Email Moments

Recent email moments that made me smile:

I wrote:
“you know, panic is so much more than how they define it in the dictionaries…”

Edlyn replies, and is so right:
“absolutely. The dictionary never mentions the pseudo-nirvana we attain, you know, that stage where you’re past panic, past caring, and with the impenetrable impassive calm of a Buddha, enter the exam hall.”

* * *

Fay sends quotes from Samuel L Jackson movies:
“Yessir Miss Daisy, I be honking.” – Mitch, The Long Kiss Goodnight

Charly: I’m leaving the country, Mitch. I need a fake passport and I need money, lots of it.
Mitch: Well why didn’t you say so? Hold on a minute while I pull that outta my ass.
– The Long Kiss Goodnight

Ordell: Look, I hate to be the kinda nigga does a nigga a favor, then, BAM!, hits a nigga up for a favor in return. But I’m afraid I gotta be that kinda nigga.
Beaumont: What?
Ordell: I need a favor.
– Jackie Brown

* * *

John analyses Flash Gordon:
“Flash Gordon: fantastic campy kitsch post-Star Wars 30s serial update starring two complete planks of wood supported by knowing performances from everyone else. How they get away with the kinky ideas in a childrens film is beyond me. Two examples:

1. The heroine (Dale) is held in some sort of orgasmic trance by Evil Emperor Ming’s power ring. She seems rather (ahem) excited by it.

Klytus (Ming’s loyal No. 2) to Ming: ‘Never have I seen such a response…She even rivals your daughter’.

What ?!

2. Ming’s (incestously) foxy daughter Aura brings hero Flash back from the dead and proceeds to secrete him on the planet of her lover Prince Barin (played by Bond-to-be Timothy Dalton). Barin ain’t too happy about it either. Seeing Flash with Aura he spits:

“I knew you were up to something though I confess I hadn’t thought of necrophilia”

Beats The Phantom Menace everytime.”

Delusions Of Dignity

It was an essay weekend. ‘Nuff said.

Current favourite song on the Xfm playlist: Raise The Alarm (Big Dog featuring Kermit from Black Grape).

Raise tha alarm
I come to do harm
I just got ____ from a nut farm
And I gotta bomb
Strapped to my arm
You bettah sing the 23rd psalm!

They played it this morning while I was brushing my teeth, and I just couldn’t stand still. So there I was, bouncing around the room and foaming at the mouth, and I looked out of my window and saw the girl in the room perpendicular to mine glued to her window and laughing hysterically at my antics.

Sigh. So much for delusions of dignity.

The Odelay! Phenomenon

It’s when you love an album on first listening, and consequently play it to bits over the next couple of days or weeks. A few months or years later, you inexplicably feel little or no inclination to listen to it any more, even though you still think it’s a great album. (No prizes for guessing which album tops my list of albums relegated to the bottom of the playlist barrel due to this annoying phenomenon.)

And right now, I’m really worried that Hefner’s The Fidelity Wars might meet a similar fate, because it arrived last Thursday, and I think I’ve just been loving it too much since then.

Is this a strange thing to worry about, or does this happen to anyone else?

One of these days I’ll write about the wonderful converse Loveless phenomenon, although I stupidly left that album in Singapore and haven’t listened to it since last summer.

More random and reasonably shallow music ramblimgs:

I was going to write a little more about the Lift To Experience/Calexico/Stephen Malkmus gig I went to last week, but John Peel beat me to it. It’s a good thing he only put the Calexico and Malkmus sets up for full listening, because Lift To Experience weren’t great to listen to live, and would probably sound even worse over Real Audio.

Last week, while trying to restrain myself from either falling asleep or rushing up on stage and strangling the lead singer of Broadcast, I started wondering if it might have been a better idea to go see Sparklehorse, who were at the Borderline the same night, although this was technically an exercise in futility since their show sold out long before I knew about it. After reading this review, I have no regrets, although it would have been nice to have been able to go to both.

I haven’t heard the new Radiohead song enough times to have an opinion worth sharing yet, but NYLPM, as usual, does.

REM’s new song has firmly established itself in my head, although I haven’t actually decided how much I like it yet. The verses are reasonably nondescript, and I can’t remember what they sound like at all, but the chorus is scrumptious.

Fallen

And once again, I am fallen. A three-day record of normal sleep patterns was broken yesterday when I woke up at one, having only gone to bed at five a.m. due to a four-hour phone conversation with Russ. The afternoon was chatted away with Tamara over caffeinated beverages and mammoth sandwiches at the happy place that is the Old Compton Street Cafe.

Attempts were made at European Community law during the night but abandoned amid screamed obscenities when, in an impressive display of clumsiness, I managed to spill peppermint tea on my desk. They say its aroma has therapeutic effects, but I must say I didn’t quite feel myself to be particularly calm while floundering around elbow-deep in soggy lecture notes.

At this point I should say that entries here might get a little sparse in the next couple of weeks, while I’m trying not to fail my second year. But do keep popping in. I promise I’ll try not to be boring.

Easter 2001

Guiltlessly missing mass on Maundy Thursday to go see Stephen Malkmus (with the excellent Calexico thrown in for good measure). Getting home and spending an hour in the room set up as the garden of Gethsemane, surprised by a sudden and unfamiliar feeling of prayerfulness.

Spending Good Friday at choir practice, service, and Stations of the Cross, interspersed with periods of genuine study (an equally sudden and unfamiliar phenomenon). Listening choices throughout the day varied from Beethoven’s Ode To Joy to Hefner’s May God Protect Your Home. A song about joy, and a song about a vagina. I suppose a case could be made for connecting the two, but perhaps not in a way that would be quite appropriate for Good Friday.

A feeling of disconnection and malaise on Holy Saturday. I didn’t go for choir practice, or help with preparations for the Easter Vigil. I went down grudgingly for the Vigil and was amazed by two and a half hours in church that flew by, and left me with a strange sense of exuberance and joy which I still can’t really explain. To say it was happiness in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus would be pushing it. I still grope for that sort of faith, for that sort of ability to feel. But something was there, and I hope it comes back some time soon.

Nibbles and wine after the Vigil turned into all-out partying. There was lots of cheesy music. There were lots of us making absolute fools of ourselves. It was all incredibly uncool. It was all incredibly enjoyable.

Mass on Easter Sunday and lunch. Attempts at studying, mostly unsuccessful due to the embarassingly crushing grip of a, er, crush. More cheese and wine at night, Father John outlasting all of us on the dance floor.

Most of Easter Monday taken up by contract law and the Classic FM Hall of Fame countdown. Most of early Tuesday taken up by Coldcut’s Solid Steel on London Live, an Atmos mix set on Radio One, and quality time with my laptop.

Gibber gibber Yo La Tengo gibber gibber

Note to self: Never forget the night of 10 April, because it’s the night you went to indie rock heaven.

Before I get to the part where I start gibbering and spluttering, I should begin by doing what I can manage coherently.

Right, so the Yo La Tengo (gibber, splutter) gig was last night. The supporting acts were Sue Garner & Rick Brown and Broadcast. I’ll start with them.

I’d never heard of Sue Garner & Rick Brown before, but was very pleasantly surprised. Imagine Sarah McLachlan’s voice singing with Ani DiFranco’s attitude accompanied by Sonic Youth remixed by Tortoise. Kinda like that. I’m definitely going to look around for their album.

Broadcast, which I had heard of, were extremely disappointing. In terms of presentation they were far slicker than Sue Garner & Rick Brown, but their music paled in comparison. Maybe I’m just a nitpicky classical musician, but when the melody line is the same as the bass line and all other accompanying lines, the song sounds boring. I only realized last night how right that particular rule of SATB (soprano alto tenor bass) music theory was – about avoiding a situation where the different elements of harmony carry the same tune such that you’re basically hearing the same tune simultaneously over a couple of octaves.

Quite often, they’d be constructing this interesting soundscape, and then their lead singer would start singing, and I’d get pissed off. For one thing, the melody was usually boring, as I’ve said. Another thing was that her voice reminded me of the Corrs, which meant it blended so effortlessly into the background that I forgot I’d ever heard it. And then almost all the songs seemed to involve her singing “Aaaaaaaaaaaah” and swaying from side to side and then going “Lalalalalalala etc.” I can’t really describe it in writing, but it really was immensely irritating. Which is a pity, because other than her singing, and the melody she was singing, the rest of their music was reasonably interesting, especially towards the end of their set where they started going a bit wild with squealing feedback and dissonance and thunderous drums.

And now we come to Yo La Tengo. Oh. My. God. I’ll just abandon all pretence of being cool and cynical and laid back now, and say that it was one of the most amazing gigs I’ve ever been to, probably second only to Sonic Youth, and second only because Sonic Youth are very slightly more charismatic as performers.

Yo La Tengo: Thank you. Thank you for alternately rawking and whispering your way through the show, and being equally compelling for each. Thank you for taking Blue Line Swinger and making it into an expandable universe both screaming and serene even better than you did on the record – it must have been at least 15 minutes long but I was entranced. Thank you for effortlessly switching instruments and kicking ass with whatever you picked up. Thank you especially Georgia (BRILLIANT drumming) for doing that while looking sweet and dumpy and motherly and nothing like the rock star you are – and forgive me if I ever meet you in a small-town supermarket and don’t recognize you while we both stock up on drain cleaner or something equally domestic. Thank you for responding to our clapping, stomping and screaming by coming back out twice to play encores.

Thank you for your beautiful noise.

Roadside Haul

I will never walk past roadside CD stalls in disdain again. The Goodge Street one I mentioned a few days ago now has a devoted rummager. For the princely sum of £18, I now own:

  • A Grand Love Story (Kid Loco, £5)
  • Code 4109 (DJ Krush, £5)
  • Field Studies (Quasi, £4)
  • Breath From Another (Esthero, £4)

They were closing up, so all I had time to do was find the ones I’d seen the other day. There remain lots of tacky plastic baskets of uncategorized CDs marked “Pop Rock CDs £5 & Under!” for nosing through, and I can’t wait.

So You Wanna Fake Being An Indie Rock Expert is hilarious (and sometimes informative, blush) reading. (Thanks Jerm!)

I admit to owning and enjoying Sarah McLachlan albums, but this Onion article about Lilith Fair is a must-read, even if you’re not terribly interested in synchronized ovulation.

“I’ve never been around so many people who share my interest in women’s issues and social justice,” Jewel said. “It makes me want to ride my horse bareback through a forest stream.”

Is It Time To Panic Yet?

At some point before I fail second year, my present philosophy of “self-indulgence good, studying bad” really has to change.

Saturday was lunch at Brick Lane with Russ, where we managed to add to the small but growing body of restaurant staff who hate us for taking too long over meals and talking too much (now established in Paris and London. We gotta do New York and Milan next). Then a couple of hours of conversational reading in the Borders cafe (Russ with design magazines and The Economist, me with Watchmen, Life After God, and re-giggling my way through Anthropology. Conversation: sometimes related to reading material, often completely tangential).

Somewhere around 9 pm, I was reading the copy of The Wire I’d bought for the Matador sampler CD that came with it, was thoroughly overwhelmed at the depths of my music ignorance, and fell asleep. And that was Saturday.

Sunday was Palm Sunday Mass followed by dim sum at Dong Hai in Chinatown (it has an English name that’s so completely different from its Chinese name that I’ve forgotten it, but it’s very good) with Shoop and Esther, where we talked about usual girlie stuff like gossip, hair, and the fundamental theological disagreements between Catholicism and Protestantism.

And then home, and ineffectual attempts at studying, and sleep, and panicked awakening at 9.05, and headlong rushing down the stairs only to find out that The X-Files had been usurped by golf, and then grudging acceptance of the need to study, so contract law and Elgar and Don DeLillo till 3 am. And that was Sunday.

And tomorrow is Yo La Tengo. And Wednesday is a preview screening of Bridget Jones’ Diary. And Thursday is Stephen Malkmus. And May 8 the exams begin.

For The Last Time, I Am Not In Fucking KCL!

Warning: rant ahead.

I spent two years in an excellent educational institution, and enjoyed it enough to contribute a heartfelt, albeit short and hastily written, article to a commemorative CD-ROM.

And what did they do? They (the alumni who produced the CD-ROM, not the school itself) changed the title of my article from its original Rafflesian Recall (which was admittedly not great either, but was meant as a reference to this annual activity where former Rafflesians come back and do nostalgic stuff) to the incredibly moronic The Hauntings Of A Rafflesian. They got my current university wrong – Raffles Nite Committee and whoever on it that thinks I’m from the Strand polytechnic also known as Kings’ College London, I’M NOT, AND YOU SHOULD HAVE CHECKED.

Let me say now that I know I’m overreacting. But here’s how it goes:

One. I can’t stand incompetence. This is incompetence. If you want to change the title, check with me. All it takes is a phone call. If you want to change it yourself, don’t arbitrarily choose something that bears little resemblance to what I wrote! I am not “haunted” by my Rafflesian memories. I am, however, quite likely to be “haunted” by this bloody cockup.

Two. Given that I sent the article from a UCL email address, it should be reasonably obvious where I go to school, no?

This is the second time someone’s assumed I’m from Kings, and affixed that institution to my name in something that large numbers of people will potentially read. The first time, Aaron, who is otherwise one of the most wonderful people ever and who should one day become Secretary-General of the UN and bring it respect and grace and effectiveness, put me down as being from Kings’ on a speaker bio list at a public debate.

I chose to go to University College London because it was founded on radical beliefs. Because it was the first university in the UK to admit women and black people. Because I wanted a multi-faculty university, so that meant LSE was out. Because Kings’ was founded by the Church of England, which I see as being founded on one man’s petulance rather than anything of real theological significance. Because far fewer Singaporeans go to UCL than Kings’, and I wanted to meet people from the rest of the world. And because as multi-faculty universities in England go, only Oxford and Cambridge are better, but they’re not in London, which stole my heart a couple of years ago in a way Oxford and Cambridge never could.

As I said earlier, I know I’m overreacting. But I just really hate being mistaken for a student of a university which I very deliberately chose not to go to.

Know Your Enema

One of my hallmates just started work at a porn shop in Camden (he needs the money to pay his fees for his theology degree). On his first day at work, he wasn’t quite sure of the right price of a certain enema kit to enter into the till, and asked a co-worker for help.

Unfortunately for the nervously shifting customer, help consisted of the co-worker going to the enema section and shouting things like “Right, what’s this enema kit called exactly?” very loudly across the shop.

I guess you just can’t get good customer service anywhere these days.