Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Monday, 16 April 2012
Elephant - The White Stripes
Bird Food Achievements today: have consumed an entire pack of Lidl energy bars and a large amount of Ahmad 'Special Blend' (we're out of normal tea as discovered in an unfortunate moment whilst watching Father Ted last night. It was the one where Ted has to explain the difference between 'small' and 'faraway'. I feel for Dougal.)
Anyhow that wasn't the point. The point is: I can't believe it's only taken me 25 years of constant painful interactions between me and various people that I haven't been able to -- for whatever reason -- communicate with on a normal, healthy level (I'm really sorry) to realise that there is another way.
I don't have to be happy all the time. Sometimes I get pissy. And that's when it really is just better that I stay in my cave and consume seeds and green tea. All the while, craning my neck up from my cross-legged floor position at that 'tree of life' picture on my wall and wondering whether or not to buy a frame. It's a very definitive sign of becoming middle class. Ugh.
Anyhow that wasn't the point. The point is: I can't believe it's only taken me 25 years of constant painful interactions between me and various people that I haven't been able to -- for whatever reason -- communicate with on a normal, healthy level (I'm really sorry) to realise that there is another way.
I don't have to be happy all the time. Sometimes I get pissy. And that's when it really is just better that I stay in my cave and consume seeds and green tea. All the while, craning my neck up from my cross-legged floor position at that 'tree of life' picture on my wall and wondering whether or not to buy a frame. It's a very definitive sign of becoming middle class. Ugh.
Friday, 13 April 2012
In Rainbows/Hail to the Thief
What did I do this afternoon whilst I recuperated from a gradually worsening home-made wine bbq hangover? Yes. I had a merrily self indulgent hour of waily Radiohead. I tend to call R'head albums released after Amnesiac 'waily' because somehow they seem to get progressively more so with each album. If that's possible. Congrats for them. It's a talent if I ever saw one.
You know how sometimes you can watch a film over and over, and if it's a real gem it'll never get old. In fact each time you watch it you'll see things that you hadn't done previously. Yeah, that's a good film.
Well I got this from listening to In Rainbows. The audio version I mean. I heard new things. I was left with a completely different impression of some of the songs that I thought I already knew well. I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by 'Weird Fishes' upon downloading it back in 2008. This time I felt really connected to it like I could identify with it completely. It proves how your personal experiences really shape how we perceive lyrics, sounds, poetry and visual art. I guess back then I hadn't undergone the necessary mind-shaping life graft to get the song.
No wonder we are all so prone to misunderstanding one another. I mean, it's really hard to imagine something if you aren't able to contextualise it with your own ideas. It must be the reason that natural splits emerge between different people. Progressive metal-heads like hanging with other progressive metal-heads. It's not that they don't like the other people. It's just that it's a pain in the arse having to explain to the new people what progressive metal is. At least the hard timer metal heads already have some appreciation for it, so it makes it easier all round.
But what if you met an alien who didn't know what love was? How would we describe to the alien the idea of love? Would we talk about the act of love? Kissing hugging and groping and al? Or would we take the more scientific approach and explain in terms of the pairing off of particular beings with particular genes that fit together? It makes me think that some ideas really are too big and mighty to be designated just one word.
You know how sometimes you can watch a film over and over, and if it's a real gem it'll never get old. In fact each time you watch it you'll see things that you hadn't done previously. Yeah, that's a good film.
Well I got this from listening to In Rainbows. The audio version I mean. I heard new things. I was left with a completely different impression of some of the songs that I thought I already knew well. I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by 'Weird Fishes' upon downloading it back in 2008. This time I felt really connected to it like I could identify with it completely. It proves how your personal experiences really shape how we perceive lyrics, sounds, poetry and visual art. I guess back then I hadn't undergone the necessary mind-shaping life graft to get the song.
No wonder we are all so prone to misunderstanding one another. I mean, it's really hard to imagine something if you aren't able to contextualise it with your own ideas. It must be the reason that natural splits emerge between different people. Progressive metal-heads like hanging with other progressive metal-heads. It's not that they don't like the other people. It's just that it's a pain in the arse having to explain to the new people what progressive metal is. At least the hard timer metal heads already have some appreciation for it, so it makes it easier all round.
But what if you met an alien who didn't know what love was? How would we describe to the alien the idea of love? Would we talk about the act of love? Kissing hugging and groping and al? Or would we take the more scientific approach and explain in terms of the pairing off of particular beings with particular genes that fit together? It makes me think that some ideas really are too big and mighty to be designated just one word.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Waking Life
Just watched this: 
this afternoon.
I know that technically this is a music blog but it's only a guideline and anyway this flick has a string quartet in it and salsa dancing. Infuriatingly it's one of those films where if you tried to recommend it to a friend it would be really hard to summarise it and not make it sound lame. It wasn't lame.
It's a strange half painted, half real animation that looks like a wobbly hallucination and which is not adverse to mini sprite-like creatures whizzing across the screen for no reason. From what I could tell it's about a boy that keeps meeting odd characters in his dreams. Except most of the time he doesn't know that it's a dream. And neither do you. And by the by most of these dream characters seem to have a healthy range of opinions on reality, politics, consumerism, the media, religion and..er.. existentialism. Sorry, ahem, it's been a while since that word cropped up. Go me for learning French and staying conscious during my Sartre tutorials.
this afternoon.I know that technically this is a music blog but it's only a guideline and anyway this flick has a string quartet in it and salsa dancing. Infuriatingly it's one of those films where if you tried to recommend it to a friend it would be really hard to summarise it and not make it sound lame. It wasn't lame.
It's a strange half painted, half real animation that looks like a wobbly hallucination and which is not adverse to mini sprite-like creatures whizzing across the screen for no reason. From what I could tell it's about a boy that keeps meeting odd characters in his dreams. Except most of the time he doesn't know that it's a dream. And neither do you. And by the by most of these dream characters seem to have a healthy range of opinions on reality, politics, consumerism, the media, religion and..er.. existentialism. Sorry, ahem, it's been a while since that word cropped up. Go me for learning French and staying conscious during my Sartre tutorials.
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