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Woke up. World still here.
Jul. 14th, 2009 11:14 amTwo Edinburgh previews last night. It wasn't surprising that both included material about the expenses crisis, the smoking ban and the general decline of British civic society - but what are the odds on them both having jokes about raping horses?
When the Observer music magazine first hit, it was briefly the best music mag going - between the decline of the weeklies and the way the monthlies seemed trapped in retro rockist amber, that maybe wasn;t saying much, but still. Picked one up this weekend for the first time in ages and it seems to have followed the same trajectory as the Guardian's Saturday mag, turned into a flimsy, shiny guide for confused consumers, written by churnalists incapable even of contradicting a press release (I'm enjoying Neil Hannon's Duckworth Lewis Method album a great deal, but anyone repeating the lazy lie that it's the first album entirely devoted to cricket needs their genitalia used for a wicket until they apologise to the Cavaliers). One exception, though - Paul Morley talks about his crash course in classical composition. As much as I like Paul Morley's writing, a lot of his journalism lately has been on autopilot - still ahead of the competition, but far behind what he can do. This one has had all the usual tricks pruned away, without for a moment feeling compromised.
Finished Joe Haldeman's The Forever War yesterday. I'm not sure where spoiler etiquette points when you're discussing a book from 35 years ago, but Ridley Scott's film of it comes out in a couple of years, so let's just say that I can see exactly why he feels there'd be a wider audience for it now, geopolitically speaking. One element I'm not sure he'll get on to the screen is the bit where, as our time-dilated protagonist encounters humans from 500 years in his subjective future, everyone on Earth has turned homosexual. A trope which also appeared - coincidence again - in the Cordwainer Smith story I read yesterday, 'The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal', written a mere decade earlier but considerably more terrified by the Planet of the Gays.
Otherwise, what have I been doing? Finishing up Torchwood and the second series of Justice League Unlimited (both of which, surprisingly, have a greater degree of ambiguity to them than Alan Bleasdale's much-praised GBH, which I am enjoying but which is basically a pantomime). A (not quite) midnight picnic in the park - and the only hassle we got was a Fighting Fantasy-derived heckle when we were clearly playing a card game - stupid young people. Pubs, of course. A play on the Heath, or half of one. It wasn't a weekend that lives in legend, but it was fun.
When the Observer music magazine first hit, it was briefly the best music mag going - between the decline of the weeklies and the way the monthlies seemed trapped in retro rockist amber, that maybe wasn;t saying much, but still. Picked one up this weekend for the first time in ages and it seems to have followed the same trajectory as the Guardian's Saturday mag, turned into a flimsy, shiny guide for confused consumers, written by churnalists incapable even of contradicting a press release (I'm enjoying Neil Hannon's Duckworth Lewis Method album a great deal, but anyone repeating the lazy lie that it's the first album entirely devoted to cricket needs their genitalia used for a wicket until they apologise to the Cavaliers). One exception, though - Paul Morley talks about his crash course in classical composition. As much as I like Paul Morley's writing, a lot of his journalism lately has been on autopilot - still ahead of the competition, but far behind what he can do. This one has had all the usual tricks pruned away, without for a moment feeling compromised.
Finished Joe Haldeman's The Forever War yesterday. I'm not sure where spoiler etiquette points when you're discussing a book from 35 years ago, but Ridley Scott's film of it comes out in a couple of years, so let's just say that I can see exactly why he feels there'd be a wider audience for it now, geopolitically speaking. One element I'm not sure he'll get on to the screen is the bit where, as our time-dilated protagonist encounters humans from 500 years in his subjective future, everyone on Earth has turned homosexual. A trope which also appeared - coincidence again - in the Cordwainer Smith story I read yesterday, 'The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal', written a mere decade earlier but considerably more terrified by the Planet of the Gays.
Otherwise, what have I been doing? Finishing up Torchwood and the second series of Justice League Unlimited (both of which, surprisingly, have a greater degree of ambiguity to them than Alan Bleasdale's much-praised GBH, which I am enjoying but which is basically a pantomime). A (not quite) midnight picnic in the park - and the only hassle we got was a Fighting Fantasy-derived heckle when we were clearly playing a card game - stupid young people. Pubs, of course. A play on the Heath, or half of one. It wasn't a weekend that lives in legend, but it was fun.
