Unreliable information since 1972
This is now indelibly drawn onto my left thigh. Which is nice. The endorphins rather wore off on the train home, which was less pleasant, as I had to stand the whole way back. It was only half an hour, but I could have done without it just then, you know?
Still, I think we can file today under “win”.
As in: the absolute certainty that an external entity whose nature you cannot define has just reached inside you, and switched something around such that your comprehension of the world and your place in it can never, ever, be the same again?
I have, once, about five years back. It’s not something you’ll ever get me to talk about. I have my suspicions as to what it really was was, but nonetheless, the easiest definition of it is a religious experience. I firmly believe that no-one who hasn’t had that Damascene moment has any business claiming to have “faith” in a damn thing, because what they’re doing is believing in a Sky Daddy because someone told them to, not because they genuinely feel it. (Actually, I think that even people who have had a moment like that are believing in a Sky Daddy, but I digress – tonight’s topic is not the nature of faith.)
The reason I bring it up is that I am back from a My Bloody Valentine gig. It was not a religious experience. But it was as close to an artificially induced one as I have ever come.
I have been to an awful lot of gigs, by many different kinds of band. I have been to extreme metal nights. I have been to quiet folk nights. I have been chemically off my tits at dance nights. I have left gigs and clubs going “that was awesome!” and “wow!” and “fucking brilliant!” I have never, ever before left a gig shaking slightly, and needing to take a few minutes on autopilot while I got my brain back up to full cognition because the sound had obliterated all concious thought for the ten minutes before.
I know and love the vibration of heavy bass. This was not that. This was, sound as full body immersion, sound as a physical thing, as a taste. It has almost certainly changed my relationship with music in the same way that eating Heston Blumenthal’s cooking changed my relationship with food.
Yes, it’s all explicable as “sensory overload”. That’s exactly what it was. Sound, and sound alone having the same effect as drugs. Here, then, is my question: why have I not seen a band outside of MBV doing this? Why can I not go to a gig like that more than once in 15 years?
I have just started re-reading HST’s The Great Shark Hunt (after finishing a book about him, I thought I’d re-read something by him), and I come across this piece of writing from “Fear and Loathing In The Bunker”, first published in the New York Times, talking about the Nixon administration.
“It has been a failure of such monumental proportions that political apathy is no longer considered fashionable, or even safe, among millions of people who only two years ago thought that anybody who disagreed openly with “the Government” was either paranoid or subversive. Political candidates, in 1974 at least, are going to have to deal with angry, disillusioned electorate that is not likely to settle for flag-waving and pompous bullshit.”
This would seem to me to be the difference between 1974 and now, politically speaking: I just don’t have it in me to be convinced that any US presidential campaign isn’t all “flag-waving and pompous bullshit”, or that the majority of the American electorate are clever enough to tell the difference between that and policy that will actually make a difference.
There’s a five questions meme doing the rounds. Ask away, if you can be arsed.
Firefox 3 is out today. I endorse this product, and as per, exhort you all to give up IE which will only give you scabies, and replace it with a proper browser. Added bonus for me – version 3 finally looks like a Mac app, which is nice, although I do not have to wait until all my extensions are upgraded before I can feel like my internet experience isn’t slightly crippled.
Dinner tonight was something I’d been looking forward to all day: wildebeest on ciabatta bread with balsamic onions and mushrooms as a sort of relish and mixed peppery leaves. Verdict: pleasant, but it turns out to be rather more delicately flavoured than I’d been lead to believe – I was told “gamey lamb with the texture of beef” , which is about right, but it kind of got swamped by the marinade, leaves and onion/mushroom not-relish thing. Too much going on. I’ve got another steak, also marinaded, but it’s too late to do anything about that now, which I’m just going to cook and eat on its own tomorrow, and see what I think then.
The Tate Modern has a “Street Art” Exhibition on at the moment, and as part of it, they’ve got a variety of artists to decorate the building, and various bits of Bankside. This is one of the pieces, that I just adored for the fantastic perspective, the way is makes one thing look like another, and just the beautiful 50s-SF feel.