Arts

Return to the Cinematic Wasteland.

0

I think it might be time to subscribe to a DVD-mail-rental service, so I can catch up on all the films I’ve not yet seen (complete works of Preston Sturges here I come…) while I spend the next few months missing a large proportion of the films I might want to see, or waiting weeks for them to arrive. Yay, West Cornwall cinema-going.

I live within half an hour of four cinemas. They’re all owned by the same company. They are all around half an hour from each other (and people in this part of the world are generally used to driving places). Yet they are all showing the Exact Same films. You’d think they might put at least one different film on in each, to provide a bit of variety – especially allowing smaller, independent films to be seen by lunatics like me. It’s especially annoying as none of the films they’re showing are Four Lions, which I want to take my dad to see as I think he’d like it. It’s on in Falmouth (which is a student town), which is about 45 minutes away. So long, planet, I will be driving a lot this summer if I want to see good films, clearly.

Bookmark and Share
: Arts
: , , ,

DFW on the modern age.

0

David Foster Wallace in interview. You’ll have to turn the volume up, as it’s quite quiet. It’s part one of ten – I’m up to three, and I’m pretty sure you should watch it. It starts on humour, and moves on to talk about the things we worship and the way we are as a society. It relates a lot to Infinite Jest, (although the book was published seven years before this) – I suspect it bridges the gap between that book and the unfinished The Pale King. It’s similar to his commencement address from Kenyon College in 2005 (now published as This Is Water) – which you can (and should) read here.

Bookmark and Share
: Arts,Musings
: , ,

Before which, I am rubbish at thinking of a title.

0


I’m doing that thing you do when you realise you’re leaving a place soon – when you start noting that it’s probably going to be your last time at this place or that place, or eating here and drinking their, the last of this kind of Kölsch, and so on and so forth.  And I thought, well, I’m probably going to want to make up a photobook of my time here, so I should probably grab some snaps of a few things. Not, like, the local supermarket or the chemist’s, but the trams, and my blue gate that squeaks horrendously and so on.  So this is ‘my’ cinema.  There are a couple of cinemas that primarily show films in the original version, with or without subtitles (OV, OmU) – and this is the one I’ve been to most.  Aahhh, lovely Metropolis, where you accidentally started showing the German version of Where the Wild Things Are at the English showing, and couldn’t pull the curtains properly for the first 15 minutes of Shutter Island so the edges of Leo were all wrinkly, and where I had to sit in the same row as the whole of Team Jacob at New Moon and the whole row bounced at that moment where Jacob tries to kiss Bella but then the phone rings… (I know, I know, I just love how ludicrous and awful it is, ok).   OK, so I’m emphasising it’s flaws.  The truth is, that despite the fact I’ve had to wait a bit at times for films to arrive in Germany (A Single Man is *still* not here, and that makes me unhappy), Metropolis has showed a wider range of films that I’ve wanted to see, for longer periods of time than any other cinema that I’ve lived near.   (And they sell beer – I *wish* I’d taken that option during New Moon).  Read more...

: Arts,Life in Koeln,Media
: , , , , ,

In which I talk fuzzily about Ryszard Kapuściński

0
The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuściński

The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuściński

I’m having a moment of interested consideration about the new biography of Ryszard Kapuściński which claims that much of his reporting was heavily fictionalised and about some of the outrage about this.  As outrage goes, it’s fairly mild and seems mostly confined to those working in journalism (for example in Jon Snow’s latest blog post)  – but then Kapuściński is hardly a household name in the UK, and I’d be prepared to bet that the majority of people here who have read his work have come to it as travel literature, where the line between ‘truth’ and ‘atmosphere’ is more easily, and perhaps more legitimately, blurred than in journalistic reportage.    I came to him through his collection of essays/reportage, The Shadow of the Sun, which I thought sounded interesting based on a review I read and which I then bought with some Christmas money and enjoyed immensely.  It’s been a while since I read it, but I’m still inclined to think that it’s one of the best collections of writing about Africa that I’ve read – not necessarily factually, but in terms of painting a picture and capturing an atmosphere.  Read more...

: Arts,Media,Musings,Travel
: , , , ,

#save6Music – My letter to the BBC.

3

Dear BBC Trust,

I would like to add my voice to the many protesting against the BBC’s planned cuts, in particular the cutting of 6Music, and to echo the many tributes and plaudits that this service has received over the past few days.    To quote Jon Ronson, “The station is everything the BBC should be about: nurturing intelligent talent (both musical and presenting). Whilst some parts of the BBC (like BBC 3) seem at times nothing more than copies of certain independent channels, there is nothing out there like 6Music. It is a unique and very BBC station. Brilliant sharp, funny presenters like Adam and Joe, Lauren Laverne, The Queens of Noise, Phil Jupitus, Sean Keaveny, etc, have been entertaining loyal, grateful fans like me for years. These are intelligent people who aren’t afraid to be passionate about good, not particularly populist music. 6Music is the Radio 4 of music channels.”

I have long been a defender of the licence fee, as I feel that the BBC provides journalistic and entertainment services that the commercial sector cannot provide.   I fully agree with Mark Thompson’s statement in the Guardian today, that the BBC’s remit is ,”To inform, educate and entertain audiences with programmes and services of high quality, originality and value. It strives to fulfil this mission not to further any political or commercial interest, but because the British public believe that universal access to ideas and cultural experiences of merit and ambition is a good in itself.”  BBC 6Music, I believe, epitomises the BBC’s potential to succeed in fulfilling this remit.  The way that its wonderful presenters are allowed to employ their own judgement and share their tastes has enabled them to make brilliant use of the BBC’s unparalleled archives as well as  to discover and support a wide variety of new music.  Read more...

: Arts,Media
: ,

Books and Films of 2010

2

As ever, if I don’t list ‘em, I don’t remember all of them.

Books
1. Manhood for Amateurs -Michael Chabon
2. Naked – David Sedaris
3. The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
4. When You are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris
5. Shades of Grey – Jasper Fforde
6. Consider Phlebas – Iain M. Banks
7. Barrel Fever – David Sedaris
8. A Most Wanted Man – John Le Carre
9. The Broom of the System – David Foster Wallace
10. Changing My Mind – Zadie Smith
11. Beauty – Robin McKinley
12. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
13. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, volume 6: Retreat – Jane Espenson and Joss Whedon
14. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell

Films
1. The Princess and the Frog
2. Invictus
3. Sherlock Holmes
4. A Serious Man
5. Up in the Air
6. The Ghostwriter
7. Shutter Island
8. Green Zone
9. A Single Man
10. Iron Man 2
11. Robin Hood
12. Four Lions
13. Twilight: Eclipse

Last Year’s Lists

Bookmark and Share
: Arts
: , ,

Noughties lists…

5

I wanna join in! Lists of the year, PAH. Lists of the decade, HURRAH. Though, at the risk of turning into Toby Ziegler, why does the decade end this year, and not next year? Why is the  decade not 2001-2010, rather than 2000-2009?  Can we bring up the bit where there wasn’t a year nought, or is that all cliche and annoying? Anyway, moving on…  Lists! Lists are fun. Top Tens!  I can do books and TV and movies of the decade, although we should all bear in mind that I have not yet started watching The Wire.  I probably can’t do theatre, not sensibly, since I don’t go very often (as often as I’d like), though I can wave my arms up and down and talk about the few things I did see and the plays that really stuck with me, and music. Hmmm, I’ll try, but that might get quite random, and will essentially be ‘Ten records what I have loved with absolutely no critical or aesthetic thought behind it’. I think they’re going to be unordered lists, because, well, trying to rank things like The Assination of Jesse James, The Lord of the Rings, and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind against each other is kinda daft. They’re also going to be lists that mix up the things that I think have been really really good with things that have become a part of my personal furniture. So the Eyre Affair may knock Fortress of Solitude out of the books list because it has been a bigger part of my decade.  Just be warned, it’s going to be a little bit bonkers, and pretty much all about me, with no real grounding in any theories of aesthetics.  Read more...

: Arts,Musings
: , , , ,

Philippe Jaroussky

0

Carestini To start with a random aside.  One of the problems with Peter Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill (other than the widely reported facts of it not being workable, or in any way in touch with the modern world, and if you want a really good explanation of why, you should read Hannah Nicklin’s open letter to the man himself) is that it’s hard to say that it’s a deeply stupid idea, without actually admitting that you’ve broken it, and that puts you in an interesting legal position. Incidentally, does anyone know if this bill is going to be retroactive?

Anyway, the point of this is that without the internet and friends sending me music I’ve not heard by artists I’ve never heard of, I would never have heard of the French Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky.  And that would mean that his record company wouldn’t have made the money that they have off me for the two albums I’ve bought so far and the future albums I intend to buy in a month when Christmas isn’t imminent, and whoever makes money off concerts wouldn’t have made money off me buying a ticket to go see him at the Kölner Philharmonie, and no one would make money from me buying his albums to give to people for Christmas/birthdays.  I would almost certainly not have thought to pick up an album of Castrati songs by a singer I’d never heard of.  The only other way I might have come across it would have been if Jaroussky had been performing at the Proms and I’d happened to hear that particular concert on the radio or on iPlayer.   And then not only would people be losing out on making money off me, I would be missing out on some seriously gorgeous music.  Read more...

: Arts
: ,

The Pixar Lamp is brought to justice

0

Beautiful, brilliant, funny, and not a little disturbing.

(via wired uk)

Bookmark and Share
: Arts,Musings
: , , ,

In which I take up City Life

0

I always suspected that living in a city would bankrupt me, as I would spend all my money on going to the theatre and the ballet.   It’s why I’ve often considered it a good thing that I am ambivalent about the prospect of living in London (although if one of the applications I’ve submitted for next year comes through that’s where I’ll be) – I know the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House often have cheap tickets, but I’d still end up ruined.

I mention this, having been to the Kölner Philharmonie twice in a week. Ahem.  That said – the first was a freebie courtesy of the university’s international office, tickets to see a show called ‘Fanfare Ciocarlia’ – a performance by a band from Romania. Also, I left at the interval because I was tired – and whilst I did enjoy the music, I tend to enjoy it more outside of the concert hall – especially a sit-down concert hall like the Philharmonie.

Kölner Philharmonie  Read more...

: Arts,Life in Koeln
: , , , ,
Page 1 of 512345»
Calotropis theme by itx