Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, 13 June 2011
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
I got your back
I am too in love with Bo Burnham. He's a comedy songwriter, he's the same age as me, he has 2 albums and is on a world tour. I'm seeing him for free next week and i couldn't be more excited.
All of his songs are amazing, but this one, of his forthcoming (and as yet unrecorded) rap album is by far and away my favourite.
He's a tall, skinny, white kid from Michigan, but he might have just made the best rap song I've ever heard. He looks so sad and angry when he sings it, you can tell it comes from personal experience.
I've listened to it over 10 times today. Breaks my heart.
All of his songs are amazing, but this one, of his forthcoming (and as yet unrecorded) rap album is by far and away my favourite.
He's a tall, skinny, white kid from Michigan, but he might have just made the best rap song I've ever heard. He looks so sad and angry when he sings it, you can tell it comes from personal experience.
Monday, 25 April 2011
"He takes men out of time and makes them feel eternity."
Did you all have good Easters? I had a lovely Easter.
I accidentally got a job at one of the best ice-cream shops in the world; definitely the best ice-cream shop in England. It's called Boho Gelato and we make all the ice-cream downstairs and the mojito sorbet will make you believe Jesus is risen. By the end of the summer I'm going to have one giant, muscular scooping arm and one weedy little money taking arm, but i don't really care.
Yesterday i spend the day in the park with some friends drinking alcoholic ginger beer and reading Victorian ghost stories, then had a BBQ at my house, then went to a friend's gig. Brighton in the summer is too lovely, it makes writing dissertations very difficult indeed.
I also got an email from virtual-godmother extraordinaire Cristina Thorson, asking for new music to listen to in the summer months, which prompted me to make a pretty spectacular mix CD for her, which might just be the soundtrack of my summer. Those of you who are facebook regulars have probably noticed the 30 day song challenge thing that's sweeping the Internet. I've resisted thus far, but i thought i could maybe post it up here for the next month, with music videos, in case any of you want some new music to listen to.
So, number 1 on the list is your favourite song. This is nearly impossible to answer. Mine changes every day, but the one I've been listening to pretty consistently for the past few months, and which never fails to bring a smile to my face is Underwear by Pulp. I've already posted a video for that up here, so I'll go for my next favourite, which i have loved for longer, even if i now listen to it slightly less often. Enjoy.
Oh, and the title of this post is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, but is it about Jesus, or is it about the fact that the new series of Doctor Who has started? That's for me to know, and you to ponder.
Oh, and the title of this post is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, but is it about Jesus, or is it about the fact that the new series of Doctor Who has started? That's for me to know, and you to ponder.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Stop. Look. Listen.
By now you all know of my love for Amanda Palmer. Her music speaks to me in a way few other artists do. I may not listen to her stuff as frequently or as openly as i do other musicians, but if I'm feeling down, or angry, or in any way diminished then she is the one who i know can set me right. On her blog yesterday she wrote a post about a play she saw, and this part I thought was really beautiful.
This is something we do together. This is what theater does, what it’s for. Catharsis.
We’ve been doing it for thousands of years.
We go to the darkest places to feel things to the marrow, and think about them in a space made for thinking, feel in a space made for feeling.
Where it’s safe.
It was part of a post she wrote about seeing a play based on the Columbine school shooting, which happened 12 years ago yesterday. The play was a highschool play which the school banned the students from performing, until a local theatre allowed them to perform on their stage.She went on to write about the importance of allowing young people to express themselves through the arts. The end of the post i found particularly moving.
after everything we’ve learned….really?
really, shut the kids up?
shut them up for trying to tackle real art? for trying to say real things?
really, try to stop them from making art that doesn’t apologize and pander, art that swears, art that’s dark and mean and reflects like a jagged mirror?
really clamp your hand over their mouths when they decide to put on a play about the things that are ACTUALLY meaningful to them?
really?
….really?
marilyn manson said, when asked by michael moore in (“Bowling for Columbine”) what he would say to eric harris and dylan klebold if he’d had the chance to talk to them:
“I wouldn’t say a single word. I would listen to what they have to say, and that’s what no one did.”
do not stop listening.
if you don’t listen, they notice.
if you don’t listen, they get angry.
if you don’t listen, they turn the darkness inside out.
eventually, if you don’t listen, they shoot at you.
listen.
everywhere.
all the time.
until you fall dead in the ground, until your fingers fall off and your head hurts:
give the darkness an airtime, a venue, a canvas.
listen.
look.
listen.
you will hear what you what you need to hear.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
With a little help from my friends
So for a while i seem to have been collecting images of The Beatles. I have no real reason behind it apart from that there are a million great ones out there and they make me smile.
What a charming buch of lads they were.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Happy Music Tuesday
I thought I'd share some goodness with you.
It is impossible not to smile while listening to these. I command you to dance.
Hope that got you warmed up. Have a lovely day.
Hope that got you warmed up. Have a lovely day.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
"Giddy fireworks of snow"
This is a post filled with Christmas cheer starting, rather strangely, with an Amanda Palmer song that makes me very happy, but which has nothing to do with the festivus.
I've just had the best Christmas I can ever remember having. I'm in my Godparent's house in Virginia, currently tucked up in bed with one of their dogs, who really should be in the other room. My parents, godparents, god-sister, their 4 dogs and I all just watched some Arrested Development after eating a wonderful meal and driving home through the snow singing jazz improvisations of Christmas carols. The whole week has been like this. It's been random and busy and shambolic and fun, and so full of laughter and love, and i don't want to go back to England.
Something else I've been doing this week is reading Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. I bought it for my dad for Christmas and I've been trying to read it very fast so that i wouldn't have to steal it back once I'd gifted it. I failed, but he's nice so hopefully he'll lend it to me to finish. I'm sure I've written about how much I love Michael Chabon on here before; I idolize him almost as much as I do Dave Eggers. I've read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay 3 times this year. My laptop, on which i lovingly type this blog, is named after a character from that book. I think he rocks.
Anyway, as a Christmas gift to everyone who reads this but who i didn't buy a gift for, here's my favourite chapter from Manhood for Amateurs. It's a series of unconnected non-fiction chapters/essays, so reading this out of context won't ruin the book for you, and i completely encourage you to buy the book. You'll like it, I promise.
Anyway, here it is. It's called Fever and, like the song earlier, it has nothing at all to do with Christmas.
Fever
I was standing on Forbes Avenue, across from the laboratory where I had sold my blood plasma to buy irises and halvah for R., waiting for the bus to her lover's house. It was one o'clock in the morning. Giddy fireworks of snow exploded over my head in the light from the streetlamp; there were already four inches on the ground. Under my peacoat I wore only a pajama top, and in my haste to get out the door I'd neglected to put on my overshoes. My gloves I had lost weeks before. I carried my frozen hands in my pockets, the right one jammed in beside a dented Grove Press edition of Illuminations, R.'s favorite book, which, like R. herself, couched everything in terms of torment and ecstasy and moved me strangely without making much sense.
"This is very embarrassing, Mike," R.'s lover had said over the phone. "But I'm just incredibly fucked up and I think there might really be something wrong with her. She keeps making this sound." Alarmed, half-asleep, I'd told him I would be there as soon as I could. An hour spent waiting for the 61C, sneakers ankle-deep in a pool of black slush, had given me ample time, however, to wonder why, given the circumstances, I should be the one to rescue R. yet again from the burning-down house of her brain. Let him, the other man, begin to lose nights of his life in emergency rooms and in the lyrical labyrinths of her mysterious fevers and furors.
My anger abated somewhat in the warmth of the bus's interior, however, and by the time, well past two, that I reached the Squirrel Hill duplex where R.'s lover lived, I had once more donned the full panoply, the axe, tackle and stouthearted gravity, of a resolute fireman of love. I would save R.—if it was not already too late. When her lover opened the door I thought he was going to tell me that she had died.
"She's upstairs," he said. He was willowy, frail, with the smooth cheek and puffy eyes of a newborn. Like R. he admired aesthetic suicides and madmen such as Van Gogh and Syd Barrett. His health was poor, he wore heavy wool sweaters even in the heat of August, and to counteract the jitters of a stomach so nervous that he threw up just waiting for a DJ to play his request on the radio, he smoked great quantities of marijuana. We had not seen each other since the night, two weeks earlier, when I learned that he was R.'s lover. I wanted him to look mortified, now, chastened by my gallant fireman's air, but he seemed only stoned and little put out. He shied away from the blast of cold wind that had followed me like a pack of dogs into the house. "Man, I don't know what happened to her. She just kind of fell over."
"Michael?" R. called, as I came up the stairs. The house had the old-potato stink of bong water and the steam-heat was turned all the way up. There was a childish note of shame in her voice, and as I came into the sweltering bedroom of her lover, and caught her smell of lily-of-the-valley, I felt my heart, like a muscular reflex or spasm, forgive her. "Michael, what are you doing? I'm all right."
Her forehead was damp, her eyes clouded with fever tears. I stood up. I looked at her lover's bed. There were shoes in the bedsheets, a Coke bottle, an open jar of cold cream, plates streaked with hardened food. On the nightstand they had built a tiny stonehenge of pill bottles and bronchial inhalers, and on one slipless pillow sat a porcelain water pipe, in the shape of a human skull.
"We're going home," I told her. "Come on."
"Please, Michael." She looked at her lover— reproachfully, I thought. "I don't want to go outside."
Couldn't she see that the house all around her was falling in a shower of sparks and burnt beams? Ignoring her protests, I helped R. down the stairs, zipped her into her parka, pulled on her red rubber boots, tucked her piano-black hair into her knit beret. I called a taxi that took us back to the apartment on Meyran Avenue, and gave my last five dollars to the driver. I put her in bed, and told her I loved her, and tried to enfold all her trembling limbs in the warm envelope of my body.
R. moved out two days later, and ever since—it's been twelve years—has been leaping, afire, from high windows that belch black smoke. In all that time, though there have been many other leapers, I have never managed to catch a single one, or learned, on the other hand, how to stand back and just watch them fall.
I've just had the best Christmas I can ever remember having. I'm in my Godparent's house in Virginia, currently tucked up in bed with one of their dogs, who really should be in the other room. My parents, godparents, god-sister, their 4 dogs and I all just watched some Arrested Development after eating a wonderful meal and driving home through the snow singing jazz improvisations of Christmas carols. The whole week has been like this. It's been random and busy and shambolic and fun, and so full of laughter and love, and i don't want to go back to England.
Anyway, as a Christmas gift to everyone who reads this but who i didn't buy a gift for, here's my favourite chapter from Manhood for Amateurs. It's a series of unconnected non-fiction chapters/essays, so reading this out of context won't ruin the book for you, and i completely encourage you to buy the book. You'll like it, I promise.
Anyway, here it is. It's called Fever and, like the song earlier, it has nothing at all to do with Christmas.
I was standing on Forbes Avenue, across from the laboratory where I had sold my blood plasma to buy irises and halvah for R., waiting for the bus to her lover's house. It was one o'clock in the morning. Giddy fireworks of snow exploded over my head in the light from the streetlamp; there were already four inches on the ground. Under my peacoat I wore only a pajama top, and in my haste to get out the door I'd neglected to put on my overshoes. My gloves I had lost weeks before. I carried my frozen hands in my pockets, the right one jammed in beside a dented Grove Press edition of Illuminations, R.'s favorite book, which, like R. herself, couched everything in terms of torment and ecstasy and moved me strangely without making much sense.
"This is very embarrassing, Mike," R.'s lover had said over the phone. "But I'm just incredibly fucked up and I think there might really be something wrong with her. She keeps making this sound." Alarmed, half-asleep, I'd told him I would be there as soon as I could. An hour spent waiting for the 61C, sneakers ankle-deep in a pool of black slush, had given me ample time, however, to wonder why, given the circumstances, I should be the one to rescue R. yet again from the burning-down house of her brain. Let him, the other man, begin to lose nights of his life in emergency rooms and in the lyrical labyrinths of her mysterious fevers and furors.
My anger abated somewhat in the warmth of the bus's interior, however, and by the time, well past two, that I reached the Squirrel Hill duplex where R.'s lover lived, I had once more donned the full panoply, the axe, tackle and stouthearted gravity, of a resolute fireman of love. I would save R.—if it was not already too late. When her lover opened the door I thought he was going to tell me that she had died.
"She's upstairs," he said. He was willowy, frail, with the smooth cheek and puffy eyes of a newborn. Like R. he admired aesthetic suicides and madmen such as Van Gogh and Syd Barrett. His health was poor, he wore heavy wool sweaters even in the heat of August, and to counteract the jitters of a stomach so nervous that he threw up just waiting for a DJ to play his request on the radio, he smoked great quantities of marijuana. We had not seen each other since the night, two weeks earlier, when I learned that he was R.'s lover. I wanted him to look mortified, now, chastened by my gallant fireman's air, but he seemed only stoned and little put out. He shied away from the blast of cold wind that had followed me like a pack of dogs into the house. "Man, I don't know what happened to her. She just kind of fell over."
"Michael?" R. called, as I came up the stairs. The house had the old-potato stink of bong water and the steam-heat was turned all the way up. There was a childish note of shame in her voice, and as I came into the sweltering bedroom of her lover, and caught her smell of lily-of-the-valley, I felt my heart, like a muscular reflex or spasm, forgive her. "Michael, what are you doing? I'm all right."
Her forehead was damp, her eyes clouded with fever tears. I stood up. I looked at her lover's bed. There were shoes in the bedsheets, a Coke bottle, an open jar of cold cream, plates streaked with hardened food. On the nightstand they had built a tiny stonehenge of pill bottles and bronchial inhalers, and on one slipless pillow sat a porcelain water pipe, in the shape of a human skull.
"We're going home," I told her. "Come on."
"Please, Michael." She looked at her lover— reproachfully, I thought. "I don't want to go outside."
Couldn't she see that the house all around her was falling in a shower of sparks and burnt beams? Ignoring her protests, I helped R. down the stairs, zipped her into her parka, pulled on her red rubber boots, tucked her piano-black hair into her knit beret. I called a taxi that took us back to the apartment on Meyran Avenue, and gave my last five dollars to the driver. I put her in bed, and told her I loved her, and tried to enfold all her trembling limbs in the warm envelope of my body.
R. moved out two days later, and ever since—it's been twelve years—has been leaping, afire, from high windows that belch black smoke. In all that time, though there have been many other leapers, I have never managed to catch a single one, or learned, on the other hand, how to stand back and just watch them fall.
Isn't that beautiful? It made me cry when i read it, but I'm a big softy.
Merry Christmas, I hope you all had days as wonderful as mine.Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Make me dance, I want to surrender
This has been in my head for the past 2 weeks and it only gets better.
I love Stuart's weird little dance.
Very quick one today before i pass out from exhaustion.
We did act 3 today, and it went a lot better than i thought it would. One of the main actors in the act text me about 10 minutes before rehearsal started to tell me that he was ill and wasn't coming, so that cast a bit of a shadow, but luckily my fabulous producer Sarah was there to read in for him.
For the most part everything went well, although slow and stilted, like yesterday. One hindrance was the changing of rooms. Due to room booking difficulties, which i explained yesterday, we have to keep breaking up the rehearsal to move to a different room, and today half an hour was lost because the people who were in one of the rooms before us didn't clear out when they were supposed to. After a stressful 10 hour day on campus I didn't take this particularly well, but i think the cast picked up on my stress and blasted through the act once we got going in a very focused and professional manner.
I'm growing more confident with every rehearsal.
On an unrelated note, my fabulous boots arrived today, and not only are they stunningly beautiful, they are also unbelievably comfortable. I wore them for over 11 hours today, running around like a mad thing from rehearsal to meeting to newspaper office to another rehearsal and they didn't hurt one tiny little bit. Also, they make me 6 foot 1, which can only be a good thing.
I'm never taking them off.
I love Stuart's weird little dance.
Very quick one today before i pass out from exhaustion.
We did act 3 today, and it went a lot better than i thought it would. One of the main actors in the act text me about 10 minutes before rehearsal started to tell me that he was ill and wasn't coming, so that cast a bit of a shadow, but luckily my fabulous producer Sarah was there to read in for him.
For the most part everything went well, although slow and stilted, like yesterday. One hindrance was the changing of rooms. Due to room booking difficulties, which i explained yesterday, we have to keep breaking up the rehearsal to move to a different room, and today half an hour was lost because the people who were in one of the rooms before us didn't clear out when they were supposed to. After a stressful 10 hour day on campus I didn't take this particularly well, but i think the cast picked up on my stress and blasted through the act once we got going in a very focused and professional manner.
I'm growing more confident with every rehearsal.
On an unrelated note, my fabulous boots arrived today, and not only are they stunningly beautiful, they are also unbelievably comfortable. I wore them for over 11 hours today, running around like a mad thing from rehearsal to meeting to newspaper office to another rehearsal and they didn't hurt one tiny little bit. Also, they make me 6 foot 1, which can only be a good thing.
I'm never taking them off.
Stand by me
Stand By Me from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.
Playing For Change
Song Around The World
My mum sent me that today and it made me smile, so i thought I'd share it.
So, week 4 of rehearsals, today we ran through Act 1.
The way that The Crucible is set out, there are no scenes, just acts. This means that breaking down rehearsals is difficult, because a lot of the time there are 10 or more people on stage. As I've said before, directing large groups makes me slightly uneasy, if only because I'm worried that people without a lot to say will get bored and resent the fact that they have to come to a 4 hour rehearsal just to say 5 lines. I don't want people to be bored or resentful, i want people to be engaged and happy.
So today, in Act One, I had 10 people. We started off with me explaining how the play was going to work in the space, and explaining the set and costume concepts I have come up with. We played some warm up games (and i mean that literally, the room was FREEZING! I had them all running around like mad things so that we wouldn't all get frostbite) and then got stuck straight in.
I feel slightly like this rehearsal process is running backwards. We are starting by blocking the scenes in the space, then going back in to develop character and motivation behind the blocking. It's not the way i like to work, but the restrictions on room bookings in the actual performance space means we have to do it this way. After next week we won't be in the space until the week of performance and i want to make sure the staging works in real life the way it does in my head. I felt kind of bad for the actors, being shoved straight in to blocking a scene they had only ever read in read through, and doing it in front of the rest of the cast. I know that i would have felt uncomfortable acting in that situation, and one thing i really try to do as a director is never put my actors in a situation i would not feel comfortable acting myself. But needs must, as they say. All of the actors did extremely well, and didn't seem fazed.
We went through the act slowly, with me moving people about, trying to make the scene look natural and uncluttered, which is tough when there are supposed to be 10 random townspeople in the bedroom of an unconscious 10 year old girl. The acting was rather stilted, and it was slow going, but that is to be expected on a first walk through. After just over 2 hours we finished blocking and took a break for dinner. Coming back after half an hour we ran the act once without interruptions (for the most part) so that i could see how it flowed, and how long it was. Although far from perfect, and running alarmingly long (50 minutes for one act. At this rate the play will be over 4 hours long!), it looks strong enough, and i let the cast go early.
Tomorrow we do Act 3, which is the real bitch. Everyone is on stage for almost the entire thing, and i need to make it look credible, uncluttered and engaging. My leading Lady has bronchitis, so I'm focusing on the acts that she has less to do in, but it's far from ideal. I think I'll get a good night's sleep. I'll need it.
Ooh, in unrelated news, I'm going to a Halloween party as a tattooed lady this weekend, and I've been playing with tattoo designs. This is my favourite Egon Schiele drawing, which i got bored and drew on my arm this morning.
I love it. My friend is tempting me to get it done for real. What do you think?
Dad?
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
I don't know what i can save you from
I got dumped this afternoon. Not quite sure how i feel about that.
On a slightly brighter note, my dad is hilarious, and just sent me this as a response to my previous post:
Sorry you had to find out that way...
But yes, according to the Rev Danny, who sees clearly now the rain has gone, both Seana and I are very gay indeed. Compound gay in fact,because even now we sometimes play Bobby Dy, Lou Reed and the Grateful Dead ON THE SAME EVENING.
And, to further blacken our names,we sometimes do so in the company of consensual (evidently equi-gay) friends - many of whom you know and might have liked until the news came out. Damn, you've even stayed with some of them, in their nasty gay houses.
I guess I might have to clear my 'frequently played' playlist before Ivisit any doctrinaire countries, because there's hardly a single straight tune there. Apart from Mozart, who seems to be a hetero little squealer. Keep pure. I think you should stick to brass band music - but check there's only one oboe player.
xxr
leave to no faith when faith brings blood
I defy you not to smile while listening to this.
Really good rehearsal today.
After a completely infuriating day (my computer got a virus last night and i spent 3 1/2 hours trying and failing to get it fixed when i should have been working for my seminar tomorrow) I was tired, cranky and ready to be disappointed with my cast. This is the first rehearsal we've had where everyone has turned up and i had a whole rant about dedication to the play and the rehearsal process planned. I did give them a brief telling off, highlighting how great they COULD be if they turned up, on time and prepared to work, to rehearsals, and then we started the read through of the second half.
It was slow going at first because of edits that i had to make after people dropped out last week, but everyone was focused and seemed to get in to it. The second half ran at almost 2 hours, which is worrying me slightly. I'm not sure what the run time of the show is, but i know any audience starts to resent you after three hours. We'll have to see to that.
After we had finished the read through i gave them a break for 15 minutes, then brought everyone back in for a discussion. I like doing this, partly to gauge people's reactions towards the play and their characters, but also as a way of getting them thinking about the larger ideas of the production. We ended up talking for over an hour and a half, discussing each of the characters in turn, their motivations, their relationships and their effect on and within the play. Everyone was very engaged and came up with some very interesting points, some of which had never crossed my mind.
I came away from the rehearsal on a high, extremely satisfied with the comments that had been made, and with the mood of the cast as a whole. If they keep up the level of enthusiasm and insight that they showed today then the play might not be cursed after all!
On a totally unrelated not, I've been making fun of this website on my facebook today because i find it ridiculous.
http://www.lovegodsway.org/GayBands
The list of gay bands basically means that me, my parents, my friends and almost everyone else i know is gay, which i think will come as news to most of us. The logic behind the safe bands is even more questionable (how is Tom Waits considered "gayer" or more subversive than Amanda Palmer in her full Dresden Dolls glory?). While it is fun to mock such obvious bigoted stupidity, and I'm sure that many of the suggestions for bands were sent in by people who find the site as ludicrous as I do, it also terrifies me to think that there are people in the world who cling to such small minded, fearful, hate-mongering ideas and call it religious purity.
With the recent spate of teen suicides related to gay bullying, and the start of the It Gets Better project (which is amazing, check it out http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject), buzzing in my head as i was re-reading the play, these lines of Hale's really stuck out for me, and i thought I'd share them.
"Beware... cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift: no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it."
I may not be a religious person, but i cannot understand how "judge not lest ye be judged" and "love thy neighbour as thyself" could possibly be mutated into something which causes such pain to confused teenagers that they would rather die than live to see how great life might get. It makes no sense to me.
Really good rehearsal today.
After a completely infuriating day (my computer got a virus last night and i spent 3 1/2 hours trying and failing to get it fixed when i should have been working for my seminar tomorrow) I was tired, cranky and ready to be disappointed with my cast. This is the first rehearsal we've had where everyone has turned up and i had a whole rant about dedication to the play and the rehearsal process planned. I did give them a brief telling off, highlighting how great they COULD be if they turned up, on time and prepared to work, to rehearsals, and then we started the read through of the second half.
It was slow going at first because of edits that i had to make after people dropped out last week, but everyone was focused and seemed to get in to it. The second half ran at almost 2 hours, which is worrying me slightly. I'm not sure what the run time of the show is, but i know any audience starts to resent you after three hours. We'll have to see to that.
After we had finished the read through i gave them a break for 15 minutes, then brought everyone back in for a discussion. I like doing this, partly to gauge people's reactions towards the play and their characters, but also as a way of getting them thinking about the larger ideas of the production. We ended up talking for over an hour and a half, discussing each of the characters in turn, their motivations, their relationships and their effect on and within the play. Everyone was very engaged and came up with some very interesting points, some of which had never crossed my mind.
I came away from the rehearsal on a high, extremely satisfied with the comments that had been made, and with the mood of the cast as a whole. If they keep up the level of enthusiasm and insight that they showed today then the play might not be cursed after all!
On a totally unrelated not, I've been making fun of this website on my facebook today because i find it ridiculous.
http://www.lovegodsway.org/GayBands
The list of gay bands basically means that me, my parents, my friends and almost everyone else i know is gay, which i think will come as news to most of us. The logic behind the safe bands is even more questionable (how is Tom Waits considered "gayer" or more subversive than Amanda Palmer in her full Dresden Dolls glory?). While it is fun to mock such obvious bigoted stupidity, and I'm sure that many of the suggestions for bands were sent in by people who find the site as ludicrous as I do, it also terrifies me to think that there are people in the world who cling to such small minded, fearful, hate-mongering ideas and call it religious purity.
With the recent spate of teen suicides related to gay bullying, and the start of the It Gets Better project (which is amazing, check it out http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject), buzzing in my head as i was re-reading the play, these lines of Hale's really stuck out for me, and i thought I'd share them.
"Beware... cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift: no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it."
I may not be a religious person, but i cannot understand how "judge not lest ye be judged" and "love thy neighbour as thyself" could possibly be mutated into something which causes such pain to confused teenagers that they would rather die than live to see how great life might get. It makes no sense to me.
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Don't stop dancing or you'll fall off
A couple of film clips today which make me smile.
I was thinking about musicals, and about films which incorporate song or dance sequences but which aren't musicals, and i thought I'd share some of my favourite sequences with you. Enjoy.
This one is so beautiful it hurts. Watch Dans Paris right now, all of you!
This one is slightly less moving, but makes me smile real big.
This isn't strictly a dance sequence, and it won't let me embed the video, but this scene stuck with me. I think it's beautiful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHWm9O-WgRA
Another one i definitely wanted to include, but which can't be found on youtube is the scene in the dance club from Away We Go which had me sobbing for about half an hour. Melanie Lynsky broke my heart. Go watch it. Also the bowling alley tap dance from Buffalo 66, which is dreamy.
You've all seen this before, but it makes me happy, so deal with it.
We watched this in my film seminar on musicals yesterday and my lecturer started crying. I love him so much. If any of you haven't seen enchanted yet, you need to. I saw it 3 times at the cinema. Amy Adams is amazing.
Did you notice that Patrick Dempsey is wearing the same outfit as the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, and that the dance and the shots echo the dance in the ballroom from that film, which in turn were taken from Sleeping Beauty? Disney is manipulating us with nostalgia, and it's working.
So yeah... more films should have dance sequences.
Can you think of any i missed, or that i should watch? I'm on the hunt.
I was thinking about musicals, and about films which incorporate song or dance sequences but which aren't musicals, and i thought I'd share some of my favourite sequences with you. Enjoy.
This one is so beautiful it hurts. Watch Dans Paris right now, all of you!
This one is slightly less moving, but makes me smile real big.
This isn't strictly a dance sequence, and it won't let me embed the video, but this scene stuck with me. I think it's beautiful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHWm9O-WgRA
Another one i definitely wanted to include, but which can't be found on youtube is the scene in the dance club from Away We Go which had me sobbing for about half an hour. Melanie Lynsky broke my heart. Go watch it. Also the bowling alley tap dance from Buffalo 66, which is dreamy.
You've all seen this before, but it makes me happy, so deal with it.
We watched this in my film seminar on musicals yesterday and my lecturer started crying. I love him so much. If any of you haven't seen enchanted yet, you need to. I saw it 3 times at the cinema. Amy Adams is amazing.
Did you notice that Patrick Dempsey is wearing the same outfit as the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, and that the dance and the shots echo the dance in the ballroom from that film, which in turn were taken from Sleeping Beauty? Disney is manipulating us with nostalgia, and it's working.
So yeah... more films should have dance sequences.
Can you think of any i missed, or that i should watch? I'm on the hunt.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Let your hands do the talking.
I'm going a little blog crazy tonight, because I haven't had internet at home for so long and there's so much I want to share with you. I think this is the last for tonight. Enjoy it.
I love their faces, and way that it looks so simple and so complex at the same time, and the fact that the song is a remix of the one sung by Tom and Dickie in The Talented Mr Ripley.
I want to learn to do that.
I love their faces, and way that it looks so simple and so complex at the same time, and the fact that the song is a remix of the one sung by Tom and Dickie in The Talented Mr Ripley.
I want to learn to do that.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Isn't that the point?
I remember listening to this on the radio while i was in the car with mum when i was about 14 and thinking it was the coolest thing ever.
I still kind of think that.
Our love is a love that never dies,
Our love is the prettiest tie that ties,
Our love is a dinosaur that tries and tries,
and tries and tries and tries and tries.
I hope you all have days as lovely as mine.
Friday, 24 September 2010
I don't care if it hurts, I wanna have control...
Today, this is my mind. Play the song while you look at the pictures.
Don't worry, it's a good feeling.
You're so fuckin' special.
I'm a creep.
Friday, 10 September 2010
In the mean time...
Hello lovers
Ok, so I'm back in Brighton for the rest of the year, so i can catch up with my sorely neglected blog. I have many things i want to say, but they're gonna require a little bit of time and effort to get up here, so for now i just want to say I've had an amazing summer with my wonderful mother whom i love, and i hope that when she gets off the plane she watches these videos and they make her laugh.
That one was random, this one has a purpose. We stayed up until 3AM on more than one occasion because of these gentlemen. I blame my eye bags on them.
You can't tell me that I'm not giving you hot pants.
Ok, so I'm back in Brighton for the rest of the year, so i can catch up with my sorely neglected blog. I have many things i want to say, but they're gonna require a little bit of time and effort to get up here, so for now i just want to say I've had an amazing summer with my wonderful mother whom i love, and i hope that when she gets off the plane she watches these videos and they make her laugh.
That one was random, this one has a purpose. We stayed up until 3AM on more than one occasion because of these gentlemen. I blame my eye bags on them.
You can't tell me that I'm not giving you hot pants.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
We also create false promises
A couple of amusing Beatles related things for you today.
First off, this rather amazing flow chart, a simple way for any geek to learn the lyrics to one of the classics.
First off, this rather amazing flow chart, a simple way for any geek to learn the lyrics to one of the classics.
And secondly, an entirely spectacular and completely surreal Bollywood Beatles homage.
His entrance makes me very happy. All that head twitching. (sorry if the right hand side of the video is cut off on your screen, i don't know how to make it small enough to fit, blogger is being awkward.) Gotta learn that dance.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
The Boy With Nails For Eyes
My mum sent me an email the other day with a link to a review of her friend's son's webcomic. I didn't open it until today, when i was chatting to her and she asked if i'd looked. I must be honest, i wasn't expecting to be particularly impressed.
I was wrong to pre-judge.
As the review states, its a masterpiece. Beautifully constructed, well laid out, with great music and well written prose, it really atands apart from pretty much every other web comic i've ever read. The art reminds me of the graphic novel of "M" which i mentioned in a post over a year ago. I really can't fault any of it.
Here's a link to the comic. Its a flash animation, so it might take you a while to load, but its worth the wait.
http://www.basement-garden.co.uk/theboywithnailsforeyes/
and here's a link to the review, because its more informed and eloquent than i am.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-13564-Cleveland-Comic-Books-Examiner~y2010m3d26-Webcomic-Review-The-Boy-with-Nails-for-Eyes
I hope this gets the recognition it deserves, because i really do think it is something special.
I was wrong to pre-judge.
As the review states, its a masterpiece. Beautifully constructed, well laid out, with great music and well written prose, it really atands apart from pretty much every other web comic i've ever read. The art reminds me of the graphic novel of "M" which i mentioned in a post over a year ago. I really can't fault any of it.
Here's a link to the comic. Its a flash animation, so it might take you a while to load, but its worth the wait.
http://www.basement-garden.co.uk/theboywithnailsforeyes/
and here's a link to the review, because its more informed and eloquent than i am.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-13564-Cleveland-Comic-Books-Examiner~y2010m3d26-Webcomic-Review-The-Boy-with-Nails-for-Eyes
I hope this gets the recognition it deserves, because i really do think it is something special.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Kings of the one shot
I just found the video for Ok Go's new song. You may not remember the band, but i'm sure you remember the videos, first the dance for A Million Ways and then the ridiculously famous and oft repeated treadmill dance from Here It Goes Again. These boys do their videos in one shot, 3 and a half minutes of handmade perfection. Their new video is no exception.
It reminds me of Filschi and Weiss, who i have blogged about before, or that car advert where they do the same thing but all with car parts. The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Synn Labs ( http://syynlabs.com/ ) over the course of several months.
Here is part 1 of the making of:
Interestingly, this isn't the only video for this song that they made, and the other one is super awesome too. Also done in one shot and featuring the Notre Dame marching band, all the audio was recorded live during the take, so the sound you're hearing is exactly what you see them performing in that shot. IU can't embed it, but follow the link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY&feature=related
That's it for today, I hope it gave you a little life, i know both videos make me smile.
It reminds me of Filschi and Weiss, who i have blogged about before, or that car advert where they do the same thing but all with car parts. The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Synn Labs ( http://syynlabs.com/ ) over the course of several months.
Here is part 1 of the making of:
Interestingly, this isn't the only video for this song that they made, and the other one is super awesome too. Also done in one shot and featuring the Notre Dame marching band, all the audio was recorded live during the take, so the sound you're hearing is exactly what you see them performing in that shot. IU can't embed it, but follow the link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY&feature=related
That's it for today, I hope it gave you a little life, i know both videos make me smile.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Chicks who rock...
This is very cool, and oddly beautiful. I swear i've heard stuff less produced than this on some albums i own.
Issues of mechanical reproduction, unconscious art-making, and the beauty of chaos swirl about in Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s work. The themes are well-worn, but the approach is lighthearted and inviting. This French artist and composer has a knack for misusing everyday objects to create alarmingly organic music.
For instance: Boursiey-Mougenot once jerry-rigged a grand piano to play musical notes translated from the text being typed on a random laptop. He’s also attached harmonicas to the end of vacuum cleaners to create otherworldly, organ-like noises. In the video below, the artist placed an amplified guitar in the middle of a gallery and then allowed dozens of birds to perch upon its sensitive strings, resulting in some surprisingly listenable accidental drone!
Issues of mechanical reproduction, unconscious art-making, and the beauty of chaos swirl about in Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s work. The themes are well-worn, but the approach is lighthearted and inviting. This French artist and composer has a knack for misusing everyday objects to create alarmingly organic music.
For instance: Boursiey-Mougenot once jerry-rigged a grand piano to play musical notes translated from the text being typed on a random laptop. He’s also attached harmonicas to the end of vacuum cleaners to create otherworldly, organ-like noises. In the video below, the artist placed an amplified guitar in the middle of a gallery and then allowed dozens of birds to perch upon its sensitive strings, resulting in some surprisingly listenable accidental drone!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)