The Snapshot

My Grandparents Had A Villa By The Caspian Sea

Or so goes the story that I will write one day, as told by my friend from Iran.

In the meantime, I have been reading Persepolis 2, by Marjane Satrapi.  I know I should read Persepolis but it was the second graphic novel that was in the library when I swung by the other day.  It was ok.  I was not moved to tears.  But I enjoyed it, it made me uncomfortable at times but perhaps that was its intent.  Some pacing/phrasing seemed awkward but when I read that this was actually a translation from French, I understood where some of that awkwardness might have originated.

Driven to curiosity by this comic book memoir, I searched Google to find out what this artist actually looked like.  To my surprise, she is younger than I assumed - born in 1969.  I also found this spectacular interview she gave to bookslut.  Spectacular because of her irreverence, her political incorrectness (which American author would drop a saying in an interview on translations - how "they are like women, they are either beautiful or unfaithful"?) and mainly because once again I find the resonance of a person displaced by immigration.  Not just in a physical sense, but in the realm of soul and identity.  "Yes," I found myself saying through the interview.  "All too familiar - I know how that goes." 

It just takes a little time

I've been coming around to Bon Iver.  It's taken awhile.  I'll even go and see a live show now.  I may even decide that I'd take a night of him and his i-need-you-so-much-i-am-a-bear-but-my-heart-is-breaking croon over mr. i-could-be-ironic-you-can't-tell-'coz-i'm-Swedish indie darling Jens Lekman.  Wait I minute, I just got it.  Bon Iver is the indie world's Jack Johnson!  Yep, that about sums it up.

This is dedicated to...

From an article on Milton by Jonathan Rosen, "Adam is rescued from despair after the fall by his love for Eve and by her fortitude and love for him.  In a sense, they rescue each other."

Here's to rescue, love.  This one's for you...

Bright Eyes - "First Day of My Life"

Dynamic duo?

Now here's a mash-up I wouldn't have imagined - Kate Nash and Billy Bragg.  BB's a classic and I can't get Kate Nash's song out of my head.  The result is a bit odd but it was a bit of a treat to get a double dose of musicians I like in one performance...

Kate Nash & Billy Bragg - Foundation / New England

My finger tips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation,
and I know that I should let go,
but I can't.

Come on, you know those lyrics are golden.

The Cure - live.

Saw them today.  Since I'm an old hag, it's way past my bedtime but to hear Pictures of You live was amazing.  I mean, their entire set was great but Pictures of You was what killed me.  I guess I like the anthems.  Just Like Heaven also threw me for a loop (show me, show me, show me...) because suddenly I was thirteen again, with all the attendant angst.  Good times, good times.

A fun, short film

Found this video on the internet a long time ago and I wanted to make sure I recorded it here for easy access.  It's a very kawaii piece by Julia Pott from Kingston University.

My First Crush

The Lives of Others

I'm a bit late to the game on this one, having decided that watching movies in theatres is an expensive past time that I can no longer afford (but $40 tickets to The Pogues, yes I can do that one), so I missed seeing The Lives of Others onscreen the first time around.  Video did not diminish it though.  It is still a very powerful, very well made film.  Just the right element of surprise at the end.  The feeling of authenticity (even though it was a highly stylized film, as you will find out from the DVD extras but then there is always that old adage that artifice yields truth) - quite beautiful.  And in the end, heartbreaking and real.  I'm glad the ending was the way it was though.  As much as the filmmaker could very well have written a heavy-handed and true ending for Berlin and all of East Germany at that time, I'm glad it ended on that note.

The feeling that a film's pacing is just so, just right is so rare that I am almost taken aback when it happens.  The movie Juno as an example, not a single extraneous scene in place (a credit to the director much more than the writer, and yes, I will preface this by saying that I am one of those pop-culture junkies who loved the opening teen-speak/young-hipster sequence which a  lot of my peers could not stand).  Crucial in comedies.  Whereas the much applauded There Will Be Blood and Ang Lee's Lust/Caution had scenes where I was wanted to shake the director and say, "Go, go on, get on with it.  I don't have all day, you know." 

One good thing about renting DVD's for movies is that, if they have extensive extra feature footage, you can get so much insight into the filmmaker/actor/producer's mind when they were making the film.  And with The Lives of Others,  the writer/director had spent at least two years writing and rewriting the script.  Then he and the art director had spent another year on setting up scenes, finding locations and basically deciding on art direction and style.  To know that much exacting work and revision had gone into just preparing for this movie, not even filming it, is to realize how much work goes into art that, as a consumer, you appreciate for two hours or less.  It's amazing - a whole crew of people slaving away for years to attain this vision and here we are, the moviegoer, we pay our $10 and get this much beauty.  Amazing.

Regurgitating

Such a great article though by Stephen Marche:

 

The great Shakespeare scholar A.C. Bradley, a hundred years ago, gave a reliable description: "Everywhere, from the crushed rocks beneath our feet to the soul of man, we see power, intelligence, life and glory, which astound us and seem to call for our worship. And everywhere we see them perishing, devouring one another and destroying themselves, often with dreadful pain."

And here's the Amy Winehouse EMA video

 

Songs for the brokenhearted

When bloggers have nothing else to say, they always turn to lists.  And so, a list of random songs that have served as soundtrack through the years of loss and longing.   Quite a number of sappy ones because, really, could there be anything else but treacle in situations like these?

SUNDAYS - Here's Where the Story Ends
"Oh I never should have said, the books that you read, were all I loved you for."

BJORK - Unravel
"While you are away my heart comes undone, slowly unravels in a ball of yarn...
So when you come back, we'll have to make new love"

SHEILA NICHOLLS - Fallen For You
"That was just another song you wrote, for another girl"

INTERPOL - NYC
"I had seven faces thought I knew which one to wear
I'm sick of spending these lonely nights training myself not to care"

BECK - Little One (in fact, the entire Sea Change album)
"Drown drown, sailors run aground,
In a sea-change, nothing is safe"

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - Sometimes I Still Feel The Bruise
"I know I never really knew you, but somehow I miss you, and wish that you'd stayed in my life"

BILLY JOEL - And So It Goes
"But if my silence made you leave, then that would be my worst mistake,
so I will share this room with you, and you can have this heart to break"

DNTEL/POSTAL SERVICE - (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan
"That I could not understand, and then you grabbed me tightly.
 I won't let go, I won't let go. Even if you say so, oh no"

KINGS OF CONVENIENCE - I Don't Know What I Can Save You From
"You called me after midnight, it must have been three years since we last spoke."

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT - 14th Street
"Why'd you have to break all my heart, couldn't you have saved a little bit of it?"

ALEXI MURDOCH - Orange Sky
"In your love, my salvation lies In your love."

Music bits

The National.  Best concert I've been to this year.  Liked their songs but had no idea how much I would be a convert (the blog-hype was off-putting).  Go buy their albums.  Go watch their concerts.  They live up to the hype.

Jens Lekman.  Went to the Paradise to see why all the hipsters like him.  Lots of couples all around giving each other knowing squeezes or kisses every time a Jens-Lekman-song-that-touched-their-hearts came on.  Treacly indie pop.  Meaning, he's aiming for irony with the sweetness but then how do Swedish indie musicians define irony anyway?.  Liked it enough though I think that space in my own heart has already been given to Belle & Sebastian.  He was doing the Sufjan thing with the ensemble of back-up musicians all in costume and dancing about wildly.  It got a bit old, but I'm sure there were a bunch of starry-eyed hipsters in the audience who would disagree with me.

Morrissey.  These were last minute tickets to The Orpheum, my least favorite of venues due to it's sucky sound quality.  Morrissey did make the point that this was the exact stage that Oscar Wilde stomped on back in the day.  I liked that.  Once again, same feeling watching U2 or The Police - I was born too late to appreciate these acts performing live in their particular place and time.  So now I see them without the vast momentum and energy that propelled them to their heights, just with some vague approximation thereof.  Even if he takes off his shirt twice.  Even if fans keep coming up on stage to give him creepy hugs.  Nice back-up band though - they fill out their tight brown shirts and blue jeans well.