This is AMAZING. I wish I had the station in the world to dump all over every single group of people, EVER, and look adorably crotchety doing it. Or this is the finest example of dry British wit I have ever seen. Either way, kudos to Prince Philip.
Archive for March, 2008
I had a moment today — my first, so far as I can remember (at least the first that counts), panicked napkin-writing moment.
I’ve finally been writing. As with most things I do, creative-wise, I spent months putting together fine details, building plot and character in my brain, and now I’m spilling it out in relatively even bursts of 10 or so pages a day, plus even more raw notes to be distilled later. It’s a decent pace, and one that I hope to maintain for a while, even if it means I lose a touch of sleep.
I’m sure I’ve written things on napkins before, in haste or laziness, but this was the first time I’d been hit by something so immediate and crucial that it had to be down rightnowrightherenoquestionsaskedorelseyouforget. The first time I’d been hit by a crystalizing idea and not in the presence of paper, or a notebook, or a computer — the only things at my disposal a pen and a Starbucks. Their brown recycled napkins are surprisingly resilient, and hold ideas well.
The moment felt interesting, as have a number of others lately as I feel more like a writer than I have since I wrote my infamous play, and perhaps even much moreso as this one feels much more real. Is this true inspiration? Is this how it feels? Draggy from lack of sleep, but rushed from energy and excitement to get things on paper?
It’s fun, whatever it is.
Side note: Various tonics (Limoncello and soda), as well as deliciousdelicious scotch — relaxing writing companions in small doses (not to be a lush of course — I’m not patterning myself THAT much after Raymond Carver — but just that tiny bit lubricating you need to eliminate some of the worrying filters on occasion). Drambuie, on the other hand? Soporific to an extent I didn’t think possible. Fell right asleep in my Syd Field book (I know, I know…) while seated upright at a desk.
That may be my favourite blog title I’ve ever written.
But they say that the best material comes out of conflict, and man am I conflicted.
Vampire Weekend.
Do I hate them? Do I love them? Do I just want them to call me up at about 11 at night once or twice a week and be gone before breakfast?
On the one hand, they’ve got a rather staggering amount of cable-knit sweaters and boat shoes, sound a tad too much like early Police, and are just generally Upper-East-Side, Cape-Cod, Ivy-Leagued privileged music geeks who were on the cover of Spin before they had a record released (read: someone’s Daddy knows someone, even if it’s just Mr. Franklin and all of his friends, Washington, Lincoln, et al).
On the other hand — so. damn. catchy. Exhibit A — “Oxford Comma”. Is it just that the English grad in me is giddy at the prospect of a song centred around punctuation? Should I be offended, as I am definitely one to have an opinion on Oxford commas, and have recently gone to lengths to communicate that opinion to a colleague (they’re perfectly correct and appropriate in a large number of situations!)?
I’m very much unsure how I feel about the record as a whole. Does my sensibility towards the extreme preppy attitude impact my clear enjoyment of the music? I mean, for God’s sake, they have a song whose central conceit is about being too bored at Cape Cod. Their music is based pretty heavily in not only pointing out how educated and privileged they are, but in pretty much celebrating it. It’s the kind of setup that makes even mild-mannered gentlemen like myself get all clenchy-fisted and forced to push back a desire to pummel some squares.
The fodder for ridicule and much railing-against in pretty much all other indie pop, done in a way that would seem pretentious to the freakin’ Arcade Fire? Shouldn’t I hate this? (And yes, I realize that if you google “Vampire Weekend” and “blog”, you get thousands of other middle-class 20-something hipsters wondering the exact same thing.)
I probably should. However, I most definitely do not. At least not yet.
Song of the moment:
(There exists no actual video for this song, and the other Youtube mashups all involve a lot of footage of riots and tanks, or video game vidcaps — I almost took the Dead Rising one — so I just stuck with a simple playing of the song.)
P.S. Yes, I did get this from the finale of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, but when there’s Cash playing while dead guys rain into a pool, from the POV of the pool, it makes for some pretty wicked compelling TV.
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