Aggghhh I’m becoming addicted to iTunes.

I seem to be buying more and more music lately, and with sites like www.last.fm and myspace it’s become more and more easy to find great bands or artists and more and more difficult not to buy music. This evening I have bought two albums one called ‘Waking the Mystics’ by Sophe Lux, the second ‘Fox Confessor Brings the Flood’ by Neko Case. (Si, she’s not Japanese or a cat). I found Neko Case by Last.fm recommending her and Sophe Lux sent a friend invitation through myspace. The trouble is both are very good and I ended buying both from iTunes. Great music is now only 2 mouse clicks away. You don‘t have to make a trip to town and suffer crowds and idiots it just there.
I have recently brought the following


Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case (Country)

Waking the Mystics by Sophe Lux (She seems to have a toned down Tori Amos/Kate Bush/Bjork thing going on )

Remnants of a Deeper Purity by Black Tape for a Blue Girl (Dead can Dance stylings surprisingly they’re not produced by 4AD)

Has a good home by Final Fantasy (Crap name but a great violinist somewhere between Seth Lakeman and Badly Drawn Boy (yes I know Badly Drawn boy is not a violinist but it's same sort of thing) )

Gravity’s Rainbox by Klaxons (Okish Rock I won’t by buying more)

The Worst of Jefferson Airplane by Jefferson Airplane (Old but still good)

The Silver Tree by Lisa Gerrad (Excellent to listen to when writing Mind-Dribblely blogs. The songs get my mind in the right place)

What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong (Obviously a vital addition to all music collections)

I have bought all these in the past month. And there’s always more great music to find.

And as soon as Alpiano gets it together and releases Alphino’s Lens Flare that’ll be added too!
Above my Last.fm recommendation for this week and I'm think of buying a Joanna Newsom album next. Click Click oops T'is Done!!

This Green and Pleasant Land

I walk down street and hear a couple of old people saying that when they were young everything was better, a bygone age sepia tinged and nostalgic.
As I walk on my senses are assaulted by 12 year olds drinking, swearing and smoking. Cars lit up garish, rush by. Radios beat out their music to the world. I worry I’m getting old myself and don’t understand the ‘youth of today’. Then I look back 2 decades to when I was 12 I never drank or swore in public, even the bad kids had some respect for their teachers, now it seems teachers can’t go five minutes without been sworn at.

I wonder why.

I walk on passed the Off Licence where fake ID’s excuses and protestations of innocence are all rejected, they swear and leave empty handed. Where are their parents, why does the manager have to risk his job because of these urchins and their parents lack of control?

I walk on by the police station that closes at 5, thieves knowing the nearest car is 15 miles away, but there probably PCs inside filling in forms in triplicate just because they stopped some yobs wrecking a bus-stop.

I walk on out into the country and see rundown farms next to cottages only used at the weekend, Range-Rover in the drive. I look over at the farm and between the decaying buildings the farmer’s children play, the farmer and his wife look on, they worry about bills and the fact they’ll be the last generation to farm this land. Their children could cannot afford to carry on the tradition and live in this rural idyll as they have for generations past.* I walk back to town, enough of this bleakness, I return home and then onto the pub, with it’s friendly staff and my good friends, whose talk of Sci-fi, goblins and life in general lift my spirits, sometimes deep winding conversations about life or maybe a frivolous subject of whimsy about nothing or flit back between each whatever the subject are always interesting, all this on a Friday night, I forget about the ignorance and idiocy outside and enjoy my pint. Why would I want to swap this for night-clubs deafening music and drunken punch up.

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* I was intending to add in at this point a political aspect to the this piece although I tried to add it in several ways and spent the best part of an hour trying, but I couldn’t get it to feel right, So I’m going to make the point in straight essay form…
It seems to me that a lot the problems occurring today a to do the lack of respect people have with the government. If we have no respect for our leaders, then how can respect be gained for other authority figures. 2 million people marched against the War in Iraq, the government plagiarised a 10 year old graduate thesis on WMD to browbeat it own MPs into agreeing and we are still there now, we shouldn‘t stay as it not our country but we can‘t leave because of the mess made.

The control they want over aspects of public life doesn’t mean thing are getting better. They won’t allow people to use their on judgement gained though years of experience. I know from friends and my own personal experience as well as reading blogs linked above, that the police and healthcare services are in decline, one of which a government minister called the author a liar, I know who I would trust. I going to stop now before I bore you all, but one last point about the depth of which spin and marketing (lying) has sunk. On the London Tube they now have a recorded announcement to inform us passengers that the Service is Good, why do we need an announcement for this, we don’t all announce that were at work today it’s expected, this should be the norm, the norm doesn’t need to be announced.
Anyway that’s all for now.

Morning

A swan glided out the mist as if a ghost, illuminated by the first rays of the morning light serenity made real, cool grey blanket covers the landscape deadening sounds so only the gentle splashing of the river as it spills over pebble and through reed-bed can be heard.
In the distance trees look black as if frozen, made of granite; the standing stones of nature. Below a heard of cow wait, sleeping until the warmth of the day returns. Though this scene she glides.
In the distance a lone fisherman walks across the field towards the waterline though the swirling mists he fades in and out of vision, ethereal.
The swan startled by this leaves the river and fly off breaking the peace of the morning, wings thrash and water splashes up though the mist she flies gaining height, powerful wings beating down.

Suddenly she breaks though mist, from seeing nothing but grey monochrome the world is full of colour.
Below the landscape looks covered in cotton-wool but, above the sun now bright shines in a cloudless azure sky.
Hills and building burst though the mists into the clear looking like islands and rocky shoals, the warmth of sun on her back brings a deep longing for home, the north, tundra and midnight sun. Decision made she turns north, below in the world of grey the only sign of her passage is her wingbeats as travels on back to her homeland.

Cool Video art seqences

Just a short post today to let everyone know I'm still posting... I just found these Video art squences

http://www.glumbert.com/media/pictureday

or this on the same theme

http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/me

and one on Love and Fear.

http://members.shaw.ca/yofrizb/

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Likes and Dislikes

I was reading the IMDB forum for the film Amelie. One the threads there was about naming 3 slightly unusual things you like and dislike, as the film does when introducing the characters.

Mine are...

Likes
Night walks, where if the moon is full everything is coated with a silver lustre and the world looks magical or if not you can see the milky-way and thousands of stars.

Lying in bed, safe, while a storm rages.

The smell made when the first raindrop hit the ground after a dry spell.

Dislikes
The sound of Nylon fabric rubbing against itself, it sends shivers down my spine.

Things being destoryed that maybe of some use. Hence I tend to hoarde stuff.

Closed minded people who never listen to other people's points of view.