Old Fashioned

I am fighting a battle with the past and present.

In many ways, all I want is to adopt the customs of the past - though certainly not exclusively. My recent addiction to Mad Men (having watched all 3 seasons available on dvd in the space of a few months, while also watching season 4 as it came on tv) has led me to try and adopt the style of the 60s New Yorkers in the programme, and has created in me a deep fascination with the style of the time.

Obviously there's a hell of a lot wrong with the time, and that's why I wouldn't want to have lived then; half the female characters in the programme are fighting against the misogyny which prevails in the workplace, and the other half are playing up to it.

So I have decided that it's okay to embrace the modern, while keeping hold of the past. I can wear a pencil skirt or a sweater vest and still worry about my facebook profile. I can sip a whiskey while watching Coronation Street. It's all about equillibrium.

God, I sound like an idiot.

Sq.

My broken house behind me, and good things ahead

Catching up is hard to do.

How do you tell someone all the things that happened to you over months? There is a complicated process of judgment on what is important and what isn't. Naturally some of the important things get left out, some of them sound stupid and it all ends up being a little bit strange.

I'd like to go back to six months ago and tell myself some of the things that have happened since, because I don't think I'd believe me - and not because the things are particularly unbelievable, but just not what I would have expected.

But the other person's tales are infinitely more interesting, most often. Especially if they've been doing something incredible, and when you sit down to talk about it all, there is always a nervousness, a hope that they haven't changed too much, but also that they're not exactly the same, or it'll all have been a waste.

Looking back out down the telescope through the past months, new people in the mixture, new experiences to shade the language and subject matter, new music, books, places to discuss and above all, all the familiarity that has been on hold for a while, flooding back as if it never went away.

That'll do for now.

Sq.

Pretexts and Intertexts

In one of my modules last term, we had a lecture on something called 'Pretexts and Intertexts'; it was about texts which refer to, imitate, parody or reply to other texts. The full understanding of the text therefore relies to a certain extent upon knowledge of the original stimulus.

Art Brut's frontman and all-round general dude, Eddie Argos, has teamed up with Dyan Valdes of the Blood Arm to create an album ('Fixing the Charts: Volume One') based entirely around these 'pretexts'; every song replies to an original song, for example 'Scarborough Affaire' continues the story of the famous folk song made famous by Simon and Garfunkel.

Each song, however, is great whether you have any idea of the pretexts or not. Some reviewers have even failed to notice the intertextual nature of the album, perhaps standing as more of a merit to the album's brilliance than an indictment. Argos's trademark chat is complemented by Valdes' plinky-plonky piano and angelic backing vocals, and the lyrics are as clever as one would expect from any Argos production.

Great stuff, so have a listen, and try and catch them on their tour next month.

http://www.myspace.com/fixingthecharts

Sq.

Back to the Old House pt. II

I'm going back to uni tomorrow, hopefully. The roads aren't going to be very good but I have to go back or I'll go mad.

Something doesn't feel right, though. I don't know if it's because I've done nothing today except worry about getting back, or because I think I'm going to miss this ridiculous degree of boredom.

I don't know.

Maybe there'll be some more substantial posts sometime.

Who knows.

Sq.

Hideaway

I keep watching kids' films.

Some of them are really, really good. There's been a lot of Disney lately (who knew that university would yield such passionate cartoon fans?), which is often very good and only occasionally very bad.

However, the best thing I've seen in a long time is Spike Jonze's new film, 'Where the Wild Things Are'; based upon Maurice Sendak's picture book of the same name, it is a fantastic recreation of a child's imagination, but packs in a whole lot more. The almost allegorical characters, who look like monsters but act like humans, and the captivating performance by the cutest and yet least hammy child actor I've seen in a long time, are the driving forces of this beautiful picture.

Perhaps a third central force is the soundtrack; recorded by Karen O (of Yeah Yeah Yeahs), a few select collaborators and an untrained children's choir, it leaps from acoustic, campfire singalongs, to fast-paced "Rumpus" tunes, and never feels anything but entirely perfect for the film itself.

Director Spike Jonze, known best for his role directing the classic 'Being John Malkovich', has handled this film in an admirably daring way; it is so much more than a fun children's story, and is constantly poignant and thought-provoking. It would have been foolish to expect anything less from him, and I can only hope that these films provide a start to a much lengthier career as a director, continuing his trend in originality and beauty in motion pictures.

Sq.