fall on today

Monday, 25 February 2008 05:16 pm
freckles_and_doubt: (Default)
[personal profile] freckles_and_doubt
Aaargh! Day of annoyance, filled with annoyance and annoying things, all annoying me. Apart from a long string of students (the last one driving me to near madness by her terminal vagueness) I had a lovely response planned to a BoingBoing item about global warning, but Cory Doctorow (gasp!) slipped up and reposted something from 2004, and they've subsequently taken it down. I feel saddened at the realisation that BoingBoing is not, in fact, godlike in its inscrutable wisdom. I also can't remember the pithy comments I was going to make, but it's probably a safe bet that they involved orang-utans.

In the Department of Oh Gosh I'm Still An Awful Klutz: slipped on the steps on my way down to my office this morning, and came down hard on my posterior (fortunately off centre, thus saving my poor coccyx another beating, which is just as well). I have an enormous blue and purple bruise on my left buttock, and grazes on my right hand. I thought I'd given up on this all-too-obsessive embracing of gravity at odd and inappropriate moments. Possibly the Cosmic Wossnames are punishing me for not having gone to the gym for a week, in which case I blow a raspberry in their general direction. I haven't had time to go to the gym, and have been too darned exhausted to boot. I plan to be better this week, although that's got off to a great start with my projected 4.15 escape being sabotaged by annoying students until about a minute ago. Sigh. Now I'll have to fight great droves of the sweating for access to the machines.

In the Department of Everything Comes Down To My Current Favourite TV: Dyatlov Pass, courtesy of Charlie Stross. It's clearly an X-Files episode, and I hourly expect a sarky Wikipedia edit to reflect the foolish writers' obliviousness to this fact. My wayward imagination is insisting on putting a shivering Mulder into black-and-white snow photographs à la the famous Elijah Wood one. Odd.

In the Department of Thin White Duke Worship: have become suddenly and unaccountably addicted to Outside, the latest Bowie album I've acquired. This is puzzling me no end, since it's (a) a weird concept album in which the actual tracks alternate with potentially pretentious formless segues, and (b) considerably further towards the electronic (and strange avant-garde jazz) end of the spectrum than I'm generally happy with. I have, however, been bopping around the house to it all weekend in a state of high glee, while the cats watch me with suspicion and, I suspect, derision. There's one song in which I swear Bowie channels Ian Curtis - in that classic Bowie fashion, it's actually slightly more like Joy Division than Joy Division is. Since it's called "No Control" it also kinda rubs your nose in the ironic postmodern wossnames. Although not any more so than is usual for Bowie.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was wandering around the palatial skyscraper which housed the giant, glitzy room which was the sort of royal-court-like focus of the political machinations of a whole bunch of noble, or possibly corporate, houses. After a certain amount of being lost and intimidated and surrounded by snooty people in beautiful clothes, I was adopted into one of the houses by its kindly older head, who for some reason looked a bit like Steve Martin. I subsequently had to join a procession of the younger members of said house, who were being uniformly bitchy to me, and was somewhat horrified to discover, halfway round the room, that I wasn't wearing shoes and was being roundly ridiculed for my stockinged feet.

Dyatlov Pass

Date: Monday, 25 February 2008 05:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rumint.livejournal.com
- that episode would make a great basis for a soviet Delta Green game. Bumpycat should get on it immediately ;)

Re: Dyatlov Pass

Date: Tuesday, 26 February 2008 09:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com
It has that classic open-endedness and inexplicability of the true X-Files episode. The problem with Delta Green is that it tends to explain too much. Bother narrative satisfaction, anyway.

Date: Monday, 25 February 2008 08:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com
I've never listened to Outside. It looked like either a stinker or an undiscovered gem, but I could never bring myself to find out.

Date: Tuesday, 26 February 2008 05:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com
Well, I've left it this late because it scared me, so I do see where you're coming from. In typical multi-personalitied Bowie fashion, I think there are elements of "stinker" to parts of it, but mostly I'm inclining towards "undiscovered gem". The pretentious froufrou between the songs doesn't, I think, quite come off (i.e. it's interesting for the first couple of listens, then simply annoying), but a high proportion of the songs are both enjoyable and memorable. (For which, read "catchy." I'm a fool for catchy).

Date: Tuesday, 26 February 2008 11:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com
Interesting in that Young Gods are a touchstone. Young Gods IMHO started the new wave of industrial bands, who instead of recording jackhammers under a freeway overpass (See Einsturzende Neubauten), simply used a sampler. NIN would be the best known follower of this pactice. I saw YG live once - they are a very very guitary band, for a band with no actual guitarists in evidence.

I've actually got the Pet Shop boys "Hallo Spaceboy" remix, it's not bad. I've heared and liked "I'm Deranged" too.

Date: Tuesday, 26 February 2008 12:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com
I am completely addicted to "Strangers when we meet", which is basically a lovely pop/rock ballade. Also "I have not been to Oxford Town" - funky. The songs on this album generally have a lot of energy, which I think is what I'm responding to. Even the weird ones.

Date: Saturday, 8 March 2008 10:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com
"No Control" - reminds me more of "Colours" by Sisterhood. Same droney background and early electronic-industrial sound.

Putting the two side by side, it even sound like the same note to my unmusical ears.

Date: Saturday, 8 March 2008 07:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com
Yes, that parallel had also occurred to me, the feel of the beat is very similar. The Joy Div parallels are actually in the shape of the tune as much as anything else - characteristic intervals etc.

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