Various accumulated stuff
Jan. 7th, 2009 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia1) ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 04:06 pm (UTC)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
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 09:20 pm (UTC)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