Crazy Jane:

Good Books Alert, Plus

There's stuff I'd tell you about, but I don't want to jinx it. Is that enough of an update?

No?

Well, ok. Then I'll just tell you that the book I've been reading, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, totally made me cry. I mean, this is a book with pictures and special typography about a little boy whose father died in the World Trade Centers on 9/11, which, to my mind, should have been at least two strikes against it, but it completely got me. I think what I like most about it is how bravely Foer approaches sentimentality. I don't mean to say this book is sentimental, but it's dangerously and somewhat thrillingly close. I recommend it, and if any of you read it, or already have read it, I'd love to know what you thought.

And, if you've read anything else by him, how was it?

I'll also add that if you've never read The Red and the Black, by Stendhal, it's time to rectify that oversight, because that book is freaking brilliant.

Get Lonely

The first sentence I was going to write here was "You know what's crazy? The way records by The Mountain Goats just keep getting better and better all the time." But, then I realized that there are a whole lot of records by The Mountain Goats that are so good and so deeply satisfying that, truthfully, I wouldn't know how to tell you one was better than another. The latest, Get Lonely, is so very, very truly on that roster of loveliness, and the main point of the following paragraphs is that I strongly recommend that all of you get it and listen to it right away.

The first time I listened to it was just a day or so after my monkey moved out of my house in Prague to go live with his father in California. There was no real drama in that -- it's a good thing for all of us -- but I felt bewildered by grief about it, and there was a miserable squeezing sensation in my chest whenever I thought about how I was supposed to carry on without him. I woke up way too early every morning for weeks and laid in bed wondering what the hell to do with myself, sometimes doing nothing but wander around my small, empty flat, mindlessly cleaning things up, feeling aimless and supremely unobserved, the way that proverbial un-heard tree in the forest of potential non-existence might feel, falling all alone out there.

Get Lonely is about heartbreak, and being left alone. It has twelve songs on it about waking up to another day of being lonely in a way that is simply an incontrovertible fact that can't be ignored, and can't be healed by anything but time and change. It's about not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, not knowing how anything could ever feel better, being blinded, lost, abject, and buried in quotidian things while all you can feel is some painfully specific tangible absence. It features little details about daily things recounted with such naked, singular sadness, and with such careful, perfectly pitched simplicity, that, well... I got nothing. It's fucking beautiful, and as I've said before around here, John Darnielle not only writes the best songs around, but he is a performer of special magnificence. Proof of both assertions is available in spades on this record, buoyed by instrumentation that is quietly surprising and often lush, while still somehow flawlessly supporting the spare clarity of Darnielle's vocal performance and usual acoustic guitar.

As I mentioned, I was primed for this one, and the bottom line is that when I first put it in my iPod and got into the bus in front of my flat to the tune of "Wild Sage", I was weeping before that first song was over. I don't know where I was planning to go that morning, but I just rode through Prague on various forms of public transport until the record was over, crying behind my big stupid sunglasses, and then went home and listened to it over and over again for longer than I want to confess in a public forum. It went straight into my heart the way so few records really do, and it wrung me out, but it also helped me see that there was some way not only to feel the deep sadness of being really, really lonely, but also to hope to transcend it.

I've read a few reviews of this record in recent days while I was thinking about what I'd like to say about it, because of course I'm a blowhard, and I wanted to tell my five readers (four of whom have probably, like me, listened to it about 7,843 times already) how much I love it, and I wanted to find the right words to say why. I've read lukewarm reviews, by people who miss the rougher intensity of the lo-fi Goats of yore, a sentiment that frankly bores the crap out of me, and I've read reviews by people that seem not to feel the strength that underlies all the broken sadness and loss in these songs. It's that second crew I wanted to set straight: these songs are sad as hell, but that's not all they are, because as much as they're about loss and heartbreak, they're also about getting up every morning, facing the neighbors, cleaning the house, feeling the existential dread with numbing familiarity, and carrying on.

Get Lonely is a record that lets you feel sad -- lets you cry -- but doesn't feel indulgent, because it's also about transformation. It's about the way you have to go down into brackish water sometimes, without knowing if you're going to come out. I know it's a bit uncritical to get all personal about these things, but I can't even put into words how much resonance that notion has for me. I know exactly what it means to close my eyes and hope real hard that maybe I'll sprout wings, but transformations like those have to be lived, they can't be dreamed up whole; they're part of a fabric that you knit together with every day and detail, by living. That's the kind of strength there is in these songs.

I've always felt struck especially dumb in the face of records by The Mountain Goats. It always feels like the songs on them are so clear in some emotional way that there's no sense in muddying things up by talking about it. This time, though, I really wanted to say that for me, personally, this record is one of those that, despite my high expectations, I didn't see coming, and when it arrived, I couldn't remember how I ever didn't have these songs in my heart. I love it so much.

Oh, plus? Mr. Johnso directed their totally awesome new video, and you can watch it here. It rules.

Recent Consumption

I don't write much, I know, but I consume. Here are some of the recent good things I have tasted:

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. Such a good book. It a science fiction story, really, of a man afflicted with a genetic abnormality that causes him to suffer "chrono-displacement," meaning that he time travels without warning into his past and occasionally his future, marries a girl who, thanks to his time traveling, has known him since she was a small child, but whom he only meets when he is twenty-three. It's a sad book. I totally cried in through the final pages, but it had to be that way. I loved the relationship between the two characters -- the steadiness of their love for one another, despite loads of trouble -- that is mostly held together by her certainty of it. I was truly moved by her role in it, the way she had to conform her needs and desires to the reality of his disorder, and the way she had to be steady, because he couldn't change that about himself. Maybe it sounds like a book for girls? I think not. I really loved it.

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. So good. I think a big part of it's huge appeal for me was the history of Calliope/Cal's big Greek family, and their journey from Turkey, near Bursa and present day Izmir. A few years ago, I made a trip to Turkey and visited all those places, including the town my own Greek family on my father's side is from, and saw the house they lived in. While I was there, I met a Turkish butcher who thought he might have remembered my grandfather. There's something about family stories like this one that really get me; I think these kinds of histories are the way we know ourselves in some deep sense, and I loved this saga of the Stephanides family. Of course, the twist in this one is that generations of intermarriage in the family lead to the birth of our hero, the hermaphrodite, who must come to see himself not as a monster, but as the natural product of a rich history. I felt the book faltered a little at the end when Cal is briefly separated from his family by what is essentially his need to internalize his own sense of identity, but it was all right back on as soon as he was back in the room with his crazy old grandmother. Great book. I loved it.

Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman. Yes, that is a title swiped from William Empson's absolutley fantastic work of literary criticism, and frankly, I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it's brilliantly written, dense, compulsively readable, and quite long -- all good -- but, on the other hand, I felt that its story told from seven first-person perspectives and attempted relationship between that modus operandi and Empson's book is a bit forced and overly-clever. Additionally, the plot hinges on loads of coincidental relationships between otherwise unrelated characters -- also forced. The whole story hinges around the life of a man who is obsessed with his own idealized love for an ex-girlfirend that left him abruptly 9 years before. Eventually, he kidnaps her son, sending everyone connected's life off-course. I'm probably not doing a great job of selling this one here, but I really liked it in a lot of ways. It's the kind of book where you wish someone else you knew (and whose aesthetic sensibilites you respect) had read it, so you could hash it all out. I would totally recommend it. And, if you read it, let me know!

FebioFest 2006. Prague is host to a really nice, big film festival every year in March. During it, I finally got to see one I've been dying to see: Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, which was a really, really beautiful film. In it, a very difficult English professor/failing novellist and his wife split up, and the film looks at the effect their overly-frank, painful break-up has on their two sons. One of the Baldwin brothers is smarmily brilliant as a tennis club pro cum new boyfriend to the mother, and Jeff Daniels is so freaking sad as the father that it's almost a perfromance that makes you never want to see him again, a la Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross. Laura Linney as the wife, and the two boys who play their sons were incredible as well. The whole affair was the kind of intelligent, thoughtful, poetic film that you are rarely so lucky as to see.

I also saw Matador in which Pierce Brosnan, rocking the world's most awesomely horrible hairy caterpillar on his upper lip and having no compunction about prancing around in his skivvies despite the fact that his figure is not what it once was, plays a hit man who wants out of his game. Greg Kinnear is the sweet suburban husband who helps him out. It's hilarious and surprisingly sweet. Throughout the film, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in favor of some kind of tiresome lip-service to gritty "reality," and I was delighted when it never did. I left the theater smiling from ear to ear.

Both of those films were at Sundance when I went up there for Brick (currently tearing it up at a theater near you, bitches, so GO SEE IT), and I didn't manage to see them then, so I was happy to finally have the opportunity.

I also saw Mysterious Skin for the second time, and really enjoyed it. It's a hard one to watch, but ultimately, I think it's a very compassionate film, and Brick star Joseph Gordon Levitt is freaking brilliant in it. I took along some friends who looked a bit shell-shocked afterwards, but they liked it. While I'm at it, I should also mention that Joe has a really nice website for his short films, and you should all go watch them. Escargots is especially beautiful. Please be aware that it is his voiceover on the soundtrack, and know that he is truly lovely.

The Smiths. I'm a bit obsessed lately, especially The Queen Is Dead and Strangeways, Here We Come. There was a time, in my youth, when I'd read about how Morrissey was celibate and a vegan, and disdained him thoroughly as an affectedly pathetic prancy-pants, but I was wrong. He is, in fact totally brilliant, and I love every song without exception on about four different records by The Smiths. As for the others, I just don't know them as well; I feel certain that I will love them just as much in the future. The shimmery guitar, the fantastic writing and yowling, and the way all the gloom just somehow makes you feel like laughing is fucking great. I love the growly way he sings on "A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours", and I adore "Paint a Vulgar Picture". My favorite Smiths song of the moment, though, is definitely "Never Had No One Ever" from The Queen Is Dead. Oh, the operatic misery. I feel some correspondence with that blend of real sadness and humor that I never did back when it came out and I was a gloomy, bad-poetry-writing teenager.

If my brief encounter with the northern lad I've been "seeing" of late (and, I'm sorry, but scare quotes are fully necessary in this case) has any legacy (other than confirmation of my sad fate as a spinster who dies alone and is eaten by wild dogs), it will be my newly intensified appreciation for the whole Britpop thing from the mid-90's, with its blend of high-spirits and hopeless working-class despondency. More thoughts may be formed later, but right now I'm still listening...

Current Favorite Things

There's great stuff in the world, isn't there? Here's some:

• The Sex Pistols Refuse To Be The Monkey Of The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame ...via an incoherent letter posted on a fanzine. I tip my hat to Gstieger on this one, and she put it about as well as it can be put: God bless 'em.

• Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote. Especially chapter three, in which Joel Knox attends Jesus and Zoo Fever's worship service, and Joel sees the scar from when Keg Brown tried to cut Zoo's throat. I love the end when, under the threat of a gathering storm, Zoo exhorts Joel to prayer, and Mr. Capote delivers himself of this paragraph:

But there was no prayer in Joel's mind; rather, nothing a net of words could capture, for, with one exception, all his prayers of the past had been simple, concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only, how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved.

Beautiful.

• Ghana by The Mountain Goats. I realized, a long time ago, when I had consumed every word ever published by Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen, that I was going to have to slow down a bit, and save some of the good stuff for later. As a result, I have a kind of a savings program that means that there are entire delicious novels by Henry James, Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and John Irving that I have not read. Similarly, there is a stash of tantalizingly titled songs by The Mountain Goats that I have yet to either hear at all, or give my full, undivided attention to. This week, I broke into that stash to listen to Ghana, and I already feel like my spirit is spending eternity in happiness, munching on a Golden Boy peanut.

• Early Mornings In Mala Strana. Prague has two heavily touristed areas: Staro Metska (Old Town), in which you can see the world famous medieval astronomical clock, the magnificent Tyn Church, and the momument to Jan Hus, and on the other side of the Charles Bridge, Mala Strana (Little Town), winds through narrow cobbled streets under Pragus castle and along the river. It's all ludicrously beautiful, but usually so choked with tourists that you can barely walk... except on cold winter mornings, where everything is quiet and gorgeous in the mist that rises off the river.

• Tenacious D. Good lord, how I love Jack Black's delivery of every single line of vocals. I love that he is hilariously cognizant of exactly why Rock is ridiculous, and that his love, and desire to rock as hard a Dio ever did, are totally real. "Tribute", "Wonderboy", and "Fuck Her Gently" are all masterpieces of pure comedy gold, but with just enough sincerity to taint every cliche and irony with sweetness.

• The Tour of Califorina. I love it that freaking FABIAN CANCELLARA and JENS VOIGT are in California riding bikes with all my favorite American Sweethearts of Cycling. Chris Horner? Tim Johnson? I'm talking to you! And, I love that big, uber charming George Hincapie keeps winning stages. Go, George! I love it that The Tour of California has been on ESPN at night, and that the promoters want to make it bigger, and as long as the Tour de France. I love those bike racing guys for more reasons that I can go into now, but here's what I hate: I AM MISSING IT. That just cracks me. I am totally cracked.

• Drooly, Comatose Naps, Taken In The Afternoon. Yeah. That's right. I have time for that kind of thing about two or three times a week, and it is DELICIOUS.

• The Way This Guy I've Been Seeing Dances Like The World's Biggest Dork. I hope he never reads this, because he might quit dancing if he does. "Dork" may not bear the same affectionate overtone for him that it does for me, but seriously, it's pretty much the most charming thing ever... and it would have to be, after all the fun I sometimes have waiting for him to get back to me on the cell phone. Yeah, I decided that it would be better to regret forgiving him for that business last Friday night than it would be to regret being a cold-hearted, unforgiving harpy. So, later, when I totally bellyache, just remind me that I climbed back up onto the rack of my own volition, ok?

• My Monkey. Which goes without saying. I love you, Monkey.

Back To Bono

Ok: all that business I was bemoaning yesterday? I'm over it. I've decided that it isn't worth the headache, and also that what will be will be, and no amount of belly-aching will change that, so nevermind. The planet that's really not worth visiting is planet "Miserable Romance," and I'm not going there. I hope, one day, to have a romance that makes me happy, and that is worth the headache, and when that time comes, I will gladly suffer it. In the meantime, I shall fare forward.

I want to tell you some more things about this excellent book, which I have now finished reading, and which, seriously, I could not have loved more. The first thing I want to tell you is that Bono is an amazing man, and I could not feel luckier than I do to have had him to look up to since I was 13 years old. It may not seem like it today, in light of all the shenanigans I get up to, and how I love that devil music, but I had a very Christian upbringing. When I was a girl, it was so nice to hear Bono say things that were familiar to me, as a Christian, and more than that, it was validating to see him live so effectively, with so much good will and integrity, in a secular world, with his faith in tact, and guiding him.

Bono once said one of the most beautiful things I have ever read about being a Christian. It was during a tour of the American midwest that he did on behalf of his DATA organization, to help raise awareness about the wholesale AIDS holocaust that's underway there, and he was asked by some local paper if he was, in fact, "a Christian." His response, beautifully, was that he aspires to being a Christian, but that he knows he is unworthy of the title. What a different attitude that is to the kind of judgemental, moralizing, politically motivated evil that passes for the voice of Christianity in America, and currently guides so much of our political life.

I love that Bono talks so openly about his faith in this book, and that he says that when he speaks to God, he knows that God hears and answers him, and that  he guides him. I love the sense you get that Bono knows how very, very wrong he can be, and the sense of rigor there is in his approach to his religious life, and his life in the world. That is beautiful shit, and I have nothing but respect for that guy.

The other most brilliant thing in this book is when Bono talks about being a performer. "Never trust a performer" he says, reporting that, for instance, when he got off the stage at Live Aid, and hugged that girl from the crowd, he was looking, as a performer, for "a moment" that would stay with everyone who watched it. That, yeah, he was feeling the need to break the barrier between himself and the audience, but that another part of him was calculating how to tell the story of breaking that barrier, and was very conscious of what it was doing. I love the tension there is in his work, and the way he talks about it, between artifice and authenticity, and I love how comfortable he is with the inherent contradictions in what he does. Can we believe him? Do we know him? YES. Is he always 100% geniune? NO. I love the way both of those things are true, and unhesitatingly avowed by him.

Sometime in the 90's, during the big explosion of winking irony that was the Achtung Baby and Zooropa art project, I remember the sense that even though there was a big freaking circus of a stadium roadshow and gold and red devil costume between us and those clear, blue eyes, that the same soulful heart was beating under it all, and then I read some interview where Bono said that the best place to be was standing right at the center of all the contradictions -- that's where the truth is.

How awesome is that? Seriously, I love that guy.

Can We Talk? It's About Bono.

I love him.

Goddamn, people. this is a good book. It's nothing but a really long conversation with Bono, over a period of several months, with a French journalist, Michka Assayas, who knew a good thing when he first saw it in 1981, and is the dead opposite of Charlie Rose, in that he mostly shuts up and lets Bono have the floor. In it, Bono talks about his youth, his family, and his work, as a rock star and as an advocate for the poor, and it is fantastic.

People give Bono crap about the ego, but all I can say is THANK GOD for his ego. Thank God for his sense of what is possible, and what people are capable of. Thank God for his faith, and the fact that he never lets go of what he believes is right. When I first saw Bono, sometime in the early 80's, I was 13 years old. He was talking big, and dreaming big. He made a lot of promises about what kind of a man he was, and here's what's good about Bono: he has kept them all. He is that man so much more than I ever imagined back then. Lately, when I hear he's been short-listed for the Nobel Peace Prize, or some business, I swear I am proud of him as if he were my brother, or something.

I grew up watching Bono grow up for well over half my life, and seriously: we're going to have to step oustide if you want to talk shit. I mean, no doubt, he falters, but at the end of the day, he is a force for good, and his example is magnificent.

There will be more on this topic when I've finished reading, but for now, since I know you are all well-aware of my current fixations, I want to show you the most heartwarming picture in the entire world of rock:

It's the little smiles that really kill me. In some ways, Trent Reznor is the anti-Bono. Bono is always looking for the light, and trying to make pictures of heaven, while Trent is really, really unflinching about the darkness and complications. Aesthetically speaking, however, neither one of them fears the broad stroke, and they both have exactly the same topics at heart; which is to say THE IMPORTANT ONES -- truth, faith, love -- and they both do their work with that wholly unironic, savage seriousness that I love so damned much. That is a picture of my two favorite artists, right there.

Finally, here are two of the millions of good things Bono says in this excellent book that everyone should read:

"Fuck, I don't mind. I'll be the clown. Throw the pie."

and

"People talk to me... They walk straight up to me because they know from the records that even if my face isn't as open as it was 10 years ago, I am... People who know the music, know who you are. They've been in the dark room, and they know you better than your best friend, because you don't sing like that to your best friend. You don't sing in their ear."

Nice, no?

More later, no doubt.

Maybe It's Time I Rattled On A Bit

I know I don't write much lately, but I am starting to think I ought to.

I just feel like recounting the things I get up to all the time is a little of a yawner for me and the rest of the world, and as for whatever else, I'm bored with listening to myself think for chrissakes! How can I expect not to bore the hell out of other people by publishing it on the world wide interbot? Still, I've been inspired by the latest rattle on by Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls to make some attempt to un-clam it. We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I thought I'd tell you about some songs that I totally love right this minute:

Ultra Violet, by The Extra Glenns. I listened to this record this morning, riding the bus to my student's office at 7am. It's cold and grey in Prague, so I had my hat with the earflaps on it that hold the iPod earbuds in place excellently, and sometimes you just happen to listen to certain songs at just the right moment, and this one really killed me today. I know that says absolutely nothing about the song, but I guess what I'd like to tell you is that it's a song that's just waiting for the right moment to deliver its knockout punch. Also, I feel almost as sorry for people who don't listen to the awesome (I searched my feelings for the right adjective to go there, but they all sounded grody and trying-too-hard-y, so I just went with "awesome", because the shoe fits) collected works of John Darnielle as I do for people who are starving in third world countries. Just kidding. That was a truly revolting comparison. I'm so ashamed of myself that I'm leaving it so that everyone can justifiably loathe me.

Canadee-I-O, arranged by Bob Dylan. I used this song as the central material for an English lesson earlier this week. I thought it would be good because it's got fairly simple, but interesting vocabulary, and it's a good yarn with a bit of a twist at the end as to who the narrative voice is, so it's good for listening/reading comphrension for students that we in the EFL biz like to say have an "intermediate" grasp of the English language. I listened to it about 10 times that morning, and on about the 8th listen, I really heard it, with its advice to tender girls that they "follow their own true love whene'r he goes to sea, for if the sailors prove false to you, the captain, he might prove true," and I swear that unbidden tears prickled behind my eyes. It's a beautiful performance, too. Give it up for Bob Dylan, people.

All The Love In The World, by Nine Inch Nails. Yeah. Still. I know it's hard to believe that anyone could have -- and I'm putting this positively -- this kind of attention span for one record, but I still love it about as much as I love my monkey, and if you know me at all, you know that's a freaking lot... so, ok, maybe not THAT much. The point is, I've listened to this song an embarrassing number of times, but every single time I do, even if it's like, 5 times in a row throughout an entire bus journey across Prague, I can't wipe the big dumb grin off my face, because it just makes me so damned happy. Pure, unmitigated, aural pleasure of the sort I never expected. One day I will be ashamed of all this, but I'm sorry to report that I'm not yet.

Future Perfect, by Autolux. I probably downloaded this song illegally, because it's not on the record of the same name, which I downloaded legally from iTunes, so don't hate me, Autoluxers! Anyway, it includes this chorus, which totally gets me:

I change my head so I won’t be followed
I change my head so my friends don’t call me
I  change my head so no one can fault me
I change my head so I won’t be bored

I can dig. The whole record that this song isn't on is, by the way, the shiznit. It features delicious mountains of noise, good writing, and excellent boy/girl harmonies. I've heard them dismissed as "noodlers" and there's no denying that there is a definite whiff of Sonic Youth-style feedback conjuring, but try it in your headphones. It's totally a headphones record.

3 Libras, by A Perfect Circle. I know this is some seriously King Crimson-esque alterna-progrock wankery, right here, but let me take this opportunity to say that I am totally down for that sometimes, as long as it isn't Pink "overrated" Floyd, Jethro "come the fuck on" Tull or Rush. Especially Rush, because I can only pray to Jesus that Geddy Lee's voice never enters my ears again as long as I live. However, that has nothing to do with anything, and I love this song. It's about being overlooked, I'd say, and I love the way it starts with strings before bringing it with the big giant power chords and hysterical vocals. That Maynard James Keenan sure has some pipes, and I love the way he can never shake his over-wrought signature style. Yeah, I know. I'm way behind the curve on this one. Better late than never.

Promeny, by Cechomor. I have this song on a live CD of Cechomor, which is a Czech folk/rock combo, with music from Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman, who, in addition to being responsible for some seriously excellent "apocalyptic post-punk rage" is also a classical composer, and did the orchestral arrangements for the Cechomor songs, including this one, which is gorgeous. I recognize individual words in it, but I have no idea what it's about, so I can't tell you, I'm sorry to say. I have to ask my extra nice student, Pavel, who gave me this CD, but it is freaking beautiful. Pavel, if you are reading, can you tell us? If anyone wants to hear it, e-mail me, and I'll send it to you.

I'm quite the admitted pirate today, no?

As for my monkey, he's rocking the Interpol and M.I.A lately. He's pretty cool, for a monkey. He wrote a badass report about the Anasazi Indians that you should all go read right now, on the Monkey Blog.

Finally, this online game is part of a super cool art exhibit at the Rudolfinum here in Praha, and it is totally bitchin'. Be patient with it.

Enjoy!

Letters to Rock Stars Are My Favorite

I reviewed a really good book today, called Go Ask Ogre: Letters from a Death Rock Cutter, by Jolene Siana.

It's a book of letters written compulsively, over a three year period, by a suicidally depressed teenaged girl to Kevin Ogilvie, otherwise known as Nivek Ogre, the singer of seminal 80's industrial band Skinny Puppy.

I know it sounds freaky, but I really, really loved it.

My review is here, if you are so inclined.

FYI: Saul Williams Kicks Ass

My review of Saul Williams and Nine Inch Nails at the Brixton Academy in London is up now at blogcritics, and you can read it here, if, as usual, you are so inclined.

Watching David Beckham Sleep In Manchester

So, yeah - Madchester. Or, Gaychester, apparently. The birthplace of both the Industrial Revolution and The Smiths. Not fucking bad.

Yesterday, I went to the Manchester Art Gallery, and saw a freaking awesome work of art called "David"  by Sam Taylor-Wood. Here's what it entailed:

Manchester Art Gallery has been offered the exclusive opportunity to display a video portrait of footballer David Beckham by acclaimed artist Sam Taylor-Wood. Filmed in Madrid after a training session, this naturalistic film is an intimate and beautiful portrait of an international icon.

The work, which draws on diverse influences from Michelangelo to Andy Warhol, was filmed in a single long take, at eye level. This gives the viewer the impression that they are lying in bed with Beckham and are able to reach out and touch him.

In the 107 minute loop, Becks makes sleepy faces, his eyes move under his lids, and sometimes he readjusts his position, moving his arm from under his head to somewhere in the darkness around his waist. Mostly though, he looks impossibly beautiful, with his red lips, sculpted eyebrows and gigantic diamond earrings; and rather than being the ball bending, sarong wearing, fabulous hair-having international superstar that he normally is in our sights, he is passive, and unconscious of our searching gaze.

The moving portrait is marginally more satisfying than a simple still frame, but at the same time, it raises expectations in a strange way, and foregrounds the viewer's distance from the subject even more acutely. The titular first name suggests that this is a portrait of someone other than the resident of Beckingham Palace -- perhaps that man's private alter-ego. But, at the same time it feels almost embarrassingly cosy, it also feels entirely contrived, like another manufactured facet of his celebrity, all of its intimacy belied by the public space around it in the gallery.

Remember when Becks was on the cover of Vanity Fair several months ago? Shirtless? I do. It was all over the supermarket, and I had to actually AVERT MY EYES. Being caught actually looking at that Vanity Fair cover was like being caught making out with your pillow, and when it comes to dream lovers, David Beckham isn't even my cup of tea. This video portrait of Becks sleeping was the same, kind of, but worse - unnerving and impossible to look at for long, and fascinatingly layered with things to consider about media culture, celebrity, desire, beauty, etc. 

Here's what else it entailed:

Right? Because David Beckham is ludicrous. Thank god for the saving grace of his silly little voice.

Brilliant, overall, I thought.

In other news, my hosts here in Manchester, my old friend Steve, his girlfriend Lindsey and son Iain, have been unbelievably lovely and ridiculously hospitable. I'm off later today to a village on the moors where we will attend a folk festival which Steve tells me will involve Morris dancing.

So, my miserable experience of Britain continues.