| I wouldn't recommend listening to M.R. James' ghost stories just before going to bed. The noise in the rest of the tower block gets amplified, the faint light in the hallway intensifies. Can anyone from outside the UK listen/watch the BBC through the iPlayer? Because James' ghost stories can be found there in case you like spooking yourself.
To us, it was part of that old tradition of listening to ghost stories during Christmas because that's the only time in the year when you are guaranteed protection from the creatures of the night. On Christmas eve itself, we watched the BBC's haunted house three-part series Crooked House. (Unfortunately only the third episode is now available on the iPlayer. Maybe you can find the others if you are a good detective.) They aren't exactly great ghost stories, but they have nice classic elements in each one of them; and the final episode, The Knocker, is genuinely creepy and had me and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wink_martindale freaked out at one point.
Yesterday, we walked London's deserted streets and ended up visiting the completely abandoned Olympic site, followed by Stratford. It was a bitch realising no public transport was available and we'd have to walk back home. We stopped by a corner shop on Roman Road for some junk food and I picked up a box of Cheerios without realising it had expired in August 09. Later in the evening we spotted a cockroach crawling on our kitchen counter. We are convinced it snuck out of the Cheerios box.
( Daffodils ) | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment   |
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The spectacle before me was strangely moving. Personal anxiety was blotted out by wonder and admiration; for the sheer beauty of our planet surprised me. It was a huge pearl, set in spangled ebony. It was nacrous, it was an opal. No, it was far more lovely than any jewel. Its patterned colouring was more subtle, more ethereal. It displayed the delicacy and brilliance, the intricacy and harmony of a live thing. Strange that in my remoteness I seemed to feel, as never before, the vital presence of Earth as of a creature alive but tranced and obscurely yearning to wake.
I reflected that not one of the visible features of this celestial and living gem revealed the presence of man. Displayed before me, though invisible, were some of the most congested centres of human population. There below me lay huge industrial regions, blackening the air with smoke. Yet all this thronging life and humanly momentous enterprise had made no mark whatever on the features of the planet. From this high lookout the Earth would have appeared no different before the dawn of man. No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet, could have guessed that this bland orb teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts.
Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, 1937 | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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For any of you who were fans of the TV show Spaced and were wondering what Jessica Stevenson is up to at the moment, she's starring in a very good comedy at the Royal Court called The Priory. In a way she revisits her character from the series (a somewhat failed writer) only this time she's older, slightly more melancholic and stuck in a medieval monastery-cum-weekend getaway for a New Year Eve's party with trainwrecked friends. I loved how natural the dialogue felt - the kind of chit chat I have myself with friends, but funnier - and how some of the characters, in particular the women, were fully fleshed and unforgettable. What's meant to be a relaxing holiday with friends descends into drugs, drinks, The Big Chill soundtrack pumped through an iPhone and a menacing hooded figure that may, or may not, be the ghost of a monk. Everything that could possibly go wrong on a New Year Eve's party, goes wrong - with some funny but also slightly shocking consequences. It's been extended until mid January and I highly recommend it.
Afterwards, wink_martindale and I hit Sainsbury's for some Xmas food and last minute gifts. Now I'm listening to some Madge while preparing to make the living room off limits for Wink until I've wrapped presents and placed them underneath our spider plant. Later, I will finish a Xmas story I'm writing and which I wish to post here tomorrow. It's a story about one of you!! Wink is drawing some images to go alongside it too...
Last night, we had a Xmas party with our book club. I won some homemade chutney and a strange contraption that makes my ears glow. It will come in handy when I walk down Regent's Canal at night.
( Glowing Ears ) | | comments: 16 comments or Leave a comment |
| Back in 2002, when wink_martindale and I were celebrating our first year in London, I spent most of my weekends indoors and online because we hardly knew anyone in the city. Wink worked for a comic bookshop and had to cover either Saturday or Sunday shifts; those were the days when I sat in our kitchen listening to 80s music on the radio while scrolling through Livejournal on a dial up until he returned home.
One day, a song came on XFM that caught my attention: Attack of the Ghost Riders. It had the word "ghost" in it - an immediate seller for me - but also a poppy rockabilly tune that I liked. It was the first single from a Danish band called The Raveonettes. A few days later, I serendipitously saw their "Whit It On" EP on sale at HMV for £5.99. I brought it home and thus was born our love for the band.
With the years, we've seen them branch out of their rockabilly obsession into explorations of America's motown and country past, cut the 3-minute pop song like masters of the form. We were there at the Astoria some years ago when Sharin had to sing by herself the whole set because Sune had lost his voice - and how they turned it into a memorable evening rather than a disaster. So it was only natural that we would buy tickets for their gig last night at the Islington Academy, where they'd be promoting their new, and very good, album "In and Out of Control".
Another serendipity (or is it synchronicity?): we found out about a month ago that a good friend of ours, desayuno_ingles's boyfriend Senor El Guapo, had signed up to be their European tour roadie... culminating at the Islington Academy.
Wink spent his spare time during our early years in London writing and illustrating a book called The Fur Trap, which came inside a 7-inch single sleeve. He played The Raveonettes all the time as his background music/inspiration so he thought it might be a nice gesture to print them a copy and deliver it to the hands of Senor El Guapo to then pass it on to the band.
We met Senor El Guapo at the bar and handed him the book as well as a Xmas card and gift. He was suffering from food poisoning and looked about ready to pass out. We silently prayed he'd be alright through the gig and wouldn't have to deal with any disasters/split strings. He flipped through The Fur Trap and said they'd love the book and could read it while they waited backstage for the support act to finish.
Wink and I then stood there drinking our Carlsbergs and marvelling at how life takes these unexpected turns sometimes and brings you close to the things you love the most.
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| A week ago, a strange spiralling blue light appeared over Norway's northern skies. The event was seen by thousands of people as well as filmed and photographed (this video in particular makes the event look like something straight out of a movie.) The media bandied about a theory that Russians were testing missiles in the area and the light was the result of one of them exploding, which the Russians denied. Story here.
Tonight, following a rabbit hole on the internet, I ended up finding a documentary about UFO lights in Norway and of how they have been widely documented for the past three decades. It's actually a pretty decent and fair look at the phenomena (if you disregard the creepy soundtrack) but what caught my attention was the description of blue spiralling lights being one of the observed UFOs:
So what's going on? Is Russia testing all sorts of missiles over Norway? Or is something else going on - i.e. Russia's claims that they are not testing any missiles being the actual truth? It reminded me of a post recently by sublimevisions (I think) on crop circles. He was asking what could possibly create so many intricate designs, sometimes in such hard to reach places over night. Some crop circles in the past have been proven to be the work of humans (for stunts and so forth) but there's still a load of them which are completely unexplained. Sublimevisions proposed that they were probably made by laser beams, perhaps from satellites. Perhaps our own governments testing their top secret weapons from the skies, perhaps something else. The blue light above Norway last week looks like a laser show to me. And that gaping black hole at the end looks like a portal. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | blogs, gigs, hold on to your friends, interesting drug, museums, november spawned a monster, psycho killer que'st que c'est, reader meet author, still ill, strangeways here we come, to me you are a work of art | | Current Location: | Hackney, London | | Subject: | Jason Voorhees Lives | | Time: | 10:35 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/okay.gif) okay |
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| My novel for this year's National Novel Writing Month is called Jason Voorhees Is Dead. I wrote just under 20.000 words before I had to give up due to repetitive strain injury (an ongoing problem since then.) However, Jason is not dead. I plan on taking up with him again sometime in the holidays, when my fingers are relax'a'licking good.
By the way, next time you slag off Jason because he's ugly or he killed scores of horny youngsters, just remember that he was a victim first of all. Of bullying, of his wacky mom. Have some compassion.
Some weekends ago, at Warp Records 20th Anniversary, I was sitting in The Coronet's bleachers resting my feet when my friend Natallica asked if I had a mild form of OCD. Yes, I replied. I think I do. Because when iTunes' Genius and Amazon's Recommendations tell me to listen to something, I make a Spotify playlist out of it. Because what's random to others is synchronicity to me. Because, like I said, I haven't given up on Jason yet and will make those 50.000 words squeal by the finishing line.
A mild, mild form of OCD.
I've been posting my NaNoWriMo ramblings over at Succès de scandale because Wordpress has this neat system that tells you what people type in Google to find you. From those searches I create new posts - a type of spiral that feeds back into Google and pulls closer ever more people interested in those topics.
I also have Google Alerts for anything to do with succès de scandale. Over a week ago, a story came up about the American artist Ed Kienholz and how an exhibition of his in the 60s was particularly scandalous. I was suffering from insomnia that night so I took the opportunity to write a short piece about it. As I was finishing, my brasilian friend B woke up and found me in the living room. The piece wasn't discussed between us.
Later in the day, when I got back from work, I found B sitting in our living room checking his e-mail. He was coming down from a LSD trip. He told me he'd been downtown and visited the National Gallery, but an art piece by Ed Kienholz freaked him out so much that he had to find refuge with Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Do you see the beauty in this synchronicity? Now, I have to of course visit the National Gallery and see this piece before it leaves. I'm hoping that new doors will open from the visit.
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![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/sore.gif){kind=small}
with lowerback soreness![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/happy.gif){kind=small}
mellow
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/scared.gif){kind=small}
slightly freaked out