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Friday 24 December 2010

Happy AleXmas

In memory of the late, great Alex Chilton.





Tuesday 21 December 2010

Reading Writing

I'm not in the mood, really, but thought I'd post some quick thoughts on my recent reading. It's always useful to look back on this blog as a sort on repository of memories - it is mostly talking to myself after all. The following are reviews from my Shelfari page and are more aides de memoire than anything else.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" - John Lydon, 1978


The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder

A brief, beautifully written masterpiece which strikes me as a forefather of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mary Lavin. Full of quotable sentences and a testament to the love that gives meaning to life.





Saturday 18 December 2010

Wrestling


My first trip to an Arthouse screening was to see Rumblefish in the then Curzon cinema on Abbey Street. The cinema was later to be my workplace, both as The Curzon and in it's later incarnation as the Lighthouse but at the time I wasn't thinking about that (it hadn't happened) I was thinking that Mickey Rourke was surely the coolest man on the planet, at least in his incarnation as The Motorcycle Kid.

For years I wore grey v-necked jumpers, second hand jackets and only saw the world in black and white. He was the older brother I wished I had (or was?).

Cosmic Captain

When I had just turned eighteen I went to London for the summer. It was and I guess remains a crucial time in my life story with good and bad things happening and my horizons broadening at a terrifying yet exhilarating speed.

One of the most exciting things that I picked up that summer was an L.P. (sure beats STD's) from a library in Morden which (shame on me!) remains in my possession. It was Safe as Milk, the first Captain Beefheart album and it remains just as exciting today.

The sound (that Ry Cooder slide) the lyrics, the VOICE, the seriously playful wordplay and intonation.

This was Gram Parson's cosmic american music and now the Captain has set sail for the outer limits of that cosmos.

Well I was born in the desert came on up from New Orleans
Came up on a tornado sunlight in the sky
I went around all day with the moon sticking in my eye