Ye Gods, December has brought forth the most awesome advent calendar: Lego! (you may also note there are pirates, but I couldn't get one in time and now it seems silly to have two advent calendars).
This post from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) lordsoftheblog made me laugh on a very dreary morning. Also, the feed from the Digital Economy Bill, currrently awaiting the Commitee stage in the Lords, is digitaleconomy and all the details are here. It seems to be some routine updating with a big slab of doom.
Just back from NYC, which was fun. Thanksgiving was spent in the traditional manner, being in the company of an enormous bloody mary. I did take in a show, and having been told that I should, nay needed to, see Next To Normal, I went to see Toxic Avenger instead. My face ached for hours. It's enormous fun.
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The Halloween weekend saw me in Edinburgh at Dr Jekyll's Nightmare, performing a song about a nightmare about rats.
I'll put the song online soon. I'm particularly fond of rhyming "why not us?" with "riotous". The show went well, but I was far too tired to enjoy it fully.
This last weekend saw me back in Coventry, briefly. I helped make a pattern for a shirt, I prepared a miniature art gallery and I chased a rabbit. All in all, a pretty good weekend.
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Friday's trip to the RAH with my dad went surprisingly well. I had very low expectations for the whole thing, but the orchestra and the choir were fantastic, the cameos not too cringeworthy, and the company was lovely. All in all a smile inducing evening.
Sunday saw me dragging my housemate to Chigwell to collect an organ. D very kindly drove me in his estate, which was just big enough when we sawed the top off the organ. We brought it back and M and I stripped it down and blew the dust off it, not to mention the spiders, snails and a particularly beautiful peacock butterfly. It works. It's mine. It cost me £1 so I can quite happily go at it with a hammer, saw, screwdriver and paintbrush and make it even more mine. It's lovely, and when you pump it hard enough, Loud.
Right now I'm procrastinating as I really should be writing material for friday night. Anyone have any ludicrous nightmares? It would help.
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Last week saw me back in Edinburgh taking the part of Rob in the film Girl TM. I had a great time on set, but it goes to show how tiring even sitting around waiting for your close up can be. While up there I got to see Nick Cave performing songs and readings from The Death of Bunny Munro. It made me really want the audiobook, but not really want to listen to his music.
This week I have seen Terror 2009 at the Southwark Playhouse, which I enjoyed even though I didn't really like the plays. The first was set in the pitch black and properly called forth the idea that Something Horrible Is About To Happen. For twenty minutes, it was About To Happen. The other pieces, in comparrison, were quite pedestrian. Lovely cabaret and a dark cautionary tale about a cursed hymen.
Last night was the excellent Karaoke Circus, that left me excited and energised, while also being depressed by failing to perform and the quality of some of the other performers.
Tonight sees me at the RAH for the Monty Python "Not the Messiah", erm, spectacle? Debacle? Nonsense? We shall see.
Next weekend, while all the crazy kids are going to the amazing selection of Halloween events that this city is so well known for, I shall be back in Edinburgh performing at Curiosity Cabaret (performing a song, I must add, that I have yet to write) and then dancing at Vegas. It will all be jolly good fun, I am sure, but even the thought of it is making me sleepy now.
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Last night, to celebrate Bastille day, the purple cow on the southbank had a French double bill. Commodore Sir Timothy Fitzhigham FRGS Pittancer of Selby told the tale of his attempt to row the channel. In a Bath. It's available as a book, which I heartily recommend. Priorite A Gauche then attempted to educate us. It was much fun. I learned that Belgian beers hide in their names just how sick you will be after drinking them.
Last week I was being Darwin in This View of Life at the ADC. Sorry for the failure to tell any one but it was incredibly last minute. A little write up can be found here and there are some photos here.
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I've got two spare tickets for Spinal Tap at Wembley. Would anybody like them for face value before I put them on ebay? The tickets are for Block C4, Row 12, Seats 56-7 on Tuesday 30th June, supported by the Folksmen. Face value for the pair is £110. And, just for the record, I hate ticket*^&£ingmaster.
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| 5.05 pm, Friday 1st May, 2009 |
| Art |
| Public |
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This weekend I will be selling Art in Stoke Newington. All the details are here. Even the user pic will be for sale.
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I've just jerry-rigged an ATX PSU to stay on without a motherboard by using that most technical device: a paperclip. The machine still won't bloody work though.
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| 10.36 am, Wednesday 22nd April, 2009 |
| Merde! |
| Public |
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Last night the BFI provided lunacy in the form of Zazie Dans Le Metro, the film by Louis Malle from the novel by Raymond Queneau. It's mental, a proper waterfolk film. The plot roughly centres around a girl called Zazie who is being looked after for two days in Paris with her uncle who is a female impersonator in a nightclub. She just wants to ride the metro, but there is a strike.
This morning I got to Brixton station to find there is a strike.
In other news, the puzzle is complete and still unsolved.
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Little do you realise what staring at this will do to your mind.
Here endeth the puzzle. You should now have an answer and an address to send it to. Congratulations if you have. A waggly finger and a message to go and look more closely if you haven't.
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Eventually she realised you had to actually reach out with your fingers, not just the shadows.
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What happened yesterday? There was work and stuff and mostly failing to get round to stuff and then I went home and got stressed about ticketmaster. I hate fucking ticket fucking master. Naughty takeaway washed down with guilt and a home made muffin.
Album of the day was Ivor Cutler - Jammy Smears. Mental. The piece about a man with woollen eyes reminded me so much of Martin White. I need to get a harmonium.
Play of the day was Robert Farquhar - Bad Jazz. Self referential piece about actors taking things too far. Somehow really caught me. I love the final speech where she wraps everything up by telling you the epilogue, complete with telling you about how she would crowbar the epilogue in if this was a play.
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Very quietly worship Hera, the goddess of love and marriage.
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Anywhere a tool is needed, the multitool will do, but will never be right.
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Sluggishly awake and two cups of tea before I could get out the door. Spent most of the day mastering The Outbreak footage, so that by seven I had a working CD. Sounds pretty good. I spent the middle of the day, usually reserved for boondoggle, properly being a librarian. Go me. In the evening went to the Macbeth in Hoxton for Goodbye Faithful Kingdom. First up were the Dead Rat Orchestra. A toybox of a band. Three guys bowing bells and cranking coffee grinders and scraping carriage clocks with cheese knives and clanging and chopping with a meat cleaver and a log. Then the Monroe Transfer played an extended set and I haven't seen them play so well in a long time. Home. Watched the film for the first time, and I can see why Oscar is disappointed, but it's still lovely. Looking forward to doing more graphics for the director's cut.
Album of the day was Eli "Paperboy" Reed & The True Loves - Roll with You. Love the band, didn't take much else in. When I caught lyrics, they didn't exactly thrill.
Play of the day was Alex Jones - I'm a Minger. Classic story of a teenage girl who runs in with a bad crowd, dabbles with bulemia and suicide and is then suddenly redeemed. Well told.
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Damn you teefury and your $5 mystery sale! Damn You!!!
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Yesterday felt very long. Texted and phoned twice before my alarm went off. Created a swirly thing. Had a proper breakfast. Eventually got to have a shower. Then to work, leaving O frantically finishing the editing. Some boondoggle at work. Then spent the afternoon editing Outbreak footage. Home to chinese takeaway leftovers and dollhouse episode 6, where the excrement meets the rotating blades. Still haven't seen the film.
Album of the day was Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things. Mellow electronics with practically whispered nonsense over it. I barely got one proper listen, but I liked it a lot.
Play of the day was Mark Ravenhill - Over There. Twins born in Germany are separated when the wall goes up, and meet again when the wall comes down. Exploration of identity and belonging when one brother tries to take over the life of the other. Gripping. Ends on a bit of a shock factor.
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Rhiannon, Nick and Nicole engrossed while Neil is not so sure.
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So much has happened. April fool's day was fun. I always try and look through the papers for pranks. Waitrose were advertising Pinanas (half pineapple half banana) and I think the metro ran a review for a secret london restaurant where diners are strapped to their chairs. The BBC iplayer toaster with its Digital Retraction Mechanism for getting the crumbs out was also fun. I was kinda pranked by a group of students who used me as research for their devised project by all having their mobiles go off in quick succession and seeing how long it took for me to shout. when they'd finished one of them popped a balloon with a pin and they all left. Very surreal.
Thursday had a short day at work and then home to prep O's birthday present. He got a card and a trophy and a song where I Did Not Call Him A Cock. Also recorded MAR's composition 30 Blues. At midnight we trundled into the park and drank champagne.
Friday was a dull day at the office mostly spent mastering the CD to give to O (also now including C# Begins At 30 by RTD). Had a shower and a shave in my lunch break. Home, briefly change and repack. To Brazas on Tulse Hill for the birthday dinner. I didn't like the food, but had a lovely time anyway. So good to see O happy. People kept turning up and ruining the layout of the restaurant as we colonised.
Saturday, after recovering and cooking breakfast, was spent mostly failing to do stuff. I managed to make headway on Cahon 2, but couldn't get any further. O was busy writing for the Sci-fi 48 hour film challenge, so I occasionally had to listen to pitches. Then in the evening, once they'd decided on a story, I did some preliminary graphics for it and hit the sack.
For anyone who doesn't know about it, the challenge is this: create a film of 3-5 minutes with a given title, prop and line of dialogue, in less than 48 hours. This year the title was The Last Showing, the line of dialogue was "Say you took the blame for someone, just don't say who" and the prop was 5 ring doughnuts. The first idea we had was a time travel thriller which would have been great, except that when you boiled it down to less than 5 minutes it was a very generic time travel story that I personally have seen at least six times before. We went for a comedy option.
So for Sunday I was up after three hours kip to a Certain Cinema where we secretly filmed til noon. Then some street scenes. Then lunch. It was all a bit of a blur, but I think somehow I might have become the protagonist, if the film has one. Lots of doughnuts and waiting and film faff. I might have to poke O into doing a series of 48 hour films with no prep and nothing more than the kit we own. They always seem to be lots more fun. Home to do more graphics. Tidying. Ghostbusters 2. Pizza. Sleep. Phone. More graphics. Sleep. Phone. Sleep.
I think the last album of the day was Prodigy - Invaders Must Die. Seemed like an awful step backwards for them. Nothing wrong with it, but just a bit pedestrian compared with their older stuff.
Play of the day was John Osborne - Look Back in Anger. I was told I needed to know the historical context and really read it as a period piece, and instead I read it with no thought of background. I can see why this was important, I think. But I still don't believe him or her or them. Couldn't really see where it was going, and then it went nowhere, but maybe that's the point.
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Time travel could have been possible, but instead we had alien invasion.
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Every take we were told Don't eat the doughnuts. They didn't say anything about the sprinkles.
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Walking through the scorching heat I came across a bush on fire, and it raineth ash like snow.
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Never leave the gas on when you're leaving town.
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Every private members bar needs one.
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Yesterday at work was mostly spent ripping the recording of Curisosity Cabaret. I really don't sound good, but there's some good stuff on there. Slept through lunch in the staff room. Things are quite quiet here at the moment. In the evening to the Prince Charles to see a scratchy print of Labyrinth. Cheered and danced in my seat.
Album of the day was Ruarri Joseph - Tales of Grime and Grit. It's obviously not a good time for me to listen to lyric based rock/pop/folk. Mostly this slid off me. When I caught it, it was engaging and touching, but mostly I missed it.
Play of the day was Woody Allen - Death. A surrealist, absurdist nightmare about a man called from his bed to join a mysterious group of vigilantes in hunting a homicidal maniac. Dark and interesting and a little scary, but I'm not sure about good.
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He walked up to the desk, balloon raised in one hand and pin in the other...
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Yesterday was once again a haze of sleep-deprived semi-conscious meandering. Returning home from work with most of a box which will become cahon 2, I cooked a chilli and watched Hamstergeddon before promptly falling asleep.
Album of the day was Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Seas. Perfectly fine folky type stuff that happily played in the background. Didn't grab me though and twice in one day I found myself choosing to listen to something else rather than press play again.
Play of the day was Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna - Lovers and other strangers. Five one-act comedies on similar themes of love. Absurd characters do absurd things, but I'm assuming because it's not written well rather than it is an absurdist piece. The only emotional reality I could find is where one of the characters has an immense monologue about why they can't get married and his bride, after a pause, quietly responds Did you and your father pick up the tuxedos today? and he says yeah and they finish the scene smiling and crying and discussing arrangements.
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Why does my room never look this classy no matter how much red velvet I fill it with?
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Thursday passed in a bit of a blur with the no sleep and the lack of brain that leads to. Spent a lot of time at my desk editing sound effects so that come seven pm I could dash home and do the final mastering of my backing track. With an hour before having to leave for the bus I was throwing kitten sound effects on to accordion music. With ten minutes to go I threw a CD at MAR saying Test That while I hastily packed a bag. Victoria Coach Station for the Megabus to Edinburgh.
Wake on the outskirts, tired and achey. Reclaim bag, pickup keys, get to flat, collapse. Three hours later wake with the man of the house startled to find a body on his sofa. We go in to town for a cable, a parking pass and a pair of pig filled rolls. I have time for a couple of singthroughs before getting ready for the night ahead, complete with silly outfit and facepaint. To the venue and a hurried setup. The last two people to be booted from the backroom of the pub were playing the quiz machine and when I looked they had the following question:
Which of the following makes up one third of three day eventing?
(A) Dressage
(B) Pony Javelin
To which they answered (B).
Poll #1374973 Pony Javelin
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9 What is Pony Javelin? Should it be part of the olympics in 2012? Show went well in the end. I was a bit embarrassed by my lack of preparation, but it seemed to go down alright. From there to Dario's for dinner and then sleep. In to town with F for brunch at chocolate soup. Mooch around the shops and end up joining the Avalanche Record Club. Also bought a dirk. Walk F to Carlton hill where she is learning to be red and then take photos while she gets in a big heap. Back through town and home to pack. Fail to get food before arriving for the bus so buy two packets of crisps and some irn bru and chocolate. A healthy traditional scottish dinner. F came to say goodbye and then it was back on the bus and a double seat all the way back to london. Back to BPG and then sleep until GP rerun. Drifted in and out of it, mostly in at the crashes. Great to see Button and Brawn doing so well. Completely forgot the boat race. Unpacked and pootled and watched the sunset and takeaway and attempts at sleep. Most of today I've been with headache and earache from lack of sleep. Album of the day was Panda Bear - Person Pitch. Short version: Good, but I preferred Merriweather Post Pavilion.  No play due to sleep and stress.
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The idea of extricating What Robert Did With His Weekend from his sleep deprived brains is not sounding like fun until I've got some lunch within me.
In the meantime, here is an overdue Please vote for my housemate Oscar request. Barclaycard are running a youtube competition to make a waterslide film and the prize is a world tour of waterslides. Oscar is turning 30 and that would be a dream birthday present. Here is his entry:
Or to go to youtube in HD click here
Please please please go to the Competition Page, search for slideyman and give him a big green thumbs up. Then, tomorrow go back and do it again.
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Help! My DVD is possessed!
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The mysterious figure came from the sky and spake as a mountain of endless time...
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In the bottom left hand corner, you can just make out a dog chasing a tennis ball.
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| 9.53 am, Friday 27th March, 2009 |
| Edinburgh |
| Public |
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Tonight I will be performing
For One Night Only
The Undead Feline Triptych
Complete with never before seen costumery
At the Jekyll and Hyde
Hanover Street, Edinburgh
As part of this:
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We remember when all this was breweries and distilleries.
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I must admit that I smirked a little when I checked the MOST POPULAR STORIES NOW on the BBC:
1 Call for higher circumcision rate
2 60-foot penis painted on roof
My favourite part of the 60' penis story is that his parents didn't notice for a year. A year.
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Early in to work. Interesting morning picking subjects for students to read. Learnt the proper meaning of the phrase The Exception Proves The Rule. Photocopier Repair Man came and started replacing every working part on the machine. At 12, when I had to leave, I gave him my keys and left for Picadilly Circus. Criterion for Mountview BA Actors showcase. Discuss out of focus gobo. Bad follow spots. One point of total miscue. The show was rather good. Nice pieces all round. From there, shopping for spraypaint and hairspray, meander up Berwick Street, Oxford Street, home. Nachos for lunner. Then the madness of recording a backing track for a very silly song with none of the instrumentalists having any idea what it would sound like. MAR on cello and piano, DF on guitar and RTD on bass. Also had to make my outfit. Editing til 4:44 am. Sleep til 7.
Album of the day was Fall Out Boy - Folie á Deux. Not a good day for listening to music. Mostly I thought of this as "Mmmmm.. Nice rock stuff.... Voice a bit like Thomas Dolby... Mmmmm.... zZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZ". Sorry.
Play of the day was Bruce Norris - The Pain and the Itch. The story of a disfunctional family at thanksgiving complete with something eating the avocados being told to a man for reasons we do not find out until very near the end. So many loose ends tied up in the last two pages where suddenly the meat of the story is spelled out. Mostly unpleasant people who end up mostly alright.
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This is the zombie tiger cuff of the undead feline triptych suit.
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Did anyone not feel odd yesterday? Something in the air, I suppose. Good deed for the day was working on sound effects for Jesus, which I'll carry on doing today. Jesus likes my beard which makes him the fifth Jesus to have commented. Spent my commute and lunch break finishing Another Code for the DS, which is definitely aimed at someone younger than me, but does through at least the first half a wonderful job of dripfeeding you a mystery thriller plot. Home and discussions of the song I'm recording tonight. Then finish writing it. Sleep.
Dear diary, I'm sure I had more to say, but I haven't the faintest notion of what it could be. I think I shall spend all my days dazed like this.
Album of the day was Dolly Parton - Backwoods Barbie. Caught me from the first track. A feel good album with a knowing wink and a lot of heart. When listening to a song about her christianity I kinda sank, until I heard the line I've got something to lift me up, something to hold me down, 'cause I've got Jesus and gravity. Also the anti-rhyme of You make me feel like a lunatic, 'cause I'll do anything for that sweet kiss.
Play of the day was Joel Horwood & Christopher Heimann - Food. New restaurant rapidly gains three michelin stars and then you see the cracks appear in the chef. You brace yourself for an inevitable crushing. And to say how it ends would be the only spoiler of spoilering and defeat the object of the play. Surprisingly good.
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Inevitably groggy for a monday after a trip home. Arrived at work to find the photocopier completely buggered, despite having had a major service only a couple of weeks ago, the pile of books to put away had become a mountain, and I was in the shit for failing to turn up for work on the Saturday, which I hadn't actually realised I was meant to be covering. Broken photocopier means lots of time spent dealing with students who need this thing copied Right Now and how dare you have a broken photocopier. Exhausted to home. Soup, some Dollhouse, and an attempt to write. Have a bad feeling about Saturday. Later to bed than intended, but happier too.
Album of the day was Cornelius - Fantasma. Lots of fun, very weird. Japanese and light on lyrics. I particularly like the mic check at the start and the song with the sampled speak and spell type thing saying 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.
Play of the day was The Civilians - (I Am) Nobody's Lunch. Some lovely moments in this, I assume mock verbatim piece. People asked roughly What about 911, hey? That Guantanamo, well? and Is Tom Cruise gay? I think it loses a lot on the page and it seems to run short and aimless. But some cracking monologues and some nice connections.
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Never a wasted moment for Dan. Who needs to dry off when you can already have takeaway on its way?
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Friday I was tired to the point of illness. A long day on my own in the office didn't help. Then home, macaroni cheese and falling asleep before the film had even started.
Woke far too late on Saturday with dizzy spells. Eventually got on a bus to Stockwell where the religious songs were being sung in some variant of French and then translated. Tube to Euston carrying empty bags. Euston to Coventry was swift and uneventful and we even had time for a once round the shops. I bought a very cheap black suit to trash. Home for tea and "fruit" (there were *apples* in the sponge cake and thusly it was healthy). Salmon with ginger on egg fried rice for dinner. Wine. Glorious sleep.
Woke with my mum bringing me tea. On mothers day. Felt like a git for not waking up earlier. Designed mum a new logo for the corsetry she's making. Built a cahon with dad. Fry up. Built a lighting display with dad. Roast beef with parsnips and potatoes. Much slower train to Euston. Quick bus home. Driver stopped to let running people on, but honked at someone at the ticket machine. Then I realised he was honking to say just get on and I'll waive the fare.
This morning I've been informed that I should have been at work on Saturday. Bumflaps.
Album of the day was Evermore - Real Life. Really good for my state of mind. Quite simple lyrics over classic rock informed by U2. Lots of good riffs and piano work to stick in the mind.
Play of the day was Henrik Ibsen trans. Richard Eyre - Hedda Gabler. One of the all time classics. It's fine as a play, but I couldn't buy into her character at all. I could rant on, but I have to go and fix a cow-orkers printer.
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To some, even a water bottle can be a source of creativity. And teen angst poetry.
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Only the finest bike will do for the crossing of London town.
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Overslept, but made it in just on time if groggy and sweaty. Day spent avoiding jobs I was meant to do. On my own in the office as boss is sick and coworker is playing a gig in Blackpool. Most remarkable thing was that at six, just when I was possibly about to maybe start doing something useful, JA came in to the library for a chat and a raid. Tube to Vauxhall and then bike. Managed to get lost trying to circumvent Brixton and when I stopped to check the map, my wheel slipped and I had a messy job putting it back in place. Pasta with wine, port with ice cream. Discussion of foreign coinage.
Album of the day was Nick Lowe - The Convincer. Sounded like a crooner in the back room of a sleazy dive, but not necessarily in a bad way. Some lovely emotional hooks in there, but it wasn't the album I wanted to hear yesterday.
Play of the day was Conor McPherson - This Lime Tree Bower. Three Irish lads recount the trials and tribulations of one particular week in their collective past. Childhood friendships and discovering sex for the youngest, vomiting at a philosopher for the middle and holding up a bookies for the oldest. Really good read. Niggled me that they were all reading the same narrative (as in it wouldn't make sense for them to be telling their individual stories alone, but they referenced things we knew they'd just heard as if they hadn't). Comes to an abrupt end, which is a little unsatisfying, but there isn't anything more needs saying.
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To be honest, when they said I was as camp as pink roses I had to keep my mouth shut.
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So being a good boy I left in plenty of time to bike to Brixton in the morning. Except that brixton was a massive squishy mess. This occasionally happens when the victoria line behaves like the queen having sex. I bike on to Stockwell, where I can get on the northern line. But that is a massive squishy mess. I elect to keep biking to vauxhall where the tube is still filed under "mess, squishy (see also massive)" but the overland is fine. I say fine, the first train I stepped on immediately broke. Still, once I was moving in the few minutes before waterloo a calm voice told me exactly what of the underground was broken and explained all the mess. The problem was that the victoria line was down kings cross to walthamstow, leading to delays everywhere else. If the victoria line is just closed it pushes commuters to other routes, but it keeps people flowing. The day blended into the ones before and doubtless the ones after. I accidentaly tripped while walking through wood green and ended up buying a big stack of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam films. I failed to find a cheap black charity shop suit. After work, I went to see two plays at the Karamel Klub. After that I slept most of the way back to Brixton on the tube. There was a rather imposing chap sitting two to my right in a brown velvet suit and green tie who was taking photos of himself in the traditional myspace manner. Brixton. Big squishy mess getting on the 432, so I got on an empty 2. Home, pizza, top gear, sleep. Never enough sleep.
Album of the day was Yes - Yessongs. This hasn't been a good week for my listening. I know for a fact that I didn't take a word of vocals in from this album, but I'm also fairly sure that that is not the point. Soaring solos over music that moves. OK, it sounds a little dated, but every time my brain dropped into the right gear I found this engaging. However, once again, I think it needs more brain than I could give it.
Plays of the day were:
Raymond Queneau - In Passing. The Oulipo founder's only theatrical piece. A mirror play in two scenes. A discontented woman falls in love with a passerby in order to demonstrate how anyone would be more romantic than her husband. Then a discontented man falls in love with a passerby in order to demonstrate how anyone would be more romantic than his wife. Simple, absurd, touching.
Oliver Emanuel - Man Across the Way. A twisted tale of policemen and potential terrorists and bombings and torture and memories real and lost. I think it could be great in performance, but on the page there's too much lost between characatures, economy of script and deliberate ambiguity.
Joseph Moncure March - Wild Party. Not actually a play, but there are two musicals based on this one poem so I thought it worth a read. A 1928 poem describing the events of a day and a night in Queenie and Burr's flat. Atmospheric, tense, sexy. The version I was reading is illustrated by Art Spiegelman who is absolutely right for the job.
Christopher Shinn - Dying City. A man goes to war leaving his wife and twin brother. A year later, the wife and brother meet up to discuss his death. Flicking between the times works beautifully for the first two thirds of the play. Information is filtered gently through hesitation and expectation. Then there is the bombshell, which is dealt with hamfistedly, and after which we have a third of the play waiting for something to happen, which it doesn't.
Enda Walsh - Disco Pigs. Pig and Runt, friends since babies, are going out for their seventeenth birthdays. The plot is simple (pig (male) fancies runt (female) but she doesn't fancy him, they go out on the town and end up smashing their friendship) but the delivery is stylish and fun. The detail of their own private language. And what colour is love anyway?
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