Hello and welcome to ...
A great example from Music Thing of how sometimes it's vitally important to keep your copyright. The man who composed the four notes which used to appear on Channel Four's logo (Daaa-daaa-da-daaaa) became very rich indeed. "Every time that sequence was played, David Dundas was paid £3.50. Every week, for ten years, Dundas received a cheque for £1,000 from Channel Four. "
Extract from the musical Hair.
There is a song in the musical Hair containing much of the text from one of Hamlet's soliloquies. Here are the lyrics:
"What a piece of work is man[I'm guessing that the writer Galt MacDermot couldn't "And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?" to scan properly. It's also odd to see the thing flipped over in the middle.]
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculties
In form and moving
How express and admirable
In action how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals
I have of late
But wherefore I know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame
The earth
Seems to me a sterile promontory
This most excellent canopy
The air-- look you!
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
Why it appears no other thing to me
Than a foul and pestilent congregation
Of vapors
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?
Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!"
Phone Call
Theatre Blogging Hamlet, I've come to the conclusion that most of the really good theatrical productions are hinge on one or two key moments -- the iconic scenes which everyone remembers and look forward to seeing in productions just to see how they'll be done this time. In Hamlet that's 'To Be Or Not To Be....' and Yorrick. In the musical Hair it's The Age of Aquirius. Last night I saw LIPA's second year students tackle both.
On the whole, Hair doesn't have much in the way of plot. It's a bit like Cats -- a series of characters from something called 'The Tribe' turn up and do their 'bit' before shuffling off in time to become boring. Somewhere in there though a hippy gets drafted to fight in Vietnam and is killed. Done well it can be electrifying as actors address and interact with the audience and talk about being in a theatre. It's not a work about inhibitions.
This wasn't the best I've seen (that would be the American production I saw at midnight during the Edinburgh festival in '98) but pretty close. The dancing was a real highlight, bodies above and below, up and under, the tribe working in unison, almost like a swarm together always. Considering this was just a three day engagement, the rehearsal time must have been lengthy. This is an ensemble piece and so it's difficult to pick out individual performaces. But there weren't too many weak links in the singing.
But. Some of the really good songs were wierdly stripped out and there was a them and us situation between the performers and audiences which worked against what was happening on stage. It's also quite a complicated musical sound wise and the guys on the mixing board weren't quite on form, drifting amplification in and out seemingly at random during some songs rendering vital lines inaudible, not to mention some sections of the band.
I was with my friend Chris, who's more of appriciator of musicals and he wasn't happy with way some of the songs were presented. He noted that they'd used Milos Foreman's film as a template which meant the shoehorning of 60s music into a 70s style -- and I understood what he meant. Aquirius came across as more of a standard musical number than the pop song I've seen it appear as in the past, and Let The Sun Shine In became an upbeat finale, not the mourful yet hopeful anthem for a lost friend. The ending was fudged too, with an important anti-war song lost making that subplot even more neglegable.
You're really wondering now how that nude scene went. Well, despite signs on the doors to the auditorium warning about 'full frontal nudity', the song from that scene Hare Krishna played out fully clothed as the performers disappeared into the back of the set, dry ice creeping upwards as they took their clothes off, keeping their dignity ...
On the whole, Hair doesn't have much in the way of plot. It's a bit like Cats -- a series of characters from something called 'The Tribe' turn up and do their 'bit' before shuffling off in time to become boring. Somewhere in there though a hippy gets drafted to fight in Vietnam and is killed. Done well it can be electrifying as actors address and interact with the audience and talk about being in a theatre. It's not a work about inhibitions.
This wasn't the best I've seen (that would be the American production I saw at midnight during the Edinburgh festival in '98) but pretty close. The dancing was a real highlight, bodies above and below, up and under, the tribe working in unison, almost like a swarm together always. Considering this was just a three day engagement, the rehearsal time must have been lengthy. This is an ensemble piece and so it's difficult to pick out individual performaces. But there weren't too many weak links in the singing.
But. Some of the really good songs were wierdly stripped out and there was a them and us situation between the performers and audiences which worked against what was happening on stage. It's also quite a complicated musical sound wise and the guys on the mixing board weren't quite on form, drifting amplification in and out seemingly at random during some songs rendering vital lines inaudible, not to mention some sections of the band.
I was with my friend Chris, who's more of appriciator of musicals and he wasn't happy with way some of the songs were presented. He noted that they'd used Milos Foreman's film as a template which meant the shoehorning of 60s music into a 70s style -- and I understood what he meant. Aquirius came across as more of a standard musical number than the pop song I've seen it appear as in the past, and Let The Sun Shine In became an upbeat finale, not the mourful yet hopeful anthem for a lost friend. The ending was fudged too, with an important anti-war song lost making that subplot even more neglegable.
You're really wondering now how that nude scene went. Well, despite signs on the doors to the auditorium warning about 'full frontal nudity', the song from that scene Hare Krishna played out fully clothed as the performers disappeared into the back of the set, dry ice creeping upwards as they took their clothes off, keeping their dignity ...
Strings That Tie To You
Film Has anyone else noticed that James Woods hasn't made a great film in a loooong time?
A Dream Upon Waking
Life This is my city? This is my city. Two hundred thousand people waiting for the Liverpool team bus to arrive singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. Even watching this at home, I felt the sounds and emotion bleed through the speakers on my tv set. I wasn't there, despite the occasion because it didn't feel right -- a life long football agnostic (and partial Everton supporter) in the middle of that crowd. Plus the nightmare of getting home didn't seem like something I wanted to contemplate. I'm a bit of a wuss that way. I did wonder how Rogers and Hammerstein, Gerry Marsden and Eric Idle would feel if they'd been there to hear that choir singing their songs. I'm about ten minutes from the city centre, and even up here in the sky with my window open I can hear the car horns honking as they pass-by on the main road. Amazing.
Tiny ninjas minimize Shakespeare's Hamlet
That may be the great headline ever. It gets better: "Whatever it was, New York-based Tiny Ninja Theater's production of Hamlet is not your average Shakespeare play. Performed by only one man, mastermind Dov Weinstein, the play is put on with miniscule materials, all the while remaining authentic and true to the author's work. Every character is represented by a different action figure, usually but not always an inch-and-a-half-tall ninja. Fortinbras' character is a Transformer."
Peer Pressure
Elsewhere The greatest headline about Hamlet ever: "Tiny ninjas minimize Shakespeare's Hamlet."
I Wonder
Football I don't know anything about football but the Liverpool match seemed fairly exciting (what I saw of it). To go from being 3-0 down creating tragedy in the crowd by half time to actually winning the thing in penalties is a pretty extraordinary feet. In the local news before the match we saw two fans who couldn't get a flight to Istanbul, who instead caught a plane to Bulgeria then paid £250 to get a taxi to the stadium and asked for the driver to wait. That's some kind of a commitment really. And I thought I was going out of my way when I went to Manchester to see Rick Linklater's Before Sunset ...
One with the force
Here is a scene from the shooting script of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith which explains the one thing many fans had been dying to know. Why do some Jedi's burn up whilst others just fade away?
222 INT. POLIS MASSA-OBSERVATION DOME-NIGHTConsidering the big long list of things which aren't explained it's odd that this couldn't be worked in somehow. Then again, check out of that exposition... [via Amygdala via Sore Eyes]
On the isolated asteroid of Polis Massa, YODA meditates.
YODA: Failed to stop the Sith Lord, I have. Still much to learn, there is ...
QUI -GON: (V.O.) Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith.
YODA: Eternal consciousness.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed.
YODA: . . . to become one with the Force, and influence still have . . . A power greater than all, it is.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) You will learn to let go of everything. No attachment, no thought of self. No physical self.
YODA: A great Jedi Master, you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. Your apprentice I gratefully become.
YODA thinks about this for a minute, then BAIL ORGANA enters the room and breaks his meditation.
Something
Film I've had a few days to cogitate on this, the cynicism is settling in nicely I think I've decided what's been niggling me about Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. It's the dialogue. Not necessarily that some of it's impossible to like, but that there is so much of it. Obviously spoilers ahead if you haven't seen it yet by the way.
For someone who apparently holds foreign and silent film in such high esteem, Lucas doesn't seem to have learnt the big lesson. Only tell the audience what they need to know and that that doesn't need to be done through exposition. This is particularly clear in the instantly notorious scene where Padme and Anakin are having a heart to heart:
[full shooting script here]
For someone who apparently holds foreign and silent film in such high esteem, Lucas doesn't seem to have learnt the big lesson. Only tell the audience what they need to know and that that doesn't need to be done through exposition. This is particularly clear in the instantly notorious scene where Padme and Anakin are having a heart to heart:
PADME stands in the balcony brushing her hair. ANAKIN leans against the wall, watching her lovingly.I don't think there is an actor on earth who could make that work. But it's there because Lucas doesn't trust his actors. There isn't anything here which couldn't be said with a look and the minimum of words. I'm no writer but here is my idea...
ANAKIN: . . . every second I was thinking of you. Protecting the endless, nameless Outer Rim settlements became a torture . . . the battles were easy, the longing became unbearable . . . I've never been so happy as I am at this moment.
PADME: Annie, I want to have our baby back home on Naboo. We could go to the lake country where no one would know . . . where we would be safe. I could go early-and fix up the baby's room. I know the perfect spot, right by the gardens.
ANAKIN: You are so beautiful!
PADME: It's only because I'm so in love . . .
ANAKIN: No, it's because I'm so in love with you.
PADME: So love has blinded you?
ANAKIN: Well, that's not exactly what I meant . . .
PADME: But it's probably true!
PADME sits on the edge of the balcony. She's holding an electronic book, on which there is a photograph of room of a house. In the corner, a title reads 'Naboo'. She pushes a button and the scene changes to become a nursery. Now we see that ANAKIN leans against the wall, watching her lovingly. She stands and shows the electronic book to him. He smiles. She smiles. She discards the books as he embraces her, holding her tighter than he's ever held her before.The same emotional information is in there. Anakin doesn't mention all the fighting, but that's elsewhere, he's effectively repeating information we already know. 'I missed you.' might be a bland line, but it's something we can all understand. There is scene after scene were a page of dialogue does the work of a few lines, slowing the action down without actually adding anything more to the characters. Watching A New Hope directly afterwards is a sobering process. They simply don't look like they were written in the same universe.
ANAKIN: I missed you.
[full shooting script here]
Howard Makes It All Go Away
TV Watching poor Akhtar Khan pop up this morning, filling for everyone else in the news centre on BBC Breakfast (with the exception of Business Declan), was actually a breath of fresh air. Granted he stumbled and let one news story tumble into another (autokey nerves I expect), but he's the first person I've seen in years to pronounce Baghdad correctly. My ongoing anoyance with breakfast tv is on record so any change, however briefly is a good thing. Plus it offered the sight of the news origanisation having to report on itself which is always amusing. There are other reasons to support the strike of course .... The Guardian describes what else was happening this AM.
Some Kinds Shuffle
Music (?) The Guardian blogs the Eurovision substantially better than I could:
"It's Red Hot Paprika Pants, otherwise known as Zdob si Zdub, or the Moldovan entry. What is this? Eastern European Ska? Ethno-punk, with added grannies? There really is an old lady sitting on stage, and oh, oh, she's just got up to drum, and they're dancing, the lead singer and the old lady, and just as I was getting in to it, it's gone. 'Let's make love!', the lead singer shouts. I'm hoping that was directed at the crowd, and the enormous TV audience, rather than the old lady. I imagine it was. He looks an energetic chap."And whilst I'm at it, the Eurovision ebay search. Lord.
Sidewalk Fight
Life Well here we are at the end of the road, or rather in my case the end of the holiday. That depressing Sunday when you know you have to go back to work on the Monday. I think I'll watch Star Wars ...
Wasn't last night's Eurovision one of the most entertaining things? I voted for the Moldovans in the end (just for being entirely surreal -- granny?) but the Norwegians nearly swayed me for sheer shock value alone. I don't think there was a particularly great song all night (unsuprisingly) just touches of blandness. Am I the only person to notice that the percussion group in the interval were called Ars Nova?
Wasn't last night's Eurovision one of the most entertaining things? I voted for the Moldovans in the end (just for being entirely surreal -- granny?) but the Norwegians nearly swayed me for sheer shock value alone. I don't think there was a particularly great song all night (unsuprisingly) just touches of blandness. Am I the only person to notice that the percussion group in the interval were called Ars Nova?
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes
Life Spent yesterday in Belfast and actually doing that as a day trip wasn't as daffy an idea as it might sound considering that I was flying there and it's on a different bit of land to Liverpool. I approached the visit in the same way I do a museum or art gallery. I picked a couple of things I knew I wanted to do and stuck to those. That way I wouldn't be disappointed that I hadn't crammed everything in, and I'd have a reason to return because something would be new.
Inevitably that meant my first adventure was the red City Sightseeing bus. Although I know the best way to see any city is grabbing a map from the tourist information centre and walking, when there's only a limited time these are a great way of seeing the great span of the place in a short space of time. This took an hour and a half and featured one of the best live tour guides I've ever heard.
The tour takes in all of the main areas of Belfast and not just the city centre, which means that you get to see and listen to the history as well as the culture. Some of these red bus tours have a recorded guide which is fine, but can't really react to anything which is happening on the day. The live guide usually brings their own personality to the work. In Chester, that leads to a hard line to all of the duff new architecture which is being thrown up. In Belfast, you get politics and religion. Both with capital first letters.
The guide talked about the various political parties, paramilitary organisations and terrorist groups. About how there was a new one called 'I can't believe its not the Eye Are Aye...' As we drive up the Shankhill Road, stopping now and then at the world famous murals, he points out that the KFC have nothing to do with the UDF or any of the others, even though there seems to be a colonel in charge. He brings to our attention the British listening posts and the bullet proof CCtv cameras. On the Falls Road, diatribing about the evil of the wall which seperates the two most volatile groups and areas. About how the country hasn't been run from a parliament for two and a half years. About the infamous bank robbery and who might have been involved. It's a hair-raising time, but as he underlines, as we make a drop off stop on the Shankhill, tourism has replaced terrorism and that we're all sitting on an open top bus.
Belfast city is experiencing a period of investment and growth. The derelict or bombed out buildings are being demolished or refurbished. There is a real buzz about the place, a sense of moving forward, trying to put the past behind. The bus pushed through the shipyards, now piles of rubble or waste ground and I sensed that this must have been what it was like in Cardiff Bay before that was remodelled into the future. There is even a newish ice rink and ice hockey team, called the Belfast Giants. As the guide explained it's a good thing they didn't go with the original choice, the Belfast Bombers (true story).
From there, after a brief stop over at the BBC Shop (who knew they existed?) to buy all of the available Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series on cd at startlingly cheap prices, I visited what seemed to be the next favourite tourist attraction, the City Hall. Almost as though the place had been designed by an idealist playing the Sim City computer game, this is directly in the centre of town, a giant, ornate, white building in Portland Stone. There are free tours of the inside. Having been to Liverpool Town Hall fairly recently, I wasn't shocked to find one Municipal Building looking very much like another. The only difference here is scale. From a giant domed ceiling designed as a homage to the Whispering Gallery at St Paul's Cathedral to a Great Hall were the carpet so large it's easier to cover it with a specially designed dance floor during gatherings than rolling it back up again. Needless to say there is now a photo waiting to be developed of me trying to look authoritative while sitting in the Lord Mayor's chair (look -- I was invited).
After another hour of looking around the used book and record shops, it was time to eat, which is when one of Belfast's really unique features came into play. With all the redevelopment came new shopping outlet and bar opening opportunities. So there are now lots of designer clothes shops and restaurants. These all seem to have names like Still, Hole or Giraffe. They appear proudly on signs hanging off the side of the wall. The only trouble is that with all their curtains and dark windows, its impossible to work out which they'll be until your directly on top of them. So at six o'clock at night when you've an hour in which to eat before going to the bus station to get the coach back to the airport, you find yourself walking half a mile up the road to find that something called East isn't a restaurant at all but a clothes shop which has about three skirts on display. I eventually fall into somewhere called Bourbon (which has a website) were I have the nicest Bangers and Mash I've had in my life. Real pork, real potatoes, real onion gravy. One of those meals you never want to finish.
So it was a massively enjoyable trip really. Even the travel was intoxicating. It's only the second time I've flown anywhere and there was still the giddiness of take off, my only expression to start laughing and become philosophical. As I looked out of the window this time, and watched the clouds drift over the land masses I started feeling disappointed that the great artists, the Turners and the Michaelangelos weren't alive to see what the world was like from above instead of below. I wondered if that was why Leonardo was so comitted to building a flying machine -- so that he could paint the earth as it appears from the heavens. How the history of art might have changed if they'd been able see us the way they must have imagined God saw us. But then coming into land last night, the ground covered in darkness but for a shimmering pattern of oranges and yellows, from street lights, headlights and house lights I also realised that ordinary man really is capable of great incidental beauty when he isn't trying to blow things up.
Inevitably that meant my first adventure was the red City Sightseeing bus. Although I know the best way to see any city is grabbing a map from the tourist information centre and walking, when there's only a limited time these are a great way of seeing the great span of the place in a short space of time. This took an hour and a half and featured one of the best live tour guides I've ever heard.
The tour takes in all of the main areas of Belfast and not just the city centre, which means that you get to see and listen to the history as well as the culture. Some of these red bus tours have a recorded guide which is fine, but can't really react to anything which is happening on the day. The live guide usually brings their own personality to the work. In Chester, that leads to a hard line to all of the duff new architecture which is being thrown up. In Belfast, you get politics and religion. Both with capital first letters.
The guide talked about the various political parties, paramilitary organisations and terrorist groups. About how there was a new one called 'I can't believe its not the Eye Are Aye...' As we drive up the Shankhill Road, stopping now and then at the world famous murals, he points out that the KFC have nothing to do with the UDF or any of the others, even though there seems to be a colonel in charge. He brings to our attention the British listening posts and the bullet proof CCtv cameras. On the Falls Road, diatribing about the evil of the wall which seperates the two most volatile groups and areas. About how the country hasn't been run from a parliament for two and a half years. About the infamous bank robbery and who might have been involved. It's a hair-raising time, but as he underlines, as we make a drop off stop on the Shankhill, tourism has replaced terrorism and that we're all sitting on an open top bus.
Belfast city is experiencing a period of investment and growth. The derelict or bombed out buildings are being demolished or refurbished. There is a real buzz about the place, a sense of moving forward, trying to put the past behind. The bus pushed through the shipyards, now piles of rubble or waste ground and I sensed that this must have been what it was like in Cardiff Bay before that was remodelled into the future. There is even a newish ice rink and ice hockey team, called the Belfast Giants. As the guide explained it's a good thing they didn't go with the original choice, the Belfast Bombers (true story).
From there, after a brief stop over at the BBC Shop (who knew they existed?) to buy all of the available Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series on cd at startlingly cheap prices, I visited what seemed to be the next favourite tourist attraction, the City Hall. Almost as though the place had been designed by an idealist playing the Sim City computer game, this is directly in the centre of town, a giant, ornate, white building in Portland Stone. There are free tours of the inside. Having been to Liverpool Town Hall fairly recently, I wasn't shocked to find one Municipal Building looking very much like another. The only difference here is scale. From a giant domed ceiling designed as a homage to the Whispering Gallery at St Paul's Cathedral to a Great Hall were the carpet so large it's easier to cover it with a specially designed dance floor during gatherings than rolling it back up again. Needless to say there is now a photo waiting to be developed of me trying to look authoritative while sitting in the Lord Mayor's chair (look -- I was invited).
After another hour of looking around the used book and record shops, it was time to eat, which is when one of Belfast's really unique features came into play. With all the redevelopment came new shopping outlet and bar opening opportunities. So there are now lots of designer clothes shops and restaurants. These all seem to have names like Still, Hole or Giraffe. They appear proudly on signs hanging off the side of the wall. The only trouble is that with all their curtains and dark windows, its impossible to work out which they'll be until your directly on top of them. So at six o'clock at night when you've an hour in which to eat before going to the bus station to get the coach back to the airport, you find yourself walking half a mile up the road to find that something called East isn't a restaurant at all but a clothes shop which has about three skirts on display. I eventually fall into somewhere called Bourbon (which has a website) were I have the nicest Bangers and Mash I've had in my life. Real pork, real potatoes, real onion gravy. One of those meals you never want to finish.
So it was a massively enjoyable trip really. Even the travel was intoxicating. It's only the second time I've flown anywhere and there was still the giddiness of take off, my only expression to start laughing and become philosophical. As I looked out of the window this time, and watched the clouds drift over the land masses I started feeling disappointed that the great artists, the Turners and the Michaelangelos weren't alive to see what the world was like from above instead of below. I wondered if that was why Leonardo was so comitted to building a flying machine -- so that he could paint the earth as it appears from the heavens. How the history of art might have changed if they'd been able see us the way they must have imagined God saw us. But then coming into land last night, the ground covered in darkness but for a shimmering pattern of oranges and yellows, from street lights, headlights and house lights I also realised that ordinary man really is capable of great incidental beauty when he isn't trying to blow things up.
Showtime
Film In 1999 when I left our local multiplex having seen Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, I felt ellated. Not betrayed. No disappointed. Ellated. The rest of the day there was a smile on my face. In 2003, after watching Attack of the Clones, I called my friend Chris from outside the cinema, and jabbered down the phone at him at how good it had all been. I did the same this afternoon, although I was on the train home this time. During all of those moments, those Star Wars films are the best films ever made.
I've said before, there is always something slightly disappointing when you sit down to watch a film, the 20th Century Fox logo appears and it isn't followed by the one for Lucasfilm, because you whatever you are going to watch isn't Star Wars. That doesn't happen with New Line, who distributed The Lord of the Rings, or Eon who offer us a James Bond now and then.
There isn't a definable reason for this, although I know that there's some nostalgia involved. Being a child at school, the day when I think the teachers were on strike and all of the children, some four hundred of us, sat on the wooden floor of the main hall watching a 20 inch tv show a ropey vhs copy of the first Star Wars taped from Granada TV (possibly edited for violence). It's our chance return to those moments, to throw away the years of life which have crept up and ruined us, for just a few hours.
Which is why Revenge of the Sith is the best film ever, at least this evening. For that two hours twenty minutes, I no longer had to be the cynical sausage I've become, and I could just let the adventure wash over me, the ten year old version of me (sneaking into a 12a certificate movie) getting to see were Darth Vader, Luke and Leia came from and were the Jedi went.
In the days and weeks which follow, the cynicism will return and I'll start picking flaws, re-adjusting my appreciation. I'll notice the leaps in logic, the odd poor performance and clunky bits of dialogue. I'll wonder why Lucas didn't leave all this stuff to our collective imaginations which told the story the best way, our way. But until then, all I can say is go and see it, because it really is the best film ever.
I've said before, there is always something slightly disappointing when you sit down to watch a film, the 20th Century Fox logo appears and it isn't followed by the one for Lucasfilm, because you whatever you are going to watch isn't Star Wars. That doesn't happen with New Line, who distributed The Lord of the Rings, or Eon who offer us a James Bond now and then.
There isn't a definable reason for this, although I know that there's some nostalgia involved. Being a child at school, the day when I think the teachers were on strike and all of the children, some four hundred of us, sat on the wooden floor of the main hall watching a 20 inch tv show a ropey vhs copy of the first Star Wars taped from Granada TV (possibly edited for violence). It's our chance return to those moments, to throw away the years of life which have crept up and ruined us, for just a few hours.
Which is why Revenge of the Sith is the best film ever, at least this evening. For that two hours twenty minutes, I no longer had to be the cynical sausage I've become, and I could just let the adventure wash over me, the ten year old version of me (sneaking into a 12a certificate movie) getting to see were Darth Vader, Luke and Leia came from and were the Jedi went.
In the days and weeks which follow, the cynicism will return and I'll start picking flaws, re-adjusting my appreciation. I'll notice the leaps in logic, the odd poor performance and clunky bits of dialogue. I'll wonder why Lucas didn't leave all this stuff to our collective imaginations which told the story the best way, our way. But until then, all I can say is go and see it, because it really is the best film ever.
Wada Na Tod
Elsewhere Just because I wasn't writing here, doesn't mean I didn't cause mayhem elsewhere. This post at Metafilter led to the busiest non-Galloway thread of the day, and even spawned its own Metatalk thread which threatens to be as long. I really didn't think it would hit such a raw nerve -- as I said somewhere in there I wouldn't have gone there if I'd known. Still, he came, he saw, he caused infighting, he walked away again.
It's The Sun
Life I don't know if this is an addiction, or whether I just feel the need for instant communication, but not posting anything has been extremely difficult. I haven't got my mojo back (wherever that came from or has gone) so expect mediocrity interspersed with the usual stupidity. Having thought about it though I think my problem was over extending and padding. Meandering around a point rather than punching straight through it -- so I'm going to be trying the approach of shorter posts, or hopefully quality over quantity, and see how that works out.
Bookstore
Life I've been finding it extraordinarily difficult to write lately. It's been torture. I've been lacking an inspiration and an affinity for it which was there before. I feel as though the vocabulary has dropped out of my brain, the ability to construct decent sentences and even worse to have a valid original thought and be able to communicate it. Moments have been happening which I've wanted to write about and once it gets to the point when I want to tell you about it, I've been unable to find the words. I just feel deeply inarticulate, as though there's a wall stopping the idea becoming a interesting piece of writing. I look at some of the recent work I've posted and here are some recent examples. Each seems to begin well, then lose its way then end abruptly. But I'm not sure what else I can do. This has been neglected as well. I've been in a slump before (see late 2003) but this seems more -- sustained.
So I'm going to take a break from the blog for a few days to see if I can get my mojo back and sort some other things out ...
So I'm going to take a break from the blog for a few days to see if I can get my mojo back and sort some other things out ...
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