Monday, May 31, 2010
My Hen Weekend
OMG...what an amazing, crazy, fun, silly weekend I had in Edinburgh with all my lovely friends and my mum!Unfortunately Chris' mum couldn't make it over from Ireland because there was a death in the family. I was really gutted about that because I love Chris' mum, Madeleine, but we toasted her many times over the course of the weekend. I wanted to post some pics to give you an insight into what we got up to, but obviously I didn't want to put any pics up of all my friends as they might not want them to be posted online! So, I stuck to pics of me, my mum and random people we met along the way. These are by no means very flattering as I'm generally pulling stupid faces but hey, a hen weekend is no place to be taking yourself too seriously!
First off, I will let you know the itinerary for the weekend:
Friday: Lots of Champagne, Comedy Club, Bar, GHQ
Saturday: Exploring Edinburgh, Group Makeup consultation with MUA, Meal at an Italian restaurant, Party bus around the city
Sunday: Hangovers
The Highlight Comedy Club - this place was 90% stag parties so when we walked in, we got a standing applause from the first table of guys! That was fantastic because we were all tiddly on champagne and felt like we were the bee's knees! I just remember thinking "don't fall over laura, don't fall over!" The first comedian wasn't great but the next two made up for it. One of them had a guitar and since we were sitting right in front of the stage, he took it upon himself to pick on me and my friend, Nassim. He ind of reminded me of Jack Black, not by the way he looked but just his style of comedy. We both had embarassing songs made up about us, complete with suggestive innuendo...I think my face was bright red at that point!ha ha.
GHQ - We headed to a bar where the girls surprised me with a mystery cocktail that tasted a bit dodgy...they eventually told me it was a rather interesting mix of Vodka, Whisky, Peach Schnapps, Grenadine and Lemonade. Then we headed to GHQ, which stands for Gay Head Quarters and we had such a great laugh there. The music was brilliant, I loved the style of the club and we danced until our feet were red and swollen!
Group Makeup Consultation - I arrived back from having a wander around Edinburgh to find that one of the apartments we were staying in had been set up for a consultation with Judith Campbell of Feel Brand New and she does:
- Colour Consultations
- Style Consultations
- Seasonal Fashion Update
- Wardrobe Weeding
- Personal Shopping
Meal - During the meal, I was given a pink sash with flashing lights on it saying 'Bride To Be', a flashing L plate, a necklace with the cutest picture of Chris, aged 10, dressed as Superman and a tiara/veil. I was quite happy to wear all of that stuff since I got to wear my own clothes underneath. The girls also presented me with a Photobox album called 'Guide To The Bride'. This was a collection of photos of me growing up, complete with witty captions, then pics of Chris growing up, and then finally pictures of us as a couple. It actually brought me to tears as I turned each page and I thought it was such an amazing, fun and imaginative gift that we can keep forever and show our kids in the future. Even though some of the pics of me as a teenager were soooo embarassing! Cringe! That wasn't all though, they also conducted a 'Mr & Mrs' quiz where I had to answer questions about Chris (his first pet's name, his dream car, what he would have for his last meal etc) and I'm proud to say that I got almost all of them right. Everyone was surprised that I knew so much about Chris and I guess that maybe shows that we spend WAY too much time together!ha ha.
Party bus - This was hands down the best part about the whole weekend and all the girls agreed. Basically, it's just a double decker bus that plays very loud party music, drives you to each bar and there are other stag and hen parties on there. As you can see from the pics, we were on the bottom floor of the bus with a stag party consisting of PE teachers from Glasgow! They were all dressed as superheroes and luckily for us they were genuinely nice guys who were fun but never crossed the line with us. You are allowed to drink on the bus which made things a bit messy (sorry about the diet coke spillage mum!) and as it was so busy, it's not easy to hold a drink, dance and hold on to the safety bar in the aisle at the same time but somehow we managed it! I'm not sure about the safety aspect of all of that but hey, we survived! The other good thing about this was that we didn't have to walk anywhere in our skyscraper heels. We ended up at a club at the end of the night and danced until we couldn't stand anymore!
I really couldn't have wished for a better weekend for my hen party. It was definitely my wonderful friends and my mum that made it so special for me. We laughed so much and I know we will remember that weekend forever.
I still have my hen night in Aberdeen in July so I'm really looking forward to that too!
Second Person | Introduction | The Real Fictional You
Week 2 | Second Person | Contents
Tuesday | Poetry | Are You Talking To Me?
Wednesday | Fiction | Choose-Your-Own-Article
Thursday | Music | On You-turns: Twin Exercises in a Mature 'You'
Friday | Chapbook | Maybe I Should Sit Quietly In A Dark Room For A While, by Paul Beckman
Saturday | Mixtape | Songs for Natalie
Sunday | Mini Essay | Half-laughter, by Phil Brown
The narratologist, Helmut Bonheim coined two terms to attempt to describe the resultant ambiguity and multifunctionality of use of the second-person pronoun in second-person texts. The first, "referential slither" explains the capacity for ‘You’ to address the actual reader and narratee as well as a fictional protagonist. The second term, "conative solicitude," directs our attention to the power of the second person narrative to engage our emotions and connect with us more deeply – the reader is closer to the story as he or she more literarily steps through it.
Between them, the terms highlight the two key characteristics of the second person – that it is ambiguous and that it asks for a connection.
It’s all about you.
It begins with the you of folktales that evokes the universal ‘You’. You – you specifically who could be anybody.
It has always been handy in guide books/self-help books/do-it-yourself manuals to tell you what to do.
It found form in the game book – choose your own adventure - with the reader as protagonist, making choices, determining action and responding to the plot. A story where you are you but with a stretch of the imagination.
Much had happened since the game book enjoyed popularity. There has been an exponential growth of virtual realities – new places where you can seem to be and who you are is variable. Video games. The industry of time in others boots is big and the spectrum it supplies is vast – wild fantasy, magic, mutation, aliens etc to simulations of the real.
As technology advances the differences between you and the virtual ‘You’s’ narrows – a tightening of the relationship between narrator, narratee and story world. It seems to be the next thing we demand of game consoles – for us to be part of the game. Combined with the ever-increasing freedom of our interactivity we edge closer to the point where we play ourselves telling our own story. The real fictional you.
Project Natal, a technology Microsoft is launching later this year, enables you to interact with a game that ‘knows you’ – face, voice and full body recognition. A story where you play you.
This week we will mostly be talking about ‘the second person’.
James Harringman
Editor
The Crazies
Titel: The Crazies
Genre: Mysterium/Sci-Fi/Thriller/Skräck
Land: USA
År: 2010
Regi: Breck Eisner
I rollerna: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker
Handling: En småstadsidyll slås i spillror när ett okänt gift förvandlar invånarna till mordiska galningar. Stadens sheriff, hans gravida fru, hans närmste man och en sjuksköterska är några få som inte har blivit infekterade, och de tvingas nu samarbeta för att ta sig ut ur staden levande.
Omdöme: Originalet från 1973 med samma titel regisserades av George A. Romero. Och trots en lovande premiss lyckades den filmen inte något vidare då den främst var riktigt sunkig i det mesta. I denna remake har man tagit grundidén och byggt vidare på den så det fungerar till en hel långfilm. I centrum står stadens sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) som snart inser att det inte ser särskilt ljust ut för den lilla staden.
Det är i mång och mycket en ganska typisk amerikansk film i genren, men trots allt en ganska så lyckad sådan. Och det är inte svårt att vara bättre än originalet i detta fall, vilket den är med råge. Tycker faktiskt den lyckas väl med hela stämningen och situationen blir allt värre för de inblandade när militären iklädda gasmasker tar sig in i staden för att evakuera och isolera för att förhindra en spridning av det livsfarliga giftet. Vi vet lika lite som huvudpersonerna, nämligen hur det sprider sig och hur lång tid man har på sig.
En sak som kunde gjorts lite bättre är själva upplösningen som inte är helt tillfredställande i en sån här film där man vill se att allt fullbordas. Visserligen bjuds man på en del snygga scener och en ganska bra nerv, men innerst inne vet man trots allt hur det kommer sluta och därför önskar man sig en överraskning som alltså aldrig kommer. Det är ett gediget arbete som i slutänden är en lyckad remake som fungerar precis som man önskar sig.
3 - Skådespelare
3 - Handling
4 - Känsla
3 - Musik
3 - Foto
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16 - Totalt
Betyg:
IMDb: 6.9
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Issue 1 | Mini Essay | Three Creations of Omar Khayyam, by John Clegg
But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it… James Merrill
It’s a nice trick to get famous in two diametrically opposed fields, especially when the fame is as weird as Omar Khayyam’s, who isn’t primarily remembered for his work in mathematics – where his achievements are undisputed – but rather for his poetry, which he may never have written. The first references to him as an author of quatrains occur about 50 years after his death, and the earliest collections of his poems (compiled about 200 years after his death) are full of misattributions and doubtful attributions. A core of 16 or so quatrains appears to be the work of a single author from the proper time period, and maybe this is some or all of the real Khayyam, but maybe it’s someone else. In any case it’s the best kernel we have.
The first creation of Omar began sometime not long after he died. He had a reputation for unorthodoxy, perhaps undeserved; his philosophical treatises argue from a mystical Sufi perspective. After his death, anonymous verses which edged on blasphemy were attributed to him (in the same way as anonymous witticisms are often attributed to Oscar Wilde, or a huge body of existing proverbs was attributed to King Solomon). As these attributions piled up, the burgeoning reputation of Khayyam drew more and more material into its orbit (incidentally, Khayyam had described a heliocentric solar system decades before Copernicus). By 1600, collections of Khayyam’s poetry contained as many as 1000 quatrains. Omar was suddenly enormous and important; 16 quatrains, perhaps the work of an afternoon, had exploded into an oeuvre.
But the second creation of Omar is the more well-known. Borges described it best, with his usual technique of turning all literary history into a Borges story: ‘A miracle happens: from the fortuitous conjunction of a Persian astronomer who condescends to write poetry, and an eccentric Englishman who peruses Oriental and Hispanic books, perhaps without completely understanding them, emerges an extraordinary poet who does not resemble either of them.’ One effect of this was a smoothing out; as befits an anthology containing hundreds of authors, the original Rubaiyat didn’t hang together in any way. Fitzgerald added a narrative and, perhaps more importantly, a tone: not an artificial exoticism but a distinct London idiom, one of the reasons for his poem’s enduring popularity. (‘O, take the Cash in Hand and waive the Rest.’)
Over the next century came another creation: a wave of re-translations, correcting Fitzgerald’s egregious errors, sometimes presented as definitive (in the case of Robert Graves, with the backing of a forged manuscript and some phony scholarship), other times presented as additional (in the case of Frank Kuppner, say, whose version is for my money the best recent Rubaiyat). Sixteen short poems had become a thousand, which had become one long poem in a different language, which had become thirty-odd long poems from different authors. Working backwards it reminds me of the opening credits to the BBC’s adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: a series of Russian dolls climaxing in a doll without a face, and finally emptiness. As a mathematician, Khayyam’s greatest innovation was [x], the algebraic symbol for an unknown quantity.
By John Clegg
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Scaramouche
Titel: Scaramouche
Genre: Äventyr/Drama/Romantik
Land: USA
År: 1952
Regi: George Sidney
I rollerna: Stewart Granger, Mel Ferrer, Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh
Handling: Filmen handlar om Andre Moreau - en adelsmans oäkta barn. När hans vän blir mördad av en ond adelsman blir han också oskyldigt anklagad för ett brott. Andre gömmer sig då hos en teatertrupp som inte bryr sig om han förflutna, lär sig fäktas och bidar den tid då han kan hämnas.
Omdöme: När man känner för ett äventyr och en matinéfilm så är en film som denna med svärddueller inte helt fel. Stewart Granger spelar Andre Moreau vars vän Philippe, även känd som Marcus Brutus, blir dödad mitt framför ögonen på honom av en av Frankrikes skickligaste svärdsmän Noel, Marquis de Maynes (Mel Ferrer). Eftersom Andre inte är någon svärdsman måste han lära sig för att kunna få sin hämnd. Samtidigt är två kvinnor, Lenore (Eleanor Parker) och Aline (Janet Leigh), hans två viktigaste personer i hans liv.
Till en början är jag inte så förtjust i filmen som präglas av en studiokänsla och en del undermåligt skådespeleri. Men det övergår snabbt till att bli en trevlig filmupplevelse och ett riktigt äventyr som man inte får nu för tiden. De fyra i huvudrollerna ger alla bra prestationer och man bjuds på en hel del minnesvärda scener som kommer allt tätare ju längre in man kommer. Man har bl.a. den längsta svärdduellen någonsin i en film, och bara den i sig är värd att se filmen för.
Mel Ferrer, som under en längre tid var gift med Audrey Hepburn, har en förmåga att både kunna vara charmig och i samma scen vara riktigt ond. Kan inte annat än tycka han ger den bästa prestationen av alla i filmen just pga denna egenskap. Filmen är annars mysig och trevlig rakt igenom, om än alltså lite sisådär till en början innan den verkligen kommit igång. Och karaktären Scaramouche, som filmen också heter, är en skön figur som får en central roll i filmen trots att den egentligen glider in på ett bananskal.
4 - Skådespelare
4 - Handling
4 - Känsla
3 - Musik
3 - Foto
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18 - Totalt
Betyg:
IMDb: 7.7
Issue 1 | Mixtape | Mixtape I, Berry Men
Music As Reading: Mixtape I, Berry Men
Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was bester! He wrote like wet papier-mâché, went the Heming-way, weirdly on wings and with maximum pain – we call upon the author to explain.
This mixtape represents the coming together of songs drawing upon the imagery slash message slash romanticism of a poet’s life and career, musical literary criticism, work with very similar creative specifications to the same poet’s best pieces, and combination’s thereof – the focus being that writer most beloved by contemporary American guitar bands, John Berryman. And more specifically, his 385 Dream Songs. In order to pose the following questions: can music about literature bring with it new understandings of literature? If not, does it have a right to essentially then leech off this literature – even if the result is a compelling new piece of work? What happens when a song like Okkervil River’s John Allyn Smith Sails reflects upon both literature and music (i.e. the Beach Boys) simultaneously? Do certain of these songs bring something new to the real-time experience of reading Berryman (have a look at Dream Song 4 with Gainsbourg on in the background and you’ll see what I’m getting at)? Is a musical thematic project (say, write a ‘Dream Song’) the same as – or at the very least, related to – a similar literary thematic project? And what happens in the spaces in between these questions – is the existence of a composition for a brass quintet entitled Fancies, Toyes and Dreams: His Rest pure coincidence?
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
Part one, Biography
Intoxicated Man – Serge Gainsbourg
Stuck Between Stations – The Hold Steady
John Allyn Smith Sails – Okkervil River
Part two, Literary criticism
We Call upon the Author – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning? – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Softly and Gently (Angel), the Dream of Gerontius Op. 38, part 2 – Edward Elgar
Part three, Other people’s Dream Songs
Dream Song – Matthew’s Southern Comfort
Coat Check Dream Song – Bright Eyes
Dream Song – Scott Matthews
Part four, Combinations thereof
Papa Won’t Leave You Henry – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
We Live As We Dream, Alone – Gang of Four
Fancies, Toyes and Dreams: His Rest – Giles Farnaby
Sam Kinchin-Smith
Music Editor
Friday, May 28, 2010
Issue 1 | Chapbook | Calendar by John Bowman
Experimental, challenging and bloody brilliant.
John Bowman delivers a chapbook that takes its time - builds over the months and maps out in little squares the madness of the day to day.
Click here to read.
One heart, one mind, one Body
It’s amazing what God can do with people. Those who you thought were beyond salvation’s reach, or who wasted their lives, can be found, can be changed, can be victories for the Lord.
James grew up in a family whose agnostic parents believe in evidence of things seen, in contrast to faith in the unseen. He and his brother and sister never had the stability of faith or a godly lifestyle. They used every illicit drug, lived the hippie life in 1960s San Francisco
Then one day, two people came uninvited to James’ home and shared their faith with him. He asked them about the Ouija board he was experimenting with, and they explained from the Bible how he was placing his life in the Devil’s care when playing that “game.” He continued to study with them, and joined their denomination. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted to serve in the US
While James’ brother and sister continued for a few more years in their paths of self-destruction and humanistic religion, James was a new man. He settled down in marriage and fatherhood. He became an active member of his congregation and learned his Bible well. His skill at painting took on an artistry that led to some restoration work at Hearst Castle
Having only heard of his wild oats-sowing, I never knew about James’ respectable life until a few weeks ago. I was a bit nervous to meet this stranger who’d had a worldly life that included prison (surely for drugs or drug-related crime, I thought). But James was not brain-damaged by drugs, nor did he have the hardness of an ex-convict. He was a gentle, soft-spoken, thoughtful man who had the comfort of others in mind. He took several of us, mostly strangers, on a day-long excursion on the drizzly California
Jesus prayed that we disciples would be of one mind and heart – His heart! Holding prejudice toward other backgrounds or religions is contrary to that oneness that Jesus desires. Discrimination often means that we have judged ourselves as the elect of God, and others as less worthy (or not worthy) of eternal life.
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
We often stop at the first promise about the covenant becoming part of our minds and hearts. But what a blessing we miss if we stop there! The next part of the promise is that “they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” because the Lord Himself will reach them and teach them!
It’s easy to be proud of our witnessing and evangelistic efforts and successes. But we only support God’s work. Only God can do God’s work. The Lord will forgive and forget wickedness, and He will lead His children to Him. We are added to the scene as God allows us to share the Shepherd’s joy in bringing in the lost sheep.
One of my pastors connects the following verses: the Great Shepherd has sheep in other shelters that He will bring in Himself (John 10:16); even in heaven, some of the redeemed will ask why Jesus carries scars (Zechariah 13:6), because they’ve not heard the full story of salvation; and what God requires of each of us is “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8 NIV). Your God, the Word says. There will, indeed, be countless people who are saved in their relationship with and faith in the God who speaks to them and teaches them in His way and His time, but surprisingly, may not use the same methods with others as He did to win us.
Where does that leave us as fellow travelers in the Gospel Commission? It invites us to be useful, willing, humble servants. Servants who will develop relationships with other children of God, and let the love of God live in us without reservation. The possibilities of what God can and will do with lives that we might have given up on, are endless. We share in the celebration that the Lord has brought in all the lost sheep – not 99 percent, but 100 percent – including you and me. Including those “shady” friends, relatives, or neighbors we should know, but haven’t known before!
Get out there and start some conversations. Listen for their heartbeat, their motivation, their questions. Discover how alike you are, not how distant or different. Celebrate your new bonds and relationships. As you share what God has done in your life and theirs, you’ll find that God has been there before you, and He’s in it right now. That is some good news to tell. That is evangelism.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Pending Hen Weekend,Nars and Philosophy
Hello ladies! This will be my last post until Monday as I am heading off to Edinburgh tomorrow to embark on my hen weekend. I have a loose itinerary of where I need to be and what time but I have no idea what the girls have planned for me! I'm really looking forward to having a proper girly weekend with all my fantastic friends. I am very lucky to have a lovely group of pals to spend my time with.
No doubt there will be cocktails galore...bring it on! I really want to have a Mai Tai (or three) because I first tried them when I was on holiday in Barcelona and they are soooo yummy. They are really refreshing! Basically, a Mai Tai contains the following:
White Rum
Dark Rum
Amaretto De Saronno
Apricot Brandy
Orange Curacao
Lime Juice
Pineapple Juice
Ok, so it doesn't sound yummy when you write a list of the ingredients but believe me, they're lush! That reminds me, I better take some Ibuprofen with me! I was in Boots today stocking up on Scholl Party Feet and blister plasters for my skyscraper heels! (I'm still on the look out for that product in stick form that you can rub on your feet to prevent friction...). I will give you guys all the goss from the hen weekend when I return...I'm sure I will have many a story to tell!
On another note, I finally got my hands on Nars blush in Silvana and Nars Sweet Revenge Lipgloss, which is a new shade. Silvana is a terracotta with soft gold shimmer and it would make a perfect contour shade for when I'm paler and a great blusher for when I'm a bit more tanned for a really sunkissed look. The shimmer is so subtle as you can see from the pan and swatch. Sometimes Nars blushes can be a hit or a miss, but this one is smooth, extremely blendable and really pretty once applied.
Sweet Revenge lipgloss is described as a sheer pink grapefruit, however I would say it's slightly darker than you would imagine. It's more of a peach with slight shimmer in my opinion. It will look really good with a golden eye look and lashings of bronzer. I've heard about Nars lipglosses developing a strange smell after a few months but I must say that I haven't noticed that with my Turkish Delight one as yet. It's a shame because there are so many pretty shades. I use so much lipgloss that I will probably use it up before it gets to that stage anyway. I love the look of the Striptease shade which is described as a candlelit nude...sounds like my kinda gloss! I do think these glosses are a bit overpriced given that alot of the shades are dupe-able.
I also wanted to share with you an AMAZING hot salt scrub from Philosophy called Pure Grace. I like my scrubs to come in copious amounts because I use so much of it on my body. This is one heavy duty scrub and it made mincemeat of the fake tan remnants I had on my elbows (I was having a lazy moment and didn't apply moisturiser before tanning...cardinal rule broken!tut tut!). Usually nothing would remove it and I would have to wait a few days for it to subside. But this scrub removed all trace of it in one go although I would only use it once a week as it's too much to use daily. I just scooped up a little scrub whilst wearing my exfoliating gloves and quickly went over my body in circular motions in the shower. This scrub is oil-free, glycerin based, with a very light clean fragrance and leaves my skin super duper smooth and soft, without any oily residue left behind. I like this so much because it's amazingly effective and it's great to use before fake tan. Oil based scrubs leave a film of oil on your skin afterwards which means that it's harder for the fake tan to adhere to the skin evenly, so you end up with patchiness and streaks. This stuff is definitely the best scrub I have used in preparation for self tanning. Thumbs up!
On a completely different note, I caught on to Tanya Burr's vids on Youtube (the girlfriend of Pixiwoo Sam and Nic's younger brother). I'm sure everyone else is already a subscriber and I'm just the last to know! But in case you don't know...she is a freelance makeup artist in her own right and up until a couple of days ago, I had only ever seen her being used as a model for Sam or Nic to demonstrate makeup looks. I have really been getting into her videos...I don't know about you but when I find YT channels I like, I tend to watch about 10 vids in one go, I'm excited to go through them all. This is one of my favourites of hers:
I also just subscribed to her other channel which is a mixture of Vlogs and Hauls. I always like to get to know the people behind the YT channel and I was watching a vid of Tanya and her boyfriend, Jim, where he does her makeup for her at the request of lots of subscribers. Can you imagine your bloke doing your makeup???ha ha. It's really funny, incredibly cute and they just come across as a really sweet couple who like to take the mick out of eachother:
The bit that made me laugh the most is how he rubs the primer into her face quite roughly and also the poking of the eyes.ha ha. Let's be honest, more often than not, our other halves are usually so clueless about what it takes to apply makeup and the fact that there is actually skill involved! I know guys always say they prefer girls without makeup but I seriously think that they often aren't sure what is and isn't makeup! Chris looks at pics of Scarlett Johansson or Cheryl Cole and he's like "they look so much nicer au naturel"...I have to interrupt him and politely point out that their 'au naturel' look is all skillfully applied makeup!ha ha. Boys...
Right, that's me off for now...time to plan my outfits for the weekend! Yahooooooo!
Issue 1 | Music | Music As Reading Introduction
The Music As Reading Silkworms Ink Spotify Mixtape Collection, an introduction
The act of reading is, by and large, taken for granted. At least, the pragmatics of it are. Yes, critical discourse enjoys referring to good and bad reading(s), to close and, increasingly in a world of so-called world literature, distant reading. And popular debate about the positives and problematics of reading novels and newspapers from the screen of a Kindle or an iPad, about the essential literary qualities of the throw-aroundable paperback, continues to fill far more cultural comment column-inches than, really, it ever should have done. Still, certain practical basics of reading are taken for granted, assumed, agreed upon in a way that, when you think about it, is rather curious: we stand or, most likely, sit; we look at a book and only that book; we concentrate on the words, fully; we read them in the direction slash sequence that their author intended us to read them in; we re-read until we understand – perhaps due to distraction, maybe because of the especial complicatedness of a passage. And so on.
Now, of course, and particularly within poetry, this is not universally the case: B.S. Johnson’s avant-garde experiments with literary ordering, experimental sound- and picture-poetry by the likes of Keston Sutherland and David Morley (a chapbook of whose is a highlight of the current Silkworms crop), approaches to reading themselves taken for granted by non-Western and-or archaic cultural traditions (calligraphy, say; right-left reading versus left-right; Blake, and others, etching the originals of their poems in mirror-writing; codes; aural traditions) all attest to this fact. That many of these exceptions represent little more than tweaks to the conventional reading formula – often over-serious, invariably self-consciously niche, frequently debated with a fervour that far outstrips their actual, real-terms significance – suggests, though, that they might well be rule-proving ones.
Question is, is this reading-conservatism a problem? In many ways, no. In fact, it strikes me that reading is one of only a scattering of things that unambiguously benefit from a reasonable dose of conservatism – another example would be making tea. It is of fundamental importance that individuals continue to approach texts with the time, patience, reverence (to a point), a work-ethic, philosophy, lack of hurriedness, lack of expectation of immediate meaning, vocabulary – not to mention imagination, creativity, belief in magic – to do said texts justice. If this concept falters, at the highest levels of reading (for that is what we’re discussing: rigorous, scholarly, energetic reading, not snapshot-thought – so no, Twitter isn’t going to destroy proper reading, it’s simply a new tool for different reading) then literature falters with it.
However.
To focus too much on these conservative fundamentals is to lose sight of less conservative methods of preserving them in a changing world (ugh, changing world – my apologies). Indeed, it seems to me that for all somebody like Sutherland’s attempts to scissor poetic form and the block-structures of reading into something that constitutes, in itself, a form of political polemic, regardless of what convention states the actual words mean, his process represents in many ways an affirmation of the most traditional and conservative tenets of the actual act of reading (slash listening – are they really so different?) Getting anything out of a Sutherland text or reading requires a good deal of old-fashioned hard work. (We’re edging, I think, towards an Adorno-esque understanding of the crucial role difficultness has to play in resistance – a difficultness that is born, probably, out of a conservative approach to the pragmatics of reading – but I suspect that’s a story for another day…)
Long and short of it, difficultness is a good thing! Difficultness equals good reading! Difficultness is poetry, certainly! A by-no-means-new idea, but one that something like, y’know, the internet can facilitate in any number of new ways. The act of reading is taken for granted. This is a problem, because it has the potential to mean that reading, per se, gets left behind, churned in the wake of the digital revolution (ugh, digital revolution – my apologies) – at the expense of the part of reading that must be taken for granted, i.e. difficultness, rigour. We need New Readings. No, that’s not quite right:
We need New Old Readings. In this digital age (Jesus Christ, stop) of ours, we need more Sutherland-style new approaches to preserving traditional principles.
It’ll be with this somewhat lofty concept in mind, coupled with a more humdrum desire to find a way of featuring music on a literary (slash t-shirt) site – because music is a good thing – that Silkworms Ink will launch a brand new feature this coming weekend: the Music As Reading Silkworms Ink Spotify Mixtape Collection. I’ll let that sink in for a moment or two…
The Music As Reading Spotify Mixtape Collection will, like the Silkworms Ink Chapbook Collection, be added to each and every week of the year, the result being a glossy, erudite archive coming together in notimeatall, available for free to anybody – be they regular, contributor or stumble-acrosser. Like the Chapbook Collection, it will be open to submissions from anybody with remarkable ideas – all we ask for is a title, an explanation-blurb, a brief bio and a tracklisting and we’ll do the rest, artwork, the works. What I’m hoping most of all is that some of you start submitting Music As Reading Mixtapes featuring your own compositions, symphonies, soundtracks. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
The premise behind the Collection is a very simple one. We need New Readings. So here’s an idea: musical readings. Or, more specifically, Music As Reading: what happens when we make music central to, a fundamental part of the act of reading; if we sandwich music between a text and our comprehension of it; if we regard music as a means to unlocking literature as opposed to an alternative or accompaniment to it? What is music that claims to be about literature, or vice versa? Can lyrics, say, or a libretto, ever constitute music and literature simultaneously? Forget ekphrasis, art about art – what about a synthesis? What about art on top of art?
What happens when we read with music? Do good things happen?
Each week, a new mixtape will explore a different fragment of this utterly massive question. It may be a particularly tiny shard; in fact at the beginning, it probably will be, as the collection finds its feet – not to mention poetry-focussed, as this is where, I’m sure you’ll agree, the most obvious intersections occur. It may be a factual shard (exploring, I don’t know, Songs About Poets), a more practical-experimental shard (Listen To This Song Whilst Reading This Poem And See What Happens) or a philosophical-metaphysical shard (Is A Poem Not Exactly The Same As A Song?) There may be no coherent sequence over the course of a few weeks, followed a few weeksworth of mixtapes exploring exactly the same thing, in slightly different ways. Mixtapes might come complete with new writing, or aim themselves at ancient writing. All that is certain is that, every six weeks or so, my weekly blogpost will focus not on that week’s theme, but on what new lessons and understandings might have been gleaned from the Music As Reading experience of six new mixtapes. The introduction of new mixtapes will generally centre upon a clutch of questions: these mini-essays will hopefully offer up an answer or two.
I think I’ll leave this probably-too-long-already introduction there. Just a few practical details. You’ll need Spotify to listen to each week’s mixtape – register for, at the very least, the free, basic (‘Open’) service here. Mixtape submissions can take, really, any form you like as long as they include the basics listed in bold above – whack them over to music@silkwormsink.com, but I’d recommend leaving it a few weeks to see what the collection’s about before doing so. Music As Reading is a concept best understood through practical demonstration. Mixtape-Chapbook joint submissions are also welcome – up to you how you go about doing that.
A final thought: as this week’s theme is Issue 1's here’s a video of what might be considered the first major new-tech example of Music As Reading – on any number of levels. Music As Reading Issue One, then: Nick Cave, musician turned author, reading a chapter of his second novel published last summer, the Death of Bunny Munro, accompanied by a soundtrack composed especially by Cave and his right-hand Bad Seed, Warren Ellis. Oh, and below that, an App advertisement making the case for Cave and Ellis’ project representing a new mode of reading. Revolutionary technique or corporate gimmick – you decidez, kidz…
Nick Cave, novelist
App advertisement
Sam Kinchin-Smith
Music Editor
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Robin Hood
Titel: Robin Hood
Genre: Action/Äventyr/Drama
Land: USA/Storbritannien
År: 2010
Regi: Ridley Scott
I rollerna: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, William Hurt, Max von Sydow
Handling: Historien om en bågskytt i Kung Rikard Lejonhjärtas armé som slogs mot de invaderande fransmännen i 1200-talets England. Filmen tar sin början efter Rikards död och belägringen av Chalus-Chabrol och visar hur denne man snabbt blir impopulär hos den nyligen krönte prins John och den engelska adeln.
Omdöme: De flesta känner till berättelsen om Robin Hood som ett äventyr, om bågskytten som tog från de rika och gav till de fattiga. Ja, de ingredienserna finns även här, men de är väldigt nedtonade och istället fokuserar man på hans kamp innan han blev Robin Hood, som Robin Longstride. Det här är egentligen ingen typisk Robin Hood-film och ett enda stort äventyr. Här handlar det om det politiska maktspelet mellan England och Frankrike och hur alla försöker gå bakom ryggen på varandra för att få som de vill.
Vad jag uppskattar är att filmen är mörk, rå och grå. Det känns mer autentiskt på så vis och det är något jag gillar med denna era på film. Kungarna var mer involverade på den tiden, de gick själva ut i strid och de levde gott bland sitt guld och i sina stora, mäktiga slott. Så när omtyckte Kung Rikard Lejonhjärta dör, tar hans son Prins John över och ändrar på spelreglerna. Samtidigt förhandlar Prins Johns högra hand, Godfrey (Mark Strong), med fransmännen och planerar en ful kupp. Robin Hood (Russell Crowe) hamnar mittemellan och blir en jagad man. Lägg därtill Marion (Cate Blanchett) vars svärfar är Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow) som tar in Robin som sin egen son.
Vad jag gillar med filmen är att det är ett gott hantverk, något jag tänker på genom hela filmen. Allt känns genuint och välgjort vilket får mig att komma in i atmosfären och tidsepoken. Kanske är det för att jag är upplagd för denna sorts matiné eller så tycker jag bara om det helt enkelt. Filmen har sina svaga sidor också och det är väl främst att filmen är lite för lång i vissa partier utan att det egentligen behövs. Man känner aldrig riktigt för karaktärerna som man önskar (förutom för Godfrey då eftersom Mark Strong är en så härlig skådespelare som väcker karaktären till liv) och bybarnen är det största problemet då de är helt onödiga för filmen.
Kanske kunde man ha utvecklat karaktärerna och vissa element hos Robin, så som bågskyttet som man oftast får se i form av någon tävling eller utmaning. Å andra sidan får man prov på hans skicklighet vid ett par tillfällen som istället blir som en slags uppvisning som nästan är mer passande. Man har helt enkelt gjort en vuxen version av Robin Hood och inte en för familjen eller barnen. Detta är något som uppskattas av mig iaf och även om filmen har sina små brister så väger helt klart det positiva starkare på mig. Bara en sak som musiken får mig att gilla vad jag ser och hör, och fotot kan man inte klaga på. Visst är det lite likt Gladiator i stilen, men handlingen är trots allt egen. Den har egentligen allt man kan begära av den här typen av film, om man gillar det vill säga.
3 - Skådespelare
3 - Handling
4 - Känsla
4 - Musik
4 - Foto
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18 - Totalt
Betyg:
IMDb: 7.1
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