| On The Road | ||||
| 05:00pm 04/09/2008 | ||||
It's the story of a journey made by two friends from New York to San Francisco, on Heinkel scooters, in 1963. Peter is travelling to be with his girlfriend; Phil, his buddy, comes along for the ride hoping to find inspiration for some paintings along the way. That's nearly 3000 miles by the most direct route - and these guys make frequent detours, or just plain get lost - on 175cc machines laden with camping gear and art supplies. There are deserts and mountains, rainstorms and freezing April nights, mechanical failures and bitter rows. They travel through an America of beatniks, Happenings and motels, in an age when references to The Lord of the Rings have to be explained because only geeks have read it. It's an epic journey. You can imagine Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman blubbering as they describe the hardships and the loneliness. But this is a very funny book, full of language and descriptions and snippets of dialogue that crease me up and occasionally sneaking in a philosophical or poetic gem that's all the more effective for its lighthearted surroundings. Here's my favourite passage: I had forgotten through the long winter how good it is to be driving a scooter on a warm day. You become painfully aware of how much there is in the world to be smelled, tasted, listened to, looked at, touched and comprehended before you die - a lifetime in every blink of the eye - and you find yourself twisting the throttle until she surges under you like a river, wanting to get to it all, all at once. You begin to fear death on the prettiest days. My one complaint is that even though it's a book about scooters, Penguin saw fit to put a photo of a motorcycle on the cover... |
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impressed| REM OMG | ||||
| 11:45am 03/09/2008 | ||||
Compounding my joy, I was going with my Official Best Friend, Sally, whom I've known since we were at playgroup but as far as I can recall I've never been to a gig with before. We met outside Twickenham Stadium, grabbed a Coke and took our seats so we could enjoy a good natter about all the things that had annoyed us lately. I went for seated tickets on the grounds that from my height you don't see much in the standing area, and five hours is far too long to be standing up however brilliant the band. We were in the North Stand, facing the stage and not too far off the centre of the lower tier. We thought people in the standing section were waving glowsticks, but on closer examination they were recording on mobile phones. Later Michael Stipe asked everyone with a lit phone to hold it up, and the result was filmed and projected on the screens - a DIY Los Angeles skyline. But I'm getting ahead of myself. R.E.M. was pretty much the last of my favourite bands that's still together and whose lead singer is still alive (which admittedly narrows the field quite a lot) I had yet to see live. I hadn't been so excited about a concert since Simon & Garfunkel got back together - especially as I'd missed them in 2005. Thus I was at fever pitch by the time the support bands had finished. The sun was going down, it was still fabulously warm, and the group strode out to wild yells. I warned Sally that I was probably going to jump up and down and sing along and other embarrassing things, and she accepted this equably. My best chance for embarrassment happened when 'Walk Unafraid' was dedicated to "one of my favourite groups of people...a group that we call 'redheads', and you over here call 'ginge'." A show of hands was requested from anyone who had a special redhead in their life, so I was able to cheer and point at mine, sitting next to me and no doubt wishing me dead. I rarely go to see bands whose music I don't know very well; I like being able to identify around 90% of the songs they'll play. I think on Saturday I had a hundred percent hit rate, previously achieved only with Paul Simon - I certainly recognised every introduction, though I couldn't always Name That Tune before the chorus (or at all, for the ones whose titles bear little relation to anything that happens in the song). What I really need is to spend a quiet evening with Michael Stipe while he interprets his back catalogue for me, because his introductions to some of the songs were the first clue I had that the lyrics were anything other than catchy nonsense. Who knew that 'Man Sized Wreath' was about Martin Luther King, Jr, or 'Disturbance at the Heron House' a reworking of Animal Farm? Not me, and I'd been calling myself a fan all these years. I was delighted to get two tracks from Lifes Rich Pageant, a favourite album of mine and often overlooked, but sad that there was nothing at all from my beloved Around the Sun (another reason to resent missing the 2005 tour in support of the album). Sally also promised me - as she checked out the setlist from previous nights on her mobile phone - that 'Nightswimming' would be coming up shortly, but it never did. I do tend to like the quieter tracks, which don't fare so well live in a rugby stadium. But I loved hearing 'The One I Love' and 'Losing My Religion', and the new stuff from Accelerate which has been really growing on me. Sally left during the encore to catch a train back to Cambridge while I remained, standing up and clapping in time with thousands of other fans. I think I grinned all the way through and all the way home, though the smile may have slipped a bit when I accidentally went to Kingston and subsequently round its one-way system at least twice. My ears were still ringing when I got in. |
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ecstatic| Well Met | ||||
| 10:43am 02/09/2008 | ||||
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} stanharding in the flesh for the first time, as he was passing through London on his way home from Oslo.Maybe I've just been lucky, but every internet friend I have ever met in person has turned out to be utterly lovely and Eric was no exception. Nice to put a face, and a voice, to the posts about theatre-going fine-dining life in New York City. We sat in the café at Foyles talking about cats and Harry Potter and Scandinavia, then Eric excused himself to go and check out a bear bar in Soho. I went home to clean the gerbils out, but then I'm not on holiday. |
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| And Loving It | ||||
| 04:11pm 28/08/2008 | ||||
slightlyfoxed and spyinthehaus to a showing of Get Smart at the Tottenham Court Road Odeon. The 1960s original, a spy spoof starring Don Adams as loveable bungler Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 for CONTROL, and Barbara Feldon as his beautiful, patient partner 99, is probably my favourite TV programme ever and has been a massive influence on my tastes and personality since I first caught it on Channel 4's teatime slot at the age of 11, as anyone who knows my email address must be aware. Beloved old shows are seldom handled well on the big screen (hello, Lost in Space and The Avengers) and the aficionados on the Get Smart mailing-list had been savaging the film since its US release, so I was fully expecting to weep and wail and walk out. Instead I found myself chuckling all the way through, with occasional outbreaks of laughing out loud. What follows has almost nothing to do with reviewing the movie on its own merits; it is ( pure fannish opinion. ) |
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| Dr Maybe | ||||
| 03:48pm 27/08/2008 | ||||
( Spoilers ) |
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enthralled|
huskyteer |
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Friends Info Calendar Alice.Dryden.co.uk |
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