Dance & Drink & Screw

I love this song by Zola Jesus. It's Kate Bush put through a gothy blender then poured into a Bat for Lashes chalice.

Prefuse 73 have an upcoming album that includes tracks with her as well as Trish Keenan (recorded just before she fell ill at Xmas time.) I'm hoping it will be good.



Edit: Zola Jesus plays Siouxsie here.

Trish Keenan, one of my favourite singers and the leader of the British band Broadcast, passed away yesterday morning. My life in London these past ten years has been coloured by her voice. To me, each Broadcast album is beautiful and perfect in its own way. They never recorded a dud, a time-filler. I feel really blessed that I was able to see her play live last year at Warp's birthday party.

If you don't know them, I suggest you check out "Ha Ha Sound" first, their best album in my opinion. But all of their recordings are good and interesting in their own way.

On Saturday, after I came back from the community garden's harvest festival, I noticed the tower block next to ours was cordonned off, with two investigators in suits having a chat while a cop stood nearby. I just found out from my landlord that they were there because of a nine-year-old girl who fell from the 15th floor. They think she may have been leaning too far out to speak to a friend when she fell. So so sad.

There's an exhibition currently at Viktor Wynd's Little Shop Of Horrors (11 Mare Street) of prints gathered (drawn?) by Zoe Beloff on Albert Grass, a guy who worked in Coney Island's amusement park in the 30s and filled notebooks with his dreams in the anachronistic style of Lynchian comics. His real dream was to one day convert Coney Island into a giant Freudian amusement park but Depression-era America and its people were not ready for a libido pavillion that featured a naked 50-foot pre-pubescent girl.

We dropped by the Little Shop of Horrors yesterday with our friends/landlords and enjoyed the exhibition very much - so much in fact that our hard-earned cash stayed behind in place of books and prints. Then we parted ways and went to see Metropolis's re-issue at the Barbican - with brand new footage found in Argentina last year which hasn't been seen by any audiences until now, together with the original score. A total thing of beauty. I got so excited in the cinema when the lights went down that I spilled beer all over my jeans.

Afterwards, we dropped by our landlords/friends because they had a lot of left over chicken and ham that they wanted to share. They made a roast dinner for us which we accompanied with three bottles of rosé and Tangier-scented conversations. Somebody mentioned that there was a guided walk happening in Islington that was on the playwright Joe Orton.

'Do you know Joe Orton?' M asked me.

Nope, never heard of him. Of his imprisonment after tampering with library books. Of his meeting with the Beatles to write a screenplay for them. Of his famous plays. Or of his openly gay relationship with his obessive and ultimately murderous boyfriend. Today, during my lunch break, I cruised an used bookshop by Tottenham Court Road and found Joe's diaries in hardback, originally published in the 80s. £3.50. I snapped it on the spot then read its introduction in a blissfully empty bus home. (Blissfully empty because today starts a Tube strike in London and my experience of these has always been crowds, pushing and shoving to get into buses.)

Elizabeth George, Careless in Red, 2007
I don't get it: this mammoth murder mystery (over 700 pages) was read by high profile editors in America and Britain, husbands, best friends, personal assistants, god knows who else, and not a single one of them pointed out to Elizabeth George that a major plot point was missing. And it's not even a minor detail that can be written off: it's a plot point that should explain how the killer executed a particular move which would allow them to commit the crime.

George has been pumping out these Inspector Lynley novels for years now and they are just as kitschy as Agatha Christie's best, though slightly better written and more soap opera-ish. Like many non-Brits who have never lived in the UK, Elizabeth George (an American) commits the amusing mistake of fantasising posh English people as rich, talented, beautiful, hard-working and kind hearted. It's the sort of fantasy that doesn't leave space for character flaws and, consequently, an honesty or realism that could elevate her books.

Inspector Lynley - a windswept, sentimental Lord that slums it with the pleebs at Scotland Yard - turns his back on (London) life after a personal tragedy, only to be the first person at a crime scene in Cornwall. Cornwall's surfing community is nicely depicted and some decent plot twists pop up here and there but not even Lynley's sidekick Barbara Havers (the series trump card) can save this mystery from being perfectly run-of-the-mill.

I nearly got run over this evening on my way home. A car skidded close to me and missed the sidewalk by very little. Ice, ice baby. I decided it was safer to walk down Regent's Canal despite it being deserted and nobody being able to hear my screams if I fell through the canal's face. Was about to walk down a ramp leading to the canal when I slipped and saved my bones by holding on to a fence. Three teenagers nearby gave me pointers on where to step until I was safely on the path. Then, up ahead, two boys threw garbage onto the canal in the hope of cracking the surface. As I walked past them, the one in dreads told me matter-of-factly that they were going to commit suicide by jumping in the water.

Only one week left of work!

Yesterday, at our book club meeting, I decided to ask The Playwright if she knew anyone who wrote for EastEnders (it's one of my New Year resolutions to get a job writing for a soap). She laughed and said she'd actually written a few episodes for them ages ago ("during Tiffany's time") but got sacked because they didn't like her episodes. She then said the best way to get in soaps was to attend the competitive Writers Academy, though I'd definitely need at least one proven play, film, TV or radio show under my belt. No pressure then.

"Jean Charles de Menezes, we will never forget. Never, never, never."

- Morrissey, Brixton Academy 22 July 2009

Comets hit planet Earth again - this time only two of them. The first one crashes somewhere far away; the second heads in our direction, a red ball of fire slowly growing in the sky. It falls in the river with a great crash and disappears from view.

The river bubbles, all its fish devoured in a frenzy by what landed in it. Men go into the water, leg deep, and laugh. I tell them to get out, that they'll also get eaten by whatever came from space. They disregard my warnings.

The thing in the water grows and comes together like grey playdoh, forming the shape of a dinosaur. The river is now devoid of life. The creature climbs out and stands on a podium as if it were merely a statue. Those that approach it for a viewing get killed.

Now it's on the move. It's going to eat everyone in this city. We don't have the technology to stop it.

[Poll #1390588]