Various accumulated stuff

[petronia]

1) hemlocke, forgot to mention I got your postcard too! Thanks~ ^^

2) For the new year, bit the bullet and changed the journal layout to one of the new "minimalism" ones. Font size ought to be easier on the eyes. It's good to have access finally to standard layout options that look like they were designed less than five years ago.

3) To my own surprise, I'm actually using my douban for its intended purpose (tracking books, movies, and music consumed), as opposed to merely lurking in the Sexy Britpop Ojisan MST Photo Archive... I think it's basically an unauthorized Goodreads code fork, but well. Friend me if you have one? XD Currently trying to get East Asian IMEs up and running on this laptop, which I've been putting off for a year.

4) La Mala Educación: for instance, I logged this in douban but forgot to include it in my last post. It's... sort of the If On A Winter's Night A Traveler of GLBT filmmaking, isn't it? XD; One thinks one has a handle on what the story is about, then it turns out to be the first chapter of something else. When the credits rolled sororial unit and I looked at each other like, okay, so did not see the last 30 minutes of that coming.

We think Enrique is hotter than Angel, though that might be the role talking. Would make the most objectionable Libsdom AU fic ever (and Subdee and I have come up with some fairly objectionable ones).

5) A Bit of a Blur: the memoirs of Alex James, bassist of Blur and 3D shoujo manga character. I promised to review this for someone and planned to do it in conjunction with the Durrell tetralogy, but that won't be for a while, so. XD;

What the book is about: the youthful Alex James' quest to be cool (ニコニコ天才系). How he got over it. His wuv for cheese, astronomy, Damien Hirst, and Graham Coxon (it was like that scene where Takemoto sees Hagu for the first time - I lol'd). The lengths to which people are willing to go to accommodate a member of a successful rock band, even if it's the bassist, and how one can take advantage of this to do neat stuff like climbing Mexican pyramids (duly noted). How Blur made music, sometimes.

Toolkit notes: this book actually serves as a good example of how to construct a narrative in the form of random comedic anecdotes told while propped against the bar. A subtitle descriptive of both content and style could be "An ENTP Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste", or "More Disciplined Than it Looks When it's Propped Against the Bar". Statements come along that seem to have no relevance to the ones preceding, until they do, and by the end the "characters"' emotional arcs are clearly delineated. --Albeit understated to the point of flippancy, which is a personality thing - a defensive mechanism. Actually, it's obvious that the more dude cares about something the more flip he gets. XD; He seems to have made an executive decision to write honestly about his relationship with his ex (to whom he was an unremitting dick for reasons of rockstardom), but the struggle is visible. So one mostly has to read between the lines. Also, the book is not a tell-all, and the "narrator" unreliable by omission, as is obvious with even minor-league awareness of the (band's, especially) public record. More than ass-covering or loyal discretion, one recognizes this as the natural optimist's tendency to gloss over past unpleasantness - I do this too, a lot, and Alex James teaches me to watch out for it, because it doesn't half come across as annoying. XD; My life! It is awesome! Did I mention how awesome it is! Et cetera. Then again there are people in whose minds past unpleasantness seems to grow until it drowns out any fun they might have had at the time, and I never know how to respond to that. I read dude's blog, actually, in which he is worse (my life! it is awesome! so much better than when I was a rockstar!), but it's a guilty pleasure because he witters on constantly about cheese. I ♥ cheese.

...I don't know why I analyzed this book as if it were a work of fiction. XD; Though it would make a good movie, kind of like how Tony Wilson in 24HPP is in the middle of everything but creatively useless and ridiculous yet likeable. I have the music nerd thing whereby I find straight biopics about the obvious people and events boring - one could just read a book - who was it that watched Control and said he'd've liked a movie about Barney Sumner instead, as one knows all about Ian but nothing about Barney except that he's kind of an entertaining weirdo? So this would be a Britpop film that's told sideways and not really about Britpop.

Blur feat. Françoise Hardy - To The End (La Comédie): I finally have FTP again! ...You guys thought I stopped uploading due to the newfangled Twitter software didn't you. Anyway, Alex James' book is best when he discusses topics relevant to my interests, such as New Order's Reading '98 set, or being invited over to Françoise Hardy's flat and offered cheese.** I'd actually been trying to track this down since Cathy's holiday mix last year. When I first watched the PMV I was like, "Ouran High School Host Club do Last Year at Marienbad, lulz," then I realized this was in fact an awesome fic idea. Now I'm kind of obsessed with it. XD; Think I'll go score Robbe-Grillet's script from Gallimard for reference, I've seen it there.

** Basically the pinnacle of dude's existence; also Graham Coxon's. Françoise Hardy, of course, immediately decided non-fan Damon Albarn was her favoritest Blur.

Comments

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

so cathy watched 24HPP a couple years ago and remembered that ian's death is depicted while he's watching television, or at least has the telly on, and the two of us spent the entire time watching control biting our nails waiting for the death scene and jumping whenever ian made a move to turn on a television set. . . . only for the suicide to occur seamlessly and anticlimactically with no mention of the tv. our unamusement, let us show you it!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

LOLOL the suicide scene happened so fast my sister and I talked through it by accident! Thx Corbijn yr a doll...

I don't like the script, it's too pat. If they'd actually adapted the book it would have been a better movie (but more about Debbie than about Ian).

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

There's an absolutely brilliant interview with Alex James here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/nov/19/popandrock.foodanddrink), which you've probably already read, but I link it just in case. I was totally charmed by the end of the article.
One of my favourite bits: Alex is showing me round his farm on a freakishly sunny day in autumn. He's lolloping round in a shambolically charming, floppy-fringed manner.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

LOL I think the floppy fringe is the source of Alex James' superpowers, such as they are.

It is a good thing that dude has a sense of humour, 'cos the "Country House" jokes will never stop coming. (In the MBA they get you in the habit of back-of-envelope calculations; the envelope shows that 1 out of every 100 residents of Britain in 1995 bought the "Country House" single, which from a North American perspective is insane.)

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

That is insane, especially since I've always considered "Country House" one of their weaker songs. (Though I LOVE "To the End").

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Mm, this layout is really pretty! Your old one didn't show up well on my computer, for some reason..

[petronia.livejournal.com]

So I've been told by several people. ^_^; I always meant to change it, but there weren't any others I liked.

[aggysaur.livejournal.com]

you 'reviewed' it - being alex james' very original retelling of his life of greatness and dork XD see i never knew he had this moment upon meeting graham coxon - though i always had a feeling that he's the most talented one (and the drummer and vocalist being the richest? which was a point of ridicule for them, coming from the other bands who were from working class, enter oasis) XD

thank you for this. taking the ftp as well!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

It was love at first sight. XD Well - dude crush at first sight. On the first day of college, getting out of their respective parents' cars. As far as I can tell, he still thinks Graham Coxon is the awesomest awesome that ever awesomed.

Mmm I don't think Alex James is the most musically talented in the band (though he's a bit underrated methinks - Blur's rhythm section is ace). He'd probably test out with the highest IQ, though. XD He was a science-stream kid, and those sorts have somewhat different reactions to rockstardom (see: Brian May).

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Or did you mean Graham is the most talented? Between him and Damon I'd have to flip a coin and ponder the definition of "talent". XD Which I have been doing, repeatedly, listening to their solo stuff - it's an interesting experience to try and follow someone's developing train of thought that way.

[aggysaur.livejournal.com]

what a perfect example when it comes to stardome response: Brian May XD i love it!

i do think that alex's talents are not extraordinary but combined with dave's drumming style they surely produced some wonderful things. and yes i was referring to graham being the most talented one - though not as commercially enterprising like damon (which is another talent, imho). i think if you put their solo work side by side - graham really surfaces as the artist and damon more the businessman in a way, if the success of the gorillaz is anything to go by.

XD i hope you share your take on graham's solo work - music and otherwise. i'm afraid i've lost touch of damon's solo endeavors after gorillaz and that movie stint he did in "face" but i will read up on it, definitely and start massive dling. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Damon Albarn-as-businessman is an interesting proposition. Alex James describes how he used to pay to get his band to see gigs like Pixies, back when he was the only one with a job; nowadays he pays to fly people like Martha Wainwright or Zane Lowe to Mali for cultural exchange. My impression is that he cares a lot more about cred than about sales, but his biggest talent (outside of musical composition itself) is pinpointing the zeitgeist, i.e. those involved knew Gorillaz would work in the same way they knew Parklife would work, but it was to prove a point, not make money. That mythical creature - the visionary CEO who can't read a balance sheet. XD But what else is EMI for.

There are Albarn demos floating around from '88, before Blur properly got started (everything is on the internetz these days). They could just as well have been demos for the first Gorillaz album, or even for Think Tank. XD; Which leads one to the boggling conclusion that Graham Coxon had been strangling Damon Albarn's whiteboi funk for fifteen years... There's a central paradox to Blur, which is that Albarn writes all the songs but has no bearing on the sonic identity of the band; when Graham leaves Blur stops sounding like Blur. "Damon Albarn", musically, is and always was a very amorphous thing, like David Bowie - but Bowie is in and of himself centrally fissured and enigmatic, and Damon (to put it mildly) has a well-defined and well-broadcast personality. So the only other famous artist you could compare him to is Madonna. XD Hence the accusations of calculatedness. But I don't think the shifts are calculated, even when they (lamely) affect his wardrobe choices or whatever... It's probably more useful to think of him as one of the great pop composers in the vein of Burt Bacharach, or Yoko Kanno (who also shifts styles with ease, and sings), and all the rest as externalized mental prep.

In a follow-up article to the autobiography's publication Alex James defined Blur's true professional identities - the ones they grew into - as composer (Damon), artist (Graham), writer (himself), and politician (Dave) respectively. That is, Graham is very much an artist in the Romantic mode, whereas Damon is an artist in the Classic mode, but the former is what yr basic Western person thinks of as Arrrt these days - especially in the sphere of rock'n'roll. The effect within Blur is absolutely charming, because Blur is skewed toward Myers-Briggs NT in a way that you almost never see with rock groups, so with "You're So Great" or "Coffee & TV" there's there's this individual NF voice that rises out of nowhere and demands attention, like the sound of a spoon clinking against a glass in a loud restaurant. In the greater landscape of indie it's a lot more of a normal thing.

Graham is a Purist, too, of a weird kind - he'll do most anything as long as it's something done by white dudes with guitars. XD That is, given that he is a white dude with a guitar no one would find it weird if it weren't for the fact that he was - is - in Blur. As such, he's the "Luddite fringe"... Peter Doherty just gave an interview where he said Graham Coxon ended up playing on nearly every track of his solo album, this ought to be RIGHT BIZARRE. Hopefully good. But bizarre.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Shit, that was long. XD; Uhh more practically, Damon's non-Blur stuff is all incredibly elegant and sonically intricate and mellow to the point of soporificness. The second Gorillaz album is a lot better than the first, because he figured it out as he went along. The Mali Music album is gorgeous, but mostly other people. The Good, Bad... album is a thematic suite, and a grower. I haven't listened to the Chinese opera thing, due to sheer terror.

[aggysaur.livejournal.com]

it was long but very informative for me and honestly -- i never realized that graham could be the jarring factor in damon's growth as a musician: or more specifically to his development as an artist. see, i always thought that 'they were in this together' in a way that they developed their style (as the central figures in blur) in a synergistic manner. so the information you said is a gem - it makes sense now because at that time when graham left blur there were more questions than answers. leading most fans to conclude that they had simple grown apart when it comes to musical taste.

damon's 15-year old suppressed funkboy-self was not in my radar whatsoever. all he said (about their eponymous release) was that he started 'wanting' to change his style after hearing "feather in your cap" by beck and after hanging out with members of pavement when elastica used tou with them in the USA. when i first heard that album - i really thought it was a marketing strategu for damon so that blur would break into the american scene. my apologies to him *hats off*

i see your point when it comes to the term talent as well: you take blur away from damon and he finds a way to get back up and make a new project as feasible as daylight is to farmland. you take the guitar away from graham and there's a bit of a crisis going on there where music is concerned! i hear you!

*coughs* well i will start listening to the gorillaz 2nd album and work up an appetite for the rest! the term 'terror' ~ is very enticing though XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

see, i always thought that 'they were in this together' in a way that they developed their style (as the central figures in blur) in a synergistic manner

I think they did. But these guys are too talented, it wasn't good for them in the long run to be co-dependent. XD; There came a point where the guitar-band format - no matter how stretched - was stifling Damon's development, in particular the psychological obligation to "front" (I honestly get the impression dude would rather sit there playing his dinky melodica or Korg or left-hand guitar... but he can't. So made up a cartoon character to do the frontman job for him. MAN IT'S HARD TO BE PRETTY). At the same time Graham was getting into songwriting, but out of personal insecurity was unwilling to bring his work to the communal table. Throw money and substance abuse into the mix, and suddenly it becomes You Puffed-Up Egomaniac Trying To Take Over Everyone's Job versus Are You Even Interested Because You Don't Act Like It.

I mean, bands don't actually break up because of divergent musical interests, because a good band will fight over those anyway. It's always personal. XD; The last straw in '02 appeared to be that the band had booked studio time and then Graham didn't show up because he was in rehab. The other three decided to work anyway, but when Graham got out he 1) couldn't latch onto what they'd come up with without him 2) didn't want to tour, because that kind of thing is shit if you're in AA, and 3) needed to be Alone, a la Dietrich. Then everyone got pissed off and started yelling, and suddenly Graham was out of the band. XD;; The classic "you didn't fire me, I quit".

That left Blur to tour with a gaping hole in all their old song arrangements (the downside of having a world-class guitarist is that it's hard to find a world-class replacement), which was visibly fun times. Then the lawyers got called in to figure out who was owed what for Think Tank - they'd previously split all the publishing four ways, although in 90% of other bands Damon would probably have gotten 90% of the money. Then they got a family mediator, having by this point realized that they were a dysfunctional family who only saw each other at weddings (Alex James's). XD;; In 2005 Damon jerked the fanbase around a couple of times before basically admitting that they couldn't play or record as Blur without Graham, and the whole outfit was iced.

Then... a year later, Graham decided he was over it. XD;;; I don't know who his shrink is, but s/he deserves a payout from LiveNation... Alex spent 2007 publically trying to get the band back together, in his floppy-fringed, annoyingly enthusiastic way, and it didn't quite work. Then Graham spent 2008 trying to get the band back together, which involved leaving unanswered messages on Damon's phone and pouring his heart out on the official Blur fan forum. LOL INTERNET DRAMA. At this point it was basically like reading fic (I was following), which came to a head when Damon told an Argentine paper that Blur was "over", and the next week Graham showed up at one of his gigs. ...All of a sudden after that, the band was getting back together. orz

[acchikocchi.livejournal.com]

it was like that scene where Takemoto sees Hagu for the first time

...LOLLL not that I wouldn't be interested anyway but I definitely have to read this. (Of course when you say, "3-D shoujo manga character" this is the first scene I thought of anyway...)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Well. All those 90's British bands were manga characters. The conflict arose from the fact that they weren't all from the same phonebook. XD;;

[acchikocchi.livejournal.com]

Strangely my first thought just now wasn't even about the 90s, it was that the Libs are (were) clearly an Asuka series. XD One of those ones that were abandoned without proper resolution, not that I'm thinking of any famous mangaka circles in particular, cough.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

LOL ahem!

Oasis were from the shounen side, I imagine. Suede was... Margaret?

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

Toolkit notes: this book actually serves as a good example of how to construct a narrative in the form of random comedic anecdotes told while propped against the bar. Statements come along that seem to have no relevance to the ones preceding, until they do, and by the end the "characters"' emotional arcs are clearly delineated.

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home seems similarly anecdotal and non-chronological, while having a more obvious relevance and flow. The super-Pop Art cover makes me wonder how Bit of A Blur would work as a comic book...or following your wee note on the author, a shoujo manga series! Drawn by Yazawa-sensei, natürlich.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not as obviously well-constructed as any good work of fiction would be. XD But the artlessness is what I liked about it... it's a model I would return to if I were going to write a story from the 1st person POV of a character unconcerned about "telling a story" - s/he's just talking for the sake of talking - but I-as-writer am of course trying to tell a story and do it clearly. I don't know if that makes sense? XD; I just think that to have your narrator worry aloud about "getting it right", the clumsiness of hir expression, the fallibility of hir memory (as 95% do) is a Dischism at best, an unchallenged convention at worst. Of course, I have no idea if Alex James did this on purpose, and it doesn't matter much if he did. XD

Brushing up on one's Britpop history is a good tonic for those moments when one might be tempted to dismiss Yazawa's plots as improbable. =_= Rival bands whose members date each other?? Who does that? Ahaha.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

(I think I've heard of the Bechdel book though - should track it down!)

[hemlocke.livejournal.com]

Hee. No prob. Sorry it's well, years late ^^