July daze redux

July 30, 2023 by Leave a comment

If I wanted to excuse the infrequent nature of my posts since the start of the year by claiming that I’ve been paralysed by existential anxiety, I wouldn’t have to look too hard to find plausible reasons for despair; take your pick from accelerating climate breakdown, attritional wars on multiple continents, the predicted rise of killer AI, unaccountable oligarchs hoarding wealth while the young slide into financial precarity, the resurgence of Donald Trump, rumoured extraterrestrial incursions, general government mendacity and incompetence… and that’s just this week’s news.

In truth though, I’ve been largely silent for almost exactly the opposite reason; the last few months have found me in a state of unfocused contentment, which hasn’t exactly been unpleasant, but has left me with a nagging feeling that I should have some stronger opinions about what’s going on, and should be taking every opportunity to share them.

There’s only so much angst anyone can take though, and I reckon I’ve done my share of agitation over the years, so I’m going to forgive myself for lapsing into a period of blissful denial, until the end of the summer at least. Assuming that ever comes…

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Coronation musings

May 6, 2023 by Leave a comment

One day when I was in primary school, back in the mid-1970s, we were all loaded on to buses and taken to the cinema, which was a pretty big deal, since such extracurricular excitement was a rare event in those days. The film we saw was A Queen Is Crowned, the 1953 documentary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Presented in glorious Technicolor, and narrated by Laurence Olivier no less, it was quite a spectacle, and must have been even more impressive when it was first released to a nation only just emerging from postwar austerity. I’m not sure why we were taken to see it; the obvious reason would be the Silver Jubilee of 1977, but I’m fairly sure this trip was a couple of years before that. Anyway, whatever the occasion, Liz’s big day was clearly grand enough, even at second hand, that I can recall it nearly half a century later.

There has been plenty of comment over the last few weeks noting the contrast between the forward-looking, vibrant country which welcomed a modern young Queen, and the insular, sclerotic nation, obsessed with past glories, that her elderly son has inherited. There’s no doubt that the excitement that greeted Elizabeth’s ascension has not been replicated; popular reaction to today’s events has predominantly been one of indifference. Even staunch republicans like myself are mostly irritated rather than outraged, and we’re not complaining about the extra holiday on Monday.

The gloominess may be overstated though, and it is probably confined to observers of my generation, who are looking back on their lives with vague regret. Younger citizens, who still have a future ahead of them, see a Britain that, for all its troubles, is infinitely more diverse and socially progressive than it was in the 1950s. The fact that we are no longer psychologically in thrall to the monarchy is sign of how far the nation has come. We probably won’t have to wait 70 years for another coronation, but I’m sure that next time around it will be even more of a minority interest.

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Fore too owe

April 20, 2023 by Leave a comment

Despite good intentions, my posting frequency has fallen off a cliff since the start of the year. There are multiple reasons for this, not least of which is a renewed appreciation of el primo cheeba cheeba, a legacy of my trip to California last summer.

There was a time when getting baked inspired my creativity; now I’m older it just sends me into a groove of contented passivity. Which isn’t unpleasant, but it does leave me with a feeling that I could be spending my remaining days a little more productively. Perhaps I should resolve to have a straight-edge summer this year. Starting tomorrow…

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Oscar predictions 2023 revisited

March 13, 2023 by Leave a comment

So, confidence notwithstanding, my score was even worse than last year, with only my call for the Best Director Award proving correct. It seems that actually watching the nominated movies doesn’t improve my accuracy at all; perhaps next year I’ll save time by just reading the reviews.

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Oscar predictions 2023

March 11, 2023 by Leave a comment

I’ve actually seen a few of the movies tipped for Academy Award success this year, and read about most of the others, so I’m moderately confident that my forecast may be a little more accurate than it was last year; I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

Anyway, here are my picks for the main categories:

  • Best Actor – Austin Butler
  • Best Actress – Cate Blanchett
  • Best Supporting Actor – Judd Hirsch
  • Best Supporting Actress – Stephanie Hsu
  • Best Director – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
  • Best International Feature – EO
  • Best Picture – All Quiet on the Western Front

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Streak addiction

February 27, 2023 by Leave a comment

There was a story in the papers last week about Jeff Reitz, who visited Disneyland on 2,995 consecutive days between 2012 and 2020, when the theme park’s pandemic-related closure forced him to quit just short of the 3K milestone.

Jeff seems mostly positive about his experience, which he started as a way to keep active during a spell of unemployment, but I’m sure that there must have been some mornings when maintaining the run felt more like a tiresome obligation than a fun day out.

I have similarly mixed feelings about keeping this blog going. I must admit that, nearly sixteen years on from our debut, it’s hard to make the case that my occasional missives have any sort of relevance, and it is sometimes a chore to cobble something together for the deadline, but still, I’m loath to break the streak of posting at least once in each of the past 190 months. In a world where regularity is increasingly difficult to find, especially as one gets older, it’s comforting to have some dependable rituals, however irrational they may seem.

In the article about Jeff in the Los Angeles Times there’s a suggestion that he might have taken a break if he had reached the three thousand mark, but I think that without the force majeure of Covid he would have found it difficult to step off the treadmill. I might tell myself that I’ll quit blogging when I hit 200 months, or 20 years, or some other arbitrary target, but I know that I won’t. At this point “blogger” has, for better or worse, become part of my identity, if only in my own mind, and they’ll have to prise this keyboard from my cold, dead hands…

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Tom Verlaine RIP

January 29, 2023 by Leave a comment

Sad news today; Tom Verlaine has passed away, at the age of 73. I was just getting into music when Television broke up in 1978, so I didn’t catch up with them until later; Marquee Moon has been a favourite since my college days, and after their reunion I saw them when they toured in 2014, and again in 2016.

Much has been written about Television’s musical legacy, but equally important, for me at least, was their sartorial influence; I’ve been trying to carry off that 70s New York underground look for most of the last 40 years…

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2022: The year in review – Part 1: Culture

December 30, 2022 by Leave a comment

It’s time once again for the annual audit of my engagement with contemporary culture. As ever the full story is on our Tumblr; here are the best bits:

Television – I still subscribe to several streaming services, but despite this I’ve been watching a lot less TV this year compared with last. I was going to say it was mostly lightweight genre programming, but looking back I see it was actually exclusively lightweight genre programming; I evidently no longer have the intellectual stamina for the sort of serious dramas that the critics recommend. I liked Moon Knight, and The Rings of Power was pretty to look at if ultimately rather unsatisfying, but, judged by the speed with which I binge-watched it, my vote for most enjoyably diverting show would have to go to season two of Only Murders in the Building.

Film – At the start of the year I took out a membership at our local arthouse cinema, fully intending to get back into the independent movie habit; let’s just say that hasn’t quite worked out, though I did manage around one film a month. Honourable mentions go to Amsterdam, Licorice Pizza, and Nightclubbing, but I’ll try to maintain my cinephile credibility by nominating a film with subtitles as my favourite; The Worst Person in the World.

Books – My major literary project this year was reading The Brothers Karamazov, which I found every bit as good as its reputation suggests; satisfying philosophically but also narratively, with characters so vividly drawn that one never feels they are mere mouthpieces for Dostoyevsky’s ideas, rather than living, feeling individuals. I have some regret that I didn’t tackle this great work years ago, but on the other hand I also believe that the books that stay with you are the ones you read at the right time in your life; perhaps late middle-age is when I needed to meet Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his sons. My other obsession in 2022, inspired by my trip in the summer, involved books about life in California; highlights in the fiction category included works by Bret Easton Ellis, Edward Bunker, Joan Didion, and Armistead Maupin. My favourite book of the year was something more contemporary though; I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava.

Music – I’ve purchased rather fewer albums this year than usual; I think it’s because I’ve not been listening to the radio or reading the music press much. Still a lot of good stuff though; here are my top eleven, since I can’t quite edit it down to ten:

I didn’t get to see much live music this year; of the shows I did attend Kim Gordon was the one I really enjoyed.

So that’s the year in culture; not particularly adventurous I guess, but not totally ossified either. Next up: blogging.

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The art of patience

December 21, 2022 by Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure it was Sun Tzu who wrote something to the effect of “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by”, and so it has proved, as some of our half-forgotten prophecies seem set to bear fruit; Twitter is heading for bankruptcy, crypto is in meltdown, and Donald Trump is going to jail.

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Unpacific heights

November 30, 2022 by Leave a comment

The undoubted highlight of 2022 for me was my trip to the US in the summer. I had a particularly agreeable time in San Francisco; lazy days in peaceful parks, intriguing art in quirky galleries, culinary discoveries in exciting restaurants, and a climate that was pleasantly warm, but without the stifling heat and dust of Los Angeles.

I’ve been daydreaming about returning to the Bay Area more or less from the moment I stepped off the return flight, but I must admit I’ve been given some pause by the news today that the SFPD are planning to enhance their crime-fighting effectiveness by deploying killer robots on the city streets.

The actual story is perhaps a little less alarming than the lurid headlines; the androids in question will not be autonomous, and will only be armed in extraordinary circumstances, but still, I’ve seen Robocop, and Terminator, not to mention Blade Runner, so I know one can’t be too blasé about these things. I guess I could always move to Oakland instead…

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