Look! Up in the sky!

I was planning to write something today about two Superman books which yesterday overcame my usual lack of interest in the character: Mark Millar's atypically child-friendly Superman Adventures (which deals with the character in his purest form, telling simple yet iconic stories unencumbered by continuity) and Steve Seagle's It's A Bird (an autobiographical piece about a writer offered the Superman job but distracted by fear of Huntington's Disease).
And then I start up the computer and find out that Superman's dead.

Oh, and...
butterflycaught: Hell no. Though I'm very much in favour of cloaks.
kitty_goth: I thought it was Tavern rather than Arms? If that's the one you mean, then provisionally yes, though this week's a mare.
razorcheekbones: a) I'm not surprised! b) Not my department, I'm afraid.
rentaghost31: I should think that can be arranged.

Weekend update in progress.

I don't know the station's name

I was in no state for B Movie on Friday, so decided to stay in with a b-movie instead. Sadly, Van Helsing is actually a Q or maybe R movie. How can you make a film which has Dracula, Frankenstein, werewolves, duergar and Mr Hyde, and make it dull? That simply shouldn't be possible. How can you have Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale as the leads, and yet make them both seem unfanciable? Hell, even the Brides of Dracula weren't sexy! I suspect this film of being a plot by American evangelicals to make supernatural evil, undeath and Catholic militant orders seem dull and unattractive. The gits.

Saturday was a party at the rather wonderful Muswell Hill lair of verlaine, complete with beautiful rats, a tropical bower and a jazz watercooler. Keen readers of my friends' journals may already have noted that, in a not entirely novel turn of events, I fell asleep and was extensively inscibed. However, until doing so I had a lovely time. As did my 'phone, so much so that it decided to stay on after I left. Thank you to all who hosted, looked after the mobile or simply refrained from writing on me.
(At one point fairly early in proceedings when I was geeking out with johnnyvertigen and alfirin_kirinki, martylog looked at me and said "I had no idea you were so bad." Shortly afterwards, AK confessed puzzlement at references to The Frame. It amazes me that in spite of my incessant online natterings about whatever pops into my head, I have managed to remain this enigmatic)

I spent Sunday afternoon helping police* with their enquiries** before strolling down to Waterloo to meet my phone, its bearer and several of the previous night's partygoers, all of whom still seemed to be speaking to me - result! Headed over to the Royal Festival Hall in plenty of time for (The Real) Tuesday Weld, especially given their start time had been put back. As expected, I enjoyed them even more now I know some of the material, but even newcomers were seduced by their animated intro, suave demeanour and Karelia-style crooning. Like the Karelia, they at once remind me of the good bits of jazz, and emphasise why purestrain jazz is deservedly dead.
She wasn't there for Tuesday Weld, but when we retake our seats for the headliners a dropped envelope makes me realise who's sitting to my left. There's a certain music journalist whose obsessively sexualised style always made me suspicious, just as similar antics would from a male critic; it's her. Much as I expected, she's quite geeky in the flesh, but even at my harshest I'd assumed she'd be able to find a +1 for a show this prestigious.
The Magnetic Fields were, of course, magnificent. To some extent they're not a natural live band - the interchangeable possibilities of the records feel somewhat constricted when you're stuck with four people and the instruments they could transport - but when you've got one of the finest collections of songs around to choose from, that's not the end of the world. I had feared they might restrict themselves mainly to songs from the current album, perhaps enhanced by others whose titles begin with the letter I, but fortunately I was wrong. Both of my favourites (neither beginning I) are here, and though few of the performances are radically restructured from the studio versions, the banter between songs compensates. Particularly the bit where they cadge chocolate from the audience. They finish, inevitably, with 'It's Only Time'. But they encore with the gleefully heartless 'Yeah! Oh Yeah!' and, with Stephin and Claudia stood on their chairs, suddenly they *are* great performers.
It's just a pity that the rest of us are sat in our chairs, and that those chairs were designed for hobbits.

*well, one of them
**mainly about recent comics