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I've spent eight years living in Finsbury Park now, wandering around the place a fair bit. The last eight months of that even more so, what with the whole lack-of-gainful-employment bit. But on Thursday I went in a local park I'd never even quite registered before, though I certainly recall walking past its hedge after hours. And behind that, there's another, even smaller and less noticeable parklet. Truly, London is fractal.
Also observed, later yesterday: a lot of people running around Finsbury Park itself in aid of strokes. As in, several looked like they were about to have one.
On Wednesday, I was up at the lovely Big Green Bookshop forthe cheap drink The Man Who Fell Asleep's rather belated but very fun book launch. But on Tuesday evening I was also in Finsbury Park, because ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xandratheblue and charleston both wanted some pointers on climbing trees. And with both of them taking turns up in the branches, it was all going jolly well, well enough to be considered "just like the Famous Five". "So now all we need is a swarthy foreigner up to no good!", I reply, foolishly.
Minutes later, a man of unspecified foreign-ness ambles over, boots in one hand and mini-umbrella in the other. He initially seems confused by the whole business - "Trees? You pretending to be monkeys?" - and asks if he can have a hand into the tree. I demur, because I don't know where he's been. He makes it up into the tree fine because he is, in his somewhat confused way, hustling. He wanted to act like he couldn't climb because he had in mind a plan, a plan on which he now acts. He challenges me - if he can climb higher, he gets "one of your women. Maybe both of them!"
In my best politely outraged Briton voice, I tell him that's not how we do things over here. Charley, more direct, tells him to fvck off. He looks confused at the failure of his cunning scheme. We go see The Nuns.
They are preceded by Strange News From Another Star, of whom I only catch one song, which reminds me of a less-tight McLusky fronted by (My Name Is) Earl, but apparently the rest of the set was tighter, then followed by Fiction (whom I initially think are interesting, but am mistaken) and The Victorian English Gentleman's Club, who would be ace without the singer. But the Nuns themselves...they're quite something. If you don't know, they're an all-female band who cover the work of The Monks, a bunch of GIs stationed in Germany who made one incredibly influential album. Of which I've heard about half, and which didn't really make that much of an impact on me. And...it's difficult not coming over all Paul Morley here, but somehow a tribute band who are not a tribute band, playing that music in light (and sound) of all the music it's influenced, sound more original than the original. Sometimes they sound like a sixties band covering post-punk classics and sometimes they sound like the reverse. And simply by being all-girl, their version of 'Boys Are Boys And Girls Are Choice' is always going to have the advantage. They're not necessarily a band I need to see often, but they really are something unique.
The theory of filth as driver of technological change is fairly familiar by now (though I've yet to see it revised with an explanation for why Blu-ray beat HD-DVD; based on the victory of VHS over Betamax, one would have expected the format backed by the p0rn industry to win out). So I suppose it should have been obvious that the 'adult' industry is even further along the curve of suffering from the rise of free online content than the rest of the entertainment sector. "Business managers for...two of the industry's biggest stars, said their clients were using their celebrity to make money in other ways, like dancing in exotic clubs and licensing their name to sex toys and lingerie" - just like the new model where bands make money from gigs and merchandise, not CDs. But, most interestingly, "The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream". Now, I think of the DVD as having a certain amount of built-in future-proofing, just because it's such a nice format - you might torrent a film to see if it's any cop, but if you love it, you'll still want the DVD for the extras and such - the only people who are really going to suffer are those too lazy to have any interesting extras on their DVDs, and they deserve it. But even beyond that...there's something pleasing about having a nice shelf of DVDs, isn't there? For people to look at, borrow from, just because it brightens the room. Whereas, except in a frat house, a sizeable collection of w@nk-fodder doesn't really give the same impression.
Also observed, later yesterday: a lot of people running around Finsbury Park itself in aid of strokes. As in, several looked like they were about to have one.
On Wednesday, I was up at the lovely Big Green Bookshop for
xandratheblue and charleston both wanted some pointers on climbing trees. And with both of them taking turns up in the branches, it was all going jolly well, well enough to be considered "just like the Famous Five". "So now all we need is a swarthy foreigner up to no good!", I reply, foolishly. Minutes later, a man of unspecified foreign-ness ambles over, boots in one hand and mini-umbrella in the other. He initially seems confused by the whole business - "Trees? You pretending to be monkeys?" - and asks if he can have a hand into the tree. I demur, because I don't know where he's been. He makes it up into the tree fine because he is, in his somewhat confused way, hustling. He wanted to act like he couldn't climb because he had in mind a plan, a plan on which he now acts. He challenges me - if he can climb higher, he gets "one of your women. Maybe both of them!"
In my best politely outraged Briton voice, I tell him that's not how we do things over here. Charley, more direct, tells him to fvck off. He looks confused at the failure of his cunning scheme. We go see The Nuns.
They are preceded by Strange News From Another Star, of whom I only catch one song, which reminds me of a less-tight McLusky fronted by (My Name Is) Earl, but apparently the rest of the set was tighter, then followed by Fiction (whom I initially think are interesting, but am mistaken) and The Victorian English Gentleman's Club, who would be ace without the singer. But the Nuns themselves...they're quite something. If you don't know, they're an all-female band who cover the work of The Monks, a bunch of GIs stationed in Germany who made one incredibly influential album. Of which I've heard about half, and which didn't really make that much of an impact on me. And...it's difficult not coming over all Paul Morley here, but somehow a tribute band who are not a tribute band, playing that music in light (and sound) of all the music it's influenced, sound more original than the original. Sometimes they sound like a sixties band covering post-punk classics and sometimes they sound like the reverse. And simply by being all-girl, their version of 'Boys Are Boys And Girls Are Choice' is always going to have the advantage. They're not necessarily a band I need to see often, but they really are something unique.
The theory of filth as driver of technological change is fairly familiar by now (though I've yet to see it revised with an explanation for why Blu-ray beat HD-DVD; based on the victory of VHS over Betamax, one would have expected the format backed by the p0rn industry to win out). So I suppose it should have been obvious that the 'adult' industry is even further along the curve of suffering from the rise of free online content than the rest of the entertainment sector. "Business managers for...two of the industry's biggest stars, said their clients were using their celebrity to make money in other ways, like dancing in exotic clubs and licensing their name to sex toys and lingerie" - just like the new model where bands make money from gigs and merchandise, not CDs. But, most interestingly, "The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream". Now, I think of the DVD as having a certain amount of built-in future-proofing, just because it's such a nice format - you might torrent a film to see if it's any cop, but if you love it, you'll still want the DVD for the extras and such - the only people who are really going to suffer are those too lazy to have any interesting extras on their DVDs, and they deserve it. But even beyond that...there's something pleasing about having a nice shelf of DVDs, isn't there? For people to look at, borrow from, just because it brightens the room. Whereas, except in a frat house, a sizeable collection of w@nk-fodder doesn't really give the same impression.
