"when the wind blows..."

I think I was about the only one who saw the movie Moonlight Mile a few years ago. It's a beautiful film, and the fact that I've watched it dozens of times over the years and still manage to take something away from it only confirms this.

I put it on to while away some time in bed the other day and have been caught up in the haunting Vietnam-era soundtrack ever since. I've always been nostalgic for eras that were never mine, but these songs all stir up such a mood. The one that I especially can't get out my head is this ballad by the Rolling Stones, which the movie lifted as its title, "Moonlight Mile."

Enjoy!

swinging the blues

Retro-themed parties with live music are the best. Attended a party of this variety for the opening of Charlotte Street Blues in Fitzrovia. Award-winning Blues singer (including an award from Sundance!), Otis Taylor, took the stage as the audience sat rather mesmerized.


Behold the flapper version of me behind the bar, with barman Eddie, who walked me through the making of my own Mint Julep. Oooh! Cheers!

a girl like you...

"Whistle for the Choir" is a song I'd like to think the Fratelli's wrote just for me... I smile every time I hear it.

Below is a ridiculous youtube video version (argh! sometimes the issue of living in the UK) - it's got a nice, happy, melancholic sound... Enjoy!

post tempest

So I owe you all an epilogue... to the day I was sending "goodbye - have a nice flight" emails to Kasey that had her thinking I was going to end up floating in the Thames rather than at the Fed-Ex office when all was said and done.

Well, I made it. Miraculously...truly miraculously... since I have no idea how I figured it out, but I did... I finally got the DVD to burn. I stumbled out of my warehouse and onto the DLR... at last emerging in Mayfair - looking like a slumrat compared to all the coiffed business beauties walking around me.

With the help of a hairdresser (who, no doubt, wanted me out of his posh shop) I found Kinkos/Fed-Ex... and the lovely people there seemed to take it all in stride... they're obviously accustomed to dealing with frazzled sleep-deprived Americans who treat their streamlined office with its "next day" guarantees like some kind of Mecca-sanctuary.

I put the DVD into an envelope. I marked it "for cultural use" and "of no commercial value" (ha), then kissed it goodbye.

Could all that have happened within a matter of hours? From "I'm never going to leave this horrendous industrial building" to "thank you kindly dear Fed-Ex man for taking my large sum of money and promising me my parcel will make it to Paris in time"? Crazy.

And afterwards, despite my sleepless exhaustion, I decided to walk back to my apartment. It was an unusally warm and beautifully pleasant day in London. I strolled through St. James Park, which was tingling and vibrant with the life of spring grass and blooming flowers, and then past Buckingham Palace, where I watched tourists taking souvenir pics as proof that once - once - they had seen this royal residence that I live in walking distance from...

With some trepidation, I arrived at my building, only to find myself immediately holding the door open for somebody who was serendipitously leaving (and who seemed as grateful for my chivalrous gesture as I was for their exit). I retrieved the keys Kasey had left me from my flat's mail slot. Then I rode the elevator upstairs and let myself into my little space, where I looked out over all the roof tops and an ancient church's steeple from my room's balcony and sighed relief.

What a fuss. What a wonderful fuss... for something that worked out in the end... as it always tends to... Can you see forever on a clear day? Probably not, but if the clear day follows a storm, you can certainly sense, touch, breathe, something like bliss.

I've been meaning to post a song from the Australian artist, Lenka, ever since the Sundance Film Festival, when I saw her at the Music Cafe. For some reason, it seems appropriate to attach one to this post. This particular song is called The Show and, besides the hoppy melody, the lyric "it's a joke, nobody knows, they've got a ticket to the show" strikes a major chord with me. But my favourite part is when she sings "I want my money back..." - referring to life, of course. Ha. As if - no? But sometimes, don't we all...?

Enjoy!

(I pre-apologise for the lame 'sing-a-long' version of this... it's the only youtube link they will let me play here in the UK... feel free to look up the actual video if you're in the States!)

London Fashion Aftermath

For those of you unimpressed by my "fashion" coverage of London Fashion Week, I bring to you a peace offering. And in this case, I have an affinity for the models that doesn't involve pity, not simply because they look like healthy functioning individuals, but also since one of them happens to be my sister Kasey (seen above).

This past weekend, post-facial, post-procrastination, and post- a-wee-bit-of-protest, Kasey helped our friend Bosaina (the 2nd) by posing in Ms. BII's inaugural collection for her label basbousa. Find the full photo spread here.

Probably because I'm much more of a music person than I am a clothes person, I'm particularly fond of the resulting video... this is set to a great tune (Johnny Thunder's version of a A Great Big Kiss), plus watching Kasey speed-walk in heels is oddly endearing and amusing. I've pasted it below.

P.S. - Just to make it perfectly clear, in the parting shot, Kasey is NOT naked... just wearing a corset that didn't quite make it into the frame. (And that comment totally made all the guys in the audience rush to click on the clip - didn't it?)

Enjoy!

Step Right Up Ladies & Gentlemen!

Here's a link to a video of The Feeling's latest single Join with Us. I like the song as much for its melody, which touches on being Beatlesque circa Magical Mystery Tour, as I do for the optimistic call-to-action lyrics and the resulting music video with its nods to Surrealism (the apropos parting shot is also a bonus - you'll see).

If you can't be bothered to look at the video, well, at least peruse the lyrics, which I've pasted below. Perhaps after reading them, you'll decide you can be bothered to watch the video.

Enjoy!


Join with Us
Half Past Eight
And you're late
Coffee's cold
What a state
They've dragged you down
Fate's got you scraped
Work to death
Can't you turn them words around

Is it really what you want?
Is it really what you need?
Is it really what you choose?

My, dear...?

Is it really what you want?
Is it really what you need?
Is it really what you choose?

The world is in your hands
The world is in your hands
The world belongs to those of us who still believe we can
And it matters what you do
Though they all look down on you
'Cause it's better that you've come from nothing,
Than nothing comes from you

Come with us
Come with us
Join with us
Join with us

Don't make a sound
Count your pennies
Count your pounds
There's no way out
What will you do,
When all love gives up on you?
Can't turn around

Is it really what you want?
Is it really what you need?
Is it really what you choose?

Uh oh

The world is in your hands
The world is in your hands
The world belongs to those of us who still believe we can
And it matters what you do
Though they all look down on you
'Cause it's better that you've come from nothing,
Than nothing comes from you

Come with us
Come with us
Join with us
Join with us

We've got a place and it's here for you
For all we ever wanted was a different view
I never knew somebody lived with so much pain
If you open your heart come with us and we'll take you away

Come with us
Come with us
Join with us
Join with us

- by The Feeling

Montjuïc & The Font Màgica

At the base of Montjuic there lies a magic fountain that is dry most on the time, but on certain nights, is infused with water and life and musica.



The illuminated water ballet totally made up for the fact that I didn't see fireworks on the Fourth this year.






Short video (30 seconds) I took... just to give you a diminutive idea...



All of it...








...pure phantasma.

The Soundtrack of My Life...

There are usually three songs in my head. It's not to be helped. That's just the way it is. One is usually just a poppy piece of fluff, playing on rotation because it's catchy - no other reason. The other two usually have relevance to whatever is going on in my life. I've got a constant score underpinning each of my movements; every major event, every mundane train ride.

It also means I have this absolutely ravenous appetite for new music; once I've associated a bit of melody with something in particular, it's ruined for me, it belongs to a certain point in time and I've got to move on, the song is retired from my mental play list - revived only for a nostalgic reprise.

As a result, I'm constantly absorbing new songs to satiate my soundtrack. My consumption of music can be outrightly gluttonous; I'll down entire albums without stopping to breathe - memorizing every lyric and nuanced guitar note as I go along.

So late late last night I opened my mailbox and found a birthday package from my friend Dianne. Contents: Card & two (2!!) CDs. I was ecstatic. I immediately unwrapped and loaded the first, A Fine Frenzy's One Cell in the Sea, into my computer.

Just from the look of the Fine Frenzy girl, I liked her right away. She had fiery red hair of the colour mine had been a few years ago, and her style was that of my ideal-self.

Not far into my first-listen, I paused. Was she saying what I thought she was? Yes. Looking at the liner notes - yes. The words too-perfect. The lyrics too-applicable.

Incredible. Truly. (I swear, Dianne has this uncanny sixth-sense unintentional knack for giving me all-too-appropriate albums to reflect my current circumstances. How does she do it??)

I encourage you all to also check out Ms. Alison Sudol of A Fine Frenzy. Perhaps One Cell in the Sea is nothing like the soundtrack for your life, but it's beautiful and slightly melancholy in a way I think we can all relate.

As for me, I've already committed the whole of the album to memory. It will be playing in my head all week.

Why the Wind-Up Bird Sings

Right now, I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami (highly recommended - and I'm a near-impossible sell on contemporary fiction).

In the novel, there's a scene in a bar where a guitar player follows-up his crooning with a diatribe about the grand purpose behind a musician's work. He says it's about empathy. Music encourages you to feel what the composer feels. Or how he wants you to feel. Swells of joy. Stabs of understanding for loss or loneliness. Literally, takes you from wherever emotional place you might be, and puts you somewhere else, even if just for a moment.

It was something I'd never thought of it quite like that before. The idea that music evokes empathy. Perhaps I can count that as one more reason I like music so much? I think the world could use more empathy.

So in an appropriate, yet unintended, accompaniment to that scene from the novel, Kasey and I attended our friend Oli's show last night. He gave a gregarious, unrestrained performance despite a scratchy throat and feelings of faintness (this is a candid photo of him reaching for yet another "cough sweet." He refused to properly pose with his box of berry-flavored strepsils - typical musician).

As Oli and the other artists in the night's lineup performed, I noticed how each song conjured up different thoughts, different memories, led me to different states of mind. It further convinced me that Mr. Murakami's guitarist is quite right: a musician is a magician whose magic is empathy.

And I thought how nice it is, that there are people out there who are willing to make themselves vulnerable before a crowd, barring even illness, simply so they can fill a room with sounds from a range of chords, just to make us feel something.