Lark and Stardust

If a meteorite had landed on that pub, at the gig I was at somewhere in Pretoria a couple of months ago, I would not have cared or even noticed. For two whole hours and a bit I didn’t have a single thought about carbon sharks, nuclear waste, marketing or any other type of rape, pillage and plunder. Lark, live, did it. They’re great on CD too, but this band is at its best live. Having somehow survived Oppikoppi, they’ll be back in GP at Carfax on the 24th of this month. My elder daughter is their Number One Fan, so luckily I’ll be able to take her with me as a buffer, or a Buffy, ‘cos Carfax isn’t exactly home away from home for me. I get psychedelic when I can’t quite identify the species around the watering hole, so psychedelic that I start identifying with unidentifiables and then all hell breaks loose because I get sudden urges to do things like start wearing black lipstick or death-metal hoodies, or pierce my eyebrow, or say “dude”. It’s alarming and just won’t do anymore. I’ll be forty in less than half a year and I really don’t want to do any more metamorphasising. I know this is heresy but I think comfort zones are a good thing and I want to be a proper old lady like my gran one day, with sensible shoes, silver hair in a bun and a mauve twinset.
The Radium’s got Soaks and Estate Agents and Okes and things, no alarms and no surprises you know? Nothing to aspire to. Very comfy. The worst that can happen at the Radium is that I’ll sing. But Carfax? Elder daughter’s a drummer, see, so if anything sidles up persuasively in a death-metal hoody (or whatever they wear there) and says, “Dude…”, then she can fend it off. She’s taller than me, which helps, and her drumsticks can double as stakes. Ha ha.
Lark is demanding and very loud and schitzophrenic, and brilliant. Lark is not warm and fuzzy (although a quarter of it is actually Fuzzy, on bass, sometimes double bass nogal), not comfortable, and doesn’t invite you to put your feet up and have coffee. It might be a portal of some sort, it sounds like a hall of mirror doors, and the diva from The 5th Element lives behind one of them.

Stardust the movie is coming soon to a theatre near you, but read the book first if you can. The blurb says something about it being a fairytale for grownups, and I suppose maybe it is but I resent that description although my brain’s too tired at the moment to explain why. Some of the main bookshops have it in stock, and all of the comic shops do, so it’s pretty easy to get hold of. There are Big Names in the movie, does that mean it’ll be a good movie though? It’s bound to piss a few rabid fans off as these things do, but on the whole I’m almost prepared to bet the farm that it’ll be a great escape.

Flipside # 1

There’s a downside to having teen kids in the house. No, let me rephrase that: there are downsides to having teen kids in the house. But some of the downsides have flipsides that are actually upsides.

Like, music. Thanks to them, I have been exposed to a lot of music that I wouldn’t have heard had they not been living in my house. Much of this exposure has been traumatic, but some of it has been numinous. They call it “Mom’s musical education”, as though I have none, but I am glad of it when it brings me things like Lark, and Regina Spektor.

Music lives, despite what my grandfather predicted. Even though he would not agree.

In recovery... all apologies

I have survived another festive season and lived to tell the tale. Was mightily amused by so many people's shock-horror response to the fact that instead of Merry Christmas all over the place we now have Happy Holidays and Festive Greetings. They are feeling marginalised and unholy. They should be glad, instead, that the Silent Night version of Christmas is thus unhooked from commerce's global Santa Baby version.

Made New Year resolutions: Stop smoking, drink only 1 glass of wine per day, stop complaining. Stupid to make those kinds of resolutions anyhow. Scratch resolutions.
Revised resolution: listen to classical music properly. With headphones on. Stop insulting genius by turning it into background music. Buy proper CDs, and not compilations. Get to properly know at least three composers deeply this year. As opposed to sticking the compilation CD in the tray and thinking, well this is so nice, but never knowing what it is. I got a Grieg CD, and was amazed to find that I know all this music, I just didn't know it was him. That is terrible. Soundproof room if necessary, to block out ever-pervasive Greenday/nirvana/system-of-a-down/etc which is downside of having fifteen and seventeen-year-old kids and all their strange friends in house. Is this music good for them? I know, I know, if it's too loud you're too old but it's the content that bothers me more. Oh really? So Nine Inch Nails and White Zombie et al was all peace love and flowers back then or what? Resolution addendum: remember that you also listened to stuff that freaked people out and had them convinced you were turning into a sociopath. Resolution addendum addendum: Stop worrying about kids so much, they will be fine. Just hide the NIN and WZ where kids can't find them so can't copy them secretly. Mental Note: Secretly borrow Nirvana etc when kids are out, and copy.

I found this on my fridge:

I
wish
I
could
fly
with
a
little
music
and
go
mad

The magnetic poetry has been there since I can’t remember when – I don’t know how all those small blue words survived, with moving so many times; and small nephews; puppies; careless mops and such. It’s become part of the kitchen scenery, odd little conglomerations of words, which fall off and get slapped back on again to read things like, “friend by dream give dance summer”.
So when I read, “I wish I could fly with a little music and go mad” while getting the milk, I had a little leap of faith because someone has been consciously making poems on the fridge while getting the milk. This makes me happy. Besides, it’s a lovely poem. I get that poem, I really get it. In fact, that’s what led to my revised New Year’s resolution.

A happy belated new year to everyone, let’s see what comes.
Welcome Beeb (sis, is that you?) :-)