Come and Keep Your Comrade Warm.....

Hello again, 

So here I sit drinking a beer and watching the nonsense that is Tom Cruise's ultimate film "Cocktail" and I thought what way could I better spend my time? well um doing this.. obviously.. 

So here I am back again to regale you with not only the excitement (sic) of my life, the wonders and enjoyment.. What have I been doing? Wondering, firstly, how with no real talent Tom Cruise's character got into not only uni, but got A JOB bartending, flaring or whatever... having had no skills whatsoever.. and is now running his own bar in Jamaica (and if it's not his own bar then he's in charge of it enough to fuck every girl there and make cocky comments til the cows go home...)

What is life but a lot of bad '80s movies? sigh. 

Wrong!!! I have had many a time in the last few days watching interesting documentaries.. most notably about Island records.. It was rather enlightening, and saddening that I can't set up my own record label... and get Roxy Music, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff etc. The Harder they come... the harder they fall apparently.. seems apt... on it.. But anyway a few excellent songs that were on the programme include early Roxy Music,( look at video..... make me a deaaaal and make it straight...) a time to reminisce of times (that fair enough I wasn't alive for) when Bryan Ferry wasn't a twatty fool who fathered some ignorant toffs.. but had amazing sequined coats, a sexy quivery voice and looked like an extra from the glam rock lord of the rings.. (especially with Eno behind me.... he has elf king hair written all over him)


We are flying down to Riooooooo...

Speaking of Eno I have been regularly listening to the lovely and echoing "Strange Overtones" by David Byrne and him... which has a creeepy, nihilistic video .. about oddness, there are strange overtones in the music I am playing I suppose.. I also suppose I like to express something to the neighbours by playing it loud enough for them to hear. but who needs modern nonsense.... more Bowie than now-ie (oo god that was awful)

As on my travels through the Pool of Livers I have found some kind of vague employment (fingers crossed) and I'm not entirely sure what it is doing.. but as the blind leading the blind lamb to the slaughter I shall go forth put my artistic and creative tendencies to one side and maybe try and find some kind of artistic intent in the world of bank related madness..... After said job finding (in unnamed bank related establishment- in these recessional times I think it's best to stay unnamed... boo hiss big banks boo hiss bankers.. boo hisss selling your soul.. boo hiss aaaargh)

So after the walk around town job hunting, (and putting a CV in for work at a boutique that previously fucked me around- beggars can't be choosers) I went to the miraculously beautiful Walker Art Gallery in the centre of Liverpool. If you've never been stop reading now and fuck off there... It's gorgeous entrance hall makes me smile ridiculously and want to cry at the same time as it smells of art, and work and and paint and sweat and beauty.  The first gallery, full of statues, is exquisite, and I could sit in there trying to read the faces of the marble creatures, the gorgeous head of female warriors, Zeus, and the beautiful (with a lovely hat) Cupid in disguise.. Venus, all the classical, grand stone creations about to move, if you'd just watch them long enough.. smiling and weeping... A feeling of utter inadequacy swells and the budding artist in me both at once exhales and inhales... knowing on one hand that this is what you want to do with your life, dedicating it to the pursuit of beauty and light, but also the fact that you may never fulfill any kind of pursuit in any kind of achievable way .. not like Millais or Sickert... 

A tranquil vivacious sea with bathers in it.. a pontism beauty, Freud's sense of snide humour (on his model, Harry Diamond, remarking that he'd painted his legs too short he simply said "They are too short") the mystical and Romantic classicism of the Pre Raphaelites, depicting effigies of Keats' greatest poems, The Eve of St. Agnes, with "purple passion" and "burning Porphyro", the gorgeous Romantic colours, shining a light of a cold, bitter and chilled winter outside through a coloured glass window into the gloomy castle lit only by the young lovers' passion and pure love. Hunt shows the debauched revellers of the castle being passively judged by the young lovers, as they flee hideous captivity in each others' arms.. sigh.. 

Or Millais' heartwrenching Rosalind in the Arden forrest, cross dressing and beat like she's just been ravished in a cross dressed forestry related orgy.. only in an innocent kind of way...
or his Isabella.. all the school ALevel related nonsense goes out of the window and you can try and appreciate the young girls' passionate act of love, even in the morbid nature of Isabella's keeping Lorenzo's head in a pot and the gristly teeth of her hateful brothers. 

and my favourite, if not inaccurate, Funeral of Shelley, (quite apt as our fish named Shelley also died at sea this week.. ) attended by Byron and Leigh Hunt in a brooding, cloudy heartwrenching gathering clouded beach of sadness.

So yes, there I sat in the presence of Holbein's impending doom filled stare of Henry VIII's tight ladened legs knitting and being calm and quiet, in a room filled with Kings, Queens, Ladies, Knights and me.. The heating was broken in the Walker so they apologised for the fluctuating temperatures, but maybe it's some kind of installation, the rooms are of different temperatures, life goes through different temperatures, too hot too cold, or just right.. bored, too bored, too busy or too utterly depressingly saddeningly crushed within an inch of life... either too much or too little.. but strangely the Holbein room was perfect.... I sat and stared and wondered and thought of little of importance and felt happy for a bit.. which was nice.. Gosh I do sound rather maudlin but I promise tis no fear gentle reader.. I was just perchance feeling melancholy, glutting my sorrow if you will.. 

I shall just have to be a wishful artist in the body of a bank assistant... trapped in the blue polyester of the working world, banished of feathers and lights and fur trimmed nonsense items of which I love.  I have to find some kind of way to not sell my soul, achieve some kind of creative satisfaction and live off something.. the impossible dream non? Ceci n'est pas une pipe? Ceci n'est pas une banker.... ceci c'est le dernier de l'idealistic Romantiques.... 

Maybe I'll just buy a big sign like those outside old cinemas and put my own name on it... in various roles... just to make myself feel better.. or maybe just like I've achieved something that day... 

I've had to make do with covering my bathroom in Pre-Raphaelite postcards.. though as I've nicely put before listening to music makes things seem a lot LOT lot better.. as I sit and whimsically paint pictures of those I love, and attempt maybe to detract from the whimsy itself, (but then again maybe I should just chose to embody Whimsy in a painting.. without crying clowns, small children or bubbles... just something whimsical.... Ironically.. Whimonically...

I've dedicated myself to a new scarf however, a short lived but nonetheless entertaining pursuit as I wait for the light to return to my window so I can paint the funny houses across the street.. So enough of the self indulgence really... what music shall I recommend this week dear lover? (sorry house in joke and if anybody in my house does read it then I'm sure I'll get some weird comments at some point) OH yes how could I forget...? The annual get drunk and dance like an old Drunken twat weekend (otherwise known as The Mathew Street Festival) hit the cobbly streets of Liverpool last weekend.. and it was beyond amusing... many highlights included other people making twats of themselves.. If you are unfamiliar with the weekend it is basically a festival with some of the biggest headliners in the world like, ever.... only the tribute version.. (ironically I saw some kids busking "Tribute" by Tenacious D in the Cavern Walks shopping centre.. actually come to think of that it was a rather ironic display all round, as they were face painted and playing drums on the bins) 

Of the bands I saw (only two or three to be honest) I was most disappointed by the silly man who was claimed to be the prominent Bob Dylan tribute act in the world or something silly... he only sang like Dylan (marginally) as a joke.. and sang the remnant of his set in a faux Americana country (cuntry) way throughout.. ruining amazing songs and enducing mass sing song versions of Blowin' in the Wind (with much handwaving) which were at once both horrid and kind of sweet in a mass British summer is over and we're all pissed way.  The only redeeming feature was a brief interlude when the American MC read some Woody Guthrie writing.. about a gorgeous little piece of paper going in the wind, not only travelling through life, and other people's lives... either burning, but being burnt on someone's memory still... 

THE best thing I saw had to be oldish woman, dressed in TIGHT WHITE JEANS.... who at first I thought was line dancing in a vague tarty WI way, but I slowly realised she was doing her much honed Mick Jaggger impression... how one can keep a straight face whilst watching her hip thrusting and finger pointing, all with the pouting and the grabbing young jailbait men to dance with in exchange for substances it was like a stones tribute band in the audience. 

The beautiful city streets do however, have an amazing atmosphere about them at the best of times, it's most definitely my favourite city in the world (maybe on a par with Paris) and the festival turns it into some kind of topsy turvy world. Amusing and a voyeur's dream... Walking down Church street you can see the excitement in eyes of the little (sorry but they were small) Japanese Beatles tribute band, dressed in Mop top outfits fully equipped with groupies, instruments and a Yoko shaped lady friend (a bit out of the time sequence but ho hum)

I've got some pictures to share but my computer is being rubbish so I'll post them at a later date.. but picture the lovely scene, having been hassled by two little scamps (ok they were about 15 but looked 12) to take booze off their hands, (weird and backward) cos they were scared of the fuzz, we walked through the rain, drinking a can of fosters getting suitably drizzled on, stopping only to shelter under a bridge, watching a bunch of charming little skater types sing covers in the rain... Back in the USSR ...

Soggy and disgruntled at having to watch a Kings of Leon tribute band sing Sex on Fire TWICE... (with little 7yr olds singing along in a creepy kind of way) I headed home.. later the sky was beautiful, the moon full and life strange and creeping.... 

Waiting to get my own bar, jump upon the bar telling poems, singing silly songs and find some kind of satisfaction....

What I've mostly been reading:David Nicholl's "One Day" which is awfully sad as it's somewhat poignant that I've yet to do much with my life much like the people in the book.. going from the day of their graduation two people meet, are they going to be together..? who knows.. but there's something there.. what is something who knows eh? but I couldn't read it for very long as it made me more sad than usual.. and I've gone on an amazon binge with my little money and bought a lot of French Poetry, mostly Paul Verlaine, and Dada related literature.  

I've mostly knitted: my scarf .. a delightfully huge and pom pommed yellow and grey mass of softness.

I've mostly listened to:Beatles covers, and silence. Devendra Banhart.Beach House and sad songs.

I've mostly been cooking: roasted stuffed peppers filled with Cranberry Wensleydale cous cous.. sounds ood tastes loooovely.. genius.

I have mostly been doing: stupid quizzes on Sporcle, though I do now know ALL of Shakespeare's plays.... go, waste time.. 

I've also fallen in love with a rather dark and sad painting of Ophelia by Henrietta Rae and found this Rimbaud poem.. enjoy..

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping

White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!

Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him as snow does to a fire; 
Your great visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!

III

- And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Arthur Rimbaud

Til then dear reader,

Cocktails and dreams...

xx

"Well Donowitz, I think this just might be my masterpiece."

Bonjour gentle readers,

C'est moi! as you have probably figured.. I've been a rather busy bee and somewhat neglectful of my wondrous blog that I thought now I've got back from my day busy doing nothing that I will um.. still do nothing.. but in a slightly more exciting way.. 

So yes.. What have I been up to? Does anybody really care? haha. I haven't really got anything specific to write to be totally and utterly lost apart from a few creative things I've been up to, and some excellent filmrelated nonsense.... and well... some musical trivia based on the new installment of many many good LPs in my front room now. 

As you possibly remember or know or gathered from some previous posts I'm busy job hunting but I do however, have a job interview tomorrow.. I'm rather excited.. even though I'd possibly be serving my own friends drinks I'm still excited. 

Ho hum... so instead of writing you an exciting long list of songs to listen to on your way to a job interview (a natural progression from songs to listen to when you're jobhunting) I will do that when I've been to the interview.. haha....

To give myself a treat I went and watched Inglourious Basterds.... Go, Now. see it please.. I am not one for Brad Pitt but his excellent depiction of gun happy Nazi basher Lt. Aldo Raine, uncomfortable as it was, was bloody funny.  I have never enjoyed watching people getting scalped, and frankly even though it was the least bloody Tarantino film I've ever seen, it's not bloodless.. a rather graphic shot of Diane Kruger's leg... with a bullet wound... Brad Pitt's finger.... prodding.... ouch.. 

I can honestly say though.. I now have a massively huge crush on Melanie Laurent who plays the Jewish runaway Shosanna Dreyfus who sets up her own cinema in Paris.. the cinema that's the setting for Operation Kino... not only is she incredibly stylishly dressed throughout, in a rather dashing army esque belted khaki number but she dresses like a snazzy landgirl, all practical and yet still rather dishy.. and frankly I'm utterly in love with the gorgeous sparkly black netted hat and red dress she wears throughout the "Nation's Pride" premier, red and splattered with blood... both of which matched her lipstick.. sigh...
all accessorised with a little pistol in a beaded bag in order to fend off the advances of the war hero Frederick Zoller.... played by the equally gorgeous Daniel Bruhl (of "Goodbye Lenin").. who embodies a weird paradox of Nazi guilt and pride for killing hundreds of soldiers from a tower in Italy.  Shosanna made me jealous, obviously not the cruel mass murder of her family under some farm floorboards by Hans Landa the double crossing "Jew Hunter", but the somewhat stereotypical shots of her smoking, drinking and reading in a French cafe just look rather brooding, pouting and well.. a lot more darkly interesting than my life.. but you probably already realised I was a Francophile by now... 

The Basterds themselves at first made me feel almost sorry for these specific Nazis as a small platoon is surrounded by leering vigilantes, not something I'd ever think I'd find myself saying, but in the context of men hunting each other, they ceased to be quite so Nazi ish and just seemed to be a man being beaten to death with a club by the "Bear Jew".  Of course, immediately Brad Pitt asks the man what he won his medals for, for killing many people, and for bravery.  Pitt's cockiness at first was really rather annoying, and his American mob mentality just made me want to smack him, but he suddenly gets all the funny lines, and his incapacity to speak Italian is always amusing. .. but the humanity weirdly seems all but lost in all the characters carrying guns, but their strange facades make for interesting plot twists... Landa's double crossing, the basement brawl with the new father Wilhelm and the death of the Diane Kruger's Fraulein Hammersmark as she is slowly strangled to death ... life dripping out of her eyelids.. basically it's a lot of Tarantino nonsense, even including Tarantino's foot fetish in a long close up of Diane Kruger's foot, but would also be strangely amazing if it had happened.. only in Hollywood would the end of the De Fuhrer come through the cinema... I have much more to say about it but I'm not going to give anything away as it's vastly amusing and I recommend it.... 

So yes apart from watching that I've been accumulating rubbish in my room.. when I was younger I used to pick up random items off the floor.. and I nearly did it again today, there was a fragment of a CD with a small boy's face on it on the ground and it just looked so interesting I nearly picked it up.. I know this is how bag lady's begin but I have so many things I love dotted around my life that I've found on the streets, mostly notably the cutest little finger puppet I found on the floor in Tunbridge Wells. It looked so sad that I stuck it on a bush.. but it was still there smiling inanely when I walked past later that I felt I couldn't just abandon it to the local T.Wells louts.. hehe.. so she now lives in my room... all my Adult Books posters have been nicked from the toilets of le Bateau in Liverpool.. If you have been there you would probably think that it was highly unhygienic keeping things from toilets and yes ordinarily you'd be right, keeping posters from the debauched toilets of an Indie club where the levels of cleanliness aren't particularly high, but frankly a poster with the lyrics of Ca Plane Pour Moi and Je T'aime on them were too shiny and appealing for my drunken eyes... so in the bag they popped.. 

I'm deliberating going down the local skip to get me some new stuff.. not bag lady stuff .. though saying that a trolley would be nice... but some random objects of desire.. 

On another note I think I may be going slightly blind.. I am sad that having had the desire to wear glasses from a young age I suddenly actually have to wear them to watch telly... booo.. I look like a rather effeminate Buddy Holly, but that might just be because of the way I dress non?

To amuse myself I've been colouring things in with nail varnish.. not only have I changed my white little pumpy brogues from Primark into a pair of pink and white Zebra striped extravaganza but I've also attacked our doorbell.. yup doorbell accessories are coming to a store near you.. or well maybe a door near you? no just mine.. oh well.. Having had some vague promise of work at a local vintage shop adapting and customising some clothes for the shopkeep I have been adapting mine... not something that's new to me.. for some reason I resent keeping things from shops the same as when I bought them.. I think it might be due to my lack of money (and apparently lack of ethical morals) I shop in Primark.. I hate that I do.. I even stopped myself the other day (only to go to George at Asda.. god help me) but not only am I not buying ethically aware clothing... but I'm also supposed to dress like everybody else who shops in Primark (coughchavscallytypescough) Now I'm definitely one for anti-ageist fashion, I sometimes find the Guardian's weekly feature on various ages wearing similar styles interesting if not a little stagnant, but I really resent buying a pair of black lacy leggings, blaceggings, only to find a 45yr old wannabe MILF wearing them ... over an awful tan, and thinking "Hey I know I'll buy some for my five year old as well"... as I've said I'm not fashionably ageist, I utterly adore how fashionable elder ladies dress, ranging from the undeniably women of a certain age adorning Parisian streets, to Debbie Harry, but most notably people like Zandra Rhodes and Vivienne Westwood, even gulp Mary Portas... (which as much as I resent her for having an amazing job and for almost wearing clothes that the ever predictable and strangely breast obsessed Gok Wan might have picked out (bad) has an undeniable sense of self style, knowing not only what suits her but not giving into peer pressure to dress like an absolute arse-yet still giving herself a nice looking arse-impressive feat). So, as hypocritical as it may appear I resent these women.  I can't decide if it's almost sad that they feel they have to compete with not only younger, and possibly richer, women by shopping in Primark (ie. they haven't got the "young body" to wear most of the hotpants in Primark but still do, and can't commit the equally awful sin of Lacroixing oneself in an Edie Monsoon manner with various labels to try and distract people from your lack of style)... as much as I admit and rather love, nay relish, designer clothing I have never been one for thinking it's even nearly justified in its price.. yup there's a lot of work that goes into it.. and yes there's excellently gorgeous fabric and wonderful cuts that you would never get in somewhere on the high street I feel sad that the exclusivity of designer wear is the whole point of it.. and in being so becomes the complete opposite.. money doesn't buy style darlings.. it buys a stupid amount of crappy clothes that no matter how lovely the cut is will never look right on you if you've bought them for labels rather than style, fit and matching to your body type... I would relish in buying as much gorgeous Chanel as possible but I'm fully aware that Coco's divine little figure, and the ridiculously cool, if not skeletal Karl Lagerfeld, do not necessarily fit a figure as mine.. I'm much more apt for the curvy Nigella figure hugging Roland Mouret styles
, even some gorgeous vintage Dior... and I have found that mostly 40s and 50s dresses fit a figure like mine, when women had waists and were expected to show them off.. 

ooh that was rather a rant... so yes, and don't get me started on some kind of feminist fashion rant.. I can only say I feel empowered by brands like Agent Provacateur and yet strangely seedy by La Senza... that shouldn't be about the money or style. it's simply quality.. and the fact that La Senza screams slut and Agent P purrs seductress.. but why is that? Is there any sense behind it? God knows, I will go onto a much more indepth feminist rant at another time, when I'm not dying to discuss some kind of musical nonsense and knitting I've been thinking about instead. 

Tis indeed nearly Autumn, strangely enough I smelt it, as I have been told by a homeopathist I'm a "smelly person" hehe... and then my ipod told me it was so (I don't normally listen as it's usually telling me to do bad things) with the beginning lyrics of Ryan Adam's "Nuclear".....'This is where the summer ends'.... sigh.. so onto knitting some lovely scarves and listening to to warming songs... I like to knit with some kind of distraction, usually a tv or a record.... and today I noticed my lovely first scarf I ever made.. a blend of acidy green, yellow and blue stripes.. a bit raggedy but loved and excellent.. and realised it's so utterly easy to make scarves... so I've got to encourage it... my first ever one (which was the attempt before the actual first scarf) turned into a blanket.. yup I fucked up the stitches and started on 20 and ended up on 130.... how... ? hmmm.... so yes snuggle up in your scarf... and listen to the Mamas and the Papas' "Do You Wanna Dance?" because it makes me smile... it's the end of the summer affairs, it's the end of feeling warm outside so dance instead... it's more fun than shivering.. this slow and lovely dance song makes you want to waltz around the kitchen in a stylish pillbox hat "Tell me I'm your loverman...."

... 

So I've been listening to that... doing this... something of the other... 

after Inglorious Basterds I've had an incurable craving for strudel (but not nightfire hehe) as they have a great shot focused on this dollop of creaming oozing over a cruncy looking strudelly yumminess.... so I've looked up a recipe for such.... 

Ingredients

100g Golden sugar

seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod

4 yummy apples... I like a bit of cox.. but I also just wanted to write that (peel and dice your cox ouch)

25g of currants and 25g sultanas

1tsp Allspice, 1tsp nutmeg (I like it grated) 1 tsp of cinnamon (sprinkled on the top)

85g chopped walnuts...mmm 

6 large sheets of filo pastry (you could make it.. or you could buy the other roll up stuff.. it's less hassle but then again I'm a pastry purist sometimes...)

50g butter, melted

a tub of creme fraiche.. 200ml

Heat the oven to about 200degrees c.... and then put the butter and sugar and vanilla pods in a pan and cook slowly until caramelised and yummy and brown... (be careful as this could go quickly from being caramelised to burnt scummy pan nastiness) ... put the apples, spices, sultanas and currants in the pan to caramelise them.. and cook for about 10mins until soft.. and gooey.. remove the apple from the pan, slotted spoon... and then let the liquid and the apples cool separately... line two baking trays with baking paper and lay out the filo on the trays... brush lightly with butter and sprinkle some of the sugar on them.. repeat this on each tray until there are 3 layers of filo each... put the apple on the shorter edge of the pastry and roll them into a log... tuck in the ends to make it a neat parcel... brush the top with butter and dust with sugar.. cook for 25mins or until golden brown.. and crispy and gooey and yummy... 

This is lovely with cherries as well.. cooked in a similar way... but with some cherry liquer instead of caramelising the sugar... but still use the sugar.. 

vehr gut.. (I can't speak German)

Anywho.. I've got to go and eat some dinner having just spilt hot water all down my front and I'm in quite a hideous amount of pain so I'm going to conclude there and watch crappy BBC Rob Brydon related goodness in stinging pain.. 

This week I have mostly been eating: hmm.. homemade bread... bad hot watery noodles with painfactor... looking forward to strudel and many many bananas that I got from the Bold street fruit market in Liverpool (3 bunches for a pound...apples and pears etc)

I have mostly been knitting/painting: still my little baby blanket, and painting a rather dubious portrait of Serge Gainsbourg (it's dubious as his eyes have gone weird and I'm trying to sort it out)

I've mostly been listening to: Grizzly Bear's "Knife"..
(um it's on Skins if anybody was wondering but obviously that's not what I like it.. ) an excellent dreamy little piece; Ca Plane Pour Moi on Vinyl, excellent soundtrack for I Basterds.. .....and Frank Black (of Pixies) and the Catholics "Massif Centrale", a little gem I always forget about, but it's got the creepy air of a French stalker about it, "Sure is cold here in the summer... I haven't got her number".... and there's a bit in the garden.. it's just awesomely loud and amazing... it's the sound of a looove behaviour.. well I think those are the lyrics who indeed knows.. 

Listen and decipher your own..

Bon Chance.. xxxxxx

I was looking for a Job and then I found a job.. oh no, wait I didn't... pah! Still Miserable...

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