Pictures of A Town
Mar 23, 2004 · 1 minute read
Sunday afternoon can’t last forever
Mar 22, 2004 · 1 minute readDay 4: In Which The Writer Gets Bored Of This Silly Device And Resolves Not To Use It Tomorrow.
Aptly, today was a day of rest. The rest of the house got back around 4am, but soon went to sleep after a hard night's drinking. I managed to get an impressive amount of rest, eventually waking up at 10am. After I'd been up for an hour or so, the others began to stir. Slowly. Everybody was a little worse for wear, so it took quite a considerable time for people to get up and dressed.
We all traipsed off to Franklin Street for breakfast/okay-if-we-were-being-honest-it-was-lunch, and well, that's been about it for the day. Bought a staple gun. Worked out how to use it. Stood around the back of the Chrysler Garage like an idiot for about half-an-hour while freezing (the sun disappeared and all the warmth went away).
And this evening, home-made nachos with Kavi, Michelle, and Kavi's old roommate Cat, whereupon I explained the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. Then, an hour and a half attempting to blow up an air mattress with a hairdryer. It looks okay, but it sags in the middle a little…
Trapped In A World He Never Made!
Mar 20, 2004 · 4 minute readDay 2: In Which Our Hero Is An Idiot.
I was going to be good, and get the magazine that Bonnie wanted at Southpoint Mall. So I hopped on the bus in the morning, and headed off. It was only when I stepped off the bus at the mall itself that I remembered that they changed the schedules last year, so that there were no more buses until mid-afternoon; just after three.
It was 10am. I was stuck there for five hours.
I wandered. Bought Bonnie's things. Wandered. Went into the Apple Store and pulled myself away from the shiny things. Wandered. Had lunch. Wandered. Wandered some more. Cursed myself for being an idiot.
At around two o'clock, Laura phoned, wanting to know if I wanted to watch Friends with her and Leigh. I explained my little predicament, and they came to pick me up. We then went around the mall a little more; Leigh showed me where she worked (where they have nice samples), and Laura decided that she would try out all the massage chairs in the Innovations-like shop. Leigh and I actually had to pull her out when it was time to leave, she was that relaxed. And I still think there's something disturbing about the bear skins in the Build-A-Bear shop.
We watched Friends and then took Leigh back to the mall so she could meet Joe after he finished work. On the way back, Laura and I took a left when we should have gone right, (or right when left), and ended up taking a nice tour through North Carolina's countryside. We were not lost. Never.
Laura dropped me off at Kavi's house, as she was going to take a nap before going out to the 80s Dance at the Cat's Cradle. I went up the steps and knocked on the door.
No answer.
Knocked again. Still no answer.
Oh dear. I phoned Kavi to see if she was around anywhere, but the number I had for her lead to somebody else's voicemail. I wasn't panicking just yet. I rang Sona, and he gave me Kavi's new number, which I then rang, but there was no answer. Just then, one of the people staying in her apartment turned up, and he had a key. So I was saved. Except that when we got there, it turned out that Anita was in; she just hadn't heard my knocking.
The hours wore on; everybody else had left for Sangam night, and I got ready for going out with Laura, Stacie, and some others. Only I was the sole person in the house. And I didn't have a key. How was I going to lock the door? I phoned Kavi again, who said there was a deadlock on the door. It didn't look like a deadlock, so I thought I'd experiment.
I am the dumbest person on the planet.
Amazingly, I had all I needed for going out, but I was locked outside. Now, any sensible person at this point would have, say, called someone (especially since Laura had rang about ten minutes ago), but no. I spent an hour walking around the complex in the quite chilly evening until Laura, Stacie and Mike turned up.
"You look cold," said Laura when they arrived. I explained, and was quite rightly told off for not phoning them up and telling them. We had a brief stop at Collin's house, where I met Collin and had a pre-dance drink, before setting off the 80s Dance.
That was quite fun; lots of songs that were much bigger in America than they were in Britain, so it was interesting to see which songs were common to both sets of people (that would be "Wake Me Up Before You Go-go", "Don't You Want Me", and yes, "Come On Eileen"). There may have been some dancing involved. But of course, I went back into my infuriating impression of a lamp-post for much of the non-dancing bits, which was annoying. Fun was still had, however.
Then back to Kavi's apartment; the first night had gone well, and she was looking forward to the point tomorrow when she didn't have to worry about going to dance practice any more. We talked for an hour about various things, then off to bed.
So, children, the moral of the story: talking can be useful. And the next time you find yourself stranded somewhere, for goodness sake tell somebody…
Arrivials
Mar 19, 2004 · 4 minute readDay 1: In Which Our Hapless Hero Is Harangued And Hassled
Things are getting really bad when even the check-in assistants mock your packing skills. "That's an awful lot for two weeks," he said. Ho ho ho. I've never been able to master the fine act of packing lightly. To be fair my trolley bag is quite a bit smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside, and there's a few bulky items which take up a lot of space, hence the need for the second bag. Coupled with the confusion over my visa (which didn't seem to be a problem last September), I raise enough attention to get my bag searched.
No problem. Except there's a very suspicious looking parcel right in the middle. It's only full of sweets, but looks like either a box of drugs or a bomb. I'm not looking forward to explaining that. The inspector performs the search right in front of me — and doesn't find the parcel. I am at once releived and terrified/ I'm pleased not to have to go through explanations, but I'm now concerned about blowing up somewhere across the mid-Atlantic.
I continue to make a fool of myself in the duty free shopping area, throwing money all over The Body Shop, fumbling for my boarding pass, and other general clownish behaviour. I'm convinced that my arms and hands have an evil sentience. When I try to do something normal, like open a wallet, they interpret this as "flail limbs wildly and hit shop assistant in the face with a penny."
At the gate, my visa once again flags me for special attention; a search of my backpack and a pat down. I've come to look forward to the question "Do you have any electrical items today, sir?" I just reel them off, stopping short of throwing my arms into the air and screaming: "I worship at the altar of Electricity! Tesla and Edison are prophets of a new dawm!" One day, I'm going to crack. You'll no doubt hear about a crazed Englishman threatening to take the world on with his electric toothbrush and copious MP3s.
When you start recognising waitresses, you know you've been on the same flight a little too much. That was weird. The flight itself wasn't too bad, just long. I slept a little, read "The Man Who Was Thursday, tried to go back to sleep again, and listened to music. Much the same as ever.
The immigration at RDU was also annoyed that I had a visa. But he helpfully cancelled it when I explain, so it shouldn't be a problem in the future. Then it was off to the "take all your clothes off and walk through the scanner" bit. I like to think that the airport-wide alarm that went off when my bag went through the scanner was a simple coincidence.
Kavi met me at the airport, and took me back to her house to get settled in. Then, back to campus! She had to practice for the Sangam dance today and tomorrow, so I amused myself by walking to Carrboro and back, ending up back at the computer building. Thankfully, I wasn't there too long; Laura offered to rescue me. I helpfully suggested to meet at the union, forgetting that it probably has the most entrances and exits of any building on campus. I'm practical. Oh yes.
Eventually we met up, and found Stacie a little while later. There then followed the "what are we going to do?" period, which ended up with us going back to Laura's, bumping into Rebecca, and hanging around there for a while. We watched Laura's re-enactment of a scene in "Boys Don't Cry" that she did for a class, guest starring Leigh, Rebecca and the important role of Natalie Teague, and certain individuals revealed embarrassing details about their inability to spell or say their name. We managed to decide on a course of action (okay, a course of action was suggested, and I said "sure"), and headed off to the Irish pub W.B. Yeats on Franklin Street. I then gave a shameful trivia performance, not even managing to to get a question right for ten rounds. There was some mocking involved over that…
The State We're In
Mar 15, 2004 · 3 minute readThe UK album chart for last week:
- Call Off The Search — Katie Melua
- Feels Like Home — Norah Jones
- The Jukebox Years — Daniel O'Donnell
- Twentysomething — Jamie Cullum
- Just For You — Lionel Richie -Mercury
- Only You — Harry Connick Jr
- His Greatest Love Songs — Engelbert Humperdinck
- Thank You — Jamelia
- When It Falls — Zero 7
- Friday's Child — Will Young
- Ultimate Manilow Barry Manilow
Is this it? Is this what 2004 holds for the music industry? Endless iterations of Terry Wogan-approved jazz-lite singers and repackaged Greatest Hits collections, forming a Julia set of mediocrity? With the advent of the 50-Quid Man, it certainly looks that way (in case you were hoping for solace from the rest of the chart, I must point out that Barry Manilow is number eleven. There's no good news to be found, I'm afraid).
Surely, though, things have always been this way? Well, not really. Here's the chart from ten years ago, before the big Britpop explosion, during a time when the halcyon sales of the 1980s and 1970s were a distant memory:
- Music Box — Mariah Carey
- The Cross Of Changes — Enigma
- Debut — Bjork
- Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? — The Cranberries
- So Close — Dina Carroll
- Bat Out Of Hell 2: Back Into Hell — Meatloaf
- Elegant Slumming — M People
- Tiger Bay — Saint Etienne
- Ten Summoner's Tales — Sting
- Under The Pink — Tori Amos
You can see the difference instantly; rock, dance, MOR, indie, and the goth audience all share the honours, instead of the rather bland, samey line-up of today. And yet, in the past ten years, the amount of albums sold has increased considerably since then, to the extent that the single market is now less important than it used to be. It's just that all the excitement and interest seems to have vanished.
Perhaps the singles chart provides a glimmer of hope? Well, it does, but not really. It has much more variety than the album chart, but this is because hardly anybody is buying singles any more. Consider Graham Coxon's new entry this week, "Freakin' Out". With a placing at #37, it looks like a poor showing at first; he's reasonably popular with the indie crowd, and he should have done a little bit better. But this single is a limited edition 7". Only 2500 copies have been made. And yet it still managed to enter the Top 40. The singles chart is not doing well at all.
To make matters worse, the record companies refuse to adjust to this new reality; relatively established names like Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Emma Bunton are under the threat of being dropped from their record labels unless they generate hit singles. But their fanbase no longer buys singles in any significant amount, instead going for the better value album, watching the video on one of the many satellite music channels, or downloading it from the Internet. With the change of who's buying albums, album sales that would have looked respectable a few years back are dwarfed by the big name collections and this month's Radio 2-approved fad. They will find themselves dropped by the end of the year, as the record companies shed bands to save money, decimating the mid-list and concentrating solely on the big names who can guarantee sales.
Most of the independent labels of yesteryear that nurtured new talent are now themselves part of the big companies, and are little more than a storefront to project an image of cool. Perhaps we've reached the end times of pop music. All we have left is nostalgia mining; endless ways of convincing the public to buy a resequenced version of Engelbert Humperdinck's greatest hits.
Eh?
Mar 14, 2004 · 1 minute readI don’t understand. Are we living in a time where Renee and Renato’s “Save Your Love” has been erased from history? Hoddle and Waddle’s “Diamond Lights” is no longer with us? Was there a reality-wide cataclysmic event that involved altering the time-stream, leaving us with a new world that is bereft of Northern Uproar’s back catalogue?
Come on, it's not even the worst Take That song (which is Do What U Like. Easily)!
"It was breezy…Oh, gosh, what if it wasn't breezy?"
Mar 14, 2004 · 2 minute read- The Postal Service — Clark Gable
This is the reason why this week's music entry is late (see!? Postal Service! Ha ha ha (You're fired. Again. — Ed.)). Probably straying dangerously close to the dreaded emo territory, but this is my new discovery for the week. Americans in London! Writing your past via film! A fun echo effect! And so on. - Camera Obscura — Lunar Sea
I've written about this elsewhere, but I thought I'd stick it up so people can actually hear it. If The Postal Service are dangerously emo, then Camera Obscura are Belle & Sebastian after getting high on pixy stix and having their faces painted like tigers. This is from their latest album, Underachievers Please Try Harder, and harkens back to the childish wonderment of Low's Just Like Christmas. Or so it says here.
