Deliciously Apart

Such A Lot Of World

2012-01-01T16:52:00.000-08:00

The most incredible musical performance I ever saw in my life was a few years ago, one summer in Bournemouth. I was walking through the gardens when, at the bandstand, a brass brand began to perform Moon River.

It was a moment in which the entire body froze, and you were thrust into the song. It was tear-inducingly beautiful, even without the words. Nobody else seemed to feel the same way, not even the friend I was with, and even now I can't forget that wash of emotion when that song played.

Moon River is, for those unaware, my favourite song in the world. And I think it's never more appropriate than at New Years. Its a song about opportunity, and how scary that can be, and having a friend alongside you to get through the vast vista of life. 2012, and even moreso 2013, are years of definite fear and opportunity for students like myself.

I've not written on this blog in a while and for that I deeply apologise; life is too busy to retrospectively write of it. One of my resolutions is to be more avid in my writing however, so hopefully this may change.

David

From The Claremont Kitchen

2011-11-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the severely delayed posts! Plays and journalism and life have got very much in the way of the blog. But now, dear readers, never fear- for I'm about to do something constructive with the blog. For today I share with you my three favourite recipes at university for bulk-cooking. All of them exist in traditional forms but I have taken them and twisted them under my own culinary control. See what you think- they're all grand:

Mushroom Stroganoff

Original recipe

Waitrose's mushroom stroganoff is grand, simple as. It's a great and easy recipe. But it is a bit fiddly and complex for a student, and so here I enter with my own thoughts.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

Mushrooms

Cider

Yoghurt/Sour Cream

Onions

Garlic

Dijon Mustard

Thyme and Oregano (Optional)

Basically it's fairly simple- chop garlic and onions, cook in pan with olive oil, then add mushrooms. Cook for a while and then add in a good glug of cider and then spoon in the dijon mustard- combine the two together until the taste combination is just right. Keep cooking. I tend to add thyme and oregano but it is just as delicious if you don't- maybe a bit of salt and black pepper. Finally, remove from the heat and add either the yoghurt or sour cream. Return to a (severely lowered) heat for a bit.

I tend to either eat it as it's own, with buttered bread, with pasta as a sort of dressing, or with gnocchi mixed in after the yoghurt has been added in, already having been cooked in salted water. Gnocchi goes great with this.

If you're craving meat, pork or beef goes great in this.

Sweet Potato Chilli

Original Recipe

This chilli is a new find- I made it today actually and it's one of the best things I have ever made, I'm very happy. However, due to whatever reasons I changed the ingredients a bit in the process of making it. So here's my version:

Ingredients (serves about 8):

2 Spanish onions

3 Carrots

3 Garlic cloves

2 chillis

Approx 400g of portabellini mushrooms

2 sweet potatoes

Spices (I personally used a mix of- garlic salt, onion salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, turmeric, cumin, coriander, chilli powder and cracked black pepper)

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

400ml vegetable stock

Lime juice

2 tins of red kidney beans

1 tin of sweetcorn

1 tin of butter beans

In olive oil fry the garlic and chillis. Then add the chopped onion, carrot and mushrooms (I chopped them fairly roughly.) Cook for a while on a medium heat and add in spice mixture, making sure everything is covered well. Then add in the chopped sweet potato and turn the heat up.

After about 10 minutes, add in two tins of chopped tomatoes and about 400ml of vegetable stock along with a good squirt of lime juice.

Stir well- season a bit more if necessary- and leave to cook for about 35 minutes with the lid on the pot and then ten minutes with the lid off, stirring every so often, waiting for it to reduce to something considerably thicker.

At the end of this time, add in 2 tins of red kidney beans, 1 tin of sweetcorn and 1 tin of butter beans. Season further with more of the spices (I went overboard on paprika in the best way possible.)

Cook for a further 10 minutes, then serve with chopped coriander, creme fraiche dolloped on the side and some nachos.

Although the nachos are pretty unnecessary.

Leamingtonians- the combined cost of the veg is about £4 from Johns, and the tins come to about £2.50 in total cost. If you have a good spice rack this is a very economical dish indeed, and absolutely delicious.

Prawn and coconut curry

Original recipe to be found in 'Sophie Dahl's Voluptuous Delights'

The original recipe is a very simple and delicious curry consisting of green chilli, prawns, coconut milk and curry powder. But there is SO MUCH MORE to be done with this bad boy! I have two variations of this cheeky beast. First, the prawn one:

Ingredients (cooks a lot)

400g Prawns

1 Butternut Squash

A good handful of mange tout

A generous portion of cashew nuts

2 cloves of garlic

2 spanish onions

A generous amount of curry powder

2 tins of coconut milk

Olive oil/groundnut oil

2 mild green chillis/1 scotch bonnet

Lime juice (10 tbsp or so)

In either groundnut or olive oil put the chopped garlic, chilli and onions for a while. Then add the butternut squash. Add in curry powder, then add in the prawns. Add more curry powder, then add in the coconut milk. After one tin (if you're making this much) add in about half the lime juice. Then add the other tin and the rest of the lime juice. Leave to cook for about 10 minutes. Towards the end of this time, add in the cashew nuts and the mange tout and stir in.

Serve with rice as per.

There is awful a vegetarian version of the dish: Cut out the prawns and instead add a tin (or, if you fancy, more) of apricot halves chopped into quarters. Add in some about prawn-period in the dish but you can leave them a bit later. Still great with cashews and mange tout as well.

Finally, another grand dish:

Spicy Crab Noodles

Original recipe (also available in Thomasina's book of the series)

I don't really differ the recipe much from her one. If you want, substitute crab for prawns that you cook into the recipe. Alternatively I'm sure vegetables can be mixed in or some such.

Anyway, the method and ingredients are as follows.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

2 shallots

2 chillis

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

spice mix (allspice, bay leaves, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar)

250ml chicken stock

Capers

1 tin of crab meat

Dry noodles

In olive oil fry the usual shallots and chills. Add the tin of tomatoes, stock, capers and all the spices in to the bad boy. Now if you use vermicelli Thomasina says that you need to dry them out before- however, M&S' noodle bundles that come in a transparent cylinder are already dry and actually quite cheap. So, after the mixture has been made (I also spice it with cayenne pepper and some of Thomasina's Hot Sauce recipe that I love and adore) add in the noodles and stir until they break apart and start absorbing the sauce.

After the noodles have absorbed everything and are well cooked, serve them up with a dollop of creme fraiche (I'm a bit addicted), crab meat on top, and maybe some coriander and lime.

xxx

Whilst some of these ingredients above are not cheap (e.g. any fish meat, capers, lime juice) you are buying many of these spices and flavours to use for many recipes to come. The fish meat is admittedly expensive but, except for the crab noodles, you can avoid using meat in total.

These are cheap, delicious and actually quite quick.

Go on. Do it.

~ David xXx

Prophetic Calculus

2011-09-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

From The Sartorialist; an entire post of beautiful trousers

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason; it may not be obvious, possible to gauge, or even visible, but everything has meaning and purpose. However, yesterday proposed a quite frightening blip in my belief of this; and it was all about a pair of shoes.

So here's the scenario: I'm heading to Brighton, I'm waiting at Southampton Central, my train is delayed and the station has the faint miasma of the BO of hundreds of stragglers from the Bestival exodus. I flee because for the last few days I've been in a desperate search for a pair of shoes for a family wedding in December. I have searched and searched for a pair of Oxblood tasselled loafers and finally I found some at Topman; I bought them and was thrilled to have found them far cheaper than the designer ones that were my only other option. As I said to Dad after this (or more correctly, as Julie Andrews said): 'When God closes a door...'

Having arrived in Brighton, being picked up by Lily and Isi, we shopped round, had lunch, had a brilliant cup of the tea at Naked, and as Isi kept yelling for us to 'be more quirky' we headed off to Beyond Retro (which Izi almost steered us away from, saying it wasn't true Brighton and therefore not a proper exhibition of the area) and in there what did I happen to find but another pair of tasselled loafers, very different but in every essential area very much the same.

This is all pretty materialistic and shallow, I know, but consider it this way: my misfortune with the trains that morning had had the purpose of giving me time to go to Topman for the shoes. Therefore that event had purpose. However coming into this shop provided a potentially better of shoes, being that the earlier Topman shop was actually detrimental: what actual great event did I miss because I wanted to go look for shoes? Or does this all mean that things don't happen for a reason?

In the end Isi did a thorough analysis of the shoes and we decided they were plastic and only leather lined and therefore a less acceptable investment (I also phoned my Mum for advice, a plea that she considered a sign I was drunk and therefore shrugged off. Cheers.) So in the end the shoes I bought in Southampton were indeed better and were also therefore 'meant', however you wish to take that, to be found in that hour. But still the second pair raised issues. What if I HAD bought the new pair and taken back the pair from Topman? Was THAT an event that had to happen, an important lesson? OR was the fact Dad was busy and I called Mum and she said keep the Topman pair an event that had to happen?

Other things from the summer have tested this belief as well. My next door neighbour Pat passed away whilst I was in Edinburgh and the event threw me for a loop (it was a bad day to go see Translunar Paradise; the theatrical equivalent of the first 15 minutes of Up.) The other day was her funeral and it was pretty hard, but the family were brilliant. They basically made it sound like it was the best thing to have happened, that she lived far longer than expected considering everything wrong and thankfully now she was reunited with her husband. It was a beautiful funeral, and, as can only happen with neurotic people with a blog, it transpired to become a poem:

Dance Then, Wherever You May Be (Feat. Ella Fitzgerald)

Where does the time go?
It is buried in the ground
In the form of people we once knew
Anchors in the lagoon
Pins in the gown
Each grave another touchstone
On the spectrum of timelines
That went away.
People who went away.
Once more time has been packed away
And left a familiar face to check the locks
The question here is not where but why?
Time is no father. Time is a child;
Unruly, uncaring, obsessed with collection
We are all pokemon cards and conkers waiting for his pocket.

Goodbye Patricia
A woman who spent her years sloshed
across her chintz seatee
Like animated pancake batter
Plucked and moved like a rheumatic puppet.
Yet you were quick.
The body crumbled, the mind a gem
Maybe that is why time took you
Because you sparkled in it's magpie eye.

I'll be loving you Always
With a love that's true Always.
When the things you've planned
Need a helping hand,
I will understand Always.

That's the song they played
As they razed your body
But there were no tears at the end
Just relief
Relief you were with Arthur again
Relief you'd gone when you were ready
Relief it had taken so long.
How fitting your last words:
"Don't let me die in my rollers."

Sounds are what you live on in-
The last ones, the gossip, the cliched advice,
The gurgling shriek of your laugh.
The sound of a roulette wheel
Of a tin opener on a fray bento
Of rustling newspaper
When you cut out the coupons.

And the music.
The music you danced to.
I never knew you danced...
But it makes sense
And its how I'd like to think of you
Cast in a London sunset
Hair piled high
Perfume cheap and plentiful
And you crack open a vinyl that spits and foams
With your son in his reluctant ballroom gear
Telling him to feel the music.
Take his hand.
Waltz on the carpet
To a Fitzgerald tune:

Days may not be fair Always,
That's when I'll be there Always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But Always.

The song they played
As you raised your children.

Where does the time go?
Why? When? Who does it go to?
It goes in the ground
Because it must
Whenever you aren't looking
Baby time peels off the football sticker
But we live on.
We have to.
Limpets on the hull
Marks on the fabric
Vinyls and carpet dances.

I'll be loving you, oh Always
With a love that's true Always.
When the things you've planned
Need a helping hand,
I will understand Always.

Always.

After an event like that, it can be very easy to sink into a belief that there is no order, no sense, no logic; that a belief in destiny or purpose only comes from our human need for order or construction in the universe. But then yesterday at Brockenhurst station three Swedish people who hadn't seen each other in years ran into each other by complete accident at a train station hundreds of miles away from their country of origin.

So maybe there is some method in madness after all.

~ David xXx

A Maid Mad To Marry

2011-09-09T11:07:00.001-07:00

I am addicted to this song. I can't stop listening. The thing is, I don't actually like Kiss Me Kate all that much. I don't even like this song that much in any of the stage adaptations or soundtracks- it is too random, schizophrenic almost- but this version, designed to showcase the excellent dancers they have assembled (and... Bobby Van... Who, once you watch this video as much as I have, and also later in 'From This Moment On' you begin to realise is painfully out his depth; compare his 30 second dance duet to Bob Fosse's self-choreographed minute long rapturous jazz routine) has the right amount of cheesy jazziness mixed with show tune flamboyance.

I love it. I also love Bob Fosse's legs in lycra. But that's a very different blog post indeed.

I have such a great love of old hollywood musicals; they were so unashamedly camp and that's what musicals really should be.

~ David xXx

P.S. Dan Snow is a beautiful man. This is in no way connected to the rest of the post. Dad's just watching him on TV.

The Grey Area

2011-09-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Summer 2011 has been a very different kettle of fish to last summer; one that was spent in purgatory between sixth form and university, going to Hop Farm and then jet setting across America for five and a bit weeks of sheer joy. This year my feet have remained planted firmly in Britain and life has rolled on lazily for a few weeks, then arrived at massive periods of busy behaviour lost in the midst of the United KIngdom. A couple of London excursions, a play in Leamington and Stratford, and finally two busy weeks in Edinburgh.

I have always loved Edinburgh. I have said it on this blog time and time again and I will continue to say such a thing because it's very much true. Edinburgh has all the architecture, sordid history and mild intrigue of a European capital with all the comfort of everybody speaking English and the currency being 1-for-1. However, there was the constant worry that having only been there for a day or two before, eighteen days of pure Edinburgh may crush that love like roadkill. There was, luckily, no worries there. The two weeks were brilliant, staying in a dingy little flat in Granton (a place Trainspotting says is scummy, so, you know...) with a crazy hippy, a man working in Grassmarket, and two friends from uni. The days were long, the food deep-fried, and the shows brilliance. Edinburgh taught me a fair bit about writing and a great deal more about theatre; about what makes it succeed, what makes it fail, and what's great about all the things I've so often not trusted about the stage- puppetry, masks, dance... Things that have frightened me because they weren't what I knew and therefore I treated with cynicism, all suddenly exploded into my life as new vistas to explore with work.

Which was all pretty swell considering me and the utterly fantastic Cat are writing something for Edinburgh next year. The Grey Area, our newest project, has gone through a lot of debating to reach the stage its at now. An enlightening cup of tea with the artistic director of Ontroerend Goed, a lot of David Greig plays, and a few epiphanies have lead to what the script is becoming now. The image above- Millais' 'Mariana', has become quite apropos for what we're doing, ignoring of course the fact that I'm now also going through a vorticism phase that will filter into our publicity design whether Cat likes it or not (luckily, she seems to like it very much indeed.)

Anyway, ideas and development are well underway after a long lunch the other day at the V&A, and as soon as we're back in Leam everything will very much kick into life. I'm very much excited to see what happens with this project.

I simply wanted to update to remind people I do indeed still use this thing, and shall do, even if life continues hectic. In two weeks or so I move into my house for next year which I am incredibly excited about, and in a few days more I start rehearsals for another play and life returns to Warwick's turbo pace. Huzzah!

~ David xXx

Shadow Of A Shade

2011-08-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

Today I have discovered a love of Waitrose's Sour Cream, Guacamole and Lime crisps. I have also rediscovered my adoration of Bob Fosse (in my mind, one of the greatest artists of the 20th century) and for the lyrics of The Mikado. One of my favourite examples has always been this little known gem, 'Comes A Train Of Little Ladies', a mere chorus number that segues into 'Three Little Maids'. However, its lyrics are powerfully bittersweet. Just read them:

Is it but a world of trouble —
Sadness set to song?
Is its beauty but a bubble
Bound to break ere long?

Are its palaces and pleasures
Fantasies that fade?
And the glory of its treasures
Shadow of a shade?
And the glory of its treasures
Shadow of a shade?
~ 'Comes A Train Of Little Ladies', Gilbert & Sullivan

Beautiful, aren't they? Absolute poetry.

Started planning my essays for next year already; I AM a keen bean. Cannot wait to get stuck in!

~ David xXx

Baking and Blogs

2011-08-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

There is something so satisfying about the sight of cake mix. It is a primordial soup that contains somewhere within it the history of whole dynasties- families of able bakers or cooks or just experimental relatives trying something new.

I baked up the Sweet Potato cake again yesterday and the issues with the recipes are beginning to come clear; less sugar less time methinks. Now have two very sweet cakes to finish off before I go to Edinburgh, however.

In other news, I've started another blog with my gorgeous friend Cat Turhan; not a replacement, but another spin-off. This one is a new one but it's going to be the blog where we display the creation of our play we plan to take to Edinburgh next year- so if you want to keep up (and also help get involved) with The Grey Area, follow it here.

~ David xXx

As Time Goes By

2011-08-02T04:39:00.000-07:00

1.) Portrait of Kit Wood
2.) The Poster For Cocteau's 'Orphee'

For four baking hot summer days in Stratford Upon Avon, across the river from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, twelve actors and a fledgeling theatre company put on a production; 'The Innocent And The Thunderbolt'. Dressed in boiler suits, filled with fish and chips and singing Maroon 5 the conclusion of two weeks of intense rehearsals was concluded with the slow crawl of the jazz bar beneath seeping through the boards.

It was two weeks of domestic bliss; cooking (and making tea) for an army, singing along to the guitar, drinking red stripe at gigs outside of second hand bookshops, mounds of cheap cheesecake and lazy mornings of pancakes and TV.

Coming home has already been a real shock to the system. APS film is no longer sold at Boots, which is a major blow to my 'photography' (I only use quote marks because actually using the phrase 'my photography' cannot help but sound horrendously pretentious.) However, life must go on, even if the memorabilia won't look quite the same.

On the topic of not quite looking the same, Christchurch feels utterly alien to me upon return. In a town where the farm foods shop couldn't survive two more delicatessens than the one rather ignored one already existing have opened up. For one, who needs that many? For another, why replace tea rooms and farmhouse cookery with the thing? Why have sickly-pink tea shops opened up where perfectly good shops existed before?

Don't get me wrong. I love a good deli, I love a good tearoom. But there is a time and a place. Christchurch is neither cosmopolitan nor metropolitan and we must accept it. The inclusion of exotic foods and vintage china will make it neither; the south coast is, regrettably, heavily conservative, heavily white and heavily old-fashioned and this will not change, at least not in our life times. What we should do is embrace what is salvaged by such a cumudgeonly outlook on social values; farm produce. Grubby little cafes that sell obscenely cheap pots of tea where you get a pot of hot water as well to reload the teapot, as if to say 'do it yourself you lazy arseholes'. Christchurch is a place of gorgeous summer walks and tourist shops, where the appearance of a Costa was a shocking bit of culture in our sleepy hollow of the coastline, and now we are getting a pizza express across the road from Pinocchios, the dark and exotic pizzeria that could be family run it is so monocultural (all Italians, all brusque, all angry when you are a minute late for a reservation for a show afterparty) and where you eat too much parmesan, look at weird painted murals of disney characters, enjoy the quaint feeling of plastic tablecloths and candles in wine bottles and enjoy a fag in an alley out back in the shadow of Christchurch castle.

I am all for progress. But an aesthetic progress like this is not the right one. It thickens the facade that we are somehow similar to more cosmopolitan locations. We are bemused, befuddled and elderly, eternally dazzled by the machinations of the world beyond. We cling to our cardigans and wrap them around us as we mutter about the youth of London, Birmingham and Manchester as they wear fashionable new art galleries and restaurant trends and we stick to egg and chips and bookstores. WHY is Bookends now a department store? What at first was an endearing but utterly misdirected attempt at seeling bric-a-brac and diet coke to draw in more punters due to a poor selection of its main stock has now become part of the business model and is therefore just another failure. There is something endearing about foundation to cover the zit, there is nothing endearing about plastic surgery.

But life goes on. I continue being a cumudgeon. Being in bustling and comparatively cosmopolitan towns like Leamington brings home how behind we are, but how we need to embrace it. We are not quaint, we are backward, and there is something charming about that... For a week or two on holiday at the very least.

No Longer Fresh

2011-07-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

First year has concluded at university which means I find myself sat in my pyjamas watching 'Made In Chelsea', distinctly avoiding Dostoyevsky as long as I can, and looking out across the serene nature of a small village on the south coast. I feel like Harry having come back from Hogwarts except my home life is better than being stuck with the Dursleys but nonetheless, I feel like a completely different person.

The most important thing is that I feel I have made a brilliant crack of first year. Sitting here, updating The Boar, writing reviews for Aesthetica, listening back to some clips for WSAF, I feel like I've done about as much as one possibly could in the arts sphere at Warwick. 15 shows, a lead in the studio, busy all summer with plays in Stratford and writing in Edinburgh. Life is damn sweet.

Hopefully, drifting about the world as I am this summer, I will be inspired to writ more (and often.) But the thing to mention here is that I've been heavily involved theatrically involved this term; with Potato, then Innocent & The Thunderbolt, and about 7 shows this WSAF including putting together an entire producing of The Importance Of Being Earnest and writing and directing a musical called FML: The Musical. It's been a great term, and I'm looking forward to a wonderous summer.

~ David xXx

Caught In The Act, and Other Pursuits

2011-06-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

Photos of Easter- Jemima and myself in London, John on his birthday, Bournemouth in the heatwave, Scarborough during NSDF

So once again I haven't posted anything in a while. Except this time its because of something genuine; exams! Yes, not the shows, journalistic pursuits or general tomfoolery of student life, just actual academia. Of course, I'm not really putting any work in, but that's neither here nor there. 40%. That's all.

Anyhoo, I've written things here and there but nothing that's quite right for here. Instead, I will link you to other artistic pursuits that have grown on the side of this one. If I'm not here, I'm there.

First of all, The Forge. The Forge is a theatre company from Durham who put on the controversial 'DOES IT OFFEND U' as their play this year. However, secretly its just a bunch of us Warwick fresh taking the piss out of wanky theatre.

Secondly, and less importantly, The Nido Queene, my Spenserian redux of The Faerie Queene featuring the original 151 pokemon and characters. Thank me next year when you're studying the wanker.

So that's me. Just chillin' with a peppermint tea and some Joni Mitchell before an exam. Casual.

Hope you enjoy the snaps from the Actionsampler camera my cousin got me for my birthday- I'm rather smitten.

The Gabriel In The Garden

2011-05-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

We are constantly discussing gender, sexuality and the like in English Literature. What it is to be feminine, what it is to be a woman, what is it that makes someone female? All questions asked regularly and answered with clarity. But what has been dealt with in significantly less detail is the issue of what masculinity is.

Take, for example, the lecture the other day on Gender in our LMW texts. About five minutes was dedicated to men and it consisted of little more of a quote from the wonderful but obvious Prufrock. Considering how many of our books on the course are written by men, surely it is a real point of consideration to analyse how they view their relation to what it is we are as a sex. One is not born a man, one becomes one.

'Woman' is a term nearly universally applied. 'Man', however, is a term still considered to be a badge of honour. Certain codes of practice, certain followings of convention, earn you said title. Whilst the lot of women has been awful for many years and literature has much to say, we should not ignore the plight of the average man, who is not subjugator but equally subjugated. Every day one sees images of men in the media, always prim and perfect. Whilst women have campaigned for fairer representations of their gender in the media, nobody ever considers the same issue for a man. To look like the cover of Men's Health is an ideal, not a photographer's fantasy. There is no acceptance of the alternate models of the male physique because it is an unwritten rule that the Adonis is the perfect man. Everyday, walking around Southampton or Bournemouth, one sees dozens of bags showing the torsos of muscled hunks, but notably never their faces. Men are reduced to objects of desire and display and it is ignored, whilst women have earned the right to have the same treatment be viewed as cruel. Chauvinistic discussion of a woman is condemned, but women salivating over images of a celebrity with his top off is never demonised.

The issue with this odd paradox- of the punished punishing the punisher- does not feel like vindication but more like hypocrisy. It generates an impossible issue for the everyday man; what is it I'm supposed to be? Whilst women have often entered literature as impossibly flawed, men have entered the arts as impeccable creatures; heroes, gods, supervillains, etc. etc. Few men in literature are true representations of what it is to be a man, but all of them suggest they are. But how can one calibrate the points of this inane triangle? How can one be a Heathcliff, a Romeo and yet also be Lady Chatterley's lover? Women have had the aid of feminist writers to draw their spectrum from 'the angel of the house' on one end to the 'madwoman of the attic' and then explode it into a thousand different archetypes; intelligent bookworms, powerful fighters, machiavellian leaders, crazed lunatics, the talented and the talentless. But men in literature are still often the subject of broader strokes. A man goes from either the Byron in the Bastion (a Heathcliff, a Don Juan, a Hamlet) to the Gabriel In The Garden.

WHY must one gender be reduced so for the other to find freedom and liberation in film, TV and literature? Because there has been such a forcing forward of the cause of feminist viewings, of women's liberation (all, of course, noble causes) but men are incapable of saying anything. We are silenced by our testosterone because what right do we have to speak? To speak out is to be called against feminism. Just the word, chauvinism, which would be applied to the belief in the need for a male renaissance, is a detrimental word (and also misplaced- feminism is itself chauvinism, not its opposition) and therefore unusable.

In LMW, we have had glimpses at some of the men who have tried to explore men not as Homer did, as flawless monoliths, but instead as flawed human beings. Shakespeare's Hamlet was a fine example of the trope but in LMW we have had even better examples; Primo Levi's entire novel is an exploration of what it is to be yourself, including in relation to gender roles, when you are all but nothing. Maugham's texts always explore the weaknesses and flaws of men and what it is to be a gentleman; the 'gentleman' becomes the new Homeric hero, the new Arthurian knight, a new eschelon for us all to reach, but Maugham exposes the flaws in this concept. Mr Ramsay in Woolf's 'To The Lighthouse' is a painful expose on men who fear their own futility and limitations but cannot voice it for their feeling of being silenced by what a man must and must not do. Kafka's entire back catalogue seems to be a series of vignettes that explore the many failings of men forced into the categories society has created for them (as providers, adjudicators and indeed just a the everyman.) Prufrock, although obvious, is a fine example of the crisis of masculinity, as is the work of Eliot often. I don't feel the need to find examples here for a blog post- these can be explored in more detail on one's own.

I, for one, feel more should be said for the complexities of masculinity as well as femininity. Men are no more free of societal influences than women are, I would argue. We are all, inevitably, caught in a dangerous tussle between the shadows of men concocting by our ancestors, wrestling with the gabriel in the garden.

Texts for Cabaret

2011-05-07T03:10:00.000-07:00

Phaedra
I won't lie, I was surprised when you said you wanted to meet up.

Venus
Really? Why so?

Phaedra
Well, I mean... We're hardly best friend material, are we? Me, a humble horse breeder, you, a cosmopolitan goddess...

Venus
Oh please, you'll make me blush. Well yes, maybe we're not your typical twosome, but this village isn't where I expected to end up, so we must make the most of whatever topsy turvy world we are handed I suppose...

Phaedra
Tea?

Venus
Camomile, please.

Phaedra
I'm afraid I only have the usual...

Venus
Oh, yes, of course! So sorry. Milk, two sugars.

Phaedra
Coming right up.

(Phaedra, from kitchen table)

Phaedra
So you teach Hippolytus art, then?

Venus
I do what I can. I fear he's rather good at it himself.

Phaedra
He always has been. Theseus always told him, 'when you feel sad about your mother being dead, show it in art.' It's dead sweet.

Venus
If you excuse the pun.

Phaedra
Oh, goodness, I didn't-

Venus
Don't worry, I'll keep it. Just between us girls, eh?

Phaedra
Oh, why, thanks...

Venus
How does it feel anyway?

Phaedra
How does what feel?

Venus
Not really being his mother?

Phaedra
Oh, I...

Venus
Oh, I'm sorry, was I not supposed to know?

Phaedra
No, no, I mean... You can't NOT know, we don't look anything alike and everyone knew Hippolyta...

Venus
Yes. Everyone DID know Hippolyta.

Phaedra
What do you mean by that?

Venus
I mean, everyone in the village knew who Hippolyta was from the moment she came here. You can't stop that when a woman of odd orgins arrives in a smallhold like this. We aren't used to the exotic here. What am I talking about? I am the exotic. I came from the grand metropolis and all I got was scorn.

Phaedra
I never-

Venus
But others did. People here they don't... They don't like other types of people. Threatening, I suppose.

Phaedra
When I find a new and unusual breed of horse... I never consider it scary or frightening. Its a matter of what good qualities does it have for breeding.

Venus
An interesting choice of analogy. Do you plan on breeding with our unusual new cross-breed?

Phaedra
Who?

Venus
Hippolytus.

Phaedra
What? No! I think you'd better leave-

Venus
You needn't sound so repulsed. You must remember you are not of any blood relation. You're barely of any relation at all.

Phaedra
You don't know anything of what goes on here, of what our family unit works like.

Venus
Hence my original question you've so artfully avoided. What's it like, not really being his mother?

Phaedra
It's... Hard.

Venus
Hard? Linear algebra is hard. Diamond is hard. My gardener when he catches sight of me in my negligee is hard. But effectively being a stranger in your own home?

Phaedra
I'm not a stranger. This IS my home-

Venus
What makes it your home? Everywhere I go in the house I see the ornaments and imprints of Theseus' life before you. What mark have you left here?

Phaedra
I've looked after Hippolytus, I've married his father- the only ornament I need is the ring on my finger. *holds out the ring*

Venus
*takes the fnger and inspect it* hmm, charming, I've never seen such expert gold plating.

Phaedra
What are you suggesting?

Venus
That the gold of that ring is about as fake and easy to break through as your facade. My darling, does he really want looking after? Or do you want someone to make you feel needed? He already has a mother, that's not what he needs. What he needs is a lov-

Phaedra
... He hasn't told you this, has he?

Venus
Not in so many words. But don't you think it odd you've only just met me? Art is his best subject. You are.. Well, you call yourself his parent. Surely I should have met you at one point for one reason or another. Parents evening. Sports day. Just a run across each other in a public place. But nothing. Yet Hippolytus does tell me some things. Things I... I don't feel at liberty to say.

Phaedra
You've felt quite free to say everything else.

Venus
This isn't something he's said through words, I dare say he wouldn't trust me with the sort of facts I've divined from him. He's only said it through what he paints, and that, my darling, is a secret language I have no right to expose.

(Pause)

Hippolytus is a handsome boy.

Phaedra
Indeed he is.

Venus
And intelligent. Very much so.

Phaedra
He gets that from his father.

Venus
And you find his father very attractive don't you?

Phaedra
I do indeed.

Venus
I bet you'd find him more attractive if he was a bit more exotic, a bit younger, more...

Phaedra
What are you-

Venus
Hippolytus is a handsome boy. We all notice him. But he's so... Aloof. It's the artist in him. You're lucky. You live in the same house as him, do everything with him... Yet you're as apart from him as all of us. All it takes is to tear down that spiders web that lies between you.

Phaedra
I... I...

Venus
I'll leave now. Don't worry about the tea, I've got to get back to the daily grind. Say hello to Hippolytus to me.

(Venus leaves, leaving Phaedra stood there, shocked.)

xxxxxx

Its not love, its gravity,
What lies between us.
It took me so long to see the difference.
I am the moon, round and pale and calm,
And you are the lively bauble: Planet Earth.
We are trapped in this constant circuit
Elliptical, never meeting, never touching,
And if we do- if the sun passes between us,
It causes an eclipse that trembles my lunar heart.

But its not art anymore, its physics,
Its a force that keeps us eternally bound
The lasso of passion, admiration,
Occassional glimpses in your eye, whispered compliments,
And the fact I think it will always be you.
But no longer that same electric zig zag.
Now its straight and smooth like an arrow's shaft
And its movement straight and true,
We'll be together forever, but never 'together'...
But that's ok.
For I'm in this gravity with you.

xxxxxx

I drink ambrosia with the Muses,
In our great glory gowned,
We take the amphora of pleasure
And sup, and pass it round.

Then Clio takes my nervous hand
And leads me to Parnassus
Where nymphs make marry in the bower
And perform a thousand dances.

And Apollo there is running fleetfoot
And gazes on some sprite,
Who shrieks and melts into a tree;
Daphne dies tonight.

At last the nectar of the Gods
Takes its effect upon me
And so I share Olympian bliss
With sweet and wise Calliope.
Like Psyche upon the bed of Eros
In darkness we do kiss
But like the cornflower fleeting moon
It is a transient bliss.

O Venus! Must you curse me so
I pray to your fine figure
A curvy maid of alabaster
My outpourings can transfigure.

But when your china hips stay stoic,
The styx is where I head-
I take a sword and, like Dido, skewer
Myself upon the bed

Of flowers in Parnassus lush, but
Now I'm in Elyssia
The beds of myrtle change to bouquets
Of adonis and Narcissa.

I take my ride upon the Styx
As Charon checks the toll
A set of scales hewn all from bone
That weighs my lovesick soul.

But when I once again express
My grief for my dear Muse
Charon turns to Cerberus-
My passage he refuse!

I'm thrown into black glassy waters
The stream fragments and breaks
And I am pulled down by the weeds
Our souls expire to make.

And I am once again besde them-
The muses, all the nine-
And I shall ne'er love them again
Or sip Olympian wine.

xxxxxx

Phaedra
When you're with someone, you can split the cake.
You can buy one, with your own money,
But you don't have to eat the whole thing
And you never want to eat the whole thing
Because when you do, you look really greedy
But if you can split it, nobody feels any blame.
You could, of course, split it when you're single
But people just think you're odd.
There has to be another fork in another lover's hand.

Hippolytus
But when you're alone, you can eat as much
Or as little as you wish.
You don't buy the victoria sponge when you want the cream slice.
There is no sacrifice- that fat bit of icing,
That bit that you would save till last and be almost too full to enjoy
Is yours, along with the cherry, because there is no greedy other
Your full-faced lover who expects you to share.

Phaedra
When you're with someone, you can go to the theatre
And not feel like an idiot.
You don't have to keep busying yourself-
Fidding with the program, paying special attention to the adverts-
In an attempt to look involved,
Producing that aerial frost of
'Look at me, I'm as integrated in society as the rest of you.'
Even if they don't want to go,
Then you have a friend at your side regardless.

Hippolytus
But when you're alone, you don't have the inevitable fight,
The promise to see the Vera Lynn tribute act tomorrow night,
The whispered spat in the dark over the best seats is artfully avoided.
You don't have to explain the plot when she hasn't read the book before,
And after the encore you can quietly form your own opinions.
Not agree with her ill informed views on lighting
To please her.
And you can keep the programme.

Phaedra
When you're with someone, you're always with someone at parties.
No more 'oh darling, didn't you bring a plus one?'
No more questions of 'how's your love life? Found anyone?'
No more remarks on your slow decay- the thinning hair, the thickening hips,
the eroding bones.
Just respect, adoration, belief.
You are a god, superb and sublime
And you have reached that new tier that people scavenge about in the lower levels to reach.
Well done you.
Well done that you're happy.
That's what being with somebody is like.
Having somebody to replenish the drink
To hide the cocktail sausage sticks in his pockets
To dance with when the music gets slower
To help you back in after a few too many.

Hippolytus
But when you're alone, you don't have to go.
You don't have to iron your sunday best,
You don't have to convince everyone around you
That you are good enough for her.
When she leaves you in stifled conversation with the local vicar
To exchange ideas and kisses like currency with a new artist,
You're burning eyes will wish you never met her,
Because it is so much better
To not have anything you care about than pretending you don't.

Phaedra
When you're with someone, your bed is always warm
And lightly wrinkled
And inviting.
No more creeping in late at night
When the world is blue and black with slumber
And rejuvenation
Only to return to your coccoon alone
To sit and fantasise of 'what if'
To wake up, cold and meaningless
And stretch upon the foreign fabrics
In a terrible masquerade of intimacy
With your own feeble embraces
With someone, you're eternally hugged, eternally kissed,
Eternally afraid of doing something embarrassing
Eternally bashful about being the first to wake in the morning
And disturbing your little romantic jigsaw.
With someone, your heart generates fire
Like an amulet sun.

Hippolytus

But when you're alone, the sun-hushed evenings stay cool.
You are not pressed against the wall wishing you could breathe,
When you are alone, there is no one to clamber over
In the middle of the night to get a drink of water.
And in the morning you wake up
Unkicked
Unpunched
Unsnored
Unsweated
Her breathe isn't stale. Your mouth isn't dry.

Phaedra
When you're with someone, you're never the spare wheel,
Just the bicycle in the boot
Sometimes ignored, occasionally inconvenient
But always united to something better.
When you're with someone, you can ignore your squalid life
All the failures and the regrets
And focus in on the life of your partner
And use them as plaster on the cracked wall of time.
Because if you're in love, what else matters?

When you're with someone, it's hard to be apart,
It moulds you like clay, shapes you into weeping pottery,
Your body is mercury, quiksilver to the touch of grief,
And you become a new person beneath the funeral mask
Of constant wanting, constant yearning, constant hope,
Constant fear of what will become of him.
Sometimes, when you're hunched with frenzy and ugly with sorrow
It's best to just be with someone.
Anyone.
Even that one.

xxxxx

The Merturtle

With her ornate oar like a paintbrush
She skirts the water like her own pallet of blues
And conjures small whirlpools in it's wake
That suck the sailors in to her:
The merturtle.
With a shell like opals that shines like oceans of creamy illusion.
Fallaseas.

In the long dreadlocks of a willow
That dust her watercolours besides her homely rock
She waits and lurks, beautiful with frenzy
And waits for a bird to dock in the rocks
Before snatching out, grabbing, silencing,
And in the morning seadogs find seagulls
Just dulled head, webbed feet
And all the middle a picked clean spinal chord.

Sometimes, they see the merturtle scoffing on duck wings
Inelegantly plucked by wet, webbed, wasted talons
And scraps of meat sticking from her toothless mouth
And they finally comprehend how ugly she truly is
With her neck like a used condom
Sticking from her spectral sarcophagus
And legs like tree trunks or coral
And the faint smell of fish
And for the first time, she's on the defensive;
Toppling back into the waters
And letting the murk and the ripples
Disfigure her undivine monstrosity
In hope that other men won't get so close.
So she may petrify them in the cataract-eye of her shell
And drown them in the milk of dreams.

The Merturtle

2011-04-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

With her ornate oar like a paintbrush
She skirts the water like her own pallet of blues
And conjures small whirlpools in it's wake
That suck the sailors in to her:
The merturtle.
With a shell like opals that shines like oceans of creamy illusion.
Fallaseas.

In the long dreadlocks of a willow
That dust her watercolours besides her homely rock
She waits and lurks, beautiful with frenzy
And waits for a bird to dock in the rocks
Before snatching out, grabbing, silencing,
And in the morning seadogs find seagulls
Just dulled head, webbed feet
And all the middle a picked clean spinal chord.

Sometimes, they see the merturtle scoffing on duck wings
Inelegantly plucked by wet, webbed, wasted talons
And scraps of meat sticking from her toothless mouth
And they finally comprehend how ugly she truly is
With her neck like a used condom
Sticking from her spectral sarcophagus
And legs like tree trunks or coral
And the faint smell of fish
And for the first time, she's on the defensive;
Toppling back into the waters
And letting the murk and the ripples
Disfigure her undivine monstrosity
In hope that other men won't get so close.
So she may drown them in the cataract-eye of her shell
And drown them in the milk of dreams.

Of Salad Days, Sangria and Scarborough

2011-04-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

Well hello blog readers! Its been a while, hasn't it? Considering I haven't posted anything that wasn't a proxy copy of poems for a reading in over a month, I feel you owe a supersexyawesome 'David's life' post. Because if a blog's not for arrogant soliloquizing, what is it for? Education? Information? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH.

1.) Antony and Cleopatra

In a storm of cake crumbs, fake blood and iambic pentameter Antony and Cleopatra came to an end early in March. Dramatic, difficult and bloody fun, Antony and Cleopatra was my first WUDS show and I really miss it; can't wait for the next one, whenever that may be. I've made really great friends out of the cast and crew and just... Thank you for the opportunity.

2.) My Birthday

After a very drunken night at the Radio Warwick Awards (at which Bantanamo Bay cleaned up a treat, I hasten to add) in which I chundered up a Creme Brulee after downing a pint of wine (bourgeoisie, thy name is David Levesley) my birthday rolled round. A great many of the Muggle Mayhem crew convened, along with most of Warwick Drama, people off my course, from my building... The Jug and Jester was well filled and the free champagne from Cafe Rouge went down a treat. Came back to my building after a drunken chat with a woman wanting to open a zoo on the bus to a signed picture of Alan Rickman and a surprise birthday party with my best friends. I couldn't have asked for more. I've never wanted to cry with happiness, but my birthday changed that.

3.) Beats/Bants and Bars

Bantanamo Bay closed its second term on the air with a live music spectacular, featuring poets, bands and singers from across the university. It was like being at a really intimate gig in a sweaty little chamber in the top of the SU, and it was a really awesome night, followed the next day by actually performing at Beats and Bars with Cat and Dan. Both the poetry and the stand up went down great and I met some spectacular performers who have changed me (not to sound too cliche) and my approach to poetry. Jolly well done!

4.) Barcelona

MTW Tour at the end of March was to Barcelona; as the photos above hopefully show, it was a beautiful and cloudless four days of sangria hangovers and brilliant tapas (and one really awful paella that ended in an argument in broken Spanish and a shattered glass of absinthe.) It was such a great chance to get to know MTW a bit better, even if I was a mess on the last night. But, admittedly, a dignified mess.

5.) Easter Travels

After two days of being at home post-Barcelona, I was off again. First stop was Leeds to see Lewis after his birthday and I had a lovely couple of days up North with the best boy in the world.

An interval of two days back at uni was needed before heading off to Scarborough via Manchester. In Scarborough I slept on the floor of the cast of 'The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui', got up at 8 every morning, came home at 2 every morning, drank alot of beer, ate a lot of fish and chips, saw 14 plays and didn't go to anywhere near enough workshops, but it was a brilliant week, though exhausting.

Dan Hutton, the lovely boy he is, then gave a few of us a lift back to his native Leighton Buzzard- cue a rather interesting moment on a hill where we, the passengers, had to walk up it to meet him at the top- and from there I got a train in to Euston. After drinks in Covent Garden with Cat and Lulu, we headed back to Lulu's in Acton. The next day was an extortionate shop round central London (plus serious abuse of Cat's staff discount at the V&A; who DOESN'T need a Gilbert and Sullivan tea towel?) followed by meeting up with Dan, Jemima, John and Chloe in the evening for a gig in Brick Lane, a collaboration between Patrick Wolf and Rowdy Superstar, who was brilliantly camp.

After staying over at John's it was his birthday, so we had sunday dinner with his family then hit Regent's Park with beer and a tape deck, before wandering into Camden for a few pints, and then going to the Blues Lounge for some expensive bourbon. To the soundtrack of a blues band covering 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', two very drunk visitors fingered each other on the dancefloor. Suffice to say we were horrified, and clearly Mick Jagger was wrong- bourbon can get you ANYTHING you want.

Finally, I headed off to meet Dan and Jemima again in Oxford Circus. After a quick shop and a beautiful sandwich at Yumcha, we went round the National Portrait Gallery's Ida Kar exhibition, and then visited the V&A. Finally we met up with a ragtag band of friends in Camden Lock- James' musical companion, Dan's friend from Stratford, Jemima's friend from uni, and me bringing along Cat, we sat about with Kopparberg by the lock and watched the sun set before going to see The Guillemots at the Electric Ballroom. They were utterly brilliant- Fyfe Dangerfield is a musical genius with a very odd taste in tailoring. Like Iron and Wine (who I also saw in the interim, in Brum) there was no stand out moments, just a consistent soupy euphoria- which was probably helped by a couple of red stripes.

At 8 the next day I got off James' sofa, got changed, and headed to Victoria to get my train to Pompey to meet my family for my cousin's birthday. And then I was home- three weeks since leaving for Leeds, I'm back with a laptop, a fridge full of waitrose food and a selection of FCUK knitwear size XXL for a nice baggy feel to my woollens this summer. Yes, that's right; knitwear is seasonless people.

Oh Lord, what else to say... I feel I've only scraped the surface. I should tell you about the Larben workshops, the mornings in Brighouse eating strawberries and listening to the Amelie soundtrack, the mornings being woken up by seagulls in Scarborough, the pigeon picked clean on the banks of an island when we went on rowboats in Barcelona's main park. My new love of whitebait. How much I love V&A carrier bags. The fact I've started using the bus in London and have an oyster card.

Or maybe I'll just leave it at that. I might just provide some poems for you until I can be bothered to write this much again. Would you like that? I know you wouldn't. But you'll put up with it, won't you?

~ David xXx

Temporary Poetry text for tonight

2011-03-16T08:08:00.001-07:00

With You In Rockland

I understand the songs a little bit more now,
I feel a little bit surer now,
My friends say I'm calmer from all of this drama-
But I'm sure as hell no Dalai Lama-
No matter how much I meditate on the seven years of rebellion
Flushed down the drain by you.
How I fought against the fettering of society's eyes
Looking at my life and my voice and my poise when I stood still
And branding me with the red hot poker of homosexuality
And leaving me to struggle to convince them otherwise.
Oh, how I struggled.
How I strained against the bonds like Samson in agony,
Sweat streaming down my face as I danced my way towards every girl on the South Coast,
A whirling dervish shrieking 'look at me, look at how straight I am',
Just a millimetre of desperation away from pointing neon lights at my woman-born erections,
Always afraid of the dreams in my head,
Always evaluating every friendship,
The cut, the clarity, the cock.
Always I said it was a phase, an abstraction, a rebellion against loneliness and my old-fashioned parents.
But you dug up a diamond I could not appraise
In any other way
But fullblown, goddamn, hell-bent, heaven-sent love.

What will the neighbours say?
What will my parents say?
When the jokes and the black, lucid dreams
Manifest themselves into the handsome, lithe poets
Of future lovers who scream through the cottage walls?
That is if there are any lovers.
Lord knows, my success with woman is a lie,
So why says that this will change because I am bi?
Who says that the bedroom won't be just as chaste?
Who says that my skin won't remain unfingermarked?
Unloved?
Untouched by hands
That pull me into sleeptime embraces.

My Carl Solomon, my Sebastian Flyte.
My MDMA-starved, relationship-phobic, beautiful knight.
Who raced across a festival on laughing gas as the sun dribbled down,
And who laughs like an idiot and screams through every chakra of my body.

You are the final colour to develop on my polaroid heart
A last shade that makes the picture clear-
A picture that has been emerging for almost a decade,
That I had misunderstood until now.
I saw Proteus (many-limbed, many-faced) and all that was there was Atlas;
Eternal, steady, firm-footed, obvious, ready to embrace.

There is a way you touch me,
When our embraces linger longer,
And I feel smug and wanted,
And then the way you kiss our female friends on the small of he back
But then you kiss me down my neck
And my vision explodes like fireworks
Like a Van Gogh night sky
And those moments are electric enough
To power Luxembourg.

There is a scent of you
That sometimes buffets me on nostalgic winds,
Of men's cologne and something waxen
That comes from that night you rested your head in my lap
And I ran my fingers through your raven-feather hair,
And I lowered my face to the very borderline of your neck,
And so wished my lips had a valid passport.

I wish this wasn't how I felt, but I do:
Abdominal, abominable, all for you.

xxxxxx

I drink ambrosia with the Muses,
In our great glory gowned,
We take the amphora of pleasure
And sup, and pass it round.

Then Clio takes my nervous hand
And leads me to Parnassus
Where nymphs make marry in the bower
And perform a thousand dances.

And Apollo there is running fleetfoot
And gazes on some sprite,
Who shrieks and melts into a tree;
Daphne dies tonight.

At last the nectar of the Gods
Takes its effect upon me
And so I share Olympian bliss
With sweet and wise Calliope.
Like Psyche upon the bed of Eros
In darkness we do kiss
But like the cornflower fleeting moon
It is a transient bliss.

O Venus! Must you curse me so
I pray to your fine figure
A curvy maid of alabaster
My outpourings can transfigure.

But when your china hips stay stoic,
The styx is where I head-
I take a sword and, like Dido, skewer
Myself upon the bed

Of flowers in Parnassus lush, but
Now I'm in Elyssia
The beds of myrtle change to bouquets
Of adonis and Narcissa.

I take my ride upon the Styx
As Charon checks the toll
A set of scales hewn all from bone
That weighs my lovesick soul.

But when I once again express
My grief for my dear Muse
Charon turns to Cerberus-
My passage he refuse!

I'm thrown into black glassy waters
The stream fragments and breaks
And I am pulled down by the weeds
Our souls expire to make.

And I am once again besde them-
The muses, all the nine-
And I shall ne'er love them again
Or sip Olympian wine.

Blood And Egypt

2011-03-01T16:12:00.000-08:00

Show week. Oh show week. How I've missed you.

Well, I say that. We technically had show week for the Revue last term. But it feels like a long time. Maybe all the longer because I've never done a play before and therefore this is the first time of treading the boards. Except there are no boards, because the studio's floor is like solid tar.

In an attempt to feel like I wasn't giving up my degree to enjoy the wonders of theatre, I headed to the library after a run the other day and took out a massive pile of books. Lets be honest, I won't read them, I just have them for security and paranoia. Now that I've been set ANOTHER essay, I really need to start at least one... Or something. Or maybe do the reading. Today I compared King Arthur in The Faerie Queene to Flava Flav and Immanuel Kant.

"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us."

Fact from the blog 'Bookshelf Porn'. FACT. Important to know.

I look forward to my diet consisting of more than hummus and toast. I have a portion of prawn curry sat in my fridge, a saffron lake with a little coriander archipelago. When show week is over this will indeed happen.

I hope.

Maybe I'm losing weight?

Pffft.

~ David xXx

Questions Of Travel

2011-02-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
~ Elizabeth Bishop

Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.
~ Albus Dumbledore

I find myself, with time, ever more drawn to topics of nationality and linguistics. Every essay I want to write seems to want to talk about it, everything in my writing seems to come down to issues of displacement and homecoming. Yet you could not ask for a more grounded Brit than myself; I am English, I know I am English, I have no reason to think otherwise. So why do these issues affect me like ghosts that possess me? Who knows, really.

Last night was an absolutely necessary night off as it were (although I did have two rehearsals that day.) Admittedly I couldn't make it to either of my lectures today but this is a minor point. What really matters is that last night, after weeks of burning the candle at both ends, I just sat about in Lewis and Rea's kitchen, drinking beer with incredible company, discussing Hamlet and playing Pop-Up Pirate. Ended up getting a kebab with Breman, having both come from different parties and uniting at a cash machine. The excitement of my life, eh?

The wonderous thing about doing shows is that you begin to forget about your degree. It feels like theatre becomes your degree and all academia is a social function you can put off. But its first year- if I don't look at it that way now, then when can I?

Anyway, enjoy the Bishop. And the Dumbledore. Its a shockingly poignant quote lost in the midst of an otherwise context-heavy speech in Goblet of Fire.

The Inner-Workings of David Levesley

2011-02-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

Here, presented in wonderous chaos, are a selection of my notes since coming to university. Over certain periods of time of no distinct length I end up collecting all my thoughts, ideas, notices and musings into long lists on notepad for constant reference. I have an entire folder full of years worth of the things. Having perused the ones started since October 2010, here are some of the weirdest and most wonderful things I've written to myself. On notepad they are merely divided by lines, but here I've put them into categories either of particular highlights of common trends of pointlessness.

Note 1: Famous Suicides (costume ideas for suicide party.)

Hemingway
Hitler
Plath
Mark Antony
Brutus
Judas Iscariot
Ian Curtis
Tony Hancock
Hannibal
Primo Levi
Marilyn Monroe
Vincent Van Gogh
Boudicca

Note 2: Tips I picked up in Freshers.
Egg cups make great shot glasses
Try and make lots of friends
Bring booze, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BRING BOOZE

Note 3: "Songs of the moment"

Melanie- Leftover Wine
FotC- The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)
Neil Young- The Needle & The Damage Done
Black Eyed Peas- My Humps
Spring Awakening- Left Behind

Tori- China
Kelly C- The trouble with love is/gone
Once upon a mattress- song of love
Bob Dylan- Idiot Wind

Note 5: Three thoughts that came in quick succession and I can't explain why.
Definite ethical standpoint

----

Nude- Radiohead, for a sex scene

----

Next Halloween- Daisy and Gatsby

Note 6: Notes for my presentation on Ginsberg's Howl.
Karen's speech to Cook- in relation to Howl

OR, Stephen Fry's 'Bright Young Things'

15:42-16:56

Karen
I wanna... I don't fit here.

Thomas
I don't think it matters. I don't fit anywhere.

Karen
I like all the wrong things.

Thomas
Like?

Karen
You know... Gossip Girl, Davina, Dick Van Dyke, Lady and
the Tramp, Hannah Montana, Monster Trucks, Dancing On
Ice, Mojitos, Rio Ferdinand, Masala's Own (zone?), Pop
Tarts, Jude Law's accent in Cold Mountain, Hair
Straighteners, Love Actually, Kylie, Whitney, Britney,
Robbie, Brucie, Loreal, Wild At Heart, Milk, Comic
Relief, Ponies, Posh, Becks, Pecks, Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang and heavy petting... I fucking love that. Anyway,
Freddie doesn't mind what I like.

Note 7: Ideas for novel names
The Toad That Knew TS Eliot
The Day The Second Kettle Disappeared
Eggs In Latin

'Please Love Lily'

Note 8: Brilliant Quotes- The Apprentice
If I was an apple pie, the apples inside would be orange.

Note 9: Novel Ideas
A bourgeoisie woman, desperate to ramp up the green
approach to nature, ends up getting cow's udders and the
ability to lay eggs added in by a Harley Street
physician. She can grow plants from her hair, etc.

Note 10: Antony's Act 4 Soliloquy
All is lost;
This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me:
My fleet hath yielded to the foe; and yonder
...They cast their caps up and carouse together
Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou
Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
For when I am revenged upon my charm,
I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd,
That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am:
O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,--
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,--
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.

Note 11: Canterbury Tales Extract
But of my deeth thogh that ye have no routhe,
Avyseth yow er that ye breke youre trouthe.
Repenteth yow, for thilke God above,
Er ye me sleen by cause that I yow love.
For, madame, wel ye woot what ye han hight –
Nat that I chalange any thyng of right
Of yow, my sovereyn lady, but youre grace—
But in a gardyn yond, at swich a place,
Ye woot right wel what ye bihighten me;
And in myn hand youre trouthe plighten ye
To love me best—Goot woot, ye seyde so,
Al be that I unworthy am therto.

Note 12:Leftovers cookery ideas:
Friday
- Pasta w/ tinned vegs and tuna + oyster sauce + any

other leftovers (mushrooms etc.)

Note 13: Part of Radio 1 Work Experience Application Draft
Life is so much harder to deal with when you lack a
soundtrack; need to motivate yourself on the walk onto
campus at 9am in the morning? Crack out Calvin Harris
and Earth Wind and Fire. Need to cry because the person
you have fallen in love with just won't see how good you
are? Joni Mitchell is all you need. Every social
situation has a song designed for it that, when applied,
amplifies it to new, sublime degrees.

Note 14: Advice from Jack over Facebook
you ought to track down your favourite editor of your
favourite newspaper and find their e-mail address, write
them a complimenting e-mail and attach a thousand word
article/essay, provide a 100 word extract in the actual
e-mail message, and if it's real decent they may read
the whole essay, be impressed and e-mail back, which
means you have a foot in the doooooor.
~ Jack

Note 15: Ideas for character names
Sebastian Hornby
Cosette Bridgewater

Ondine and Magdalene Spring

Note 16: Quote from an essay on Ginsberg and Cezanne by Paul Portuges.
This "cosmic sensation" he felt while peering into
Cezanne's landscapes was a "strange shuddering
impression" and a "sudden shift, a flashing" in his mind
that created a momentary "gap" in conscious- ness caused
by the "space gap" in Cezanne's paintings: "Partly it's
when the canvas opens up into three dimensions and looks
like wooden objects, . . . in three dimensions rather
than flat. Partly it's the enormous spaces which open up
in Cezanne's landscapes" (pp. 27-29, 25).

Because he associated the strange feelings he got from
Cezanne with his Blake visions, Ginsberg felt doubly
obligated to find out exactly how C6zanne created these
"strange shudderings" in his mind- how he could induce a
momentary gap in consciousness simply by playing with
color, perspective, and form.

Note 17: Ideas for artwork
Some sort of photographic project, involving tailor's
templates for suits and the cutting of perject joints of
meat- the combination of the idea of perfectly divided
pieces forming the whole, destruction and creation in
opposite directions.

Note 18: Presumably a start of a blog post, or me feeling very smug.Contentment- Sophie Dahl's cookbook, the smell of
baking, a good essay mark, some creative ideas and a
roll of film being developed, and a rain of leaves...

Note 19: Words I have sought a definition of recently on Google.
Recalcitrant
Physiognomy
Zeigeist
Melancholic
Literature
Transport
Vehicle
Heroism
Tradition
Credence

Note 20: Weird choices of music for scenes and works.
The transitional and interval music for Bantermine is
Miles Davis' 'Someday my prince will come'.

Carousel playing orgel version of O Holy Night. Haunting, for a dramatic encounter.

Note 21: Conversation? Fragmented quotes from a day? Just an idea for dialogue?
I'm awful, you're beautiful; pretty me up?

I DON'T want to go down to your level

I've never had an issue with girls going down

Note 22: Pub lingo to use in dystopian fiction.
Any empties?

Note 23: Book to buy.
The Selby is in Your Place

Note 24: Unfinished poem.
I feel sick with love for you,
And no number of walks in the company of Nereids
No number of candlelight chats
No number of drunken moments
Will ever allay the illness that hits me.

People have died for less
And have never known the cure-
But I know exactly what that unction is for me
But I am all the sicker, for I can never get it
(Occassionally, ailed by the fact I am offered it
But never honestly)
What virus is it that shakes the heart
And stings the eyes
Like blindness and heart attacks
Unceasing and unending and burning?
Silly, foolish romance
Peddled by the Victorian author
And the Liverpudlian Boyband;
Expounded by movie stars
A myth re-enacted by Shakespearean actors
But as true and possible to prove
As alien abductions.

Love is the loch ness monster
That plunders this lake
And causes leaks through my eyes.

Note 25: Words I find interesting
Hagridden; to suffer from nightmares, followed by witches (hags)

Note 26: Unusued fictional conversation
"I feel like its some sort of weakness to have come out
to my friends back home. Like I've spent forever telling
them I'm a vegetarian and now I eat meat."
"Not sure it's quite the same"
"I dunno, he is eating a lot more sausage than before."

Note 27: (One of many) Shopping list.
- Makings of tea loaf?
- Tea; Yorkshire and peppermint
- Bread, milk, edam, butter
- Orange juice
- Vegetables: Leeks, mushrooms, onions
- Meat: Of some sort
- Some more stir fry veg (less though)
- More cooking sauces? Still got some left
- Pasta
- Creme fraiche and sweet chilli cream cheese
- Plums, oranges, pears
- Hummus and Ryvita
- Eggs
- Breakfast bars
- Marmalade
- Orange shower gel and shampoo from Wilkinsons
- A fruit bowl
- Decanter for making elderflower gin over the summer

Note 28: Ambiguous quote- Foucault? Barthes?
“To endow the writer publicly with a good fleshly body, to reveal that he likes dry white wine and underdone steak, is to make even more miraculous for me, and of a more divine essence, the products of his art.
Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the nature of his inspiration and making it clearer, it is the whole mystical singularity of his
condition which the writer emphasizes by such confidences. For I cannot but ascribe to some superhumanly the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pajamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience.”

Note 29: Butterbeer recipe.
Melted Werthers originals, golden syrup, milk and
butterscotch schanpps

Note 30: Random philosophical banter
Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Jean-François Lyotard, among others, all engaged in debate and disagreement about the relation between Heidegger's philosophy and
his politics. These debates included the question of whether it was possible to do without Heidegger's philosophy, a position which Derrida in particular
rejected. Forums where these debates took place include the proceedings of the first conference dedicated to Derrida's work, published as "Les Fins de l'homme à partir du travail de Jacques Derrida: colloque de Cerisy, 23 juillet-2 août 1980", Derrida's "Feu la cendre/cio' che resta del fuoco", and the studies on Paul Celan by Lacoue-Labarthe and Derrida which shortly preceded the detailed studies of Heidegger's politics published in and after 1987.

Note 31: Facebook comment between two friends I copied for use in my LMW essay.
Good quote in my George Orwell essays for the colonialisation debate you had "backward peoples are more easily governed than civilized ones" (on the
British occupation of India).

Note 32: The Lonesome Death Of Cleopatra
The clown, who was Eros, killed poor Cleopatra
With an asp that he twirled around his figs in his
basket
At an Egyptian monument society gath'rin'
And Caeser came in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked the clown, who was Eros, for first-degree
murder
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all
fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears.

Note 33: Another shopping list.
Rum, essentials, shoe polish

Note 34: Unfinished poem.
My lust I have thrust into one decanter
And it spilleth over.
You are that well-worn, gorgeous chalice,
A rabbit hole for my nervous Alice
(And no, that's not a euphamism.)

Note 35: A radio show plan
Madonna- Vogue

Section 1- Bantanamo Bulletin
What's the theme?
What item of clothing would we be?
Our favourite items of clothing?

The Hot Puppies- Green Eyeliner
Lady Gaga- Fashion

Section 2- Favourite designer
Designer v High Street
Primani
Is Topshop Overpriced

Fergie- Labels Or Love
Ella Fitzgerald- Top Hat, Tie, Tails

Section 3- Bargain hunting tips
Vintage and Chazza
Fashion Magazines
Blogs

Plain White Ts- Hey There Delilah
Fearne- Green Eye Shadow

Section 4- Fashion icons
Favourite era of fashion
David and Rea's style section

Jesse J- Price Tag
The Kinks- Dedicated Follower Of Fashion

Section 5- 60 Second Bant
What could we have done?

Jennifer Hudson- All dressed up in love

Note 36: Dad's culinary advice.
bramley apple in soup

~ David xXx

Stranded On Ogygia

2011-02-21T18:35:00.000-08:00

The other day, Jack posted a link on facebook about how all eels come from the same spawning ground. In the article there was reference to the fact that many eels return to this same spot later in life but no one can explain how they manage it. I think I might be able to; because eels, like us, seek to return to that place that has all the alchemy of home.

I've said it before- though whether its accuracy is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy or sheer clairvoyance has yet to be determined- but I cannot seem to function without the sea. There comes a point where the lack of salted air, sandy shoes and greasy chips cannot be dealt with anymore.

Yet there's no way for me to get out for at least a fortnight. But something elemental in me is pulling me back to the coastline somewhere, somehow. Beckie went back to the Lake District, Charlie misses the New Forest, and I desperately need water. It has got to the point that I'm debating going to Lakeside just to sit by the... Well, lake... To give myself the illusion of proximity to water.

I have always thought I was a metropolitan boy at heart. Doing a play filled with Londoners has reinforced my anger that I was raised away from the arts; that the only shows you can see are musicals, often Gilbert and Sullivan, and that everything seems stuck in a goddamn rut of kitschness and bawdy seaside light operetta. Nothing wrong with either of course, but the cast of Antony and Cleopatra have years of experience frequenting the National, whipping around the West End, finding the best stores in Shoredich and Spitalfields. I don't have that. I'm a country bumpkin who buys knitwear and alternative music and attempts to look like the artist I so desperately crave to be. But being here has made me realise that I AM an artist- maybe not an archetypal one, but I'm happy not to be that. Oh I don't know. I don't know. Regardless, I've always felt bitter I was deprived of a city upbringing.

But now I realise that I can't really ever live in a city for good. Or if I did, I'd have to leave every so often. I don't miss home, I don't miss what I had back south (though I miss some of the people) but I do miss completely and utterly the British seaside. The runs down the pier at night, whipped by cold air. The skinny dipping, the drunken parties, the fish and chips, the ice cream. Tasting ice cream van produce again has sent me hankering for my life back home. Eating moules made me remember when I eat it on Mudeford Quay and you can still feel the grit if you dive into the sauce.

So maybe I do wish I was a city boy, like Helena was raised to be, because she lacks the same base, primal connection to nature I feel. Having a 24/7 Tescos nearby and good public transport is still a massive novelty for me. Maybe it always will be.

Anyhoo, I feel I need to post here more. Everything feels like its somewhat falling into place at the moment, and even if I'm not reading blogs anymore, writing them feels necessary. Hopefully sometime I'll discover something to do with this blog other than compose a series of soliloquies.

Currently drinking beer and watching Captain Scarlet all on my lonesome. My life feels deliriously perculiar and I've lost the ability to sleep. What HAS become of me?

~ David xXx

Gravity

2011-02-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Currently sat reading essays on Indian Literature and cultural identity and absolutely loving it (or as much as one can love reading essays- I mean, I really enjoy the work of Ms. Spivak, but is this the same form of love I feel for- no, David, you're stepping into Wittgenstein-infested waters, loaded with hyphens...) and attempting to feel like I am actually doing my degree. I would quite happily give up my degree and just do drama every day all day for the rest of my life; audition for every show, rehearse and perform 24/7; never mind the terrible things it has done to my diet.

For example, the fact hummus is now essentially the main food stuff in my diet. I found myself overlapping with purchases of the damn stuff today, and last night I even investigated home-making it. The tahini will be bought tomorrow night. To think that before Lottie's 19th, drinking mojitos in jam jars in a bar in Lymington, I'd never even eaten this mana before. Lulu tells me that Waitrose includes hummus in its 'essentials' range, which worries me about how middle-class I am for I consider this completely acceptable.

Also, worryingly, I just called Lymington 'Leamington'- I am losing all sense of place identity. I am becoming a Midlander. Expect me to have a Brummie accent by the summer solstice.

Last night, at Cafe Rouge, we- as in the Antony and Cleopatra cast- had a bond over moules and French food. I am determined to find time to book a table there for the 19th, which feels so very fitting; last year Paris, this year... demi-Parisienne culinary adventures in Royal Leamington Spa. It was a beautiful night full of sparkling conversation and expensive purchases and I came home with a wonderful and heady satisfaction and the faint smell of camembert. Want to know why? Because I've now discovered I fucking LOVE the stuff. I even sent a group text out to certain essential faces in my cheese crusade (in which dairy products were the saracens and I was Richard the Lionheart, obviously.)

Tonight, after a draining 8 hours of suicide, abuse and Mizz magazine (the wonders of theatrics), I went to Pizzaz and saw a shocking number of familiar faces amongst the members. Alas, I missed Beckie's (and Jess' first) performance, and I feel horrendous. I'm a stickler for punctuality, and something about the fact I couldn't prevent it by any means makes it all the worse. Oh well. I shall persevere. Hopefully.

Anyway, to celebrate the end of another hectic week full of reunions, Shakespeare and... Well... Hummus... here's a poem. Another quickly whipped up bad boy. Don't hate me that I've become the guy that posts poems on a blog. Its completely by accident. Honest.

Its not love, its gravity,
What lies between us.
It took me so long to see the difference.
I am the moon, round and pale and calm,
And you are the lively bauble: Planet Earth.
We are trapped in this constant circuit
Elliptical, never meeting, never touching,
And if we do- if the sun passes between us,
It causes an eclipse that trembles my lunar heart.

But its not art anymore, its physics,
Its a force that keeps us eternally bound
The lasso of passion, admiration,
Occassional glimpses in your eye, whispered compliments,
And the fact I think it will always be you.
But no longer that same electric zig zag.
Now its straight and smooth like an arrow's shaft
And its movement straight and true,
We'll be together forever, but never 'together'...
But that's ok.
For I'm in this gravity with you.

~ David xXx

P.S. I know that's not how the solar system works. Deal with it, its poetry.

We All Complete

2011-02-15T04:15:00.001-08:00

The ziggurat of course reading is continuing to grow on my windowsill. Images of Holocaust survivors and Queen Elizabeth I loom through the darkness and fill me with guilt; why are you not reading us right now? Why are you having FUN?

But the truth of the matter is that I will continue with the fun over the reading for today. Tom is coming up today and, like Beckie can't focus with the knowledge her mum will be here, I can't seem to focus when I know one of the best friends is on the way. Instead, I have decided to blog again, because it has been long enough, and yesterday provided me with an inspirational encounter with the silver screen.

When friends back home went to go see it, I was informed Never Let Me Go was nothing short of a beautiful travesty. I could not begin to fathom this- Half-Blood Prince was a beautiful travesty, but Never Let Me Go? You've got Ishiguro, you've got Mulligan, what more do you need?

Regardless, me and Helena went along to go see it. I was hoping, at the very least, for a solid contender to take over the role of stoic British quasi-period piece that Atonement, An Education, The Edge Of Love and other such pieces of cinema have provided. With the two queens of this genre- Keira and Carey- taking the reins in the acting stakes I was expecting something pretty if not particularly well written, and was excited to see if Keira would put in a good performance, which I feel always becomes an issue in her films- is she pretty and talented or is she, too, a beautiful travesty (just for additional notes; I am always of the former camp. Always.)

So we sat down, got out our malteasers and our gargantuan drinks, and waited.

My first note, chronologically, is that I loved the title cards and all the subtitles in the film- on single coloured backgrounds in simple white font it made one think of John Lewis adverts.

Secondly, and not quite so chronological, I absolutely loved this film. From the beginning to the end I sat spellbound, and that is a rare feat at the best of times. I could not pull my eyes from the screen. The costumes were erotically knitted and the soundtrack just sweeping enough without being conspicuous. The direction was fantastic (reading about it after, apparently the children's scenes were first performed by the adults, and then the child actors were swapped in to interact with adults equivalents of the other characters to see how the adults would have done it. Isn't that fascinating? I think its fascinating) and just... Its perfection is ineffable.

The whole second act of the film was an aesthetic feast- Keira and Carey, dressed like WW2 refugees, in old farmhouses and down by the sea... That's one thing to add here- the choices of location were exceptional and really did something for me as a country boy and indeed one of both surf and turf; seeing people walk through trees, sit on the beach in the rushes, crying on country lanes... It felt strangely normal, or at the very least I could empathise with it in a new way because I could imagine being there myself. Not just because I could relate to Cathy in ways I've never felt before.

Which is, of course, down to Carey's impeccable turn. Her eyes have the emotion of twenty actors in themselves; the scene in Madame's house towards the end, in which she has cottoned on to what Andrew Garfield has yet to notice... Those eyes told the entire story, summed up the entire message without Charlotte Rampling needing to say a word. Every tear she cried seemed to whisper thousands of words she never said. She was perfection.

However, giving her a good run for her money was none other than Keira, who I feared would be horribly overshadowed but who stood up against Carey and put in a stellar performance. Her scenes on the beach, or in her later decrepitude, were quite frankly phenomenal. You couldn't keep your eyes away from her, and not just because she's hotter than a supernova.

Most importantly, we must of course gauge emotional reaction. To say that I responded to the film powerfully would be an understatement; the entire last half hour of the film (or however long passes from 'do you think he can see us through the glass?') was spent in fits of tears and depression. Me and Helena left the cinema feeling distinctly drained.

Leaving, I couldn't quite explain what is was about the film that hit me so hard; yes, it's a spectacular film, but this in itself doesn't answer the question of why it was so weird to watch. Was it because I felt like Kathy and me had a lot in common? No, that wasn't it.

Then it hit me. Its a weird thing to phrase but I can assure you its what hit me. This is a film about transcience- about people who are born and are aware, almost, of the exact end, and must enjoy what they have. Similarly, we, at university, are here for a length of time that we are almost completely certain of the length of. We too can try and defer by doing everything under the sun but eventually our education ends and we complete in a different way- we become functioning members of society. Slowly, we too will be stripped of the things we developed here- will I be able to write and act in the same way I feel I do now? No, not really. I hope so, but the likelihood is small. Life will move on, we will all donate something of ourselves to society- some of us may struggle on to maintain that artistry, but some will complete on the first donation.

I don't know if that phrased it well or not, but I could relate to the sense of impending fear- university is so incredible and yet so utterly ephemeral. I just... I don't know.

I'll leave you with that.

~ David xXx

In Defence Of Books

2011-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

Call me Justine, Emmeline,
Socrates or Valentine,
Call me after any martyr,
I am the saintly piece of art or
Cadaver for the intellect
To relish, sully and dissect
So throw me to the pack of rogues
In tweed blazers, mortar boards and brogues.

Cut out my heart, it beats for you
In iambic pentameter, one two, one two,
Cleave my stanzas from the page
Tear me twain, oh wisened mage!
Is my metre meaty 'nough
To satiate the baying hounds?
Are my symbols varied, few
Or as fragmented and dull as coffee grounds?
Tell me please, oh doctor, doctor,
What new feature, since you're so smart,
Will turn me into worthy art?

Do I need to be more didactic,
More in your face, or more aloof,
Should I recount ol' Balaclava
Or paint a picture of my roof?
Am I composed in cheap cliches
Or am I not relatable?
Is my message too clear cut-
Should it be more debatable?

No stop, please halt this Sadeian torture,
Take me, dear lamb, from the altar,
Do not make me toe-to-toe
With Hamlet, Hedda, Jew Of Malta.
Never try to find a spectrum
That goes from good to bad creation,
Never objectify that which
Exists to only cause elation;

Art is art is art is art
Shakespeare wrote to make his money,
Joyce just liked to mess us round,
And the poets just want to woo their honey.
What makes a piece of work worthwhile
Is not some Cambridge antique's view,
But instead if it can capture hearts
And maybe brighten a life or two.

Art is elusive, free, not for school classes,
Art is smoke to be inhaled by the masses.

Few things really incense me; I am, for all intents and purposes, a placid chap. However, this week has brought up some of my greatest furies with ferocious aptitude. These are my beliefs in freedom of speech, and my somewhat inexplicable aversion to the holocaust.

I think everyone has the right to freedom of speech. Expression in general may be a different issue depending on what we define as expressing oneself, but all in all speech is what we all deserve. More than just that, we have the right to be heard.

As the Guardian recently exposed quite expertly, academia has become pretentious, elitist and quite frankly incestuous in recent decades and is in real need of a kick up the arse, and this was perfectly shown in our studies this week when Treglown defined, according to Orwell's actually quite progressive essay 'good bad books', Suite Francaise as a good bad book in a derogatory sense, saying it was not 'intellectually stimulating' enough. This was an infuriating standpoint and one that really riled me; who has the right to say that a book is better or not? Who has the audacity to dain their opinion objective? No one. The poem above was written with that exact feeling; art is art. It is not something that can be defined as intellectual or pushing or controversial; whether you think its good or bad, literature is art. Academics need to stop snatching words like 'literature' like children going 'me first' at a pile of toys and understand that you cannot snare vocabulary and make it part of a hierarchy. A book is literature, a text is literature, a work is literature, and literature as a whole is literature. Just because something is not Joyce does not mean it is not worthwhile.

On the topic of Joyce, today's seminar on Primo Levi left me with a real bone to pick with writers like Joyce. As Alice and myself wandered home, reddening with a prologue to tears and saying how the book had hit us hard, I grew increasingly angry with writers like Joyce, with their walls of words versus the economy and simplicity of Orwell and of course Levi. What gives Joyce the RIGHT to the pomposity of his prose? What gives him the right to take simple and pointless events and make them elusive ala Finnegan's Wake? He has none, because the point of literature is not to alienate but to inform; it is a magical enchantment, words that bond two people in ribbons of typewriter ink like a linguistic handshake. Levi takes the holocaust, strips it of the veils of (justified) anger and horror and instead shows us what lies within this impenetrable wrapping. Simplicity is the aim of literature, which is why the term 'intellectually stimulating' is so foul; it is a proxy for 'difficult to read', and that is not the point of any form of communication.

I have no reason to be so impassioned about the holocaust. There is no point lodged in my heritage- an arrow imbedded in the family tree- to make me want to fight back against its very existence in history. But everytime I discuss it, learn about it, get immersed in it, the mulchy thickness of the air in that Auschwitz gas chamber chokes me; the world becomes muggy and cold with that cold-minded manufacturing of human life. No, I do have a reason to be impassioned; I am a human being. I want to tattoo my hatred of this atrocity across the heavens, to needle the sky with my views on literature and freedom and society. I just wish I had the economy to do it.

~ David xXx

The Involuntary Vegetarian

2011-01-30T17:00:00.000-08:00

There is something about student life, and I don't quite know what it is, that is related in the media and the popular conscious (if there is any difference between the two is a different debate for a different post) to communism, Brechtian theatre and vegetarianism. Weirdly, this has very much occurred in Knightcote; Charlie the other day realised she hasn't eaten meat in about two weeks. There are whole days I go without it- a cardinal sin in my household.

Yet when I say vegetarianism up there, it seems like a dirty word. It isn't, but for a long time it felt like one. It felt like a weakness on a person's part to discount meat, some level of effeminite failure. I blame this on my parents, who bred an antagonism towards vegetarians and a stereotype of them- some middle-aged trustafarian (or whatever the 60s had in comparison) who dreadlocks their hair more than they shower- in a way similar to how they created archetypal and villainous homosexuals and ethnic minorities.

Does this explain why Jack, Lewis and Matt have become three very dear friends; the gay, the vegetarian and the ethnic minority? Are my choices of friend some sort of rebellion against my parents? Am I the living embodiment of the anti-oedipus?

All valid questions. And by valid I mean senseless and worthless.

Anyway, university definitely breeds certain tendencies that one would be quick to classify as 'liberal'; there's something about the intense simmering of thousands of young minds in one place that breeds discontent and invention.

On the topic of discontent and invention... Sort of... I have received my photos back from the Koroll camera bought from a pile of detritus at a charity shop and taken to London during my exciting weekend at the start of the year, that wasn't actually a weekend but was two days so there. The photo above is one of the stars from a rather mixed bag.

I really wish I could have written something more spectacular. But to be honest, the summary I can provide of uni life is 'exhausting and fabulous'- neither of which provide much room for the posting of blogs. I promise to get better at some point. Honest!

Literary Vitamins

2011-01-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

In the words of George Orwell, bad books have a certain 'literary vitamin' that make you love them. I plan on using this as an argument to make Harry Potter academically viable.

Anyhoo, the word vitamin is also appropriate for discussion of my point of contention today- I am a fat pig. A fat, fat pig. Here is my food intake:

3 x Wholemeal toast with spread and marmalade
1x Pear and 1x Oat and rasin cookie (because I forgot I'd eaten breakfast)
2x Salmon and cream cheese sandwich packed lunch
A tiny bit of chocolate biscuit Kieran forcefed me at rehearsals
An entire frying pan of fried vegetables and bacon- two rashers, one sweet potato, one leek, diced onion and sliced mushroom.
2x clementines
2x more oat and raisin cookies, which were bought in depression yesterday, BAD CHOICE.

So that seems reasonable, doesn't it? But then, cometh the hour, cometh the stomach pangs. Those stomach pangs of hunger that stop you from sleeping.

So here comes the pot of hummous, the pack of wholemeal pitta breads, the pot of peppermint tea...

And then Charlie comes to the door with the remnants of the carrot cake her mum baked for us and says its mine.

So I ate a slice of that...

...

FAT PIG.

~ David xXx

Xanthus

2011-01-16T08:05:00.000-08:00

Like sunlight, blog posts now suffer in transit. I have spent day after day chipping away at a monolithic post about an impromptu two day trip to London of art galleries and fabulous stores in Hackney and Hamlet and Neville Longbottom and macaroons... But there's really no point. All you need to know is I spent two days eating pastries when I needed to eat and get some form of energy rush, went to see Hamlet at the National, did an interview for something for work experience and writing and saw Matthew Lewis on a train.

OH LOOK, THAT WAS EASY.

Uni life has been hectic this last week- with Antony and Cleopatra starting, all the catch ups, lectures and seminars, household chores, and househunting, everything's got crazy. Our search for properties yesterday took us all across the deceptively sizeable Leamington, from posh looking homes in the suburbs to flats in the centre with the look of crack dens. One house, which we were taken to by a very terse man in a red van that made Beckie think of human trafficking and the imminent loss of her fur coat, ended with Lewis, Charlie and myself being lead around a cracked ruin beside some sort of silo and being told about A-grade boiler systems.

Anyhoo, it has indeed been a wild week. It feels like the honeymoon period of university has officially come to an end, and now we must cling to the chaotic shipwreck of life and hope we reach friendly territories- it's all very Aeneid-esque, which I'm reading for Epic and loving more than life itself.

With all this, I end with a poem that was written in a cathartic moment on a very less-than-cathartic Tuesday. It is entitled 'Xanthus'.

I am Achilles, love is my Xanthus;
My molten sapphire Waterloo.
I can only fight its swelling, frothing mercury
With a prayer to the Vulcan scorn
To scourge the plane of your malleable torture.
To fight love, the protean beast of heart and mind
Who takes on a dozen faces, all declining,
I rage back, desperate to overpower
The impossible, elusive liquid stallion of love;
A war impossible for man or God.

No.
I am Apollo after Daphne
Who will not dance, who will not dance
With me, Who transforms into a laurel tree
And rewards my embrace with the wooden lance
Of the refusing hand, the leafy branch.

No.
Enough Greek.
Enough Homeric Creole, Ilium's flim-flam.
Love, for me, was a modern beast.
Steam-powered locomotive girl on the railway tracks coal-fed lust.

Love, with you, is the Berlin Wall.
And my words and my kindness
And my stumbles and falls (tied as I am by red string)
Are feeble slingshot pellets
That I hope can tear you down-
You Jericho of the atomic age!-
You handsome, mischievous, amiable wall,
The crimson twine of kismet does not enfetter you
But trails after me like an undone shoelace...
And so I am done.

I am purified in the aquamarine chrysallis of hope
Thrown naked from the seas to rise again
And meet my Nausicaa-
Though I am scared that she may never come
And I will always want to scale your bastion
But I must try.

I have stepped from the river
I have left the tree and hung up my lyre.

(Why can only the Greeks
Ever say what I feel so clearly?)

Because love is antique, classic, pure,
Like diamond, compressed by we poets, unloved and unsure.

2010: A Retrospective

2010-12-31T10:26:00.000-08:00

1.) Prague
2.) Paris
3.) New York
4.) California
5.) Drowsy Chaperone
6.) Hop Farm
7, 8, 9, 10.) Warwick

"2010 is, I know, going to be a great year- Prague, Paris, New York, San Diego, drunken nights and heady heights, and hopefully... Cambridge. I know it's going to be great, and although I loved 2009, I'm ready for something new."

Oh my. What a changed boy I am at the end of the year. Anyone remember this post back in the day? I certainly did. Well, now- as I prime for a night of wine and reunions- is as good a time as any to point out that I was partially right. Prague, Paris, New York and San Diego were all great, as was the drinking and the headiness... But I was so wrong about Cambridge.

I have realised that Warwick has been everything I ever wanted. Artistic, academic, familial and friendly. I feel like a better person for going there, and as a result I do not regret the choices UCAS informed me of at all. I wish I could go back to January and tell myself, but I can't help but feel any changes to this year, good or bad, would make me a lesser person today.

I want to list favourite albums or favourite movies of the year but I somehow can't help but feel it is a bit irrelevant when so much of such great gravitas to my own life has occurred in 2010. Sat here on December 31st I have never felt such an inate difference from the person I was January 1st, a year entered throwing up on my shoes in my friend's drive.

I feel like everything about me has changed. I feel that from what I wear to what I listen to, from how I feel to how I act, is improved. Sleeker, in a way; even if my figure is far from streamlined. I have, effectively, achieved none of my new years resolutions, but I have found new resolve and tenacity this year. As a result, I have decided to set myself a list that does not need to be entirely achieved; but as long as I complete at least three, I feel I deserve some feeling of success:

My aims for 2010:

- To lose weight and get nice arms (ha. Like that'll happen.)
- Start scrapbooking. It looks jolly fun, if Mr. Peacock is anything to go by.
- To get into Cambridge.
- Learn shorthand.

My aims for 2011:

Pass my damn driving test
Get at least two work placements done to add to the CV
Set foot inside a gym at some point
Eat better
Find love
Get a first
To find a moment every day that makes me happy
To either start picking up German again, or learn shorthand, or learn to knit, or all three- but one will suffice

Correction. A correction to what I said earlier this post. I called myself a changed boy. But I'm not. I feel like a man now. An unsure one who is still trying to find himself, but I'm an adult. Although its about something more personal, secret and specific, I feel this poem I wrote last night- after a long walk on the beach to mull over my thoughts and enter 2011 with a clearer mind and a stronger heart- sums up the overarching theme of my 2010; rebirth. It is, perhaps ironically, entitled 'Nostos', Greek for homecoming. I think this can be seen as relevant too because, at Warwick, I have found a family and a home I feel I was lacking on Brookside Road. The people I have met there are some of the best things to have ever happened to me. So to them I say thank you.

I am married to the sea
I run down an aisle of sliding pebbles
With a bouquet of vinegar stained paper
Dropping the sliced spuds as I tumble
To my curvaceous and cerulean wife.
Chips still stick to the wrappings
Like limpets to a muslin hull
And fat burns my mouth
Whilst the sea air slices my fingers with cold
But I do not care.
I am here.

Here at the crucible of life.
Where we stumbled to the shores as newts
Where Venus was born in sea foam and oyster shells
Where Burt Lancaster kissed Deborah Kerr
And where doggers migrate to for some solitude.

You open your maw across your flat, aqueous lip
Peeling back your celestial face of stars and tar-soaked cotton wool
And reveal a mouth as dark as the abyss of hell;
I sit on a rock like a giant's tooth
Smoothed and shaped by a hundred similarly enraptured backsides
And gaze into the ravine of the horizon.

I yell at you to fight me.
I scream and I cry
And hurl my greasy grub at your toes of rock webbed by sand,
And I run- by GOD I run-
I attempt to hide in the trees and the castles
But all the gates are bound tight
I try and disappear into the cliff faces like shadows
But I can not run away from you.
I must embrace you.
I must be enlightened by your cold, cruel touch
As you chain me in seaweed and drag me down
Like a fleshy, neurotic Atlantis.

And then all is calm.
I no longer fight against the silence and the darkness
Sea-fog engulfs me
Cleans me, smooths me, a pink and orange pebble,
And rejuvenates me.
I am a phoenix, born from water, made of seashells and scurf
Rocketing from ultraviolet water of black satin and white lace
Cartwheeling over the late night fishermen
Who hang electric blue lanterns like dazzling mermaids
Upon the shore.
I drift over the tops of beach huts
Organised like a series of coloured pencils.
I scud past a thousand days to come of sunshine
Families
Ice-cream stains on the trouser leg
And the salt-sting of falling in.
I am no longer prisoner, this jailbird
Has flown from your craggy nests
And is happy once more.

Nostalgia, or 'The Dirtier The Restaurant, The Better The Food'

2010-12-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

The entire world has become watercolour at the hands of the fog, and Bransgore looks especially beautiful in these conditions; this may be because one cannot see half the area, but the point still stands. Excessive choruses of 'In The Bleak Midwinter' sung by Katherine Jenkins and cups of mulled cider are the only way to react to such meteorological majesty.

In the midst of rain, fog and sheer cold that turned to tropic humidity in a few hours, me and the parents dared to risk Bournemouth in the sales (then again, we went to Southampton on boxing day so we're hardly averse to a bit of capitalist wrestling.) I don't really recall doing much other than researching future presents for Dad's birthday and Christmas (because I never know what to get the rents and they're never happy with the results) and then going out for lunch, which seems very unproductive. But Coriander is currently in an upswing and I'm not one to pass up on Mexican food, even if it is a pale relic of the beautiful chimichangas in down and out boardwalk dives in San Diego with the gang, the sun scorching your neck and the only sounds a combination of Bowie records and a rickety wooden rollercoaster shrieking away in the sandy, watery ether.

That's what I'm really missing at the moment- summer. I hate the fact I feel this way because this summer will be especially hard as it'll be months away from the uni gang, and just four weeks has been hard enough as is. We will simply HAVE to meet up over the break.

The slew of 'cheeky pints' with old acquaintances (because god forbid I keep to a single circle of solid, mutual friends, god no! Can't be doing that, I MUST have lots of awkward connections, not that I really mind) continueth as me an Rachael met up for drinks and gossip on Tuesday in an oddly incapable Crown; they seemed utterly rushed off their feet bless 'em. Yesterday was a seriously romantic man date with Solly in the same institution, which, over crabbies and some rather inappropriate candlelight, secrets were shared and friendships strengthened, and then Kim made a sparkling appearance. It was a really good night, and something about James means that he gave me a really good alternate perspective of some things that had been especially playing on my mind- all the worse by spending the afternoon skype'ing with the uni gaggle and feeling pangs of nostalgia for those beautiful 10 weeks in Coventry.

There's a strange excitement in my mind about seeing London again next week. I like my routine of my solo days in London, I like the feeling of having haunts. Although I am making this trip under the risky pretense of trying to snag last minute tickets for Hamlet at the National. I may just end up going to see Legally Blonde for the sheer juxtaposition of the whole thing. Ginsberg would be proud. London is always carefully planned with the sort of precision and control freakishness that is one-hundred-percent David, down to the wardrobe for the day which must be fabulous enough just in case The Sartorialist happens to be walking around with his camera in tow, and just practical enough to flat out fail me for the day. There really is no point in me buying an all-day tube travelcard because to be honest I can walk my way around central london with miraculous ease. I've also decided to make it my mission- because weather and sheer length of time will probably mean I'll have to frequent several- to try and find some new and wonderous watering holes. Whilst its all well and good to aim for The Loose Tongue on King's Road and, later, the Rose Bakery on Dover Street, I can't help but feel a serious rut developing. I also must, eventually, get over my fear of eating lunch on my own, and at the very least feel it is socially acceptable to read in a restaurant.

Note to self: Keep away from Chinese all-you-can-eat buffets and dodgy Mexican stands in Camden market. Maybe, just maybe, try and keep mojito consumption to a low. There are debts to pay off after all.

~ David xXx

Goosberry Gin and Christmas Cheer

2010-12-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

Flickr, Style Bubble, The Sartorialist

In a moment of indie-kid silliness, I ordered a roll of 120mm film off of amazon. The koroll 24s has been sat in my room for the good part of half a year now since I plucked it from a rather sorry looking stall at the village fun day, and its about time it see some use. With a trip to London occurring soon as I desperately haunt the South Bank in search of a ticket for Hamlet at the National, this calls for some serious pretentious photography. At least in zones 1 or 2- my budget doesn't stretch to any outer reach of the capital this trip.

Christmas has been a weird time. I feel as if I have woken up from a very long dream indeed, and wandered aimlessly around the real world but with the feeling I know a world far superior to this one. The only beacons of light are the people I see again from the world before Warwick, lights no less luminous from absence. The biting cold, the inability to get out much thanks to ice on the roads (though I've still made a pretty good go of it) and a general desire to escape back home to Knightcote has all added up into a strange, mournful miasma.

So now that I have my essay drafts out the way and just have to make a start on the ziggurat of books currently sat on my windowsill, I finally have time to peruse the blogosphere again, resulting in these saucy finds from two of the faves. I even translated Danish currency in an attempt to see whether I could justify buying that cardigan (like hell would it fit me) but even then the price was too steep. On the other hand, I can make some sort of cheap knock-off attempt at dressing like the Sartorialist's latest dapper dandy.

Anyhow, this leaves me now abandoned in the south, unable to see the faces of my nearest and dearest and therefore feeling significantly less stable. Christmas Eve this year once again felt like the true celebration; the obscene buffet of the Haberfields, the company of them and the Fishers, the strange party games (bread charades? Stalking people in the style of a Russian folk dancer? Yeah), the drunken adults... It can only be that time of year again, topped off with (another) round of alcoholic bevvies at the Rawstron's. This year's tipple: gooseberry gin. It was tart but tasty and... Well, let's say we polished off a lot of the stuff.

Christmas Eve also played host to the Bransgore reunion- me, Rowdon, Rachael and Charli, along with fellow Hop Farmer Lucy, piled into the Crown Inn for a slap up lunch. I would like to say I had been starving myself in preparation for christmas and therefore the big meal was just what the doctor ordered, but I'd eaten a kebab that morning after a long and fairly messy night in b-town seeing old faces and getting royally sick of how many times Chilli White played Cee-Lo Green. Five times. Five. Times. No Chilli White, Fuck YOU.

Anyway, I feel like this prose rant was going to go somewhere. But it hasn't. So... Pretty pictures. Focus on the pretty pictures. Lush.

~ David xXx

Heartberries

2010-12-25T15:14:00.000-08:00

It is raining leaves
The dried out wings of cherubs are falling
Over the chimney stacks of rural England.
From the top of the castle
(A series of broken titan's teeth
Scattered on Gaia's warts)
I can see every dirty rascal
And their pastel-coloured cottages
And the Church of Christ lit up by spherical sprites
Hidden amongst the gravestones.

The waters are asphalt
The birds are airplanes coming into land
And rippling the tarmac with their saffron wheels.
All the world is silent here
All the waters a separate sphere
Segregated from the festive illuminations and mojitos.
The world beyond is mulled-wine-marinaded
The world beyond is playing Wizzard and Slade.
All I want is peace and a piece
Of the world in which to write.

It is raining leaves
And the pigeons rise to meet their waxen partners
And the whole house smells of tea loaf.
Finally I have solitude
A chance to sit and write
And immerse myself in quiet.

It is raining leaves
And I miss my friends.
Oh how I miss that western wood
Where I met elves who spoke three languages
And forest faeries that dance ballroom competetively
Where a prince of the autumn stole my heart
And placed it in his oaken chest,
Skewering it with the arrow of a drunken kiss;
My heart, the captured hart,
A pulsating berry that trembles to the touch.

There was so much light in that Northwestern glade,
And here, cloaked in sea-fogs, I am lost to the shade.

Some poetry inspired by the colours and sights of home.

Merry Christmas everybody!

~ David xXx

Tigers and Tea Loaf and Bears, Oh My!

2010-12-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

What do Maria Von Trapp, Paddington Bear and Shinbora all have in common? That's right, they've now all been my unexpected fashion influence of the week! In place of the tweeds and wide-brimmed hats of Maria in 'I have confidence', winter has lead to a serious love of toggle buttons, brown leather and aztec prints- nearly all united together by the coat I bought in California, definitely all achieved by one or two of my various charity shop purchases. Aztec print duffel coat? Loose tweed toggle-buttoned cardigan? I can dream that these things will some day be designed for my wearing.

I have also become an addict to Zara's slim black jeans- slim enough to seem to actually fit the name and dark enough to look very svelte but not too skinny to make someone question why a man of larger body has chosen to wear them- I would reccommend them to any discerning denim dude, especially one with a chunkier form.

Oh Lord, look at me, I'm slipping back into sounding like I have any idea what I'm talking about when it comes to clothes. Though maybe I should stop doubting this if I want to do an MA in Fashion Journalism at LCF?

Right, well, what is there to say? I don't really know. I've spent a lot of time the last few days catching up with people, barricading myself away from my parents, counting down the hours till Warwick returns to me. At the moment- as I recount the same stories and secrets to people I've known for years about Warwick, it feels as if I am recounting tales of a dream I experienced, some wonderous fairyland inside my head nobody else has experienced. How I miss it. I really wish the only strands of university I had left were NOT essays. Damn.

I digress. Sunday I took as a chance to whip up some of the tea loaf devised by Ruth from the Great British Bake Off; you (and the entire populous of my Med-Ren seminar) will be aware I was addicted to this show and that I chose to follow 'The Pink Whisk' when the show ended. As I sit and wait for the right moment to risk the peach and blueberry boy bait I have taken to whipping up her tea loaf, and it is SUBLIME. Quick and easy to make as well, so here is the recipe taken from her wonderous blog:

A super quick recipe if you’re organised and soak the fruit the night before, just do it when you’re brewing up. I created this when I had an urge to bake tea loaf, but went to the cupboard to find I’d used most of my dried fruit for the vat of boozy fruit I’ve got on the go. I have to say dried cherries and blueberries in a tea loaf are just lovely – a nice tangy bite to them, definitely a good invention.

Ingredients:

290ml strong black tea
340g mixed dried fruit – sultanas, cranberries, cherries and blueberries
(if you want a traditional tea loaf just use sultanas and raisins)*
115g caster sugar
225g self raising flour
1 large egg, beaten

*Sultanas, raisins and blueberries

Preheat the oven to 170c/150c Fan/Gas Mark 3.
Soak the fruit overnight in the tea. I do this late evening before I go to bed, usually when it’s my turn to brew up.

The following morning stir through the sugar followed by the beaten egg.

Finally sift over the flour and stir till thoroughly mixed.

Add the mixture to a lined 2lb loaf tin. I also tried out these dinky little loaf cases from Sainsburys.

Bake in the oven for approx one hour to one hour 15 minutes, cover with a loose sheet of baking paper if the top is starting to brown too quickly. The loaf is done when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. If you are using mini loaf cases they take about 40 minutes to cook.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Delicious any time of the day - but definitely best with a cuppa!

My family have been cheekily purloining slices for the last week, so I can really reccommend it; university has filled me with a new vigour when it comes to the culinary arts I have always sadly lagged in.

I also feel I've been incredibly lacking in any form of musical opinion on this blog, and so I can't help but sing high praises of two (fairly) recent albums I've downloaded this week as I have returned to the world of peer to peer.

Janelle Monae's 'ArchAndroid' is quite frankly the best modern R&B album I have heard since Solange's 'Sol Angel & The Hadley St Dreams' in 2008; like the younger Knowles sibling's second outing, it does what modern music really should do- create something fresh and original but with distinct references to its predecessors. There is something almost TS Eliot esque about the fragmented collage of inspirations present on the album that provide something more than other acts that aim for a retro image and just seem like tribute acts (can you hear me, Raphael Saadiq? No? Well you really should.) Intriguingly, her single 'Tightrope'- whilst a brilliant song- feels incredibly out of place on the record as a whole, drawing inspiration from everything from Clair De Lune to Fritz Lang's Metropolis to motown. It is the PERFECT soundtrack for writing my Howl essay to considering it is an essay about symbolism and originality and that is what Janelle does. She generates an entire world, showering the world with fragmented samples of the world shone through her glorious prism of art-deco head dresses and beautiful vocals.

And can I be the one to say that whoever put her and Of Montreal together (one of my other favourite artists of the moment) was a complete genius? I am genuinely tempted to try and get tickets for her gig in Brum in February. Anyone fancy coming with?

Secondly, KT Tunstall's newest album, Tiger Suit, deserves some serious praise for its gumption and originality. My love for Drastic Fantastic was severely limited by the fact it just did not push the buttons Eye To The Telescope and Acoustic Extravaganza did (IS there a more beautiful acoustic song than her 'Gone to the Dogs'?) but Tiger Suit does something really quite fantastic. The African tribal beats of Vampire Weekend, the raw power of early Noisettes, the folk pop brilliance that KT is the Queen of nowadays, all brought together into a gorgeous blend that makes one think of aztec rituals if DJ Dangermouse was Emcee. It is a really great album- not as addictive as Janelle's, if I am honest, but still a really worthy album for the shortlist of 'best of 2010', which seemed sparse up until a few days ago.

Right, so that's all I have to say for now. Its almost time for the annual end of the year catch-up that is actually now a tradition considering the blog is OVER TWO YEARS OLD!

~ David xXx

The Christmas Overture

2010-12-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

It starts with the first adverts. They're never as obvious as people say in retrospect. They're subtle, worming their way onto the television and the airwaves, like weevils in a bag of flour.

Then, as if the second wave of blitzkrieg, the frost and snow hit. Transport is stopped as if Mother Nature is throwing a hissy fit, demanding attention. The entire world is turned into a crystalline globule of sugared broccoli and sweetie houses. Soup is eaten, tea drunk, Joni Mitchell listened to. Parsnips are sweetened at the fingers of Jack Frost.

At some stage, it suddenly becomes excusable to listen to Christmas songs. At first you have to excuse yourself- 'well, I've had a glass of wine', 'oh, but its by The Beach Boys, its actually quite good', but then the excuses become worse- 'oh God, I accidentally searched 101 christmas hits', 'I'm scared there are festive vampires about, and playing Santa Baby will scare them from my door.' Finally you are convinced to buy that Ratpack Christmas album repackaged once again and sold for £2 on the HMV Till if you've spent a penny or more.

Then something officially christmassy happens. And from then on you climb each yuletide stage, plateau, and then climb up again. No humbuggery can hold you back in your ascent towards complete obsession with the festive season, even if you don't especially like Christmas (or have any reason to do so) and even if the idea of presents or family does not entice you. The season engulfs you like a snug cardigan, marinades you in mulled wine scents and 2 for 1 bisto, and you're gone.

Even when I'm apathetic about the arrival of Christmas, give me a few events to enjoy and I'm there. Usually, we, as a family, go to a Christmas concert. Some years we have missed it and I will hypothetically (but, let's be honest, incorrectly) state these are the lesser Christmases. Pantomime, Earl Carpenter being self-absorbed, hell even a musical production of White Christmas... We need something.

This year the Bournemouth Symphonic Orchestra, tearing themselves away from a dozen performances of Sleigh Ride a week, decided to mix up their formula for their Lighthouse show; instead of having the aforementioned Messr Carpenter (very talented, but let's be honest- there is no reason to have Andrew Lloyd Webber in a Chrimbo concert unless you've done the damn show yourself and can't stop pointing it out) or Floella Benjamin lead us all in a rousing rendition of the 12 days of Christmas amidst the yearly performances of Christmas medleys and songs from the Gremlins soundtrack, they held a Wassail.

A Wassail, you cry? A WASSAIL? Wassat?

(God I make myself chuckle.)

Well merry folk of the interweb, and specifically fans of this blog- both of you will be interested to hear Wassailing is a traditional British folk custom. It is actually a cry of good cheer one responds with the same word in response to ('Wassail!' 'Wassail to you too sir!' How fascinating) and very, very traditional; it makes one want to drink mulled cider, and maybe pick up morris dancing.

So yes, the BSO teamed up with a five-man band from somewhere in the Purbecks (they looked as if they could be part of the Jurassic Coast themselves, ifyouknowwhatI'msaying) and they performed some marvellous numbers about cows and green men and wanting to drink scrumpy and OOOH ARR AREN'T WE BRITISH WHY WEREN'T WE PUT INTO AN EPISODE OF LARKRISE TO CANDLEFORD? With the accompaniment of, well, a 50-something piece Orchestra. Talk about 'best of both worlds', eh?

Anyhoo, I SOUND cynical, but it was actually very good. The first half dragged a bit (yes, we get it, Mary had many joys, yes, we get it, you can name animals and verbs that sound mildly similar, but honestly, how many snails do we know are going to flail? Yes, I KNOW its an archaic farming tradition Dad, but it sounds like they're epileptic snails and I don't think we should make light of such a terrible thing, giving £1 a month can help an escargot get over...) but the second half was exceptional. The plethora of instruments, the harmonies between the wassailers, and the traditions they envoked were all pleasing, skillful and above all entertaining. Whilst it is easy to be intimidated by traditional English folk music, they really did seem more like Mumford and Sons than Shirley Collins if you get what I mean; they were not stuffy.

I won't lie, I think one Wassail is enough- there's only so much Hardy I can take in one sitting, and there was a LOT of Hardy- but if you get a chance to witness some Wassailing, do so; the tradition is farflung in our great nation, from Scotland to the West Country to of course Dorset, so try and hear some great folk this Christmas.

Yesterday I finally returned to the Print Room for the first time since my 18th- regular readers will remember the grief I felt when it closed down over the summer. Although now equipped with some sofas fresh from a drag queen's boudoir, the parts they left intact, with wooden booths and top hats on the light fixtures, were just as I remembered. The sandwiches were just as tasty, the scones just as fresh, and they've stopped using Twinings and moved onto another company so in all honesty life is actually BETTER. It was also lovely to catch up with Thomas again and hear about his life and then talk about mine far too much. We also seemed to entertain our waitress to a degree that didn't quite fit how witty we actually WERE. If she had been drinking milk, her nose WOULD have lactated.

What else? Oh not much, blogosophere. I meant to write a post today about all my charity shop conquests of recent, about some old treasures I've dredged up from my rooms that now resemble storage chambers for my parents, but I have failed spectacularly to post about obscure fashion inspirations; SO GUESS WHAT'S COMING TOMORROW?

That is, if I can finish baking the tea loaf and taking a nice walk in the frosted countryside.

Or if I can tear myself away from my essay on Ginsberg.

God, life IS exciting, isn't it?

~ David xXx

Purple Prose, Purple Blood

2010-12-15T03:23:00.000-08:00

Belle and Sebastian are a bit like Glaswegian musical marmite; some see them as overly twee and saccharine, others see them as one of the finest things to happen to Scottish verse since Robbie Burns. I myself fall into the latter category- songs like ‘Expectations’, ‘Stars of Track and Field’ and ‘Like Dylan In The Movies’ are as musically well-thumbed as any classic rock band’s catalogue on my iPod. Although none of these tracks were played at their gig at Birmingham Symphony Hall, it was a night of truly splendid music.

The labyrinthine Symphony Hall has the look of an art-deco maw, and amongst the vacant seats of an orchestra yet to arrive, Daniel Kitson, the support act performed. Composed of two fellows, the first gentlemen, guitar in hand and messy blonde hair, performed a love song stuffed with beautiful evocations of youthful infatuation of desperately bringing the girl you like who just wants a cuppa ‘a suitcase full of darjeeling’. When the song ended however, Daniel began to read a story of love, interspersed with further songs. It felt very surreal and yet fitting for Belle and Sebastian- poignant, real, but at the same time innocent and delicate. A tale of shrines in garden sheds and girls named Mandy Walters.

As enjoyable as the blend of music and manuscript from the support act was, Belle and Sebastian’s arrival was what we were all there to see. With the London Contemporary Orchestra at their back, they started with an orchestrated rendition of ‘I Fought In A War’. The effect of the orchestra’s presence was the feeling of space dust exploding in my skull; a gentle champagne of joy and serenity that pervaded every single note. From old classics like ‘Piazza, New York Catcher’ (performed by just the band) to new tracks like ‘I’m Not Living In The Real World’, the entire show was a firework of witty lyrics and wonderful new arrangements. It was a strange fairytale world you entered when they cast their sonic spell, where, as Stuart Murdoch said- you don’t ‘hide being your Cadbury’s Roses- because this is a Belle and Sebastian show, and you can do anything at a Belle and Sebastian Show’. As if to prove the point, a rendition of ‘I Want the World to Stop’ got the audience dancing- only for the grey-garbed ushers to force people back down into their seats. But that did not stop the entire hall singing and dancing through most of the set, everything from ‘Judy and the Dream of Horses’ to an incredible string-infused version of ‘Lord Anthony’ during which Murdoch walked amongst the audience and the women, wordlessly, drew mascara markings on his face as he sang.

Even the torturous cold of a Birmingham midnight could not quite destroy the talisman of quiet joy that Belle and Sebastian planted in the heart of this lucky onlooker. I can only hope they include more of the London Contemporary Orchestra in future work.
~ My recent article in The Boar- just so you know something productive is coming out of uni.

After the inspirational train conversation, I have attempted to deal with the fact that being at home means I am once again enfettered by my parents. No more potters about in the late night time, no more loud warbling, no more inde-frickin-pendence. But I'll cope. Perhaps.

What IS getting me through is seeing old faces again. The other night we had our sixth form 'awards evening', which was a lovely chance to catch up with fellow alumni and the teaching staff but was otherwise pretty bland. Judith Potts, Trunchbull of the South Coast, took to an approach of subterfuge, amnesia and brown-nosing to suggest that the crop of 2010 have not been problematic for the school image; nope, nobody has dropped out. You didn't reapply to Oxford David? Oh, then where are you now? I hear 'subversive rumours' (her words.) Oh Sammy, you're going to become Prime Minister one day our one success story NOW HERE'S A MUSICAL NUMBER.

No, there was no musical number. But there was such a harmony of sycophantic views from everybody involved it could have become one very easily. Me and Dad spent most of the evening passing knowing smirks.

Talking to everyone was great though. Was also lovely to finally get a chance to talk to Joel's older brother for the first proper time, months of not exchanging hellos at Stewarts when I order cheesecake exchanged for some serious banter on the topic of knitwear, Africa and the fact the office staff had handed me half a bottle of wine in an attempt to recruit a new waiter, to which my reply was 'HAHAHA BITCHES THIS IS MINE NOW'.

Twenty minutes later therefore, my parents decided to leave as we played with balloons and I talked very drunkenly to Mr O'Connor about living with him.

Regardless, I sobered up when we went out to SoHo in Christchurch for drinks for Lottie's birthday- whilst she drank a very strong Cuba Libre and the lads had a pint apiece, me and the girls (because they were driving and I'm unemployed) helped ourselves to lashings of diet coke. Corrrr, stop living the dream David, I hear you yell from your respective keyboards.

Tuesday was a day of returning to the old haunts much moreso than my brief return to Christchurch on Monday. Whilst seeing a Cafe Nero and a Greggs in Christchurch of all places was really rather shocking, Bournemouth was full of change- the shabby old BHS my parents had some sort of architectural erotic love for was now replaced with a Primark; but a very sleek, shiny one I might add. The Ink Bar had reopened the exact same as before with almost no change and I'm checking out The Print Room again on Friday. Borders, still a hollow husk in need of some serious lovesqueezings, has been surrounded by a barricade of Tesco advertisements, which fills me with dread that the acres of books, obscure CDs, foreign magazines and squashy sofas will now be replaced with Tesco Value custard creams and punnets of plums.

At least it won't have a Starbucks now.

Anyhoo, I met up with Jemma yesterday and it was lovely to see her again. We had a good chinwag over pots of tea, went for a ramble about town, got yelled at by the homeless, almost drove into a bus and finally went for lunch-cum-dinner at Zizzis because Jemma gets a discount for working at ASK.

I'd never been into Zizzis before, and you've probably all seen them before because they're another chain of slightly pretentious Italian restaurants that use the word 'rustico' and have their own brand of olive oil. But although it seemed like a tiny little building from the outside, the inside was a warm, beautiful restaurant with real heart and a fantastic old pizza oven in the back. I helped myself to the Mere and something or other pizza, don't ask for the name, but it was gorgeous- half chillis and spicy sausage, half prawns, courgette and creme fraiche. And 25% off? Tidy.

Jemma then dropped me off in Mudeford for a catch up with Steve, which was lovely. It was so good seeing the two of them again, I must say.

Today is Dad's birthday, so we're off for lunch in a moment, then its Lottie's birthday celebrations. Where I find the time to write about heroic tradition in Homer I never know, but the essay is forming quite nicely, if a bit superfluously- just like the article, I can't help but feel it may suffer from purple prose.

Sammy was the master of purple prose, and during our awards evening some moments from his end of year speech were read out, including a reference to us 'bleeding Purple' or something to that effect (for those of you unaware of Highcliffe's quite frankly obsessive love of the colour... Its for the best) and you know what? I may have agreed with the whole 'Highcliffe til I die' mantra before, but I now could not feel much more disenfranchised from the whole spiel. I feel as if I'm now 'Warwick til I die' if anything. I've changed a lot in ten weeks, and the new me doesn't quite fit into the old hole that David the peg used to fit into.

Worst analogy of the blog so far? Quite possibly.

~ David xXx

Something Sensational To Mull On The Train

2010-12-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

The candles sputtered: their flames were gay;
And the shadows leapt back out of the way.
The party began to get going.
The laughter rang shriller:
The talk boomed louder:
The women's faces showed flushed through powder;
And the men's faces were glowing.
~ Joseph Moncure March's 'The Wild Party'

The end of term had the feeling of a grand party ending from the moment our Halls Christmas dinner ended Wednesday night and Stana returned to the Czech Republic that next morning. Its been a week of reflections and retrospections, of staring out of windows at a frosted campus like a candied planet, and listening to Joni Mitchell at obscene hours with a cup of tea, but I'm sorry to be leaving for the holidays. I've only been home about 24 hours and I'm already infuriated by being thrust back into a scenario that's not my university life. I want to throw things about and yell 'I CAN DO THESE THINGS NOW, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE' to my parents, I want to change things so I don't feel like I'm regressing or becoming the David I was before university.

But the rents can still do the laundry. That I'll allow.

Again, I realise this post is providing very little in regards to information on my life, but there's really not much to say- plenty to recount, but whether it is kind or excusable to publish it digitally is quite a different matter (oh, look at me, Mr 'everybody should have freedom of speech and publication' and then I self-censor myself, how ironic.)

Well, that's me.

Actually, there is something of worth to say. After my taxi cancelled on me and I made my way to Coventry train station, I found the train I thought I would miss was cancelled, and me and uni friend and long time starcrossed mutual pal Lottie Clitherow got the train home together.

In the space of two and a half hours, I had ideas for work experience, inspiration to work harder on my extra-curriculars and a to-do list double the length it had been before. The next day I was applying for jobs, internships, sending articles off to the boar and planning essays.

It just shows that the weirdest things come from serendipitous tragedies. Apparently Lottie too was inspired that day by an article in this month's Elle magazine that spoke to both of us- about how the idea of 'me time' is not a necessity but something of our generation; in the past people have believed hard work make you happy and now we believe pampering is a necessary break; but do we really NEED a spa day, or a holiday? In retrospect, will we not be happier if we break our backs with work now during the time in our life designed for us to experiment and labour to see who we truly are?

I'm going back to Warwick with my gameface on and the sort of Machiavellian ambition that causes Blair Waldorf to be despised as a Byronic heroine, but I'll do it with charm and poise unlike some. Look out Warwick- David's getting a job when he graduates!

~ David xXx

Parsnips and Pantomimes

2010-12-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

So my time is being sucked up by pantomime, but today I had a lovely catch up with Beckie (does it count as a catch-up when we live next door?) and Jack at Curiositea. Cheers to Jack for buying me a two man pot of peppermint tea and a mince pie, 'because we're both mincers'. Cheers all round. Jack told us about a very Luna Lovegood-esque 'friend' who collected dead birds and carried parsnips around with her. Warning to all: keep off her dirigible plums.

That wasn't meant to sound dirty.

Part of me is excited for the catch-ups back home, but part of me is really quite happy here. The most exciting plans I have lying about this holiday, besides seeing Kim and the like again, are the chances of catching up with the uni gang again at New Years parties or on days out in the big smoke.

Its hard to believe I once thought Warwick campus ugly. In Autumn it was a gilded patchwork, and now the world has become candied. I have to wonder if the way snow crystallises the world is the reason why sugar seems to inter-related with Christmas. That and, you know, building up reserves of fat for the cold snaps to come.

Anyway, I have a rehearsal to go to before I literally jizz my pants tonight when I see Belle and Sebastian life in Brum. YES MATE.

~ David xXx

And nearly a month passed...

2010-11-28T02:56:00.000-08:00

On WAITING I know what he means. Too many writers write for the wrong reasons. They want to get famous or they want to get rich or they want to get laid by the girls with bluebells in their hair. (Maybe that last ain't a bad idea).

When everything works best it's not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It's when you're mad with it, it's when it's stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It's when there's no hope but that.

Once in Atlanta, starving in a tar paper shack, freezing. There were only newspapers for a floor. And I found a pencil stub and I wrote on the white margins of the edges of those newspapers with the pencil stub, knowing that nobody would ever see it. It was a cancer madness. And it was never work or planned or part of a school. It was. That's all.

~ Charles Bukowski

Quote fiend? You crazy readers! Well, alright, maybe I can be at times. But they are lovely, aren't they?

-----------

As rehearsals ramp up for the revue, I've not had as much time to write on here- nor has my busy social life and the stream of essays coming my way aided in this pursuit at all.

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If somebody were to ask me how to play a zombie, there would be no acting involved- I currently feel half-dead. I don't think I have ever felt SO exhausted at a point in my life as I did Friday night after the tech run and then marching over to the pub in Siberian climates to discuss Bantanamo the next morning. I know I'm a dickhead when I'm tired (see: me getting on the plane to Prague; 'NO, I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING WAKE UP, LEAVE ME WITH MY COSTA WOMEN') but I really do not care.

The last week has been exhausting, as has the last term, but its all good. For all the moments of grief and distress caused for everyone I have never felt more at home than I do at Wazza. I feel at my prime here, and I really don't want to go home bar the chance to see the old guard and also to experience nature again.

Whatever anybody says, winter feels like the season for love to bloom round the United Kingdom. The desperate need to cling to people for warmth and companionship brings out something in our population that I can only replicate with layers of knitwear.

------

See those three blocks of cheap prose, references to Bukowski and oddly relevant unfinished lines that say, for lack of a better subtitle 'WAHWAHI'MBUSYWAHWAH'? Yeah, that's my attempts at blogging since I did a post about SHOES.

SHOES.

I'm not Anna-frickin'-Wintour!

So here is my attempt to show you I have no abandoned Deliciously Apart. I love this blog, and I just need some free time, but considering I have also run out of time to actually eat meals or wash my laundry, the blog has taken a backseat on the priorities.

My radio show with Dan and Rea is going well. The Revue was a huge success. Just had two auditions recently and at least one seemed promising. One was today, and the main guy from the last WUDS play, 'Five Kinds Of Silence' came up and complimented me after, which was lovely. Nice guy. It was actually a really fun workshop, which is rare- workshop auditions tend to piss me off.

Oh Lord, I don't know what to say... Accomodation has ended up causing issues even though we did our best to not be clandestine or evasive, but it just does and that's the way it goes and we'll have to accept it. If I've upset anybody through it, I don't think there's many, I am very sorry.

Love life has floundered to a stand still after months of hoping the motor would get running. Horray.

On that note, really need to book another driving test... Hmmmm...

Lord. Life IS chaotic at the moment. Panto on Tuesday, essays and reading to do all the damn time... Shoot me now. But fuck me, I do love university.

~ David xXx

This Christmas, All I Want...

2010-11-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

1 and 2.) Style Salvage
3.) This Is Naive

That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it.
~ Joni Mitchell

There are times in life when, with the sort of overwhelming force that great love stories and war crimes are made, you desperately want a material possession.

These Harris Tweed nikes are just such a thing.

I'm still reeling from not getting the Tweed clarks desert boots last year. So as soon as Style Salvage talked about them I phoned up Dad under the thinly-veiled illusion of wishing to speak to him. NO FOOLISH FATHER, GET YOUR WALLET OUT PLZ.

I've always loved the aforementioned Joni Mitchell quote as well. It crept up on my iPod again today so I thought I'd share it. It is, after all, very true.

Right, well, I've spent my day singing like La Roux on the radio and writing about Teichoskopias. So I'm not a massive chatty Cathy right about now. Toodles for now!

~ David xXx

Ovomancy

2010-11-12T07:11:00.000-08:00

I had the strangest dream the other night- and it went a little something like this:

I was in a T.S. Eliot theme park, and I was stood on the grassy bank of a river. It was mulchy, poorly kept... The sort of thing one sees during village fun days. The river had the quality of rainy skies although it seemed pretty sunny. The other side of the river, I knew, held trees on its bank. But before it was a tableau of an Elizabethan street- tall town houses of wood with people throwing chamber pots down with glass urine toppling out towards the river, etc. etc. Amongst the figures stood Othello, on one balcony, and Desdemona on a balcony of the next house, both aiming to embrace the other.

Then, all of a sudden, this wispy voice begins to come from somewhere...

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Out of the water something rises in a spume of bubbles. Its a massive toad, its head covered in swirls of warty greenbottle-coloured flesh as spoiled as the river water. It is very clear to me and the crowd there that this toad is speaking T.S. Eliot- and this all, for some reason, makes perfect sense.

As he finishes part 1 (I think Othello and Desdemona's figures may have acted as narrators too, or been voiced by the toad) I turn to leave by the door set in the wall at the back of the field, a brick wall with a tiny hobbit door. Suddenly, a gnome in a harlequin suit and wearing a white porcelain mask grabs me and splits me in two- one of me is pulled through the doorway, the other me follows after the gnome and myself. I arrive in a sunlit bedroom- white curtains, white furniture, beautiful and minimalist- watching Othello throttle Desdemona upon the bed. But at the same time, the gnome is thrusting the half of me he holds captive into the scene- I am Othello, I am screaming as I am throttled, I am watching the scene and yelling in horror that I am helpless to stop, I am beating up the Moor...

The free me walks through the door to another bedroom- Desdemona's things (and I know they are Desdemona's) are halfway through being packed. As if she were trying to escape but was dragged off whilst folding a maxi dress and murdered. I then walk to the balcony, look out over the sunny meadows beyond, and fall from the balcony. As I fall and land, I think to myself, 'well that was odd'.

And then I wake up.

In a similarly surreal experience, my trip to LDN for the protest avec Lewis, Shona, Faye and Stana began with us storming off a very late coach in the middle of Piccadilly, running to Trafalgar (where I ran into Louisa of all people!) protesting a bit, trying to find Lia and Lozzay and failing, then me, Shona, Lewis and Faye going for wagamamas. After lunch, I rush back to westminster for drinks with Jack and his friends, where he shows me a flip-book of photos of effigies burning outside Millbank, windows smashed, and policeman in combat.

From there I headed to Covent Garden by foot, using the apple store's internet to find Shannon's workplace (Bear Grylls eat yer heart out- THAT'S intuition) and going to B@1 with her for cocktails happy hour. Mojitos drained, I run into Lozzay on the way back to her coach. Me and Shannon head to Navaho Joes for more cocktails with Jack and his wonderful mum.

Cocktails enjoyed, Jack and mere have to return to Swindon. Me and Shannon do a bit of late-night H&M and Muji browsing, then get the tube back to Wood Green. We head back to her flat, reunite with Josh Habs, meet his flatmates, and then go out for dinner in this restaurant down the road they'd never really seen before- its cheap, its delicious, it looks like a drag queen from Bombay's house when all the lights are off. The bar upstairs looks like a Moroccan brothel. For all these words, it was a beautiful, beautiful place.

We retire to the flat for impressions, cups of tea, TV and sleep. I wake up at 7 after the toad and Othello and the gnome have visited me, everyone rushes out, and I am left alone on a rainy morning in the capital. I wander aimlessly through wood green to find the underground and get on a direct train to Holborn to meet Sammy for breakfast at Cafe Valerie- I have the most incredible organic porridge with cinnamon, apple, sultanas and maple syrup. We discuss life, the universe, everything and gossip about the old guard. He drops me off on the underground in the rain, I head to Euston, see Barry Cryer of 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' getting the underground, leap on a train back to Coventry... An hour and a half later I'm back at Westwood.

The day was a surreal one. It was lovely seeing everyone again, mixing social circles of school, theatre and uni together in the big city. Weirdly, Sammy and Jack both had Freudian slips whilst spelling locations. Sammy (although he abbreviated everything else) called it Holbourne- just like Bournemouth. Jack called Covent Garden Coventry Garden- aka where our uni is. Sammy is Tory, Jack is Labour... It was a day of strange mirrors all round.

The title comes from breakfast/lunch/brunch today- Beckie was making hard-boiled eggs and said that her day was going to be good because her eggs turned out perfectly. So I had the inspiration to decant this, in a more pagan way, onto a character in a novel I'm working on- so that she does genuinely base the quality of her day on her egg in the morning. It somewhat fits the gin-drinking, black-wearing bitch with superpowers that Elsie Westwick was already becoming.

So that's a rather abstract look at my life at the moment. All this rain, work and budgetting has given me a hankering for California; sunshine, relaxation and cheap mexican food. That was the life. I had a shower this morning and could almost feel the sand being washed from between my toes.

~ David xXx

Its toys were silk shirts and liqueurs and cigars

2010-11-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder if Evelyn Waugh was capable of time travel, because my life- minus the lovely buildings and the geographical locations- seems to have become some ridiculous remake of Brideshead. For most of my life I may have actually wanted this, and now I'm far less sure.

Still, could be worse.

It could be All Quiet On The Western Front.

A Fantanamo Of Bantanamo

2010-11-06T07:11:00.000-07:00

Today is a perfect day, weather-wise. It's sunglasses and knitwear to the touch of the skin, its autumnal in its tapestry of colours. The sunshine blinds you and makes everything a tad more beautiful.

Perfect weather for Fireworks, drinks down the pub, pizza and The Apprentice.

The reality of university has really hit the last week as everyone's essays were due in. Admittedly, I have three left to do and the reading pile is growing slowly but surely, but these are all minor flaws. For every trial and tribulation there are a hundred things I love.

I did my first radio show this morning- me and my friend's Dan and Rea (although Rea was absent for today's show) are doing a show called 'Bantanamo Bay' and, let's be honest, the title speaks for itself; its a show of mild chatter and humorous discussion with the occassional kitsch reference and indie track. 11-12 on a Saturday, 1251 AM (or just go on the RaW website to listen.) It was actually really, really good fun. I was so nervous beforehand because putting me amongst all that machinery is potentially dangerous. Luckily, Dan was really rather adept at it all so I just sat there and nattered. Its already been incredibly educational.

Still beavering away at the MTW revue as well, and there may be other projects on the horizon- OOOOH, EXCITEMENT.

The other day I was sat in Beckie's room having a natter, and the sky outside was bright indigo. It wasn't anything I've ever seen before- it was like the world had been glossed over in deep, sumptuous purple. It was the most spectacular sight in the world.

That's all for now.

~ David xXx

I'm Not Gonna Lie Bryn...

2010-11-02T16:49:00.000-07:00

... I've not been too good at maintaining the blog of recent, that's a fact. But you know WHY that is? Because Warwick REMOVED my internet due to a virus. Want to know the way to solve the virus?

Update my virus checker on the internet.

Yeah. I know.

So I'm in week five now. I don't really know what to say about uni because this is not some butterfly collection of my life for me to anatomically pin down the people and places of my life now. This blog, as a public arena, is an organic form that grows and is read by people regardless of ther appearances in the tale of my life, so why parade the figures of my world for some when it is those very parade performers who will now be discovering this blog?

Or something. Can you tell I'm going hysterical from exhaustion, alcohol and TS Eliot? Yes, I think you can.

Independence is incredible. Well, I say independence- sheltered independence is great and I feel the next stage, of moving out into Lem (and it WILL be Lem) is going to be even more delicious.

My writing has been at an absolutely minimum so far, which is rare because my creative juices flow best just when they don't need to be used. Maybe they are being evaporated and distilled via the shows and projects I'm involved in at the moment, or maybe we'll just never understand why I choose certain times to write or not. Regardless, I HAVE composed a few things. The most notable and possibly least sentimental (though that may be a lie) is the poem 'The Ballad Of The Garden Shed'. So here you go. Its composed of two bits written at different stages but nonetheless one entire piece.

A mini-jungle in a matchbox,
An amazonian microcosm
Is our garden shed.
Home to rat and other vermin,
Barricaded by pot plants in
Chipped terracotta moons
That orbit the planet shed.
So holed it's Swiss,
Racing green paint fading,
No longer relevant
For something so stoic
Even time cannot shift it.
Within, the whirlygigs and gizmos
Of a man's lifetime;

The model airplanes, the rakes and hoes,
The broken lawnmower
The titanic'd hull of a model steamboat
And thick vines pressed against the windows
Like butterflies pinned to mottled diamond parchment;
Spectators staring into the menagerie of Earth,
A forest of splayed emerald fingers and floral noses.

xxx

A rainforest peppered with ruined plastic spitfires
The scene of a war ending,
The scene of a man's life ending,
As the wick of his life flickers, lost in the wax of age.

One day, the eternal shedhenge-
That primordial box of masculine retreat-
Is cleared out.
Gone are the rat traps (gone are the rat corpses)
Gone are the plants torn down in geriatric strength
That nobody sees much nowadays.
The airfix kits and the plastic casts of The Bounty, The Flying Dutchman,
Are strewn upon the choppy sea of the unkempt garden
To be swallowed by the onyx whale of a bin bag.
The old equipment is tossed aside,
Too appropriately rusty and antique
To be viewed by the owner.

All that remains now are peridot bones
Jutting from the parched earth,
The ribcage of some pagan titan
Buried under a suburban lawn.
Drained of their marrow,
Frail as moth-wings,
Where there was once a tapestry of plants
There are now only portals to the outside world-
Jagged holes of fallen in roof.
Oh! What a horrid mess this is.

But through the hole, carefully positioned
At the join of roof and wall
One's eye skirts over the neighbour's fence,
Focuses down the line between the nearby houses,
And sees, like Zeus' pupil
The perfect egg yolk of the sun.
How it casts a marmalade varnish over all the world,
And it glistens on each shard of decrepit window
That lies in hecatombs of transparent destruction
Upon the ground.

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The sun makes a champagne of kaleidescopic prisms
Time makes ill the green chapel
Life reeks its last stenches of nostalgia,
All three conjure beauty in the final throes.

Note: Lines 1 and 2 of the final stanza are from Percy Shelley's 'Ozymandias'.

~ David xXx

And Now For Something Completely Different

2010-10-23T05:48:00.001-07:00

Ah, the eternal struggle for the perfect capacious manbag. Which, WHICH I ASK YOU? Do I go for the difficult to acquire, far more individual and potentially cheaper option? Or River Island's truly quite voluminous brown leather option, but has a heritage of bags that have just caused heartbreak in my past (if anyone here remembers the moment I had to cut open Manbag Revisited with a pair of Da Vinci scissors, you'll know the betrayal I felt by the Island of the River.)

Combined with my genuine lust for some Barbour knee-high wellington socks and a real partiality to some of the local company GDG's new wares- especially their wolf sweatshirt and their anchor t-shirt- I'm finding the fact I now have so very little money (and what I do have is being frittered away on such silly things as the weekly food shop and elderflower kopperberg) to be a real inspiration to desire such fabulous and wonderous treasures.

I did, however, buy an absolutely lovely knitted jumper in Oxford yesterday. It was a very quick moment- I walked into the store, saw it's scarlet sleeve poking from the edge of the men's section, and snatched it up as quickly as possible. It even SMELLS of Oxford- an essence of Bodleian trapped in the fibres.

Everything's a bit chaotic at the moment, to be honest. I'm looking forward to everything hopefully settling down again Sunday evening.

~ David xXx

Dreams, life, and the moments in between

2010-10-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely, I sink into life at university like one sinks into a particularly scalding bath of the sea on a frosty day. So busy and hard at work am I most of the time, that it is only between the auditions and the seminars and the lectures and the reading that I get the moments where I realise how happy this has all made me. It may be walking past University House in the darkness, where the little lanterns and the dragon's spine stairwell illuminate the fallen autumn leaves and the puddles and create some entrancing Japanese garden of black chocolate tarmac and marmalade foliage. It may be when I'm drying my hands in the toilet on a night down Rootes bar with a glass of coke and singing along to The Flaming Lips. It may be when I'm hugging a new friend and I feel so warm and secure in their arms. It may be when I say something I know I'd never say before I came here and it is neither strange nor unacceptable. But in these little moments- in the looking out of a window on a rainy day, in the cooking fumes of a curry, in the moment when the songs change over on the iPod- that I feel truly and utterly alive. Unquestionably happy. Free of all concerns and liberated to a sublime degree I have never felt before for such a long time.

I know you probably don't care at all. You're probably bored of these smug little moments of glee at my life, both new and yet a part of my old one in equal measure. But the fact of the matter is I don't care. I haven't felt this effortlessly relaxed since California, this excited about everything since New York, this emancipated since Paris. I have privacy, freedom, friendship. I have people who I go sit and cook with after a long day of lectures and we laugh and tell jokes and sing songs. I go down the pub and can just wander back whenever I fancy. I have stimulating lectures and seminars that keep my mind on peak form. I have my shadows, animated and given new names and bodies, to keep me company; clones of myself who I love and cherish with all my soul.

Next time I'm here on the blog (which may be another week yet as I wait for my laptop to be cleared and sorted by the IT staff) I'll start providing productive, important advice for one's life. Until then, enjoy my glee. Let's be honest, it'll end soon enough, won't it?

- David xXx

Flatmates/Coursemates/Soulmates

2010-10-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

The best parts of university are the silences. When you and friends have just laughed till you cry, or you're sat, under a duvet, listening to folk music and resting your heads on each others shoulders. The moments when you stare at a beautiful view, or savour the taste of a cheap cup of tea looking out over the zen garden in the humanities building.

At the same time, the sheer noise and life of university is sublime. The chatter in seminars, the controlled excitement of lecturers, the harmonies of musical theatre, the thumping beats of a night out at the student union; all sounds that have helped to shape this last week and a half into a perfect, perfect experience.

I have never felt so happy, quintessentially myself, or like I have belonged anywhere as much as I belong at university. I miss my friends and family terribly, but here, at Warwick, I am truly home.

The Exodus, The Invasion, The Cynic

2010-10-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

I've started to copy and paste birthday posts on facebook. Today I sent exact copies of the same message to three people, which I justified by saying 'oh they're all girls, it won't sound weird if I give them all this message'. These are three people I like as well. Three people I respect, three people I am glad to have in my life regardless of what degree they have played on its development. And I gave them Primark birthday messages.

Oh, and you know what fucking pisses me off? I thought I'd give Primark a chance on Wednesday, bought a lovely pair of boots, and they BROKE TODAY. That's right, TODAY. I wore them yesterday and then today they broke. I am fucking LIVID.

I also had to do my first solo shop at Tescos before. I have done supermarket shops before, this is not new to me. But it was the first time:

a.) Doing it on a Friday morning
b.) Having my Dad there

There he was, stood behind me, zigzagging between 'David, why are you only buying one type of fruit?' and 'DAVID, THIS MAC AND CHEESE IS ONLY 58p' as if this was some second childhood for him. I mean for god's sakes!

Also, I have never been so pissed off as I was in Tescos today. I actually had to take steps to not yell at people- who decided that it was acceptable to cut in front of people with your trolley? No, that is not acceptable you geriatic cunt, I am trying to buy spaghetti shapes and you are being a bitch, PLEASE DROP DEAD AND DIE.

I've also now had to go out twice in the pissing rain in the village today because my parents cannot unify their requests to me. So I'm now sopping wet, I once again feel like an alcoholic for only buying foreign currneices or booze if I ever wander outside, and I feel a deep self-loathing. Thanks a bunch Bransgore.

And I've finally finished my packing. Which annoys me because I thought I'd finished it three days ago, when suddenly BAM, a whole new pile of stuff is thrown on my bed by my parents, who, at the exact same time, were saying 'DAVID, YOU DON'T NEED ALL THIS STUFF' which seems redundant considering a.) neither of them were really students and b.) I'm moving away for 39 weeks. I do need this stuff thanks.

So that's my bitch done and dusted. Let's talk about something nice and happy, aka last night.

Me and Tom met up, did a bit of window shopping- I fell in love with a capacious manbag and sat hugging it for a few minutes whilst Tom looked at me with what can only be defined as pity- then Rachel came along and we all went for Wagamama. Our plan was to celebrate the re-opening of the Ink Bar, so we wandered in only to find it seemed have been booked for a party. Imagine the scene- three teenagers, dressed in everyday wear, are stood dumbfounded in the doorway of a darkly lit cafe that has turned into some strange nightclub, surrounded by people looking to see which invited friend must have turned up.

We quickly retreated to 60 million for drinks, sat about in the quasi-darkness and drank pimms, pear cider and red wine until we left. It was a beautiful evening, a perfect conclusion to my years in Bournemouth, and I felt so very serene that night.

But I am, today, in a towering temper. I just want to go out tonight, eat a lot of Indian food with the family, down a lot of beer, and forget about this awful day. I already miss summer; though, technically, today is the last day of my summer holiday.

Oh well. Tomorrow I leave this godforsaken asylum, meet new people, and get sloshed. I am, to be perfectly honest, very excited.

~ David xXx

Gastropub Prophecy

2010-09-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

I had the most perculiar experience the other day. Just like everything great it happened whilst I was in the bathroom- this time brushing my teeth, so no need to censor the image.

It was a strange, windy echo. A voice in my mind. It was... It was really strange. It was incredibly real. It was my voice but different- more assured, older, it even sounded leaner if that's possible.

"I just can't believe it, Kim. I'm... I'm happy. I have a girlfriend, I have a job, I can take people out for dinner and I can pay for it myself! I have a saville row suit I'm... I'm really, honestly happy."

In the background were the sounds of a restaurant. The clattering of cutlery on crockery, gentle chat, some indistinguishable jazz song. There was the air of an open-fronted, pretentious restaurant that would be referred to be a certain type of nouveau riche as a 'bistro'. It was like some sort of weird epiphany. It was the most real thing my mind has ever conjured.

Recently I've been becoming more- dare I say it?- realistic. I've started to develop new life plans, new ideas, but become more flexible with them. I've tried to cut any purse strings in my life, I've tried to become more independent. I've looked at new, more grounded, career options. I've decided I really want to move to London when university is over and pursue my writing somehow.

This moment was, in some way, the pinnacle of this new state of contentment I've started to find in the idea of everyday life. A sort of fluttering excitement knowing that soon my life will be a world of relationships, proposals, applications for work, dressing like a businessman, applying to publishers.

The first episode of Seven Days was pretty mediocre, but everybody knew this was going to be the case- in a show about interaction, an episode where the interaction has yet to occur will be good for nothing but exposition. This episode, however, was great. The best part was the scene with Laura and Sam in the cafe (I had a desperate desire for a hangover and a full english watching this) where the girl behind them started to intrude on the show itself for the sake of analysing its credulity. It was a mobius strip of reality and TV drama blending- it was as if somebody went up to Lauren Conrad and was like 'but do you ACTUALLY hate Heidi?' in The Hills. It was just... Mindblowingly crazy.

I'm excited. I'm excited to watch lives collapse on TV and for the people around them to all be aware its become half-life, half-drama.

~ David xXx

Transitions

2010-09-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

Everything is in a state of transition right about now. Shelves are looking vacant of books and DVDs, there are piles of new things stacked up in doorways, and I feel that same resentment towards my parents, still, that I've mentioned at times before. I am, however, cracking on through The Iliad. I have got through the phase of 30 page chapters and now arrived at nice bitesize ones, during which I sit there and think 'christ, just KILL HECTOR ALREADY'. I mean honestly, yes, you have driven the point home every chapter so far; isn't it ironic he's going to die soon, yeah, sure Zeus, Alanis Morisette would like to put it in a nice song... Oh, you haven't done it yet? Oh that's cool, you... No, hang on, I've read 300 pages of this and its not happened. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS.

Then I've got The Canterbury Tales, Buddha Of Suburbia and a history text about Tudor England to enjoy. Oh hallelujah. This is such a fun reading list I want to be preparing for University every day.

More important than this however, I have recently found a version of Thomas Hardy's 'The Return Of The Native' read by none other than the velveteen voice himself, Alan Rickman. Yes, that's right- Hardy's beautiful and excessive description of Egdon Heath is now so beautiful it is practically hedonistic. And yes, it IS still excessive. But you know what? Call it nationalistic pride, call it ruddy jingoism if you want, I love how Hardy does not just write, he transcribes the very chemical format of Dorset onto the page. It's not just art. Its a scientific equation of algebraric runes that, in the hands of the right physicist, could recreate an identical copy of Dorset itself in another place.

If you can't tell, I love Hardy. But not 'The Withered Arm'. That was just a bit shit.

This weekend is the mass exodus of uni students to their places of learning. In fact, next weekend- aka when I leave- is such a non-event after this weekend and the one before it might as well not occur. I spend the next week fairly alone, and my back up plan- Lego Harry Potter- has effectively been completed. So that sucks a tad. Last night was a farewell with the lads, in which Steve plied me with JD and coke in an attempt to win a hat. I believe he succeeded, and I got a tad merry, and we ended up playing a pub quiz machine and entering a meat raffle. If it was possible, we just became MORE rural.

Ah well, I've got a nice busy week. Saying goodbye to people, enjoying the quasi-return of The Ink Bar (at very strange times at a very perculiar era of the year to open, but there you go) and such like. I kind of just want to get it over with now, to be frank. The wait has gone on for long enough.

~ David xXx

Our Love Will Last Till The Stars Turn Cold

2010-09-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

1.) Klimt's 'Judith I'
2.) The Sartorialist's coverage of Paul Smith at Fashion Week

Last night I stared at my clothes rail and felt a desperate desire to pull out all the knitwear and leathers and tweeds and wear them to celebrate the coming joy of Autumn. As great as this little Indian summer is, I'm ready for something woolly. The Sartorialist showed this lovely look for SS11 but I think it stands alone this season as well- grey, rust and aubergine. Mix it in with my favourite mustard, a cheeky bit of burgundy... Babes, we've got ourselves something really quite autumnal.

Oh, and there's Klimt up there. Everybody loves Klimt, so... Yeah.

Today I've treated myself to some Hollywood musicals (I don't know why I feel the need to group them as 'Hollywood' but I do it, and it seems to work.) White Christmas, Funny Face, High Society, and of course Singin' In The Rain.

"Good thing we brought our tap shoes to the elocutionist's!"

The sheer absence of plot and presence of wonderful musical numbers makes me love any old Hollywood musical- throw in an Edith Head wardrobe and some great behind-the-scenes stories to hear in the extra material I'm only ruddy hooked, aren't I?

Whilst I do love Singin' In The Rain, I must say White Christmas is eternally better in my mind. Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen really do give Debbie Reynolds a good run for her money, and I personally find Donald O'Connor quite difficult to stomach for all his talent, whilst I love Danny Kaye. Finally, who can resist the basset-eyed charm of Bing Crosby over the arrogant draconian that is Gene Kelly?

I mean, he's really talented and all, yes, but the sheer self-indulgence of his movies grates after a while. The Broadway Medley/Melody/Whatever in Singin' is my least favourite bit of the whole film and is SO narcissistic its almost impossible. The same thing happens in An American In Paris. I mean, atleast in Anchors Aweigh the arrogance allows for Jerry to be involved in that wonderful blend of real and cartoon choreography...

Saying this, when I was younger I looked up to Gene Kelly enormously. When all I knew of him was the film and nothing else. My Mum always used to make me watch all these old musicals and Gene Kelly was my idol. He was everything I never was- handsome, muscular, tanned and dark-haired with a picture perfect smile and a way with the ladies. Even in my sportiest phase in my youth I never had any hope of shedding what can only be called a genetic predisposition to fatness (not an excuse for it, just a fact- I used to swim, play football and do gymnastics as well as first aid and cubs, and I was never anywhere near thin.) When I watched Gene Kelly dance it was something magical, transcendant. I wanted someday to perform with Cyd Charisse, Debbie Reynolds and all those other lovely ladies.

I also always loved his wardrobe. Nowadays my love of old musical sartorial splendour has been shifted onto the instrumenter of such fine ensembles; Edith Head (especially as I branched out and watched other old films from the golden age that Head had worked on, e.g. Hitchcock's classics, and realised she really is incredible at her job) but even now I just gawp at the effortless glamour of those days. Throw in my love of 20s/30s Britain and you've got a romance with tailoring and fairisle that's gone on since I was in the single digits (what can I say? Other little boys fancied Britney Spears, I loved Erin O'Connor.)

But after I heard about what a slavedriver he was on the set, I was less enamoured. I remember quite famously Frank Sinatra found Debbie Reynolds crying under a table on set because her feet had started bleeding into her shoes Kelly had made her practice so much, and he didn't like to see people cry so she could only do it in solitude. Its a story that has remained with me ever since, and even now, when sometimes I drift off a little bit and can't be arsed with watching bits of the film, if Debbie Reynolds is dancing I will watch just out of respect for how hard she was worked.

I also remember reading about how the lass who played Lina Lamont never really made a name for herself in Hollywood, which was always shocking for me as she was the Levesley family favourite in the film. Even now we'll do the odd impression of her if we need to say 'I can't stand it', or, you know... 'I can't make love to a bush'. Not quite as regular an occurrence but there you go.

So yeah. Singin' In The Rain is on the TV right now. With a soda bread sandwich and a cup of tea it makes for the ultimate morning of recovering from a bad night's sleep. I can gauge how well I sleep based on how many chapters of Harry Potter have passed in the night, and I only slept from Chapter 36 of Goblet Of Fire up to Chapter 4/5 of Order Of The Phoenix.

And don't you just love the slang used in these old films? 'Tearing a pheasant', 'all that banana oil in the press', 'no need to make a whole big mish mosh out of it'. It just sounds charming.

~ David xXx

Is this what you call a... Dachshund?

2010-09-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

Today has been one of those days that reminds me why I want to move out of the house- my parents keeping me in the dark about important things, their inability to keep the kitchen door closed, and the fact that I receive the blame for things that are completely and utterly pointless. Dad today told me I was taking up too much room on the sky+ box with my 6% of the box taken up, whilst he still had a dozen already viewed Time Team episodes at 4% apiece. Apparently Mum's been recording the whole of Sky Arts as well and passing the blame on to me, which is lush. Yesyes, utterly pointless and none of you care, but OOOH IT ANNOYS ME.

So anyway, I watched Frost/Nixon this morning, and I loved it. It really is a superb film and worth all the praise it received. It also brought up three things that really do need to be mentioned.

1.) Rebecca Hall- the great forgotten actress

When any film ever wants to have a cantankerous female who might win the movie a surprising oscar, the search is always on for a Brit. Maggie Smith and Judi Dench- as well as other welterweight character actresses like Gemma Jones, Celia Imrie, Frances De La Tour and Annette Crosbie- have made their name as the cream of British cinematic actresses. Yet if you were to try and find the single big break in their career that made them as screen actresses I, personally, find it quite difficult. After a certain point in the career of Judi Dench I draw a blank. That's because at some point during their career they made the leap from esteemed stage actress to the screen and have just had a fug of talent about them ever since. I doubt any of these actresses (except, of course, Judi and Maggie) have played any more than a character part in a movie for some time, often very small ones; yet one casts them because they add a prestige to these small roles. But this prestige is something that seems almost alchemically ambiguous.

The current crop of British talent seems to suffer from the adverse effect. Except Kate Winslet, who seems to stand alone as a generation of British female talent in and of herself, the current group seem to have suffered a terrible blow to their pulling power. Emily Blunt seems to have escaped the curse, thankfully, but even she is often just a name thrown about that an audience member will only recognise upon watching. Gemma Arterton has broken through and made it as a face in and of herself, but she has criticised her niche as being the 'totty' put on camera in films like Prince Of Persia and Clash Of The Titans, which is true- she's become a hot girl in a bit of a rut when it comes to parts, which is terrible considering her talent. Carey Mulligan has, thankfully, escaped the curse and succeeded. And, of course, so did Keira Knightley.

But Emily Mortimer, Tamsin Egerton, Tallulah Riley... These are all actresses who have suffered a strange sense of anonymity for some completely unknown reason. You know them, you just cannot place them- Emily Mortimer was the voice of Sofie in Howl's Moving Castle, starred in Woody Allen's Match Point, and even featured in one of the vignettes in Paris Je T'aime alongside Rufus Sewell. Tamsin Egerton was in St Trinians and has since been cursed to play the odd hot girl part. Tallulah Riley, a really quite exceptional actress, made a brief appearance in Pride & Prejudice as Mary Bennett and then proceeded to appear in just about everything, including the film that seems to have gathered all these punished screen sirens together, St Trinians. I was SHOCKED that she was only given a bit part in Inception after hearing she would be in the film and being quite excited to watch, partially, for her appearance.

But the greatest victim of the curse of all, and I feel for her truly, is our leading lady in Frost/Nixon, Rebecca Hall. Beautiful and incredibly talented she seems to be regularly cast in high profile films yet has received little to no credit for her hard work and consistently brilliant performances. The only film she received much in the way of recognition for was 'Starter For Ten' with James McAvoy, which is a shame as that was such a mediocre picture.

Even Wikipedia does not truly note how prolific a career she has had for such a poorly known individual. The following is in the opening synopsis of her page:

She has appeared in two high-profile films, The Prestige and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy category.

Two? TWO? My dear, you go on to say quite the opposite in the next section! Let's take a look at the films you have, to be honest, DEFINITELY seen her in.

The Prestige
Stephen Poliakoff's brilliant 'Joe's Palace'
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Picture Of Dorian Gray
Frost/Nixon

Look at that- from her 2006 role in Starter for 10 to 2009's Dorian Gray we have there five/six films that she has had starring roles in. Hell, her character is PART OF THE NAME OF VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, and yet who appears on the poster beside Scarlett Johanneson and Javier Bardem?

That's right, Penelope Cruz- who, as beautiful and talented as she is (and yes, she won the oscar, BLAHBLAHBLAH) only appeared in perhaps a third of the film. Yet her name is creditted where Rebecca Hall's is not (although if you look very closely, she appears, in translucent text, at the bottom beside the secondary cast.) So hidden was she in the publicity of this film that I watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona and was absolutely shocked to see Rebecca Hall sat there in the first scene yet not creditted on the poster or DVD. But wait, said I, she must leave very early on in the film? OH NO WAIT SHE LASTS LONGER THAN SCARLETT.

I am a massive fan of Allen and of Hall, so this is all the more confusing. WHY was she left out of the publicity? Is she not GOOD enough? Hell, Audrey Hepburn got top billing in her first goddamn film and Hall was already a stage actress of great success before her career in film had kicked off two, three years prior.

This is a pattern that carries over in all these high profile films. I sit there, not expecting to see her, then her name appears in the opening credits briefly and she appears to play a lead role, like in Dorian Gray or to appear prolifically like in Frost/Nixon. I can somewhat understand the lack of promotion for the latter as I was not actually expecting any other actors apart from Sheen and Langhella (although perhaps that is, in itself, a crime of promotional products?) But in Dorian Gray she is the female lead. Yes, alright, its a film about narcissism- but does that mean the posters must be equally self-centred?

In my opinion, no.

So everybody, raise your glasses to one of our finest actresses and yet one of our most ignored- Rebecca Hall. Let us hope she at least gets her name mentioned in the next one.

2.) The soundtrack

Hans Zimmer can write a damn good soundtrack. For example, his work on Pirates Of The Carribean. But when the opening bars of Frost/Nixon's score sound like I'm watching Hook or Shrek, then there is a problem.

Yes, the soundtrack does blend in for most of the film, but its just so... Inapplicable. This is a movie about political intrigue, not a fantasy film. Plus, on top of that, the bits of music they do use felt completely irrelevant in themselves- that piece of dance music at the end? No. They didn't need it.

This was a film that needed a very small, quite frankly nonexistent score. Zimmer didn't deliver this time.

3.) The job

This film makes me want to be a journalist all the more. When I watched 'When Harry Met Sally' the throwaway line Billy Crystal says in the car threw me a bit- is journalism just trying to make a life through vicariously observing others? Is it a non-life?

Yet watching this movie convinced me otherwise. David Frost actively made a name for himself and made HIMSELF a part of history with those interviews with Nixon. Maybe someday I can be the same. As Alan Bennett once said, the writer remains detached from everything, with that little monkey on their shoulder and turns every event into a potential scene in a piece of literature. But that does not mean they cannot live their own life and make their own fame.

~ David xXx

To The Sea

2010-09-20T11:30:00.001-07:00

1.) Yorkshire Pearl produces some fantabulous bracelets that, like the wolf bag I posted before, desperately make me want to become a drag queen for the excuse of wearing anything studded with buttons from old cardigans. The stuff is enamelled and bloggers like Susie Lau are enamoured (LOOK AT ME POETRY!) need I say more?

2.) From Coolhunting, a new favourite of mine on the internet which does the job I've always dreamed of doing- trend hunting. The trousers are by a successful designer label that has 'Yoko' as part of its name, but I otherwise forget the origin. But I kind of, desperately, want them.

3 and 4.) Images from the pop artist and manga-inspired cultural GOD that is Murakami's latest venture, an exhibition at the Versailles Palace in France. Cue fantabulous classical art meeting anime bunny girls. I, for one, wish I had the money to make a weekend of it in Paris.

Blogspots being a bit annoying, so I'll link to these beautiful things at another time.

Anyhoo, I have done diddly squat since my last post- met up with people, watched a lot of Jersey Shore, yaddayaddayadda. Today I went out with the boys for a day in Bournemouth of Pizza Hut and Mini Golf. Pizza Hut was god awful today- the staff was sloppy and the salad bar was so acidic it made my tongue fizz, so, you know, good stuff all round. Don't know what was on the go there when we had a really nice time at the one in Christchurch the other day for a post-mass-breakup-due-to-uni meal. The Mini Golf, however, was brilliant.

There was a rather weird moment today when we were leaving waterstones having scoped out some course books for Danny's degree (and we bought a hilarious book of swear words. Yeah, we're adults.) It started with the other guys asking which I preferred, Costa or Cafe Nero, and I reccommend Costa. So we popped in, got a drink, and as me and Danny grabbed a comfy sofa table by the window he said he would have to get used to going to cafes now he was becoming a student.

This may not sound weird initially, but it felt weird because it showed to me how different me and Danny's forms of having a day out are. I mean, I've always known my days out with the lads always have a different way of panning out to a day out with the girls, but it was then I realised- I've been going to cafes for years, spending whole days in there with friends. Hell, me and Lozzay still carry on meeting up in the costa in Christchurch to have days of chats and cocoa as we relive the first day me and the girls took up a cosy table and spent the entire day sat there, gossiping, eating and reading vogue.

Yet this doesn't mean my friendship with Danny is any less strong. Yes, the bond we have and the way we spend our lives has massively diverged since we first met at the start of Highcliffe. But when we left, and people were saying goodbyes potentially for the last time until Christmas, we all agreed that there was no way none of us was falling out of contact- Danny said he could see us all being friends for a very long time (if not forever) and I agreed. I just don't see how we could lose the group dynamic we have- there are people in the group maybe I won't keep in contact with regularly one on one, but all of us will always have our social circle. It has remained almost the same for seven years and has only grown stronger with time.

Wednesday will be my last meet with Kim before she heads off to university. I'm going to miss her like mad, I can't even describe how crucial she is to me. I feel a pang of loss whenever she's not around, and she says the same thing of me. She's one of my best friends, and, like all of them, losing her for these ten weeks feels like I'm losing a structural pillar I need to replace quickly. But I do not want my uni friends to just be 'mach 2' versions of my friends back home. I want to meet people who are different, who complete the gaps in the dulux colour chart of friends. I want to meet more people like me too. People who laugh when I make a reference to Anna Karenina, listen to St Vincent, and get me better than many do. But then, at the same time, I have people who are quintessentially exactly what I want- people who put up with me, make sure I don't become a dickhead, and love me unconditionally.

It was also very noticeable in Bournemouth today that all the uni freshers have arrived from across the nation and, indeed, from across the globe. They were all wearing outfits that were very obviously pulled together to show themselves off as sartorial peacocks on the streets of Bournemouth (a ridiculous place to try and be a fashion star, I hasten to add) and stuck to big chain shops, clinging to their walls like moths to familiar lanterns. I've never seen H&M so busy.

But although I did appraise them (and me and Danny ended up colliding into each other in the street due to us both being distracted by two stunning girls passing us by) I wanted them out. Don't ask me why, its that psychological dislike of the minority arriving to disrupt the status quo. I just thought they didn't, and would never in the way we do, know Bournemouth. They didn't get its quirks. We were handed some freshers reading material today and it was so hilariously awful- throwing out pointless facts about the area (did you know Bournemouth's rainfall is below the national average? And Oasis shot a cover for an album here? Yeah, neither did I. Did you care? No, neither did I) and also giving a list of shitty 'to dos' in the area- the BIC, watch the Cherries, go to the Oceanarium... But if you asked me what you had to do in Bournemouth, I'd have said something different.

Always wonder past the Westover Gallery and check out what interesting exhibits they have on there- you may even get a free glass of champers if you look fascinated enough or spew enough shit (I got one just got going on about Demarchelier to somebody once.) Check out the crazy vintage store that's party grotto and part thrift store in the bottom of the Arcade with TK Maxx. Check out the Russell Coates, which has the Venus Venticordia in its permenant collection and does the best homemade cakes in the area. There's a popcorn machine that sings to you hidden down along the seafront. Harry Ramsden's main hall is one of the most beautiful spots in Bournemouth and has the best views in the area. The Topman is always understocked, the wagamamas has the nicest staff, and the Costa above Waterstones is always just empty enough for you to get away with mooching around and reading a book in there for a few hours. You always buy snacks from the cinema from the newsagents, never from the Odeon itself, and Shakeaway... Oh God, Shakeaway!

I am pretty sure I will never get this sort of intimate knowledge of Coventry. If I'm honest, I don't really WANT an intimate knowledge of Coventry. I may just skip it completely and aim for Warwick/Stratford/Leamington/Birmingham/maybe even Oxford at a stretch. But I love being in a place you know. Knowing New York was one of the feelings I most enjoyed about our long stay in the city, and yes, I know I'm in Cov for far longer than 3 weeks at a time but...

Oh I don't know. Do you get where I'm coming from? I feel I don't even know completely. Simply put, I'm going to bloody miss this place. Even though I never want to live here and I bloody hate the south coast at times, I know what I'll miss most about the place is everything I dislike; the ponies in the road, the tourists raping the area in summer, and the sea.

When I go to university, the thing I'll miss most is the sea.

~ David xXx

Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love

2010-09-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

I was so enthusiastic.
I was in ev'rything.
The yearbook is filled with my pictures,
And I was lucky 'cause I got a scholarship to college.
A scholarship to college! So I went.

Yes, I went.

So I'm gonna be this kindergarten teacher...
Imagine me -- this kindergarten teacher? And I thought...shit

Shit!

What are you gonna be?
When you get shoved outta here
Honey, ain't nobody gonna be
Standin' there with no scholarship to life.
~ 'Gimme The Ball', A Chorus Line

Sums me up at the moment.

Hit the town last night and got merrily messy. Did end up as a bit of a chaperone though, which is never a good thing when I'm far from sober myself. Got to see some lovely old faces again though, which always makes me jubilant.

~ David xXx

Apple C-Ramble

2010-09-15T04:13:00.000-07:00

The other night I had another ridiculous dream. Lying beside a very fancy pool (we're talking pure white stone, maybe on the side of a cliff, but definitely as part of a very 50s summer house- you know that episode of Mad Men where Draper goes to a random person's house for that pool party? I think that was the setting) a beautiful blonde woman walks past me and takes my hand, saying that she wants me to come meet 'the mysterious donut man' who speaks in strange prophecies. I suddenly become very aware I'm just in swimming trunks- which is hilare in itself because LIKE HELL I'd be in anything less than a t-shirt and shorts in a public place which, based on the Californian vibe of the whole thing, would be filled with pretty people. Anyhow, there seems to be nobody else down by the pool- though I have the feeling I came with people- and I decide to follow the blonde.

We arrive in a really weird market- half Moroccan bazaar, half the market from Paris where we learnt we were lucky to not be mugged in our attempt to reach the Clignancourt antique market. So if you were one of the eight lucky people who managed to evade being a hookah OR having their money stolen, you know the sort of place.

We pass by a stall covered in red/white stripe tarpaulin, rain is now falling heavily, and we talk to the staff. One of the men is the mysterious donut guy, but we cannot seem to actually understand the perculiarities he says. Then, all of a sudden, he's shot. We run away to try and escape but bullets keep tearing past us. Magazines and newspapers fly everywhere, and I'm horribly reminded of a dream from years ago- a dream where my Mum was trying to assassinate me (Freud would love me) and a fateful chase scene occurred within a very cramped, very dark newsagents which seemed to be built in a tube, papers slipping all over the floors.

That's all I remember of the dream. But I woke up feeling like I'd just been in a B-Movie.

Not much has happened recently in my life, hence why I'm boring you with some ridiculous dream diary. I am currently loving Lego Harry Potter and The Iliad for calming down the boredom as I can't really leave the area without money, which is, sadly, my current situation.

I am super glad that Edd and Ruth have both made it through to the final of the great British Bake-Off, so I'm incredibly excited for next Tuesday. I've also- ever since America where we used to watch it and Frasier before going out for the day- become addicted to Desperate Housewives. Worst of all, I've become so desperate for Blake Lively's legs I downloaded the first episode of season 4 IN ADVANCE. So that's me officially emasculated.

~ David xXx

The Sandman's Bitch

2010-09-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

This week I've had really weird dreams. Not my usual type either. I've gone shopping for pairs of shoes, become an Iago to people who I know only briefly from school and wanted to kill them because of their exceptional GCSE grades (GCSE for god's sake! I don't even give a shit about those!) I was on a train with The Saturdays and a cast of other people, desperately trying to stay alive as terrible tragedies occurred to people. Me and my family went for a walk in a rainy woodland. Me and Mum stalked Dad on a 'job interview' with a blonde, middle-aged woman in a burgundy sportscar.

I cannot help but feel these weird dreams- and a recent increase in food intake if my waistbands are anything to go by- are connected to the strange anxiety, and yet adrenaline-fuelled excitement, I have about University.

I can recognise this feeling of nerves from back when I applied to Cambridge. I feel that alienation and anger at my parents that I felt in those few days up in my room in Queens; not as strongly mind, but an essence of that same feeling. I keep feeling horribly, painfully emotional. Watching anything about people at school makes me feel dewy, yet I still feel that confidence that nothing will change that is beginning to seem more like denial.

I now have a pile of reading list books by my pillow, a casserole dish on top of my printer, and I'm five chapters into The Iliad... But part of me can't shake that I'm just going to go back to Highcliffe, even though term has already begun. I have absolutely no idea to do another year at Sixth Form for any reason whatsoever, but its a part of me. I realised it yesterday, watching the finale of Big Brother, watching these people express their grief at how this thing was coming to an end and how it had made them.

Before I'd come to Highcliffe I'd never sung before. I'd never really, properly, acted. I'd never had real, true, honest-to-god friends. My relationship with my father was (and was for the first few years into Highcliffe) a rocky one. My writing was confined to fantasy tales involving me and characters from TV shows and books I liked going on escapades in worlds I invented out of the places I knew.

Now I've performed in god knows how many guises in musical productions, and even appeared in dance showcases. I was told I made a damn good Hamlet. I have so many brilliant friends that make my heart ache when I'm away. Me and my parents have a strong and powerful bond that- whilst tarnished by the events that happened between us at the start of the year and by the fact we are trying to cope with my evanescent presence in the house- is better than ever. The worlds that Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z characters used to inhabit have been refined, carbon-to-diamond, and become complex lands of intrigue and magic. My writing has developed into a more character-oriented, less action-based form. I've become quite a good poet, if I may so myself.

This has all occurred in my time at Highcliffe. I don't know how much I can put down to myself, or other factors that were not the school, but I know its become a part of me. The people I've met through Highcliffe, and the people I've met through those people, are my dearest and most essential accomplices through the escapade of life. I've changed from the quiet one whose worst subject was English and who had nobody, to a person who feels spoiled by the love of those who have dained to include him in their lives, and who was not considered a fool for applying to Cambridge. I've lost, I've cried, I've been lower than I've ever fallen before... But Highcliffe also inspired by greatest triumphs. Through them I even joined Theatre 2000, a group I can't even begin to describe the importance of in my life.

I don't know why I feel the need to share this all now. As if when I go to uni this blog is going to fizzle and die (which it won't). But something in me is driving me to tell the internet, the many eyes who will probably never read this, how happy Highcliffe made me. My blood will, truly, always run purple.

Now I just need to tell the individuals.

~ David xXx

Keep Calm & Carry On

2010-09-08T07:54:00.001-07:00

1.) Nintendo World
2.) A Journey Round My Skull

On the way back to the hotel after seeing Inception on Saturday night, I had the overwhelming feeling of complete and utter solitude that I sometimes get. It was not a feeling of depression or torpor, but instead an anxious frenzy. I went on a fast-paced walk through Kensington, brushing past queues outside nightclubs, darting inside newsagents in an attempt to find some sort of normality (why I sought these out in the magazine racks I do not know, but there you go. The moment, and all that.)

Just now I felt the exact same thing. I don't quite know why, but I convinced myself there was a backpack at the charity shop I just had to see again. I don't know if this mythical acoutriment existed, but it was not there. As soon as I left the shop again I realised my reason for going inside had just been veiled by my desire to visit the shop. I had, really, wanted to get out of the house. To escape the piles of course texts, the cookbooks... Either I'm desperately making shopping lists for Ikea and Staples or I'm having very brief panic attacks about the whole experience. Its just like university application all over again in a weird way- the event itself has actually occurred, and instead of the fairly secure tramline I hoped for its actually more like driving- I have a dizzying amount of freedom and space and I'm not sure if I like it.

The words overdraft, contract, ovenware... Words that were just fleeting keystones of 'maturity' and 'adulthood' beforehand have suddenly become very, very real, tangible ideas I have to grapple with. I felt so stressed, hearing these words pour over me like some uncomfortable shower water with something distressing swimming within it, that I sought fresh air, and any flaw my parents picked out caused me to snap angrily.

Nonetheless, I'm rather pleased; with my subconscious collection of mugs, the dinner set we bought for smashing in the philosophers stoned but never used, and the box of old cutlery my parents gave me, I only had to spend £8 today on 8 plastic glasses and a rather expansive set of crockery for about 9 people. So a lot, but that's damn good value. Thank you charity shops, eh?

I dunno. I don't mean to do one of these whiny blogs- that is never my intention, you understand- but it does sound like one, doesn't it? I'll look back on this in like a month and laugh merrily at how neurotic I was.

After hearing Adam Levine's song with K-Naan (spelling is wrong but HO HUM) the other day- a collaboration that felt a bit weird to be frank- I went back and revisited the always loved but often neglected discography of Maroon 5. Bloody hell they wrote some good songs, didn't they?

In another moment of musical HUZZAH-dom, I got a ticket for Belle & Sebastian's performance with the London Symphonic Orchestra in Birmingham for towards the end of my first term as an early christmas present, and I am SUPER PSYCHED. I've been relistening to 'If You're Feeling Sinister' and 'Tigermilk'- and their BBC Sessions- and re-loving every song.

Yesterday was also a day for cracking out the vinyls. After buying Simon & Garfunkel's greatest hits the other day [/middle aged] I followed it up with The Kinks' greatest hits, The Shadows' soundtrack for a panto of Aladdin (a real testament to their flexibility as well as a brilliant album) and the Original Broadway Cast of West Side Story. I was going to hear Joni Mitchell's Blue as well, but... You know... The Great British Bake Off came on... [/Definitely middle aged]

Now I'm currently listening to the German version of A Chorus Line. Its weird, I'll give it that.

So... Yeah. That's all, really. Feeling a bit weird, you know? Hopefully seeing people will make me feel a bit better tomorrow.

~ David xXx

Culiningus

2010-09-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

"What is your desire really?" I said, "Doctor, I don't think you're going to find this very healthy and clear, but I really would like to stop working forever- never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I'm doing now-a nd do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the days outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I'd like to keep living with someone-maybe even a man- and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence."

~ Allen Ginsberg

The BBC has produced some absolutely brilliant TV over the years, I realised, as yesterday in Waterloo's Costa me and Dad had a long chat about our favourite BBC documentaries of recent years.

The one thing I do love about the Beeb of recent, however, is its great food programming. Whilst I do enjoy a good Cupcake-shop-docudrama like 'DC Cakes', or the gargantuan servings of 'Man Vs Food' we saw in America, I didn't get the feeling that American TV has found that brilliant world of food television we have. Maybe its because the UK has this utter obsession at the moment, in the media, of thriftiness; maybe that's because its really a part of our national identity in a way I don't think it is across the Atlantic. But whatever it is, English food TV is brilliant, from the Hairy Bikers to the sadly departed UK Food classic, 'Good Food Live' with Jenny Barnett. Food television is a massive part of my life as I have always really wanted to learn how to cook (but just didn't have the time or ability or conviction) and I find it incredibly interesting, but also because it has been one of the ways me and my Dad have bonded over the years.

Anyway, my current favourite at the moment is 'The Great British Bake-Off', a show some reviewers have classified as being dry, dull and full of people you don't empathise with, but I disagree. From the moment I started watching I was addicted. The blend of Sue Perkins, food documentary, Sue Perkins, bakery masterclass, Sue Perkins and likeable reality cooking show, I couldn't stop watching. It was also nice to see Sue's comedy partner, Mel, brought out for this show- Mel just hasn't got as much love as Sue, and whilst I do love me some Miss Perkins, I fell in love with her because of how funny the DUO were, not because of how funny Sue was- though she is a hilarious individual, of course.

So after three episodes, I am rooting for Edd or Ruth to win, and it is the show I look forward to the most in the week.

Something else of interest was a recent article posted on Style Rookie about Britney Spear's cover for Pop Magazine, which you can peruse here. It makes a point I've always agreed with- that Britney's main problem was how oversexed she was as a child, and that isn't any good for a person's psychoses; to be so lusted after and wanted at such a young age can't set you up well into an adulthood where, inevitably, some of those youthful draws won't be as relevant. An excellent comparison was drawn up by somebody, and also referenced by Tavi above, to virgin sacrifice:

These have to be some of the most fascinating magazine covers I have seen all year. Britney's role in popular culture has always intrigued me, particularly after her epic public breakdown. Like Marilyn Monroe before her, Britney is a tragic figure who was built up by the public around her only to be sacrificed later on, a sort of a sacrificial virgin. I think the way Britney is represented on these covers both reinforce and feed into this image. On one cover, she is a subservient bride, passively looking up to the viewer with her piercing sad eyes that shield her inner emotional turmoil. She is sweetly and saccharinely smiling, but the grin is forced and fake. Her tousled hair and dissheveled appearance--which is very similar to the way that Britney appears in public nowadays-- suggest that all is not as it may appear to be. On the other cover, she takes on the role of the teenage sex bomb, a role she so perfectly embodied when she first arrived on the pop scene more than 10 years ago. In a way, she is playing her former self. In addition, she does not have the same dead look here as she does on the first cover. On this cover, she looks more sultry than sedated. She coquettishly ogles and teases the viewer much like she did on her infamous Rolling Stone cover. In my opinion, the two covers sum up Britney's life in two different images which, when combined, tell a consecutive story. Britney started off as the teenage sex-bomb, but then was eventually forced to become the subservient (sacrificial) bride by the world around her.

I am probably reading too much into this, but I really do think the mise-en-scene and costumes invite some sort of interpretation that goes beyond the whole Japanese schoolgirl theme. Britney was specifically chosen for these covers for a reason and the way she is depcited, in my opinion, was carefully thought out. These images actually remind me of Warhol's garishly colored paintings of Marilyn Monroe (particularly the use of tacky, kitschy aesthetics and also the fact that Britney, who is sort of a modern day Marilyn, is the one being depicted), which, of course, commented on Monroe's own role as an icon and a tragic figure. Maybe the Warhol paintings served as some sort of inspiration?

~ From 'The Fashion Spot' Forum, readable here

Another fascinating article I read recently was from the issue of The New Yorker I bought in... Well, New York... And decided to peruse in a Costa the other day (I go there too often, yesyes, I know) waiting for Rachel, Sarah and Tom. The article was all about a boxing match taking place in (I believe) Las Vegas and was littered with fascinating anecdotes, insights into the anarchic boxing competetive system, and also brilliant quotes from one of the boxer's trainers including:

1.) "This motherfucker done got ornery." ~ On his arm after a stroke.

2.) "The gorilla is the strongest mothefucker in the zoo, but you ain't never seen that bitch walk by with the keys."

3.) "Floyd is gon' sprout a tail, grow wings, draw fangs and claws, and turn into a dragon in the ring, and start spitting fireballs."

4.) "You almost forty years old- you better be fighting for a check."

You can take a peek at the first couple of pages of the article here. Sadly, no brilliant quotes from the trainer on those pages, but they're great nonetheless.

So that's me done. Need to get back to reading 'To The Lighthouse' at some point... Mehhhhh...

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt VIII

2010-09-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

1.) Casual Giraffes
2.) The gang
3.) The bay
4.) Me
5.) The walk to the beach (sort of)
6.) The condo

I've just spent the weekend up in London for the mam's birthday and had an absolutely stunning time. It was perculiar to do London on the parent's tempo, which involved a rather more leisurely approach. The fact it was also the weekend/last one of the summer holidays/London meant that it was something it isn't usually when I'm perusing the backstreets on a weekday- infernally busy. But for all that it was definitely worth it. In an attempt to buy Mum a birthday present I hired Dad to lead Mum to pastures new within Liberty so I could buy some blue moleskines and a hankie for her, then quickly pegged it to Anthropologie (it's just as beautiful in England!) to buy her an 'M' mug- which Tom has a 'T' version of and I forever laugh at the fact it's the 'missus' model.

Anyhoo, nice chat with the staff later and we were away. Had lunch at pizza hut, had a drink at Pret, and had dinner at a lovely Thai restaurant in Kensington with an indoors water feature and a 9-course dinner for £16 you couldn't turn away. I had an addiction to their prawn crackers.

On the way there we happened to wander past Boots, where a strange little man in high-waisted trousers with a face quite like Simon Cowell's but strangely dissimilar walked out. If it hadn't been for the BMW, the bodyguard and the general kerfuffle of the two or three other people who had watched on as stunned as I, I would never have realised it was actually Simon Cowell indeed.

More importantly, saw that runner-up guy off School Of Saatchi, which was SO MUCH MORE EXCITING you would not believe.

Got Mum addicted to Muji's wonderfully simplistic stock as well. I may live to regret doing that, but I do love it in there so having an accomplice may be for the best.

I also risked it (for a chocolate biscuit [/had to]) and whilst the parents got an early night I went to go see Inception at the cinema down the road. It was a really lovely cinema, very old fashioned but definitely refurbed to be a top of the range Odeon.

Now, whilst I did LOVE Inception, I don't think I enjoyed it as much as the rest of the populous. The almost kneejerk 'THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER' was not my reaction afterwards. It's not particularly original but it is exceptionally clever. The only problem is it got a bit too self-loving towards the end. When you have four different groups of characters in action plotlines in different places then I understand you want to give them a nice big send-off and make good use of the sets you've built... But considering you can show turmoil through the often used 'THIS WORLD IS TILTING OMG' tool, why bother? Why not provide a nice, fluid, short conclusion?

I did however love the film. I thought everything about it except the length and the terrible soundtrack (which never failed to ruin a mood) was exceptional though at times obvious. It reminded me of a cross between The Matrix (it had some very, very obvious nods at times) and the Japanese animated film Paprika, which I reccommend watching if you enjoyed Inception.

Today was Mum's birthday proper and the day started with a hotel brekkers (fry up- GOD YES) and then we hit the V&A. As I may have mentioned before, I'm a hardcore Victoria & Albert fanboy and I get giddy just at the PROSPECT of going there, so I was all too happy to indulge Mum's desire to go. Got lost for a very long time in the fabulous gift shop, then had a look at the last part of the 'Architects build small spaces' exhibition, a five-storey of so wooden structure composed of bookshelves, reading snugs and staircases. I would kill to have one of my own to house the ol' books, maybe in lieu of the more traditional shed... But on the fifth floor it was all a bit too shaky for me to stomach. Four floors would do me fine, thankyou.

The Grace Kelly exhibit we were there to see as Mum's birthday spectacular was actually really quite fascinating. I couldn't possibly pinpoint why, but its just a really interesting and fun exhibit and I urge you to try it.

But you know what's a far more wonderful exhibit? Kensington Palace's current exhibiton, which you must go see. Adorning the state rooms with modern art, crazy designs and even a bit of Vivienne Westwood, its a fascinating journey through princesses past with gilded mannequins, fantastic draws of curios, typewriters (wonder why I enjoyed it?) and even a dress made of origami. Style Bubble did a great coverage of it back before it opened so if you want detail, go there, but its worth having it unspoiled when you're there. Its great fun.

We popped to the Orangery afterwards for afternoon tea. It wasn't quite The Print Room (blame nostalgia and ennui for that if you must) but the tea was delicious- an orange rooibos that was just fantastic. Though the staff gave me withering looks when I asked for milk, as if rooibos tea has never EVER been had with dairy products. Pricks. Lovely pricks though. Oxymoron? Yes.

Did a spot of shopping afterwards and picked up a lush pair of mocassins for a tidy £10 from Urban Outfitters- both a shock as I thought it would be double this and because I'm not used to going to a UK UO and not needing to take out a mortgage for their stock. Though seriously? Why do they have what is essentially 'gratutious charity shop stuff' there? Given the name 'Urban Rebirth' or some equally pretentious shit (Urban Outfitters? Pretentious? What tosh!) they charge £30 for a knitted jumper you could get for £3 at the Oxfam down the road. As I said to Mum, £27is too high for a finder's free.

Pottered about a bit more, had a lovely bagel and OHMIGOD I forgot to mention that the V&A's new cafe is absolutely sublime, just as nice as the currently-being-refurbished one, it's all Victorian fittings and affordable-but-fancy-but-actually-simple food and I fell passionately in love. Please go. Even if you don't go to the museum, just pop into the cafe there for lunch. You really, really won't regret it.

Ummm... So yeah. Now home. Now knackered. But thought I'd vent on the ol' blog as its been a while. If you're back to school/sixth-form tomorrow, HAHAHAHAHA.

That is all.

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt VII

2010-09-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

1.) Surfers at Crystal Pier
2.) Piping by Urban Outfitters
3.) Tom pulls a Daniel Craig
4.) Becca
5.) Safari Balloon
6.) Peter with the best nachos on the West Coast

Intermizzo- The Cathedral & The Pilgrim

2010-09-02T06:24:00.001-07:00

1.) 2008- Me and Rachel's first time at the print room.
2.) 2008- Me and Zoe see out the year in style
3.) 2008- The best afternoon tea in Dorset.
4.) 2008- The handsome print room.
5.) 2008- The best tea in the area.
6.) 2009- Me at the print room with Rachel again.
7.) 2009- Rachel in the Ink Bar.
8.) 2010- Me and the girls at my 18th.

After so long being my favourite place, my sanctuary, my hospice and in a weird kind of way a home for me in Bournemouth, the Print Room has closed. It sounds so weird to be attached to this place, but the Print Room felt like I belonged there, and that it belonged to me in a way. It felt like a person who heard I went there would think 'ah yes, that makes complete sense'. Like two pieces of a jigsaw put together.

I've drunk a lot of tea. I've eaten a lot of afternoon teas. But that day I took Rachel for her 16th there marked the day I began a love affair with the best one I can think of. I never expected that, yesterday, I would find it shut down. The finality, the ambiguity, the secrecy of it all... I was suckerpunched in the heart.

I sit here today, and to find it confirmed on their website has really done me a number. I can't... I can't quite believe it. So, as usual when its hard to express otherwise, here is a bit of poetry to somehow try and precis it all, entitled 'The Cathedral & The Pilgrim':

The first time I walked in
Walked into your marbled halls
Sat inside a wooden booth
Tasted your scones
I knew I was in love.
I knew I belonged.
I knew we were but one and the same.
The warship and the figurehead.
The cathedral and the pilgrim.

I went there with my best friend
For her sixteenth birthday.
I accidentally clicked over a waitress.
I was so nervous I near toppled the table
I nearly piled too much jam on
Nearly overbrewed the twinings
(I never like twinings anywhere else.)
I nearly ruined our relationship;
Not with Rachel,
With you.

I took my friends there
And we laughed in your private wooden shelters,
Sat at the gilded bar,
Ate our petit fours.
I wowed them with my fine taste in places,
I loved walking in to book a table
From your clergy of white-shirted believers.
I always asked to join the order.

The last time I went there
It was my eighteenth birthday.
I bought my first legal drink;
A pimms encrusted with exotic summer fruits.
I had the best cheesecake of my life
(And I've just been to New York.)
I drank tea, our chat was like a dance
Made effortless and sophisticated
By the acoustics of a room
That still smelt of newspapers.

I took off the bandages for my tattoo in your toilets...
I knew you had moisturiser.
I always took people to your cafe next door.
The tea seemed to last forever.
I thought you would last forever.

Now all that faces me are bog-oak doors,
Padlocks and secrecy.
I can only stare forlornly through the shutters
And wonder why you're going.
The friends who once thought me suave
Are buying houses, on benefits, driving.
And I am ready to leave and live.
But darling... Why did you join me?
I needed you.
For when I come back.
Though now there is nothing I love here anymore.

R.I.P Print Room. You'll be sadly missed.

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt VI

2010-08-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

1.) Mickey gets to meet us, lucky bugger
2.) California Adventure- Boardwalk
3.) The gang (sans Ann, Craig, Megan and Lauren)
4.) California Girl at California Adventure
5.) Sunset on Mission Beach
6.) Olaf's Ices

I had the weirdest dreams last night... In a bedsit that seemed to exist on my road I lived with my friend's ex (who I've only met once, mind) and attempted to set him back up with her. In another dream I drink drugged water and see a field swarming with mantra rays and obese caterpillars that burst into rainbows, only for one of them to develop the face of Christopher Thomas from Winnie the Pooh. Finally, in a bakery, I chase an attractive baker after trying to buy some brownies and strawberries, and her hair slowly falls out in cotton wool clumps of tar-black locks.

The weirdest part was... Each dream challenged me to ask which one of these was real, if any. And when you're lost in a dream, its so hard to tell if there is a reality beyond the kaleidescope of the mind.

I am absolutely loving the sunshine. I used to think I was a rain and winter man, but gone are my days of being some Bronte character gone wrong. I never want winter to return. I swear I must photosynthesise or something.

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt. V

2010-08-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

1.) Basia Bulat
2.) tUnEyArDs
3 and 4.) St Vincent
5.) The flight to San Diego

So that's the end of the New York 'best of', as it were.

Last night I had a really weird evening- I just started impulsively eating tons of food at random. I couldn't stop until I suddenly stared down a packet of seaweed sheets and thought 'enough is enough now'.

Had a massive buffet lunch with the 'rents today after a driving lesson, and then hit the charity shops to buy Warwick books. Found one... Bought a lot more. And a Simon and Garfunkel vinyl. When in Rome, and all.

I feel vexxed about the coming week. Crazy days.

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt. IV

2010-08-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

What you're seeing here:

1.) Sneakers on a wire in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
2.) A wreath in Williamsburg
3.) A street in Williamsburg
4.) The Q Train
5.) Inside the Wonder Wheel
6.) Outside the Wonder Wheel
7.) Coney Island Boardwalk
8.) Coney Island Station

The two days photographed here in Brooklyn were two days of very contrasting forms of summer. Coney Island was baking summer heat that caused the sweat to dribble from the legs of your shorts down your legs and give them the appearance of baluga whales dragged from the water. It cooked your brains sunny side up, made you dumb and torpid, and reduced to a blubbering, gelatinous mush who merely oozed between rollercoaster and horror house.

The summer in Williamsburg was far more civilised. Maybe it was the fact it was the late afternoon when we got there, but the sky was so richly blue it was sapphire, and the heat so reasonable it made you happy without making you foolish. It was the most beautiful day for witnessing such an undiscovered jewel of beautiful people and houses and cheesecakes. It made Williamsburg look so much more Mediterranean than it really should, but there you go. Every colour was startling, every image crisp and spectacular, and therefore it produced some of my favourite shots of the trip.

On the topic of simulated Mediterranean, I keep getting confused when I see shots of Italian piazzas and villas, because they remind me so very much of Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic. This may sound perculiar, but as soon as you enter the town around the cathedral, and wander past the dinky tearooms and the antique shops that smell of pipe smoke, the roads wind down in various shades of saffron and tangerine stone, the buildings wide, spacious quads (especially the old coin press.) It was confusingly Italian, but with all the shopping opportunities of New Milton.

Driving lesson today was better, so that was nice. Feeling more optimistic about life.

Currently listening to the following albums:

The Best Of Edith Piaf
Blondie- Parallel Lines
A Chorus Line Soundtrack (both original broadway and 2006 revival, but not the movie)

Edith Piaf has really got stuck in my head recently. I don't know why. In the same way I realised again I really wanted coleslaw, one day I immediately decided I wasn't having enough bawdy French singing. Didn't help Sky Arts had a bit of a marathon of documentaries and footage of her performing and I watched it all, washed down with Marion Cotillard's wonderous performance in La Vie En Rose.

Blondie have been on my mind all the more since seeing them at Hop Farm, and everytime I hear one of their songs an almost pavlovian desire to hear more exudes from me. So once again, here I am, listening to the classics. Not just Parallel Lines, but all the rest. I'm currently loving 'Maria', but the others are all just as brilliant.

A Chorus Line is a musical I never thought I'd get into, and for a long time I was impartial. But once I started listening to song x or y I began to hear how incredible it was. I really love 'Nothing'; it would be a great song for an audition, I feel. 'Dance: Ten, Looks: Three', 'What I did for love' and 'At the ballet' are also all brilliant. I must join the numbers who find the movie subpar. The soundtrack especially is just a bit too eighties for me. I like the lush backgrounds to songs like Nothing, which has the feeling of a 60s pop ballad. Can't be doing with Dicky Attenborough's attempt. No siree. I do enjoy the revival though, which has a brilliant level of joie de vivre in there, though some of the singers are fairly poor.

Is it wrong the part I'd most like to play in it is Diana?

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt. III

2010-08-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

I feel I should provide some sort of index of what you're looking at:

Pt. I:
The Top Of The Rock
Center Drive sign
Mariachi band on the subway
Versaille Panorama (The Met)
Sea Lions in Central Park
Greenwich
Empire State at sunset

Pt. II:
Louis Vuitton
Fifth Avenue
Atlas
New York Public Library
Times Square
Battery Park Performers
The Statue Of Liberty

Pt. III:
The Guggenheim
Welks in Chinatown
Chinatown
Katz Delicatessen
SoHo
Dean & Deluca
The Bronx
Columbia

Done a bit of shopping, and now I'm having a day of Edith Piaf; documentaries, La Vie En Rose.

My current favourite snack at the moment is dill pickles with french mustard for dipping. These are two things that, before New York, I'd never have even touched for love nor money. Now here I am. I always remember trips by the fingerprints they leave on my eating habits, and America has done its fair share of changing.

Still feeling like I'm in limbo; as if time has lost all meaning. Hopefully things will return to normal soon.

~ David xXx

America On Film Pt. II (Purgatorial)

2010-08-26T10:56:00.003-07:00

My God, what an absolutely SHIT DAY. Had the most awful driving lesson today, it was literally nightmarish, and me and Dave were not pleased. Its kind of put a damper on the whole day. Also couldn't afford a night out tonight even though a group of my friends are having a lad's night out (which would have been great) as I don't risk spending money as this month ends and September begins and I still don't know what's going on with my life.

After all the pomp and glory of results day and the days that followed, once the boozy haze had cleared I feel my decision to sober up has matched up with my desire to know what the hell is going on. With Warwick ages away, I've got nothing to do with my life until then and knowing I have nothing means I'm not motivated to do the meaningless stuff. Trying to find work with a temp agency but, not being able to drive, its difficult to get out and look. Everything feels a bit half-hearted and everybody feels ten times more far away and I know how much I need to learn to drive but also know as soon as I do learn it will be utterly pointless as I'm barely ever done due to uni.

This is, I believe, what is called a crisis. Everything is weird and nobody quite knows what is going on and I CERTAINLY don't, and I can't help but wish I was still having to make the tough choices of whether to stay in a condo or hit the beach every day with the main concern being where to get mexican food today. I never knew chaos could exist in complete inertia, but there you are. It does.

Hopefully things will start fitting together once September arrives. I can't help but feel September will be the time everything begins to slot back together.

I hope.

Anyway, enjoy more pictures.

America On Film: Pt. 1

2010-08-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Baptism Of Knitwear

2010-08-23T04:51:00.000-07:00

Woke up Sunday morning with my mouth tasting of vodka and shame. This was because the night before had been Liam's results party, which was a beautiful evening of Russian spirits and students. It was lovely, but definitely strange in feel. Funny, lighthearted and heartwarming, at sudden parts of the evening (usually when people were leaving to go home) it would become this strange 'is this going to be our last goodbye?' hypothetical last farewell. Doubt it will be though; there are other reunions to come in the next few weeks, which hopefully I can fit in as I'm in a state of whirring life, getting everything back on track and looking to the future/adulthood with a steady gaze.

I'm seriously debating whether it would be worth, after fresher's week of course, actually not drinking for a very long time. This may sound like a ridiculously lame (for whatever reason) and actually very obvious thing to do, and maybe its rose-tinted nostalgia speaking here, but I can't help but feel my health was better in America, which COINCIDENTALLY was sober. So I'm not going stone cold sober, not by any means, but I'll be keeping my drinking far more low key, which will be best when I'm on a student budget.

I met up with Rachel on Sunday and had a great day of hilarious anecdotes and our own brand of witty banter. Only thing I noticed though- and this might be down to the three day bender the last few days have been (and, as a result, have done nothing to dampen my desires to sever my ties with Magners and Jagermeister)- that it was not only disgustingly humid, horribly rainy (it went for a quilt like effect of mismatched, warm rain that was utterly repulsive. All the more so as I was wearing a sheepskin/leather/wool jacket, three fabrics that musty rain has a mongoose-to-viper like relationship with) and filled with people who come to that god forsaken air show, but I felt really, really ill because of all these things in a way that seemed almost to suggest it had other reasoning. Oh well, I recovered that night and watched Don't Stop Believing, rooting on Swish and screaming at the television when DaleDivas won, which was ridiculous.

On that topic, I seem to have now taken to yelling at inanimate objects. I started yelling at some bunting and a tree because they were 'too low' for my umbrella.

Today was a gentle morning with the parents of doing bugger all. I'm slowly trying to sift through all the debris of my life and sort it all out before I go to Coventry but its proving formiddable. I'll do my best. Also bought a jumper from Edinburgh Woollen Mill, which may be the final nail in the middle-aged coffin for me.

It is a nice jumper though.

I'd go so far as to ascribe the term 'quite tasty'.

~ David xXx

Get Me A Noose, 'Cos I'm Hanging

2010-08-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

1.) Vanessa Jackman
2.) The Sartorialist
3, 4 and 5.) E Tautz via Style Salvage

So you're hungover. You're spending a day having painful flashbacks of drunken behaviour. The sound of 'Riverside' makes you remember grinding on a bar with Tash. The very experience of waking up reminds you that you grinded against anybody you could on a podium in walkabout and licked your drink off Kim's LBD. And Kim telling her little sister's boyfriend about me going into a strip club reminds you of grinding against... Well, lets say everything seems to involve grinding. Grinding, kissing, dancing, drinking. Oh the drinking. I can't even think of a vodka and lemonade without my toes curling.

But I digress. You are, at this moment, hanging like Bjork at the end of 'dancer in the dark'. You decide today is the best opportunity to catch up with your correspondence. You text your friend whose been away at drama school and ask to meet up, and he offers you a night out in Bournemouth.

I remind you- you are hungover?

WHAT DO YOU DO?

... So I went out into Bournemouth with Josh and Shannon. Josh, ecstatic about my grades, told everyone- Shannon's family, friends, the members of his old band... It was so lovely, it felt like I was out for a night with a beaming brother and sister (although, lets forget the weird incestuous connotations of that analogy?) and I loved it. We went to see a few bands at The Winchester including a band Josh used to be part of, Kentucky Fight Club; the new drummer bought us a round, so I'm loving 'em already. The two bands on before them were... Debatable. The first of the two seemed like tributes bands for The Specials (the trumpets), Led Zeppelin (the vocals), My Chemical Romance (the bassist) and The Cure (drummer) had decided to form a musical Justice League. It didn't work- they were all very talented, but they didn't gel as a group. And the volume... Oh the volume...

The second band were just a poor man's Arctic Monkeys. Perfectly talented, perfectly reasonable, but just... Dull. Josh summed them up nicely; 'can you imagine listening to this stuff in your room?'

KFC were, as expected, brilliant. I kind of loved it when they dedicated two songs to us (me being 'the one from London'... I dunno) and even better were the drunk middle-aged men dancing around us. We picked up some great (aka terrible) moves, and I ended up getting caught in a Greek dance Shannon tried to choreograph and Josh ran away from. The weirdness can best be summed up by the fact, at one point, me and Shannon were smacking some bald guy on the arse, and Josh was playing the drums on his head. He called us 'his babies'. Yeah.

Then we went to Sound Circus to catch up with Shannon's Mum who was working there this evening. It was a bit dead to be honest, and there were some seriously mid-life-crisising people there doing some very inappropriate things on a black leather sofa. But with a desperado in my hand I can put up with anything.

So then the evening came to an end as it was now the morning. I had a driving lesson today, which considered I was still hungover from Thursday night + had been drinking the night before even if only mildly, and it had been five or six weeks, was actually quite good.

Now tonight I'm off to Liam's results night bash, which can only be brilliant, and I'm worried about what will happen Sunday morning when I wake.

God, this sounds like some awful piece of arrogance. I'm so sorry. Just look at the nice E Tautz postcards and the pictures of the lovely camel/tweed combo and knitted cardigan and come back when I post some photos of New York? Please? I've got the prints but the CDs have yet to arrive.

You know what? Doesn't matter. I'm living the dream, and as a result I'm going to tell you ALL ABOUT IT.

~ David xXx

Retribution and Retrospection

2010-08-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

It feels as if I am in a limbo between dreams and reality, which in a way I suppose I am. Torn from the nurturing warmth of California and thrust into the familiar, lovely and yet oppressive normality of Dorset, I cannot help but feel no amount of tunnocks teacakes will help quash the strong, bestial lust for my American holiday. The film is being put in for development, the stories are being honed for retelling, and everything has become a retrospective of the month that was. Its all quite disheartening.

HOWEVER, got my results back yesterday- A* in English Lit, A* in Philosophy, A in Psychology- 100% in English Lit and Ethics papers, plus my As in EPQ and Drama last year. Beautiful. Cambridge can go fuck 'emselves.

Headed out to town last night after a lovely barbeque at Dan's- got lost on the way to Kim's (I regret the four cans of strongbow and the glass of white), got there, had more wine, trained it in, went to Dusk Till Dawn and drank lots of vodka and shots of some red shit for free (got attacked by some guy my friend knows for my grades- well, attacked is a strong term...) and chatted to some guys in the shitter about when Dusk would actually 'get good'. Saw old friends at Orange Rooms, hit Walkabout (which was a beautiful night of long island iced tea, cosy embraces, and flirtatious dancing... And me grinding on a podium), me and Chloe went to a strip club, went to a foam party at Bar:Me, chatted up people to move up the queue to Chilli Whites, got fed a lot of drinks by Bryn, got a taxi home, slept in Kim's sister's bed, got home this morning. That is, in essence, the events of the evening.

I am actually quite knackered now, and still in the process of restoring normality to life. So this is all you will get- safe to say, however, the pieces of the jigsaw are slotting into place beautifully. I feel happier and more serene than I have ever done, and everything is good. Everything.

~ David xXx

California, I'm coming home

2010-08-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

My style influences at the moment.

Just made brownies with Stephen and Ann, had a beautiful day of vintage shopping and another sarnie at which wich, the best sandwich shop in America (and the maker of the best cookies I've ever eaten. Ever) and currently absolutely buzzing.

Only a few days until I'm back in reality, lost from the clutches of the dream. Relinquished from the arms of Orpheus.

~ David xXx

P.S. The song lyrics are from Joni Mitchell's 'California', and are KIND of appropriate; as from California, I am coming home... A bit of casual grammatical naughtiness.

California Dreamin'

2010-08-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

(I'm wondering if, like the New York weather series, I should do a series of titles based off songs for California- lol jk, none of you care)

I miss New York, I love New York, it was such a beautiful, powerful metropolis. But if New York is a monsoon, California is the wonderful-smelling El Dorado after the rain, peaceful and stunning. Its not as powerfully, almost cosmically, inspirational as New York could be; but I don't think I've ever been so relaxed. Its perculiar- so much of this trip could be attained in Cornwall or even just down the road from my house, but it is quintessentially California- I know this is experience is bespoke to this geographical location and this trip.

I've been so calm, so tranquil these last few days. All the problems and the neuroticism have melted away- probably just exacerbated by being in a city of people who are all the same- and I feel as care free and calm as a smooth pebble caught in the flow of the river, everything drifting over. I feel healthier, happier and freer than I have in a long time.

I don't think I ever want to come back. I mean, I have to, but I love it here. I love buying vintage jackets that you wear on the cold nights down the funfairs and the wave house where surfers show off their talents. I love the sandwich shops, the sunny boulevards, the gravel free beaches and the nights of complete relaxation. In New York sitting about for a night felt like a crying shame, as if there was some intangible, beautiful event we were ignoring. But here just sitting around and watching Disney movies, going out in your trackies to gaze at the sunset, and maybe a cheeky rollercoaster all become completely and utterly viable.

So that's me darlings. See you in about a week!

~ David xXx

California English

2010-08-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

What's that? Vampire Weekend? WHY YES I THINK IT IS.

After an exhausting and oddly irritating flight, New York drifted away into the pastel smog, and California appeared in hillsides and twilight. Ribbon-like bridges, a cool breeze and lemon trees greeted us and we disappeared into a knick-knack filled house owned by Katie's Granddad.

We spent the first couple of days in Disneyland, where we rode every ride, met every character, laughed every minute. It was absolutely incredible, we loved every second. Then we hit the road and made our way back to San Diego, where we've spent the last couple of days lazing on the beach during the day, and having illicit and hilarious conversations by night with the amazing Rockhold clan.

Even though I've done bugger all, I'm absolutely exhausted, so this'll just be a cheeky short post to let you know I'm not comatose in a Manhattan hospital bed. Or something.

~ David xXx

Temperature Readings For Times Square

2010-08-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

1. Coffee Stains- Tavi Gevinson's sister's blog- and her Norwegian art piece.

2. From Style Bubble, the work of Jade Mellor.

3. WHY DO I LOVE STEVE SO MUCH?

Saw Despicable Me today, which was a really good film; I think I'd have enjoyed it more as a parent, and parts of it felt either like they pandered to ticking every box or just felt a bit weird... But I did love it nonetheless.

We went to dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner on Broadway, where the waiters perform karaoke when they're not dishing up grub. I ended up joining in on the mic for a performance of 'The lonely goatherd' with a waitress wearing cat ears.

I'm a bit knackered, so that's all I have to say. Exactly three weeks after arrival I finally started writing, which was good; and I realised today that our journey from East to West coast is, except for not being repetetive and via eclectic sources of transport, similar to Kerouac's 'On The Road'; so that's pretty cool.

Lord, I need a snooze.

Here's a nice quote from some woman to end today with:

"Your first inclination will surely be to buy as much as you can for your money. Don't give into it...You can only get to know good clothes from bad by looking at good ones. So, when you see a smart woman, study her. Only the rich can afford cheap clothes. If something you see looks worth twice the price, you may be sure the illusion will not last. What you buy must be good."

~ Elsa Schiaparelli

~ David xXx

The Celsius In Central Park Pt. II

2010-08-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

Brooklynvegan.com sampled my review of the Summerstage gig yesterday on their coverage of the event, which made me really happy especially as I'd been following the blog to discover stuff about summerstage. Check it out if you want to know what's going on in the big apple's music scene.

The picture above is the only one on the website to feature me- I'm the pale goon in the white t-shirt with a scoop neck and the red hair. They seemed to snap everyone around us, but I'm sure they got photos of us as they kept snapping away at us.

Things I'm currently loving:
1. The words 'Gallowglass' and 'Demiurges'.
2. Nikki & Rich, The Morning Benders and First Aid Kit- three great bands
3. Basia Bulat and tUnE-yArDs, obv.
4. The works of Anatole French
5. New York
6. The video of Swish of the Curtain's performance at Don't Stop Believing on Friday, composed of many fabulous people I know and many other fab people I don't. Check it out on the show's website.

Not done much today, so that's all you're getting, soz!

~ David xXx

The Celsius In Central Park

2010-08-01T18:14:00.001-07:00

1 + 2.) Jak & Jil

3.) Facehunter

Today, in an arena that smelt of weed, vics vapor rub and prawn cocktail crisps, we and several hundred other people crammed into Central Park's open air summerstage for St Vincent's concert. Little did I know I'd love the support acts as much as the act I'd come to see.

With hot dogs and pepsi, we lounged about, the second row in the audience, in the gentle sun of the first day of August. We were given free drinks made of coconut water, which were... Well, they were awful. But the music was not. People blew out plumes of marijuana smoke, cameras and sunglass lenses flashed. It was a perfect gig.

Basia Bulat

First up was Basia Bulat, who I expected little more than your usual folk/rock band shenanigans from, but she delivered utterly. Did you know she wrote that lovely song for that car advert, called 'Before I Knew'? It's quite the hit, and its just one of her haunting ballads, perfectly complimented with pounding bluegrass honky tonk. One of the best numbers of the set had to be 'In The Green Zoo', which Basia sang in her parent's native Polish. I absolutely adored it. The sheer variety of instruments the band played was really something and her voice is gorgeous. Just like Joni, Canada has produced a marvellous folk artist.

tUnE yArD

Somewhere between Bjork, The Mars Volta and Beck, Tune Yard (as they will now be referred for ease) looked... Eclectic upon entry. Smothered in blue facepaint and wearing the sort of flowery power suit one expects to see on an extra in 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' she seemed like an utter nutter, and her guitar partner looked like a redundant Flight of the Conchords extra. But quickly enough they showed their talent- they make as much use of the pedal's loop feature as KT Tunstall is famous for doing but make it almost folktronic in their usage- almost like sampling themselves in their songs. Somewhere between belting African tribal dances, Beck's finest work, and dance music, Tune Yard generate a powerful combination of psychiatric patient warbling, versatile vocals, percussion and musical genius; their band, brought together for the performance, was brass and percussion in basis with one guitarist, and they made an incredible New Orleans cajun-spiced tempest with every song.

It sounds overly romantic, but I felt their music manage to transcend mere songs and become an experience. The smell of drugs, the dancing of the crowd, the relentless, fluid set list... It was something else. It was religious. It made you bestial, a puppet to the music... And I loved every last goddamn second.

St. Vincent

St. Vincent at first seemed nervous due to a lot of technical difficulties with her band, but she quickly came into her element- perhaps focusing on Actor too much, Annie did not settle for just performing her songs, but reinventing them. She was absolutely exceptional, performing a sort of dance when she played guitar that was both a dance of rage and a parody of modern guitar solos at the same time as this spindly siren carries a pretty serious, Chuck Berry-esque guitar up to the front of the stage. She seemed lost in the world of her songs, a morose fairytale land of abstract orange hues and jagged shapes, but she brought something new out in her music with her reinterpretations- 'Your Lips Are Red' suddenly seemed almost like a Browning poem with its powerful jealousy and murderous themes. The real highlight however, of this really quite exceptional set, may have been Black Rainbow- her impressive selection of band members (whom she recalled every name of, bless her) had starred and shone through several of her other hits. But with Black Rainbow the song just trickled into a dark, powerful musical marsh. You became weighed and yet uplifted by the powerful musical breaks, and it was... It was really something to watch. For all her nerves and sometimes awkward demeanour, St Vincent really performed today- but did so with a more rocky, almost Joplin edge to her music than she does on her albums. It was.... Divine.

So that was pretty exceptional. Also super pleased my friends at Swish got through to the next round of Channel 5's 'Don't Stop Believing'- let's hope Funky Little Choir can do the same!

In the process of my blogtrekking, Style Salvage mentioned the marvellous 'Hickoree's Hard Goods'- a men's clothing store that also dabbles in other curiosities. It is actually often quite reasonably priced, and here is a list of my favourite purchases from the website:

Clockwise from top left: Turquoise and coral tie clip, 20" canvas utility bag (I'm totally tempted to buy this bad boy), watermelon seeds, tobacco old fashioned body creme, tombow 8900 pencils, vintage Boy Scouts bandana, reworked woven belt, recycled socks.

In less exciting news, Madonna's new range for Macy's has a blog- which her daughter writes a lot of. Read it for what Style Rookie would sound like if she wasn't eloquent, as they're probably the same age. Pick up some new lingo and see if you can slip it into conversation. You could sound like a Diablo Cody character by the end of the day.

So that's that. Only a few days left and then we're off to Cali. How exciting, a holiday from the holiday!

~ David xXx

P.S. We were talking to an NYU student in the audience (aka flirting, at least on my part) and she said that this was a majorly hot summer here in New York, so all the more reason to believe this has been a destined, perfect vacation.

Windy In Williamsburg

2010-07-31T21:17:00.000-07:00

The sound of a saxphone drifts from the cellar of a nearby house and an ice-cream machine whirs past playing a music box version of 'do your ears hang low?' Children play basketball. Artists sit in the windows of bars and flitter through thrift shops, dressed in fabulously eclectic clothes. Williamsburg comes alive as a suburb with a heart; unlike other parts of Brooklyn or the Bronx, its not just houses and a Dunkin' Donuts- Williamsburg is alive. Its become autonomous and potent. Like a demi-god born in a petri dish.

The day after Promises, Promises we attempted Brooklyn for the first time. But with no map, no clue where we were, and humid weather, we quickly retreated to Manhattan again. We went to Madison Square Park, and after pizza we went to H&M to escape the rain. However, in the process, I MAY have been seduced by some cheap gladrags... Alright, so I was. The queue was long, and then to top it off there was no tag in the jumper so that took about ten minutes... BUT THAT WASN'T ALL. Then they didn't accept my card for some reason based on a technicality of the machines, but we solved that after a few minutes, BUT THAT WASN'T ALL. On the way out, it turns out the wonderful woman who served me forget to take the tag off said jumper. Oh, cheers then!

So after that absolute ordeal (which took a bit longer to sort out) we checked out Macy's, because you can't come to New York and not peruse the department stores. In a moment of rare masculinity, I sat about in a nice white chair whilst Rachael slinked through the garment jungle, and told her to 'come over when she'd finished'. Nice.

The next day we finally took in Fifth Avenue after a long ordeal to do with the fact JFK didn't give me a damn visa form and... Oh, it's very complex and expensive, but Bill helped me do it and he's given me time to pay him back, thank God! Anyhoo, we all went out for lunch at McFaddens, a bar near the UNICEF building, and we passed a real-life protest! About Malaysia and Tibet or something... Somewhere... Asian. We had a cheeky lunch, then me and Rachael hit up Fifth Avenue properly, as we'd only drifted through before. I finally got a Cinnabon (and cried with joy, even after seeing the calorie count) and then I watched as Rachael purse-orgasmed in Vendi, Prada and Gucci (although I did jizz a bit at Gucci's selection of steamer trunks, my personal luggage dream.) We then went to Abercrombie & Fitch- because I find the whole experience hilarious and Rachael had never been- and it felt like we were in town waiting to get into a club, it was RIDICULOUS, and the store was similarly a department store with a blackout but with a nice scent and good dance music, but instead of the camp pretension of London, NY has gone for sheer homoeroticism- a statue of a man is entirely naked except for a pair of Y-fronts artfully crumpled and slipping in all the most revealing places. Black and white prints are even MORE common than usual, and even MORE revealing for the models. And an entire wall is covered with a tableau of sweaty, muscled men in their underpants doing very Freudian exercise. Honestly, when did I wander into Elton John's summer home?

We then went to Louis Vuitton, and I looked at luggage with a longing, mournful look... And then we drifted home.

Today was a Saturday, which means laundry. Afterwards we hit up Brooklyn, but we were a bit late to really achieve anything even if we knew where we were going (no thanks to the subway offcials deciding to mix all the lines up today, because weekends are definitely the days nobody will be using the subway, bastards) and then we just pottered about Williamsburg on a sunny but cool day, searching for Fredflare's store, but not able to find it anywhere. In the process we found a really nifty comic book store with some alternative vinyls thrown in, and also stopped off in a gorgeous patisserie filled with elegant cakes, where I got a bottle of diet coke and a tiny little American cheesecake- desperate to try it out, I am. It was expensive, but delicious, so what can you do?

Here I am, sat about at night, excited to try and see St Vincent in Central Park tomorrow. Excitementttttt! Talk soon.

~ David xXx

Clouds Over Chelsea

2010-07-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

After sitting out in the morning sun on my own on 53rd and 7th, peoplewatching and meeting some lovely students and some bossy mums who made us their children for the morning, I got tickets for Promises, Promises at a student rate. We'd decided to see two Broadway shows- one classic (West Side Story) and one newer, more unusual one (but nonetheless on Broadway). Promises, Promises fit the bill- star leads but otherwise vexxing, seemingly old but actually new. A bit like a Tardis. Or something. Whatever.

I ended up sitting in the Cafe Europa with a cup of tea and my iPod waiting for Rachael to arrive. It was a nice, relaxed morning, and after a quick lunch we headed off to Chelsea, did some thrift shopping, watched an argument, and then found the Chelsea Hotel- where Dylan Thomas died, Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001, and Leonard Cohen... Wrote a... Song... Well, I dunno what exactly Cohen did there, but he did write a song about it and shit, so I guess he deserved a plaque.

I was looking for a haircut, and we saw there was a hair salon in the hotel. Heading through the atrium of eclectic artwork and old-fashioned designs, we headed up to the third floor... But instead of finding a clearly marked hair salon or anything, we ended up in what seemed to be the hotel from The Shining, down to the creepy wallpapers and the tense silence. We left quickly.

We headed down 23rd, doing more thrift shopping (including in the charity shop for the NY Opera) and finally I got a haircut in a small barbers not too far from the apartment. It was nice getting it done by a guy for once, and although its hardly anything fashionable or stylin', it looks fine and does what I needed- it gets the hair out of my eyes and it'll get less annoying in the sweaty heat.

Then we headed back to the apartment before going back to the theatre. Grabbed a delicious chicken gyro from a stall in Union Square on the way. and then headed to the theatre.

I won't lie- PP wasn't as all-round brilliant as West Side in many ways. However, after a disappointing first act the second act delivered a thousand times more. The real shout-out needs to go to Katie Finnerian who played Marge, a brilliantly written (and performed) part. She was absolutely perfect and, dare, I say, stole the show from both Hayes AND Chenoweth?

Today we went to Coney Island, which felt like a slice of home. We got on both the famous ferris wheel (the whole swinging thing being an interesting twist- it was like a mini-roller coaster) and Cyclone, which was really something- the drops felt as if you were free-falling. It felt like the theme park existed to help people fly.

However, it was boiling and expensive, so we retreatd home to sit about in air conditioning.

Right, so... Music. I feel I haven't talked about it for a while. Although I liked them beforehand, I realised how much I loved Stornoway when we saw them live (you may remember a similar beguilement post-Marling back in April) and I've been hooked since. Wandering about Manhattan alone, I listened to a mix of the Broadway Revival of West Side Story (aka, the one we saw) and also to Stornoway's 'Beachcomber Windowsill'. There was a beautiful juxtaposition of listening to British folkmusic from a band named after a town on the Island of Lewis, and marching through 34th Street Station.

I've currently been enamoured with a lot of covers from one source or another. Here's a list of some of the herculean homages:

1. William Shatner, and somebody that is not William Shatner, do a surprisingly emotive cover of Pulp's 'Common People'.

2. Prince performs a quite frankly spectacular cover of Radiohead's creep- the guitars are particularly sublime.

3. From the sublime to the ridiculous, a German man covering Sex Bomb in the style of Jack Buchanan's 'Everything Stops For Tea'- or, at least, I hope so.

4. Regina Spektor does a haunting cover of John Lennon's 'Real Love'.

5. Swedish duo First Aid Kit cover Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Peasant Song in a wood. The best natural folk song since Bon Iver did For Emma in a Parisian alleyway.

First Aid Kit are officially my new favourite 'oh, you haven't heard of them? Well, don't worry, I'll fill you in to show how INDIE AS FUCK I AM'* band, because they're from cold places in Europe (and there's nothing more hip than Scandinavia and places thereof) and sing folk music (which couldn't be more of the time) and yet, more importantly, I genuinely love them. The best musical females to come out of Sweden since the ladies of ABBA, with a sound between the current folk-rock zeitgeist e.g. Fleet Foxes, Stornoway, Mumford & Sons, and the beautiful songstresses of the past. Its a cliched polymer so frequently used to describe young ladies nowadays as a new Joni Mitchell, or a Bjork- but these are two Bjorks with incredible talent. Their new album, The Big Black And The Blue, is out now.

So that's that... Ummm... I'll fill you in more about my life in the future.

~ David xXx

*I don't actually do this, please note. It's... Subersive.

... Because that's indie as fuck.

(Would it help if I pointed out its a joke from Hop Farm? It wouldn't would it. Though I could tie it in with the fact Blondie did that Taio Cruz cover.)

Hurricanes In Harlem

2010-07-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

The East Village is not as famous as Grenwich and West Village, nor is it as bustling and beautiful as SoHo. But what it is is raw, genuine New York. Its uncompromisingly real, but stuffed with little gems. The real star of the East Village (after which you do end up encroaching on SoHo territory) is St Marks Place. From First Avenue, heading towards Alphabet City, you arrive on a road that looks like your average New York apartments and buildings. But within the road you begin to see the basements of these buildings are bars, alternative bookshops, vintage stores and alternative theatres. Through a phonebooth in one of the hot dog shops on this road, you can enter a speakeasy by lifting up the receiver. It is a road of secrets and beauty.

We arrived there yesterday, a day of sweltering humidity, in search of a drink. We headed into an Irish pub, and although I fancied a coke, the sight of cider made me yearn for a pint, so I got myself a strongbow- apparently so exotic and perculiar I had to have it explained to me, got given a free taster, and THEN a pint of the stuff (at a reasonably-priced $4). Somehow, by simply thrusting my driver's license at them, they believed I was 21. Rachael had a long island iced tea (which I 'helped' her with) and we stumbled back out, cooled down and a little bit tipsy, for a bit of shopping. I bought a copy of the ancient Asian text, 'The Pillow Book', from a strange bookstore that sold vintage copies of Anna Karenina and Sartre's works alongside copies of Spice Girls CDs. Then we headed back to the apartment and crashed out in front of the air conditioning, before ordering in Mexican food.

Today we hit up the Tutankhamun exhibit in Times Square, which was really, really interesting (if a bit overpriced.) I loved it, and got a cheeky hot dog afterwards with Rachael.

On the way we popped to 53rd Street to check the times to get to Promises, Promises for student rush tickets. Whilst we were there, somebody was filming something with a baseball player. But like when we ran into like, Japan's No. 1 baseball player in Hiroshima, I didn't give a damn because we don't play the sport particularly.

One great moment today was when we went to Astor Place and, after buying some new sunnies (my cheap ray-ban knock-offs broke apart the other day) some woman asked us for directions to a nearby bike shop. After pointing out we're only visiting the city, she said we didn't seem at all like anything but New Yorkers.

We spent the rest of the day with massive smiles on our faces.

Cities are always at their best if they are eclectic. Berlin is weird because it is literally running on empty, trying to build and fix the city with almost no money left. Prague is a plethora of different things at once because it hasn't decided what it wants to be as a city. Paris, London, Krakow, Hiroshima... All, as a result of history, migrations and sheer need for improvisation becoming full of great architecture, wonderful shops and rambunctious people. That's why I love going to holidays in cities- because you're never bored, never lazing around. All the heat has made me understand why people go to tropic places to lie around, because that's all you WANT to do. But I could never desire just sitting about, lazing in the sun by a pool. Call me a weirdo, but I love having something to discover and explore every day. New York has been just that- an adventure every day.

Esquire Magazine this month has just been read, and they had a fascinating little post about 'Black Tot Consignment Rum', which has been around for centuries but got thrown off ships after it was believed to no longer be suitable to be carried on naval vessels in the past due to some kerazy law. Anyhoo, its now been dug up, remixed, and being sold again to the general public. Its apparently very nice. The Floridita in London is also selling a cocktail called 'Nelson's Diamond Blood' using the stuff, and if you go there before the 31st July you can try the cocktail absolutely free. I'd urge you try it, it sounds lovely. If you want to try and make it at home using your own ingredients, the basics are:

Grog
Falernum Syrup
Earl Grey Tea
Chocolate Bitters
Ginger

Served in a flagon with citrus wedges and a sprig of something classy. Anyone up for some posh-pirate tipples? I sure am.

~ David xXx

P.S. The hurricanes were actually in the Bronx and Long Island, but alliteration called.

Grey Skies And The Guggenheim

2010-07-24T19:11:00.001-07:00

This Is Naive

Oh elderflower... How I miss your flavoursome... Flavours.

New York is sucking the money right from my wallet. I looked at my balance today and I don't quite understand how this much money has been spent.

None the less, the trip has been brilliant. Its great to just leisurely enjoy New York instead of walking all day, every day, packing everything in.

I've been here less than 2 weeks, and I've still got 11 days to go. Its really surprising how slowly time goes when you're not stressed.

Yesterday we did Chinatown and Little Italy, which were beautiful places, but the weather was awful. It was like swimming in the air it was so humid. But chinatown was beautiful, the food was good, even if the restaurant was debatable- the owner had to clear up the TV remote from our table as she'd been too absorbed in The Water Margin. Or something. All Chinese soaps look like The Water Margin to me.

Today we went to The Guggenheim, where they had their 'new' exhibit, Haunted. It was an incredibly fascinating exhibit, one of the best selections of modern art I've seen. There were also some great smaller exhibits on Kandinsky + others, and one that featured works of Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, etc. But Haunted is the one I'd like to talk about because it was brilliant.

The Guggenheim's main lobby contained a performance for today only of a female artist DJing a series of records of famous speeches, combining them together to show how similar speeches often are and how they can echo themselves. Put in a room on its own it would be great, but the problem was it was in the main rotunda, very loud, and with the audio tour it was hard to hear anything in particular.

One of Andy Warhol's screen prints was in the exhibit- 'Orange Disaster', an image of an electric chair copied 12 times. Admittedly, the main joy of the painting was seeing a piece of Warhol up close; seeing a famous painting or painter's work, to me, is the equivalent of seeing a famous musician. Seeing the Venus Venticordia at the Russell Cotes was an eye-opener not just because it means we have famous art in Dorset museums, but also because its THAT famous.

Another piece of art I loved was Sarah Charlesworth's 'Herald Tribune: November 1977', where the front pages of the Herald Tribune are stripped of words, leaving just the photos. Though I didn't believe her discussion of the whole pyramid of power on every page BLAH BLAH BLAH I thought the art itself was impressive and interesting. It was an interesting look at an integral element of our media.

Now for another weird one- Thomas Demand's 'Recorder'. Using cardboard, he perfectly recreated a piece of random archive footage from a Beach Boys documentary about the unfinished 'Smile', and then placed a small bit of harpischord music over the top. The film was played in a pitch black room, and the only people in there were me and some lass. As we sat down to watch it, the eerie music, the weird monotonous looped video, and the pitch blackness of the room, became overbearingly weird. So much so I had to leave. There was a whole bunch of stuff about alternate universes (words that were thrown about like a rugby ball in this exhibit, and never done so with any sort of relevance) but it was interesting purely for the generated atmosphere.

On the topic of perculiar cinematic art, there was a disturbing, gross piece made by Anthony Giocolea called Nail Biter, a short video of somebody in night vision, sat in bed, biting off his nails and dripping in saliva... But it was not just that... His stunned, bestial eyes lit only with the green glow of the camera, the impossible amount of nails dripping off of him in caricatured amounts of saliva... It was repulsive, and whatever its reason and motive was, it was one of the most perculiar things I've ever seen.

Another strange piece of video was Marina Abramovic's 'Cleaning The Mirror #1', where five screens are stacked on top of one another and the artist cleans a grimy skeleton over her knee, each video focusing on a different aspect of the sud-soaked cadaver. Rachael was condemning the art as just somebody cleaning the skeleton and deciding to film it... But the name suggests something more to it- its a baring of the human anatomy to the camera as imperfect, or something. I dunno. I felt it spoke to me, or insert a more appropriate cliche that doesn't make me sound like a ponce.

One of my favourite pieces, if just for the intriguing story behind it, was An-My Le's 'Small Wars'. The work was part of a section of the exhibit looking at how photography is often considered an objective record, but can never catch the whole picture or the whole story, and can be deceptive. Whilst others played with medium v era, or faking entire scenes for their picture, An-My Le does a bit of both- having escaped Vietnam to live in America, she found a group of people who sort of... Play re-enact the Vietnam war in Virginian countryside. So, she joined in as an actor playing a Viet Kong female... The thing was, that at times, like in her photos of a supposed warzone, reality and fantasy began to blur.

Hiroshi Sugimoto had a few pieces, mostly his signature shots of seascapes. But one shot was of an American drive-in, where he left the shutter open from the moment a film began in one to the moment it ended... Or something. The resulting effect was a blazing, blank screen that was both an entire mass of time and utterly timeless, set in a fairly aged form of moviegoing. Similarly intriguing but in a completely different way was Janaina Tschape's 'Lacrimacorpus', where a woman in period dress dances about in a building previously owned by Goethe, near an old concentration camp, surrounded by oversized tears and dancing weirdly until she collapses. Again, time is played with.

One piece that I enjoyed a very specific part of in the exhibit- again like Sugimoto's singular picture of four- was part of Karl Haendel's exhibit. Amongst his pieces was a list of typed questions addressed to his father, all of them personal, often probing, sometimes clearly filled with the artist's own anger or cynicism or passion. I had very vivid images of asking my own father questions of a similar nature, even though many was unapplicable, and through the avatar of John I knew that such questions would reduce both parties to tears given the right delivery. They were powerful things. In a way, it was prose and visual art intermingling in a different way to how I imagined it doing in my utopian vision of visual literature, but nonetheless a stepping stone.

Anri Sala's film 'Nocturnes' was interesting not because of how it was shot (though it was, nonetheless, a part of its beauty) but the people within- an ex UN-Peace Keeper who plays violent video games and a man who collects insane amounts of tropical fish both are lonely, deriving pleasure from control. The best part is its all real- these are real people, telling haunting tales of their lives with a vista of French urban streets.

One piece of art that really stood out in the last section of the exhibit visually- not because of the meaning or because of the story behind it- was Gillian Wearing of our own home land, England, and her piece 'Self-Portrait At Three Years Old'. At first, it just seems to be a black and white portrait of a toddler. But look closer, and you notice that it is the artist, a woman in her late 40s, wearing a perfect mask of her three-year-old face made of some crazy substance, only her adult eyes gazing out from very definite endings of the material. There is no denying that the eyes are separate, and they are the eyes of a jaundiced adult gazing through a doll-like face. Creepy, harrowing, intelligent.

And whilst we're talking about jaundiced, harrowing and intelligent, I cannot fail to mention my last favourite exhibit- Nate Lowman finds photos and blows them up on silk screen, including a funny but pathetic and sad tombstone of a Mrs 'Loser', a name repeated in big letters, almost unconscious of the humour present, atop the stone. The best one for me was 'The Last Supper', however, an image I at first thought was a very distorted night-vision style shot of the painting itself, turned on its side, with all the figures white silhouettes against a black background. What it actually is, however, is an x-ray of illegal immigrants trying to sneak into the country I believe on a train, all posed in a way that, due to its nature, does look like the last supper. There are so many levels of cynicism here- of the mercy of America, of the mercy of Christianity, of religion x versus religion y, of art and reality... But at its core its just a harrowing, shocking revelation. Like most of this art, it challenges memory, it challenges preconceived ideas, and it challenges what we at first perceive of the work.

I've seen some awful, and some great, exhibits of modern art, but this one really was exceptional. Well done Guggenheim!

~ David xXx

Sunshine In SoHo

2010-07-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

If Harajuku and Piccadilly collided in a geographical clash, you would get SoHo. Posh delicatessens and grocers, designer stores and yuppie art galleries of white walls, bared brickwork and painted piping, framed by an eccentric selection of tailored-MILFs on scooters, drag queens, artsy types and sartorial titans.

It is safe to say SoHo may be my favourite place in New York. Far enough down Broadway not to be a tourist trap but in Manhattan enough to actually be enjoyable (our excursion to the Bronx was fatally mediocre), SoHo is a crucible of art and commercialism, a melting pot of street art, handmade jewellery, Montblanc pens and fancy little bakeries with massive cookies and extorionate iced coffee. We wandered through there on the way to Rays a few nights ago, but regardless of the time of day it is always alive.

Tonight we went to Katz Delicatessen on the lower east side, famous for its appearances on silver screens across the world (primarily in When Harry Met Sally, where Meg Ryan had an 'orgasm' and Rob Reiner's mother got the biggest laugh of the movie.) The pastrami was perfection, the fries were delicious, and the whole thing beautifully rustic, down to the sawdust on the toilet's floor.

As we walked home, the twenty-or-so blocks back to the apartment (at first a couple of blocks was torture, but as time goes by, a walk like this, of about 2 miles, is easy peasy) the sun was setting, casting a honey-glaze glow over every building, creating arachnid silhouettes out of the water coolers. Down East Hosuton Street it was utterly transfixing, but I only managed to get a photo later down First Avenue.

Tomorrow we're off to Chinatown and on Saturday the Guggenheim. If the weather is anything like today it'll be perfection- as sunny as any day before, there was enough of a breeze that even the subway wasn't particularly warm. Nicely done, weather. Nicely done.

~ David xXx

Lightning On The Lower East Side

2010-07-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

I miss Boots. I miss the ability to actually develop APS film, because until then you shall see no shots of my New York hijinks. I also miss Box Junctions, Roundabouts and the London Underground. Of course, I also miss my friends and parents. But the absence of my friends and parents doesn't cause traffic accidents of cause me to sweat in the saunas beneath Manhattan's roads. Damn subway...

However, I love New York. I love the energy, the vitality, the fact everybody stands out without being overly eccentric (although London still has the better street style.) I love the handsome men that make me aspire to dress and look better. I love the gorgeous women who I can turn round and get another look at through my sunglasses. I love how the sunsets down the avenues, I love the open-front restaurants in Soho, I love New York Pizza, Department Store service and Snapple. I love breezes on the East River, strong air conditioning and the beauty of the architecture. I love New York. I love that after a week of being here you stop feeling like a tourist and start feeling like a part of the soupy mass, because people come and go so quickly that after a week you've survived longer than most.

I've been up to a lot since our last post. I could go into the days in Grenwich Village playing chess and flicking through racks of vinyls, or the ferry trips to Ellis Island, or the flavours and textures of the food I've eaten from Rays Pizza to Mexican. But I won't. Instead, I'm too tired, and I'll leave you all to live your lives.

I will, however, mention that last night I was front row at West Side Story for just $27. It was incredible, one of the best things I've ever seen on a stage, perfect from the conductor to the orchestra to the cast (although was that a corpse I saw from Riff in The Mambo?) The souvenir cups, the free playbills... The West End could learn a lot from them. Loved every second.

The other night, fireflies and lightning danced about the empire state building as we gazed down across Manhattan, like a reflection of the cosmos composed of neon. All the noise and confusion and passive aggression melted away, and for a moment everyone, really rather quietly, just felt that they were a part of some massive, throbbing gaia-hypothesis-esque monstrosity, some gaudy turtle carrying us through space and time upon its back. Millions of people live in Manhattan and we were just a tiny fraction, none of us I believe to be residents, realising that whilst New York is certainly not the Shangri La people see it as, it is pretty damn special. An undulating heart of concrete, a mercurial star that always changes like Hogwarts Stairways.

The T-shirts got it right. I love New York.

~ David xXx