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Friday, August 10, 2012

Relationship with a Capital R

The ironic thing about the Relationship (with a capital R) is that it is the place where you are most likely to run up against your own limitations. No fair! Our culture sells romantic love as a kind of panacea for the aloneness that is inherent to the human condition. Maybe it is partially that, but its essential nature less straightforward.

It is in relationship that we see the exact ways that we are alone. This first poem is about the disillusionment that happens when you realize love - as you have known it so far - might not be enough.

Your Heart

When you give your
You pretend it beats
vibrant and full of blood- You say
take this, it will be a worthy companion
to you. Then little by little the hollowness
and the cracks are exposed
The way the thing skips a beat.
You patch it up Move along, nothing
to see here.
Then one day
broken crumpled moth wings
daub - stick, mud tape
The crowds gather stand around and gawk at the thing
wondering if it will ever fulfill its former promise.

Sometimes you wish for something less - no matter how flawed it might be. You want to know that you are separate, even from those you love.

In My Daylight

In the thick dark
of the front seat
of his dented Volvo
parked on a dry
nighttime riverbed
wrapped in Leonard Cohen’s voice

beside a man
I’ll never know
well. Talking
the kids
from the Elwha tribe
used to pull pranks
on that bridge. They would
make dummies that looked
real and  throw them
into the middle
of the narrow bridge
under front wheels, screeching
to a halt and almost
through that guardrail

one time.
I will never read
him in the dark. It will
be over after
our first fight. In the dark
of the places he grew
up, I am not required,
to fill any holes.

Dreams and waking blend together to make reality. Sometimes, you just want to dive in, take an immoderate helping, revel in it, because after all this is where we learn to be ourselves.

Dim Sum Dream

Dim sum has just been delivered
to the table. Round, fleshy steamed buns. Bright green
broccoli under dented tin lids. Pot Stickers folded
with origami precision.

Woken first by the cats
he is – stroking my hair three times
pretty, pretty, pretty. He pulls me close.
I move in, breathe and clasp his thigh.

Clacking wheels of the stainless
steel cart make endless rounds.
Steam seeps round the edges

There is no price I can put on
no way to measure moist

Even as I grow uncomfortable I will not

I will stay with my spine twisted to rest squarely
against his chest.
He has fallen
back to sleep. I am still
listening to his breathing.
slow it comes
rapid-fire then stops.
One, two, three. I count the seconds,
holding my own breath until he
breathes again.

  1. These are all beautiful, but the second one is the most touching to me. I remember so well.

  2. Thanks Aimee, and on another note - soon I will have a Mexican follower!

  3. If I had done anything this breath taking you would hear my wheezing in Timbuktu. Lovely and potent Sofie.


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DC37, City Reach Living Wage Agreement

District Council 37 leaders and city officials have agreed to a living wage for thousands of public service workers previously earning $10 per hour or less. Union and city officials recently signed a memorandum of understanding that boosts wages to $11.50 per hour for up to 4,500 DC 37 members in three low-wage job titles. “Our members are on the front lines of public service, yet too many have been trapped by low-pay in the city they work hard for,” said DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido. “These long-overdue, well-deserved increases will help ease that burden. This agreement is part of DC 37’s commitment to achieving a living wage for all city employees. We will not rest until that goal is met.”

The agreement takes effect on April 1st and will increase the wages of approximately 2,500 Job Training Participants and more than 350 School Crossing Guards. City Seasonal Aides will also get raises, Garrido said.

Shaun D. Francois I, president of Board of Education Employees Local 372, which represents School Crossing Guards, said, “This is only the beginning of the fight for a living wage for all. We have been fighting for this for over ten years, through three Local 372 presidents. I want to praise Henry Garrido for his sharp focus on this, working with us and other locals on this issue.”

Local 983 Motor Vehicle Operators President Joe Puleo, who represents City Seasonal Aides, cited the importance of a living wage for city workers.  “A city job should be a way out of poverty, not a means to ensure it,” Puleo said.

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Camera Restricta. A disobedient tool for taking unique photographs

Camera Restricta by Philipp Schmitt is a brilliant example of speculative design. According to the designer, “algorithms are already looking through the viewfinder alongside with you: they adjust settings, scan faces and take a photo when you smile. What if your grin wasn’t the only thing they cared about?

Camera Restricta is a speculative design of a new kind of camera. It locates itself via GPS and searches online for photos that have been geotagged nearby. If the camera decides that too many photos have been taken at your location, it retracts the shutter and blocks the viewfinder. You can’t take any more pictures here”.

Read more about the project.


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Captain Getzlaf's First Year

On October 13th, 2010, the Anaheim Ducks announced that Ryan Getzlaf had been named Captain, replacing the great Scott Neidermayer, who had announced his retirement that past June. Getzlaf had 19 goals and 50 assists in 66 games during the 2009-2010 season, and a total of 107 goals and 232 assists in 363 games during his five seasons as a Duck.

In his first season as captain, Getzlaf led his team to the Stanley Cup playoffs, but the Ducks ultimately fell short in their efforts and were eliminated in the first round. The tough way to end things aside, Getzlaf had himself a great season -- save for the injury he suffered back in December. Let’s take a look back on his first year wearing the “C.”

In 67 games this season, Getzlaf potted 19 goals and had 57 assists, for a total of 76 points. If he’d played a full season, his goal total would have been closer to 25 (or possibly have exceeded that number) and his assists would have been around 70 or so. He could have come ended the season second to teammate Corey Perry (98 points), as opposed to third behind Perry and Teemu Selanne. However, 76 points is nothing to scoff at.

Getzlaf was injured during a game against the Phoenix Coyotes on December 28th, 2010. Early in the second period, a shot deflected off of a Coyotes player and struck Getzlaf in the face.

He did not return after leaving the ice, and went on to miss 14 games with multiple sinus fractures. In his return game on February 9th, he had an assist and was plus-2 on the night.

This season, Getzlaf was an integral part of, arguably, the best line in the NHL. Getzlaf and linemates Perry and Bobby Ryan combined for 103 goals and 142 assists for a total of 245 points on the season. This Getzlaf goal, with assists from his linemates, was his 19th of the regular season and an absolute beauty.

In the playoffs, the Perry-Getzlaf-Ryan line combined for 7 goals and 11 assists in 6 games. During Game 4 against the Nashville Predators (a 6-3 Ducks win), Getzlaf scored a great goal, showing off his patience and intelligence on the ice.

At only 26 years of age, Getzlaf still has time to grow and develop. His first season as Captain was a good one, and the next will undoubtedly be even better. If he continues to play at the level he has thus far -- and stays on that incredibly skilled and powerful line with Perry and Ryan -- he will surely find great success and accomplish plenty as both a player and a captain.

George Prax's picture

Great player, great captain. One of the best in the game in fact. I cry myself to sleep every night knowing the Habs passed him up in his draft year.


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Friday, December 21, 2012

Of Letting Go The Lead - Its Anybody's Game Now

Tan Li Ting sealed her crown after a convincing win against Nur Sabrina Aliya in Round 8, regardless what ever the score will be in the her last Round 9 game against Mok Shu Zing. Although Najiha can mathematically equal Li Ting score of 7.5 points, her earlier lost to Li Ting in Round 5 does not work to her favor as PE (Personal Encounter) will be the first tie break used to determine the outright winner.

For the Girls section, the race now is for second place with Najiha currently in lead with 6.5 points over Nithyalakshmi who had 6 points. As both players are not expected to lose their last round encounter against their respective opponents, the standing should remain the same with Najiha the runner up and Nithya in third place

The same could not be said for the Boys section. With Yit San loss to Aron Teh in Round 8, and Mark Siew surprising lost to Ahmad Afiq Afyfy, the event is now wide open with at least 3 players having the chance to share or secure the top spot. Tan Jun Feng also managed to come from behind with a convincing win against Lim Kim Siong to catch up on par with the leader Fong Yit San, both now having 6.5 points. If both players win their last round game, a playoff is set to take place as both players had drew against one another. 3 other players who are within half point striking distant from the leader duo are Lim Chuin Kai, Ahmad Afiq Afyfy and Aron Teh, all with 6 points each.

Mark Siew who started well prior to Round 5, was not seem to be able to rebound after his loss to Yit San, suffering 2 more draws in Round 6 and 7, and lost Round 8 match to Afiq Afyfy. Mark currently has 5 points and is sharing 9th to 18th place with.

For today's schedule, the prize giving ceremony will begin at 2:00pm and will be officiated by MCF President, Tan Sri Dato Seri DiRaja Ramli Ngah Talib. Soon after at 3:00pm, there will be an Open Blitz Event for everyone to participate. Entry fees is RM15 and the event will be played over 9 rounds Swiss. Those interested can come and register at the playing hall before the prize giving ceremony starts.

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A Service of Healing

Back to all Events
  • Every first Sunday of the month until July 1, 2018 | 4:00pm – 5:00pm
  • Location: 110 Calhoun St., Bluffton, SC 29910

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to us to give us a new and eternal life by restoring our relationship with God.  We come before the Lord and ask Him to heal, save, deliver and transform us by the power of His Holy Spirit.  Anyone in need of physical, emotional and spiritual healing is invited to attend.  Come find healing in Jesus!

For more information, contact Sheila Sulak at ssulak@thechurchofthecross.net or call 843-757-2661.


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Saturday, 18 June 2016

The Digit-al Dozen DOES Rainbows - Literally

Hi Goddesses

This is my final mani of DD week. I did have a full week of ideas, but heading back to work early put severe stresses on my time.

For this mani, I wanted to use a fan brush to swipe a rainbow across my nails.  It's a technique I've used before and love because all the polishes moosh together, and if you use a holo in there, it creates magical things.

As you know, all week I wanted to use the same polishes, so this mani was done using just cremes and .... I couldn't get it quite right.  I LOVE the thumb, love love love, but couldn't get it to replicate on the other nails.

The main reason for this is that after a while (2 nails) your fan brush becomes overloaded.  But when you wipe it, it separates, and goes from being a fan brush to a 9 clawed animal, and so you can't get the spread and the moosh you're after.

Luckily, I had a spare, which is the only reason I managed to get the different colours you see on the index nail.  Yep, I actually redid nails for this mani.

I tried it matte, but felt this made it look more like parrot feathers, and eventually settled on matte with glossy raindrops.  What I should have done was chop my other fingers off so that all you could see was the thumb lol ....

See you soon xx

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Riffin: Not your average pro se litigant

James Riffin graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1975 and received a master’s in law from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1981. But he is not a practicing attorney, saying he got his legal degrees only to “protect his legal interests.”

He tends to speak in soliloquies that are dense with details and delivered in matter-of-fact tone, much like his legal filings. And like a lawyer questioning a witness, he primarily asks questions he already knows the answer to, and that answer is almost always designed to support his point.

Riffin’s legal background makes him atypical among pro se litigants, said Pamela C. Ortiz, executive director of the Maryland Access to Justice Commission, which is examining self-representation in the court system.

Most pro se litigants “don’t know what is necessarily required of them or fully understand the consequences of their actions,” Ortiz said. “They don’t know the process.”

The lack of knowledge about the legal process can increase the workload on opposing counsel, Ortiz added. There are often problems with serving the other party and making filing deadlines, for example.

“Most attorneys would prefer to have an attorney on the other side,” she said.

Michael Millemann, chairman of the commission’s self-represented litigants committee, said a pro se litigant alters the balance inherent in the adversarial process. Where a conversation between two opposing lawyers can often lead to a settlement, a lawyer has ethical limits on what he or she can say in conversation with an opposing pro se litigant.

“You’ve got differing responsibilities. You’re more of an officer of the court,” said Millemann, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law.

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Ohio family wins night in Cinderella Castle despite having not having park tickets

An Ohio family in Orlando just to visit some family, was at Downtown Disney doing a little shopping with no plans to visit any of the Disney theme parks when the father went to get a drink of water at a water fountain. Before he knew it the Dream Squad had awarded him and his family a nights stay in Cinderella’s Royal Suite in the Magic Kingdom. Must have been nice! (Read)

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Sunday, July 18, 2010

Cat Shit One

I've never wanted to see something dubbed so much in my life.
Cat Shit One (aka Apocalypse Meow) is basically a hard core war action movie done with adorable fluffy stuffed bunnies. (You can see the stitches in their feet.)
Japanese hard core military jargon, however, is so riddled with terrible Engrish that I found it really detracted from the intended experience; now matter how intensely you growl, "You copy?" it doesn't sound at all bad ass.

The short film is a fucking blast, though. Never read the manga -- I think my impression was that he drew bunnies because he couldn't actually draw at all. But I appreciate the idea, and hope this does well enough to encourage more.

Friday, July 16, 2010

So Maijo Otaro wrote the story for a movie. I didn't really think there were many people capable of tapping into his unique wavelength...

...but I am entirely unsure how they managed to make something with that much Maijo insanity clearly evident still look really generic. The Japanese film industry is kind of a meat grinder. Throw anything into it and it will shit out a wacky comedy or a weepy melodrama.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Full Redline trailer

Now with more Engrish.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Occult Academy 2

Think I'm ready to commit to this being pretty dang great. Time Agents sent to save the future FROM ALIENS, Nostradamus, ghosts right out of The Haunting, and the pace just keeps things moving at exactly the right speed.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Hey, maybe Princess Resurrection won't suck this time

The first anime was a fucking disgrace, but the new OAV at least has loads of blood!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Shiki Ep 1

A lot of what I was afraid of is certainly true, but it's also way more faithful than I expected. Generally, I think the structural changes are very smart decisions, compressing the first volume or so heavily -- without really feeling like they are -- and focusing on a single character's story, ending with something like a hook.

The aesthetic, however, is more of a problem. The more conservative designs are generally working fine, but Fujisaki is not exactly known for conservative design work. What the fuck he was thinking with Atsushi's ugly gorilla design is beyond me, and turning Megumi into a pink haired goth loli is pretty typical of the exaggerated approach to her character they've taken. All of the beats of her personality and arc are identical to the novel, but instead of playing these realistically -- making her a painfully naive, hopelessly lost kid -- they've turned it into generic Asuka-inspired anime yelling. This works better than it should -- it's probably a good sign that she managed to still be a little bit sympathetic despite it all -- but coming to this directly from the novels I couldn't help but feel they'd done her a disservice.
There were enough moments in this that did capture the original tone that I'm planning on watching a few more episodes, and will keep my usual bile in check. Basically reserving judgment for later.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Nurarihyon no Mago

Or, how not to fucking do anime.
I swear to god, I actually saw someone claim this show was original because the lead character is not a swaggering cocky stock shonen lead. Yeah, wimpy Megane-kun -- the second most popular one-note terrible shonen cliche protagonist -- is SUCH an improvement.
It is very, very, very hard to convince me anything with yokai in it is worthless after only one episode -- I stuck with Kekkaishi, after all, and that manga has a terrible opening.
But Nurarihyon not only has not a single original idea, it doesn't even use GOOD cliches! Every cliche it uses is SHIT! When it even bothers putting in enough work on characterization or plot to rise to the level of cliche!
Most of the fucking characters don't even get sketched in enough to actually become cliches! The entire plot of the episode consists of what any show not written by fuckwits would do as SET UP in the first five fucking minutes, but instead of paying off the set up they just abruptly end the episode as tediously as possible!
Characters that have special powers and want to be normal has always been one of the fucking stupidest cliches out there -- has anyone alive ever fucking been able to identify with this shit? -- but usually they at least both giving a fucking reason, explaining why this character is so desperate to be normal. Nurarihyon clearly has a reason -- Negima...whatever his fucking name is says something about deciding this a long time ago, which will presumably involve a tedious flashback to something really not interesting at some dire point in this dire show's future, but such an impossible stupid cliche really needs to put that stupid fucking reason front and center or the entire show collapses like a pack of cards. Likewise, if the main character's awakening is going to be a central point in the show, maybe it should fucking happen in the first episode. That might be a decent starting point for your stupid story, hacks! Instead, he starts to awaken, and they stop him for no apparent reason! They actually start to introduce the fucking hook, and then decide it's too soon!
Jesus Christ, this better be raping the fuck out of the manga, or I have no idea how the fuck it ever survived in Jump when Jump's fucking canceled everything worthwhile they've had for the last four fucking years.
If you liked this episode, you officially like shit. You eat shit for breakfast, you fucking fecalpheliac. Get away from my blog.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Double Zombie Fun Time

High School of the Dead is blast. Normally I'd be turned off by this level of fan service, but they manage to hit the proper Crank-like tone to make it all seem like part of the gratuitous package, and the episode just flies by. If they can keep this kind of pacing up through the whole season, great. If they feel the need to slow things down and focus on the characters, it might fall apart; I think the character stuff in this episode was one step more complicated than it needed to be, which made it feel interesting in the minimal time it got, but I doubt it was original enough to stand up to actual scrutiny. Bonus points for actually using music from 28 Days Later.

Occult Academy sort of surprised me. Since the Anime no Chikara original anime series initiative was zero for two -- I'm not the target audience for Sora no Woto, and Night Raid took an interesting concept and put the audience in a coma -- and this had really drab character designs and a generic sounding concept, I barely even mustered the enthusiasm to give it a shot. But the actual show sort of took me by surprise. I'm having trouble telling if it was actually good or just Kuroshitsuji style unhinged enough to be entertaining, but it never quite went the direction I thought it would, and really sold several big moments. The headmaster accidentally resurrecting his own corpse at his funeral via a tape of his last message to the student body was pure Ghostbusters, and there's an amazing bit with an axe that made me wonder if they'd played Deadly Premonition. And the live action end credits featuring dead children lying in a field is just mind-boggling. Let's hope they're actually going somewhere with this.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Kimi to Boku ga Kowashita Sekai

Recap: In Kimi to Boku no Kowareta Sekai, Hitsuuchi Samatoki's romance with his sister Yoruichi is interrupted by MURDER. The case is eventually solved with the help of Byoinzaka Kuroneko, who attends school in the nurse's office because she is pathologically afraid of people. She also sleeps with anybody who asks her to, a fact Nisio appears to have conveniently forgotten in the five years between these two books.
In Bukimi to Soboku no Kakomareta Sekai, Kushinaka Choshi's sister is murdered, and he sets out to solve the mystery with the help of Byoinzaka Meiro, Kuroneko's cousin. Meiro does not talk, but communicates volumes of exposition through facial expressions alone. Kuroneko herself makes an appearance near the end, to tie up some loose ends and make sure we all understand that Choshi is the creepiest fuck Nisio's ever created.
The third novel finds Kuroneko (narrating) and Samatoki on an airplane. Kuroneko's distant relative, Usui, has funded a trip to London to help out an old friend of his -- a mystery novelist who believes his new novel is cursed, and anyone who reads it will die. Their flight is interrupted when the man sitting next to Samatoki is murdered.
Chapter two kicks off with Samatoki (now narrating) reading the short story Kuroneko wrote on the plane, in which the man next to them is murdered. They meet with the mystery novelist, and then make a beeline for 221B Baker Street on the grounds that this is clearly the first place anyone in their right mind would visit in London. (Samatoki would have preferred to see the Rosetta Stone.) Along the way they solve the mystery of how the mystery novelist faked his wife's suicide.
Chapter three kicks off with Kuroneko narrating again, and pointing out that the previous two chapters were actually written by Kushinaka Choshi, who actually accompanied her on this trip. And of course, the mystery novelist's wife actually died in a plane crash. As they tour the British Museum -- or rather, Kuroneko does, since Choshi refuses to stop staring at the Rosetta Stone -- they solve the mystery of the mystery novelist's agent's suicide.
Chapter four kicks off with Samatoki narrating, and demanding to know just who the hell Choshi is and why Kuroneko replaced him. Of course, the agent actually died of a heart attack, and the only thing they've been sent here to do is prove the novel isn't cursed, which is why Kuroneko just finished reading it. In the morning, Samatoki finds her dead, with an army knife through her chest. He goes to see Phantom of the Opera, but fails to solve her murder.
Chapter five kicks off her absolutely furious with him for killing her off in his chapter of the novel they're writing, particularly since he failed to actually come up with a solution to the mystery. She didn't read the novel, but instead pointed out that it couldn't be cursed if the novelist himself was still alive. At this point Usui calls their room and tells them the novelist has been found dead...and the time of death is the day before they actually met him.
The epilogue has them both at the airport ready to go to London. Usui -- who is actually Kuroneko's father -- paid for the trip in return for their feedback on the novel he'd written. The trip is then canceled due to terrorism in London.
Gloriously meta from beginning to end. I'm clearly going to have to go get the fourth book in the series now.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Summer anime part 1

I normally only sample a couple of anime a season, and then don't finish watching those.
But this season I have discovered that watching this shit on Himawari Douga improves it immensely. Having several thousand Japanese otaku watch the thing and mock the shit out of it can make a certain level of garbage palatable.

Ookami and the Seven Counts of Plagiarism:
I think this was supposed to be the big name light novel adaption, and it seems to be hitting that audience. Who needs original ideas when you carefully cut and paste proven character types from other series wholesale? If this was at all self-aware it would be a parody, a sort of light novel Murder by Death, but it doesn't really seem to know how derivative it is. The tumbling sequence was nicely animated, but the show is mostly a testament to how willing people are to respond to even bad shows as long as they follow the formula.

Amagami SS:
Five girls share one character design! And it isn't a good one.

Legend of a Legendary Hero:
Wow, it's like the 90s again, only shit. I remember when you still had to beat people with a stick for trying to pretend Lodoss was good, and Slayers seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time. It didn't age well. So a series that basically is a giant rip-off of Slayers with less personalities, even more one-note gags, a director who can't film action, and a script that thinks lurching between boring heroics and the kingdom of the bishonen will do anything but prevent either of them from being interesting...well, I'm amazed anyone finished the thing.

I watched the whole thing after they busted out the Battle Royale music early on, but there was very little else of note. I suppose they think they're fighting the lolikon menace by making everybody fat? Or are they catering to the chubby chaser pedophiles?

Shukufuku no Campanella:
Suddenly I found myself longing for the thrills and excitement of Legend of the Legendary Hero. I literally stopped listening to the opening monologue halfway through, and was equally unable to make it through any further dialogue without my brain just refusing to process any more language. When entire conversations receive the presentation of a budget rpg -- character picture moves in from the right, other character picture moves in from the left, alternate -- you know this is made by people who have given up on life.

Kuroshitsuji 2:
Fucking bad ass. I had no knowledge of the original at all, but the kid stabbing his maid's eye out with a finger for looking at him was the most over the top shit since Elfen Lied, and following that immediately with the butler tap dancing on the balcony to Mozart before swinging on a chandelier, yanking the carpet out from under the table so it flew into the air, and then setting it while wall running around the walls of the room pretty much sold me for life. Apparently it is actually about two other characters who are far more boring, which is a shame. I dug this enough to go back and watch the first season, which has just enough crazy to hold my attention, but nothing that even came close to the sequel's level of batshit. Hopefully the sequel keeps this shit up. It would be a shame to regress immediately.


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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Post-Mortem: The End Times' 2008

Slightly late (my internet has been down for a couple of days, and remains so), some thoughts about 2008. It feels somewhat odd being back from university – back in Bournemouth, back in retail, back home. It feels not so much as if Christmas has arrived early, as if that period between Christmas and the New Year – in which, conventional wisdom says, the presents have lost their appeal, the weather is awful and your relatives no longer bearable – has come ahead of schedule. The year is closed, there is nothing left to be done. Having already given my ‘Year End’ thoughts to Plan B (all 3 of them), and all of such lists now coming out to place a stone at top of the year’s grave, perhaps it is about time to bring this thing to an end for a while. It seems, as always, only yesterday that I was reading The Wire’s last Rewind issue, and reflecting on all the records I should have bought in 2007. Now we come to repeat the feat, with this year inserted in its place.

This has been, to return to the cliché, another odd year. To wit: the first job I’ve ever kept for more than 3 months (and, for the purpose of the company finks who monitor this thing, a lovely job it is too), my first festivals (Instal in resplendent Glasgow, Supersonic in a sweating Birmingham July), and the move to university (itself fraught with issues I never thought would arise from my stony black heart). The latter has had some interesting results which it would incorrect of me to draw conclusions from now. (If you wish to know why I don’t mention the more obvious things that happened this year – oh, worldwide economic downturn, an African-American becoming President-Elect of the United States, the final disintegration of George Bush’s presidency (and his reception of a fragment of his proper comeuppance) – then note the fact that I only began watching television news and reading newspapers since I came back from university. I simply didn’t care.) These facts also begin to explain the fact that this blog has gone on the backburner in recent months (and don’t think I haven’t noticed my demotion/disappearance from some blogrolls.) In other ways, it has been Business As Usual. I spent 10 months of 2008 as a 19-year-old – considered, biologically speaking, the supposed best year of life (and, after all, no-one seems to care for much except bare biology these days). Occasionally I scold myself for having seemingly wasted it, although I seem to have done both more and less than was allegedly expected of me. In simple terms, a significant amount of good stuff happened, but, due to what appears in retrospect as a dawdling unconcern – indeed, an acedia – a significant amount was avoided, exacerbating the usual sense of lack. On balance, 2008 was at least better than a kick in the teeth.

Anyway, I listened to some records as well this year. There’s a list of the ones I thought best below; 2008 seemed more abundant than last year (or previous years, for that matter) perhaps simply because of the fact that, for the first time, I had purchasing power of a sort. Differing opinions regarding the fecundity of this year are to be expected nowadays. There was certainly far too much good music for me to keep up with, but then again super-abundance of everything (including, undoubtedly, utter bloody dross) is the characteristic of our period (perhaps the economic crisis will have some effect on this, but I doubt it.) I shall, like Kek-W, make no predictions; I prefer, now, to be surprised, in any case.

As always, I’ve found other people’s choices quite baffling, but that seems to be the way of things. I can offer no justifications for my choices other than that liberal catchphrase ‘personal opinion’; or, perhaps better, ‘love’.

The 15 Records I Loved The Most in 2008

1. Xiu Xiu – Women As Lovers

I remain bewildered that this has been barely mentioned in the Year End lists I’ve read so far. Not merely the best release to date of one of the most consistently envelope-pushing bands on the planet, but the album that has affected me most this year: loving, harrowing, regretful, splenetic, politically engaged, hilarious, hopeful. To go into the deeper reasons would involve too much verbiage and self-revelation; it has partially to do with the fact that this is both the queerest (in Lee Edelman’s sense) and the most human (in a good way) release I’ve heard. Jamie Stewart and Caralee McElroy, aided by storming performances from Oakland compatriots Ches Smith, Devin Hoff and Greg Saunier, have refined their own brand of electronically-damaged, digitally-spliced, finely-focused song to a keen knife edge (and made arguably the best track of this helio-cycle in their Michael Gira-assisted version of ‘Under Pressure'. Just to say.)

2. Birchville Cat Motel – Gunpowder Temple of Heaven

The final release from Campbell Kneale under the BCM moniker, and perhaps his best; the most convincing appropriation and extension of modernist drone music (La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Olivier Messiaen) by punk/noise praxis (alongside Kevin Drumm’s leviathan Imperial Distortion). More than that: a holy moment extended to 40 minutes, an unrivalled example of how to create the most mesmerically shifting music within stasis; a dream of light – a companion piece, in a certain sense, to Richard Youngs’ astonishing Advent (see below). Add to this the beautifully-designed Gothic packaging and eloquent Bruce Russell-penned liner-notes, and you have a gravestone for the project to last the ages.

3. Philip Jeck – Sand

Not admittedly, his best work, but, still, hypnotic and achingly evocative, reminiscent of nothing so much as Stan Brakhage’s slurred-shape light-scapes, with the added poignancy of the archive’s dust. The latter part especially pertinent to a year in which the mainstream, still beholden not merely to the music of 40 years ago, but to its imitators of the last ten, twenty years, struggled to produce anything worthwhile. Who would have guessed ELP would ever be involved in something this good?

4. The Bug – London Zoo

Despite its considerable eloquence, I remain unconvinced by Carl Impostume’s critique of London Zoo. Or I would if I had bothered reading the entirety of it; I spent the time listening to, and enjoying it, instead. Admittedly, the mid-album run of ‘Fuckaz’, ‘You And Me’ and ‘Freak Freak’ I find slightly dull when in an impatient mood; but otherwise it perfectly sculpted urban paranoia in sheer bass weight. (No doubt those actually living in London will find it has even more resonance: its millenarian atmosphere seems ever more suited to a city whose economic structure almost collapsed in one day, and whose populace is protected from global warming by nothing but a concrete spine; if Owen or Infinite Thought feel like writing that review, I’d be more than happy to read it.) Aside, of course, from the fugged-up fear, there was also the sheer visceral force, aided by consuming wholesale the dubstep that Martin himself presaged, and the UK dancehall it first took inspiration from: ‘Poison Dart’, the double-shell assault of ‘Warning’, the re-honed righteous fury of ‘Jah War’, ‘Murder We’s atomic bounce.

5. Skullflower – Desire For A Holy War

It never ends. It’s becoming apparent there will never be a definitive Skullflower release – this certainly isn’t it; Matthew Bower’s twenty-plus year-old noise project will simply keep on producing endless variations of itself, like a species with an accelerated evolutionary process. Taking its cue from the dark-star feedback of 2007’s Tribulation, this is founded so much on sheer bloody noise it becomes almost spectral – endlessly layered films of guitar shredded so painfully it becomes impossible to distinguish as such (except when one central riff, as on ‘Moses Conjured A Blood Niagara’, breaks through), one blasting current bleeding into the next. This remains somewhat far, though, from the crushing pseudo-Goth darkness of his IIIrd Gatekeeper period; its sheer harshness somehow alchemises it into a disorientating white-light vision.

6. Alter Ego/Gavin Bryars/Philip Jeck – The Sinking of the Titanic

Before you start, I know very well that this was released at the end of 2007. However, I give not a toss for chronology when it comes to this. I’m simply not qualified to write anything more than the simply factual about this – if you want that kind of thing, I suggest you read The Blue In The Air’s Year-End list, whenever it plans to appear. So, simply: it’s incredibly beautiful, heartrendingly poignant, intelligent (that a mere thought experiment would yield this!), bottomlessly resonant, quivering through the fabric of history and memory. It is also, unlike some of the records on this list, a relatively easy ride (it is, for example, possible to simply listen to it whilst reading), without being in the least flaccid (unlike, say, that Aidan Baker release I reviewed for Plan B…); the playing by both Alter Ego and Jeck is measured, tender, co-operative, and simply lovely.

7. Runhild Gammelsaeter - Amplicon

The avant-metal equivalent of a sympathetic biology lesson, its sutures between racked screams, acoustic strums, and battering electricity straddling the organic/inorganic divide. This year, reading nature books, meeting poets intensely interested in biology, it's been all about the science; the fact that Gammelsaeter has a PhD in cell physiology only adds to the interest of this chaotic meditation on life's origins and course. An amplicon is the result of the artificial replication of a single DNA piece, the expansion and proliferation of the organic (it's worth noting Cage's thought that sound is essentially a marker of being, of life). Deeply strange, compelling, harrowing, life-affirming.

8. Peter Brotzmann/Mats Gustafsson/Paal Nilssen-Love – The Fat Is Gone

I may be reneging on whatever futurist principles I have by including this: not only is it technically 2 years old (recorded at the 2006 Molde Jazz Festival in Norway), but these guys aren’t exactly making any formal advances on the transatlantic action-jazz movement which Brotzmann, in effect, founded with his run of late 60s recordings (For Adolphe Sax, Machine Gun, Nipples, etc.), and which has been riding high in the past decade or so. Still, I couldn’t really give a fuck. ‘Bullets Through Rain’ hits like a crowd-control firehose; the creeping alien soundscapes of the other two tracks, ‘Colours In Action’ and the title cut, the latter gradually erupting into a shrieking rave-up of monumental proportions, seduce and destroy. Reason enough.

9. True Swamp Neglect – Cloud Cloud Cloud

On CD Baby, this is included in the geographical category “UK – England – South-West”. It still gratifies me to see it spelled out, even though they deserve far better than to be ghettoised as a ‘local band’. Though the hype that accompanied their first release dissipated during Cloud Cloud Cloud’s lengthy gestation, it still baffles me that this superior album has met with critical silence, except from the expected quarters. Its wholly pleasant Pavement-The Fall-Beefheart first half (highlight: ‘Map of the Map’), is balanced by the second half, which sets the controls for the heart of the sun. ‘Providence’ (the Sonic Youth one) remake ‘Young Vampire’ sets the scene for the face-shredding blow-out of ‘Dry-Eyed Riot’, leading perfectly to the ‘Plague of Lighthouse Keepers’ sequel of a title-track. Drifting, exploratory, unexpectedly poignant (section 4, ‘Chess Party’, has had me nearly in tears more than once), it’s one of the things I’ll carry with me most from this year.

10. Abe Vigoda – Skeleton

Certainly, aside from the Vivian Girls' debut (which clocked in, on my copy at least, at 21m 58s, barely more than a somewhat slim EP), the shortest long-player I heard this year, and easily the most frantic and audibly vital(ist). The media's genre shorthand of 'tropical punk' cloaks music of audible desperation and genuine energising strangeness: literal energy music, each song beginning fast and ending so; Poundian fragments of text, delivered in collective off-key hollers drenched in warping reverb, guitars painted on with light, as if the master tape had been left too long in the sunshine, driven on by manic and often surprisingly funky drums. And before condemnations come in about obliquity, the lyrics - written by guitarist Juan Velasquez, who is Hispanic and gay in a city which marginalises both (LA) - are often strangely beautiful: "Hope is a white hand that moves through my body."

11. Boredoms – Super Roots 9
12. High Places – High Places
13. Portishead – Third
14. Lawrence English – Kiri No Oto
15. Angel – Hedonism

Honourable Mentions

Bill Dixon – 17 Musicians In Search of a Sound
The Week That Was – The Week That Was
Aidan Baker and Tim Hecker – Fantasma Parastasie
Peter Rehberg – Works For GV 2004-2008
Fennesz – Black Sea
Nalle – The Siren’s Wave
No Context – Lines To Follow Colour Changes In Leaves
Burial Hex – Initiations
Xela – In Bocca Al Lupo

The Ashcan of History: Top 15 Old Records and Reissues Heard in 2008

1. Richard Youngs – Advent

This is going to be one of those anecdotes which never goes away. It remains a mystery whether this really happened or not, but I have a memory of seeing, from a train window going towards Berwick-Upon-Tweed, en route to Glasgow for the Instal Festival, the sea shimmering far out below the sheer cliff face next to us, the third section (or was it the second? Were those lyrics I remember?) from Advent, in which his piano, endlessly cycling through the same chords, struggles, drugged, through an endless cascade, a curling, lambent firmament, of piercingly bright guitar overtones, blasting away. Having said all that, it remains difficult for me to say what the significance of this was. Perhaps “the one moment where beauty and truth aligned” will do the job. Not merely the most beautiful album I’ve heard all year, but one of the most haunting, nerve-shaking, astonishingly resonant albums ever made.

2. Kate Bush – Hounds of Love

Not quite ditto. Almost, though, even if just for ‘Running Up That Hill’. Which of course it isn’t just about. The only track on the first side I don’t get the biggest swell of joy imaginable from is ‘Mother Stands For Comfort’, but then it just sets off the sheer wonder of the others. The second side, a magnificently Woolfian concept suite called ‘The Ninth Wave’, is something I’ve yet to fully get to grips with, but the terrifying sense of claustrophobia on ‘Under Ice’, the Burroughs-via-Arthur Russell avant-disco collage of ‘Waking The Witch’ (that voice: “BLACKBIIIIIRD”), ‘Jig of Life’s rampant abandon and guiltless appropriation of Other musics, stand out absolutely as diamond-hard points of (icy?) profundity. The fact that the most mind-(and-heart-)boggling track here, the aforementioned ‘Running…’, shares, to a great extent, the language of ‘80s pop’ (those synths, that drum-machine, that same bloody gospel choir and OTT guitar), makes it all the more amazing; this is pop music (in the sense of ‘popular’, as in motherfucking No. 1 on the charts) as alchemy, as shamanism, mediumship. The fact that she stays absolutely true to a decidedly idiosyncratic aesthetic is only more excellent.

3. Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom

No, since you ask, not the reissue edition – though it was lovely to see Wyatt get his due vis-à-vis having his entire oeuvre back in print, in a lovingly-presented state, I actually bought this one sometime in January from Sounds in Boscombe, having gone in on the off-chance. Torch songs delivered in a whisper, nonsense poetry as millenarian glossolalia, songs built on weird see-sawing synth drones which stick in my mind as fast as the ‘hookiest’ pop, a most strangely English of pop albums whose most skin-tinglingly lovely song is basically free jazz played by a South African and some bods from Kent (and tailed by a recital from a Scottish poet) – paradox on paradox. What’s explicable enough is the strange, sighing, glittering poignancy of this record; humane, funny, seductive, breathlessly lovely (especially on the swaying coda of ‘Sea Song’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road’, with the mighty Mongezi Feza on trumpet), self-deprecating, harrowing, ultimately hopeful.

= 4. John Coltrane – The Major Works of John Coltrane
= 4. Albert Ayler – disks 1-5 of Holy Ghost

One has to attempt Everest at some point. The Major Works is a compilation document of the extraordinary period in mid-to-late 1965 in which Coltrane organised and recorded Ascension, OM and Kulu Se Mama, just prior to the addition of the young firebrand percussionist Rashied Ali, which would precipitate the disintegration of the ‘classic quartet’. It took me almost a year to listen to ‘Ascension’ (both editions) properly; the sheer density, the whirling vortex of musical movements, leaves me with a huge number of depths still to be explored in this. The other tracks are slightly less daunting; ‘OM’, in particular, is quite brilliant, with Trane and Pharoah Sanders practically cracking their reeds and bursting lungs over a polyrhythmic storm from Elvin Jones and two bassists; even the bookending chant (“the clarified butter”, indeed!) is pretty convincing in this setting. Holy Ghost, the reissued Revenant boxset of live recordings from various incarnations of Ayler’s band (along with demo tapes recorded with just Mary Maria/Parks) is similarly (sorry) transcendental. The knotty madness of recordings with Cecil Taylor and Burton Greene, and his recordings with bassist Gary Peacock, pioneering free drummer Sunny Murray and Don Cherry, contrasts strangely with the bizarre air of the quintet recordings with his brother Ayler’s brother, Donald, and French violinist Michel Samson. A folksong-y (in a Charles Ives sense) penchant for melody is put through a mangle of fractured dissonance, the musicians breaking off in all directions, with total disregard for the ‘proper’ uses of melody (like Charles Ives!) Aside from the searing energy of the improvisations, the sheer love of sound-as-sound, the shattering seagull cries of the brothers seeming to access something else. Just because David Keenan says so, doesn’t mean it’s bullshit. Stirring, profound, incredibly important.

5. Roxy Music – Roxy Music

It’s difficult for me to articulate exactly why Roxy Music are important, partially because my own reaction is made up of so many different things: the backstory; the theory; the knowledge that so many others have all said what I might say before, and in a better way; the sheer bloody thrill of it all, of this album. I could refer you to a million sources, but won’t. Roxy are not just included in this list because they were a locus of energy in their own time, and an important example to our own, but because the album is so exciting to listen to. I’ve said this shit enough times before, so I shan’t go any further.

6. GAS – Nah Und Fern

The grey swathes of winter had a soundtrack too good for them. The grandiosity, Gothic-Goethean romanticism, and globular, psychedelic enswathement of these four disks – particularly the dark arborean meditations of Zauberberg and Konigsforst – were too fascinating to be listened to just as background music, so had to wait until I had my room back in Bournemouth. These last few weeks have, thus, been absolutely lovely, drawing lines between my house, the swiftly dwindling woods around Littledown where I read as a teenager, the mud avenues of the New Forest…

7. Cobalt – Eater of Birds

When, having read Joseph Stannard’s manic recommendations, I found this album at Burial Hex’s Bristol show in April, it was, evidently, fate (maybe). Whilst, having bought perhaps two metal albums in the past 3 years, I’m in no position to judge, this is probably the most relentlessly scourging, emotionally excoriating album I’ve heard since The Holy Bible. If the preceding 50 minutes of feedback-ragged, laser-sharp riffing and firestorm drums weren’t enough, the ravaged, life-threatening screams and napalm guitars of the closing title track would easily finish the listener off. Astonishing.

8. Tricky – Maxinquaye

Another whose depths remain, I think, mostly unplumbed, but still the sweaty, erotic, paranoid fug of this proved irresistibly addictive. Bought on a sweltering July day at Birmingham's MVE (a good omen, if there ever was one), the earworms of Martina Topley-Bird's strange cross-gender ventriloquism (especially on 'Aftermath' and 'Ponderosa'), its astonishing puncta of beats ('Overcome' - how's that for a fucking rhythmic background!), its renegade intellectual prowess and feel for atmosphere (the Blade Runner sample on 'Aftermath', the transmogrification of 'Black Steel', the shotgun-click percussion on 'Strugglin'') seriously possessed the hermetic chamber of my room at university. This, unfortunately, is a situation that may have to change.

9. Cecil Taylor – Conquistador!

One of the pieces I attempted to write for this blog this year was a piece on the free jazz I had been listening to. I stumbled at near-enough the first hurdle: writing about this extraordinary agglomeration of musical forces, a rare document of one of the most important development periods in free music. Recorded in 1966 by a sextet including two bassists (Alan Silva and Henry Grimes), the parched scattergun trumpet of Bill Dixon, Jimmy Lyons' obliquely inventive alto and Andrew Cyrille, a brilliant successor to Sunny Murray on the drums, it's hi-NRG and dense as fuck from start to finish, its thorny tangles of sound only yielding with intense listening. The second side-long track, 'With (Exit)', is slightly less unrelenting, but its long-strung lines of sonic ideas have their own distinct charms.

10. V/A – An England Story: 25 Years of the MC in the UK

The original Heatwave-mixed Blogariddims post was easily my most-listened-to podcast of 2007 and 2008 (a dubious honour, but work with me here), so I was ecstatic to see (and hear) this. A wholly necessary (secret) history lesson and a delectable selection of tracks - Suncycle's 'Somebody', Papa Levi's apocalyptic 'My God My King', Riko's jaw-dropping 'Ice Rink Vocal', later junglist toaster General Levy's slamming 'Champagne Body', manic missing link London Posse, desperate Brit-hop from Blak Twang, the ladies out in force (Warrior Queen, Stush, Estelle and Joni Rewind's garage 'Uptown Top Ranking'). Superlative.

11. The Microphones – The Glow Pt. 2
12. AMM – The Nameless Uncarved Block
13. Pita – Get Out
14. Steinski – What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective
15. Mordant Music – Dead Air

The Top 10 Records I Should Have Bought in 2008, But Did Not

Asva – What You Don’t Know Is Frontier
By Any Means – Live At Crescendo
John Butcher – Resonant Spaces
Skullflower – Circulus Vitiosus Deus and Taste The Blood Of The Deceiver
The Caretaker – Persistent Repetition of Phrases
Sunroof! – Sufi Hate Crime/Zen Atrocity
Matmos – Supreme Balloon
Josephine Foster – This Coming Gladness
Zeitkratzer – Electronics
Scorces – I Turn Into You

Hat tip to Valter.

People Who I Saw Play Music In 2008

My list, helpfully, is over here, at the Plan B magazine forum.

In spite of everything written above, without doubt the best musical objects I received all year were: a copy of Animal Magic Tricks’ Soil EP, lovingly made by the sorceress herself; a stack of CD-Rs from my friend C. (including Advent – oops – and plenty else to keep me interested into the new year); and a birthday mix CD from another friend, T., which nearly had me in tears with the amount of love that had gone into it. Thank you all, if reading.

Undoubtedly the book I read that meant the most to me this year Philip Hoare’s England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia. It joined together channels of thought, stratum of my own history, in such an extraordinary manner, and in such measured, evocative prose, that I would have to call it the best and most important book I’ve read since Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces. His Spike Island was also powerful and haunting, and I look forward to reading his new one, Leviathan, published this September. The best actually recent book I read this year was A.L. Kennedy’s Day (published in paperback in 2008, so that’s my alibi). Enormously powerful, full of stony wisdom and written in prose so perfectly balanced it’s almost makes one want to pulp the laptop. My favourite book actually published this year was George Szirtes’ New and Collected Poems, a much-needed reissue of 4 decades’ output by one of Britain’s best poets. Neil Astley’s anthology Staying Alive, whilst not published this year, was certainly a constant comfort in poetry. Other highlights: finally reading David Toop’s Haunted Weather; Robert Macfarlane’s luminous The Wild Places; W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz; Paul Morley’s heart-of-darkness memoir Nothing; two behemoths: Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and Melville’s Moby Dick; most of Lester Bangs’ Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung.

Party/gig at F.’s old house on Walpole Road in freezing January. Meeting Louis, Petra, Joe and Matt at Supersonic. Finally visiting Peterson’s Tower at Sway on a late summer afternoon. Seeing The Dark Knight, George Szirtes and Elizabeth Bletsoe on and around Warwick campus. Derek Southall’s Blackwater – 5 Years After and Stanley Spencer’s Portrait of Miss Ashwanden (the final work) at the Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry, and a copy of Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix at the Birmingham Municipal Art Gallery. Watching the University Chorus perform Taverner’s God Is With Us at Coventry Cathedral. Rocking out with C. numerous times in numerous places (especially at Gay Against You). Buying a hoard of much-loved books from Holdenhurst Books just before it closed. Kelvingrove Park and Volcanic Tongue on a beautiful February Saturday. Seeing everyone who I feel I should never have left.

Good luck to all with 2009.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Corner of the Season

...because I can't get A Glasgow Wassail for love nor money. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Monday, December 15, 2008

And now, perhaps, to speak of more cheerful things: there are a number of upcoming events in the Bournemouth area I heartily recommend.

Tomorrow evening, the latest Safehouse Collective meeting, at the Lighthouse, Poole. Anyone interested in playing can do so (it would be nice to turn up half an hour early, in order to set up.) Otherwise, it begins at 8.00, is free, and an amalgam of the South coast's best improv talent.

On Wednesday 17th, the BSO will be playing Handel's Messiah at the Lighthouse, or, as a cheaper option, Betika will be playing an acoustic set alongside a number of others at the Tudor Grange Hotel.

On Thursday 18th, the mighty Club Anemone returns to The Gander with a quite excellent line-up, including Bournemouth's very own Yaaard, and the simply lovely Love.Stop.Repeat (begins 7.30, £5 entry/£4 before 8.30, or with NUS).

And, just before Christmas Eve (which, no doubt, I will be working on), Brighton exile Animal Magic Tricks will be playing at the Pink Moon night at Chaplins, above the Cellar Bar in Boscombe. As far as I know, it's free entry, and begins at 8.00.

Friday, December 12, 2008

The winter has closed in, thoroughly, on Bournemouth. The entire place is gripped by the kind of chill you would find in John Carpenter's The Thing remake (which, apparently, has been appropriately just been re-released on DVD.) Even mid-morning sunlight (at least, naturally enough, on my day off) is at best grey. Christmas cheer, as per usual, is everywhere offered, but little of it actually apparent; the weather, as usual, isn't right for it.

It was perhaps appropriate that I found myself, the other night, watching a very ashen face and listening to a very cold voice. I was watching, with my parents, Stephen Fry's Guilty Pleasures; strange inclusions aside (no-one should feel in the least guilty about liking Abba), the programme had some merit for Fry discussing poetry - his own work, apparently, remains unpublished, in spite of his being able to publish his shopping lists, if he so wished. He talked briefly about form, including a short remark about how, "With masters of the form, like Philip Larkin, you can this kind of pleasure just from their technical prowess". Cue black-and-white footage of Larkin's cue-ball bust prowling the halls of Hull University Library, his voiceover - like a particularly disappointed bachelor accountant, his throat thick with Victorian dust - reading out (I think) 'Talking in Bed'.

This is only even mildly interesting if you know that he was one of my favourite writers back in the day. When I was going through my Holy Bible phase, I learned that Larkin was one of Richey Edwards' favourite poets, quoting 'Money' on the inside sleeve of Generation Terrorists. We were going to be studying High Windows as part of the English course in Year 12; naturally, I went the whole hog and bought the Collected Poems. Reading through some of them again - 'The Whitsun Weddings', 'Dombey and Son', 'If, My Darling', and, of course, 'Aubade' - they're certainly good, as poems, but I doubt if there's very much 'enjoyment' to be found in them. Yes, technically they're excellent, sentiment and structure more often than not perfectly sutured together, his feel for words' music ("the skirl of that bulletin unpicks the world like a knot") is often impeccable. But it's strange, for someone who was so good, in pieces like 'An Arundel Tomb', at capturing life's texture, that they should feel so dessicated. Particularly in the late poetry, the overriding message that everything (especially life) is shit (especially nowadays, as opposed to some imagined pre-1914 world of immortal sunshine, cricket, and bloody imperialism) leaks even into the feel of language; in some polemic pieces like 'Going, Going', 'This Be The Verse' and 'High Windows', it essentially reduces the poetry itself to doggerel in service of the Countryside Alliance, but even in the better poems like 'The Building', the words seem so freighted with resignation, with the weight of hopelessness, that it's painful even to read. On the last day of Year 13 before my A-Levels, when I was seeing my friends for what has turned out to be almost exactly the last time, my friend R. mentioned Larkin - it was one my supposed identity signifiers that I was a fan. When I rebuked him, they were surprised. I replied, simply, that as good a poet as Larkin was, I didn't want to be him - right-wing, rootless, trapped by a loneliness so desperate death would seem preferable. Still don't, in spite of my multiple failures to avoid going down that path (there's still time, mind.) Is it alright to elevate ethical concerns (and, let's face it, questions of self-preservation) above issues of technical excellence? I think it is.

Monday, December 08, 2008

"we cannot cling/to the old dreams anymore"

I was, as per usual, reading late last night, when I came across what might best be described as a relic. It was with an odd feeling of recognition – “Oh, you’re still here, are you?” – that I read through Stevie Smith’s ‘Not Waving But Drowning’; strangely, I seemed to spend more time trying to work out her meter (there was none, as far as I could see) than absorbing it. The third stanza still strikes me as pathetically powerful (or powerfully pathetic, I’m not sure), and she pulls off extreme understatement a thousand times better than most poets attempting such a pose. It even occurred to me to post the entire poem up here, as some kind of less-than-subtle pointer about my (general) condition (“it was too cold always… I was much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning.”)
This was partially because of associations: there was a slight hubbub among a couple of blogs recently about The Smiths, and it just so happens that I first came across Smith’s work as an influence on Morrissey (mentioned in a Mojo article sidebar, alongside the usual suspects – Auden, Eliot, Larkin, Betjeman, etc.) Of course, if you go back to the beginning of this blog’s archives (don’t, actually, they’re far too embarrassing – I really should just delete the entirety of this bloody thing), you’ll notice that the rampant self-pity goes alongside constant Smiths references. Nowadays I can only just bear to listen to Hatful of Hollow, and then only for the wordplay and unsubtle queer antics (oh, and ‘Reel Around the Fountain’, of course), and, perhaps understandably, that kind of emotional tactic has gone the same way as my Smiths-love, thank fuck. Interestingly, Tom Ewing, the author of the Pitchfork review that catalysed said minor hubbub, wrote a column about how he “used” The Smiths in his adolescence as a marker of his own emotional condition: “At school, with a friend who I'd initiated, we would actually write out those lyrics and change words around to fit our current agonies. He was braver than me, and left the lyrics to ‘Girl Afraid’ sitting 'meaningfully' on a crush's schooldesk: the crush utterly and correctly ignored them… The band's appeal was linked, absolutely, to my misery. Their music and attitude offered a way of controlling and containing it, turning it into something I could use.” I found myself, of course, nodding at this in a distinctly amusing fashion, having written out the lyrics to ‘How Soon Is Now?’ and ‘I Know It’s Over’ on enough school-folder and exercise-book covers; they were, as a_ of Aloof From Inspiration puts it, a marker of difference (I suppose that, given the increasing critical focus on Morrissey’s queer sympathies, they still are). But to what purpose? Misery, emotional nudity, loud proclamations of dissent, as I seem to have learned, are not merely unattractive, but boring and crass to boot; “Boredom, arrogance, pride, disdain” might be ways of protecting oneself from the mental fetters of the mob, but ultimately they leave one further from life, closer to the grave which I’ve spent the last 3 years struggling to get free of; “the refusal of sexuality, relationships and work” are, ethically and politically speaking, the best options, but would, I think, prove the worst choice in the end.
What it seems to come down to is that one hopes, perhaps, to have ‘grown up’ in some sense in the last five (God, is it really that many?) years, and that would include, I suppose, gaining some measure of complexity in my relationship with the relics of culture, some measure of subtlety in the way one approaches the world and its creatures (why the hell else would I be reading so much bloody poetry?) Stevie Smith is just too bloody bald now.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Heard No Longer

“Privatise to the dead
her memory:
***************let her wounds weep
into the lens of oblivion.”

--Geoffrey Hill

I’ve recently been reading Philip Hoare’s Spike Island. I’m not sure whether it’s simply to remind me of home – though it strikes me as odd that I had to come to Coventry to find it in a library; in any case, I can hardly lay claim to Southampton as ‘home’ territory, though I do have relatives there who certainly know enough of the local lore to know of Netley, the site of the military hospital Hoare chronicles, once the longest single building in the world, a vast monument to imperial majesty (and brutality.) Its history, and the fact of its dissolution, constitutes one of the strangest episodes in Southampton’s history, and a vast hole in its collective memory; Hoare writes of how the hospital took on the Gothic lure of the ruined Netley abbey, of how it cast something of a shadow across his own life, how that darkness remained rooted in the enormous empty site where the hospital once stood. Jonathan Meades, in his 2007 programme Father to the Man, a tour of the sites he associates with his late father, speaks of fishing in the Hampshire Avon as a young boy, and habitually seeing Netley hospital on business trips to Southampton with his father, an agent for McVities’; he calls Netley hospital “the building whose loss I most rue”. I read this kind of thing, perhaps, because I want to feel that there are some strata of history to what I know than merely my own; I want to look under a rock and find ghosts.

It is, of course, far from healthy. The knowledge that everything passes is, in spite of the awfulness of human life, ultimately comfortless; obsessing over decay, poring over foggy shapes of memory are strange and morbid things to do. But I like to think that this kind of remembering is, in some sense, necessary for life: like the current ideological ban on discontent and suffering in late capitalist society (not, it should be noted, that it stems actual suffering), memory and history other than that deemed necessary by capital – the work of nostalgia programs, the West’s ‘triumphs’ over Nazism and Soviet Communism, etc. – is seemingly outlawed. So, we – by which I mean, of course, I – pick over memory, treasure fugitive histories, and draw lines between the two; we try to restore to history, as we end up receiving it, the appropriate grain of memory, its faded and accentuated textures, feeling things in history like the hairline fractures in a record – the points where the past might erupt into the present.

Jon Wozencroft’s cover for the last Philip Jeck album I bought – 2002’s Stoke – showed daylight leaking reluctantly through chintzy curtains, into a suburban room, the kind of place you can imagine with a record player, and a set of mouldering LPs in one of the hidey-hole cabinets. The back of his new album, Sand, is a detail from the kind of sub-William Morris floral sofa cover found all over Britain; I can remember growing up with a similarly-decorated one. Open the sleeve, and, in seemingly deliberately-bad typed print, is a short dedication: “In memory of Phyllis May Jeck (1920-2008).” Another fading of the light. Whenever I read that dedication, I think of the lady’s voice which appears midway through the new version of Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic – a memorial to Southampton’s other great casualty – which features Jeck alongside the Italian ensemble Alter Ego (a post on which should have been done in February, but might be finished eventually), singing the doomed vessel’s last song as its distorted memory, rendered in strings, curls around her. The thick fog of static that Jeck opened …Titanic with seems partially reprised in ‘Unveiled’, an ebbing, drunken drone increasingly obscured by a miasma of clicks and hiss, counter-melodies – but they’re not melodies, are they? They might once have been so, but now are flattened, abstracted, severed and looped to the point of merely being sound sources – springing up like arguing currents, joined by the amplified skip of a turntable needle, suddenly joined by what might be, in the distance, guitars from some African pop record, marimbas looped from a Les Baxter confection, or a malfunctioning, processed music box. The original drone filters back in, gradually topped by a flock of chirruping flutes, the cut-off scraping of a needle joined by what stretches out to metamorphose into a sample of plainchant, dying out into nothingness.

The following track ‘Chime Again’ seemingly takes its lead, only to build into one of the most affecting pieces on the record: out-of-synch loops of distant chiming and guitars, blurred almost into unrecognisability, suddenly dovetail into a slowed, pitch-shifted string theme which rises, joined by the strangest of tiny chimes, as if someone were playing a triangle down a far tunnel. A vaguely familiar theme from an orchestral record is dropped in – imagine the split-second snippets of a Steinski mix – and out, fuzz and heavily decayed strings massing into a thickening river; the waters swirling over the Titanic’s deck. It’s almost impossible for me to emphasise too strongly how un-astringent it is, how easy on the ear: when people hear the words “avant-garde turntablist” they usually think either of some Christian Marclay vinyl-butchery, some wannabe Otomo Yoshihide finding himself terribly amusing, or someone playing it platterless (which can be good, but often is decidedly not.) Jeck’s work, by contrast, could hardly be more sensual, its slow-moving layers of texture enswathing the listener, morphing and intertwining like river currents. And no, since you ask, it isn’t, in any sense, cosy gaseous ambient (not that there’s an enormous amount wrong with that) – there are, all the time, sudden explosions of noise, like those suburban curtains being thrown back to flood light into the room. In ‘Fanfares’, at 1.56 there is a faint rumbling amid the fanfare loops, shaft after small shaft of over-bright melody breaking in until it is almost quivering with illumination; the loops slow, cycle back on themselves, cut themselves short, fade. These sounds can never be simply abstract, peeling wallpaper music: though mutilated, re-arranged, water-sodden and begrimed, the samples nonetheless refer back to something else; smeared and decayed to an outline of their former selves, they make us nonetheless guess at the countenance they once bore: it’s precisely the impossibility of its recovery that makes it so poignant. A fanfare, reedy and grainy, slowed by what sounds like a bobbing catch in the record, unfurls, vaguely familiar, catches at us, dissolves in ebbs, multiplying over on itself to create an inadvertent version of ‘Come Out’; crawling along, awash in tidal echoes of itself, a constant bed of vinyl hiss underlying it, it takes nearly five minutes to resolve and fade out, in what sounds almost like an outro from an early hip-hop record, taking one word or sound and trip-looping it.

That the fanfare – blooming repeatedly throughout the record – might strike the listener as familiar is itself odd: ELP’s take on Copland’s Republican anthem ‘Fanfare For The Common Man’ is one of that strange category of records that reached the upper echelons of the charts, but which no-one really remembers (except Tom Ewing, of course.) Jeck, a teenager in the North (a poverty zone within what was, at the time, effectively a Third World nation), would leapfrog away from stuff like this, into disco and early hip-hop: his models as a DJ were not John Cage or Pierre Schaeffer, but Walter Gibbons and Larry Levan; he became an avant-gardist through a deep and abiding love for popular music. And after all, why should it be any different? In retrospect, this record makes me think somewhat of Susanna Wallumrod’s version of Abba’s ‘Lay All Of Your Love On Me’ (on her new album, which I reviewed for next month’s Plan B), its stark, harrowing piano-ballad reimagining drawing all of its poison into the light: the most astonishing of emotional gut-punches emerging in the light of – whodathunkit? – the mainstream pop industry (or, for that matter, John Cage
performing ‘Water Walk’ on Italian prime-time TV). And what, after all, is at the centre of any record but a hole, an absence?

By the time we reach ‘Fanfares Forward’, following the drifting ghost-song of ‘Shining’, the fanfare has receded into the background, subjected to a shower of horses’ hooves (although they might, equally, be catches in the record). Pale, wobbly, shimmering, it cycles alone, in a pool of its own reverberations, before amplifying, surging out of the speakers, billowing like a shining cloud filling every nook and cranny, every nick and inch of grain in the record’s surface audible, mutated into cracks and glitches of sound. As ‘Fanfares Over’ springs into unlife, it has disintegrated so far that the overtones, crackle and the sound of turntable slip as the disk sloshes around – an acoustic mirror of the torrent of horses’ hooves – overtakes it, accruing into a vast channeling wash of sound, then slowly dying away. That fanfare, now so thin and bright as to be almost a particularly reedy synth melody, picks up the thread, a bobbing sea-line of almost-melody, an ebb-tide of crackle, almost subsuming it until it the groove, finally is locked forever, the fanfare now a growing, swirling howl of eye-screwingly luminous noise. It carries on until, perhaps 3, 4 minutes later – who’s counting? – it ceases. Those couple of silent seconds before the disk cuts out are as bewildering and powerful as the silent bar at the heart of Bach’s ‘Actus Tragicus’ – the funeral cantata.

Recently, when I was back in Bournemouth for the Unsafe Festival – over the weekend of Halloween and All Saints’ Day – I bought a copy of Keith Rowe and John Tilbury’s Duos For Doris (oddly enough, from Mark Wastell’s Sound 323-stocked stall at the second night of the festival –
another unfortunate disappearance). I found it, for a variety of reasons, impossible to listen to until some weeks afterwards, partially because I couldn’t find a spare 70 minutes in which to take in ‘Cathnor’, partially because I had planned to write a poem about it (a scheme that didn’t end up working out.) It was recorded in 2003, two days after the death of Tilbury’s mother, and with the invasion of Iraq looming. The vast length and seemingly minimal musical activity – Rowe layering hums, drones and scratching noises from his electronics and guitar-guts, Tilbury scraping and beating the body of the piano – make it seem as if we were hearing a life dwindle, endlessly, to nothing. When, around 40 minutes in, Rowe’s attacks rise to a helpless, raging scream, Tilbury pounding chords so furiously the recording begins to distort, it comes as an absolute shock. What perturbs more, though, is the half-hour return to quietude that follows it: an EKG monitor slowly ceasing functioning. The dialectic knots, defying our demands for music, as life, to be one thing or the other. The Emily Dickinson quote, from the final stanza of ‘The Chariot’, on the cover of Sand gives us to gives another meaning to the constantly cycling loop of horses’ hooves; it’s interesting to see what Jeck cuts out: “Since then ‘tis centuries; but each/Feels shorter than the day/I first surmised the horses’ heads/Were toward eternity.” The question, of course, is: An eternity of what? Death and the song of his steeds’ steps will carry on forever; but where and what is the “unknown country” that he brings them to? We look after their trail, think on their progress, wonder.


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Do I need an appointment?

Yes. Private appointments ensure that each bride and her guests have ample time to browse our collection, while the bride receives our undivided,customized, highly knowledgeable attention. We book appointments by phone and email. During our busy winter season, Saturday appointments typically book up 2–3 weeks in advance, so if you have a preferred weekend to shop, call early! We schedule appointments Wednesday thru Sunday. Our space is limited and is best explored by small parties. If you require special assistance and/or are shopping with a large group, please do call ahead. Our knowledgable English Dept. staff can guide you through our collections and answer any questions you might have.

Our gowns range in price from $850–$4800. The majority of our selection is prices between $1600 and $2800. We do not have traditional sales, but occasionally move sample dresses to our "off the rack" section, where they are generously marked down. Once a year we host trunk shows for most of the designers we carry, during which a 10% discount is extended by the designer at their discretion.

i'm getting married in three weeks and need a dress! can you help?

Yes! Our off-the-rack section is full of great dresses that are either new or gently worn samples, priced accordingly. We also have a small rotating selection of new dresses that have been discontinued.

can you tell me about your dresses?

Our dresses are made to order by designer-owned, independent companies. We lovingly support local Portland designers, and strive to represent designers who make their products in the USA from high quality silks and other natural materials. We aim to carry designers and gowns that represent a variety of brides, but take pride in being a decidedly non-traditional bridal shop. You won't find many ball gowns here! We carry an array of silhouettes, with a lean towards soft, flowy, romantic, bohemian gowns, with a vintage twist here and there. We like to think of ourselves as catering to all of the different brides we meet—classic, modern, boho, vintage, playful, and more! If you have questions about specific gowns, email us to start a conversation via info@theenglishdept.com!

what size are your samples? what if they are not my size?

We stock one size of each sample we carry, which is in-line with standard practice for bridal boutiques of our size. Our samples typically range from an 8 to a 12 in bridal sizing. Samples don't fit any bride perfectly! whether it's too small or too big, we will expertly clip the dress to give you an accurate representation of how it should look when it's the right size, as well as offer our advice of how it could be better suited to fit your figure. We have a pedestal for you to stand on to help with the excess length of the gowns.

do you carry complete collections by each designer?

If only we could! Our designers have large collections that evolve from season to season. We make our sample selections from each designer according to styles, fabrics, and colors we believe best represent the collection.

how long does it take to order a dress?

Each designer has their own production schedule, but the typical time frame is about 3–5 months. You should budget a month or so for alterations—our dresses are made to standard sizes, not to measure, so some tailoring is to be expected. Most of our designers can honor a rush order for a fee, just ask us for more information if you are on a deadline.

can you tell me about your vintage wedding dresses?

**Vintage wedding dresses are now kept in our sister shop, Xtabay Vintage, located in the same building. No appointment required! For more details click here**

We love vintage! Our vintage dresses are carefully chosen and are primarily from the 1940s–1960s, but the selection changes regularly. These gowns are one of a kind! Vintage gowns tend to run small, and because the selection is constantly shrinking, it is becoming harder to keep a selection of vintage gowns in a range of sizes—but they do exist! If you find a vintage dress you love but have questions about how it can be altered to fit, we recommend making a consultation appointment with our seamstress!

will my dress need alterations?

Alterations are to be expected and nothing to worry about! It's a fun part of the process, during which a talented seamstress will make your dress fit you exactly as it should—whether that means taking up the straps, adjusting the bust, hemming, adding a bustle, or anything else that might be needed. This is to make your dress fit your unique shape, perfectly! We do not offer in-house alterations in the cost of your dress but we can make recommendations for the best seamstresses in the city!

Tips for Visiting

  • Trust us—it's best to try on dresses with just one or two guests (especially on the first round). Less is more! Sometimes with large groups it can be hard to listen to the advice of your closest friends, and even though everyone means well, too many opinions can lead to a confused bride! You want to remember your vision of yourself as a bride while shopping. If you do plan to visit with a group larger than four, please let us know so that we can make special arrangements. We have limited seating and the shop can quickly feel crowded.

  • If you think you will be wearing shape-wear with your wedding dress, it's helpful to bring it along to your appointment! Heels and strapless bras are not necessary and generally easier to try on gowns without, but can be brought.

  • Travel light—many of our dresses are made from delicate silks, which can be damaged by makeup and jewelry. Please avoid bright lipstick or strong perfumes!

  • Our shop is not appropriate for babies or small children. We are unable to accommodate strollers and worry that heavy mirrors, scissors and pins are in easy reach.

  • We kindly ask that you do not bring coffee or food into our shop, but you are welcome to bring some bubbly!

  • In many cases, you may be sharing our shop with another bride and her party. This makes for a fun atmosphere, but if you prefer to have the shop to yourself, please call us and we will do our best to accommodate.

  • We love brides who are on time for appointments! If you find you are running more than 10 minutes late (or early) please call to let us know. We want to make sure you (and the brides before and after you) have a great experience and an adequate amount of time.

  • Be prepared to find "the one." Wedding dress shopping is a special time, and it's fun and important to look around, but shopping too much can be overwhelming and exhausting! If you think you've found the one—say YASSS and celebrate!


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Body Acceptance Gone Wrong: Why This Photo Doesn’t Make Me Feel “Hot”

Taken from here.

when did this become hotter than this

I know that images like the one above are supposed to make me feel better about my body; sharing the photos of old Hollywood actresses against today’s starlets on Facebook and Twitter is some women’s way of cheering on their friends. It’s supposed to send the message: “You shouldn’t feel bad because you don’t look like too-thin movie stars…Rah rah rah!” But the thing is, it doesn’t. Like the Nigella Lawson vs. Gillian McKeith photo before it, or the recent PLUS Model Magazine photo shoot, I know the intention of this graphic is good. But in reality, it’s just adding more pressure to comform to unforgiving ideals…and encouraging women to feel better by hating on each other.

I first noticed the graphic on a friend’s Facebook feed last weekend, accompanied by an avid conversation about which body type men find more attractive. Then I saw it on Twitter, shared by famed yoga teacher Kathryn Budig, who encouraged her fans to feel better about their bodies. Her tweet read:

embrace your bodies + curves! we’re on the same team as our body—love it, treat it right and know you’re beautiful.

I know everyone meant well. (Even those whose feel-good strategy involved tying self-esteem to what men find attractive.) But the underlying message of the photo is that one body type is more beautiful than the other; how is that supposed to make me feel good?

I’m no more likely to look like Marilyn Monroe than I am to be mistaken for Keira Knightley on the beach. No matter how much I eat or work out, I’ll always be working with the same set of genetics, and comparing myself to women who don’t resemble me in the least is never going to feel good, whether they’re a size zero or a size eight.

Just because you call a woman beautiful who isn’t stick thin doesn’t mean you’re promoting body acceptance. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: We won’t resolve our body image issues by creating a battle between size 12 and size zero, or judging someone’s health by rudimentary and outdated measures. What we do need is greater diversity in body shapes and sizes in movies, TV shows and magazines.

That’s why this photo, from IndieWire’s coverage of the Golden Globes, makes me happy:

golden globes body types

No two women look alike in that photo. Their bodies aren’t carbon copies of one another gussied up in a different kind of dress; they genuinely have different body types and weights, and they all look great. And, even better: IndieWire didn’t comment on how their dresses looked on their bodies or whether they looked too thin.

Ladies, here’s my plea: We can’t build each other up if we continue to pit ourselves against each other on the basis of our body types. Thin women don’t deserve to be shamed any more than heavy women do. And no singular beauty ideal will ever be good for women, so let’s promote diversity instead of comparing one uniform ideal against another.

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