Below are the most recent 18 friends' journal entries.

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
happytune	8:54p	gylfinir  has pointed out that Lhasa de Sela has passed away after a struggle with breast cancer. The opening of Decara a la pared from her album La Llorona is one of the most evocative pieces I know. The minute it begins I have to stop, take a deep breath, listen, warm up from the inside out. Not a lot of pieces do that. In fact, I blogged about this album the first time I heard it. What a loss. Some worthwhile video here - it takes a consummate performer to stand up and sing something so winsome and reflective for such a large crowd. (Comment on this)
communicator	4:08p	Annual 'grinding to halt' commences Our work closed because some white flakes fell on it. No, to be fair, there is promised severe weather on the way, and they want people (like happytune for instance) who need to travel a long way to get home ahead of the storm. Good for me who gets to walk home in a winter wonderland and then huggle by the fire. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
communicator	11:02a	The Things Here's a clever short story. The Things, by Peter Watts, which is a retelling of the film The Thing by John Carpenter (in turn a retelling of the short story Who Goes There by John Campbell) from the point of view of the monster. (ETA - sorry there is a gratuitous 'rape' metaphor in the very last sentence - he is making a point about consent but nevertheless I thought I should add a warning for readers) ------ Follow-ups - you can also listen to it on podcast: download here. And a blog post where he moots the concept of the story here. And there is a metafilter discussion here, which is where I found out a prequel to The Thing is planned. This will recount the events at the Norwegian Camp. *Happy Shivers* The Thing is one of my all-time top ten movies, even though it stars Kurt Russell. I think it's a wonderful 'base in peril' film, and a sealed room film, with the badness coming from the inside. I honestly don't understand how Carpenter has made such brilliant films, and also such dross. And also - I'm not thinking today - the writer of this story is that Canadian guy who was beaten up by cops at the US border a couple of weeks ago. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
happytune	8:38p	A really splendid few days over the new year period, to some extent recovering from SC's parents visiting. Highlights include a few days in Brighton with some friends, playing with children, walking along the sea front in the gorgeous blue sky weather and a fabulous meal at Terre a Terre. The best thing of all, however, was this: This is my 'engagement ring'. Very long, dull story, but I wasn't able to keep the pedal harp my father bought for me, and the circumstances in which it went were extremely painful. I felt like I'd lost an arm. It was a real bereavement. SC knows this and knows how uninterested I am in diamond rings and such things. This harp isn't the same instrument, of course, but it is like new skin growing over an old wound, and makes me very happy in a way I can't quite adequately express. (Now I just need to figure out how to keep it in a regulated temperature - bloody house we're renting has an average temperature of 15 degrees in each room that doesn't have a dedicated portable radiator. Bloody insulation is useless, and heating is rubbish.) (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
communicator	10:13a	End of Time I have read with interest people's comments on Doctor Who: The End of Time, which hugely increase my enjoyment. I think RTD has an eye to winkle out the plangent notes in Doctor Who that produce an emotional resonance in the viewer. That is because he was that viewer himself. I don't think he can do much else than that though. He doesn't have a clue about plot or reason or coherence. It's like a string of bright beads, and some duff beads. And sometimes it feels like too much, even when any individual bead is good in itself you get a bit 'OMG not another bloody bead on my heart-string, Russell'. Interestingly, this plotless narrative of accumulative wonders is something that Ackroyd picks out as a characteristic in ancient English writing, in Albion (now I have read that book it will remind me of everything, and vice-versa). Another tendency - in English narrative in general and RTD in particular - is to recycle and reuse the past, to the extent that eventually we don't know where the act of creation is - does the present work add anything positive to the meaning of the canon? Or does it merely reawaken it, to loom over the present like some great tidal force. RTD seems to me like a desperate man. He is spending all his resources to make us feel what he feels. But then, Everything Must Go, so why keep anything back? My favourite piece of dialogue is the vision of the Time War as a self-contained hell where millions are dying and being reborn, the system thrashing between different states at the centre. That makes sense I think, as the result of a war where competing armies are writing and rewriting time. That vision is thrown away - probably just as well - it's better as something right out there at the periphery of vision. What did I make of the Planet of Simm? It was just silly, and funny, and to be fair it made me feel a certain kinship with the writers. Yeah, if I had all the resources of the BBC I'd make those two beautiful creatures do all those things you made them do. That's what I pay my license fee for. 'More please BBC'. ETA - while I was out today I thought of what I didn't write - that I really appreciated the range and quality of acting on show. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
communicator	11:12a	A decade in lists Happy New Year All. I have tried to put together my 'top tens' of the decade and this is what I have ended up with. I feel a bit unsatisfied with all of these, except perhaps the TV. These are not in order of preference, just random order of compilation. ( 10 TV shows ) ( 40 films ) ( 20 Books ) ( 10 songs ) ( 10 albums ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
communicator	3:25p	Breaking Bad I am taking today off - no car, the weather is shit, and my daughter needs constant cups of tea and sausage sandwiches to support her homework marathon. So please forgive the excessive posting. I have been watching Breaking Bad Season 2 for the past two weeks - it's on every night on Five US from midnight to 1am. Two episodes to go. I was talking about the new type of quality TV show which has come into full form in the last decade or so. Breaking Bad is not as deep and complex as The Wire, or as beautifully written as Deadwood, or as numinous as Mad Men. These are my trilogy of genius television. I think Breaking Bad falls into a second tier, somewhat below these. But like Firefly it just for some reason appeals to me very strongly. Unlike The Wire/ Deadwood/ Mad men, it is tightly focused around just two characters - Walter White, a chemistry teacher, and Jesse Pinkman his ex-student. There is a small constellation of secondary characters, in particular Walt's wife Skyler. In this narrower focus, and its overall premise of a man with a false life, it resembles Dexter. To my mind it is a better show than Dexter - not to disrespect Dexter, but I think Breaking Bad is more tragic and moving. However, for fans, here is Abigail's excellent review of Dexter season 4 (which I haven't seen). Breaking Bad is not more realistic than Dexter, but it is more 'naturalistic'. Dexter operates within the stylistic parameters of mainstream cop shows, subverting them, which is a perfectly legitimate approach. BB breaks from mainstream style by not explaining in words what is happening, leaving it for you to understand the point when someone realises they are being lied to, the point later on when they decide they don't care, and so on. Much of it is ambiguous in meaning. This makes it difficult to quote dialogue, because the framing is as important as the script. However, both shows are non-realistic because like old fashioned comedy the characters transgress but are ultimately protected by the writer from completely degrading themselves. They kill, but there are worse things than killing, which approach but never completely engulf them. The scope of Breaking Bad is the the development and testing of a very small range of characters. I'll do one more Breaking Bad post, about the two main characters, after I have seen the season finale. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
communicator	11:06a	Just in time Thanks to calapine here is a teaser clip from the Doctor Who finale. Russell TD you know you wanna. They make out. I will forgive you for everything. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
communicator	10:20a	Heart of Darkness Over Christmas I read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. It's only about 100 pages long, and I really recommend it to anyone. It's well known as the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, though it's simpler and more direct than the film. It's set in the brutal regime set up by King Leopold in the Belgian Congo in the 19th century, which was the most exploitative of all European colonial powers. Here's some wikipedia for a quick summary of the situation. The Congo Free State was a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians through a dummy non-governmental organization, the Association Internationale Africaine. Leopold was the sole shareholder and chairman, exploiting the state for rubber, copper and other minerals in the upper Lualaba River basin. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when it was annexed by the government of Belgium. Immensely profitable, the Congo Free State eventually earned infamy due to the brutal mistreatment of the local peoples and plunder of natural resources. The Libertarian capitalist model of property as a relationship between an individual and material goods, unmediated by wider social obligation, can only exist at a frontier. The Congo was the most brutal expression of capitalism. Villages who failed to meet the rubber collection quotas were required to pay the remaining amount in cut hands, where each hand would prove a kill. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighbouring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were too unrealistic to fill. Along with Mark Twain, Booker T Robinson, and Bertrand Russell, Conrad set up the Congo Reform Movement to try to bring the regime to an end. This was eventually successful. I wasn't going to write so much about the political context, but I got carried away. ( the actual novel ) (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
happytune	4:30p	Woo hoo! iPlayer has such cool stuff on right now. Including a bizarrely great version of Rite of Spring from Ballet Boyz and friends. Amateur tangoists, hip hop boyz (and a girl), pole dancers and pro dancers to create something I think Stravinsky and co would have bloody loved! Isn't exactly what I'd call...subtle...but fab nonetheless! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
happytune	2:01p	No visible means of escape Went to Nottingham Castle a couple of days ago. We hadn't been before. Robin Hood it ain't. They've got quite a lot of stuff - a very small few pieces of beautiful things, including a lovely collection of Wedgwood - but quite a lot of less impressive pieces that are quite contemporary, but couldn't be considered iconic or exemplary. However, there was a very good art exhibition indeed on contemporary art and imprisonment, called No Visible Means of Escape. I have this strange interest in penal reform, and this pressed my buttons. In Instant Narrative, by Dora Garcia, you walk into a room with a large screen. Every now and again a sentence is added to the sentences already on the screen, You read a bit of what's there. All of a sudden, a sentence appears on the screen describing you, standing there, reading the screen. As you look further into the room you can see a performer at a laptop, typing away, documenting what's happening. I was struck by this. What happens when there is no-one in the room? What a strange thing it is, to be watched, in this age when the watching is so pervasive. Langlands and Bell's Millbank Penitentiary documents that great horror - a panopticon prison of the type invented by Bentham towards the end of the 18th century. I wanted to rush away and read Foucault. 'The constant division between the normal and the abnormal, to which every individual is subjected, brings us back to our own time, by applying the binary branding and exile of the leper to quite different objects; the existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring, supervising and correcting the abnormal brings into play the disciplinary mechanisms to which the fear of the plague gave rise. All the mechanisms of power which, even today, are disposed around the abnormal individual, to brand him and to alter him, are composed of those two forms from which they distantly derive. Bentham's Panopticon is the architectural figure of this composition.' Shudder. SC was struck by Libera's Concentration Camp Series, He's usually very anti-Holocaust-maudlinism, but it is quite strong. Libera says 'Toys are not 'things'. But they are not gadgets either; they retain some functional potential, but their function is monitored with respect to the real objects.' Well, I'm not sure about that. I don't consider myself an expert on play and the role of play in human development, but I'm not sure the function of toys is monitored in the same way - I'm interested in children monitoring in relation to life, with objects as a part of life. And what's the relationship to rehabilitation? (Comment on this)
communicator	11:18a	Pandemic I have discovered a new board game that I like to play with my family: Pandemic. It is a co-operative game, which paradoxically of course means maximum arguments and shouting at each other - all good Christmas fun. 2-4 players take on roles which need to be combined to fight four global epidemics. I was the 'researcher' which meant I could pass on info to other players, my son was the 'scientist' which meant he could develop a cure, my niece was the Operations expert, which meant she could set up research stations, and my nephew was the medic which meant he could administer the cure once it was developed. So we had to work together to make that happen, and all the time the four plagues were spreading across the world. We managed to contain them but not eradicate them. The whole thing takes somewhat less than an hour, and you can play it at three levels of difficulty. Recommended: I think it's a good choice if you want a swift fairly boisterous intelligent game, which can be played by bright kids and adults together. I am particularly keen on a game which can be adjusted for smaller and larger groups. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 28th, 2009
communicator	6:46p	Sherlock Holmes I went to see Sherlock Holmes with my daughter. It was much as you would expect. No, actually, I expected it to be a big let-down and it wasn't - it was an extended version of the trailers we've all seen, and just as much fun and nonsense. Richie is surely a shallow man, with a good intuitive eye, and this film is all 'good shots', and to be honest not a whole lot else. The plot itself is pants, relying on the invocation of a hitherto unknown arsenal of special scientific chemicals which each produce the effect required to allow any given scene to happen. And that's more or less it. Over the closing credits he gives you a bunch of moving images from the film, in stuttering black and white grainy footage, which then turn into pen and ink drawings. These are brilliant, as were the shots on which they are based. Like the last Harry Potter film, the plot is really superfluous, but the cold wet stonework and handsome fellows are brilliant. There will inevitably be a sequel, featuring Moriarty. We heard his voice but we did not see his face. I wasn't able to recognise the voice, and no doubt there is still room for manoeuvre with the casting. But in any case the next film there will be three handsome chaps arching ridiculously at each other. Lovely. (20 Comments |Comment on this)
communicator	11:27a	e-books Thanks to andrewducker seen on Amazon. On Christmas Day, for the First Time Ever, Customers Purchased More Kindle Books Than Physical Books Mind you, 'on Christmas Day', presumably Kindle books are the only ones you can get hold of right away, by downloading? Poll time: ( Read more... ) (32 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
happytune	10:07p	Caught up on Doctor Who. Cool. I had a flash of the Pan's Labyrinth with all that red and gold at the end. Half of me is really dreading the episode next week, and the other half really looking forward to it! (Comment on this)
communicator	7:23p	Disaster just about avoided And for a week you really don't think about anything but the practicalitites and logistics of feeding and accomodating (or travelling to and being accomodated by) whoever you are spending time with. And getting presents, buying or baking or whatever. I think it's an excellent break from normal cares. I haven't thought about work for days. Part of the tradition is surely that your car breaks down, and you discover that your AA membership expired six months ago. You know, hypothetically, that might be the sort of thing that might happen to a really disorganised person. And, the much more organised partner of a person like that might have to pretend it is his (or her) car and get the AA out to tow it back up the motorway. I drove a hundred miles or more with my old and rather disabled parents in the back of my car. Just as we got to our destination the rear shock absorber went Ca-SMASH - a ghastly noise. Thank goodness, thank fate or whatever, that I was not half way round the M25 when it gave way. I could so easily have been. With no AA cover. Cold shivers. (31 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 25th, 2009
communicator	10:01p	The Simms I am posting from my brother's house to say that I really liked the Doctor Who Christmas Special. From past experience this means everyone else on my f-list despised it. But I thought it was a hoot. Also, did the Doctor say he renamed a galaxy 'Alison'? Ooh, I hope it was a nice spiral one. (23 Comments |Comment on this)
happytune	12:38p	Festive greetings to everyone out there! I think the weather is very exciting and suitable for the festivities. Red, green, gold and other Victorian colours go very well with...white.  I've shamelessly stolen communicator 's idea over the past couple of years, and bought a 'gift that gives' in lieu of Christmas/yule/solstice cards to LJ friends. I've chosen an emergency food basket because I've just finished reading Telling Tales, a short story collection, edited by Nadine Gordimer. Among a number of really superb short stories in this book, there is an excellent one by Gordimer herself, that follows a refugee family of 3 children and two grandparents fleeing Mozambique during the war, travelling starving through the Kruger Park to a refugee camp. The story is told from the perspective of the middle child - a girl. This is a quote from the part of the story where they arrive in camp for the first time: I can hardly remember. The people who live in the village near the tent took us to the clinic, it's where you have to sign that you've come - away, through the Kruger Park. We sat on the grass and everything was muddled. One Sister was pretty with her hair straightened and beautiful high-heeled shoes and she brought us the special powder. She said we must mix it with water and drink it slowly. We tore the packets open with our teeth and licked it all up, it stuck round my mouth and I sucked it from my lips and fingers. Some other children who had walked with us vomited. But I only felt everything in my belly moving, the stuff going down and around like a snake, and hiccups hurt me. Another Sister called us to stand in line on the verandah of the clinic but we couldn't. We sat all over the place there, falling against each other; the Sisters helped each of us up by the arm and then stuck a needle in it. Other needles drew our blood into tiny bottles. This was against sickness, but I didn't understand, every time my eyes dropped closed I though I was walking, the grass was long, I saw the elephants, I didn't know we were away. Indeed. Food basket. Definitely. In less exciting news, my soon-to-be-in-laws are here. Generally we're having a nice time. But this morning I had to intervene in a VERY heated argument between SC and his folks over Israeli/Palestinian politics. I just can't cope with it on days like today. I miss my dad. I miss a carefree, wonderful childhood, with Christmases and Chanukahs in happy, equal measure. In the end I marched into the kitchen and (I hope nicely) said that I couldn't quite cope with any arguments today, and needed them to stop. They were all very nice about it, and ended up sitting quietly in the lounge like a class of children who had had a bollocking. Feel a little bit guilty, but I really am not robust enough to cope with tsuris today! (2 Comments |Comment on this)