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So 2010. How did that happen? 2009 swept past in a mist of music, gigs, friends, job changes and organisational challenges. Now I’m standing at the beginning of 2010 looking into the future and really I just want more of the same.
So far in 2010 I’ve done quite a few cultural things: Tim Key’s “Slutcracker” which was Edinburgh Perrier-award winning but, I’m afraid, failed to win my heart, Daniel Kitson’s new stand-up show “We are gathered here” who was heart-warmingly fabulous as always, dancing at Passing Clouds, Jon McGregor + Dan Antopolski + Francesca Beard at Book Slam (brilliant), and….ahem….”It’s Complicated” which was crap but enjoyable.
I also must make a comment on Avatar. Nothing prepared me for the seeping boredom that flowed slowly through my toes, up my legs, gripping my knees and eventually causing my neck to seize up until I literally crawling up the walls with a frustration and tiredness that threatened to make me scream. I have honestly never seen something so dull in my entire life. Since then I’ve found that most people though it was amazing. I just can’t understand it: I found it twee and lifeless and devoid of any intelligence.
In terms of new music I haven’t got much in the last couple of weeks. Most notable purchase was Peter Broderick and Machinefabriek’s “Blank Grey Canvas Sky” which is very light, beautiful and peaceful: Broderick’s composition mixed with gentle overlays of electronica. Perfect for the white winter days.
But the big news so far for 2010 is that I’ve booked for Burning Man. I’m stupidly nervously excited about the whole thing. On the one hand I think I may well hate it: leaving my cynicism at the door and spending a week in a oven-hot desert with occasional sandstorms sounds quite traumatic, but on the other I can’t wait to get there and to experience what it’s like to feel completely boundless for a week. I imagine there will be lots of ups and downs but I will leave feeling empowered. And dusty.
Next Saturday is the Shhh! Music Festival http://www.localism.org.uk/index.php?id=453 Come along. It’s a wonderful day of folk, electronica and, of course, folktronica at the Cecil Sharp House in Camden.
Stationed away above the Cuban bar in the Camden Stables market lies a little white-washed room laid out with a few chairs and some basic sound and light equipment. The Invisible Dot club. Tonight (4th May 2009 – if my calendar isn’t lying) was the second night of FREEZE! aka Tim Key and Tom Basden’s stand-up, poetry, music and film night.
Tim lead the proceedings punctuating his irreverent stream of consciousness with some of his brilliantly precise poetry. Tom played a few songsin a similar style – obscure topics and amusing punchlines. But the videos were the real gems – and as Tim Key said – it’s hard to describe, it’s really funny but only when you’re there in person. If you like comedy which has no overt punchlines, and relies more on facial expressions, timing and a sense of the ridiculous then I think you’ll love this duo.
It’s also pretty cheap – only 4 quid for students and 6 for real people. Fortnightly on a Monday night at 7.30pm (next one is May 18th).
Yesterday was one of those perfect London days. Beautiful sunshine, a bit of a breeze, and a chilled happy smile on everyone’s faces.
I managed a 6 mile run with only minimal pram-dodging activity before lazing around in the park and activating the freckle detonator on my face followed by a brief trip to Camden market. I also found out that Friedrich Engels used to live really close to me but now his home is occupied by a fancy dress shop which is appropriate I think.
So onto the cultural activites – FACT party at Cargo where I discovered that garage music is still as shit as it was 10 years ago followed by the re-opening of The End which apart from becoming an anagram of its original self (now The Den) is exactly the same down to the retch-inducing smell in the toilets and the slightly Euro-trash clientele. Anyway, it was a pretty good night all in all despite not hearing anything decent for the majority of the time. Excited about next weekend’s Punchdrunk peformance – Tunnel 228. It seems to be near the Shunt vaults so I guess it’s in one of the tunnels under London Bridge. www.tunnel-228.com.
Tonight to the Luminaire and tomorrow to the Invisible Dot club. Who ever invented Bank Holidays was a genius. Was it God? Probably.
I haven’t bought any new music this week (so far) but I have bought 4 books on plagues/pandemics. I’ve always found the concept of a disease-ridden apocalypse quite romantic, apart from the baked beans of course. I got Dickens’ Bleak House, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of a Plague Year, Richard Matheson’s I am Legend (hopefully better than the crap film with the stupid Brazilian woman who hadn’t heard of Bob Marley) and Stephen King’s The Stand which I definitely read ages ago but no longer have. I’m actually going to try to review them properly.
Sometime I think why do I blog? Often I don’t but I do go through periods when it feels good to be writing. I think in the absence of me actually writing anything of substance it’s good to go through the discipline of sitting down and constructing sentences. I should probably start writing stories again. Soph reminded me last night of the bedtime stories I used to tell her when I was younger and how they would involve magical lands and mythical creatures. I’m sure there’s a frustrated fantasy novelist in me somewhere.
to have Kim Noble’s baby. Yes, I am a lucky girl. Just got a text message from him tonight that I have been put on the short-list to receive lifetime child-support payments for the sperm in a jar that I was given by him in his show last week.
I’ve added one new song to my guitar playing repetoire. It’s by the Smashing Pumpkins whose name I have vaguely heard before but that’s about it. I think I missed out on a lot of key indie/rock music when I was younger by obsessively listening to Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead over and over again.
Today I did a LOT of exercise (for me). I cycled about 1.5 hours and then did a 3 mile run. The run was actually more pleasurable than the cycle since the number of kamikaze pedestrians seems to have increased exponentially recently. I still barely manage to keep my nerve but since my horrible experience last year I’ve learnt to keep my mouth shut so instead I mutter obscenities under my breath which provides the requisite release without getting me into trouble.
More seriously I’ve been semi- following the unfolding farce at Durban II which is in Geneva. I don’t know why they didn’t just call it Geneva I. I also don’t know why you would invite a fascist dictator to open a conference on racism but there you go…the UN is a pile of useless old bureaucracy that should be swept under the carpet and forgotten about. However one thing it did bring up is that boycotting is just pointless. I mean everything and anything is boycotted nowadays. Boycott Israeli tomatoes. Boycott Zimbabwean tomatoes. Boycott Chinese clothes. Boycott the BBC. I’m sick of it. I’m boycotting the boycotters. I wouldn’t be too keen on hearing Ahmedinejad speak but I’d probably listen to what he has to say and then ridicule him afterwards. Boycotting seems to be just saying “I’m not going to listen, I’m not going to hear.” Also, boycotting generally seems to bring more attention to things that would probably have received only minimal attention if they weren’t boycotted. Durban II is a case in point. The whole concept of a conference on racism sounds pretty pointless to me and would probably have consisted of a few pointless speeches, a few rounds of pointess clapping or boo-ing, some champagne and canapes, followed by everyone going home to sleep. Now it receives far more attention and mostly for the wrong reasons. If governments want to tackle racism they need to do it through basic education not through spending vast amounts of money on international conferences.
Seeing Fennesz tomorrow at the Southbank. Can’t wait.
For the last 48 hours I’ve been languishing in bed with a horrible case of food poisoning. It probably serves me right for eating seafood and BREAD, and no, not lame passover potato flour bread, full-blown wheat enriched BREAD during Pesach. May God strike me down and all that. Although being a determined Atheist I refuse to believe in that kind of superstition.
The beginning of the 48 hours came during watching Kim Noble’s new show at the Soho Theatre “Kim Noble Must Die.” My nausea was not aided by frequent scenes of him self-harming, ejaculating into KY Jelly bottles and replacing them on supermarket shelves, ejaculating over Floella Benjamin (who beat him by 19 minutes in the London Marathon 12 years ago), ejacuating over ready meals, and then finally a scene in which he described how to use the sperm which he had handed out to five women in the audience (including me) by inserting a turkey baster into the jar and then that into a big hairy vagina. At this point I was ready to go straight to the toilet and never to return. However he then kept the five of us who he had given his sperm to, behind in the audience whilst everyone else left. He asked me a series of questions including how attractive I rated him between 1 and 7. I said 2, I was trying to be kind. He also asked if I’d be there to catch him when he threw himself of the Waterloo Bridge on May 27th at 2am. I said Yes. I lied.
Easter Weekend was great. Despite the shittily miserable weather I had a really good time. Friday we went to Trailer Trash at On The Rocks which has to be seen to be believed – ridiculously “trendy” people who all looked malnourished and between gender, awful electro, and sticky floors. Saturday was spent seeing the Pitmen Painters at the National Theatre, a wonderfully poignant production, and something I will remember for a long time to come. I even shed a tear at the end which is rare for me. Sunday we wandered around the Sunday Upmarket in Brick Lane where I bought a peacock feather hairband, ate spicy vegan food, and then went to Passing Clouds in Dalston for some dancing and quite extreme drinking. Monday I saw A View From the Bridge. It was a great production but not as polished at the ones at the National. The West End always seems quite shabby and unoriginal in comparison to anything there or at the Barbican.
Tuesday night I saw “Let the Right One In” – a beautifully shot Swedish vampire love-story. I really recommend it to anyone really. It’s immensely watchable.
Over the last 48 hours I’ve listened to Beirut’s “Gulag Orkestra” approximately 17 times. I have also watched all of “Planet Earth,” “Around the World in 80 Trades,” Charlie Brooker’s “Newswipe” and all the Shameless episodes I’ve missed over the last few months. Now I’m about to watch “Hero” and then go to sleep. Hopefully in the morning I will wake up invigorated and ready to face the world again. Or at least my stomach will be.
