Murúch on Mavis Staples

given the photo i saw this morning of Duncan Fletcher with a tear in his eye i do feel like a bit of a horrid stain for my post yesterday but no matter, it is for the best he has gone.

"It will be a pity for her family to welcome her home at Heathrow in a body bag just like some of her colleagues from Iraq and Afghanistan."
- what appears to be an explicit threat on the life of Gillian Dare, political officer at the British embassy, by Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper, earlier this month


you can now join us, if you so desire, for a spot of –

Pseuds Corner anyone?
{it's not even that, is it}

the new Wildhearts single is called something like 'the sweetest song' (research? pah! to roughly quote this very weblog many times in its more prolifically-posting-yet-still-lazy-fool-manner past) and it has bits of na na na, like Hey Jude or realising that the Kaiser Chiefs do well with that. nah i jest.

the chorus has some lyrics (i've heard it only a few times in hardly ideal conditions) about hearing, to you (the writer of song, anyroad, i guess), the sweetest song ever, what you take that to be, and how it hits you just so, gets you just there, just right.
the 'hearts do seem to have a talent – in a few great tunes from their fine catalogue – of articulating quite precisely and poetically what seem genuine truths about the power of music, and this universe-sized ocean of music we all pursue
for saying universal things about art and life, and how art can enrich you, and enlarge your heart, which seems a quite special, well, gift.

by the way in an Uncut magazine from, ooh, about 3 or 5 years ago now i'd say, maybe, Reynolds said something about reggae being an "ocean of sound", those three exact words (it might have been ocean of music, but it was ocean of__ something) and i just want to say, that's spot on. he was reviewing some re-issues iirc, i don't even know what, just Trojan or Blood & Fire or something ("just", he magnanimously hedges..)

i am in love with that.

so, yes, the Wildhearts in concert should be decent, one hopes.

---

'Nationwide, the number of people killed or found dead was 233, which was second only to a total of 281 killed or found dead on November 23, 2006.'

I rushed with others to give a hand and help the victims. I saw three bodies in a wooden cart, and civilian cars were helping to transfer the victims. It was really a horrible scene.

28 year-old Salih Mustafa, who was waiting for a minibus to take him home, in Baghdad.

+

in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting massacre, myspace pages belonging to victims of the tragedy got deluged with messages of love and remembrance and fraternal good vibes and all that stuff. (i'd bet the Holocaust survivor professor who was killed didn't have one, but some of the younger victims certainly did.)

anyway one page had a message from a young lady saying how she wished she had said this earlier, but she loved the victim, and other pages had stuff about the wit and warmth and heart and empathy and whatnot of victims, and i'm sure you've read this elsewhere with memorialised names in a paper etc. more properly/respectfully remembered, but myspace is amazing, becuz it seems like alongside counselling and inquiries and due process and faith and community love and sincere empathy and the kindness of strangers, that a big big route out of something was, if only in terms of a small small thing but maybe remembering someone like that is a big big thing but anyway, that myspace was being used and opened up in this way, and that's pretty damn awe inspiring, if i'd stop to think, which i don't suppose i have truly yet, becuz you would likely break down entirely or maybe you have and i should shut up anyway.

so heart the myspace and people adoring each other and friends and colleagues being actual friends and colleagues. [that might be enough waffle.]

&

You've got to appreciate what you have while you still have it.

- the title character in aforementioned 'About Schmidt' (i suppose there's also Scottish indie rockers Idlewild with their listen to what you've got.)

toward the end of 'Curse of the Golden Flower', it is basically almost a bit:
if Titus Andronicus was originally in Mandarin.

Duncan Fletcher, it's never anything to do with him, is it?

the Dame Shirley Porter of international cricket.

separating fact from fiction in Zimbabwe

Nat Bedingfield seemed to be a missing strand between Dee Dee Warwick and Diamanda Galas earlier today.

that, and Dizzee Ras has grown up!
he's got a bit buff.

the video on the Orgreave estate, with huntsmen on horseback chasing through, settles on a wall with the scrawl ONLY COWARDS STEAL FROM THE POOR.

thunderous sounds.

apparently the youngest victim (and his father) came from a very small, tight-knit community. (the proverbial fishing village.)

bleh.

and then it was a salvage mission.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

NEVER do that

all those tugboat crewmen that are missing in ice-cold waters after their vessel overturned between Norway and Scotland, and, well, some of their colleagues are now in hospital and, well, some did not make it that far,
one of the people on-board is a fifteen year old boy.

he was only there for his work experience.

there's a programme on British tv called 'Musicool' about a bunch of musician kids from diverse musical backgrounds (grind/thrash vocalist; dancehall emcee; drum'n'bass sort; etc) that has them gelling together in training in order to put on a show in London.

crowding around a piano for some song exercises on the first day, the dancehall lad remarked that the melody was heavy..all the emcees found that part easier than the singers.

it's combustible, and good.

'The Insider' strikes out in fine ensemble style – again – from Michael Mann.
i love the camerawork, just the jerks and the long views and the fleshy shots.
and the middle American river and how south Beirut looks. entices.

the script, tight as a gnat's chuff. (usual brooding and appropriate tunes.)

he really knows how to show cities; the view of the Big Apple from the CBS offices does make one catch their breath.

it's there.

when the sharp Gina Gershon (suit and hair and face on) is playing hard-ball with CBS press section, outlining dangers from the baccy giant, Pacino requests she repeat herself at one point in their tall office, above streets.
he doesn't ask can you repeat that please?

he says, to Gina, "come again".

Oh. Well. Then. Now.

yes. exactly.

now 'i'm sorry' but, yes, i am a bit sad, and a bit horny and a bit messed up at the mo, so, forgive me, but, that line,

jee-zus..

oh, and this one is a bit less late..

Poplicks imagines Chamillionaire vocab

mad luv for Cha' here

more extreme lateness:

i just think Angus is so bang on the money about Germaine Greer here, classic turn of phrase w' 'annoying and sanctimonious...'.

Greer does have one of the most magnificent voices in the Anglophone sphere (is that Roberts creeping in? er) i do think though.

imagine serving a summons on her!
christ!

her reaction would, possibly, be both ghastly and erotic.

Philip's newer blog has been dormant for some time now (pot and kettle until recently), and i know this is really late to flag as a teensy-weensy way of bigging up someone i wuv (and also, i dig all his stuff here anyway, that stuff about an audience not even being there, and 'The Culture Show', and Victorian attitudes to death, and&, and&, but i digress), but this about Tom Wolfe is tip-top.

{I am interested to know though why Wolfe is so fixated on muscle groups.}

hah! (it's very true.)

in a recent Spectator, the diary of Andrew Roberts had Roberts schmoozing in the USA with Wolfe and Norman Podhoretz at a Chaos Club, NY, meet. Wolfe "complete in the high collar and three-piece white suit", if you please.
i admit upon reading this i turned nearly as curmudgeonly as Wolfe himself can be and, possibly, thought some inappropriately rude words about the man.

more here on that Roberts diary

honestly, i've not even read it yet, but am glad to see Mr Hari not forget our old chums at sp!ked

my mate on the Wildhearts

to change tack
SR uses a gutterbreakz (leg-end!) bleep'n'bass mix as a springboard to riff on the 'nuum once more

it's the one attained by all the "crest" moments in the nuum: hardcore, jungle 94, speed garage, 2step