Share the Joy

Poor old cliff is going to lose his income.  It’s a conundrum.  Copyright and patents have time limitations so as to let other people have a go.  If Cliff hadn’t given us “congratulations”, someone else’s tune would have filled the spot.  That tune is out there now, but we haven’t heard it.  But this is what Cliff lives off.  You could argue that he should have piled more into a pension scheme or something.  He’s become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and he’d quite reasonably like it to continue unabaited until he shuffles off this mortal coil.  This situation speaks to a general issue about artists.  We need them.  Life would be less fulfilling without those breathless, out-of-control moments when we are absorbed by a painting, a pop tune, or a startling sculpture.  Is it just another job?  I dunno.  We need these guys to be able to relax – or stress – into the right state of mind to produce these things of whatever form which give us so much.  But they burn out, or lose something, and then what?  I don’t know the answer, but I reckon it’s worth thinking about, and it should be discussed more because it’s an important part of being human.

Should anyone get the Robbie Williams lifestyle?  It’s probably necessary to the production of those magnificent choonz (and odd bit of utter crap here and there).  Maybe there’s nothing special about art – it’s just another staple, like a really good recipe.  Eggs benedict anyone – who gets the royalties for that?  I don’t begrudge cliff his money, but it’s not clear anyone deserves a life of luxury.  But I want one, of course.   Maybe there’s no single clear answer.

Bought it on Friday and I’ve just beaten Freebird on expert.  The jelly roolz!  YYZ was awesome – that’s the first one of the ones I didn’t 5-star (that would be the utterly vast majority of them then) that I’m going to go back to and try for the five.

Badda-bing! (grins)

If you get brown patches on your lawn where your dog pees, feed it a small amount of ketchup or tomato puree/juice in its meals. I do not have a dog, but I have the latest issue of new scientist and a google. Theories seem to focus on the control of pH levels of the urine, but there is some emphasis on female dogs and the notion of an enzyme being involved. That’s awl I have to say about thayat.

The opening titles are grey on white, listing hints of what is to come. A sense of subtle derangement builds through the openning act, accompanied by infrequent percurssion and physical distractions. The main story is one of dispair and anguish as life passes the main character by, regardless of duties, desires, cares and worries. The supporting cast is heroic, somehow nourishing the lead, yet many can’t help themselves, sinking into a sympathetic pattern, repeating the same mistakes later. The ending is tortuous, but ultimately satisfying as our hero bounds into a new life full of challenges and rewards. They’re apparently working on a sequel but the release date depends on too many people to predict.

I have a stinking cold, and am therefore stuck at home watching DVDs.  Hence the Buffalo 66 review.  Hadn’t seen it before.  Forrest Gump I have seen before.  Yes. (oh, c’mon, yoda duh.)  I completely and utterly dig this movie.  I feel mentally retarded right now with a head full of phlegm and no energy.  I’d like a box of chocolates.

If you’ve steered away from the movie, know that Tom isn’t mocking people who were served more frugally with intelligence.  Forrest is a character you can love.  There’s not a mean bone in his body, and that’s something to be valued.  A good story with swooping joy and crashing tradgedy, with an air of innocence and sense of searching throughout.

Interesting movie somehow.  Christina Ricci helps – an amazingly luscious feminine presence throughout.  She’s there as Layla to emphasize the single-minded drive of Vincent Gallo’s Billy Brown to effect revenge on the man who – by a circuitous route of Billy’s own making – landed him in jail.  Billy’s Mom (played by Jessica Houston) is a cartoon/mentally shattered character who only notices Billy when the plot needs lubrication.  Billy’s father notices Christina, just like the audience.  Interestingly, there’s an early instance of Matrix-like bullet time, but executed using carefully crafted plastic sculpture and actors holding their breath.  Very very good, that bit.  Billy seeing the light was about at swift and unlikely as Darth Vader seeing the dark in espisode III.  Good movie, I think.

A friend died of liver cancer very recently.  Idealy we would have solved the problem of cancer by now, but it’s very very hard.  There are many reasons for this.  A new reason has been clearly identified: cancers evolve during their growth, in effect to counteract attempts at therapy.  This is an example of the potential for genuine harm to be done by the insistence by some religious groups that there is no such thing as evolution.  If we all thought that way, we would not fight the cancer that’s there – we’d fight some dumbed-down version that we were happy about conceptualizing.

Last night, I beat “Bark at the Moon” on expert. It’s been bugging me for weeks now, I think. It might not really be that long, but it feels like it. “Cowboys from Hell” fell much more easily, and I’ve beaten it again since. “Bark” took the biscuit, though. There’s a bit at the end of the main solo that I still can’t really do, but got through using star power. I think it was 74% of notes hit, and the score just shy of 100k. The reward was a battle axe guitar. Shiny!

The trick, it would seem, is to relax. Just like when you play a real instrument! I don’t know about you lot out there, but I can’t get pull-offs to work properly except for simple trills. Everywhere else I strum (both ways, of course) all the way through. Don’t be afraid of flying fingers – if you’ve unlocked the last group of songs on expert, you’re up to it. Hmm. This has turned into an advice tranche.

OK, bring on Guitar Hero 2!

RAWK!!!!!!

St Hilda’s College at my alma mater is going mixed. The last women-only college in Oxford has given in to PC madness. Some reckon it’s done it’s bit by getting women into education. I guess there’s no doubt about that. But what about those late night flights before the gate is locked, or a bashful encounter with the lodge in tow behind one’s more suitably gendered companion? It was bad enough when Somerville went – we lost a great pool table there (no-one used to use it!) “Bah!” I say, and “humbug!”

Quoting an article you might read, which I find interesting:
“If you would even consider filing a malpractice suit against a doctor who made a mistake in treating you, or suing a pharmaceutical company that didn’t conduct all the proper control tests before selling you a drug that harmed you, you must acknowledge your tacit appreciation of the high standards of rational inquiry to which the medical world holds itself, and yet you continue to indulge in a practice for which there is no known rational justification at all, and take yourself to be actually making a contribution. (Try to imagine your outrage if a pharmaceutical company responded to your suit by blithely replying “But we prayed good and hard for the success of the drug! What more do you want?”)”

This is an emotive excerpt – you need to read the context before you can comment on it. Just in case Echo gets here, let me politely point out an unwritten house rule that comments are brief for the purpose of conversation, rather than construction of a monologue. I check everything that comes in for propriety and brevity before it’s posted: I don’t edit, but do discard things.