It Might Get Loud

Watched "It Might Get Loud", a documentary about Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White. The latter is a bit of an arrogant twat at times, particularly because the other two are so humble, but a fun watch nonetheless.

They showed the house where U2 recorded "War" and the mansion where Led Zeppelin recorded "Stairway to Heaven". They put the drums in the hall, and Roger Waters was high up, at the end of the stairs, playing. It's the song for which Jimmy Page had to "invent" the double-guitar, because he couldn't switch so quickly.

Wonderful moment when Jimmy Page started to play, and the other two just watched in complete awe.

When Jimmy Page put on a vinyl of a very old song ("Rumble"?) he couldn't stop grinning. After hearing it probably a thousand times, he still immensily enjoyed it.

Not the greatest documentary ever, but a fun watch, and one of this films that make you yearn to go away and do something actually creative.

Journey - "Separate Ways" (Frontiers)

80's galore!

Some day, love will find you!

The youtube video mentions Tron, but I don't really remember that.

Lars von Trier - "The Kingdom" (Riget)

Ghost series (2 seasons, 4 ep each) from 1994. Amazing how old it looks.

But the story is good, the filming a bit shakey and not spectacular, but good enough. The characters intriguing enough.

Curious to see him talk to you directly after each episode ("so, we just saw..."). His speech after the 4th ep of season 1 was the best so far: "all we can do, is try to frighten you with stageblood. It is only when you look away that we get a grip on you. Because horror is in the mind. When you close your eyes, that's when the real terror begins.") Curious in a good way.

The Colour Of Magic

"The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" together have been made into a 2-episode miniseries.

Not bad, but not exactly enjoyable. The jokes didn't work.

Though they were as faithful as possible in a two-episode timespan, they had to leave a lot out and many scenes seemed rushed; fast little scenes, not really merging into one story. Beads on a necklace.

The actors weren't particularly good. Death's mask (exactly the same as in other film-renderings of Pratchett books) keeps irritating me slightly. The decors were exactly as you expect, nothing fancy, nothing special.

Meh.

The Last Airbender

Nickelodeon film.

Horrible. Predictable plot. Horrendous acting. Awful lines.

Bernhard Drax - "Goodbye" (Life Goes On... And Then It's Over)

Soft, piano, slightly sad.

Beautiful piano-melodies.

(ok, horrible album title, but worth looking into)

suggested by "A Gothice Love Song" channel.

Paul Weller - "The Pebble And The Boy" (As Is Now)

in the "a gothic lovesong" channel (of whose quality I am still unsure)

violins, haunting.

Zydepunks - "Angel Whiskey" (Finisterre)

Gypsy, fast, in mineur.

Ralph Myerz - "A Special Morning"

soft, triphop, echo's of whistling...

pretty nice.

(suggested by colleague's Pandora btw)

"La Femme Nikita" : soft haunting humming

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - "Mr Pinstripe Suit" (American Deluxe)

jazzy, fast, catchy, .. "Take it away!"-ish

Chris Isaak - "Black Flowers" (Speak Of The Devil)

Chris Isaak just the way I like his music.

Battlestar Galactica

Why the preselling just after the title-sequence? I hated it.

Liked the fact that many people smoked. Particularly the doctor.

The oldfashioned (cord) phones and pencils, throughout the series I kept wondering whether I liked them or not. They did convey a certain atmosphere, but it seemed at times in weird contrast with the fact that they were on space-sailing ships. It never really bothered me though.

Interesting developments of character.

Starbuck, an "angel"? She suddenly disappears in the last episode. Could we have seen that coming? I doubt it. Kind of a "meh" ending for her.

They did let a lot unspoken, unexplained.

I loved the mood and music (tingling piano) of the Cylon ships. It made sense, completely different, and strangely 60's/70's scifi, in a good way.

U2, the music four the of Five Cylons, hear ("All Along the Watchtower"). It was haunting and good, yet there were fringes of a paradox. Should they have chosen a more unfamiliar song? But perhaps the fact that it was so famous and wellknown buoyed it towards the strange feelings.

They did not dwell too long on the "who are the remaining Cylons". It could have easily been a stupid way to prolong the storyline.

I didn't like the acting of the "Mr President" - Mary McDonnell, all the time. She wore a squinted-eyes-angelic-smile very often, too often, and hardly seemed to change her moods.

They didn't explore the hybrids very much, the future of Cylons and mankind, the Cylon blood that saves humans...

Charles Bukowski - various poetry

Loved the book of poetry I got from the library. Renewed it at least four times.

It is time to move on, but I will look through his work often. He makes me want to write, he makes me see things in different ways.

Sylvia Plath - Various Poetry

I browsed through her poetry a couple of times. Sometimes I read a sentence which ignited a small spark, but in general, I could not really be bothered.

Perhaps I must first look up some of her most famous poems, and see whether they ring true for me.

I like her poems, and some of her lines ring true ("I patronized her a little and she lapped it up / you could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality"), but in general I haven't encountered poems yet which grabbed me, as soon as I read one line, one stanza...

It is not like her voice doesn't carry a sense of gravity, her words do not really find a common demeanor. She describes intense situations, but seldom they catch me.

The Stones

This is the city where men are mended...

Daphne Du Maurier - "Rebecca" (UNFINISHED)

• Loved the first chapter. Sad, melancholy, hints of haunting.

The rest of the book, as far as I read it (more than one-third) did little to keep my interest. "Poor maiden marries handsome widow, only to fret about her new role, uncertainty, all that uncertainty oozing out of her, and what, oh dear, what happened to his former wife?!?"

Long-winded, boring. Too much repetition.

Ending of the first chapter though:

I would think of the blown lilac, and the Happy Valley. These things were permanent, they could not be dissolved. They were memories that cannot hurt. All this I resolved in my dream, while the clouds lay across the face of the moon, for like most sleepers I knew that I dreamed. In reality I lay many hundred miles away in an alien land, and would wake, before many seconds had passed, in the bare little hotel bedroom, comforting in its very lack of atmosphere. I would sigh a moment, stretch myself and turn, and opening my eyes, be bewildered at that glittering sun, that hard, clean sky, so different from the soft moonlight of my dream. The day would lie before us both, long no doubt, and uneventful, but fraught with a certain stillness, a dear tranquility we had not known before. We would not talk of Manderley. I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more.

I wonder if the name itself, Manderley, rang true to my mind, for I hold the memories of Mandalay dear, and could not completely seperate the two