, climb into the forrest, possibly the souls of all living things whose destiny is to die.
i am still thinking about this and feeling this film. there are a hundred things i could say about it but the first thing i was reminded of was when i was about 9 years old being on holiday in cornwall with my family. i'd not been very well in the day and woke up and it was dark. i went to see my mum and couldn't find her. everyone was in bed and asleep, i awoke my dad and he said she'd taken the dog for a walk. i sat in the living room and heard a scream. the most accurate thing i have ever heard in real life that could be described as "blood curdling". i went cold. i was convinced that my mum had been attacked. i tried to wake my dad but he wouldn't, he said it was just a fox but i remember being out of my mind with fright. maybe it was only half an hour but it felt like an eternity stood in the garden of that house that was in the middle of nowhere in the forest calling for my mum and seeing only the blackest night, nature staring back at me. it also made me think of the hurricane at the end of the zora neale hurston novel "their eyes were watching god". nature is uncaring, indifferent. it seems cruel but it has no feeling it just is and it is much stronger and powerful than any human, it cannot be tamed. this is one of the best films i have seen and will leave me thinking for weeks.
it begins in beautiful slow black and white. a toddler gets out of the safe confines of his cot and manages to open the stair gate then seeing the snow is fascinated and plummets to his death. interspersed with this is the sight of his parents, only referred to as he and she, fucking. the harshness of the word must be used for the sight of it is graphic and carnal. it is not pornographic but it is natural and if it was not so beautiful it would be almost clinical. it is clear that the couple were having a shower, wanted each other and started doing it all over the house, ending up in bed.
the next chapter deals with the initial grief. the woman has been sedated since her grief and guilt is so profound and he (now identified as a therapist) tells her she doesn't need the drugs and he can help her through this. he wants to protect her and guide her through her grief. he probes and prods at her feelings, trying to control the situation and her. she has anxiety attacks and can hardly breath, he identifies that she has a fear and he wants her to examine her fear so takes her to the countryside, a log cabin they have in the forrest called eden. he will not comfort her with sex, will not let her escape and soothe her grief but only talk her out of it.
once in eden the surroundings seem to suck them in, at times the lush greenery seems distorted, like its twig claws are pulling them into its darkness. she complains that the ground is burning her, he identifies a freudian cure and draws a pyramid to help explain, identify exactly what the problem is. he sees eden, this place, nature as top of the pyramid of fear. she seems to see this as intrusive but he will not stop. he seems to start to become suspicious of nature, not understanding things about it the way she does. the acorns dropping on the roof (completely natural) seem to be like bombs. he starts seeing animals in the forrest that seem to be warning signals - a doe with a stillborn baby still hanging from its womb, a bloody fox and a screaming crow. she tells him that she was researching her book gynicide (a study of medieval witch hunts and a discussion of the innate evil of women and original sin) last summer when she heard a scream, thought it was the baby but realised it was the scream of all things that will die. the acorns falling on the roof are all essentially sperm that will not fertilize the earth and she says she can hear them crying. she also states that nature is satan's church. she demands sex and they make love in a tree root surrounded by human bodies.
the next chapter is when she turns on him. she can't find him when she wakes and certain he has left her she knocks him out, rams a log into his crotch to emasculate him and whilst passed out masturbates him (he climax spurts blood and semen) then screws a heavy stone to his leg and retreats to the forrest. when he wakes he crawls out and finds shelter in the tree root where a crow gives him away. she finds him and buries him alive. later she seems to come back to rationality and digs him up, drags him back and holds him. she then masturbates and has a memory of seeing her son plummet as she orgasms and finding the guilt at her enjoyment of sex unbearable, takes a pair of scissors and cuts into her clitoris. he awakes and sees the deer, fox and crow surround her, takes off the grindstone and strangles her. he then burns her body on a pyre and escapes on some crutches.
again in black and white we see him leaving eden but then hundreds of faceless people, clothed, climb into the forrest, possibly the souls of all living things whose destiny is to die.
i am still thinking about this and feeling this film. there are a hundred things i could say about it but the first thing i was reminded of was when i was about 9 years old being on holiday in cornwall with my family. i'd not been very well in the day and woke up and it was dark. i went to see my mum and couldn't find her. everyone was in bed and asleep, i awoke my dad and he said she'd taken the dog for a walk. i sat in the living room and heard a scream. the most accurate thing i have ever heard in real life that could be described as "blood curdling". i went cold. i was convinced that my mum had been attacked. i tried to wake my dad but he wouldn't, he said it was just a fox but i remember being out of my mind with fright. maybe it was only half an hour but it felt like an eternity stood in the garden of that house that was in the middle of nowhere in the forest calling for my mum and seeing only the blackest night, nature staring back at me. it also made me think of the hurricane at the end of the zora neale hurston novel "their eyes were watching god". nature is uncaring, indifferent. it seems cruel but it has no feeling it just is and it is much stronger and powerful than any human, it cannot be tamed. this is one of the best films i have seen and will leave me thinking for weeks.
warm and fuzzy
the week started quietly well. on tuesday i ushered for the dance double bill, PERIPHERAL LANDSCAPES performed by eeva marie mutka and titta court (in collaboration with gaby agis) and TOUCHED performed by gaby agis and douglas hart. there was a video playing in the foyer to give some background to the pieces, a facinating exploration of the skinner release method of dance practice, which is to be as fluid as possible and creates improvised unstructured movement very different to the usual disciplines of hard lines and routines of traditional dance. we saw the dancers (one finnish one from north wales) work on internal and external landscapes. as i have not studied dance but go to see a lot of performances it was really interesting to see how the work evolved. the dance piece itself was truly beautiful. eeva and titta were like twinned souls, beginning a slow, drone-like prescriptive ballroom dance and then finding each other and becoming light and moulding into each other. one would raise an arm and the other would fall into her and they would swap over, joyously. at the end something happened to stop this organic flowing movement and they were both alone again, calling out for their other half. it reminded me of my wife, erin. ah, how i miss her. it was a really moving work. the second seemed to be about the connection between the body and music. doug hart (who help found the jesus and mary chain. fact!) played a bass line and gaby agis, dressed in rock chick fur coat and boots flung off her clothes and moved to the music. this was less effective for me, they added a backing track that i found unneccessary and there was not enough variety in the movements but it was still a interesting work.
on wednesday our friend filmryan was making a video for race horses (the new project from people wot was in radio luxembourg). the big idea was a wild west bar brawl with loads of cake. i tried to get free cake from the local greggs, tescos, hotels etc but found myself up against health and safety law (ALL CAKE MUST BE DESTROYED!) so raced out to get the cheapest, nastiest looking sponges (who knew that you could get a "raspberry sponge"* (*doesn't contain any raspberries) for 45p?! i wasn't needed for much techie work (booo) so helped lovely sara do wardrobe stuff. the golden cross is such a lovely building, so beautiful inside it was a joy to be somewhere so ornate.
i had to race away to work for i was ushering for PUBLIC ENEMIES the new film by michael mann about the bank robber john dillinger. i remember passing over the dillinger notoriety when i was studying american popular culture in university and as i recall he was one of those public anti-heroes popular in the 1930s when gangster culture was rife. unfortunately the film did not really tell me an awful lot more about him. johnny depp was brilliant as dillinger, it was nice to see him playing straight (no cap'n jack campness or creepy jacko impersonations) and certainly made you believe in this man's charisma but it was lacking in back story and still very long. it detailed the end of his career when he was being chased by the FBI and mann took it in fairly predictible territory by showing the cop and the robber as two sides of the same coin, both career hungry and competitive. it was well made but left me a bit cold. it was nice to see british actor stephen graham as psycho "babyface" nelson.
dashing straight from one thing to another i played with the cat and then sped off to have tea with steen in the rummer and then to splott library for the BOOK GROUP. we were discussing angela carter and charlotte perkins gilman. i'd actually not read the angela carter book but have read most of hers (i'm a big fan) and studied the perkins gilman in university so didn't have it fresh in my mind but it was great talking about it and hearing other people's reactions. the other women in the book group had not read any feminist literature before and really enjoyed it and i was really relieved to hear that. there was a report in the times on monday about the end of feminism and it is something that worries me a lot, it seems only the older generations seem to care about preserving a feminist dialogue and younger girls are disgusted by it and are obsessed with consumerism and reading magazines that criticise their bodies. i have now started "nights in the circus" and am greatly enjoying it. angela carter, i missed you!
thursday we spent the day in swansea. it was bloody lovely. after stressing about rain macs for green man and the death of summer it was truly a beautiful sunny day. we went to the GLYNN VIVIAN museum to see the mark wallinger curated "THE RUSSIAN LINESMAN". it was amazing, it was so well thought out, one of the best shows i've ever seen and a real coup to have it in swansea. the idea was that in the 1966 world cup the england goal was on the line and it had to be called out by a russian linesman. they had a photo of it there as an example. it was far too close to call but he gave it to england therefore facilitating one of the big myths about the golden age of british football. we've been riding on that wave for years. it was a moment where there was a clear alternate reality and this is what the show was about: mirror images, alternate realities, optical illusions. it was wonderful. the signature piece was by wallinger, his mirrored tardis that seems to blend in as if it is just about to disappear and carry on its journey through time and space. there were so many things that i just can't stop thinking about though: bertelli's continous profile of mussolini; the footage from the helicopter that was sent up to take pictures of phillip petit tightrope walking between the twin towers; the muybridge photographs... i could go on, it was full of amazing small things. afterwards we met my old chum boo for lunch. we went to verdis (why ruin a wonderful tradition?) and had lovely pasta meal served in seconds and then the most amazing ice cream in the world served in a chocolate wafer cone with millions of nuts on top. oof. boo had to go into mumbles shops to get a present and steen and i went on the "beach". i don't know if this constitutes a beach cos it was mainly mud and stones and detrius but we had fun trying not to get muddy and looking into dark holes. boo then took us for a little drive up to clyne to see the new flats built on top of my old dorm room (i did hate that place, i hope they toiled the ground with salt first) and then back to her flat for a quick drink. my plan was to try and go back into town and meet our friend joan but we started drinking gin and catching up and suddenly it was after 9pm. we completely missed the sweet baboo gig we'd planned to see and missed meeting up with the patti ladies. oops! but it was a lovely day and i really appreciated catching up with lovey boo.
saturday was quiet, i got angry in town in the morning trying to buy mum tickets at spillers. nothing to do with spillers or the lovely nick who sold them to me, i hate being in town when its busy and they have added traffic problems didn't help. i was running a bit late anyway due to spending almost an hour in the "up and under" outdoor pursuits store near victoria park talking to a really nice man about raincoats. i'd been researching them online all week, trying to decide what to get and how much to spend. i've had a few since getting my bike (pointless trying to exist without a raincoat when you ride a bike) but none have stayed waterproof for long. the bike shed recommended ones that are over £100 so i thought i'd get some proper advice. since i'm going to green man in a few weeks i had it in mind to make sure my rainproof wardrobe was sorted by then. it turns out the coat for me, the best one you can get that will last for years and is breathable so won't make you sweaty and annoyed is... £144. ah. right. he was a really nice man, not out for the hard sell but he said i'll probably just keep buying cheaper coats every winter and its a bit of a false economy. of course he is right but i don't have that sort of money. another one for the "save up" list. instead i found a long yellow coat that is in no way breathable but looks at least waterproof on ebay for £10 incl p&p. i will look like a rubber duck in green man but at least it'll get me through.
sunday i was ushering for MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS which was ok, a bit too flash in that way that a lot of modern cgi cartoons can be but it had a great central female character. the message was very much "accept yourself" and "freaks are ace". which is a message i wholly endorse. after work i zipped off to meet steen and deans at the BIG WEEKEND. we watched a mightily powerful EBONY BONES do her thing and make all the teenage boys shake their booty and take photos of her and then had a look around and got ready for CAMERA OBSCURA. they were great when we saw them last year but i was a bit disappointed this time. they seemed miserable, the weather turned a bit drizzly and the sound was appalling. my friends rich and pete turned up and we ended up going at the back and having a natter for a bit before decamping to dempseys to get warm and drunk. all in a good week of catching up with old buddies.
on wednesday our friend filmryan was making a video for race horses (the new project from people wot was in radio luxembourg). the big idea was a wild west bar brawl with loads of cake. i tried to get free cake from the local greggs, tescos, hotels etc but found myself up against health and safety law (ALL CAKE MUST BE DESTROYED!) so raced out to get the cheapest, nastiest looking sponges (who knew that you could get a "raspberry sponge"* (*doesn't contain any raspberries) for 45p?! i wasn't needed for much techie work (booo) so helped lovely sara do wardrobe stuff. the golden cross is such a lovely building, so beautiful inside it was a joy to be somewhere so ornate.
i had to race away to work for i was ushering for PUBLIC ENEMIES the new film by michael mann about the bank robber john dillinger. i remember passing over the dillinger notoriety when i was studying american popular culture in university and as i recall he was one of those public anti-heroes popular in the 1930s when gangster culture was rife. unfortunately the film did not really tell me an awful lot more about him. johnny depp was brilliant as dillinger, it was nice to see him playing straight (no cap'n jack campness or creepy jacko impersonations) and certainly made you believe in this man's charisma but it was lacking in back story and still very long. it detailed the end of his career when he was being chased by the FBI and mann took it in fairly predictible territory by showing the cop and the robber as two sides of the same coin, both career hungry and competitive. it was well made but left me a bit cold. it was nice to see british actor stephen graham as psycho "babyface" nelson.
dashing straight from one thing to another i played with the cat and then sped off to have tea with steen in the rummer and then to splott library for the BOOK GROUP. we were discussing angela carter and charlotte perkins gilman. i'd actually not read the angela carter book but have read most of hers (i'm a big fan) and studied the perkins gilman in university so didn't have it fresh in my mind but it was great talking about it and hearing other people's reactions. the other women in the book group had not read any feminist literature before and really enjoyed it and i was really relieved to hear that. there was a report in the times on monday about the end of feminism and it is something that worries me a lot, it seems only the older generations seem to care about preserving a feminist dialogue and younger girls are disgusted by it and are obsessed with consumerism and reading magazines that criticise their bodies. i have now started "nights in the circus" and am greatly enjoying it. angela carter, i missed you!
thursday we spent the day in swansea. it was bloody lovely. after stressing about rain macs for green man and the death of summer it was truly a beautiful sunny day. we went to the GLYNN VIVIAN museum to see the mark wallinger curated "THE RUSSIAN LINESMAN". it was amazing, it was so well thought out, one of the best shows i've ever seen and a real coup to have it in swansea. the idea was that in the 1966 world cup the england goal was on the line and it had to be called out by a russian linesman. they had a photo of it there as an example. it was far too close to call but he gave it to england therefore facilitating one of the big myths about the golden age of british football. we've been riding on that wave for years. it was a moment where there was a clear alternate reality and this is what the show was about: mirror images, alternate realities, optical illusions. it was wonderful. the signature piece was by wallinger, his mirrored tardis that seems to blend in as if it is just about to disappear and carry on its journey through time and space. there were so many things that i just can't stop thinking about though: bertelli's continous profile of mussolini; the footage from the helicopter that was sent up to take pictures of phillip petit tightrope walking between the twin towers; the muybridge photographs... i could go on, it was full of amazing small things. afterwards we met my old chum boo for lunch. we went to verdis (why ruin a wonderful tradition?) and had lovely pasta meal served in seconds and then the most amazing ice cream in the world served in a chocolate wafer cone with millions of nuts on top. oof. boo had to go into mumbles shops to get a present and steen and i went on the "beach". i don't know if this constitutes a beach cos it was mainly mud and stones and detrius but we had fun trying not to get muddy and looking into dark holes. boo then took us for a little drive up to clyne to see the new flats built on top of my old dorm room (i did hate that place, i hope they toiled the ground with salt first) and then back to her flat for a quick drink. my plan was to try and go back into town and meet our friend joan but we started drinking gin and catching up and suddenly it was after 9pm. we completely missed the sweet baboo gig we'd planned to see and missed meeting up with the patti ladies. oops! but it was a lovely day and i really appreciated catching up with lovey boo.
saturday was quiet, i got angry in town in the morning trying to buy mum tickets at spillers. nothing to do with spillers or the lovely nick who sold them to me, i hate being in town when its busy and they have added traffic problems didn't help. i was running a bit late anyway due to spending almost an hour in the "up and under" outdoor pursuits store near victoria park talking to a really nice man about raincoats. i'd been researching them online all week, trying to decide what to get and how much to spend. i've had a few since getting my bike (pointless trying to exist without a raincoat when you ride a bike) but none have stayed waterproof for long. the bike shed recommended ones that are over £100 so i thought i'd get some proper advice. since i'm going to green man in a few weeks i had it in mind to make sure my rainproof wardrobe was sorted by then. it turns out the coat for me, the best one you can get that will last for years and is breathable so won't make you sweaty and annoyed is... £144. ah. right. he was a really nice man, not out for the hard sell but he said i'll probably just keep buying cheaper coats every winter and its a bit of a false economy. of course he is right but i don't have that sort of money. another one for the "save up" list. instead i found a long yellow coat that is in no way breathable but looks at least waterproof on ebay for £10 incl p&p. i will look like a rubber duck in green man but at least it'll get me through.
sunday i was ushering for MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS which was ok, a bit too flash in that way that a lot of modern cgi cartoons can be but it had a great central female character. the message was very much "accept yourself" and "freaks are ace". which is a message i wholly endorse. after work i zipped off to meet steen and deans at the BIG WEEKEND. we watched a mightily powerful EBONY BONES do her thing and make all the teenage boys shake their booty and take photos of her and then had a look around and got ready for CAMERA OBSCURA. they were great when we saw them last year but i was a bit disappointed this time. they seemed miserable, the weather turned a bit drizzly and the sound was appalling. my friends rich and pete turned up and we ended up going at the back and having a natter for a bit before decamping to dempseys to get warm and drunk. all in a good week of catching up with old buddies.
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