A place for everything…

Went off the radar a little back there… I’ve just had about the most fun two months ever and haven’t yet written a damn thing!

This oughta serve as a reminder to self to get back on with it - I enjoyed writing stuff over the winter so will get back on the blog.

Reason for the post title? Saw the Cinematic Orchestra last night at the Williamsburg Music Hall, not more than 10 mins walk from my apt. The bass is still shaking my ribs. What a fantastic gig!

Between blogging and living… weird.

Very, very tired. Kthxbye!

“Take care of yourselves while I’m gone, y’all…”

“Oh don’t worry, Jon, we will!”

(Thanks Bill)

Part 1, unwritten and unpublished, would describe the legacies of our shared culture, our rivalries, the Puritanistic escape from Popery, the shared desire for power and responsibility, the fortunate position our language takes as a default for the rest of the world, MTV, Hollywood, ridicule of the French (joke) and weird activities.

Part 2, here, simply documents that last night at Big Easy I took the opportunity to enjoy a remarkably fine double-thick cut Mignon - the size of a family car - cooked blue with piles of fries, onion rings, salad, peppercorn sauce, calamari, chillies, slaw, skins, wings, chips, and several fattening sauces all washed down with Dead-Man’s Mules and finished off with a bloody good deep slow-burning Scotch. (While the birthday boy settled for a mere 20 kilo powerlifting monster of the deep).

I see these efforts not only as a method for using up that extra belt notch, but also as part of a veritable training regime; practicing and preparing to be comfortable in ordering for a lunch a salad - with a 16oz Sirloin and blue cheese sauce ‘on the side’….

“We just need to sort the deposit, whether you want the bed and furniture and stuff, some other stuff I’m sure, but not that sure - watch out for that car - just how am I managing to stay upright… and look, here’s a coffee shop, quick!”

“Starbucks???”

“I used to have principles too…”

***

“I can’t believe I didn’t go to Download with you…”

“The three of them are up there and they play each other’s guitars!”

***

“With very few examples, no work could completely satisfy me; maybe 80% on the absolute best of days, but there’s always a significant part of my life that needs other stimulus, other sources of joy and they need time, and a life to live. Maybe that’s why I’m not killing myself in the city.”

“You should write that down or something, that’s exactly how I feel!”

“Just seems like common sense really. How do we split this fiver?”

***

“So the hero’s dead, the antihero is a total fucking psycho, and the sheriff’s dreaming of his own death.”

“And there’s no music; that shotgun sound is incredible.”

“What the hell did we just watch?”

“Tunes” is not my favourite word, but I’ve got this alliteration thing going on.

Plus there’s not ten tunes, there’s twenty (couldn’t help myself).

Oh and they’re not purely from 2007, in order to qualify my arcane rules, the track must either have been released or I must have first heard it this year and listened so many times that I wore out the mp3.

And, finally, they’re not in order of favourites, rather I’ve stitched them together into a playlist that flows from song to song.

Links (with mouse-hover explanations) are to last.fm radio where you can listen to snippets. If you really like em, come find me and have a listen to my iPod :)

——>< ——

1. Faultlines - Avast! (Faultlines, Flagship Audio, 2007)
2. Brunettes Against Bubblegum Youth - The Brunettes (Structure & Cosmetics, Sub Pop, 2007)
3. IWE - The Noisettes (What’s The Time Mr. Wolf?, Universal Motown, 2007)
4. Hello Meow - Squarepusher (Hello Everything, Warp, 2006)
5. Hajnal - Venetian Snares (Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, Planet Mu, 2005)
6. All Is Full Of Love (Brussels 26-09-01) - Björk (Livebox Disc 4, One Little Indian, 2003)
7. Summer Goddess - Soil and “Pimp” Sessions (Summer Goddess EP, Victor Entertainment Japan, 2005)
8. Bed Of Roses - 4 Hero (Play With The Changes, Raw Canvas, 2007)
9. Kissing The Lipless - The Shins (Chutes Too Narrow, Sub Pop, 2003)
10. To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens (Seven Swans, Rough Trade, 2004)
11. To The Sky - Maps (We Can Create, Mute, 2007)
12. Genesis - Justice (†, Because Music, 2007)
13. Omega Man - Fred Falke (FabricLive 29 - Cut Copy, Fabric London, 2006)
14. What Else Is There? (by Röyksopp) (Trentemøller Remix) - Trentemøller (The Trentemøller Chronicles, Audiomatique, 2007)
15. Everyday - The Field (From Here We Go To Sublime, Kompakt, 2007)
16. ‘Cross The Breeze - Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation, Geffen, 1993)
17. The Past Is A Grotesque Animal - Of Montreal (Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, Polyvinyl, 2007)
18. Headlights - Nine Black Alps (Everything Is, Island, 2005)
19. A Last Act Of Desperate Men - The Longcut (A Call And Response, Deltasonic, 2006)
20. No Cars Go - Arcade Fire (Neon Bible, Merge, 2007)

——>< ——

That’s it, thankyou 2007, I had a ball. Can’t wait for what 2008 will bring!

Edit: The Lost Levels played in Tommy Flynns last night and were superb, hope they get signed soon, have a listen at their MySpace.

Sweat blurs his vision, canyoning into rusty eyes every time his breath grows unmanagably tight under his pounding chest and he simply has to stop, heaving, desperately grasping to remain upright.

They must be far behind, he must have five minutes.

It’s not enough and he knows it.

With each pause, each blessed influx of cold night air, his scent patch grows and hangs enticingly on the breeze. A waypoint, a giant fucking arrow pointing directly towards him.

What else can he do?

Stop?

Fight?

These things dont fight, they consume. They feed.

A rooftop clatters in the distance.

Run!

A neologism I’d like to coin: Microhobby.

In these days of constant distraction, hyperactive advertising, media, social networks, cool devices, gadgets, geekery, sport, clubs, activities, short haul weekends away, gigs, shows, films, festivals, and er, the 9to5 work that pays for it all, can anyone really have the time to form a proper hobby? Devote regular time each week to actually turn up and do stuff? I’m not so sure…

Do you sit, as I am now, in front of a film you’ve seen 10 times before, know all the plotlines and aren’t really paying attention towards, because you have your laptop warming your legs, have youtube playing in the corner window and playing with a devastatingly cute bunny? Yep, welcome to the world of Constant Partial Attention.

This is not multi tasking, this is trying to do everything at once, to only a reasonable level gaining broad but shallow experience. A more advanced manifestation is N.A.D.D. which afflicts the geek in all of us - always searching for something new, something cool, the new high thats comes from finding something out, finding out how it links into the world and expands your mental map of everything. Once linked, of course, it serves no further purpose in itself, why should it? Why stop there when it can be used to understand the next cool thing? Time to move onto it. Now, now now!

Which brings me back round to hobbies.

I’ve tried a lot of hobbies in my years, visual, musical, sporting, some even using my brain. But none, save for an unhealthy appetite for new music, seem to hang around for long. I bought a gorgeous racing bike over the summer, rode it around the South Downs for a few weekends and never did it again. The weather wasn’t great, and it demanded a train ride to get down to the club in the first place, but I could have gone if I really wanted to. Tried Capioera, Far Eastern films, long-distance running, playing guitar, snooker, weights, poetry, writing, producing music, swimming, video games, golf, hiking, climbing, badminton yadda yadda yadda. Point is, I’d love to be brilliant at something, anything, but there’s simply too much I want to do. There’s too much I know about, so much opportunity to try new things, that I seem to never build up depth in any particular area… Microhobbies all of them: entered into with much gusto, buy all the kit, get involved, get bored, go home, try something else…

Hmmm.

Microhobbies. What shall I try next?

***

I finally found the quiet steps that lead down to the Thames to let you see this imposing view:

We made it, another year!
Fireworks on the Thames looked good from afar, but this borrowed pic got closer than us :)

Happy New Year!

Jon