alcohol & birth

11/1/11

Today’s date is a palindrome. This is the first time in over 900 years that this has occurred.

I didn’t do very much artwork today; well, I did, but I just worked more on the paintings that I’ve been working on for the past two days and I don’t think anyone’s really interested in seeing them again, although they have been slightly altered - maybe I’ll post pictures when they’re completely finished.

With no artwork to post, I should attempt to get the writing monkey off my back, wrestle it to the ground and then drown it in the bath.

Since I wrote that last paragraph I’ve been listening to the radio, they’re talking about the way in which bankers at publicly bailed out, publicly owned institutions have made the decision to resume treachery-as-usual and while the rest of us face a long winter living on angel delight and rice cakes, award one another multi-million pound bonuses. In the meantime, the coalition government has steadfastly stuck by its pledge to ‘get tough’ on banker bonuses by adopting the approach of a lazy supply teacher who reads a magazine under the desk and pretends not to notice when the students start having a mungee war instead of working. It’s unbelievable to me that there’s even a debate going on about whether or not this set of circumstances is flagrantly unjust. Anyway, I drew a cartoon:

 

If you’re losing your sight and you can’t read what it says, it says ‘Mr. Clegg, it’s been down the back of the sofa the whole time’, and she’s holding up a human spine. If you’re losing your mind, the implication is that Nick Clegg HAS NO SPINE. 

Enough politics, time for a film review. I went to see a film called 127 hours, it’s about James Franco, who goes into the wilderness one day on his own and accidentally gets his arm trapped under a massive rock. James Franco spends ages trying all sorts of different way to free himself from under the rock but none of them work, he’s running low on water and his mind is starting to disintegrate. He’s about to die but then he starts having all these hallucinations about his family, but none of them motivate him enough to finally come up with a way of escaping the situation; so then he’s about to die again. But then, he has one last hallucination about THE SON HE HAS NOT YET HAD. Once he has seen the son and he realises how much he wants to have a son (definitely a son), James Franco finally flips out and hacks his own arm off, freeing himself from the rock and getting a second chance at life (or possibly a 3rd chance when you consider that he was in ‘Flyboys’). Then, James Franco abseils down a cliff with one arm, drinks some water from a dirty pool and then gets rescued by some good Americans. The main thing I got from this film is that James Franco is an amazing survivor and a charming actor. The worst part of the film was at the end, for no apparent reason they showed this guy with one arm just sitting there with a woman and a baby son, he wasn’t good looking like James Franco and he didn’t say anything witty or delightful, I think that they should’ve edited him out. Overall though, I give the film one star.

On a serious note, I’ve only seen one other Danny Boyle film, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (which I thought was a major drag) and I have to say that I don’t much care for his film making style which, to me, is reminiscent of (and aimed at owners of) the ipad - very clever, very slick, somewhat diverting for a time, but ultimately pointless and a waste of money. I am glad I went to see ‘127 Hours’ though, if only because in doing so I experienced, for the first time, being searched on entry to a cinema. 

On to music now. James Blake’s self titled first LP is so good that millions of musicians worldwide will (hopefully) upon hearing it for the first time, commence destruction all of the music they’ve ever made and begin again, Post-Blake.

Writing about the way that music sounds has always occurred to me as being one of the most infinitely futile pursuits available to mankind. Music journalism invariably makes my skin crawl with it’s indulgent, often nonsensical use of obscure adjectives to describe what is usually, wearyingly mundane fare - phrases like ‘acid rain vocals over breeze block bass-lines make for a dismayingly atmospheric debut for Hampshire Based, Indie four piece, My Mother’s Gammy Knee’, are what I’m talking about here. 

With that said, I won’t try to describe what Blake’s album sounds like, I will simply say, download it now! And then buy it when it comes out on February 7th (That’s when it comes out in England anyway, not sure if it will be available outside The Empire).

Last of all, at tonight’s band practice, in between songs, I finished of the charcoal sketch that I started yesterday; the picture quality is really bad….So’s the photo, ha.

I’ll go now. You’re welcome.

  1. alcoholandbirth posted this