Monday 19 December 2016 / music, travel
The Top Five Moments of Desert Trip*
A blanket would have been nice to offset that hard, hard ground beneath the tent. Oh, and one of those little gazebo things that campers smarter than me were utilising might have allowed me to stay in my tent after the sun started working its evil magic at around 6.30am, when it suddenly went from unbearably cold to surface-of-the-sun hot. But this post isn't about my camping mishaps - if it was, I'd mention how many times I tripped over the neon orange guylines and landed flat on my face in front of my attractive Norwegian neighbours. So, without further ado, I present to you my top five moments from the inaugural Desert Trip.
1. Neil Young performing Harvest Moon under the full moon
Of the acts I was most excited to see at Desert Trip, Neil Young fell somewhere around fourth. He's written some of the most glorious songs of the last century, but I was never mad to see him. He turned out to be an absolute lunatic, in the best possible way. A true outlaw. His performance of the classic 'Harvest Moon' ended up being the most beautiful and poetic musical experience of my life.
Picture the scene: A hundred thousand people gathered in the middle of the desert, bonded by their mutual love for music, fall silent. Neil Young has begun to sing. As the gorgeous melody of Harvest Moon starts up, an actual full moon begins to rise. In fact, many quietly acknowledge that it's the fastest they've ever seen the moon move. As he croons the lyric, 'there's a full moon rising...' and the screens switch to spectacular shots of the one rapidly ascending above us, the crowd whoops softly. When Neil strums his guitar for the final time, the moon is hanging huge and bright immediately over him. Around me, people are crying at the ethereal beauty of what they've just witnessed. Goosebumps. Incidentally, Paul McCartney was also quite excited by the moon and repeatedly led the audience in mass werewolf howls during his set.
Picture the scene: A hundred thousand people gathered in the middle of the desert, bonded by their mutual love for music, fall silent. Neil Young has begun to sing. As the gorgeous melody of Harvest Moon starts up, an actual full moon begins to rise. In fact, many quietly acknowledge that it's the fastest they've ever seen the moon move. As he croons the lyric, 'there's a full moon rising...' and the screens switch to spectacular shots of the one rapidly ascending above us, the crowd whoops softly. When Neil strums his guitar for the final time, the moon is hanging huge and bright immediately over him. Around me, people are crying at the ethereal beauty of what they've just witnessed. Goosebumps. Incidentally, Paul McCartney was also quite excited by the moon and repeatedly led the audience in mass werewolf howls during his set.
2. Waking up to the actual Roger Waters singing Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? Unfortunately, desert dust and contact lenses aren't exactly cosy bedfellows, and by the final day of the festival, I was basically temporarily blinded. I was in agony. I had to get my eyes flushed in the medical tent. I had no choice but to remove the lenses, which is unfortunate because I'm severely myopic. Long story (kind of) short, the fact that I made it to the venue, back to the campsite in the dark, travelled to LAX, navigated one of the world's busiest airport on a day they experienced technical issues and changed terminals, then made it through Heathrow arrivals while alone and unable to see a foot in front of my face is probably my life's greatest achievement. Only casualty: my favourite hat, accidentally abandoned in the airport bathroom post-wee.
Anyway, the point is that due to my blindness, I missed Roger Waters' set. This was really upsetting because I'd heard how incredible it was from Weekend One folks, and just about anyone who has ever seen him perform. I've seen footage since and it's stupendous. Miraculously, I managed to get back to my tent in one piece after the Who, and fell asleep feeling sorry for myself before he even came on stage. A while later, I faded into consciousness to the sound of Roger Waters performing Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Not through my earphones or my gramophone - the actual Roger Waters actually singing the actual classic Shine on You Crazy Diamond for real. Even though I didn't get to see him, lying in my tent alone in the desert and taking that in - still dazed with sleep - ended up being one of the most surreal and incredible experiences I could have hoped for.
Anyway, the point is that due to my blindness, I missed Roger Waters' set. This was really upsetting because I'd heard how incredible it was from Weekend One folks, and just about anyone who has ever seen him perform. I've seen footage since and it's stupendous. Miraculously, I managed to get back to my tent in one piece after the Who, and fell asleep feeling sorry for myself before he even came on stage. A while later, I faded into consciousness to the sound of Roger Waters performing Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Not through my earphones or my gramophone - the actual Roger Waters actually singing the actual classic Shine on You Crazy Diamond for real. Even though I didn't get to see him, lying in my tent alone in the desert and taking that in - still dazed with sleep - ended up being one of the most surreal and incredible experiences I could have hoped for.
3. Paul McCartney's entire set
I was kind of nervous seeing Paul. The Beatles have meant so much to me in my life. I have made some of my closest friends because of The Beatles, and at times The Beatles have been my closest friends. Even though John's my favourite, it was Paul who wrote the majority of the songs that have touched my life the most. My nerves came from the bad press he's received in recent years for his vocals, mainly from the scourge of humanity itself, the Daily Mail - but were these criticisms well founded? Would the pedestal I put him on be kicked down, my adoration tainted? As much as I have defended him over the years, it can't be denied that his voice hasn't aged as well as, say, Mick Jagger or Tom Jones.
It's worth saying that I was in extraordinary amounts of contact lens-related pain and had limited vision - and it was still one of the greatest nights of my life. I'm usually one of those infuriating people who doesn't move much during a concert. But I was singing, dancing, swaying, crying, yelling, clapping, screaming and generally behaving like an absolutely lunatic. I found a note in my phone recently, composed on the night of the concert, which simply read: Paul McCartney is a god amongst men. My standouts were Maybe I'm Amazed (his live version is always better than the recorded one), Helter Skelter, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite (yeah, I know), the Abbey Road Medley, Jet (accompanied by an actual jet flying over) and A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance/Why Don't We Do It In The Road with Neil Young. Then again, I did miss my favourite Wings song - Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - while trying to fix my lenses in the toilet.
It's worth saying that I was in extraordinary amounts of contact lens-related pain and had limited vision - and it was still one of the greatest nights of my life. I'm usually one of those infuriating people who doesn't move much during a concert. But I was singing, dancing, swaying, crying, yelling, clapping, screaming and generally behaving like an absolutely lunatic. I found a note in my phone recently, composed on the night of the concert, which simply read: Paul McCartney is a god amongst men. My standouts were Maybe I'm Amazed (his live version is always better than the recorded one), Helter Skelter, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite (yeah, I know), the Abbey Road Medley, Jet (accompanied by an actual jet flying over) and A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance/Why Don't We Do It In The Road with Neil Young. Then again, I did miss my favourite Wings song - Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - while trying to fix my lenses in the toilet.
4. All the cool people
I wasn't concerned about travelling alone because it makes you more approachable. I find that you tend to meet more interesting people when you're not already moving in tribes. Most of the fantastic, unusual, well-travelled people I met were considerably older than me. Minus the music, my Desert Trip experience seemed to happen in vignettes. In minutes, I'd meet and get to know people on a deeper level than I'd known anyone before and then we'd part like strangers. I'd discover what moves them, what brought them here, the parts of the world they'd travelled to, their feelings on the current political situation in the US, how they'd dressed in their youth. Small talk didn't exist for a weekend. I felt more interesting by default that these people thought I was worth conversing with. It helps that Americans are so much less reserved. I encountered such incredible generosity, from JR who sincerely offered me both money and guidance 20 minutes into our friendship after learning I was travelling with very little, to the Peruvians with the free pot, to the group of Australians who invited me to stay with them in their tent. So to everyone I met - Alex from Chile, JR from the Bronx, Bob from Northern California, the Aussies, the Peruvians, Ben, Jessica, Gabriel etc - thank you for making the experience what it was. You made Desert Trip.
5. The Photography Experience
Watching footage of Desert Trip has been weird because the energy of the show doesn't come through at all. Many people were so amazed by the festival that they walked around in a daze afterwards (though some of that was probably due to 'other' variables ;)), but on video the whole thing looked and sounded a little lacklustre. I once read an interview with famed rock photographer Bob Gruen on the subject. He said that "video hardly captured the excitement of rock and roll at all. To capture one peak moment in a still photograph that says so much about the energy and excitement, the mood of an artist - you can only do that in a photograph."
Gruen was one of the contributing photographers to the Photography Experience, which always seemed to have a large queue of people waiting to enter. Some of these people were inevitably mainly interested in gaining access to the only air conditioned building onsite, but everyone was blown away by the exhibition. It didn't matter that some of the photographs were already well-known to rock fans - nothing beats seeing over 200 of them together in an environment like this. I've never wanted to be a Stone more. Brilliant.
Honorary mentions: delicious vegan food, great vintage market, nice merch selection.
* from the POV of someone who was blind during The Who and missed Roger Waters completely.
Wednesday 2 November 2016 / personal, travel
Los Angeles
LA. LA. I've been avoiding writing about it because I didn't want to turn it into 'work'. Silly, non? But I had such an incredible time, and I was scared I wouldn't be able to express that wonder in words. Especially as I have very few photographs to back them up.
It's hard to eloquently put into words why I loved LA so much. Had I been to Marrakesh, I could have talked about the chaos of the colourful markets, abuzz with mad collective energy and magical trinkets. A visit to Siem Reap and its ancient temples would have provided endless paragraphs on the sort of spiritual electricity that burns down the back of your neck and travels over your skin in such historic holy places.
But Los Angeles? It smells quite bad (though my sense of smell is mercifully dull). It's the dirtiest Western city I have ever been to, and I'm from Wolverhampton. There's no strong sense of culture or history beyond the entertainment industry, and even that stretches back only to the last century. I experienced more street harassment in my first half-hour in LA than I previously had in my entire life - and I've been to Paris. My favourite was the guy in the Spiderman costume who ran across Sunset Boulevard to catch me. Having stroked my arm while hitting on me for several minutes as I tried to enter a supermarket, I finally managed to escape, but not before he finished with this charming line: "Thanks for letting me touch you. I hope you'll let me taste you." And that's the story of how I was sexually harassed by Spiderman on my way to buy donuts. What a charmer.
So why did I love LA? Forgive the cliché, but I felt free. I had been concerned that travelling alone would reduce any avenues for adventure, but it only heightened my experiences. I'd never felt so instantly at home before, like my spirit was at rest. Maybe I lived there in a past life.
I kept being overwhelmed by the distinct sensation that I'd discovered what happiness felt like. For a long time, I've been convinced that it doesn't exist. Certainly not for me, anyway, and probably not for anyone else either. That at best, it's an illusion only a few of us had seen for what it truly is. But I certainly felt like I was happy in LA, and excited, too, at the realisation that it was finally my turn. I had never been happy before. My head felt clear. It is usually muddled, filled with cotton wool. But I knew what I would have to do when I got home, and it no longer seemed as intimidating. I was restored.
Perhaps I should elaborate on the things I got up to in California. I'm saving Desert Trip for a separate post, and there's going to be a "California Haul" post, as well. Los Angeles is home to some incredible vintage, which I wish I'd bought more of. It was 32c, which for a pasty Brit like me is pretty hot. It was too sweaty to wear my hat, which is a real bummer because I ended up leaving it in an airport restroom. On the first day, I decided to go for a wander around the neighbourhood, really get a feel for Hollywood. I always forget how long American avenues are, so I got lost quite easily - you can be on the right avenue yet miles away from your destination. In the UK, even if you're on the wrong end of the avenue, you're usually still only a few doors away.
By chance, I came upon the Hollywood Forever Cemetery without looking for it. Like most cemeteries, it's very peaceful. I've never understood why people don't like graveyards - they're just about the most serene places you could visit. The visitors are quiet and respectful, and the dead aren't saying anything either. Of course, it didn't look much like a regular cemetery. Hollywood Forever was beautiful. There wasn't another soul around. I could almost feel the hopeful energy of the young starlets who arrived in Hollywood to make it in the movies during the Golden Age.
The next day, I walked to Los Feliz. My destination was Squaresville, a vintage store famed for its eclectic, low-priced goods. I like to pick up vintage clothes when I travel. It's interesting to see how location influences styles from the same era, and it's nice to have travel memories attached to your clothes. The shop was populated by groups of well-dressed young women when I arrived (one of whom, an Australian, was wearing the most perfect silver tutu), though they sell menswear as well. The range was incredible - old band tees, dusty Edwardian jackets, exquisite 1930s lingerie and ridiculous 1970s platforms all occupied the same space, and at fantastic prices, too. I could have bought half the shop, but I was trying to be conservative about my spending so early on in the trip. I ended up with a 1970s Gunne Sax maxi ($28), a cute frilly maroon dress ($25), a pink lace blouse ($18) and a beautiful tooled leather bag ($28). I also picked up some cracking items of clothing in thrift stores around LA, but I'll save that for the haul post. For a sneak peak of the Gunne Sax and the bag, check out the picture at the top of the post.
I took a trip to Universal Studios, mainly to visit Hogwarts. I didn't enjoy the Wizarding World in Hollywood as much as Orlando, which I wrote about here. Either the Forbidden Journey was different between parks, or it just wasn't as good as I remembered it. At least I had time to explore the rest of the park this time. I particularly enjoyed the Studio Tour, which reaffirmed why I love filmmaking. Watching the pink sunset over the San Fernando Valley was magical. Getting stuck under a waterfall on the Jurassic Park ride was not.
The rest of my days in LA were a blur of yard sales, exploring neighbourhoods, following the Walk of Fame, watching films, shopping for camping equipment, writing by the pool and hiding from scientologists. Yes, you read that correctly. Long story short, I was sorta kinda tricked into going into their church, watching a propaganda film, and undergoing an interrogation before managing to escape. When I tried to leave, she kept saying I didn't really want to - I only thought I did - and that I
subconsciously wanted to be there. It felt like hypnotism. It was incredibly creepy, and now I'm considering changing my name/getting facial reconstruction surgery/moving to Namibia. I sort of want to write a blog post about the incident, but I'm still unnerved, especially as they have my contact details (major doh! moment).
So to summarise, I was sexually harassed by Spiderman, nearly abducted by scientologists, had my eyeballs attacked by angry desert dust (one for another post) and lost my favourite hat, but it was the most incredible adventure. Classic rock fans,
Monday 31 October 2016 / halloween, macabre
Spoooooky.
Halloween is tied with Christmas for my favourite holiday, though I enjoy them all. I've always been attracted to the macabre and the creepy, and wait all year round for it to become mainstream. Not that I'm desperate to fit in, but it certainly makes things easier. Sort of like how the dead can walk freely on All Hallows' Eve. When else are cockroach earrings, cauldrons, black roses, and snake candelabras widely available for purchase? This time of year is perfect for investing in home decor.
I'm not sure why I'm as morbidly inclined as I am. It could be to do with my paternal grandmother - as a child, she'd tell me she was a witch, and like me, relished in the delightfully ghoulish. She definitely had more than a little Morticia in her - she once concocted a dessert laced with a litre of double cream to test whether her husband really was allergic (he was). Oh, and she confessed to murder on her death bed. We think it was the morphine... hopefully...
Happy Halloween!
Friday 28 October 2016 / literature, music
Fifteen great songs inspired by literature
Music and literature have long been intertwined. Jack Kerouac's beat classic On The Road inspired a whole generation of rockers from John Lennon to Bob Dylan, while David Bowie claimed to read four books a week. Other famously bookish musicians include Patti Smith, Morrissey, Nick Cave, The Decemberists, Iron Maiden, and Kate Bush. It's unsurprising, then, that there are a wealth of fantastic literature-inspired songs out there. Here are just fifteen of my favourites.
Exit Music (For a Film) - Radiohead
Endless Art - A House
The lyrics to Irish band A House's song name checks a variety of dead writers and artists, starting with Oscar Wilde and going through to Walt Disney, passing by Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Joseph Conrad and Jack Kerouac along the way, amongst others. The song takes the form of a list, making the case that even though these artists are dead, they live on in their art.
Ramble On - Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin have many songs inspired by Tolkien, including Misty Mountain Hop and The Battle of Evermore. I prefer both of these songs, but there's debate over how heavily Tolkien-inspired they really are. No such confusion over Ramble On, which is quite direct in referencing The Lord of the Rings: 'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor/ I met a girl so fair/ but Gollum and the evil one crept up/ and slipped away with her.'
4. Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac
I was hoping I could slip Fleetwood Mac in somewhere. I love Fleetwood Mac. Rhiannon is one of their most famous songs, of course, and it's played its part in the forming of Stevie Nicks' witchy persona. Nicks was inspired by a book called Triad by Mary Leader, about a woman who believes she's being possessed by a spirit called Rhiannon. It's been said that she may have simply got the name from the book, but I can see the potential of an otherworldly being evoked in lyrics like 'she's like a cat in the dark/ and then she is the darkness.'
5. Timshel - Mumford & Sons
This song was inspired by one of my favourite books, East of Eden by John Steinbeck (also a fantastic movie starring James Dean). The unusual title refers to something Lee, the philosophical housekeeper, says in the book. Explaining 'timshel' from the King James Bible means 'thou mayest' in Hebrew, he claims it is the most important word in the world. Why? Because other translations use 'thou shalt' - timshel gives man the choice between good and evil, and this is what makes us great (referenced in the song as 'you have your choices/ and these are what makes man great/ his ladder to the stars'). Relatively fun fact: for longest time, I wanted to get a timshel tattoo.
6. Rejoyce - Jefferson Airplane
This is probably my favourite Airplane song. A weird track on a weirder album, I can't decide whether this is nightmarish or dreamy. Inspired by Ulysses, it's a strange and intense hybrid of jazz and heady late Sixties rock. Grace Slick is an incredible vocalist.
7. Reluctant Readers Make Reluctant Lovers - Library Voices
Canadian pop band Library Voices, as you may have guessed from the name, have several songs inspired by books. Another favourite is If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90s. Reluctant Readers references Yates, Hemingway, Joyce and Heller. The title reminds me of something the filmmaker John Waters said when he came to my university in 2014 - "If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them."
8. Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
Everyone knows this song. You don't need me to explain that it's about Cathy and Heathcliff from Emily Bronte's classic novel, Wuthering Heights.
9. Soma - The Strokes
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is one of the most iconic books ever written, so it makes sense for it to have inspired a great song or two over the years. Notable ones include Soma by the Smashing Pumpkins and Brave New World by Iron Maiden, both of which are brilliant and could have easily made this list. Also called Soma is this one from The Strokes debut album, Is This It. In Huxley's dystopian novel, soma is a drug used by the government to control and sedate the population.
10. Money Power Glory - Lana Del Rey
Del Rey's body of work is peppered with literary references throughout, from Walt Whitman to (most famously) Nabokov. She even dedicated a track on her 2015 album, Honeymoon, to a reading of T.S. Eliot's poem Burnt Norton. The track I've chosen as my top literary Lana song is Money Power Glory, written by Del Rey for my favourite album of 2014, Ultraviolence. The song references Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
11. I Am The Walrus - The Beatles
The titular walrus is from Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus and The Carpenter, which appeared in Through the Looking Glass. John Lennon was a huge fan of Carroll's anarchic, nonsensical work, and its influence can be seen in Lennon's own writing (In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works) and in other songs like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The lyrics of this song reflect the nonsense of the book, but Lennon realised later that the story was an allegory for capitalism and that the song should have been called, less catchily, I Am The Carpenter. Bonus literature points: An excerpt from a radio adaptation of King Lear fades in and out towards the end of the song.
12. The River - PJ Harvey
I've got really into PJ Harvey recently. The River takes its inspiration from a short story of the same name by one of my literary heroes, Flannery O'Connor. The story appears in her iconic collection, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories, and is about a neglected boy who is taken to a Christian meeting by a river. He is encouraged to let the river wash away his pain ('throw your pain in the river/ leave your pain in the river/ to be washed away slow').
13. Narcissist - The Libertines
An underrated song in the Libs' catalogue, this track sneeringly asks the listener 'wouldn't it be great to be Dorian Gray?' Just for a day, mind.
14. Rocket Man - Elton John
Rocket Man is one my favourite Elton John tunes. It's so incredibly well-crafted, and I think it really exemplifies Elton's genius. It was inspired by Ray Bradbury's short science-fiction story, The Rocket Man and was released three years after Bowie's Space Oddity, which explores a similar theme. I guess songs about men feeling lonely whilst travelling through time and space were in back then.
15. We're All Mad Here - Tom Waits
There are so many good songs inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. From the aforementioned Beatles track to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, there are enough songs to start a whole sub-genre, like wrock music (songs inspired by Harry Potter). Tom Waits' bizarre, brilliant album Alice consists of songs written for the play of the same name, exploring the relationship between Lewis Caroll and Alice Liddell. My favourite track of the lot is the slightly terrifying We're All Mad Here.
Honorary mentions:
Scentless Apprentice - Nirvana
The Dangling Conversation - Simon & Garfunkel
Venus in Furs - The Velvet Underground
Friday 30 September 2016 / books, review
Review: Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
There's a certain power in the coming-of-age novel, I think, that transcends the reader's age. These are the kind of books that stay with us even after we've progressed to more 'mature' offerings. I suppose that time in anyone's life is ripe for drama. It's a time so full of questions and doubts and excitement and conflict and self-examination that a great story can be formed from even the most mundane of lives.
I picked up Matthew Quick's novel Every Exquisite Thing in a charity shop this summer, bored on a family holiday to Dartmouth. With the dreary weather and no Wi-Fi, I'd ripped through the book I'd taken along (Pamela Des Barres' rock biography I'm With The Band) within a couple of days and had nothing else to read. Having not read Quick's 2008 breakthrough, Silver Linings Playbook, I had no preconceptions other than what I'd formed from the blurb.
Every Exquisite Thing - which gets its name from a line in Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray - is about a girl named Nanette, a popular athlete whose life changes forever when she becomes obsessed with an out-of-print cult novel called The Bubblegum Reaper. She befriends the author, who in turn introduces her to Alex, a brilliant but troubled young poet who shares her infatuation with the book. The Bubblegum Reaper inspires Nanette to unleash the rebel within, rejecting the path of popularity and college scholarships she'd been treading for a life of wild abandon.
Reading this book was a strange experience for me. I felt it was flawed, sometimes cliched and often over-simplistic, and yet I couldn't stop the pages from turning. I read it in cafes over vegetarian breakfasts, under street lamps by the river at night, on fifteen minute boat trips to Dartmouth Castle and in pubs with a pint of Guinness. I was as hypnotised by it as Nanette and Alex were with The Bubblegum Reaper; this is a must read for anyone who has ever felt a little out of place.
As I said, the book certainly has its faults. For one, the heroine has a tendency to look down on the popular girls and spout the notorious 'I'm not like other girls' line, which a quick browse of Goodreads tells me was a problem for some readers. It didn't bother me as much because it was honest - isn't that how almost all non-conformist teenagers think? Would it not be more grating without this basic truth? It might not be the most honourable way to behave, but no good character is complete without flaws. There can be an unfair pressure in YA literature for characters to be the perfect role model, to rarely make mistakes, and when they do they must always see the error of them. I don't find this either realistic or representative of young adults (or anyone), but hey ho.
The dialogue was also a bit hit-and-miss - several lines reeked of adult-writer-trying-too-hard-to-write-teenagers-syndrome. In spite of these problems, I'm so glad I read it. Every Exquisite Thing is a book that'll both break and warm your heart. It rings true for anyone who feels slightly like a misfit, or anyone who has fallen in love with a book, or anyone who has ever felt pressure to go down a certain path in their life. This book was written for these people.
Rating: 3.5/5
I'm starting a new job on Monday. Marketing. Eek. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, a nine-to-five gives me evenings and weekends free, and it comes with perks like actually getting to sit down and a break. I'll also get paid to write, as there's a focus on copywriting, incidentally making me feel a little bit Peggy Olson. On the other, I've always kind of looked down on the profession. Like Peggy's ex, Abe, I suppose. Why is my life starting to resemble an episode of Mad Men (I wish)? I've already started thinking about Joan's wardrobe... I feel like manipulating people's emotions to get them to buy stuff they potentially don't need is way out of line with my values. It's something I said I'd never do. Yet it's an independent, family-run business selling internet access and network solutions, not a pharmaceutical giant trying to pawn off expensive anti-wrinkle cream onto insecure women, you know? But that doesn't change the fact that I want to do something more meaningful, honest, spiritually satisfying.
I could use the money, anyway. Why, I hear absolutely nobody ask? Because I just bought myself a ticket to Desert Trip. I'm knocking a few items off my bucket list in one swoop: see Paul McCartney, see the Rolling Stones, and go to California. I got my tickets last week, and I'm starting to realise how reckless it was. What kind of person impulsively throws away their life savings to follow a bunch of ageing musicians halfway across the world? What kind of person goes camping alone in a desert, surrounded by scorpions, tarantulas and who knows what else, having never even camped in her back garden? Note: I just Googled the spiders - seriously considering selling my ticket.
I've dreamed of California my whole life. I'm thinking seven days in Los Angeles, followed by the festival in the Coachella Valley. I could go back to Hogsmeade, this time via Hollywood instead of Orlando, and make my life great again by going back on the Forbidden Journey ride. I only had enough time to ride it once in Florida. I don't know if I've complained about that enough. Speaking of Harry Potter, as luck would have it, I could only get Desert Trip tickets for weekend two. You know what else is taking place on weekend two, continents away? The performance of Cursed Child I have tickets for. Damn it. The West End will have to wait.
outfit details:
blouse, skirt - vintage
waistcoat - charity shop
bolo - Ark
title lyric: El Condor Pasa - Simon & Garfunkel
Monday 2 May 2016
Jim Morrison Gets Me: A Playlist For The Incurably Apathetic
I was going to call this The Great Playlist of Misery, because 80% of the songs on it make me miserable and yet, like a raving lunatic, I love and listen to them anyway.
It's actually supposed to be music that makes me instantly feel something strong when I hear it, whether that be wistfulness or heartache or ambition or peace. How do you condense that into a catchy title?
Songs That Remind Me I Can Feel
or
Sad Scary Happy Music
or
Anti-Robot Music?
I guess I could have called it Songs That Amy Relates To, but that's too weak, too generic. It doesn't convey the depth of feeling I'm after. It's not a playlist of ~relatable~ Taylor Swift-type songs about high school and boys and growing up. It's music that seems amazingly specific to me, like I might have written the melodies and words myself in a past life. The kind of songs I sometimes hesitate to play because I'm not sure I can handle the way it's going to make me feel.
The idea to make a playlist of this kind of music came to me earlier when, of all things, I was baking vegan chocolate muffins for my brother's birthday, and Unhappy Girl by The Doors was playing on Sonos. I thought wow, Jim Morrison really gets me, and I started to think about other songs that hit me on a similar visceral level.
1. Unhappy Girl - The Doors
Lots of songs are about pain and unhappiness, but this is the one that feels like it was written for me. This song is poetry, the last verse in particular:
Don't miss your chance
to swim in mystery
You are dying in a prison
of your own device
I didn't include it on this playlist because it's called Unhappy Girl, and hey-what-do-you-know, I'm an unhappy girl sometimes. I included it because it so eloquently encapsulates not just depression itself, but that even more crushing side effect - the feeling that you're slowly decaying, or 'dying in a prison of your own device', and knowing that one day you'll wake up and realise you wasted your entire life away. You missed your chance. You know you're missing it every second of the day, but you can't help yourself. It's not the unhappiness that kills you, it's the regret and inevitability. Damn.
2. Tangerine - Led Zeppelin
William: So, Russell, what do you love about music?
Russell: To begin with... everything.
I want to live my life like this song sounds. It's a shortcut to my mental sanctuary, my happy place; the American landscape of the sunny Seventies, touring and playing the music I love with interesting people. It's one of those cases where your associations are different to the original intent of the songwriter; the lyrics are actually about separation, not paradise. "Measuring a summer's day, I only find it slips away to grey...'
3. Exploration - Bruno Coulais (Coraline OST)
This one instantly makes me feel like a child. I can almost feel my legs shrinking, my boots getting smaller, my wonder at this big world flourishing. I want to pull on my mac and weave through the misty woods by the park, dancing like a nymph in the evening rain. I want to collect dead bugs and interesting rocks in glass jars. I want to jump into streams in my wellies. Why? I don't know. I wasn't a child when Coraline was released. It's a mystery.
4. I'll See You In My Dreams - Joe Brown
I love every incarnation of this 1920s song. I categorise it alongside other haunting, sentimental old-timey songs like Goodnight Sweetheart. Do you know what I mean? Those old love songs you listen to on Youtube and end up sobbing at 2am after finding a comment like 'my wife passed away eight years ago today, we danced to this song on our wedding day back in 1948.'
My favourite version, however, is by Joe Brown. I'd never even heard of it until I attended a screening of Concert For George at the Museum of Liverpool in 2012. Closing the show - a musical celebration of George Harrison's life featuring the likes of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty - Brown performed a beautiful ukulele rendition of I'll See You In My Dreams as rose petals cascaded from the ceiling over George's loved ones assembled on stage. I remember being a bit of a wreck - there I was, in Liverpool on the anniversary of George Harrison's death, watching an outpouring of love for a beautiful human being. Try not to cry.
5. Ooo Baby Baby - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
This one brings me right back to Christmas Day 2013, the day my Nan died. The extended family, after visiting her in the hospice, gathered for Christmas dinner at my grandfather's pub, which had closed a few hours before. It had been a difficult holiday period, and it was probably the first time I'd seen my family laugh and smile and relax in months. Ooo Baby Baby was playing on the sound system when the phone rang. I didn't know who was calling, but my dad, uncle and step-grandad rushed out to the car park, and my brother ran off crying and didn't return. People at the table started talking solemnly about my Nan, using the past tense. I naturally assumed she'd died, but no one really said anything concrete so I sat there in uncomfortable silence, focusing as hard as I could on the music and hoping someone would tell me what the hell was going on. A few minutes later, my brother's godmother received a text and announced 'she's gone' to everyone before running off in tears. This gorgeous song is like a kick to the stomach when I hear it, an instant throwback to that feeling of limbo and loss.
6. Mother - John Lennon
This song is brutal. I think it's one of the most raw expressions of pain in recorded Western music. It's only recently that I've been able to listen it. John wrote it about his parents, having been abandoned by both of them as a small child (though it's a lot more complicated than that) and raised by his well-meaning but unaffectionate Aunt Mimi. He reveals his torment at his upbringing through simple statements - "Mother, you had me. I never had you" - before acknowledging his own failures as a parent (he similarly abandoned his own son, Julian) and imploring his children not to repeat the pattern. The song ends with him screaming in a childlike manner, begging his mother and father not to leave him. You can hear the strong influence of the primal therapy he'd been having. The saddest thing about this song for me is that having had now-resolved issues with my own mother growing up, I once related to it.
7. Beast of Burden - The Rolling Stones
It's pretty hard for me to describe how this song makes me feel. There are so many conflicting emotions there: Sad, content, summery, exhausted, light, inspired, dance-y, vulnerable, reflective, longing, accepted, nostalgic, alone, not alone. Like Tangerine, it transports me to my dream world by the end of the first line.
It's pretty hard for me to describe how this song makes me feel. There are so many conflicting emotions there: Sad, content, summery, exhausted, light, inspired, dance-y, vulnerable, reflective, longing, accepted, nostalgic, alone, not alone. Like Tangerine, it transports me to my dream world by the end of the first line.
8. Sara - Fleetwood Mac
Sara, you're the poet in my heart... Ending on a happier note, Sara is probably my favourite song of all time. There's something so mystical and earthy about it. I feel immediately connected to the magic of our planet whenever I hear it; it seems to tap into the rhythm of nature. I almost get shivers when Stevie sings the 'undoing the laces' part. Honestly, I could just listen to all of Tusk forever, but this song is particularly special. From Stevie's ethereal, floating vocals to the enchanting piano melody to the heavenly background harmonies, everything weaves together to create a unique, celestial tapestry. To state it plainly, this song makes me glad to be alive. If there was one song I wish I could say I wrote... I'd go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere...
Honourable mentions:
These Are The Days - Van Morrison
She's Leaving Home - The Beatles
Gloria - The Doors
Hedwig's Theme - John Williams
Catherine - PJ Harvey
Heaven - The Rolling Stones.
These Are The Days - Van Morrison
She's Leaving Home - The Beatles
Gloria - The Doors
Hedwig's Theme - John Williams
Catherine - PJ Harvey
Heaven - The Rolling Stones.
Thursday 4 February 2016 / ghosts, outfit
Elm Cottage
Ever since she moved the dolls into the attic, strange things have happened in the cottage. Things have gone missing only to reappear in the same spot, footsteps have been heard ascending the staircase before vanishing at the top, and perhaps most frighteningly, people have been yanked out of bed in the night. Paranormal investigators suggested the spirit of a mischievous child was attached to one of the dolls in the attic, and they had the house blessed. Apparently, nothing unusual has been reported since then.
The only strange thing that's happened to me so far is a loud crash on the stairs and a television turning on by itself. Nothing particularly supernatural, and I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed. Either way, I'm relishing the silence.
Outfit details:
dress - vintage
cardigan - charity shop
Monday 1 February 2016 / harry potter, london, outfit, travel
Harry Potter Studio Tour, London
The young audience of today have One Direction. For kids coming of age in the swinging sixties, it was The Beatles. Back when my grandparents were but wee nippers, the hysteria-inducing, scream-generating sensation weakening the knees of girls worldwide was Frank Sinatra. Every era has that one band the youth lose their minds over, which got me thinking. What would it be for my generation, the teens of the 2000s? The likes of Busted and Mcfly come close, but the frenzy that followed wasn't quite feverish enough. Then I realised, my era's defining pop culture phenomenon wasn't musical at all. For us, it was Harry Potter.
I can't think of another time in which literature dominated over pop music. That's pretty special. People of all ages love Harry Potter (there are kids going on nine who weren't even born when Deathly Hallows was published), but I feel like children around my age got it the best. The kids old enough to have seen - and remember seeing - Philosopher's Stone when it hit the cinemas back in 2001, but young enough to be utterly wonderstruck by it. Imagine seeing quidditch for the first time on the big screen as a seven year old! Imagine being the coolest cat in year six because your mom got you a copy of Order of the Phoenix on release night! Imagine fights breaking out between eight-year-olds in the library because one beat the other to the last copy of a 900-page book.
Getting to the point, Harry Potter still means a lot to me, all these years later. Kind of like how your Dad still gets excited when Ferris Bueller's Day Off plays on TV, I suppose. If thirteen-year-old me had realised her future self would get to chill in the Gryffindor boys' bedrooms, pose at platform 9 3/4 and swig butterbeer in the very studios that the spells were cast in... I can't believe it took me this long to get to the Warner Bros Studio Tour! I even made it to the Orlando theme park - 4,000 miles away! - before I ended up at Leavesden.
We were taken to a screening room to watch a short film about Pottermania before the screen rose to reveal huge ornate doors, which obviously got everyone excited because we all knew what was behind them. Nonetheless, there was an audible gasp when they parted, and the Great Hall came into sight, all decked up for the holidays. It looked exactly like it did in the movies. The tables were laid out for the feast, and little witches circled the tops of the Christmas trees.
Sadly, the ceiling was a regular studio roof and nothing like the night sky. The house points hour glasses were on display behind the teachers, and of course, Gryffindor were in the lead ;)
I loved seeing all the costumes and wigs and makeup. All the girls were absolutely tiny, especially Katie Leung! My favourite costume was Luna's from the Slug Club Christmas party. I remember it being described in the book as 'spangly' and like a Christmas tree, and thinking it sounded fantastic.
Doesn't the Gryffindor common room just look like home? I tried to kind of recreate my own mini version in my dressing room a while back with some souvenirs, Halloween decorations, and a threadbare maroon and gold antique-y armchair I spotted in the charity shop. But someone bought it literally seconds before I could and, not going to lie, I'm still fuming.
"By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many."
Dumbledore's office was the most gorgeous set I've ever seen, and I've seen a fair few. If only we were allowed closer to gaze upon all of his dreamy belongings. Cabinets lined with curios, huge tomes (actually telephone books covered in leather), brass telescopes, silver instruments, globes, and sneakoscopes, and of course, the Sorting Hat decorated the circular office to fine effect. The filmmakers said that steampunk was a strong influence.
If only my office looked like this! In fact, I'd settle for living quarters that looked like this.
I was taken aback by how many elements of the movies I'd mistakenly credited to CGI. The crew built a fully-functional entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, though it was operated by good old-fashioned science and not parseltongue. Didn't stop me trying, though, as you can see here!
The potions classroom was cool. Occasionally cauldrons would stir by magic and emit acid-green fumes. Is it weird that I was mentally taking notes for future any future kitchens I may have? I really liked the jars of strange ingredients along the walls. Herbs and plants are very interesting to me, I like reading about them in a medicinal or culinary context (in fact, I've had my eye on this Cosmic Drifters Herbology skirt for a while).
I'd heard the model of Hogwarts castle was a stand out of the tour, but I wasn't prepared for how breathtaking it truly is. To make things even more magical, a man got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend in front of it, when the light changed to indicate night time had fallen over Hogwarts. What a man! Future spouse, take note.
If you're heading to the tour, I'd recommend spending a fiver on a handheld digital guide. Usually a waste of money (in most places), this one was incredibly informative with hundreds of exclusive videos and interviews with cast and crew about everything from schooling the young actors - both in the ways of the film industry and academically - right down to the fabrics used for the Hogwarts curtains. I consider myself a thoroughly researched diehard fan, yet there was so much information and detail I'd not heard before.
By far the darkest set was this staging of the meeting at Malfoy Manor, in which Charity Burbage is suspended over the table and finally murdered. You can see Nagini waiting to devour her corpse. It was genuinely quite scary to see. The featureless dark-faced models were creepy in a horror movie way.
I'd heard the model of Hogwarts castle was a stand out of the tour, but I wasn't prepared for how breathtaking it truly is. To make things even more magical, a man got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend in front of it, when the light changed to indicate night time had fallen over Hogwarts. What a man! Future spouse, take note.
I thought this was cool. It's the hallway of the Leaky Cauldron. It was built for the Prisoner of Azkaban, and uses a 'forced perspective' to appear much larger on film than it actually is. In reality, it was only around 10-12 feet long!
I think the Burrow set was my absolute favourite. It was just so homely. I'd love to recreate it and live there myself! Everything was cluttered and threadbare, and the self-cleaning kitchen that so impressed Harry back in the Chamber of Secrets worked its magic (heh) on me. A scarf self-knitted, knives chopped carrots, and the washing up did itself. If only! The walls of the set were constructed at a slight angle to add to the impoverished, ramshackle appearance of the Weasley family home.
New to the tour last year was the Hogwarts Express. I wasn't that fussed about going in to have a look, to be honest, because I'd already 'ridden' it in Florida. I'm glad I did, though, because each compartment was arranged to recall a pivotal scene from each film/book. I have to admit, I teared up a little when I peered into compartment one and saw Ron and Harry meeting for the first time.
If you're heading to the tour, I'd recommend spending a fiver on a handheld digital guide. Usually a waste of money (in most places), this one was incredibly informative with hundreds of exclusive videos and interviews with cast and crew about everything from schooling the young actors - both in the ways of the film industry and academically - right down to the fabrics used for the Hogwarts curtains. I consider myself a thoroughly researched diehard fan, yet there was so much information and detail I'd not heard before.
To be honest, even if I wasn't particularly into Harry Potter, I'd come here for the design inspiration alone. You should have seen the beautiful drapes on the beds in the Gryffindor dorms up close. They were a heavy maroon velvet with a gold celestial print. They were neither antique nor designed for the film - they were sourced in a local shop (look, Warner Bros, you're going to need to name names). And then you've got the patchwork quilts, intricate medieval tapestries, oil paintings, decorative antiques, and strange silverware.
These are examples of the fine work of MinaLima, the graphic designers, did for the series. Their quirky, Victorian-inspired designs so perfectly suit the Wizarding World.
The props and models were ace. Everything was incredibly realistic, and I liked the way they were set out resembled an artist's studio.
I wish my studio looked like this! Those are mandrakes at the top.
Why should you pull a sickie and hop on a train to Watford right now, and join the mahoosive queue in front of Leavesden Studios? I'll tell you why.
Because who doesn't want to take a selfie in the Mirror of Erised?
...hop on the Knight Bus?
...sneak into Umbridge's office?
... cross through Platform 9 3/4?
... free Dobby?
... or pay respect to the Potters at Godric's Hollow?
(This isn't an ad, I promise. I'm just a nerd.)
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