The Middle Years (2006-2009)

Six years ago, I wrote something in an e-mail to my friend Raj about the increasing divergence of the British and American music scenes, but the fact that no British artist had topped the American singles chart in 9 years (until James Blunt came in with “You’re Beautiful”) was still pretty surprising to me.

Me and Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi (yes, us Tomorrow editors sometimes are just one small clique) once talked about the idea of capturing the stories of migrant workers in Singapore, recording interviews with Filipino maids and Bangladeshi workers and so on as a podcast. Young men, young women, each with their lives and dreams and flaws and desires… what must they think of this city?

Random quick thought: the Italian equivalent of “pottering around” is “dolce far niente” - “sweet doing-nothing”. Far more poetic a thing to be doing.

Dir. Ang Lee Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway To begin with: Brokeback Mountain isn’t a gay cowboy movie. The lead characters herd sheep, ergo it’s perhaps more accurately termed a gay shepherd movie. But that common shorthand for the movie says a lot about our icons of masculinity and the extent to which we start off viewing Brokeback through that specific lens, before the film engrosses you in its great tragic love story.

Wahey! Clearing out my room today, I looked at the Chinese New Year Toto (lottery) ticket that I’d bought, and was about to put it in the recycling when I looked at the numbers again and realised that I’d won $20. Hey, not a bad return for a spur-of-the-moment investment. And that’s two years in a row I’ve won.

Ah, my 28th birthday. I had a couple of very pleasant surprises, including this lovely classic bouquet that arrived at my door: Then I had a huge dinner with the ‘rents at Mamma Lucia Churrascaria, which had incredible tender cuts of meat fit for an aging carnivore like myself. (I’m too lazy to write a review, so I’ll just link to the Travelling Hungryboy’s one.) Then I hit my friend Maryanne’s party - ah, the good thing about having a friend with the same birthday is not having to organise things. All in all, a good 24 Feb.

Those of you who follow baseball might know of the phenomenon of the “age 27 season”, where a baseball player reaches the age of 27 and suddenly he blossoms. Presumably that’s the age where you learn enough about the sport’s intricacies and where you acquire wisdom, while your body remains strong enough to really take advantage of what you know.

On the use of Popperian philosophy in discussions of science What the hell was Ron Jeremy doing at the Asian Excellence Awards? Using hip-hop to help learn SAT vocabulary words (“flocabulary”) - useful? Or naff? The Electric Company is released on DVD.

The compressed grammar of headlines can create weird misunderstandings, such as in the case of this one from the AP: “Man Shot by Cheney Leaving Hospital”. Man - it’s bad enough that Cheney put the man in, now he gets him when he’s leaving. “I told you to stay inside!”

Meanwhile, ngader informs me of the online Johari Window for personality awareness… so for those of you that know me (on and off line) here’s mine to fill in - always interesting to see how one is perceived. Thus far, apparently, “witty” seems to be the leading quality…

There’s a certain pleasure in reading reviews of very bad movies - everyone can gush, but good sniping is great when it’s unleashed. Here’s an excerpt from the Film Threat one on Date Movie:

Because if you know me, you know I like eclectic covers. So here’s my top 10 of the last month: José González singing Kylie Minogue’s “Hand On Your Heart”, which I think is great. (Thanks NPR!) Seems like something only a European indie singer would do - do Americans even know the early oeuvre of just-out-of-“Neighbours” Kylie? Ah, the days of Stock Aitken and Waterman. Scissor Sisters’ version of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out”. Bringing out the lounge essence of the song. Ryan Adams finally deigning to do Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ‘69” (after famously getting into a snit about the Bryan/Ryan Adams confusion) (gets in a nice snipe at Bryan: “There was no way that he wrote that song / Motherfucker’s only 53”) Cat Power and Karen Elson, “I Love You (Me Either)” - an English version of Serge Gainsbourg’s incredibly louche “Je T’aime Moi… Non Plus” - still with heavy breathing and innuendo-filled lyrics. Jill Sobule and Warren Zevon dueting on Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes” (man, I love covers of this song…) Ben Gibbard doing Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” and sustains the ironic singing throughout. I like the joking at the end “the thing about that song that I love, I don’t know what’s that complicated. Like, it seems pretty cut and dry.” Dashboard Confessional and Michael Stipe doing Dashboard Confessional’s own “Hands Down”. José González’s take on Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” - showing that González can do something other than the restrained (I take it that is the Swede in him) folk. Belle and Sebastian doing a live version of the Smiths’ “The Boy With the Thorn In His Side”. You’d think Belle and Sebastian covering the Smiths would equate “songs to slit your wrist to”, but they actually cover it with gusto. Heather Nova’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”. All heat, all desire.

Playing around with the MyHeritage “which celebrity do you resemble” site, I got the following matches for 2 different pictures I put in: Yao Ming 59% Luciano Pavarotti 51% David Lloyd George 50%

Hmm, I’ve read two references to Aaron Burr in two days - isn’t it weird when some random thing gets repeated? First, the Chronic of Narnia SNL video (“Call us Aaron Burr from the way we’re dropping Hamiltons”), which proves that, even when it’s largely dreck, SNL every now and then comes up with a gem. And then Dick Cheney shoots a man, leading to this droll quote from the Washington Post’s White House reporter Peter Baker:

Some day, when I’m awfully low, When the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you And the way you look tonight.

The concept of terroir as it applies to chocolate. Pete Doherty writes from prison. (His take on Louis Armstrong: “I see my true love / On a Rimmel advert”) How to buy an Oscar. Chris Mooney maintains a good blog on the intersection of science and politics at the Intersection.

Sorry to whoever tagged me… I’ve been busy, yeah. But here goes. 4 jobs you’ve had in your life Travel writer (amazing job) Research assistant (on race relations in Crown Heights, Brooklyn) Assistant Director, Strategic Planning Assistant Director, Air (climate change work - can’t complain) 4 movies you could watch over and over

Those of you who know me may know that for all my indie-rock / house / hip-hop music DJing experience, the music I go back to is soul music: Motown, Stax, Atlantic, that sort of thing. (And if anyone wants to give me a soul/funk DJing gig, just leave a comment…) So it intrigued me to learn that they’re doing a new movie based on the last years of Marvin Gaye - I just read Trouble Man, Steve Turner’s excellent biography of Gaye, and the last three years are a really tumultuous, sad period. And I can definitely see some resemblance between Jesse L. Martin and Gaye. But can Detective Ed Green hit that incredible falsetto? I vaguely remember Martin doing some sort of piano sequence as Dr Greg Butters in “Ally McBeal”.

This is seriously obsessive: heartonastick charted all the top 10 votes in various MP3 blogs (there’s even an Excel spreadsheet to download) and concluded that, unsurprisingly in a world dominated by the indie kids, the top 3 albums of last year were Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, the Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary, and Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm.

Surrealist Keystone Kops moment of the day: ate a banana, threw away the banana peel in the bin, walked out of the bathroom, and promptly slipped and fell. Now there’s silent comedy.