All those drowsing verities of the soul's undersides

[alexsarll]

Sometimes I feel like I'm living at right angles to everyone else's London. Ironically, what brought this home to me was crossing Oxford Circus on the diagonal. How long is it since they relaunched it that way? Months, at least. Yet until yesterday I'd had no cause to see it, much less use it. Even yesterday I was cheating slightly, I needed to cross back across Portland Place further up, but it was too good a chance to miss.

Sobriety, like any altered state of mind, is quite fun as an occasional thing - but feels a bit worrying if you suspect it's becoming a habit. Spent Sunday and Monday lolling around abstemiously, watching Stephen Fry on Wagner and The Kid Stays In The Picture and such. By Tuesday evening, my craving for Pimm's and comedy was strong, which made it damned fortunate that diamond_geyser's living room Edinburgh previews have resumed. Unnervingly, her new house appears to be exactly the same as her old house, except with a different man in the basement. Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema were the acts, neither names which meant anything to me beforehand and both with acts which were very much still works in progress, but entertaining nonetheless and I would recommend them to anyone spending August in the relevant bit of Scotland.
Then out again last night to the George Tavern. A lot of venues which strive to feel rock'n'roll are in fact just grotty and rubbish - the late and unlamented Nambucca being a particularly spectacular example - but somehow the George works it. The sound is not especially subtle, but the feel is right, and it thoroughly suited Bevan 17. The headliners were the Ethical Debating Society, a band I've been vaguely meaning to see for ages, and though they were pleasingly energetic, by the time they came on I was not. A couple of songs, then home.

I don't disagree with the general feeling that the new Gaga video is a bit of a let-down - but only as compared to its predecessors. It's still leagues ahead of something like the new Rihanna, in which she's apparently trying to set the record for Least Convincing Pop Video Sapphism. Not that starlets cavorting suggestively was exactly Gaga's invention, obviously, but the Rihanna effort just looks so tawdrily bandwagonesque. Whereas Kylie's 'All the Lovers' video, for all its literal mountain of writhing flesh, feels distinct. Because it's got its own personality - or rather her own personality, that old bright and sunny Kylie charm, just updated with a little more physicality.

Comments

[catbo.livejournal.com]

Pop Videos! Something I can have an opinion on!!
I hadn't seen any of those, so thank you. The Gaga is weirdly old-fashioned with a far heavier dose of Madge (and also Europop) than before, but it's not terrible, just not also that brilliant. In fact, what you said. HOW disappointing is the Rhianna though? I got so bored I switched off less than two minutes in, while she was kissing the other bird. It's ridiculous - that should be really hot. Why record a song like that when it's so false and you can't even act it? It's far more annoying that Katy fcuking Perry, because that was good pop, even if the motivation was poor. the Kylie is really sweet, but it's not that sexy at all, which is actually nice. The song's a little dull though, although it's proper beach/hot weather music, and I like the synth solo.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

TBH while I have liked some of her songs a lot in the past, I've always found Rihanna a bit disconcerting to watch - there's a sort of inhuman perfection there, as though she were grown in a vat. A bit Uncanny Valley, y'know? And I think part of the reason Katy Perry worked better is that she was only saying "I kissed a girl and I liked it" - plausible enough - rather than trying to get a big love song out of the experience.

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

Hello, hope it's alright if I add you on here - we seem to have some mutual friends and lots of interests in common.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Sure, though the Harlan Ellison/Hello Kitty juxtaposition does slightly give me the fear...

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

Hmm, on the subject of Pop-star-faux lesbianism...(excuse the source, this was one of the less annoying ones on the front of my google page)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1283890/Miley-Cyrus-simulates-lesbian-kiss-family-audience-Britains-Got-Talent.html

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

On so many levels, the only applicable response is 'oh dear'. That's not even a simulated lesbian kiss, it's a real not-quite-kiss kiss! A simulated lesbian kiss would surely be actually kissing someone who looked like another woman but wasn't.