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Monday, July 6th, 2009
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12:37 pm - Combat Paper
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Last weekend, these delightful, young men were in the delightful, young town of Portadown for reasons that I do not fully understand.
The lovely Ms. Geraldine Boyle (who is both young and delightful) had gamely sought a group of veterans that could be convinced to cut the uniforms in which they so bravely served their nation/killed some other people, depending on one’s perspective. In Nireland, there is, of course, little room for both/and.
No group was forthcoming and, in the days that died before the deadline, it was forwarded that maybe some Union flag and tricolours could be used for the purpose instead. No less than that, the spectacle would be conducted in a marquee in the town centre.
The Arts Council distanced themselves from the event, as did several older women and a band of busybodies. But who wants to be near the Arts Council anyway?
Of course, part of the reason that no veterans groups were coming forth was that last Saturday was Veterans’ Day and the streets of Portadown were thronged by fatigued soldiers and the shop fronts guarded by senile sentries.
In the end, the event took place inside the Millennium Court and was viewed by exactly 9 people, all of us borrowed from a workshop in an adjacent room.
Sad times.
current music: The Smiths - Last Night, I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
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| Monday, June 22nd, 2009
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6:54 pm - Some Asian Opera Houses
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| Friday, March 20th, 2009
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12:10 pm - Lord Berners
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In beauty, virtue, unexcelled
Thank God with you I can't compete
Thank God you are unparalleled
For parallels can never meet.
Her reply:
I cannot say your views lack point
For therein lies their strength
For Euclid tells us that a point
Has neither breadth nor length.
Shall I compare thee to a porcupine?
Or, with some quaint comparison, declare
The Armadillo's hide no match for thine
Nor Alligator's scales so gaunt and rare
As those that have not fallen from thine eyes
And hide from thee the things thou darest not see.
The unforgotten ghoul that stands and cries
Upon thy doorstep clamouring for thee.
The scales in which fatality is weighed
Have weighed thee and have found thee overweight.
And I who waited for the end have stayed
To see my hopes and fears fulfilled too late.
Oh would that these too solid bounds would break,
That bind the willing martyr to the stake.
current music: Lord Berners - Le Carosse Du Saint Sacrement
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| Thursday, March 19th, 2009
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9:23 pm
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| Friday, March 6th, 2009
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9:54 am - No Love Lost
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The hate we had in summer has fairly turned to frost. Long flowed the torrent, long sprung that well, that it would spray you with my indignation. Now that flow becomes a floe, that gush becomes a glacier, breaking the pinched plumbing of the heart.
The hate we had in summer is fiercely quiet now: Be still my heaving stomach, be silent retching guts. The heaviness of hatred is lifted from my diaphragm, no longer does it grind against my innards, pushing, with metallic squeal, upon the liver and intestines, dragging on those organs like a noisy, rusted wheel. The wheel has come to rest; the rest, to heel. And, here, in the heart, there’s but a murmur.
The hate we had in summer is lost to winter’s lethargy. It is winter now, here we have sangfroid.
Now is the winter for this malcontent; show him kindness, give him warmth.
current music: Rick Wakeman - Catherine Parr
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| Thursday, March 5th, 2009
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2:52 pm - Why Buy The Cow When You Can Get The Milk For Free?
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Goat’s milk is better for you anyway, I’ve heard. But that is by the by, because I don’t drink milk that often. Too expensive. I might take it more frequently if it were free. I know that cows aren’t free, but the cost would be recouped fairly quickly, what with not having to pay for milk anymore. Not that I drink milk. It would be a bit of a waste really. I would probably only use the cow for beef anyway. Though you can only use a cow for meat once. It would be more economic to come to some arrangement with the butcher; not to get meat free, obviously, that would be unfair and disastrous for him. No, I would arrange to give him some form of payment in exchange for occasional shanks of beef. I wouldn’t have to deal with the slaughter and dismemberment myself.
Extending this to the realm of sexual congress is easy. Why marry a woman, when another man is willing to marry many women, send them to an abattoir and make their portions available to all for a small fee? All I ever wanted to do was eat them anyway.
current music: Talking Heads - Slippery People
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| Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
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9:21 am - Le Fin Du Monde
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Les astrologues français prévoient que l'extrémité du monde se produira dans 2012 ou 2013. Ils ont fait cette pronostication il y a plusieurs siècles, mais commencent seulement maintenant à obtenir inquiétés. La prévision est documentée dans un texte écrit avant l'unification de la nation, la plupart du temps par les Normands. Le reste du pays a peur que, s'il se dégage comme prévu, ils tout seront blâmés également.
Les philosophes français, sur une main différente, pensent que le but du monde est simplement un état d'esprit. Cependant, c'est l'état d'esprit dans lequel nous tous devrions vivre ; il libère les passions et, pendant une brève période, les philosophes français pensés que c'était une bonne chose à faire.
C'est des amoureux français, bien que, pour qui l'extrémité du monde est la plus significative. Il est comment ils te feront le sentir, mademoiselle, ils disent. Ce peut être la nuit avant qu'ou ce puisse être le matin après, mais ils te feront le sentir comme si votre monde a fini.
current music: The Monkees - Pleasant Valley Sunday
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| Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
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2:13 pm - Everything Is Sorted Now
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Can everything be lost? That is, can everything, in its entirety, be misplaced. We wonder. This is would require that, in the place of everything, nothing would now stand, which hardly seems probably. This is seldom how lose works, except, perhaps, when one uses lose to mean bereavement, but, I promise we do not. Rather, an item lost is placed incorrectly amongst other objects; if every object is misplaced, they must, some of them still be visible and findable. Everything includes everything, including the bed that hides of jar of eyeballs and the bookcase behind which the Turin Shroud has slipped. Everything cannot be lost, because things require everything to be lost between. For something to be lost, part of everything must be found.
However, to avoid this problem, we have now sorted everything. Everything is sorted by nominal sort; that is, things that sort of alike are sorted together. For example: America by Simon & Garfunkel can be found with Tumbling Down by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel.
current music: Johannes Brahms - Symphony No.4 in E Minor
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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3:58 pm - He Couldn't Find His Ass With His Hands
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This man is a drug mule riding on an ass; his hands on either side, each one a stick in hand, walking with him. His legs are splayed across two saddlebags, heavy with clinking needles, which are his merchandise.
Approaching a dangerous impasse, he takes his reins in hand and reins in his hands; they must be close at hand, because, here in the Andes, bandits reign.
But it is not bandits that will shoot up this time, no. A misplaced hoof sets the ass at a teeter; the saddlebags buck like a maid’s bosom when she laughs in the village; and a Chilean needle, of finest indigenous craftsmanship, pricks the ass of the mule.
What does an ass think? What does it know of delusion or hallucination? It kicks and rears, covered in spiders, maybe, or ticks, perhaps, or what an ass might fear.
This man falls from his ass, landing on his hands. His hands grope blindly beneath him, as he watches his ass flee before him.
Such precious cargo! Now lost to bandits and mountain pumas. An ass, now gone, that he could not find with one hundred million hands. And now it is nightfall.
In South America, this is how the g-ds have their sport.
current music: Kate Bush - Waking The Witch
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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4:19 pm - Between The Sword And The Wall
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Notice how Elvar, cleverly, sets up the inversion in the concluding chapter. At the opening of the book, she wrote:
Jemima flushed, tipsy by the potency of his expression. “I don’t… why, I couldn’t…,” she stuttered, steadying herself against the fire place. The empty hearth coughed, spluttering soot, as the rain fell through the floe.
He grabbed her, enveloping her in his strong embrace, but she couldn’t face him. She looked away; away from his chest and his beating heart. She looked coldly at the wall, its ornate papering of greens and golds and her father’s sword, hooked in place, its silver shrill in the air…
She seems to have taken, quite literally, the piece of writerly advice that states: if one introduces a sword above the fireplace in chapter one, make sure someone uses it before the end. This, itself, is playful and self-aware, qualities that we have come to expect from Elvar. But, now, look again at this passage from the final chapter, ten:
“No!” Jemima cried. “Not in my father’s house! Not with you!” The silver of her father’s sword sang to her across the room, as Edward rushed towards her.
“But I must have you,” he roared. “I love you!”
His love was not enough. In fact, it was too much. And too much was not enough for her. With the sword there, like a rigid totem of her father’s power over her, like the sword of Damocles passing judgment on her, she pushed Edward away. He faltered, crashing against the fireplace, knocking over the carriage clock and the ceramic spaniels. The gold and green paper cracked on the wall, as the bricks came down upon him, breaking between the chinks his upraised arms and shattering his teeth. The wall came down, but, still hooked there, the sword’s silver was shrill in the air…
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Too sick yesterday to write anything.
current music: Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love
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| Friday, February 27th, 2009
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10:09 pm - It's A Piece Of Cake
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There are two crumbling radii, where from small specks fall onto the plate. An arc runs along the back end, while the fore tapers into a point of no severe angle. The whole might serve six, eight maybe, and this generous sector, being fit for one, might be an eighth, maybe a sixth, of the entire affair.
Viewing the figure along a second plane, one would notice that it is divided into two sections equally. The top side of each section, that being the one that faces away from gravity, is smeared with a creamy cohesive. The same is true of the bottom side of one, but only one, of these sections.
Skill with fork or knife could not shear a line that would make two or more sectors alike in shape, but not size. A curved fork, cutting at the tip, might generate a miniature facsimile and quadrilateral of odd character. The knife could halve the item into near-scalene triangles, but neither would be much like the parent. One’s teeth would be no good for the purpose at all and it would hardly be worth the trying.
current music: Van Morrison - Linden Arden Stole The Highlights
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| Thursday, February 26th, 2009
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11:43 am - Left To My Own Devices
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They had deserted me. Or I had lost them, somewhere in the citadel. All the switches clicked, as one, into the on position and, with a click, all the rooms had switched and all the halls were one. The citadel revolved, gyroscopically, and all its innards twisted and were sick,
I took a left into an anteroom, which now fed into a small closet, instead of a great hall. But for the first time, so far as I knew, the closet had a second door that opened into the kitchens, now populated by screaming servants who had seen a butler pass the double doors, then plummet by the window. They called to me and begged of me, in my knowledge of theosophies and mysticisms, to set things right; I instructed them to stay together in the one room, then pushed through the double doors, as they wailed in warning.
The corridor that followed usually joined the an elevator with the air-lock to the laboratory, but, at the moment, led from the kitchen to I did not know where. I could see the laboratory in tact, through the window pane that gaped on the left of the corridor, and, in it, the infernal devices humming innocently.
If I tried to reach the lab by the decompression chamber, I would end up g-d knows where, so I struck the window, hoping that such portals did not contort as the doors as gateways had. I beat it with my fists, as there was no room for run-up, and I smacked it with my skull, until it cracked, slowly and uncertainly. The glass broke away from me, falling onto the floor of the master bedroom.
current music: Van Morrison - Who Was That Masked Man?
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| Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
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5:36 pm - Show A Clean Pair Of Heels
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These guys weren’t dirty, rotten scoundrels. No, they were a clean pair of heels: neat of appearance, polite of demeanour, no foul language. Even their getaways were clean.
Guys called Wyndham are always bad news. Wyndham Earl played a mean game of chess; Wyndham Lewis played too gaily with Nazi sympathies for some people’s taste. Wyndham Brandon was the smart guy.
That is not to say that Charles Granillo was intellectually slow, but he was the slow one of the two. As a pair, though, they had some academic clout. And that was what the whole thing was about; it was all for show. That’s how come nobody ever found out about it. Or that was the plan anyway.
*
It has now been some six years since I last read Rope by Mr. Hamilton. Or, indeed, four or so since I last watched Mr. Hitchcock’s screen version.
I may well be confusing the characters and I can’t remember whether they get caught at the end.
current music: Flare Acoustic Arts League - Hands Of Fire
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| Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
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7:26 pm - Like Two Peas In A Pod
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Hartley and Hound were naïve. They sat there, side by side, looking, leguminous ly, at the television and thought this was the way to live their life together.
They were happy together, because they shared a similar interest: watching the television. They had much in common: they looked alike and they sounded alike and they were simple-minded naïfs. It was green of them to think they could live this slow, lazy life together and that no one would mind.
Some of the neighbours called them vegetables, because all they did was sit about all day. This wasn’t a fair estimation. Other neighbour said they were fruits, because Hound and Hartley were two guys living together, doing stuff together and wearing matching outfits. This was unkind, but it was true. Or, it would have been true, if they did anything more than just sit there.
One day, the neighbours, incensed by Hartley and Hound and their inactivity, burst open the men’s house with a large charge of dynamite. It sent the pair into the sky and scattered them miles apart from each and, in parts, from themselves.
They were green, the both of them, to think that something like this wouldn’t happen. People are tolerant of other‘s doing their own thing, but they do not like it when two men do their own thing together.
current music: Gay Dad - Joy
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| Monday, February 23rd, 2009
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8:00 pm - Thanking You
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When the taxi-driver or shop assistant says “I’m thanking you,” what do they mean?
They do not mean ‘thank you,’ for, if this were the case, this is what they would have said. What they are doing instead is describing their action, that is the action of giving thanks.
However, giving thanks is different to showing gratitude. One showing gratitude - that is gratifying one who has gratified them - can do so in a number of ways, of which offering gifts of first edition Henry Greens is only the least they can do. But thanking someone is a smaller affair. It is a matter of politeness and is, really, the only response when one is grateful that the service one offers has been used. The only means by which one can thank another in this fashion is by saying ‘thank you.’
Yet, by so describing the action, the shop assistant or taxi-driver cleverly avoids saying this at all. Rather they give the impression of thanking one, without actually doing so. Theirs is a skilful subterfuge, but a vile one.
current music: Johannes Brahms - Nänie
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10:04 am - God's Will Be Done
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The graffiti appeared on a concrete barrier, where the West Link came out and over the Falls, with the requisite misplaced apostrophe. Done, in this sense, meant to be killed or, at least, severely beaten. Or, perhaps, knee-capped.
On the lower Donegall Road, through the long arc of Rockview Street and its adjunct, out onto Tate’s Avenue, deities were now well-warned, as television licence collector had once been.
This was just the word on the street. In many an upstairs room; in many a Glen Road living room; in many a Shankill kitchen, large groups of men had met. Between cups of tea in their hand, they had been appropriating blame: firstly, to the schism; then, the sacking of the monasteries,; briefly, to the French; then, finally, to g-d himself.
The Irish Republican Emancipationists (I.R.E.) released the following statement, following it with the appropriate, recognised codeword:
The war, in so far as we wish to take no responsibility for it, can be seen as a natural consequence of ambiguity on g-d’s part when setting out the mechanisms of his worship. Should he show his face in Turf Lodge or Twin Brook again, the council will deal with him accordingly. This is extended to peddlers of similar mass opiates or panacea. It was about religion all along.
The Red Ulster Enlistees (R.U.E) circulated this similar statement:
Much the same.
Interestingly, the loyalist declaration was made public moments before that of the republicans, but history tends to remember the republican movement as taking the first steps in the peace process. As such, so is this document.
Forward, to a lasting peace!
current music: Sean Lennon - Home
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| Saturday, February 21st, 2009
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6:36 pm - A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose
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The first Rose was Alice O’Sullivan, a native of Dublin. She was a brunette, although she may now be white or grey.
The most recent Rose is Aoife Kelly of Tipperary. She is blonde.
My favourite Rose is Ciara O’Sullivan, who took the title in 1962. She does look surprised to so resemble Audrey Hepburn.
As a matter of fact, Thin Lizzy released a record called Roisin Dubh (The Black Rose: A Rock Legend) in 1979. The Black Rose, incidentally, was also the name of partisan freedom-fighter group in Hungary that sought the country’s independence from Austro-Hungarian rule, although Wikipedia does not seem to record this. Bela Bartok’s parents were members.
Rose is also the past tense of rise.
Laraine Stollery was the first international winner of the Rose. She came from New Zealand and probably still does. This was in 1966.
The Rose of Tralee is, by no means, a beauty contest.
current music: Pet Shop Boys - In The Night
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| Friday, February 20th, 2009
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11:50 am - The Roar Of The Crowd
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It does not work the other way around.
For a start, lions have no thumbs. And, while consensus is divided still over the exact nature of the gesture, they had no swords to thrust upwards nor, when lifting themselves from the ground, do they erect themselves on full hind legs, standing upright like a man does. Thus, even if they did have opposable thumbs with which to make the requisite signal, the signal, as we know it, would mean nothing to them.
Neither, so far as we know, do lions, or any of the big cats for that matter, have any metaphysical beliefs. I would not be so brash as to say that they have none, but there are none, so far as we know. It does appear unlikely, though, that members of a single pride or a separate pride would develop beliefs that differed from their fellows. Certainly, it is hard to imagine how these beliefs would threaten the beliefs of others. As lions come from, what we must admit is, a small geographical area, we could assume that ethnically and ethically, even, they are much of a muchness and not prone to such wide, various and contentious philosophical disagreements as men.
Lastly, of course, a single human is hardly ever match for a solitary lion. And, we have to ask ourselves, would the single human have guts enough to perform knowing that several hundred, thousand perhaps, lions surrounded the competition. In reality, a lion thrown to the Christians - however many - would not be facing any real punishment at all.
current music: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Tumbling Down
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| Thursday, February 19th, 2009
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1:15 pm - And What Has That Got To Do With The Price Of Eggs?
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Avalon Sunset - Van Morrison
Along with Welcome To The Beautiful South, this sound tracked the earliest parts of my childhood that I can remember, which places me at five or six. Upon my birth, the mother seemed to disengage from popular music completely, but we would rediscover it together in the coming years.
In 1989, this album seemed to play from every vent, but I had somehow forgotten this until only months ago, when a chance listen brought it all back to me. The interesting thing is that, while I know remember that time a little, the songs do not evoke it. Rather, they, and Orangefield especially, call up experiences and feeling I have since known, when the record was far from my mind and the songs unheard. The accent aside, Mr. Morrison presents an accurate portrayal of “a throne of Ulster day,” whatever that may be.
“There is a potency to cheap music” - it lingers in one spot, like bad perfume; there is a lighter type of music that diffuses through all parts of one’s life.
69 Love Songs - The Magnetic Fields
I very clearly remember buying it. Despite not being sure what to make of Get Lost when first I heard it, an interview, in the Sunday Times, with Mr. Merritt, regarding its follow-up convinced me to get it that very Summer day. I had already to go into town with Liam, but was required to wait several hours until he finished his A-Level physics practical. I am proud to say that he is not now a profession physicist.
It was triple seadee set for the price of a single record and, when we brought it home, I threw all three into what then seemed a very fancy multi-seadee stereo. I had raved and quoted from the interview all afternoon, but we still were not sure what to expect. After Absolutely Cuckoo, we broke down in laughter, with still no idea what to expect.
At this point, I think, I understood exactly what post-modernism could mean, that there was nothing cheap, stale or slight about sifting through the clichés and remains of culture. Dr. Frankenstein’s monster had a sort of heart after all and he was an innocent, even if his creator wasn’t.
Imperial Bedroom - Elvis Costello
Before the internet, I would go to Waterstone’s, in Belfast, to run my eyes through the heavy pop music dictionaries that they kept on a dangerously high shelf. If a record received four or more stars in two or more of these, I would go across the road to Virgin or HMV and buy it.
The mother and I used to listen to Mr. Costello in the car, but this was before I bought records for myself and it was some time before I got a copy of this four-star record. When I started my first job, I would listen to this all the way there and all the way back and in the bathroom when I took my teabreak. I thought the adulterous nancy boys and cool-hearted diplomats sounded pretty sharp.
Even though it is Mr. Costello’s break-up record, I seemed only to listen to it attentively on those rare occasions when I was restricting my generosity, charm and wit to one particular person.
The Best Of The IRS Years - R.E.M.
One morning in 1995, I think, I decided that I would like R.E.M. Most of my life has resulted from such clear-sighted, yet ambiguous, design. Ambiguous only because I have no idea why I chose to do so.
At that point, everyone’s older brother listened to R.E.M. and, as I had no siblings, my coming to them by myself implied that I was an arbiter of cool, just like them. This put me in good stead with my classmates when I first went to grammar school, but it would not last. Come fifth year, Paul and I would go alone into the back catalogues of Momus and Smokey Robinson.
In 1995, we didn’t have a seadee player or a turntable, so I bought it on cassette. This called for many uncalled for car trips. To this day, I think no band writes better or more consistently good middle eights than R.E.M.
Louder Than Bombs - The Smiths
I once had a long debate in class with a jazz-loving religion teacher about whether or not Mr. Morrissey was a miserablist. I maintain that there not a single Smiths track that is as down-heartening as one of Mr. Davis’ solos. Even Asleep.
I was a Smiths fan by default; I had the frame and temperament for it. But I really always preferred the later funny ones and, in my mind, they all wound up on Louder Than Bombs.
Adore - Smashing Pumpkins
For a while, Paul and I thought that our ears were the mouths that kissed the kiss of death. Every time we started listening to and enjoying a band, they would release a dreadful album, break up or both. The Smashing Pumpkins wouldn’t do that until the next one.
This was the first album the group recorded after I started listening to them, although I don’t think that affected their approach to the project. It came at just the right. If they hadn’t recorded a quiet album, full of subtle electronics and pianos, I would never have learned to play piano or enjoy Depeche Mode.
In fact, I never did learn piano and am still largely indifferent to post-Mr. Clarke Mode, but I only regret one of these.
Tadpoles - The Bonzo Dog Band (as they then were)
This was not at all an inappropriate accompaniment to the beginning of my most intense romance.
It is also an important lesson in mixing approaches and media. So there.
Chet Baker Sings - Chet Baker
It snowed quite heavily and I, and I alone it turned out, had to walk to work in a pair of ill-fitting Wellingtons with no socks. When I arrived at the office, my feet were soused in blood from where my ankles had rubbed against the rubber during that hour-long walk. I was then allowed to go home, but, as I was in town already, I determined to buy Chet Baker Sings. Then another hour walking home.
Mr. Baker captures a sort of male sadness that was never present when the crooners sang the same songs. Mr. Sinatra was self-absorbed, Mr. Martin clearly drunk. Ms. Holliday sounded miserable, as did Ms. Washington, but Mr. Crosby never did. As black women of their time, they had every reason to sing sadly, but Mr. Baker sounded as if he had no one to blame but himself. And he didn’t.
The Great Summit - Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington
Simply very good.
Six - Mansun
It taught me that failure was the important counterbalance to pretension and ambition. If one secures all in equal measure, you’re doing well.
It stays with me, because Ms. Molloy borrowed my copy some ten years ago. It was released eleven years ago. I still think of it fondly.
Tragic Realism - LD & the New Criticism
Apart from being a phenomenal recording that is, at once, catchy, moving and hilarious, I think this represents - along with Oskar Tennis Champion by Momus - the approach I, and probably the world, would take to music in my twenties or the 21st century.
Mr. Beghtol leaked it to me in e-mails, in various degrees of completion, over a few weeks in 2005, several calendar months before its release. As I result, my excitement and obsession was maintained over a longer period of time. I had fewer songs to listen to at any one time and I could pick them apart with the person who wrote them. I was still delighted to get a real-life version when I could, as the detailed cover art just added more to it.
Sadly, still not enough people have bought it.
Tosca - Pretre/Callas/Choeur De Theatre
Finally, I can listen to opera on record. What it requires, I think, is for one to have a seen a production, so that no time or effort is wasted in trying to follow the story. Then, one can simply skip through the track listing to the parts that one likes.
I have not yet heard to better recording of Scarpia’s Tre Sbirri from the end of act. I am listening out for one though.
XTRMTR - Primal Scream
It was a relief to know that good music could be purely accidental.
After a decade or so of releasing impossibly dull records, Screamadelica included, some people released an impossibly brilliant record. Had they released anything good afterwards, I might have given up on making music altogether. It would have implied that they had had some talent after all, it just needed to be nurtured.
Comic Strip - Serge Gainsbourg
The first Mr. Gainsbourg compilation I owned was one I bought in a Virgin megastore in Brussels. I listened to it through a pair of headphones, while lying on a hotel double bed that I had to share with a classroom due to some reason that given but which no escapes me. I could not make arse nor elbow of it.
The problem with that collection was that it threw together songs from his whole career and, from such a close vantage point, it actually obscured the depth and variety of his work. It took a series of themed compilations, which also included Coleur Café and Du Jazz Dans Le Ravine, to put the work in some sort of context. It took me two years to find it.
The work should have stood up for its self, but, at the time, Love On The Beat sounded opportunistic rather than ironic or visionary. Everything on Comic Strip sounded amazing though.
Casanova - The Divine Comedy
Paul ushered me to a corner of the school lunch room, placed one earpiece into my lughole and played A Woman Of The World.
It was not quite as revelatory as his playing Smokey Robinson to me for the first time, but the first Essential Penguins demo all sounded like The Divine Comedy and none of them like The Miracles.
Even at that point we were probably better read than Mr. Hannon, but we didn’t have the charm. We still don’t.
current music: Christmas - I Want More
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| Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
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1:15 pm - He's Like A School In Summer...
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No class
Empty
Closed
Stuffy
Dusty
His pupils are wandering all over the place
Maintained by a bored and lonely caretaker
Admitting some of the slower student who are receiving special lessons so that they can catch up with their peers
Used for municipal meetings for the purposes of debating or voting, but only if the school is in a small town
Eyed enviously by passing parents whose children either failed the selection process or lived outside the catchment area of this fine establishment
Open only for the collection of A-level results, although some of the senior teachers will be present for the distribution of high-fives
Made available to a local summer scheme, because there is an all-weather football that will, otherwise, go unused, which hardly seems fair
The site of secret rehearsals for the up-coming school show, five months in advance of its premier, because Marie McQuillan is fastidious that way
current music: Prince - Elephants & Flowers
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reggie_c_king's journal
